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Ministry to the Divorced: Your Ebed-Melech Opportunity

By Harold Ivan Smith

(See also: Ministering to Divorced People)

Becky wanted this to be not just another Sunday. She needed a break from the pain she was experiencing as a divorcee in a small, rural community. She was not prepared to hear her name called out or the pastor’s stern declaration: "We do not need divorced women in this church. This is a holy place for God’s people, people who live by the Book. Ushers, show her the door."

In Becky’s day, the church had zero tolerance for divorce—even for the innocent party.

Times have changed. In 1999, there were 19.4 million divorced people in the United States—with 7.2 million in the married-spouse-absent category, which are de facto divorces. Over 25 percent of individuals 18 to 64 are estimated to have been divorced.¹ Moreover, an estimated 1.15 million divorces will be granted this year (multiplied by 2 equals 2.3 million new divorcees or redivorcees).²

ANOTHER BIBLICAL VIEW

Rather than cite the divorce passages in Mark, Matthew, and 1 Corinthians, I want to examine the heroics of Ebed-Melech. During the siege of Jerusalem, Jeremiah was placed in a cistern because he prophesied that the city would fall to the Babylonians. One single adult, a eunuch named Ebed-Melech, sought Jeremiah’s release. The king ordered him to recruit 30 men and "lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies" (Jeremiah 38:10, NIV). But first, Ebed-Melech detoured to the rag room for rags to pad the ropes so the prophet would not be injured with rope burns. A rope burn could be a significant risk for infection. Pulling Jeremiah out with 30 men was easy. Pulling him out in a way that did not injure him was the challenge facing Ebed-Melech.

Today divorced people tell haunting stories about injustice, discrimination, and insensitivity they and their children have experienced. Somewhere individuals in ministry will "rope burn" already wounded divorcing/divorced people. This is the equivalent of a policemen at a serious wreck giving lectures on safe driving instead of getting the injured to a hospital.

Points To Consider

Not every church can have a ministry with divorced people. Many churches settle for ministries to divorced people—an emergency room rather than long-term care. A church will have a difficult time reaching divorced people if the pastor does not have compassion for those who are divorced. Some pastors only gain this compassion after their daughter or son goes through a divorce. One pastor wept daily after his daughter’s divorce, but it was not her divorce that stimulated the tears. "I keep thinking of all the things I have said to divorcing and divorced women in three decades of ministry," he said, "and I just hope no one says those things to my daughter."

A Remote-Control Ministry

Some pastors struggle with stigma contamination and prefer the distanced approach to ministry—farm the divorced out to a compassionate couple. But effective divorce-recovery ministry must have the public support of the senior pastor. Ministry with divorced people will impact the pastor’s counseling load and prayer life. The divorcee’s questions beg response:

• Where is God in all of this?
• Does God still care for me?
• I took my vows seriously. Why am I the one living in near poverty while my ex is living it up?
• How do I teach my children when my ex is living a sinful lifestyle?

WHAT IS MINISTRY TO THE DIVORCED?

Ministry With the Divorced Is Evangelism

Many divorced people are spiritually hungry—divorce is a spiritual crisis. The rejection by a spouse and being ignored or rejected by a spiritual community are difficult situations. Some admit, "I was only a nominal churchgoer until my divorce. This has driven me to my knees."

Others report, "I was so hurt by the judgmentalism, that I haven’t been in church in years." Because of a few believers, some divorced people become suspicious. How do they know you won’t hurt them as well?

What about the sign on the church lawn, "Everyone Welcome." Is it a slogan or a reality? Are you prepared to minister to divorcees with dilemmas that would make Solomon moan and whose children would have Dr. James Dobson shaking his head?

Some divorcees discover their acute need for God, and they discover a seeking God dropping a rope into the cistern of separation and divorce. But God also needs the pullers and the padders. How does God reach out? Through caring pastors and committed laypeople who love the divorced people God brings to them. Some contemporary Ebed-Melechs have been there and survived. They have not just survived a divorce, but they have allowed God to turn the time in the cistern into a blessing, even when an ex intended it for evil.

Divorced people migrate across denominational and theological lines to find a safe, loving, spiritual environment. In numerous Assemblies of God churches, key layleaders can trace their spiritual lives back to the devastation of divorce and encountering God through the loving, practical care of God’s rope-tuggers and rope-padders.

