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Helping the Divorced Find Hope and Healing

Interview with Jim Smoke

(See also: A Snapshot View of Who We Are by Marital Status)

The breakup of the family is the central domestic problem of our day. Many individuals find it easy to walk away from their commitment to spouses and their children. For those left behind, the disgrace and pain of a failed marriage is sometimes more than they can bear.

The church is to be the vital agent in the restoration and healing of the divorced person. Unfortunately, many churches are ill-equipped to deal with the deep pain brought into a divorced person’s life.

To talk about how the church can provide meaningful and effective ministry to the divorced and their children, Enrichment’s managing editor, Rick Knoth, spoke with Jim Smoke. Smoke is an internationally known speaker and author of the best-selling book, Growing Through Divorce. The book is widely used today in Divorce Recovery seminars and counseling centers around the world. He is one of the creators of the National Association of Single Adult Leaders and also serves as adjunct professor at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. He currently serves as pastor of adult ministries at Grace Church in Cypress, California.

AFTER OVER 20 YEARS IN DIVORCE RECOVERY WORK, WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED ABOUT FAILED MARRIAGES?

SMOKE: When I started divorce recovery workshops in the early 70s, my own family questioned whether I was on the right track. I was trying to help the healing process, but they thought I was giving a vote for divorce.

Twenty-five to 35 years ago, people in the movie industry were the only ones getting divorces. Now, pastors and Christian workers are getting divorces—and that shouldn’t happen. But we need to realize that some things in our culture are creeping into the church.

The first thing I learned is that many people did not receive any premarital counseling and they were ill-equipped for marriage. Second, many couples fail to get help when their marriage is in trouble. The church contributes to this because we tell people,

"If you’re a Christian, love God and follow Him closely; He will take care of your problems."

Third, marriages fail because couples grow apart rather than together. They haven’t developed a nurturing marriage environment that allowed it to thrive and to grow.

Fourth, when the fabric of marriage weakens, couples become susceptible to an affair. About 68 to 70 percent of the people in our workshops have had a spouse leave them for somebody else. Affairs are not planned. They happen because a person finds someone with a warm heart who listens to his or her story.

Fifth, traditionally the church community has not shown kindness to divorced people. We would rather judge them and toss a handful of Bible verses at them. People need healing, not judgment. It’s easier to throw rocks than to help people rebuild their lives.

THE DIVORCE RATE FOR COUPLES WHO REGULARLY ATTEND CHURCH IS THE SAME AS, AND IN SOME CASES, HIGHER THAN THE DIVORCE RATE FOR UNCHURCHED COUPLES. WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THAT?

SMOKE: The responsibility comes back to the church—we need to be in the preventive business by providing ministries that build healthy marriages. The local church doesn’t have an emphasis on ministry to married people. We talk about family, but what is the church doing on a regular basis to strengthen, equip, and enable a husband and wife to have a strong marriage?

Pastors tell me, "The lowest-attended event in my church is a marriage seminar." This occurs because the church makes people feel guilty when they come to events geared to meet their needs.

Church people say, "Bill and Mary are going to the marriage seminar—they must have problems."

Pastors need to remind their people that Christians do have problems and struggles, and it’s OK to acknowledge those problems. Christians do have marriage struggles. It’s OK to gain the tools to help build a strong marriage.

Churches need to be proactive and start a program like Life Mates—a once-a-month date night where a couple in Christian work speaks on marriage issues. At our church, we have dessert, present a skit, have giveaways, and enjoy the evening. The people in our church are responding. It’s not an all-day seminar to fix your marriage, but it gives marriage-building tools on an ongoing basis. It is led by a team of people that are excited about that ministry.

WHAT ARE THE GREATEST NEEDS OF THE DIVORCED PERSON?

SMOKE: Divorced people need to be accepted and loved. Many of them have faced rejection in their marriages by mates who left them for someone else. They wonder if they can ever be loved by anybody. They lose their self-worth, self-esteem, and self-values. Love and acceptance offset these feelings. Accepting a divorced person doesn’t mean you accept divorce. Jesus hates sin, but He loves people and sinners. We must make this distinction as we work with divorced people.

Experiencing healing and hope is also important for divorced people. At our divorce recovery workshops, we talk about hope as a reality. And we often quote Jeremiah 29:11,

" ‘I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’ " (NIV).

People at my divorce recovery workshops have come up at the end and said they have received hope and some tools to grow through their divorce. People who go through that process need to know they are going to survive, and with the right tools, guidance, love, prayers, and concern, they’re going to come out on the other side with a good life.

HOW CAN CHURCHES ADDRESS THE NEEDS OF THE DIVORCED?

SMOKE: Smaller churches assume that only mega churches can have specialized ministries. The answer lies in presenting the challenge to the laity. Pastors need to look for those who have gone through a divorce, have grown through that process, and are spiritually mature to head up this type of ministry.

Pastors can buy copies of my book, Growing Through Divorce, leave them on a table at church, and announce that people interested in attending a meeting about starting a support group can take a copy.

Ministry to the divorced will draw people into church, because we love them and care for them. That’s the Jesus-style approach to people—He used different methods to attract people to Him. And when people came to Jesus, He presented the gospel to them in various ways and He talked in a language the people understood. The church shortchanges itself when it doesn’t think about community outreaches and touching people’s lives.

Most pastors mistakenly think, I have just three divorced people in my church; that’s not a ministry. Instead, they need to realize how many divorced people are in their community. Pastors may not be aware of how many divorced people or singles are in their church because singles tend to hide. If people are single again because of a death, they share that with others and receive sympathy. If they are single again because of divorce, they probably don’t want to share that because divorce has its stigma and some church people judge those who are divorced. If adults have never been married and are over 30, they don’t want people to know because people wonder if something is wrong with them. There are sometimes strong prejudices in the church toward single people.

