Episode Transcript
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The following is a presentation of FCBFaith. This is the hour Glass on
the FCB Radio Network. Welcome,Welcome, Welcome, guys. We are
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so glad to be with you guystoday. I am Bruce Lemot Hagan's the
second, and I am Rashima Hagen. Hey, and this is the hour
glass. Well, we're so gladto be back with you guys. You
know, we're feeling better, feelingstrong. Thank you for tuning in with
us. How you doing today?Him? I am doing so good.
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Yeah, you look like fire?Yeah, what'd you? Happy? Ball
life? I'm here, I'm good, I'm feeling good. Life is good.
I'm surrounded by friends and I've beenlaughing at d for the last as
our in half. So that's good. That's good. You know, it's
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good to be around the Saints,you know what I mean. It's good
to be around good people. It'sgood to be around your family that care
about you. It's good to bearound people that have consideration for you,
you know. But then we alsohave that time where people are not so
nice. Yeah, people can beinsensitive. People could be non empathy,
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you know, no sympathy, andwe we seem to find that especially in
these days, people are cold.You know, I believe the word says
the Father said, people's hearts willwax cold in the time, right right.
So let's let's you know, weare here. This is a Christian
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radio say station. That's where weare right and we need to talk on
some serious matters today, you know, and it was put on our heart.
Let let us talk about church hurt. You know what I mean,
Church hurt is real up and herey'all my family out there. I can
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at least guarantee that maybe about ninetyfive percent of us dealt with some kind
of church church from these people inthe congregation. And let me let let
me, let me elaborate on thateven more. When I say church hurt,
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we are the church. We youme, everybody that's on the sole
of the under the side of myvoice, that as a Christian, we
are the church. It's the buildingthat the Heavenly Father wants us to go
into to worship and to not disassembleourselves from the saints, but to come
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together and work ship. But whenwe say church hurt is because when we
in this building, it can getreal filed just straight up. When we're
up under the roof. When everybodyis singing and clapping and going in their
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pockets to give out this ten percentfor the tithes, and the preacher is
about to give the word, theenemy is lurking in, getting ready to
say something to you or me thatwould offend us, that would offend us,
that put us in a place thatwe'd be like, listen here,
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I ain't going back to that churchno more. So I want to talk
about church hurt. I want usto talk about church church, and you
know what, I have scripture tohelp us what church hurt though, So
I want us to talk about that. Let's let's go in. I'm just
gonna go in straight out. Haveyou ever witness church hurt? Have you
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been hurt in the church? Yeah? Yeah, yeah. I've been in
church all my life, so I'veprobably been hurt or offended at every church
I've ever attended. Yeah yeah.So let's ask this about a ballpark.
Figure how many times you've been hurtingthrough church hurt? At least a dozen't
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it's easy at least a dozen times. Okay, Now you say you you're
a person that forgives easy. That'swhat you y you know, so does
church hurt really doesn't doesn't really botheryou. I mean, are you know,
how do you feel about church hurt? You know, it depends on
the each situation is different, um, But most of the time I feel
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sorry for the person that hurt memore than I feel sorry for myself.
Because for you to hurt somebody,whether in church or not, it has
to come from a place of hurt. Like the old sand is, hurt
people hurt people. So for youto even hurt me, you have obviously
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hurt as well. So I won'tsay that it does not bother me,
because of course I just said ithurt me, of course. But I've
never left the church because of churchhurt. I've left the church, you
know, because God told me toher other reasons. But just because I
was hurt or offended by someone inthe church, I didn't leave the church,
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although I know a lot of timesthat's what happens, and that's how
people end up separating themselves from thechurch. You know what, here we
go. You know, I tried, I tried, I was whether for
abided as she lost me, youknow, and all of a sudden the
anointing came on her, and youknow, she feels sorry for the person
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that hurt her. Right, letme tell y'all something. When somebody hurt
me, I feel sorry for himtoo, because I'm about to hurt them.
There we go. That's right,that's right. So okay, what
does that solve? Now? Yougot to hurt people? You know what,
when I'm done, I won't behurt no more. Let me tell
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you something now we we songs.Absolutely nothing because all you did was returned
when they gave Wait a minute,you don't know what they gave. They
gave her. You just return herfor her. You just know it's levels,
it's levels. Are hurt of it? Here? Yes? Okay,
what what I'm just saying? Whatyou say all you did was returned when
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when you get down to the tothe root of it, all the root.
Yeah, let's go there, goto the root of it, all
the root. What is the rout? You just returned hurt for her?
Listen, So what did you actuallyaccomplish when people are hurt? And I'm
gonna speak for myself when when Iwhen I I've experienced church hurt, you
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you've with me. You was withme when I've experienced church hurt. Well
not, I'm not. Okay,let me let me seem like you're defending.
No, I'm not. And letme say this too. I've been
hurt in church, and I'm notsaying I've been hurt and I just took
it on the chin and walked awaywith my tail between my legs. I
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do respond, and I want nobodyto confused that I do respond. I
don't take one for the team allthe time. That's what you like,
you know, That's why I said, let me clarified this, Okay.
I know the anoint came on you, and know the annointy comes and not
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to go to God. And Iasked God how to respond. So I
don't always respond immediately because I've learnedas I've grown up and as I've matured
that when I was fine quickly orimmediately, that's usually when I do more
damage. And we all and anybodythat knows me, which I know a
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lot of folks you know on listeningto the show may not know me,
but you know me personally. Youknow I can take you, I can
go there, I can bring itback to you. I choose not to
because, like I said, asI've grown up, I know that's not
the right response. Okay, butit doesn't mean that the hurt doesn't go
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on. Okay, Well, lookwe are in a level. Okay,
look here, we're grown we're grownup in here, right, fifty plus
fifty Okay, Well listen, I'mnot we ain't just talking. We ain't
just talking about you. We're talkingabout the okay, fifty plus forty nine
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less however you want to do it. But we're grown h and people sometimes
get out of line and in adisrespectful way. Yes, you know that's
like Okay, sometimes you hear thepastor talk over the pul pit and really
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be talking about you, you know, and you know you hear them.
You know, I'm in somebody koolaid to day. You know I'm in
somebody backyard today. Church finger andwalk out. Okay, let I'm gonna
tell you something. Okay, Okay, let's let's take it. Let's take
a sidebar. Let's take a sidebar. I'm doing a little teaching right now,
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one old one on this church.Finger. Stop putting up the church
finger. I'm gonna tell you why. Back in the slavery days, when
the slaves would have to pick cottonbefore they could relieve themselves to go to
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the bathroom. They had to puttheir finger up to the master to be
excused. That's where the church fingercame from. Stop it, stop it.
Don't put the church finger up nomore. The church finger is dealing
with slavery for the task masking foryou to be excused to use the bathroom.
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Thank you for that public announcement.So back to church. Yeah,
so we we are. We aredealing with people that are talking over the
pull pit taking jobs. You know, we we we give this ain't where
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I want to go. I don'tcare where you want to go. Where
I want to go. I wantto go to the solution. So okay,
church, he had, well,you gotta set you gotta set the
foundation first, but I don't care. You ain't got nowhere to go.
Where are you going? You goingsomewhere in the airport. Look here.
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Sometimes the airport landing place ain't clear, so you gotta wait. Now.
I'm sorry, Please excuse my wifebecause see she'd be doing you do too
much. So we are here,and you know, we give people consideration
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of the of the doubt, andwe tell them our most intimate things.
And it seemed to get out andthe whole dog on congregation. No,
and you feel that that shouldn't bereconciled, you know, eye for eye,
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I don't feel it should be redand south I for I mean,
I guess it depends in the spiritthat we're talking about. Because, for
one, I've said it a thousandtimes. You know, God will always
answer people for you. You don'thave to. But if you feel compelled
to say something. There are times, even in church where you have to
stand up for yourself because no churchchurch bullies, they exist. So yeah,
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I do think there are times whenyou have to say something. But
I think for me, I thinkit's best to answer in a way that
stops the hurt from continuing. Anybodythere, hello, so you know,
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I mean, because there's a wayto shut it down, I guess is
what I'm trying to say. Youcan deal with somebody that's hurting you or
somebody offensive to you in a waythat one, you know, bring attention
and makes them aware of how they'reacting or how they're making you feel.
For one, two you can youcan let them know, you know,
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there's another way we can go aboutthis. That's all I'm saying. I'm
not saying don't don't address it,don't you know, Because at the end
of the day, if you're hurtand you're offended and you're supposed to be
coming there to worship, it willdisrupt your entire experience in church, and
sometimes it keeps you from experiencing Godaltogether. And that's not okay. So
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I'm not saying dismiss it. Yes, I understand that. What you know,
we are in a place where whenthey say well, the word says
do unto others as you want tobe done unto. We've missed that mark
somewhere. Okay, So wouldn't youwant somebody to respond the way I'm saying
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versus giving it back? But it'stoo late. Once you got disrespected,
it's too late. What you meanyou want to give it back? I'm
gonna give you something back, allright. I'm going to give you something
back, all right. You know, like I said, all right,
we're all grown up in here,right, grown people. Okay, let's
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let's even talk about young people.You know. It's a way to talk
to people, yes, without disrespecting. It's a way you know, to
not well. You know, sometimeswe do it to ourselves though by giving
too much information to too many peoplethat don't really even need to know our
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business. Right. You know,I've learned that you can't share everything with
everybody, right you know the wordsays you know, some things you got
to keep close to your heart.Yes, you know what I mean.
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Yeah, So there are different scenariosin which we can experience church hurt.
