Written by Amber Fuller, owner and director of Fuller Living Counseling
In order for this blog to make sense, I need to disclose a little bit about myself. I grew up in “the church”. My mom is an ordained minister and my Sundays were filled with at least 6 services from 7am-9pm...every.single.Sunday. I grew up also going to all kinds of churches. From the non-denominational, “shout to the Lord”, potluck Sunday service, to the baptist style, piano playing through the sermon, Holy Ghost king of service. It was a lot. There was one thing I noticed however, that all of my church experiences had in common, and I like to call it: The Person Project.
”I walked into the church and I felt SO accepted. I felt like I had finally had the friends that I had longed for my whole life. I joined their subgroups, had coffee dates during the week, went for biweekly bible studies, and went out for lunch after church. They told me once that they wanted to see me filled with the ‘joy of the Lord’ and that if I gave up my ‘worldly lifestyle’ I would be able to experience the full Jesus Christ. So I did. I gave it all up. I found myself living, breathing, and seeing Jesus in action every day of my life. I thought I had community and friendship, however, once I attained the things they were telling me I needed and then I realized it had been three weeks since I actually went out for lunch with friends. The Bible studies were no more and the people I thought were there for me had vanished. I got together with one of the people I called a friend and asked her to just be straight with me. She told me that when I walked into the church they saw me as a ‘project’. Somebody to ‘clean up’ and then ‘boot out’. I felt used. I felt alone. I felt degraded and devalued. I’m fearful to step back into a new church. I’m afraid I’ll be treated the exact same way.”
I sat there listening to this friend share this story with me. It broke my heart. Her and I had been friends for years and I had never seen her so devastated. I decided that from that moment on I would never view another single person as a project, ever again. I didn’t do it intentionally, but I had been guilty of doing it. It’s also my motivation for writing this blog.
I recently walked into my church, that I’ve been a member at for about 13 years. In that time we’ve created a community, volunteered on every ministry, have been there from the beginning, have led the financial peace group, have gone through an internship program, and have become very good friends with lots of the pastors and staff. It’s been a fun and interesting journey. I walked in and there was a woman there who has been going there for about 2 years that greeted us. She told us that we should get involved at substance. It was an interesting interaction. She didn’t know who we were and her immediate response felt as thought she was trying to put her thumb on us. I believe that this is how it feels when people are made into projects. I experienced it first hand and to this day the interaction still rubs me the wrong way.
This doesn’t just happen in the church. This happens in lots of different interactions with people. The roommate. The friend. The girlfriend. The boyfriend. Honestly, I think it may be easily summed up by calling it co-dependency. Nobody wants to be the project so that you can feel valued.
Here’s what to do instead, plain and simple: Ask the person if they need help. Don’t help unless the person says they need it. Be open-minded to their way of life.