Is the Church Toxic or Are You Being Triggered

Was the church wrong, or was something in me already sore? People who have been hurt at church often go back and forth on that question for years, because both answers can feel true on the same day. Below is a way to slow it down. You will look closely at one moment, test what you find against what Dr. Monique Gadson and Lisa Fields say about toxic and triggering spaces, read a psalm of betrayal as a second test, and let the results point to one fitting next step. You can work alone in one sitting or over a week. A small group can use it too, as long as everyone agrees at the start that no one has to tell their story.

Gadson is a clinical mental health counselor who has spent about 16 years on a church staff doing most of its counseling. In this Jude 3 Project conversation, she and Lisa Fields draw a distinction that is easy to state and hard to apply. Some church spaces harm people. Others press on a harm that happened somewhere else. Both hurt, and they call for different responses.

Before anything else

If what you are carrying is abuse, do not try to sort it out alone. Lisa Fields sets those situations apart, naming “abuse, whether physical, mental, emotional” as a kind of space people need to get out of, not one to examine for triggers. Leaving is not a failure of faith, and no one should press you to reconcile with the person who hurt you. If you are in danger, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233. If this weight has turned into thoughts of ending your life, call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, and tell someone you trust who is outside the situation.

The rest of this guide is for the wide range of church hurt that falls short of that line, or for times when you honestly cannot tell yet.

Start with one moment, not the whole story

Lisa Fields describes people who stop going to church because “where I went to go get healing, I just found more bruising.” That holds two injuries: whatever happened, and the fact that it happened in the place meant to help. Trying to judge your whole history with a church at once usually ends in either self-blame or a blanket verdict. So start smaller.

Pick one specific incident. Use a sheet of paper you can throw away. Write short answers to four steps.

1. The event. What was said or done, in plain facts, the way someone watching would describe it. Notice if you soften it as you write. You do not have to change it.
2. The echo. Did it remind you of anything from earlier in your life? If so, write a few words. If not, leave it blank.
3. The response. Did you or anyone else tell a leader or someone responsible? What happened next? If no one told, write what made speaking up feel impossible or unwise.
4. The weight. Read your answers back. Where does the hurt sit most heavily: in the event, the echo, or the response?

Keep the sheet. The next two sections give you ways to test what you wrote.

First test: what the church did when the hurt was named

Gadson explains that some conversations at church can bring back a painful experience from someone’s past, and she is clear about what that means: “That does not have to mean that that is a toxic space.” Her picture is an injured knee. For years she guarded it whenever anyone came close, until she had to admit that “everybody wasn’t headed for my knee.” She adds that “everybody does not mean to injure you, but if you have been injured, that is going to be your first thought.” If your echo answer was full, that does not make your hurt less real. It means your first reading of the moment may be shaped by an older wound.

The other side matters just as much. A church can harm people through what it teaches, how its leaders treat people, and what happens when someone speaks up. Lisa Fields offers a working definition of when church becomes toxic: “when we are not honest about what’s happening.” Gadson describes the healthier alternative from the church’s side: “If you bring it to us, we will speak to it.”

That makes your response answer especially telling. Was the concern heard, addressed and changed? Or was it hidden, minimized, or turned back on the person who raised it? If you could not speak up at all because you feared being shamed or pushed out, that tells you something about the place.

This test has limits, and they are worth admitting. You are judging your own hurt, which is hard to do clearly. A church can also respond poorly to a moment it did not understand, out of awkwardness or poor leadership, without being toxic. One clumsy response is not the same as a pattern of silencing. Be careful with the word “triggered” as well. It names something real, but churches have used it to end conversations. If someone told you that you were just triggered so they would not have to listen, that belongs in your response answer. When you cannot tell which way the evidence points, that is the time to ask a counselor or a trusted person outside the situation to look at it with you.

Second test: read Psalm 55 against your page

Psalm 55 is a lament written as poetry. Its speaker is betrayed by someone close, someone he worshiped beside: “We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company” (Psalm 55:14). Just before that, in verses 12-13, he says an enemy’s insult he could have borne, but this came from a companion he trusted. He sorts carefully. He knows exactly who hurt him and why it cut so deep.

Notice where he takes it. He does not accuse God of the friend’s betrayal. He brings the betrayal to God, and he complains at length about fear, the wish to fly away, and anger, before he reaches “Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee” (Psalm 55:22). The trust comes after the complaint is spoken, not instead of it. The psalm describes one person’s prayer. It does not promise that your situation will resolve on a schedule.