Okay, say, um, likeyou said, you know, we can
we can confide in someone and thatperson doesn't keep it to themselves and they
share our personal information or our personalbusiness and it gets out and now we're
hurt. Okay, what about ifsomeone is talking about another part? Gossip
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does happen in the church? Yes, yes, Um, we have a
We do have an issue with theolder congregation members talking to the younger congregation
members like they're less than as youknow, as instead of respecting them as
adults. I mean, they actlike they act like they forgot they were
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young exactly. And that and thatthat's where church hurt comes in because now
you're talking to this young lady asif she you know, dumb as a
box of rocks, and you forgetyou were once her. But now that
you've hurt her, what she's supposedto do with that she's she is young,
she might not be mature enough toget past it. You may cause
her to leave the church. Thenwhat then you get dealt with? You
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know why? You know why?You know why? Yes, I know
why? Why go ahead? Iknow what you're gonna say, So go
ahead, because Jesus said, herewe go. It'd be better for you
to have a millstone tied around yourneck and dumped into the sea. Then
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you cause one of these little onesto stumble. Yes, And that's what
church hurt does. It causes peopleto stumble. It causes people to leave
church. And you know, itcauses people to walk away because when you
when you're walking away from church,you're not just walking away from the building,
You're walking away from your fellowship timewith God. You're walking away from
your your time to sew into ministry, You're walking away from relationship and you
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know else, you're walking away fromwhat worship be, walking away from your
time worsht with God. So Ithink for me, that's the point of
having this conversation today is looking atnot just your response to the hurt,
but what ultimately is in your response. Okay, okay, so then let
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us talk now now we build thatfoundation. Let us talk what can we
do to stop church hurt? Orwhat can we do if church hurt does
happen? How what what steps canwe do to get over it? Okay?
So I'm going to talk about whatyou do when you have been hurt.
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Okay, that's someone in the church. Okay. I don't know if
there's ever going to be a discussionabout what to do to stop it,
although if we ever do need tohave that conversation, we can. Oh,
it is a way to stop it. So I'm gonna talk about what
to do if you have been hurt. I don't leave it there. You
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don't want to stop it? Well, I think that's another conversation. But
I don't know if that's the conversationwe have. We're gonna have right now?
Well, what were we talking about? Okay, I'm gonna come in.
I'm trying to pull something up witha second. I gotta read something
to you. Of course, whereof that? Okay? So Hebrews ten
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twenty four, the amplified version says, and let us consider thoughtfully how we
may encourage one another to love andto do good deeds, not forsaken our
meeting together as believers for worship andinstruction, as is the habit of some,
but encouraging one another, and allthe more as you see the day
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of Christ's return of approaching. Sobasically, what I'm saying is, when
you come to church, if youcame to church with an attitude that one
of the reasons you are coming tochurch is to worship, the other reason
is to help someone else or encouragesomeone else, then maybe some you wouldn't
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be so privy to hurting other peopleif you had the right mindset when you
walked in the door. So whenyou are someone that has been hurt,
excuse me, what I would likepeople to take into consideration is if you
have been hurt and you've turned away, you know you left the church,
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or you know you've decided to justnot go to church ever again, you've
walked away from your from literally walkingin your purpose. You've literally walked yourself
out of your purpose. And Iwant people to be aware of that because
that's bigger than the hurt itself,and it's definitely bigger than the person that
hurt you. So my purpose forthis conversation today is to plead with people,
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if you have been hurt go backto these shows that we did about
forgiveness, because you have to learnhow to forgive those people. But more
importantly, focus on what you weregoing to church for in the first place.
Go back to that place and talkand talk to God about how to
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get back there before the hurt happen, because that's what's important now. What's
important right now is that you keepyour relationship with God. And people always
say, well, God knows myheart, and I can stay home and
worship and I can get you know, I can watch so and so on
TV, or I can stream thisand this. There is a fellowship and
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a worship experience that happens when youare in church that is not going to
happen when you're sitting in your livingroom and your pj's. There is a
difference, and there is something.There is a benefit to being in church.
That fellowship, that worshiped time isimportant to your walk and to your
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purpose. And I just excuse me. I also want to just make people
aware that even though we're in church, people can still be used by the
enemy. In church, you know, there are folks that are used by
the enemy to offend you because theywant to cause you to turn around.
Whatever God had for you, it'sstill there, but you had to turn
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around and go back and get it. You know, you have to claim
what God has for you. Thatsomeone tricked you out of pursuing you know,
that offense came and just turned everythingaround. And I just want to
encourage people and plead with people.If you have church hurt that you're dealing
with, I plead with you toforgive. But I plead even more that
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you go back to God and getlike reset, reset yourself, to go
back to what you will pursue aguy for in the first place. That's
more important than the hurt. Youknow, I've been hurt, I say
at least a dozen times, probablybeen hurt a dozen times in one church.
But my purpose is bigger one thanthe hurt, and I know it's
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bigger than the person that hurt me. So I'm good with all that I
can forgive. I can move on. I'm more concerned about doing what God
wants me to do, and hurtan offense that can't move me won't way
or the other. If anything,Yeah, it does make me feel bad
for the person because either that personthat's hurting the harder they've been used either
way, that's pretty sad for them. And you know, I want to
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share something that you touched on,and that is and this is to our
audience out there. I just wantto say, if you are in a
church, or you have a churchhome, or you feel led to go
to that church, by all means, stay and see what God has for
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you in that church. Because ifyou're led to go to that church,
it's obviously the Holy Spirit has ledyou to go. And trust me,
the enemy arrives in the church too. And when the enemy sees you and
the enemy sees your gift just aswell as annointed one will see your gift,
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and the enemy will try to comeand distract you from moving forward for
whatever God has you to do.It's a beautiful thing when we can fellowship
together with one. But I justwant to say this, if you have
dealt with church hurt, by allmeans, fight through because you are fearfully
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and wonderfully made. And the thingis, if you leave the church,
you got the by the enemy becausethe person that has hurt you was filled
that he has or she has powerover you. But the beautiful thing about
it is, and this is uhfirst Peter five the seven. It says,
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cast all your anxiety anxiety on himbecause he cares for you. God
cares for you, He will handlethat for you. You know, we
need to pray on pray about thingslike that so you won't be distracted or
you won't be deterred from the wilesof the devil of what he's trying to
do for you getting your your giftor your breakthrough or whatever you wanted to
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get as you was going into thatchurch. So we encourage you on that
that that's first and foremost, gointo it on prayer and asked to ask
God, what what is this?What is this all about? And he
will He will direct you, andhe will show you. He will give
you revelation like never before. Thatyou may move forward in the situation that
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you may be dealing with with churchhurt right, because you don't go to
church for the people. You goto church for a relationship with God and
you go to church for the fellowshipand for the worship. So if people
are your main reason for going,you went for the wrong reason anyway.
So I just want people to refocusand rethink, you know, reset your
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mind to think about why you're reallygoing to church. You're going to pursue
God. You know, if aperson hurts you, that wasn't God.
So when people say, you know, I left the church, I've heard
people saying. I've had people tellme, you know, more than once
that you know, they've left thechurch altogether. They've just left Christianity because
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you know, people are phony,and but that's not why you were there,
and that shouldn't have been why youwere there in the first place.
And I do tell them when theysay, you know, I left,
because you know, church folks aresome of the biggest hit for Chris will.
Church folk are human, They're gonnamake mistakes, they're not gonna always
get it right. But that's notwhy you're there. Church folk can get
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you to heaven. You go thereto pursue God, and the person to
hurt you don't have a heaven orhell to put you in. So you
pursue what God has for you,even if that means you got to sit
in the church and I talk tonobody. You know, if I pursue
the things of God, I'm noteven paying attention to what people are doing
there saying. And like I said, when I have been hurt. I
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pray that I come to an understandingof how to respond that or not only
take the hurt away from me,but will help the person realize how they're
being hurtful, because if I justexchange her for her, I'm not accomplishing
anything, you know. And ifI'm in if I'm in the building,
if I'm doing a kingdom work,then everything I do should have purpose.
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It also should produce. So producinghurt is not what I want to do.
But if you are interested in goingback, or you think that you
can't go back, you can alwaysturn things around. All you need is
a new mindset. Yeah, yeah, I agree. And the thing about
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that is if the person that thereor whoever has hurted you, you know
you can confront that person. AndI'm gonna tell you something to you if
you don't release it, if youdon't release that hurt that's in you,
And I'm telling you something that somethingthat I'm not thinking of, something that
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happened to me that I know thatis true. If you do not release
it, it will tear you upon the inside. You have to release
it. You have to confront theperson who offended you. And there's a
way of doing it. You know, Jesus said, if your brother or
sister sends or goals to the pointof their fault just between you two,
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you know, So basically what's saying, you know, if you have one
of your brothers and sisters, youkind of confront them on what they did
to you and see if this canbe resolved, you know, and then
it says to make sure that youwant them over. Then it says often,
you know, hurt people can resolvethis by by doing this, So
confront the person. So you know, even if they don't receive what you're
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saying, the hurt is coming offof you. You are being relieved from
that hurt that you can move forward, that you can get the things of
God while you were there at thatchurch. Like like my wife said,
it ain't about them, It's aboutthis relationship between you and the heavenly Father.
Well, with that being said,we covered just quite a bit,
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didn't we. Yeah, man,I was all right, pretty good.
Okay, So look we're gonna takethis little break and then we're gonna come
back and we're gonna finish up whatthis church hurt looks like and how we
can pressed through it together. Thisis Bruce Hagens, and we will see
you back in a few minutes onthe Hourglass, the hour GLASSCB Radio Network,
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Welcome back, guys. We arehere on the Hourglass. I'm Bruce
Haggins and I'm Machima Hagins. Areyou sure yea? Good guys. We're
talking about church hurt today. We'retrying to dive and dissect what this looks
like. We're trying to come touh. I don't want to say our
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agreement, but we're trying to cometo our resolution on what church hurt looks
like and how we can get pastit. So, Mashima, what you
got? You know? Because ifI may just jack, you know,
I want to let everybody know mywife she wrote a book and actually she
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has a segment in her book onchurch hurt, so you know, yeah,
the book is called excuse Me.The book is called Keen of Women,
Words of Healing and Encouragement, andchapter three talks about forgiveness and the
first part of chapter three is healingthe hurt. Yeah, let's get it.
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Um. Well, I wasn't quiteat the page. I wanted to
be it, but that's okay,Um, you know I was, I
was just thinking about times when,um, I've just been around and people
have been hurt and offended and I'veheard them say, you know, they
called me and said, you know, I'm not coming back to the church
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no more because I share something realpersonal with a group of women at church.
