Exorcizing Shame

The congregations I grew up in often had an undercurrent of shame. The most obvious example of this was the purity pledge I was urged to make as part of a True Love Waits campaign. If I engaged in sexual activity before marriage, I would smudge the image of God within me and steal a sacred experience from my future husband. (I won’t dignify these messages with a response.) 

There were other shame messages. If I listened to certain music, I was cavorting with demonic forces. I didn’t truly love God if I had questions or doubts about my faith. In my adult life, I have distanced myself from these harmful ideas. 

However, I still find shame in many of the churches I coach, but it shows up differently. Congregational shame takes on a collective quality. 

It appears to be a belief that we, as a church, are not enough. Our numbers aren’t what they used to be. Our members are leaving for the big church with the robust children’s and youth ministries. We can no longer afford to pay a full-time pastor. 

These beliefs, whether stated or implied, hurt my heart. Faithfulness and impact can’t be measured by the easily quantified, lagging indicators of noses and nickels. 

There are reasons why the congregational landscape has changed. Cultural and demographic shifts mean the church is no longer the center of community life. 

The pandemic has accelerated changes in membership because of people’s revamped priorities and the personal and collective trauma we have all endured. Religious and political extremists have used Christianity as a bludgeon, making many reluctant to associate with it. None of these realities lessens the sense of shame, which sociologist Brene Brown defines as feelings that I/we are bad, wrong, and unworthy.

I’ve seen what this shame can do to churches. They turn inward as a means of self-protection. They make decisions out of anxiety, which rarely works out well. They forget who they are and why they exist.

This shame spills over onto the pastor, too. Sometimes, ministers feel it personally, thinking the momentum would shift if they just worked harder or preached more eloquently. 

Sometimes congregations project their shame onto clergy leaders, blaming them for their churches’ lack of “success.” Wherever the shame originates, it is a recipe for pastors leaving their churches and ministry altogether.

This shame is created and fed by a scarcity perspective in there is only so much (people, money, etc.) to go around. We are taught to view the world this way by a dominant economic outlook that says we are only as valuable as what we produce and how much we have, so we should always strive for more.

But what if we already have what we need? That is, after all, the moral of the story when Jesus feeds the masses with five loaves and two fish. Let’s take inventory of what we have and determine how to use it to benefit all.

This is why I use asset mapping when working with congregations experiencing shame. This tool helps us ask important questions. What are the financial, physical (movable and immovable objects), geographic, and leadership gifts we already have? 

What talents are among us? What relationships do we have – individually and collectively – with the larger community? What legacies of church members before us do we carry forward? 

We list each asset on a sticky note and post them on a wall. Soon, even the smallest congregation has a wall full of loaves and fishes. 

This is a much different starting place than bemoaning all we think we lack. Instead, we recognize the abundance we have been blessed with and are grateful for.

Instead of staying locked in the survival mode that scarcity and shame force us into, our hearts and neural pathways are opened to imagination and God’s invitations. We understand how every aspect of our lives reflects God’s care for us. 

We ready ourselves to serve a world where some people truly, on their own, do not have what they need to survive. And we go forth confident yet humble that we have something worth offering.

Shame itself is what separates us from each other and God. So let’s set shame ablaze in a purifying fire that illuminates the many ways God is at work in, around, and through us.