Pastors tell me they have a family church. I ask whether they have any single-parent families in their church. They say yes, but the single parent may be getting married and joining "the rest of us."

We are living in the age of the fractured family system. The statistics from the Census Bureau reveal there are thousands of single-parent families. (See the sidebar, "Singles: Still the Fastest Growing of All Groups: A Snapshot View of Who We Are by Marital Status.) Pastors need to ask schoolteachers how many kids they have in their classes from single-parent homes. In some schools, up to half of the kids are from single-parent homes.

HOW DO YOU INTEGRATE DIVORCED PEOPLE INTO THE MAINSTREAM OF CHURCH LIFE, MAKING THEM PRODUCTIVE, CONTRIBUTING MEMBERS TO THE BODY OF CHRIST?

SMOKE: After divorce, the majority of people will marry again and will create a blended family. The blended family has challenges within its structure because people carry "stuff" from their former marriage. The new marriages have spouses that still have visitation rights with their children. There are a variety of things that don’t go away. Many churches acknowledge the blended family with its special concerns and needs. They create a Sunday morning class or a once-a-month meeting for them to talk about the blended family structure.

If there is a singles group in your church and two divorced people in the group fall in love, they may come to you to be married. The church needs to know where it stands biblically on the issue of remarriage. I lovingly say to people in my workshops that I don’t teach theology, because there are people in my workshops from all kinds of backgrounds. A church with an active singles ministry will have to grapple with the issue of remarriage and develop ministries that meet the needs of the blended family.

To assimilate singles, the remarried, and the divorced back into the broader church ministry, they need to have places of leadership in the church. While Scripture may prohibit those who are divorced and remarried from some places of leadership, singles need a place to serve. The single people in our church are involved in many different ministries. We teach in divorce recovery that it is not good to spend all your time healing your own wounds and never reaching out to anybody else. Part of the healing process is getting involved in ministry or a ministry team.

WITHIN THE DIVORCED COMMUNITY HOW DO YOU ADDRESS THE ISSUES OF SEX AND SINGLENESS?

SMOKE: After lunch at my workshops we have an open forum for questions and answers. If people don’t ask the question, I usually ask, "Is anybody concerned about sexual issues in singleness?" Of course, hands go up. It’s a basic struggle with most single-again people because they have been married and have had a sexual relationship.

Marriages crumble, but the people in those marriages still have sexual desires. They wonder, What do I do now? Do I have a sexual relationship with somebody, or do I wait until I remarry? And what if I never remarry?

There are three attitudes toward dealing with sexuality. The first attitude is that adults over 21 can have sex anytime, anywhere, anyplace, as long as they are consenting adults. I call this wanton sexuality. The second attitude believes, I will not have wanton sexuality, but if I have a serious relationship with somebody, then I can have a sexual relationship with him or her. I call that selective sexuality. Both of these are not based on biblical standards. The third attitude (grounded in Scripture) believes that God gave humanity the gift of sexuality. He stamped that gift with the words, FRAGILE, HANDLE WITH CARE. The command of God is to enjoy that sexuality or sexual relationship exclusively and only within the bonds of a marriage relationship. I then tell people, "You have the choice to have any one of these three attitudes. When you’re newly single again, you need to decide where you stand." Single adults often struggle when they get in a situation where they need to decide quickly because they haven’t thought through their stand ahead of time.

In our seminar we talk about "47 going on 17"—my book Growing Through Divorce has a chapter on this. This means people can be 47, start dating again, and feel like they are 17—all the same issues are there except they are sexually experienced. Not knowing where they stand can leave them vulnerable. People need to set godly boundaries and standards, and then live out those standards.

ABOUT A THIRD OF THE CHILDREN BORN TO MARRIED PARENTS WILL EXPERIENCE THE DISRUPTION OF MARRIAGE. WHAT ARE THE UNIQUE NEEDS OF CHILDREN OF DIVORCE AND HOW CAN THE CHURCH MINISTER TO THEM?

SMOKE: Children experience anger, hurt, resentment, and feelings of abandonment when Mom and Dad get divorced. They are often asked to choose between Mom or Dad. Today there are a lot of resources to help children whose parents are going through divorce. Our church has done "Kids’ Hope," created by a group from Colorado Springs, headed by Gary Sprague. (Pastors can contact Gary Sprague at: Kids’ Hope, 189 Illini Dr., Woodland Park, CO 80666.) Our divorce recovery leadership team does a unique 6- to 8-hour workshop for elementary children. The youth department handles the teens. We give children a forum to express their emotions about what’s going on as a result of Mom and Dad’s divorce. This is done through arts and crafts, videos, writing projects, and one-to-one communication. This program is unique because we have one adult worker for every two children for the whole 6 to 8 hours. At the end of that time, the kids have a chance to express what they’ve learned.

There are two gifts you can give your kids when you are going through divorce—the gift of time and the gift of love. Time is an investment in the children’s lives, being with them and doing things with them. Love is reassuring them constantly that you love them. Much of the time, adults are consumed with the legalities and property division of divorce and they forget about the children. Children don’t understand, so they feel isolated. Kids need to know they didn’t cause the divorce, and they need to know the adjustments they will have to make because of the divorce. Anybody who does divorce recovery knows that the prayer of most children is that Mom and Dad will get back together. Oftentimes, even if there has been a dysfunctional marriage relationship, a child still wants Mom and Dad back together.

(See also: A Snapshot View of Who We Are by Marital Status)