We’ve encountered, in our relational participatory churches over the years, a common problem that enslaves many Christians and hinders their ability to initiate or enter into healthy fellowship.

It occurs when longstanding hurts, disappointments and emotional wounds become so ingrained into someone’s sense of identity …

That it begins to define them.

When this happens, it’s hard for them to transparently expose and turn those core issues over to Jesus.

So rather than finding liberation and wholeness through new life in Christ, along with healthy fellowship …

They become stuck in their past and can’t move forward.

Here’s the thing:

The New Testament says that elders are supposed to function pastorally, but most church leaders these days have no idea how to help people find emotional wholeness and healing in Christ …

And don’t even try.

Yet if you want to help people find healing and healthy community, you need to be willing to start gently walking one-on-one with them to their internal places of hurt.

Once there, allow them to finally express – fully, openly and verbally – their past and their pain to Jesus …

And, if needed, guide them towards openly and verbally forgiving those who wronged them and then have them ask God to forgive them for how they let the offense – rather than Him – define them.

This is the nitty gritty of confession and forgiveness in action.

Next have them bundle up the hurt in their spirit, lift that bundle up and explicitly release it to Jesus.

This is the nitty gritty of repentance in action.

When they do, we’ve seen that Jesus always takes it, and in turn always gives them healing and wholeness in exchange.

No exceptions!

This is the nitty gritty of redemption in action …

Because where there was bondage before, now there is the beginning of new life and healthy community in Him.