Wounded: The Hidden Cost of Carrying the Burdens of a Church
Just after the Feast of Tabernacles, Samuel posted one of his AI-generated songs on his Facebook and YouTube pages. It is titled "Wounded."
The lyrics tell the story of someone whose body is no longer functioning as it should, someone struggling with physical limitations and the painful realization that things are not quite right. Given that Samuel has missed his usual weekly Sabbath messages, some people are beginning to wonder whether the song might be a reflection of his own circumstances.
If it is, one cannot help but wonder whether the enormous burden of trying to manage, maintain, and continually revise a dead church is finally taking its toll. He is still a relatively young man, and it would be unfortunate if the responsibilities he has assumed were beginning to affect his health.
There is a very real price to be paid when one individual attempts to carry the responsibilities of an entire religious organization on his shoulders. Running a church is demanding enough under ordinary circumstances. Attempting to keep a disintegrating organization together, defend its teachings, answer critics, produce weekly messages, manage members, revise doctrines, oversee finances, and continually convince people that everything is moving in the right direction is an entirely different matter.
The psychological burden can be enormous.
Living under a constant sense of responsibility for the survival of an organization can produce chronic stress, anxiety, emotional exhaustion, and burnout. When someone begins to believe that the entire future of a church depends upon his personal efforts, there is little opportunity to mentally disengage. Every setback becomes personal. Every departing member becomes another problem to solve. Every criticism can feel like an attack on the very foundation of one's life's work.
Over time, that kind of pressure can interfere with sleep, concentration, emotional stability, and physical well-being. Chronic stress can also contribute to headaches, muscle tension, digestive problems, elevated blood pressure, and persistent fatigue. The mind and body are not separate entities that can be pushed indefinitely without consequences.
There is also the psychological isolation that can accompany religious leadership. When someone believes he alone possesses the answers, carries the responsibility, and must continually defend the organization, it becomes increasingly difficult to acknowledge personal limitations or ask others to share the burden. Admitting exhaustion can feel like admitting weakness, particularly in religious environments where leaders are expected to demonstrate unwavering faith and confidence.
But no individual is indispensable to the work of God, regardless of what some church leaders might believe about their own importance.
There is something particularly tragic about religious organizations that place so much emphasis on loyalty, obedience, prophetic authority, and institutional survival that the human beings involved become secondary to keeping the organization functioning. A church should be a source of encouragement, fellowship, and spiritual support. It should not become an institution that consumes the emotional and physical well-being of the person attempting to hold it together.
If Samuel's song is autobiographical, perhaps it offers a glimpse into the personal cost of carrying responsibilities that have become too heavy for one person. Of course, we cannot know whether his lyrics reflect his actual health or circumstances, and we should not assume that they do. Nevertheless, the broader issue deserves attention.
A religious organization is not worth sacrificing one's health, peace of mind, or personal well-being to preserve. No church administration, doctrinal revision, prophetic claim, or weekly Sabbath broadcast is worth that price.
Perhaps the most important lesson here is that a church is supposed to serve people, not consume them. When maintaining the institution becomes more important than the well-being of the people running it, something has gone terribly wrong.
And sometimes, the person trying hardest to keep the whole thing from falling apart is the very person who needs someone to remind him that he is allowed to put some of the weight down.
8 comments:
Samuel is morbidly obese. Past his prime? He’s in his 30’s. Get in shape and you’d be shocked at the difference it makes. Also, if he’s feeling the pressure of what he’s trying to do, that’s on him, no one, literally no one, is asking for it.
"But no individual is indispensable to the work of God."
It's not that simple. A given person can have a big spiritual impact on another person/s that profoundly effects their salvation.
He needs a jet, come on folks pitch in and get him a private jet.
He volunteered for the job. I hope he doesn't start belly aching like someone else we know!
I think it's obvious he's on the verge of a mental, spiritual, and physical collapse. He needs to step away from his self imposed mission in life, and take a very long rest, and not even think about this stuff.
He is wasting his time trying to be a COG leader. Their are already too many of them out there now.
That could be a reckoning, Phinn! However, what's true, though, is that these types usually just hunker down and soldier on in their weirdness. Whether it be Jules Dervais, David ben Ariel, Ysrael Hawkins, or whomever, the delusion has seemingly functioned like a super dose of adrenaline. Even AIDS didn't slow David ben Ariel down! David got busted in Jerusalem and was expelled, he was writing to German officials reminding them that they had prophetic responsibilities, he even wrote to Schwarzenegger to see if he had any interest in becoming the Beast! He wasn't bashful about the forums and blogs, either. I had some exchanges with him on one of the Sacred Names forums involving ex WCG members in Texas. Seemed totally sincere. Had a need for the long awaited Armstrong Apocalypse to kick in.
HWA set a lot of people off on an odyssey that was compelling and obsessive. Many of us fervently wished that it would never, ever happen in our lifetimes, but others had a deep craving for it.
BB
There appears to be at least one big difference between Samuel and a guy like David ben Ariel. DbA had an inflated sense of his mission, but a remarkably down-to-earth sense of himself. He didn't grow up in the shadow of a parent who taught the family about his own specialness, and who transferred that sense of specialness to the kids. DbA's mission could continue with him or without him; he just felt specially compelled to carry out that mission. Sam, on the other hand, is carrying on a family legacy. He can't just quit and trust that others will pick up the slack. If he fails, then not only does HE fail; he proves his own father to be a nut if not an outright liar. That's some awfully high-stakes stuff for a morbidly obese thirtysomething whose only employable skill appears to be window-washing. Sam's delusion is his whole world, and without it he would be just another inmate locked away in a mental health facility.
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