And then it came back to melater and they not only hurt me
and the way they shared it,but they judged me for what I shared,
and I felt, you know,I'm particular lady. I just felt
so bad for her because she wasyounger and she was really trying to seek
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God, but because she got sohurt and she felt judged, and she
felt it was like she was beingvictimized again. And you know, my
heart just went out to her because, first of all, she shouldn't have
had to experience anything like that,especially from other women that said they were
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Christians and seeking God themselves. Butshe didn't have anything to almost like,
she didn't have a safety net tocatch her when she felt that pain.
You know, so her only solutionwas to leave, you know, just
get away from the people that hurther. And that's what breaks my heart
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about church hurt. That our onlyresponse, so the only response we seem
to know is to just leave church. And it sounds so simple, it
sounds very basic, but there's justso much more to it than that.
I don't know if she ever confrontedthem and let them know how she was
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hurt, but I do know thatshe allowed me to be part of her
healing journey and working with her andtalking with her, praymp for her.
She did come to understand that alot of what they said came out of
ignorance, and it also came outof what had been done to them.
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And that's the other thing I wantto point out when we're dealing with church
hurt. Church hurch is not new. You know. It's a lot of
people in church that are hurt thatjust do the same thing to the next
group of people they encounter that wasdone to them. And that's very you
know, it just hurts my feelings, Like when people are repeating that same
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pattern. It's almost like an abusedperson when you repeat the pattern of abuse
that you went through onto the nextperson. We don't come, We don't
understand that. How how much powerour words have. First of all,
the minute of a word is releasedout of your mouth, it's alive and
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it takes action and it's powerful.If you aren't careful with the words you
use when you're talking to anybody,not just people in church, you just
don't know how you're offending people.And the one thing I would ask people
to do when they're in church orjust talking in general, consider how you
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would feel if those same words wererepeated to you, Like you said,
you know, treat people like youwant to be treated. Well, how
does it feel if you were onthe other end of what you're saying?
Yeah, you know, I justwant people to think before they speak.
I want them to think before theyjust say whatever. You know, sometimes
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we get into this little holy ghostbubble and we think, because we're Christian
and we've been at a church longerl we got a certain title at church
that we're just automatically entitled to saycertain things to people, and that is
not true. We need to thinkabout what's coming out of our mouths,
and when you do speak, youneed to understand and be very clear or
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what you're trying to say to makesure you're communicating to the person the right
way. You know, I canget into communication I want today, but
you know, you have to thinkabout communication, and that communication is only
effective when it's received by the personyou're talking to. So you say whatever
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you want to say, but ifthe person you're talking to isn't receiving it,
you're not an effective communicator and whatyou're communicating is not being said.
Well, So, if you trulyare a man or woman of God,
or you're trying to seek God andhis purpose for your life, that means
that you're trying to seek Him inall aspects of your life, and hurting
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people at church is not part ofhis plan. Yeah, yeah, And
I just want to put this outfor the men that are in the church
that may have dealt with church hurt. You know, we don't like as
men to say we've been hurt,you know, we say we've been offended
(35:36):
or you know, you've been disrespected. Uh, it's all, it's all
the same, you know, there'sreally no difference. I mean, we
can, we can categorize it howeverwe want, but all in all,
it still has to do with yourfeelings. So when brothers or that have
(35:58):
been dealt with church, I stronglysuggest, and this is something that I
am I'm very adamant about. Weas black man are extinct. You hear
what I said, we are extinct. They're trying to take us out of
here. Who the enemy is tryingto take us out of here? We
(36:25):
as black man, we need toencourage one another, uplift one another.
The Bible says, iren sharpens.Aren't that one man sharpens another man's countinance.
We are to sharpen each other,especially with the young brothers that are
(36:46):
coming up today. You know,those who are dealing with fathers that are
not there, those who are dealingwith fathers who are there, but they're
going through issues themselves and they can'thelp it. Can't help the son,
or can't help the daughter because theycan't really help themselves. The church is
(37:07):
supposed to be a safe haven.The Word says that God is your refuge.
Here is your strong tower. Youknow, we see that God is
in the place. What we dealwith a situation of people that seem to
be so selfish. I encourage yourbrothers out there. So if you go
(37:28):
into a church, if you're ledabout the spirit by all means, you
have to be led by the HolySpirit to bring you in. And if
you are to look and sit backand rest, and what I mean by
rest in God's peace while you're thereat the church, and let him show
(37:50):
you who to talk to, lethim show you what your purpose is there.
Take your time. God isn't He'snot interested in speed, and nor
is he interested in really how youfeel. You know, he God is
a just God. He wants youto do what He wants you to do.
Although in this season, if youhave been hurt, gone back,
(38:16):
ask God first of all, prayand ask God where do he want you
to be? You know, it'sa lot of times we put ourselves in
a situation that we shouldn't even beenthere. It's a lot of times we
made decisions that we thought was goodand we didn't even you know, consult
God about it. So we putourselves in a place and we get hurt,
(38:38):
but we really wasn't even supposed tohave been there in the first place.
Right, So I suggest, andI'm saying this to you brothers,
and this is not something that Ithink. This is something that I have
experienced myself. You know. Isaid, Okay, well, I'm gonna
go to this church and I'm gonnado this for the pastor, and I'm
(38:59):
gonna serve. I'm a serving andThe word says, do not throw your
pearl to swine, lest it betrampled under foot and you be torn to
pieces. Consult with God where hewants you to go. You know,
I have to say this to you, brothers. It says we do not
(39:21):
wrestle with flesh and blood. It'sthe spirit and principalities that we're dealing with.
Here. They see you, brothers, come up in there, strong
and mighty, strong and mighty valoratemen. They see you come up in
here, and the enemy is onyou like white on rice. Don't think
the enemy ain't up in the churchhouse, point and taking. When the
(39:43):
angels was making our call to God, Satan was also there. Make no
mistake, Satan is always in theplace, going to and fro up and
down to see who he could justdestroy or devour. Brothers, I'm saying
this tell you and faith that youhear me. When it comes to this
(40:04):
church hurt, we have to strengthenup and guard up. We gotta stop
being so emotional. We gotta stopbeing so emotional to get out our feelings.
Move forward. And when that brotheror or that man or that woman
come against you and try to hurtyou, you tell them, don't let
the enemy use you like that.Don't let him use you like that.
(40:28):
Right, And then there's like youwere saying too when you do go back
to church. Go back to churchand focus on your fellowship with God.
Don't think about what position you cantake, what job you can do,
what title you can have. Goback to church and commit to be in
position with God first. Before youpursue a position in the church, focus
(40:53):
on the right position first and sitand meditate and pray to God about what
to do once you get there.You know there are things you may need
to see, things you may needto experience before you take on any roles.
(41:13):
Get in position first and focus onwhat God has for you before you
do anything else. Yeah, andalso when when we're talking about roles,
don't be afraid of accountability. Sometimeswe take accountability as disrespect. If you
(41:38):
don't know something, if you're ignorantto the fact that, it doesn't mean
that you're dumb. If you're ignorant, as means that you just don't know.
And some people in the church arenot trying to come against you,
but trying to show you some accountabilityon what you should be doing. So
(41:59):
stay teach bowl, stay learnable,be able to learn and grasps on what
maybe the Saints are trying to sayto you, and don't take it offensively.
You know. We deal with gossip, we deal with slander, you
know, but we should you knowit's there by all means, I'm not
going to you know, sugarcoat,that it is there. Although as men
(42:23):
we should stand firm and strong andmighty in the church. As a matter
of fact, even if we seeit happening, we should cut it at
the route right then. See,the thing is, we don't cut it
at the route, you know,cut it at the rout. And a
lot of times when we go tochurch, we get hurt because we have
(42:45):
put too much of our personal intothe church, and we've gotten involved in
too many personal things. You know, we get hurt when the pastor don't
act the way we think he should, or something comes out that he did
something wrong and we start judging,or we think that somebody even done something
wrong with the times, and youknow, there are just things that we
(43:07):
get involved in, we have opinionsabout, we have feelings about that we
really don't need to get involved in. You know, if the pastors not
behaving the way you know you wantthem to on a personal level. I
don't know if that's really grounds toleave. I mean, but if you
if you feel that you can't getcloser to God or your relationship with God
(43:30):
is impacted by whatever's going on inthe church, you can always find another
church. I'm not saying, youknow, don't don't leave the church or
deal with things if you. Ifyou your spirit is not getting fed and
you're not growing, you definitely shouldfind another church home. But there are
times when we just get caught upin too much of a personal as opposed
(43:51):
of just staying focused on the spiritual. You know, I want to be
in the church where I'm being fed, I'm growing. Every Sunday. I
need to have an encounter or sometype of experience that tells me something in
the spirit realm is moving on mybehalf. Now. If I'm not getting
(44:12):
that, then I may need togo to another church. But just because
I don't get along with a certainusher or a certain deacon or deaconess,
I don't need to leave the churchfor that because I'm not there for that
person anyway. So I just wantyou to take that into consideration and as
you find the time to pray andgo back to God and talk to him
(44:32):
about going back to church, thatwill also help you and come into an
understanding of where to go. Becausesometimes when we're going back the church doesn't
necessarily mean you need to go backto the church you left. It may
just be time for something new allthe way around. But I just want
to keep encouraging everyone to go back. Yeah, and again, none of
(44:57):
us, not one, no,not one is perfect. We all fall
short of the glory. You know, my man Jesus said, whoever perfect,
cast the first stone, and don'ttell you, don't say it was
a mistake. No, I'm sorryI added that. No, but he
(45:22):
said, whoever is perfect, whoeveris perfect, cast the first stone.
You know, we're not perfect.We're human. We make mistakes. Some
people won't apologize. But you bebigger than that. You be bigger than
that. But the issues, theissues that we deal with with this church
(45:49):
hurt thing. It stunts your growth. It doesn't stunt their growth. They
still there and they are they stillbe talking about people, and they're still
talk about people. That's what theydo, that's what they do. But
don't let it start your growth.In the Kingdom. Right, if you're
(46:13):
focused on what God has for youthis time, when you go back,
you might not even notice what's goingon. You know, if you're focused
on what God as for you,you don't always have time to even pay
attention to what other folks are doing. And you know, I just believe
there are a lot of times inchurch that we get too close and too
(46:34):
personal. Yeah, and it getsin our way and it distracts us.
