This is not a topic I usually address publicly, and rarely privately either – at least not in detail. However, many recent posts on institutional bullying in the church has made me want to say something about my own story.

My wife and I have been on the receiving end of institutional bullying inside the Church of England. This was over a decade ago. It’s a situation that I still haven’t much clear language for, and – if I’m honest – I still don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about it. Mostly today, I just don’t think about it. I don’t ‘remember’ these events, I ‘relive’ them which is, frankly, traumatic, so I’d rather not give them space. On the rare occasions that I give them mental room, I have a complicated mix of deep rage, shame, fear, and humiliation. Writing this post has been horrible.

I have had some professional counselling and spoken at length with a very small group of friends and family. This is not something I want to spill over into my online spaces, so it’s not something I write about.

I will say that the situation lasted across four years while employed by a church, which coincided with our first four years of marriage. It gave us a very difficult start to our life together as a couple.

Also, it was not all done with malicious intent. Some of it was purely misguided good-intentions or critique that was executed badly. The unfortunate thing is that the inexpert, mixed with the uncaring, mixed with the obtuse, mixed the truly venomous all compounded into one abusive whole. As these things were never addressed adequately by the leadership, they all morphed into one experience. We just didn’t have the proper care, protection, or resolution from those entrusted to look after us professionally and pastorally.

The impact almost resulted in me leaving ministry completely and it has – for both my wife and I – permanently damaged our trust in churches. At the end of those years, I was receiving medical treatment for stress and was advised to quit – which I did. I was also advised to seek legal action – which I didn’t.

What did it look like?

This kind of abuse comes with two voices: the loud, aggressive, obnoxious – and the continual, silent, manipulative. It’s the tandem of these two that makes it all-pervasive, and that keeps you in a constant state of adrenalin-soaked high alert. This state of being is very bad for a body, and by the end of four years I wasn’t sleeping, had lost significant amounts of weight, and had a constant tension headache at the base of my skull. I also had very uncomfortable Pavlovian-like responses to internet and phone tones; which is one of the reasons I rarely turn my phone off vibrate, and why all notifications are turned off on my laptop – nearly fifteen years later.

I’m only going to give one example story from those four years.

I was a full-time Youth and Children’s Minister and had run my first large holiday club. It was very difficult, and I was coming up against a lot of big personalities with strong opinions about how it should be done – and of course, how it had ‘always been done before’. However, after pushing through, we had a very successful week-long event. I was exhausted but, on the whole, very pleased.

Two of these strong personalities, who had senior voluntary positions in the church, had been making my life particularly difficult. Some of this was overt – aggressively challenging me in meetings, through rash phone calls, or long emails. A lot of it, however, was covert – gossiping with other team members, whispering with a small group of peers, passing notes and emails, and lobbying the church leaders behind my back.

After the week, these two leaders took it upon themselves to conduct a ‘detailed review’ of how the event had gone. Without telling me, they circulated a questionnaire to the entire group of volunteers (about forty people). They then compiled the results of that questionnaire into a summary document, and circulated this document back to the team, the church wardens, the Sunday School leaders, the PCC, and the vicars. Everybody but myself – I had no idea that any of this was happening.

The document that was circulated began with three or four very small bullet points headed ‘what had gone well.’ That whole section was less than fifty words. The rest was several double-sided pages of long paragraphs personally attacking and berating me. My character, abilities, leadership, age, personality, and suitability were all held up to the spotlight along with every mistake they had perceived I’d made. Page and pages of it – in great detail. It was all written in the same language and had clearly come from the same source.

I first heard of this document a week or so after it had been distributed. A young teenager who was a helper for the week had received a copy. They were very distressed, told me they didn’t agree with any of it, that their feedback wasn’t included, and said that they never wanted to help in church again.

At this I approached the two vicars so we could talk about it.

It transpired that what had actually happened was the feedback forms were collected but then discarded. They were used as a ruse. We were able to get hold of several of the original questionnaires, which showed that the feedback – which was largely very positive – was ignored almost completely. Instead, the circulated summary was a complete fabrication; an amplified collection of opinions from just the two people who organised the review. They used it as a platform to share their personal – and very negative – opinions of me.

So, having evidence that these two team members had gone way beyond their remits, organised a private review, ignored and doctored the feedback, and circulated a very personal and detailed attack – in secret – what do you think happened?

Nothing happened. I had two meetings with the vicars to discuss what, if any truth, was in the summary where I was made to feel two inches tall. Then I was told it would be “handled”. Nothing was handled. There was no addressing, no corrections, no repercussions, nothing. It just hung over, and they had gotten away with it.

This set the tone for these things to keep happening. Which they did, until I eventually quit.

It’s not ok

This is simply not ok. Leadership structures exist for a reason. Accountability exists for a reason.

I’ve been involved in church leadership now my whole adult life. When I used to look back on this, I thought it must have been my fault. It must have been me. My lack of experience, my inability, my soft nature. But I know better now (at least I think I do). I was twenty-one when that happened – just a kid. I couldn’t compute what was happening to me.

But it was abusive, it was bullying, and it was not ok.

I’m angry at the people who did that – and the people who did other things too over those four years – but mostly I just feel deeply let down by the leadership that was put in place to protect me which just didn’t. I think I have forgiven people, but if I’m honest I don’t know. I’m not sure what that should feel like, and it’s so mixed up and messy. I understand in abstract how these things should work technically. I know the right answers if someone was to come to me looking for advice for instance. But it actually happened, and the memories of it are like clanging cymbals.

I’m grateful today to have good friends, good churches, a good pastor, and a really good marriage. I’m blessed to still be in ministry, and I’m incredibly grateful that God’s grace is all-sufficient for all my needs. That said, I spend an inordinate amount of time pretending to myself all that stuff in my first four years of ministry didn’t happen. My memory lane skips right from Bible College straight to where I am now. I like to think I’m all better, that I’m not wounded, that all that has scarred over, and that time heals all, but it’s not there yet.

I’m a white bloke, a trained church leader, and I’m still in ministry. Conventional wisdom says I’m not supposed to be a victim of this kind of abuse, but this stuff – and a lot more besides – really did happen. And that’s just not ok.

Photo by Timothy Meinberg on Unsplash