What Positive Roles Can Our Church Play In the Safety Planning Process...?

[Jocelyn E. Andersen]

Question: What positive role can our church play in the safety planning process if the victim does not want to pursue assistance from the criminal justice system, but is willing to pursue assistance from us?

Answer: It is wonderful when churches are even willing to participate in the safety planning process to begin with! Many churches are not. Sadly, in too many instances, this is the case. So number one, is to be willing to get involved in the first place.

The process must begin with the following things:
* Willingness to get involved
* Encourage her to seek safety without pressuring her to make long term decisions concerning her marriage.
* Do not attach conditions to your involvement such as requiring the victim to seek legal remedies [that she may be unwilling or afraid to seek at this time] or to submit to/never go back to her husband-whichever the case may be. Those choices must be left completely up to her.
* Respect her choices
Grant her the liberty of making her own choices without risking losing our support!

[Waneta Dawn]

Jocelyn is right. Additionally, the church needs to be willing to offer support to the abused woman much earlier. If the church helped women--and even couples--recognize the non-physical tactics abusers use and helped to address those behaviors much earlier, before they became physically violent, I think many abusive marriages would have a much better chance of becoming loving marriages. Pastors must teach from the pulpit that the Bible requires husbands to love their wives self-sacrificially, that it is through self-sacrificial love of the husband that the wife is perfected. And if any husband doesn't seem to "get it," the church needs to work closely with him, helping him understand that the wife is to submit to her husband's self-sacrificial, Christ-like love, (she is to submit "as to Christ." There is no way she can do this if he's acting like the devil.) It is only when he behaves with a Christ-like love, that their marriage can symbolize Christ and the church.
~ Waneta Dawn, author of "Behind the Hedge, A novel"

[R. JUSTNES]

I think also it is important for the church (I'll use that term loosely in this message to refer to pastors and/or any influential church leaders) to be EDUCATED about and AWARE of what to LOOK FOR as indicators of abusive relationships within their congregation. Abused women don't always have black eyes. They aren't always shy and withdrawn.

From my own experience, here are some things to look for in the families in your congregation:

1) Do they frequently arrive late for church functions? This may not always be the case. They may often arrive extraordinarily EARLY. The key indicator is that their arrival time is UNPREDICTABLE.

2) Young children may seem especially attached to Sunday School teachers, youth group leaders, etc. to the point where they may seem to not want to go back home. There may be a good reason for this -- home might not a very fun place for them to be!

3) They participate in events/church activities less and less often (choir practice, retreats, Bible Study, prayer meeting, youth group, etc.). Excuses made for not being able to participate in these things are overly vague, such as "I'd like to, but I just can't right now" or "it just won't work out" or "things are a little complicated" or "things are a little crazy at home these days." Every family may make these sorts of statements once in awhile; but if these sorts of excuses are offered OVER AND OVER again (especially when coupled with frequent absence from things that the family USED TO ENJOY ATTENDING), it's quite likely that there's SOMETHING going on at home. Especially listen to the tone of voice that the excuse or explanation is given in.

4) Children may be overly shy and withdrawn or overly hyperactive (I've seen both reactions, sometimes from children in the same family. Children each deal with difficult situations in different ways).

5) Although older children have usually been instructed not to talk about their home life, very young children may unwittingly describe the situation at home. They may let slip things suc as: "Daddy yells a lot" or "I can't, or Daddy will get made at me" or "Daddy spanked Mommy." They often don't understand what is going on and may not use the "right words" to describe it, but Sunday School teachers should take notice if these types of statements slip out on a regular basis.

6) There's a general "lost" look in their eyes, they're always completely exhausted, they seem easily distracted, smiles look fake, etc. They may alternate between crying easily or not crying when everyone else does. They may seem to forget things or lose things more than the average person and offer more vague excuses such as "things have been really stressful lately" or "I've just had a lot on my mind" or "I'm so absent-mided lately I'd lose my head if it weren't attached."

7) They seem to have difficulty making or keeping eye contact when you talk to them.

Even if a woman reassures you by saying that her husband has never hit her or the children, that doesn't mean that they aren't suffering. Honestly, speaking from experience, the emotional, financial, verbal, and sexual abuse that many Christian families suffer at the hands of their fathers/husbands can be just as damaging IF NOT MORE SO than physical violence.

One abused Christian wife stated: "I used to lie in bed at night and wish that he would hurt us seriously enough to leave marks, break a bone, or do some other kind of VISIBLE physical damage. What we were experiencing almost EVERY DAY hurt me so badly inside that I couldn't emotionally handle it without breaking down. Eventually I learned to simply "turn off" my emotions. It was the only way I could function. I became a robot. Once in awhile a stray feeling would sneak through my defenses and I'd allow myself to cry, but I quickly shut it down. I was afraid that if I let myself REALLY FEEL the agony we were going through that I would go insane. I tried to share small glimpses of what I was going through with my church family and close friends, but quickly discovered they either couldn't comprehend what I was talking about or didn't care. Although at times I felt like I wanted to do, I never actually considered hurting myself because I knew that I was the only one who could protect and provide for my children. I couldn't abandon them. If it hadn't been for the Lord holding me up and strengthening me, I don't think I would have survived."