Because anything that you do, ittakes time. So if you're getting involved
with this auxiliary or this ministry,this group of folks that minister, all
those things will take time. Andif those things are taking time, excuse
me, then they're taking time awayfrom your worship time. They're taking time
(46:54):
away from your fellowship time with God. That adds up over time. You
have to be careful how you're dividingyour time. Which you're devoting your time
too. That's right, because theWord of the Lord says that Matthew six
and the thirty third verse, itsays, SEEKI first the Kingdom of God
at all his righteousness, Not thenot the not the deacon right, not
(47:19):
the ushers, not the pray singers, No, not them and you know,
and and not not the patrior thepastor's righteousness. It says, SEEKI
first the Kingdom of God and hisrighteousness, and all these things will be
added unto you. Seek him,seek him, and the place that you
(47:39):
need to seek him at you personallyinvite him in into your heart. And
you know, if we we juststop worrying about what other people say about
us, we would be all rightbecause they can't do any better than what
(48:00):
you doing. Ad Vice versa.We all down here and this earth together.
You know. Now if you showme somebody that jumped up and wings
come out the back, then wemight have a different story. You know.
Then we can say, well,you know, this brother might be
able to talk bad about me,you know, because you know he comes
(48:22):
from another ram. Although we ain'tdoing that today. That ain't happening down
here. But the Kingdom of Heavenis at hand. Get a part of
it. Come back into the foldof the Church, that you may fellowship
with your brothers and sisters, thatwe may all be in one accord.
(48:44):
That we may all be in oneaccord to speak the heavenly language, to
speak in clothing tongues, to edifyand lift him up. That's what the
building is. To edify and lifthim up and invite him into this place,
invite him until this tabernacle. That'swhat we're talking about. Yeah,
(49:06):
Church, church hurt is real,Yes it is. But so is God.
Yes he is. So is hishealing power. And his word is
true. His word is true Jesus. So you know, like people like
my husband always says, keep themain thing to me, how we're gonna
grow in God? The main thing? Stop? The main thing is how
(49:31):
am I gonna grow in pursuit ofGod? You know, I believe one
hundred percent that church hurt happens becauseit's the word. It's a it's an
easy work of the enemy. Hedoesn't have to do a whole lot to
manipulate folks when it comes to churchhurt. And I believe one hundred percent
that it's one of his easiest tricksthat if he can just distract you and
(49:51):
get you to pull away. Youknow, not only is he stopping you,
like my husband said, not onlyis he stopping you and stunting your
growth, but he's pulling you awayfrom the most important thing, and that's
God and all that is the ultimatepurpose of the enemy, right, and
not only that, the enemy comesto kill, still and destroy. And
(50:12):
when when you look at that,when you see what this looks like,
he's trying to kill. He's tryingto kill and steal your spirit. He's
trying to suck the Holy life outof you. Don't let the enemy do
that. Don't let him do that. Ultimately, what church hurt is about,
it is about keeping kingdom people frompursuing their kingdom's purpose. That's what
(50:37):
it boils down to. If youare focused on your kingdom purpose, you
can't be distracted or discouraged by churchhurt. But if he can distract you
and get you to turn around andhurt you just enough, then you will
sit at home or wherever you liketo sit when you're not in church,
(51:00):
and that hurt will just grow andfester like a boil. Yes, and
before you know it, you've justgotten used to the boil. And that
is what is happening. A lotof folks have left and they've just gotten
used to that. Boy, they'vegotten complacent in their lack of relationship,
or they've forgotten what relationship even feelslike. You ever been away from church
(51:23):
for a long time, but thenwhen you go back, you're like,
oh man, it feels so goodto be back and had that fellowship time.
You know, I remember a timewhen we were at a church where
the praise team wasn't that good,and I really missed that old school praise
team choir feeling. And when wewent to a church, we visited a
(51:46):
church and we got they had thatkind of choir. I was like,
oh man, it feels so goodto hear this kind of choir again,
because our church didn't have that.But it is the same thing with the
enemy's attempt to just to turn youaway from church. If he can keep
(52:06):
you out of there long enough,keep you away from church, or keep
you from talking to God long enough, you'll forget what it feels like to
be in the presence of God.You'll forget what it feels like that just
have that fellowship time with God.You'll forget what it feels like to just
be lifted when you pray. Yeah, you know, if he can just
do that long enough, and ifhe does it long enough, it just
(52:30):
prolongs your kingdom walk. It prolongswhat God has for you on the other
side, on the other side ofthat hurt is that healing and it just
will bring you into a completely differentplace with God. So I just want
to encourage you all again if youhave left church because of church hurt,
(52:52):
do the work and take the stepsto get back. Yes, and not
only that, I'm go back tothis choir thing, you know, the
you know, sing unto the Lorda joyful noise. You know, my
my wife is a critic, soyou know, she she likes what she
likes. But the choir wasn't bad. It wasn't that bad. You know.
(53:15):
It wasn't that bad, sing singunto the Lord a joyful noise.
It wasn't it wasn't that bad.It wasn't that bad. You know what
they were singing to the Lord.They were singing to the Lord. I
love I love their hearts. Okay, And that's it. And that's it.
The heart that's it didn't come out. That's it. That's it.
(53:38):
We don't need to know more allthat. But I want to give a
word to the saints that that havebeen known to bring on church church,
and don't say we haven't. Don'tsay we haven't. Yeah, well yeah,
bring it. Okay. We shouldbe slow to speak, especially when
(54:01):
we're about to sow negative words,and be quick to listen. You know,
I was always told take the cottonout of your ears and put it
in your mouth. Listen, don'tworry about it. But the word of
the Lord, says an Ephesians.For in the twenty nine thirty verse,
it says, do not let anyonewhost from talk come out of your mouths,
(54:23):
but only what is helpful for buildingothers up according to their needs.
Yes, that it may benefit thosewho listen and do not grieve the Holy
Spirit of God. When we whenwe are tearing down, we're grieving the
(54:45):
Holy Spirit. We're quenching the HolySpirit. Don't do that to the to
the young saints that's coming in,Don't do that to ones who are trying
to get closer to God. Thisis what, this is what, this
is what we were brought up todo. Each one teach. We all
have a part to play in thekingdom. Yeah, and don't forget you
(55:07):
were once that person. Don't forget. I don't forget. Hopefully you were
in church like they are. AndI know they're young and they trying to
be in church. Where were youwhen you were their age? Were you
even in the House of God then, so we had a lot of judgment
going on. But where were youwhen you were in there in their shoes?
And don't say you never were,because we all, we all can
(55:29):
relate to how we used to beand we get so holy. Sometimes we
forget where we came from. Yes, we forget what we look like when
we first walked into church. Youknow what I'm saying. I mean,
when you first went to church.You don't even have quote unquote church clothes,
you know, because you was alwaysin the club. You know,
what did you look like when youfirst walked into the church. Yeah,
(55:52):
so I'm I'm just saying, thinkabout that. Yeah. So what I'm
gonna do right now, I'm infavor of the ones who had dealt with
church hurt. I'm on their tideright now. I'm on their teen and
I'm going to read a word tothose who gave the church hurt to them.
(56:16):
This is coming out of Ecclesiasties seven, the fifteenth verse, and I'm
gonna read all the way down toI feel like I want to stop.
It reads and the meaningless life ofmine. I have seen both of these,
the righteous perishing in their righteousness andthe wicked living long in their wickedness.
(56:40):
Do not be over righteous, neitherbe overwise. Why destroy yourself?
Do not be over wicked, anddo not be a fool. Why die
before your time? It is goodto grasp the one and not let them
go for the other. Whoever fearsGod will avoid all extremes. I'll say
(57:01):
that to my peoples that dealt withchurch hurting, that I am in favor
with them, because I've dealt withchurch hurt myself. And that scripture that
I just read out of the Ecclesiasticseven, it's for those who brought the
church hurting, for those who mayhave said some wrong things. I myself,
(57:23):
I repent right now if I've saidanything that had may quenched the spirit
or grieved the spirit, because asGod is him, I sin and sin
alone before. But if I've hurtsomeone, I personally right now apologize and
asked the heavenly Father to go aheadand pull that person and touch that person's
(57:45):
heart that they may come back intothe House of the Lord, that he
may be praised, edified, andglorified in the name of Jesus. Hey
man, Well, that's all Igot to say. Type of us out,
wife, you got the flow topus out. I'm done. I'm
done, I'm dropping the mic.I'm done. I'm done. I'm done.
(58:08):
But you still talk because I cantell it because the Holy Eghost is
here, the spirit of the Lordis in this place. Thank you everybody
for being with us during this hourof the hour Glass. Let's Ruth Arashima.
We are so honored to have youall be part of our hourglass family.
(58:28):
Please keep up with us on Facebookat the hour Glass of Bruce and
Rashima. Check us out, sharethe page, uh comments, send us,
send us comments, prayer requests,any topics you guys want us to
talk about. We are more thanhappy to hear from you, and we
want to hear from you. Wealso want to pray for you. If
there are any prayer requests. Youknow we are praying couple, so we
(58:50):
if we don't all do nothing else, we know how to pray, so
we're gonna always pray for you.Keep you lifted. We hope you all
have a wonderful, safe as wecome to the end of this year.
We hope you all have a wonderful, safe, joyous, and blessed December.
And we love you all. Wethank you so much for listening to
us and being part of this journeywith us. Thank you, Thank you,
(59:15):
guys. We love you, Welove you. We take this time
because the Heavenly Father have given usthe assignment, have given us the charge,
gives us the words to speak toyou, not of our all selves,
but of Him. So we thankyou, we love you. We
(59:36):
give praise, honor, and gloryto the Father for you. I'm Bruce
Hagens and I'm Rashima Hagens, andyou have joined us for the hour glass.
Goodbye. The FCB Radium Network firstclass broadcasting worldwide. Them
The following is a presentation of FCBFaith. This is the hour Glass on
the FCB Radio Network. Welcome,Welcome, Welcome, guys. We are
(00:25):
so glad to be with you guystoday. I am Bruce Lemot Hagan's the
second, and I am Rashima Hagen. Hey, and this is the hour
glass. Well, we're so gladto be back with you guys. You
know, we're feeling better, feelingstrong. Thank you for tuning in with
us. How you doing today?Him? I am doing so good.
