There is an incredible amount of good work happening in the world today, and I love sharing encouraging stories of hope unleashed and lives transformed.
But we know that our highlight reel does not capture the complete story any more than an Instagram feed reflects the full range of reality. It’s easy to celebrate our wins, and it’s equally easy to shroud our faults and failures. To pretend we have it all together. To only make space for the success stories.
Insiders know that our institutions are imperfect. That good intentions do not always lead to good results. That even in the midst of service, with good work being accomplished and lives changed for the better, we can unintentionally inflict wounds.
Recently, a phone conversation reminded me that in the early years of HOPE, we sent staff into incredibly challenging places without adequate support or member care. We were rushing into challenging places—but lacked the systems, structures, or support to do it well. When someone experienced hurt, loss, or trauma, we didn’t know how to support or respond to them. The result is that working at HOPE hurt people. My heart aches knowing that our institutional shortcomings and my leadership caused pain.
Since this call, I’ve reflected on the way those closest to an institution can be hurt by its brokenness, even as others are helped.
Nonprofits are not alone in this. I think the same is true of our churches. As I’ve recently been interviewing potential new team members at HOPE, I invite a stream-of-consciousness response to a series of one-word prompts. It might be “microfinance” or “charity.” Often the list includes “church.” Respondents—who are committed believers—almost universally express a sense of disillusionment about the U.S. church. We’re insiders. We see, and too often are harmed by, its brokenness. And there is a lot of brokenness.
Nonprofits and churches can be spaces where people are both hurt and helped. Where the Gospel is hindered as well as advanced. These sacred spaces are places where brokenness and beauty coexist.
I wonder what would happen if we more overtly acknowledged that our institutions and organizations are places of both healing and harm. Would that cause us to withdraw from institutions or work to reform them? To retreat or engage in the hard work of transformation?
More and more, I want to acknowledge the real joys and breakthroughs AND the brokenness and failure: not to fuel cynicism or excuse passivity but to enter more fully into the work of reform and restoration. Even more, I feel the urgency to pray—both individually and collectively—for HOPE and the global Church’s witness and impact. To ask forgiveness of God and others where we’ve fallen short—and to embrace the tension that in our institutions and our lives, beauty can coexist with brokenness. And to do everything possible to work toward restoration and reform in our institutions.
I’m grateful that God didn’t write off the broken; Jesus redeemed it. And He invites us into that work too. As we acknowledge where our churches, our institutions, and ourselves are in need of healing, we can invite God to begin a work of restoration in and through us.
We write more about holding onto hope amid pain and brokenness in our upcoming book, The Gift of Disillusionment. Learn more and pre-order here.