Some divorced people owe their recovery to the prayers and support of a loving pastor. Many pastors find no asterisks in God’s love and agree with writer Linda Quanstrom: "There is no wound that Jesus cannot heal. There is no history that Jesus cannot redeem."

Ministry With the Divorced Is Pastoral Care

The implications for pastoral care are far reaching. Divorce happens to two spouses (or more when affairs lead to divorces), their children, their parents, their siblings, and their friends. Like pebbles tossed into a lake, many people are affected by divorce. The children of divorce are not always toddlers or teens. Imagine the shock to children of senior adults getting divorced. Over 10,000 divorces this year will be among individuals 65 and older.

During your church service do you see:

• Toddlers trying to adjust to two bedrooms under two roofs?
• Teens, already dealing with the storms of adolescence, having to juggle the reality that Mom and Dad are divorcing or still fighting and unavailable?
• Children becoming parents to their divorcing parents or to their siblings?
• Parents of adult children losing a son- or daughter-in-law, which hurts like losing a child?
• Parents grieving for a prodigal child or child-in-law?
• Adult children grieving over prodigal parents?

Do you see them as you break the Bread of Life? Do you see their eyes as you shake hands at the door? Do you hear their pain as they request, "Pastor, pray for me." On any Sunday morning there is overwhelming evidence of an epidemic of divorce-linked grief, some of which is long unresolved. For some, the desire to worship will be sabotaged by their numbness, anguish, or hurt.

Ministry With the Divorced Is Youth Ministry

How trained is your youth minister to deal with family dysfunction and the teen who inherits the consequences of an affair, a divorce, or a second divorce? Your youth group’s missions trip may be a slight financial stretch for teens from traditional families, but a luxury for teens from divorced families.

Does God want to use that trip to make a lasting difference in a teen’s life? How does that teen acknowledge financial realities to a youth minister? Think of the teen trying to balance responsibilities to a mother and a father or wondering where an absentee parent is. How about the teen dealing with the Santa Daddy who wants to make up for all the pain he has caused or the teen that cannot afford the ski trip because she has to work or care for siblings. Does your youth leader notice these teens? Will your youth minister listen to them? And having listened, what will your youth leader say? Did you ask before you hired him or her?

Ministry With the Divorced Is Single Adult Ministry

Many congregations have programs for the divorced through single adult ministries, ministries with single parents, divorce recovery, Bible study, and small groups—that meets for 60 minutes. If you are available when ministry is being dispensed, ministry is available. But what about those who work on Tuesday nights/Sunday mornings? If your church does not offer ministry to the divorced, where do the divorced in your community go? What are they experiencing in those settings?

A RESOURCE THAT IS INNOVATIVE

One resource I developed for churches that wish to minister with divorced people is called A Time for Healing: Coming to Terms With Your Divorce. Most Christian divorce recovery resources are based on the now disputed Kubler-Ross model of stages of grief—a model that is passive, like an individual in a canoe or raft without a paddle on a roaring river. The river determines the ride. "Get through it the best way you can," we counsel.

Moses did not come down from the Mount carrying the Ten Commandments in one hand and the Five Stages of Grief in the other. After working with thousands of divorcing/divorced individuals, I conclude that a decision-based response is essential. It is not so much what has happened, but how a divorced person, with God’s grace and the help of God’s rope-tuggers, responds. A Time for Healing focuses on these key decisions.

• View divorce as a process. Try to cheat the process or do "divorce-recovery lite," and you volunteer as a prime candidate for divorce two. To get through it, you’ve got to go through it. No shortcuts.

• Relinquish attachments to the past. Why is the front windshield in a car larger than the rearview mirror? Because where you are going is more important than where you have been. Many divorced people (sometimes their leaders) have proportions reversed and are peeking into God’s future through a tiny windshield. When the rearview mirror is huge, divorce recovery becomes a gripe-and-pity party.

• Revise the assumptive world. This is not supposed to happen to me because I am Spirit-filled. No family or marriage is immune to divorce. Divorce does not always make sense; sometimes elements of explanation are unavailable.