(00:46):
Yeah, you look like fire?Yeah, what'd you? Happy? Ball
life? I'm here, I'm good, I'm feeling good. Life is good.
I'm surrounded by friends and I've beenlaughing at d for the last as
our in half. So that's good. That's good. You know, it's
(01:07):
good to be around the Saints,you know what I mean. It's good
to be around good people. It'sgood to be around your family that care
about you. It's good to bearound people that have consideration for you,
you know. But then we alsohave that time where people are not so
nice. Yeah, people can beinsensitive. People could be non empathy,
(01:30):
you know, no sympathy, andwe we seem to find that especially in
these days, people are cold.You know, I believe the word says
the Father said, people's hearts willwax cold in the time, right right.
So let's let's you know, weare here. This is a Christian
(01:53):
radio say station. That's where weare right and we need to talk on
some serious matters today, you know, and it was put on our heart.
Let let us talk about church hurt. You know what I mean,
Church hurt is real up and herey'all my family out there. I can
(02:17):
at least guarantee that maybe about ninetyfive percent of us dealt with some kind
of church church from these people inthe congregation. And let me let let
me, let me elaborate on thateven more. When I say church hurt,
(02:38):
we are the church. We youme, everybody that's on the sole
of the under the side of myvoice, that as a Christian, we
are the church. It's the buildingthat the Heavenly Father wants us to go
into to worship and to not disassembleourselves from the saints, but to come
(02:59):
together and work ship. But whenwe say church hurt is because when we
in this building, it can getreal filed just straight up. When we're
up under the roof. When everybodyis singing and clapping and going in their
(03:19):
pockets to give out this ten percentfor the tithes, and the preacher is
about to give the word, theenemy is lurking in, getting ready to
say something to you or me thatwould offend us, that would offend us,
that put us in a place thatwe'd be like, listen here,
(03:42):
I ain't going back to that churchno more. So I want to talk
about church hurt. I want usto talk about church church, and you
know what, I have scripture tohelp us what church hurt though, So
I want us to talk about that. Let's let's go in. I'm just
gonna go in straight out. Haveyou ever witness church hurt? Have you
(04:08):
been hurt in the church? Yeah? Yeah, yeah. I've been in
church all my life, so I'veprobably been hurt or offended at every church
I've ever attended. Yeah yeah.So let's ask this about a ballpark.
Figure how many times you've been hurtingthrough church hurt? At least a dozen't
(04:30):
it's easy at least a dozen times. Okay, Now you say you you're
a person that forgives easy. That'swhat you y you know, so does
church hurt really doesn't doesn't really botheryou. I mean, are you know,
how do you feel about church hurt? You know, it depends on
the each situation is different, um, But most of the time I feel
(04:50):
sorry for the person that hurt memore than I feel sorry for myself.
Because for you to hurt somebody,whether in church or not, it has
to come from a place of hurt. Like the old sand is, hurt
people hurt people. So for youto even hurt me, you have obviously
(05:11):
hurt as well. So I won'tsay that it does not bother me,
because of course I just said ithurt me, of course. But I've
never left the church because of churchhurt. I've left the church, you
know, because God told me toher other reasons. But just because I
was hurt or offended by someone inthe church, I didn't leave the church,
(05:31):
although I know a lot of timesthat's what happens, and that's how
people end up separating themselves from thechurch. You know what, here we
go. You know, I tried, I tried, I was whether for
abided as she lost me, youknow, and all of a sudden the
anointing came on her, and youknow, she feels sorry for the person
(05:54):
that hurt her. Right, letme tell y'all something. When somebody hurt
me, I feel sorry for himtoo, because I'm about to hurt them.
There we go. That's right,that's right. So okay, what
does that solve? Now? Yougot to hurt people? You know what,
when I'm done, I won't behurt no more. Let me tell
(06:18):
you something now we we songs.Absolutely nothing because all you did was returned
when they gave Wait a minute,you don't know what they gave. They
gave her. You just return herfor her. You just know it's levels,
it's levels. Are hurt of it? Here? Yes? Okay,
what what I'm just saying? Whatyou say all you did was returned when
(06:42):
when you get down to the tothe root of it, all the root.
Yeah, let's go there, goto the root of it, all
the root. What is the rout? You just returned hurt for her?
Listen, So what did you actuallyaccomplish when people are hurt? And I'm
gonna speak for myself when when Iwhen I I've experienced church hurt, you
(07:06):
you've with me. You was withme when I've experienced church hurt. Well
not, I'm not. Okay,let me let me seem like you're defending.
No, I'm not. And letme say this too. I've been
hurt in church, and I'm notsaying I've been hurt and I just took
it on the chin and walked awaywith my tail between my legs. I
(07:27):
do respond, and I want nobodyto confused that I do respond. I
don't take one for the team allthe time. That's what you like,
you know, That's why I said, let me clarified this, Okay.
I know the anoint came on you, and know the annointy comes and not
(07:48):
to go to God. And Iasked God how to respond. So I
don't always respond immediately because I've learnedas I've grown up and as I've matured
that when I was fine quickly orimmediately, that's usually when I do more
damage. And we all and anybodythat knows me, which I know a
(08:09):
lot of folks you know on listeningto the show may not know me,
but you know me personally. Youknow I can take you, I can
go there, I can bring itback to you. I choose not to
because, like I said, asI've grown up, I know that's not
the right response. Okay, butit doesn't mean that the hurt doesn't go
(08:31):
on. Okay, Well, lookwe are in a level. Okay,
look here, we're grown we're grownup in here, right, fifty plus
fifty Okay, Well listen, I'mnot we ain't just talking. We ain't
just talking about you. We're talkingabout the okay, fifty plus forty nine
(08:52):
less however you want to do it. But we're grown h and people sometimes
get out of line and in adisrespectful way. Yes, you know that's
like Okay, sometimes you hear thepastor talk over the pul pit and really
(09:15):
be talking about you, you know, and you know you hear them.
You know, I'm in somebody koolaid to day. You know I'm in
somebody backyard today. Church finger andwalk out. Okay, let I'm gonna
tell you something. Okay, Okay, let's let's take it. Let's take
a sidebar. Let's take a sidebar. I'm doing a little teaching right now,
(09:39):
one old one on this church.Finger. Stop putting up the church
finger. I'm gonna tell you why. Back in the slavery days, when
the slaves would have to pick cottonbefore they could relieve themselves to go to
(10:01):
the bathroom. They had to puttheir finger up to the master to be
excused. That's where the church fingercame from. Stop it, stop it.
Don't put the church finger up nomore. The church finger is dealing
with slavery for the task masking foryou to be excused to use the bathroom.
(10:28):
Thank you for that public announcement.So back to church. Yeah,
so we we are. We aredealing with people that are talking over the
pull pit taking jobs. You know, we we we give this ain't where
(10:50):
I want to go. I don'tcare where you want to go. Where
I want to go. I wantto go to the solution. So okay,
church, he had, well,you gotta set you gotta set the
foundation first, but I don't care. You ain't got nowhere to go.
Where are you going? You goingsomewhere in the airport. Look here.
(11:13):
Sometimes the airport landing place ain't clear, so you gotta wait. Now.
I'm sorry, Please excuse my wifebecause see she'd be doing you do too
much. So we are here,and you know, we give people consideration
(11:35):
of the of the doubt, andwe tell them our most intimate things.
And it seemed to get out andthe whole dog on congregation. No,
and you feel that that shouldn't bereconciled, you know, eye for eye,
(11:58):
I don't feel it should be redand south I for I mean,
I guess it depends in the spiritthat we're talking about. Because, for
one, I've said it a thousandtimes. You know, God will always
answer people for you. You don'thave to. But if you feel compelled
to say something. There are times, even in church where you have to
stand up for yourself because no churchchurch bullies, they exist. So yeah,
(12:24):
I do think there are times whenyou have to say something. But
I think for me, I thinkit's best to answer in a way that
stops the hurt from continuing. Anybodythere, hello, so you know,
(12:48):
I mean, because there's a wayto shut it down, I guess is
what I'm trying to say. Youcan deal with somebody that's hurting you or
somebody offensive to you in a waythat one, you know, bring attention
and makes them aware of how they'reacting or how they're making you feel.
For one, two you can youcan let them know, you know,
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there's another way we can go aboutthis. That's all I'm saying. I'm
not saying don't don't address it,don't you know, Because at the end
of the day, if you're hurtand you're offended and you're supposed to be
coming there to worship, it willdisrupt your entire experience in church, and
sometimes it keeps you from experiencing Godaltogether. And that's not okay. So
(13:35):
I'm not saying dismiss it. Yes, I understand that. What you know,
we are in a place where whenthey say well, the word says
do unto others as you want tobe done unto. We've missed that mark
somewhere. Okay, So wouldn't youwant somebody to respond the way I'm saying
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versus giving it back? But it'stoo late. Once you got disrespected,
it's too late. What you meanyou want to give it back? I'm
gonna give you something back, allright. I'm going to give you something
back, all right. You know, like I said, all right,
we're all grown up in here,right, grown people. Okay, let's
(14:18):
let's even talk about young people.You know. It's a way to talk
to people, yes, without disrespecting. It's a way you know, to
not well. You know, sometimeswe do it to ourselves though by giving
too much information to too many peoplethat don't really even need to know our
(14:39):
business. Right. You know,I've learned that you can't share everything with
everybody, right you know the wordsays you know, some things you got
to keep close to your heart.Yes, you know what I mean.
(15:00):
Yeah, So there are different scenariosin which we can experience church hurt.
