The Motto for Launch Your Well Being:
“Finding Wholeness after Spiritual Abuse in Your Church”
Have you experienced any of these examples of spiritual abuse in your faith community?
Abuse of power: Using Scripture or beliefs to control, humiliate, or coerce
Isolation from others: Punishment for perceived non-compliance or disobedience
Coercion: Using manipulation to conform
Public Shaming: Humiliating people in public for perceived lack of obedience
Threats: Using threats of spiritual consequences to control people who don’t comply
Inappropriate Mentoring: Misusing the pastoral relationship by not setting appropriate boundaries
False accusations: Labeling people as disobedient, rebellious, lacking faith, or demonized
Financial Exploitation: Coercing you to give resources that you didn’t want to give
Spiritual abuse can be defined as any act by deeds or words that shame or diminish the dignity of a person and causes a severe jolt to faith. The after-effects of these traumatic events shatter us spiritually, psychologically, emotionally, and physically.
National surveys reveal alarming numbers of Christians who report having been spiritually abused in their church, in one way or another. Results across surveys range from 15-20% all the way up to a whopping 67%!
There IS Help!
Spiritual Growth toward Healing IS Possible!
More and more Christians are finding their path to Wholeness in Christ. Each person’s path is unique and beautiful. Each person has dignity because of God’s love
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Welcome to LAUNCH YOUR WELL BEING
Finding Wholeness after Spiritual Abuse in Your Faith Community
My name is Dorothy Gremillion. I’m a spiritual abuse survivor. For many years, I’ve been on an inner quest to find my own path to spiritual healing. I write from personal experience as a person who loves researching and learning, and as a pastor who cares deeply about the Body of Christ and her members.
For the past 24 years, I’ve served the church as an Episcopal priest, currently serving a Lutheran congregation in Austin, TX.
What makes me qualified to work with people who have been spiritually abused in their faith communities? I hold 3 Masters Degrees, and have honed the art and skill of listening. I’m also a spiritual abuse survivor.
The first church I served after graduating from seminary did not want me to be their priest. But it was the only church the bishop had that was open. They agreed to let me be there for one year. They didn’t want a woman priest, they didn’t want anyone my age (which was 58 at the time), and they didn’t want anyone fresh out of seminary. I fulfilled all three of their “don’t want’s” perfectly. And things went down hill from there. Without disclosing more of my story here, let me just tell you that, at the end of that year, when another church called me to be their Associate Minister, and I felt the unwieldy stress begin to die down, I came down with shingles. I know what it is like to be spiritually abused in my faith community.
The ideas for Launch Your Well Being were born out of my life experiences, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I’ve known great heartbreak and abuse heaped upon me by church people. But I’ve also known great joy – the good, the true and the beautiful – and I’ve experienced much spiritual growth and healing.
I know that when spiritual healing takes place, it is the Lord who does the healing. Yet I also know that we can play a part in our healing, cooperating with the Lord along the way. This has certainly been true in my life. I now serve him as midwife in the healing process for other people.
I’ve created Launch Your Well Being so that together, we can each search for our unique path to healing, with each other for support.
I plan to blog once a week on topics drawn from Scripture, Research, and Christian Spirituality. Topics will include the after effects of trauma, spiritual abuse in churches in particular, what does Scripture say to all this, and how to intentionally work on our own spiritual and psychological growth, among other topics.
I hope that we can grow a meaningful community and learn from each other in the struggle of what to do with the traumatic experiences we have had.
Welcome!
I’m so glad you’re here!
