by Holly Steiner
On my journey to wholeness, I’ve noticed something. The church as a whole has a problem with vulnerability. When a person chooses to be vulnerable and share their weakness, what often happens in the church is people quickly cover it up by saying, “oh that’s not true!”, “Everyone loves you!”, “you rock!”. Or advise starts rolling out. But what they are really doing is desperately trying to cover up a mess because there is no room for mess in a religious culture. When someone cries we hand them tissue, which subconsciously communicates “stop crying”. Maybe we need to have a good cry with snot running down our face! Think about it.
According to Brene Brown, in The Gifts of Imperfection, what that person needs is the gift of you being willing to be vulnerable back. They need you to say, “oh man, I’m sorry. I do that sometimes and it feels horrible.” Or they just need you to listen and be with them and be willing to reciprocate vulnerability later, when you are at a weak point.
When you are not ready to face your own vulnerability and someone else is vulnerable with you, it can be really scary because it’s like looking in a mirror and it is an assault to your having-it-all-together-ness. Also, we don’t like mess in the church. We think that mess equates to “we don’t believe in what we preach, because if we believed that Jesus loves us there wouldn’t be a mess”. Poor theology. The bible actually teaches that when I am weak He is strong. It teaches total dependence on God as our means of wholeness. Dependence looks like weakness. If I’m walking around acting like I have it all together all the time I’m actually missing out on all God has for me; that beautiful strength that comes out of brokenness. I am way more fruitful in the kingdom when I am aware of my brokenness or weakness. When I minister out of a place of “I’ve got it all together”, I’m not so effective.
If you are already taking risks to be vulnerable at church, bravo! Keep going! If you are aware that you need to take this risk but not ready yet, that’s ok. You are on a journey. Stay on that journey towards vulnerability. Take baby steps. The body of Christ needs you. The good, the bad, and the ugly!
Wow, that is good to read Holly!!! Thank you so much for sharing that!
Lord help, you are right!! The bible dose tell us to confess our faults to
One another, I do need help being vulnerable !!!
I loved this the first time I read it and love it even more now, Holly! You are a great writer too Wow!