Okay, say, um, likeyou said, you know, we can
we can confide in someone and thatperson doesn't keep it to themselves and they
share our personal information or our personalbusiness and it gets out and now we're
hurt. Okay, what about ifsomeone is talking about another part? Gossip
(15:26):
does happen in the church? Yes, yes, Um, we have a
We do have an issue with theolder congregation members talking to the younger congregation
members like they're less than as youknow, as instead of respecting them as
adults. I mean, they actlike they act like they forgot they were
(15:48):
young exactly. And that and thatthat's where church hurt comes in because now
you're talking to this young lady asif she you know, dumb as a
box of rocks, and you forgetyou were once her. But now that
you've hurt her, what she's supposedto do with that she's she is young,
she might not be mature enough toget past it. You may cause
her to leave the church. Thenwhat then you get dealt with? You
(16:12):
know why? You know why?You know why? Yes, I know
why? Why go ahead? Iknow what you're gonna say, So go
ahead, because Jesus said, herewe go. It'd be better for you
to have a millstone tied around yourneck and dumped into the sea. Then
(16:33):
you cause one of these little onesto stumble. Yes, And that's what
church hurt does. It causes peopleto stumble. It causes people to leave
church. And you know, itcauses people to walk away because when you
when you're walking away from church,you're not just walking away from the building,
You're walking away from your fellowship timewith God. You're walking away from
your your time to sew into ministry, You're walking away from relationship and you
(17:00):
know else, you're walking away fromwhat worship be, walking away from your
time worsht with God. So Ithink for me, that's the point of
having this conversation today is looking atnot just your response to the hurt,
but what ultimately is in your response. Okay, okay, so then let
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us talk now now we build thatfoundation. Let us talk what can we
do to stop church hurt? Orwhat can we do if church hurt does
happen? How what what steps canwe do to get over it? Okay?
So I'm going to talk about whatyou do when you have been hurt.
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Okay, that's someone in the church. Okay. I don't know if
there's ever going to be a discussionabout what to do to stop it,
although if we ever do need tohave that conversation, we can. Oh,
it is a way to stop it. So I'm gonna talk about what
to do if you have been hurt. I don't leave it there. You
(18:07):
don't want to stop it? Well, I think that's another conversation. But
I don't know if that's the conversationwe have. We're gonna have right now?
Well, what were we talking about? Okay, I'm gonna come in.
I'm trying to pull something up witha second. I gotta read something
to you. Of course, whereof that? Okay? So Hebrews ten
(18:32):
twenty four, the amplified version says, and let us consider thoughtfully how we
may encourage one another to love andto do good deeds, not forsaken our
meeting together as believers for worship andinstruction, as is the habit of some,
but encouraging one another, and allthe more as you see the day
(18:55):
of Christ's return of approaching. Sobasically, what I'm saying is, when
you come to church, if youcame to church with an attitude that one
of the reasons you are coming tochurch is to worship, the other reason
is to help someone else or encouragesomeone else, then maybe some you wouldn't
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be so privy to hurting other peopleif you had the right mindset when you
walked in the door. So whenyou are someone that has been hurt,
excuse me, what I would likepeople to take into consideration is if you
have been hurt and you've turned away, you know you left the church,
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or you know you've decided to justnot go to church ever again, you've
walked away from your from literally walkingin your purpose. You've literally walked yourself
out of your purpose. And Iwant people to be aware of that because
that's bigger than the hurt itself,and it's definitely bigger than the person that
hurt you. So my purpose forthis conversation today is to plead with people,
(20:07):
if you have been hurt go backto these shows that we did about
forgiveness, because you have to learnhow to forgive those people. But more
importantly, focus on what you weregoing to church for in the first place.
Go back to that place and talkand talk to God about how to
(20:30):
get back there before the hurt happen, because that's what's important now. What's
important right now is that you keepyour relationship with God. And people always
say, well, God knows myheart, and I can stay home and
worship and I can get you know, I can watch so and so on
TV, or I can stream thisand this. There is a fellowship and
(20:51):
a worship experience that happens when youare in church that is not going to
happen when you're sitting in your livingroom and your pj's. There is a
difference, and there is something.There is a benefit to being in church.
That fellowship, that worshiped time isimportant to your walk and to your
(21:14):
purpose. And I just excuse me. I also want to just make people
aware that even though we're in church, people can still be used by the
enemy. In church, you know, there are folks that are used by
the enemy to offend you because theywant to cause you to turn around.
Whatever God had for you, it'sstill there, but you had to turn
(21:37):
around and go back and get it. You know, you have to claim
what God has for you. Thatsomeone tricked you out of pursuing you know,
that offense came and just turned everythingaround. And I just want to
encourage people and plead with people.If you have church hurt that you're dealing
with, I plead with you toforgive. But I plead even more that
(22:02):
you go back to God and getlike reset, reset yourself, to go
back to what you will pursue aguy for in the first place. That's
more important than the hurt. Youknow, I've been hurt, I say
at least a dozen times, probablybeen hurt a dozen times in one church.
But my purpose is bigger one thanthe hurt, and I know it's
(22:26):
bigger than the person that hurt me. So I'm good with all that I
can forgive. I can move on. I'm more concerned about doing what God
wants me to do, and hurtan offense that can't move me won't way
or the other. If anything,Yeah, it does make me feel bad
for the person because either that personthat's hurting the harder they've been used either
way, that's pretty sad for them. And you know, I want to
(22:49):
share something that you touched on,and that is and this is to our
audience out there. I just wantto say, if you are in a
church, or you have a churchhome, or you feel led to go
to that church, by all means, stay and see what God has for
(23:11):
you in that church. Because ifyou're led to go to that church,
it's obviously the Holy Spirit has ledyou to go. And trust me,
the enemy arrives in the church too. And when the enemy sees you and
the enemy sees your gift just aswell as annointed one will see your gift,
(23:32):
and the enemy will try to comeand distract you from moving forward for
whatever God has you to do.It's a beautiful thing when we can fellowship
together with one. But I justwant to say this, if you have
dealt with church hurt, by allmeans, fight through because you are fearfully
(23:52):
and wonderfully made. And the thingis, if you leave the church,
you got the by the enemy becausethe person that has hurt you was filled
that he has or she has powerover you. But the beautiful thing about
it is, and this is uhfirst Peter five the seven. It says,
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cast all your anxiety anxiety on himbecause he cares for you. God
cares for you, He will handlethat for you. You know, we
need to pray on pray about thingslike that so you won't be distracted or
you won't be deterred from the wilesof the devil of what he's trying to
do for you getting your your giftor your breakthrough or whatever you wanted to
(24:38):
get as you was going into thatchurch. So we encourage you on that
that that's first and foremost, gointo it on prayer and asked to ask
God, what what is this?What is this all about? And he
will He will direct you, andhe will show you. He will give
you revelation like never before. Thatyou may move forward in the situation that
(25:04):
you may be dealing with with churchhurt right, because you don't go to
church for the people. You goto church for a relationship with God and
you go to church for the fellowshipand for the worship. So if people
are your main reason for going,you went for the wrong reason anyway.
So I just want people to refocusand rethink, you know, reset your
(25:26):
mind to think about why you're reallygoing to church. You're going to pursue
God. You know, if aperson hurts you, that wasn't God.
So when people say, you know, I left the church, I've heard
people saying. I've had people tellme, you know, more than once
that you know, they've left thechurch altogether. They've just left Christianity because
(25:47):
you know, people are phony,and but that's not why you were there,
and that shouldn't have been why youwere there in the first place.
And I do tell them when theysay, you know, I left,
because you know, church folks aresome of the biggest hit for Chris will.
Church folk are human, They're gonnamake mistakes, they're not gonna always
get it right. But that's notwhy you're there. Church folk can get
(26:10):
you to heaven. You go thereto pursue God, and the person to
hurt you don't have a heaven orhell to put you in. So you
pursue what God has for you,even if that means you got to sit
in the church and I talk tonobody. You know, if I pursue
the things of God, I'm noteven paying attention to what people are doing
there saying. And like I said, when I have been hurt. I
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pray that I come to an understandingof how to respond that or not only
take the hurt away from me,but will help the person realize how they're
being hurtful, because if I justexchange her for her, I'm not accomplishing
anything, you know. And ifI'm in if I'm in the building,
if I'm doing a kingdom work,then everything I do should have purpose.
(26:57):
It also should produce. So producinghurt is not what I want to do.
But if you are interested in goingback, or you think that you
can't go back, you can alwaysturn things around. All you need is
a new mindset. Yeah, yeah, I agree. And the thing about
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that is if the person that thereor whoever has hurted you, you know
you can confront that person. AndI'm gonna tell you something to you if
you don't release it, if youdon't release that hurt that's in you,
And I'm telling you something that somethingthat I'm not thinking of, something that
(27:40):
happened to me that I know thatis true. If you do not release
it, it will tear you upon the inside. You have to release
it. You have to confront theperson who offended you. And there's a
way of doing it. You know, Jesus said, if your brother or
sister sends or goals to the pointof their fault just between you two,
(28:00):
you know, So basically what's saying, you know, if you have one
of your brothers and sisters, youkind of confront them on what they did
to you and see if this canbe resolved, you know, and then
it says to make sure that youwant them over. Then it says often,
you know, hurt people can resolvethis by by doing this, So
confront the person. So you know, even if they don't receive what you're
(28:22):
saying, the hurt is coming offof you. You are being relieved from
that hurt that you can move forward, that you can get the things of
God while you were there at thatchurch. Like like my wife said,
it ain't about them, It's aboutthis relationship between you and the heavenly Father.
Well, with that being said,we covered just quite a bit,
(28:45):
didn't we. Yeah, man,I was all right, pretty good.
Okay, So look we're gonna takethis little break and then we're gonna come
back and we're gonna finish up whatthis church hurt looks like and how we
can pressed through it together. Thisis Bruce Hagens, and we will see
you back in a few minutes onthe Hourglass, the hour GLASSCB Radio Network,
(29:18):
Welcome back, guys. We arehere on the Hourglass. I'm Bruce
Haggins and I'm Machima Hagins. Areyou sure yea? Good guys. We're
talking about church hurt today. We'retrying to dive and dissect what this looks
like. We're trying to come touh. I don't want to say our
(29:42):
agreement, but we're trying to cometo our resolution on what church hurt looks
like and how we can get pastit. So, Mashima, what you
got? You know? Because ifI may just jack, you know,
I want to let everybody know mywife she wrote a book and actually she
(30:04):
has a segment in her book onchurch hurt, so you know, yeah,
the book is called excuse Me.The book is called Keen of Women,
Words of Healing and Encouragement, andchapter three talks about forgiveness and the
first part of chapter three is healingthe hurt. Yeah, let's get it.