Why are emotional, verbal, and sexual abuse so damaging? Because these "non-visible" types of abuse are more easily denied by the abuser. There's no "proof," and it's relatively easy for an abuser to "talk his way out it" (especially if he's a respected member of the church community). He may seem like a "nice guy" to everyone who sees him in public settings. This only adds to a woman's apprehension in sharing ANYTHING about the reality she faces at home.

I think the first and most important thing that the church can do to help a woman in an abusive relationship is to:

BELIEVE HER ! ! ! I don't know how to stress this enough. It will most likely take her an immense amount of courage to open up and share even the SMALLEST AMOUNT of what she is going through. You MUST NOT ignore her. She is coming to you, the church, for help -- often when she feels that everyone else has let her down and she thinks she has nowhere else to turn.

LISTEN TO HER, don't judge her or blame her (she does that enough herself). Understand that if she does choose to share a part of the reality she's experiencing at home SHE IS MOST LIKELY ONLY SHARING THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG !!

Most abused women will "test out" a pastor or church leader to see how they'll respond to a small amount of information. If the church responds with "just keep praying about it" or "have you tried marriage counseling?" or "I'll keep you in my prayers" or "every marriage has its ups and downs," she will most likely assume that it is pointless in sharing any more information because the church is either unable or unwilling to help her.

The result? She is left feeling EVEN MORE ISOLATED AND HELPLESS than before. The one place that she thought she could find understanding, compassion, and HELP has just slammed the door in her face.

Maybe you are a pastor or church leader and perhaps you think these issues aren't relevant to you or your congregation. I wish that were true. But so long as you have human beings occupying your pews, you can be sure that SOMEONE sitting in them is suffering some form of domestic abuse.

Why am I so certain of this? The devil knows that if he can attack the family at its core he can cause the complete breakdown of society. Satan will attack EVERY MARRIAGE AND FAMILY that he possibly can, and those within the church ARE NO EXCEPTION.

These books are a MUST READ for EVERY pastors and church leader:

Domestic Violence: What Every Pastor Needs to Know - by Al Miles
No Place for Abuse: Biblical & Practical Resources to Counteract Domestic Violence - by Catherine Clark Kroeger
No Visible Wounds: Identifying Non-Physical Abuse of Women by Their Men - by Mary Susan Miller PhD
Helping Her Get Free: A Guide for Families and Friends of Abused Women - by Susan Brewster

There are many others, but those will give you a good start in knowing how to help the families in you congregation. Another one that's helpful for dealing with children in these situations is:

When Dad Hurts Mom: Helping Your Children Heal the Wounds of Witnessing Abuse - by Lundy Bancroft

and another that offers insight into the abusive personality that's very good is:

Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men - by Lundy Bancroft

This is an issue that is vitally important, and sadly, often gets overlooked in Christian circles.

[Wanita Dawn]

Thank-you R. Justines for your well thought out post.

Some additional resources:
"Wife Submit! Christians and Domestic Violence"--by Jocelyn Andersen (the same person who started this discussion)
"Would the Real Church Please Stand Up!" --by Susan Greenfield
"Not Under Bondage: Biblical Divorce for Abuse, Adultery and Desertion" --by Barbara Roberts
"Behind the Hedge, A novel" by Waneta Dawn (shows non-physical abuse in a Christian family.)

[Jocelyn Andersen]

Thanks for mentioning my book Waneta. Small correction needed though: It's "Woman Submit! Christians & Domestic Violence."

I'd like to add another dimension to the discussion of what churches can do to play a more positive role in the safety planning process of a woman who is experiencing domestic abuse or violence. Those in leadership within many churches continue to stress wifely submission as part of the solution to domestic abuse, but this only tends to exacerbate the problem and place the wife in greater danger. The way this doctrine is taught among Christians is not only a huge part of the domestic abuse problem, but I believe it lies at the very root of it and is the primary cause.
~~jocelyn

[Brook Lover]

Jocelyn, I agree with your post about the needs that we have in the church to move beyond instruction to wives to submit in the midst of dangerous abusive situations. There are so many issues that can be addressed in a powerful way by Christians, and often, since many times these are in conflict with what might be thought of as "conventional wisdom", people often choose to pretend like these problems are not happening in the homes of congregation members. Yet, we can see, more and more, that families are experience a rise in domestic violence occurrences--especially during this economic downturn, and yet, we often just stand by and say, "He was so nice...I didn't know he was like that...I didn't realize that they were having those difficulties...". It's important for us to see the signs, and become involved.