• Readjust to new realities. The Psalmist asked, "How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?" (Psalm 137:4). How do divorcees sing the Lord’s song while going through divorce? Some have flung down their harps and headed for the fast lane of the swinging-single scene—divorced-and-making-up-for-lost-time. In your community bars, organizations, and even religious groups catering to the divorced will not only impact their emotional lives but will ravage spiritual lives as well.

• Resist discount relationships. Not all divorcees will be tempted with liquor, sex, or drugs. The big temptation may be a premature romantic relationship offered by another cistern-dweller. Opportunists sometimes hang out in church ministries rather than in bars. Some divorced people are desperate for a rescuer and send out signals that attract an individual who promises to make it all better. Pastors, as shepherd of the sheep, must be alert to the wolf disguised in innocent party clothing.

• Understand sexuality. Rarely does the gift of celibacy come to an individual with a divorce decree. How do divorced persons survive in a sex-saturated society where they are constantly told that they need to feel sexy and attractive? For some divorced people, sexuality will be the arena for Satan’s sexually tinted lies that taunt and tempt the divorced. If they come to you, what advice will you offer?

WHO WILL TUG OR PAD THE ROPE?

Attractive divorcees may frighten pastors. Stories abound of the preacher who ran off with a divorcee he was counseling. This fear keeps many pastors from doing the task God has called them to do. Pastoral counseling must be done with caution, but it must be done. It is too easy to be judgmental toward a divorced person.

Other pastors do not get involved because they believe divorced people are time-consuming, spiritually bottomless cisterns, and losers—two steps forward, seven steps backward. Did Jesus entertain such thoughts when He encountered the woman at the well?

The Holy Spirit has lots of rope, but who will tug or pad it? Some individuals in your church have little strength to hold onto the rope. You will have to convince them to take hold of the rope. The Holy Spirit will empower you and will work through you. He will use you to lift someone out of the dark cistern, or He may use you to anchor the rope. But first you may need to find the rags.

I have been there—on both sides of the desk. When my wife left me, I found myself in the cistern. The devil repeatedly said, "If Jane stopped loving you, so will Jesus." There were no divorce recovery programs. I did not have an Ebed-Melech-like pastor. He was, by his own admission, "from the old school." (Ironically, he ran a salvage business before he went into the ministry.) He was so busy upholding the standards that he couldn’t step near the cistern. If I would have had an Ebed-Melech in those dark days, some spiritual scars would not have formed. I have never forgotten how hopeless and worthless I sometimes felt at noon on Sundays.

SHOW ME YOUR RAG PILE

If someone is in the cistern, will you be available? Will you offer raw rope? Ministry is risky. The same individuals who put Jeremiah into the cistern could have put Ebed-Melech into the cistern, too. But the servant did not let his fears of what could happen keep him from getting the rags or pulling. You say you have a heart for ministry. Great, show me your rag pile.

Becky was my grandmother. I experienced her woundedness not only toward my grandfather but toward the church (and the denomination) that threw her out. My grandmother wasn’t like the grandmothers of my friends. I have often thought that my sister, who is considerably older than I am, had, at least for several years, a different grandmother. My grandmother never got over divorce number one that led to divorce number two. She never got over the walk out the aisle. Sometimes when I drive by that church, I wonder what might have happened in 1947 if that church had said, "Becky, we don’t go along with divorce, but we want to help you. Grab hold of the rope." What kind of memories of a grandmother would I have?

Today we do not march people to the sidewalk; we just do not fellowship with them. We do not talk to them, invite them over for a meal, or to the Dairy Queen after church on Sunday night. When they come to us, we string clichés and say "God bless you," and make short work of their questions and concerns.

Is it possible that 50 years from now, some grandson will mourn for a grandmother he never got to know because somehow you never made a difference in that woman’s life during or after her divorce? God wants to use Ebed-Melechs to make a difference, not just in this generation but in future generations. God is still looking for some Ebed-Melechs who know where the rags are kept.

(See also: Ministering to Divorced People)

Harold Ivan Smith, D.Min., lives in Kansas City, Missouri. He is the author of A Time for Healing: Coming to Terms With Your Divorce, (Nashville: LifeWay Press, 1994).

ENDNOTES

1. "The U.S. Single Adult Population," (1998) SAM Journal, 15 (November/December), 7.

2. The New York Times 1998 Almanac (New York: Penguin Putnam, Inc., 1997), 279.