(30:25):
Um. Well, I wasn't quiteat the page. I wanted to
be it, but that's okay,Um, you know I was, I
was just thinking about times when,um, I've just been around and people
have been hurt and offended and I'veheard them say, you know, they
called me and said, you know, I'm not coming back to the church
(30:45):
no more because I share something realpersonal with a group of women at church.
And then it came back to melater and they not only hurt me
and the way they shared it,but they judged me for what I shared,
and I felt, you know,I'm particular lady. I just felt
so bad for her because she wasyounger and she was really trying to seek
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God, but because she got sohurt and she felt judged, and she
felt it was like she was beingvictimized again. And you know, my
heart just went out to her because, first of all, she shouldn't have
had to experience anything like that,especially from other women that said they were
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Christians and seeking God themselves. Butshe didn't have anything to almost like,
she didn't have a safety net tocatch her when she felt that pain.
You know, so her only solutionwas to leave, you know, just
get away from the people that hurther. And that's what breaks my heart
(31:53):
about church hurt. That our onlyresponse, so the only response we seem
to know is to just leave church. And it sounds so simple, it
sounds very basic, but there's justso much more to it than that.
I don't know if she ever confrontedthem and let them know how she was
(32:15):
hurt, but I do know thatshe allowed me to be part of her
healing journey and working with her andtalking with her, praymp for her.
She did come to understand that alot of what they said came out of
ignorance, and it also came outof what had been done to them.
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And that's the other thing I wantto point out when we're dealing with church
hurt. Church hurch is not new. You know. It's a lot of
people in church that are hurt thatjust do the same thing to the next
group of people they encounter that wasdone to them. And that's very you
know, it just hurts my feelings, Like when people are repeating that same
(33:00):
pattern. It's almost like an abusedperson when you repeat the pattern of abuse
that you went through onto the nextperson. We don't come, We don't
understand that. How how much powerour words have. First of all,
the minute of a word is releasedout of your mouth, it's alive and
(33:21):
it takes action and it's powerful.If you aren't careful with the words you
use when you're talking to anybody,not just people in church, you just
don't know how you're offending people.And the one thing I would ask people
to do when they're in church orjust talking in general, consider how you
(33:43):
would feel if those same words wererepeated to you, Like you said,
you know, treat people like youwant to be treated. Well, how
does it feel if you were onthe other end of what you're saying?
Yeah, you know, I justwant people to think before they speak.
I want them to think before theyjust say whatever. You know, sometimes
(34:07):
we get into this little holy ghostbubble and we think, because we're Christian
and we've been at a church longerl we got a certain title at church
that we're just automatically entitled to saycertain things to people, and that is
not true. We need to thinkabout what's coming out of our mouths,
and when you do speak, youneed to understand and be very clear or
(34:30):
what you're trying to say to makesure you're communicating to the person the right
way. You know, I canget into communication I want today, but
you know, you have to thinkabout communication, and that communication is only
effective when it's received by the personyou're talking to. So you say whatever
(34:52):
you want to say, but ifthe person you're talking to isn't receiving it,
you're not an effective communicator and whatyou're communicating is not being said.
Well, So, if you trulyare a man or woman of God,
or you're trying to seek God andhis purpose for your life, that means
that you're trying to seek Him inall aspects of your life, and hurting
(35:15):
people at church is not part ofhis plan. Yeah, yeah, And
I just want to put this outfor the men that are in the church
that may have dealt with church hurt. You know, we don't like as
men to say we've been hurt,you know, we say we've been offended
(35:36):
or you know, you've been disrespected. Uh, it's all, it's all
the same, you know, there'sreally no difference. I mean, we
can, we can categorize it howeverwe want, but all in all,
it still has to do with yourfeelings. So when brothers or that have
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been dealt with church, I stronglysuggest, and this is something that I
am I'm very adamant about. Weas black man are extinct. You hear
what I said, we are extinct. They're trying to take us out of
here. Who the enemy is tryingto take us out of here? We
(36:25):
as black man, we need toencourage one another, uplift one another.
The Bible says, iren sharpens.Aren't that one man sharpens another man's countinance.
We are to sharpen each other,especially with the young brothers that are
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coming up today. You know,those who are dealing with fathers that are
not there, those who are dealingwith fathers who are there, but they're
going through issues themselves and they can'thelp it. Can't help the son,
or can't help the daughter because theycan't really help themselves. The church is
(37:07):
supposed to be a safe haven.The Word says that God is your refuge.
Here is your strong tower. Youknow, we see that God is
in the place. What we dealwith a situation of people that seem to
be so selfish. I encourage yourbrothers out there. So if you go
(37:28):
into a church, if you're ledabout the spirit by all means, you
have to be led by the HolySpirit to bring you in. And if
you are to look and sit backand rest, and what I mean by
rest in God's peace while you're thereat the church, and let him show
(37:50):
you who to talk to, lethim show you what your purpose is there.
Take your time. God isn't He'snot interested in speed, and nor
is he interested in really how youfeel. You know, he God is
a just God. He wants youto do what He wants you to do.
Although in this season, if youhave been hurt, gone back,
(38:16):
ask God first of all, prayand ask God where do he want you
to be? You know, it'sa lot of times we put ourselves in
a situation that we shouldn't even beenthere. It's a lot of times we
made decisions that we thought was goodand we didn't even you know, consult
God about it. So we putourselves in a place and we get hurt,
(38:38):
but we really wasn't even supposed tohave been there in the first place.
Right, So I suggest, andI'm saying this to you brothers,
and this is not something that Ithink. This is something that I have
experienced myself. You know. Isaid, Okay, well, I'm gonna
go to this church and I'm gonnado this for the pastor, and I'm
(38:59):
gonna serve. I'm a serving andThe word says, do not throw your
pearl to swine, lest it betrampled under foot and you be torn to
pieces. Consult with God where hewants you to go. You know,
I have to say this to you, brothers. It says we do not
(39:21):
wrestle with flesh and blood. It'sthe spirit and principalities that we're dealing with.
Here. They see you, brothers, come up in there, strong
and mighty, strong and mighty valoratemen. They see you come up in
here, and the enemy is onyou like white on rice. Don't think
the enemy ain't up in the churchhouse, point and taking. When the
(39:43):
angels was making our call to God, Satan was also there. Make no
mistake, Satan is always in theplace, going to and fro up and
down to see who he could justdestroy or devour. Brothers, I'm saying
this tell you and faith that youhear me. When it comes to this
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church hurt, we have to strengthenup and guard up. We gotta stop
being so emotional. We gotta stopbeing so emotional to get out our feelings.
Move forward. And when that brotheror or that man or that woman
come against you and try to hurtyou, you tell them, don't let
the enemy use you like that.Don't let him use you like that.
(40:28):
Right, And then there's like youwere saying too when you do go back
to church. Go back to churchand focus on your fellowship with God.
Don't think about what position you cantake, what job you can do,
what title you can have. Goback to church and commit to be in
position with God first. Before youpursue a position in the church, focus
(40:53):
on the right position first and sitand meditate and pray to God about what
to do once you get there.You know there are things you may need
to see, things you may needto experience before you take on any roles.
(41:13):
Get in position first and focus onwhat God has for you before you
do anything else. Yeah, andalso when when we're talking about roles,
don't be afraid of accountability. Sometimeswe take accountability as disrespect. If you
(41:38):
don't know something, if you're ignorantto the fact that, it doesn't mean
that you're dumb. If you're ignorant, as means that you just don't know.
And some people in the church arenot trying to come against you,
but trying to show you some accountabilityon what you should be doing. So
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stay teach bowl, stay learnable,be able to learn and grasps on what
maybe the Saints are trying to sayto you, and don't take it offensively.
You know. We deal with gossip, we deal with slander, you
know, but we should you knowit's there by all means, I'm not
going to you know, sugarcoat,that it is there. Although as men
(42:23):
we should stand firm and strong andmighty in the church. As a matter
of fact, even if we seeit happening, we should cut it at
the route right then. See,the thing is, we don't cut it
at the route, you know,cut it at the rout. And a
lot of times when we go tochurch, we get hurt because we have
(42:45):
put too much of our personal intothe church, and we've gotten involved in
too many personal things. You know, we get hurt when the pastor don't
act the way we think he should, or something comes out that he did
something wrong and we start judging,or we think that somebody even done something
wrong with the times, and youknow, there are just things that we
(43:07):
get involved in, we have opinionsabout, we have feelings about that we
really don't need to get involved in. You know, if the pastors not
behaving the way you know you wantthem to on a personal level. I
don't know if that's really grounds toleave. I mean, but if you
if you feel that you can't getcloser to God or your relationship with God
(43:30):
is impacted by whatever's going on inthe church, you can always find another
church. I'm not saying, youknow, don't don't leave the church or
deal with things if you. Ifyou your spirit is not getting fed and
you're not growing, you definitely shouldfind another church home. But there are
times when we just get caught upin too much of a personal as opposed
(43:51):
of just staying focused on the spiritual. You know, I want to be
in the church where I'm being fed, I'm growing. Every Sunday. I
need to have an encounter or sometype of experience that tells me something in
the spirit realm is moving on mybehalf. Now. If I'm not getting
(44:12):
that, then I may need togo to another church. But just because
I don't get along with a certainusher or a certain deacon or deaconess,
I don't need to leave the churchfor that because I'm not there for that
person anyway. So I just wantyou to take that into consideration and as
you find the time to pray andgo back to God and talk to him
(44:32):
about going back to church, thatwill also help you and come into an
understanding of where to go. Becausesometimes when we're going back the church doesn't
necessarily mean you need to go backto the church you left. It may
just be time for something new allthe way around. But I just want
to keep encouraging everyone to go back. Yeah, and again, none of
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us, not one, no,not one is perfect. We all fall
short of the glory. You know, my man Jesus said, whoever perfect,
cast the first stone, and don'ttell you, don't say it was
a mistake. No, I'm sorryI added that. No, but he
(45:22):
said, whoever is perfect, whoeveris perfect, cast the first stone.