Read the psalm slowly, with your page beside you.

• Mark the lines where the speaker names what was done to him. Compare them with your event answer. Is yours as plain as his?
• Mark the lines where he speaks to God. Does your page leave God out, or blame God for what a person did?
• Find one line you could pray honestly today, even if it is not the hopeful one.

When the pain is the pain of being helped

Gadson does not promise a church where no one ever gets hurt. She says plainly that “we can’t ever guarantee that every individual is going to feel 100% safe.” Even in counseling, where she is trained to do no harm, people sometimes leave her office feeling harmed. She compares it to a doctor pressing on the exact spot that hurts to find out what is wrong. Her summary is that “you’re gonna hurt to heal.”

That is a true word, and it is easy to misuse. The pain of being examined by someone trying to help you is different from the pain of being used by someone who is not. When you are unsure which you are feeling, ask whether the person pressing on the wound respects your no, and whether they are working toward your good or toward their own comfort.

Gadson also describes what healing tends to take. For someone hurt in an unhealthy relationship, she says “we are gonna have to pray. We’re gonna have to work, we’re gonna have to process” until the person is close enough to a healthier relationship to compare the two and say, in her words, “This is what a healthier relationship looks like. What I had before was not so healthy.” That comparison cannot happen in isolation. It is also not fast.

Healing needs company, chosen with care

James writes, “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed” (James 5:16). James is speaking to suffering believers about their own faults, not about wrongs done to them. Lisa Fields draws the lesson that “Confession to man is where I find healing from sin.” The wider point carries over to church hurt: healing is pictured as something that happens between people.

Gadson’s caution is that the company has to be chosen. She recalls a women’s ministry event on domestic violence where survivors shared painful stories and some listeners answered with jokes. Her counsel is that “people who have shared experiences need to group together,” especially those who have “done that work of processing and walking through that healing.” Smaller and safer comes before larger and louder. Sometimes the safe company includes a trained professional. Gadson tells ministers that “there’s a whole lot of emotional work that has to be done beyond the fasting, beyond the praying.” Seeing a counselor is not a failure of faith. God works through trained counselors, and caring for your mind is part of stewarding the life he gave you.

Let your weight answer point to a step

Go back to the fourth step on your page. The place where the hurt sits heaviest suggests where to begin this week. Pick one step you can actually take.

• If the echo is heaviest, the healing work is probably older than this church. Look for a licensed counselor, ideally one trained in trauma, and make a first appointment.
• If the response is heaviest, the church’s conduct is the issue. If you want to raise it, write down what you would say and to whom, and consider bringing a support person.
• If the event is heaviest, or everything is tangled, tell one trusted person the plain sentence from your event answer, and nothing more unless you want to.
• If you are not ready for any of these, pray one line of Psalm 55 each day and decide nothing yet.

Gadson tells some clients that “you have been used to voice that there are other people that are sitting in our congregation that are struggling with this same issue.” Speaking up may help others who have stayed silent. That is a possibility, not a duty. Your own healing and safety come first.

Using this with a group

Your job as a leader is to keep the room safe, not to rule on anyone’s story. Say at the start that anyone can pass on any question. Give ten to fifteen minutes for people to do the four-step retrace silently on their own paper, and tell them no one will see it. When the group comes back together, invite optional sharing of the weight step only, in a sentence or two, without details of the event. Then read Psalm 55 aloud together and use the questions below. Do not defend a church someone describes, and do not join in criticizing one. If a story involves abuse, do not work through it in the group. Help that person connect with a counselor, and follow any reporting duties you have.

Questions to discuss or consider alone

1. What is the difference between minimizing a hurt and putting it in perspective? How would you know which one you were doing?
2. The psalm’s speaker distinguishes an enemy’s insult from a friend’s betrayal. What distinctions did your own page help you make?
3. Gadson’s knee illustration suggests an old injury can shape how we read new moments. What would it take for you to trust your reading of a moment, or to question it?
4. Lisa Fields ties toxicity to a lack of honesty. How would you tell a church that is dishonest from one that simply handled something badly?
5. How can you tell the pain of being helped from the pain of being harmed while you are still feeling it?
6. What would make a small community safe enough for you to begin healing there?

You may finish without knowing for sure what kind of hurt you carry. Psalm 147:3 says the LORD “healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.” It describes what God does, not when. For now, your page has done its work if it showed you where the hurt sits and which one step comes next.