You know, we're not perfect.We're human. We make mistakes. Some
people won't apologize. But you bebigger than that. You be bigger than
that. But the issues, theissues that we deal with with this church
(45:49):
hurt thing. It stunts your growth. It doesn't stunt their growth. They
still there and they are they stillbe talking about people, and they're still
talk about people. That's what theydo, that's what they do. But
don't let it start your growth.In the Kingdom. Right, if you're
(46:13):
focused on what God has for youthis time, when you go back,
you might not even notice what's goingon. You know, if you're focused
on what God as for you,you don't always have time to even pay
attention to what other folks are doing. And you know, I just believe
there are a lot of times inchurch that we get too close and too
(46:34):
personal. Yeah, and it getsin our way and it distracts us.
Because anything that you do, ittakes time. So if you're getting involved
with this auxiliary or this ministry,this group of folks that minister, all
those things will take time. Andif those things are taking time, excuse
me, then they're taking time awayfrom your worship time. They're taking time
(46:54):
away from your fellowship time with God. That adds up over time. You
have to be careful how you're dividingyour time. Which you're devoting your time
too. That's right, because theWord of the Lord says that Matthew six
and the thirty third verse, itsays, SEEKI first the Kingdom of God
at all his righteousness, Not thenot the not the deacon right, not
(47:19):
the ushers, not the pray singers, No, not them and you know,
and and not not the patrior thepastor's righteousness. It says, SEEKI
first the Kingdom of God and hisrighteousness, and all these things will be
added unto you. Seek him,seek him, and the place that you
(47:39):
need to seek him at you personallyinvite him in into your heart. And
you know, if we we juststop worrying about what other people say about
us, we would be all rightbecause they can't do any better than what
(48:00):
you doing. Ad Vice versa.We all down here and this earth together.
You know. Now if you showme somebody that jumped up and wings
come out the back, then wemight have a different story. You know.
Then we can say, well,you know, this brother might be
able to talk bad about me,you know, because you know he comes
(48:22):
from another ram. Although we ain'tdoing that today. That ain't happening down
here. But the Kingdom of Heavenis at hand. Get a part of
it. Come back into the foldof the Church, that you may fellowship
with your brothers and sisters, thatwe may all be in one accord.
(48:44):
That we may all be in oneaccord to speak the heavenly language, to
speak in clothing tongues, to edifyand lift him up. That's what the
building is. To edify and lifthim up and invite him into this place,
invite him until this tabernacle. That'swhat we're talking about. Yeah,
(49:06):
Church, church hurt is real,Yes it is. But so is God.
Yes he is. So is hishealing power. And his word is
true. His word is true Jesus. So you know, like people like
my husband always says, keep themain thing to me, how we're gonna
grow in God? The main thing? Stop? The main thing is how
(49:31):
am I gonna grow in pursuit ofGod? You know, I believe one
hundred percent that church hurt happens becauseit's the word. It's a it's an
easy work of the enemy. Hedoesn't have to do a whole lot to
manipulate folks when it comes to churchhurt. And I believe one hundred percent
that it's one of his easiest tricksthat if he can just distract you and
(49:51):
get you to pull away. Youknow, not only is he stopping you,
like my husband said, not onlyis he stopping you and stunting your
growth, but he's pulling you awayfrom the most important thing, and that's
God and all that is the ultimatepurpose of the enemy, right, and
not only that, the enemy comesto kill, still and destroy. And
(50:12):
when when you look at that,when you see what this looks like,
he's trying to kill. He's tryingto kill and steal your spirit. He's
trying to suck the Holy life outof you. Don't let the enemy do
that. Don't let him do that. Ultimately, what church hurt is about,
it is about keeping kingdom people frompursuing their kingdom's purpose. That's what
(50:37):
it boils down to. If youare focused on your kingdom purpose, you
can't be distracted or discouraged by churchhurt. But if he can distract you
and get you to turn around andhurt you just enough, then you will
sit at home or wherever you liketo sit when you're not in church,
(51:00):
and that hurt will just grow andfester like a boil. Yes, and
before you know it, you've justgotten used to the boil. And that
is what is happening. A lotof folks have left and they've just gotten
used to that. Boy, they'vegotten complacent in their lack of relationship,
or they've forgotten what relationship even feelslike. You ever been away from church
(51:23):
for a long time, but thenwhen you go back, you're like,
oh man, it feels so goodto be back and had that fellowship time.
You know, I remember a timewhen we were at a church where
the praise team wasn't that good,and I really missed that old school praise
team choir feeling. And when wewent to a church, we visited a
(51:46):
church and we got they had thatkind of choir. I was like,
oh man, it feels so goodto hear this kind of choir again,
because our church didn't have that.But it is the same thing with the
enemy's attempt to just to turn youaway from church. If he can keep
(52:06):
you out of there long enough,keep you away from church, or keep
you from talking to God long enough, you'll forget what it feels like to
be in the presence of God.You'll forget what it feels like that just
have that fellowship time with God.You'll forget what it feels like to just
be lifted when you pray. Yeah, you know, if he can just
do that long enough, and ifhe does it long enough, it just
(52:30):
prolongs your kingdom walk. It prolongswhat God has for you on the other
side, on the other side ofthat hurt is that healing and it just
will bring you into a completely differentplace with God. So I just want
to encourage you all again if youhave left church because of church hurt,
(52:52):
do the work and take the stepsto get back. Yes, and not
only that, I'm go back tothis choir thing, you know, the
you know, sing unto the Lorda joyful noise. You know, my
my wife is a critic, soyou know, she she likes what she
likes. But the choir wasn't bad. It wasn't that bad. You know.
(53:15):
It wasn't that bad, sing singunto the Lord a joyful noise.
It wasn't it wasn't that bad.It wasn't that bad. You know what
they were singing to the Lord.They were singing to the Lord. I
love I love their hearts. Okay, And that's it. And that's it.
The heart that's it didn't come out. That's it. That's it.
(53:38):
We don't need to know more allthat. But I want to give a
word to the saints that that havebeen known to bring on church church,
and don't say we haven't. Don'tsay we haven't. Yeah, well yeah,
bring it. Okay. We shouldbe slow to speak, especially when
(54:01):
we're about to sow negative words,and be quick to listen. You know,
I was always told take the cottonout of your ears and put it
in your mouth. Listen, don'tworry about it. But the word of
the Lord, says an Ephesians.For in the twenty nine thirty verse,
it says, do not let anyonewhost from talk come out of your mouths,
(54:23):
but only what is helpful for buildingothers up according to their needs.
Yes, that it may benefit thosewho listen and do not grieve the Holy
Spirit of God. When we whenwe are tearing down, we're grieving the
(54:45):
Holy Spirit. We're quenching the HolySpirit. Don't do that to the to
the young saints that's coming in,Don't do that to ones who are trying
to get closer to God. Thisis what, this is what, this
is what we were brought up todo. Each one teach. We all
have a part to play in thekingdom. Yeah, and don't forget you
(55:07):
were once that person. Don't forget. I don't forget. Hopefully you were
in church like they are. AndI know they're young and they trying to
be in church. Where were youwhen you were their age? Were you
even in the House of God then, so we had a lot of judgment
going on. But where were youwhen you were in there in their shoes?
And don't say you never were,because we all, we all can
(55:29):
relate to how we used to beand we get so holy. Sometimes we
forget where we came from. Yes, we forget what we look like when
we first walked into church. Youknow what I'm saying. I mean,
when you first went to church.You don't even have quote unquote church clothes,
you know, because you was alwaysin the club. You know,
what did you look like when youfirst walked into the church. Yeah,
(55:52):
so I'm I'm just saying, thinkabout that. Yeah. So what I'm
gonna do right now, I'm infavor of the ones who had dealt with
church hurt. I'm on their tideright now. I'm on their teen and
I'm going to read a word tothose who gave the church hurt to them.
(56:16):
This is coming out of Ecclesiasties seven, the fifteenth verse, and I'm
gonna read all the way down toI feel like I want to stop.
It reads and the meaningless life ofmine. I have seen both of these,
the righteous perishing in their righteousness andthe wicked living long in their wickedness.
(56:40):
Do not be over righteous, neitherbe overwise. Why destroy yourself?
Do not be over wicked, anddo not be a fool. Why die
before your time? It is goodto grasp the one and not let them
go for the other. Whoever fearsGod will avoid all extremes. I'll say
(57:01):
that to my peoples that dealt withchurch hurting, that I am in favor
with them, because I've dealt withchurch hurt myself. And that scripture that
I just read out of the Ecclesiasticseven, it's for those who brought the
church hurting, for those who mayhave said some wrong things. I myself,
(57:23):
I repent right now if I've saidanything that had may quenched the spirit
or grieved the spirit, because asGod is him, I sin and sin
alone before. But if I've hurtsomeone, I personally right now apologize and
asked the heavenly Father to go aheadand pull that person and touch that person's
(57:45):
heart that they may come back intothe House of the Lord, that he
may be praised, edified, andglorified in the name of Jesus. Hey
man, Well, that's all Igot to say. Type of us out,
wife, you got the flow topus out. I'm done. I'm
done, I'm dropping the mic.I'm done. I'm done. I'm done.
(58:08):
But you still talk because I cantell it because the Holy Eghost is
here, the spirit of the Lordis in this place. Thank you everybody
for being with us during this hourof the hour Glass. Let's Ruth Arashima.
We are so honored to have youall be part of our hourglass family.
(58:28):
Please keep up with us on Facebookat the hour Glass of Bruce and
Rashima. Check us out, sharethe page, uh comments, send us,
send us comments, prayer requests,any topics you guys want us to
talk about. We are more thanhappy to hear from you, and we
want to hear from you. Wealso want to pray for you. If
there are any prayer requests. Youknow we are praying couple, so we
(58:50):
if we don't all do nothing else, we know how to pray, so
we're gonna always pray for you.Keep you lifted. We hope you all
have a wonderful, safe as wecome to the end of this year.
We hope you all have a wonderful, safe, joyous, and blessed December.
And we love you all. Wethank you so much for listening to
us and being part of this journeywith us. Thank you, Thank you,
(59:15):
guys. We love you, Welove you. We take this time
because the Heavenly Father have given usthe assignment, have given us the charge,
gives us the words to speak toyou, not of our all selves,
but of Him. So we thankyou, we love you. We
(59:36):
give praise, honor, and gloryto the Father for you. I'm Bruce
Hagens and I'm Rashima Hagens, andyou have joined us for the hour glass.
Goodbye. The FCB Radium Network firstclass broadcasting worldwide. Them
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