Want to know what one of the biggest mistakes in our ministry has been? I’ll tell you. It has to do with confidentiality. My husband and I get to hear a lot of confession where people share secrets with us that they have never shared with another soul. We want people to feel safe, so we say, “What is said in this room, stays in this room.” And then we would become the keeper of their secrets. This has been a mistake. Doesn’t sound like a mistake, does it? That’s because it is a standard and expected response to confession. But let me tell you, this is a huge mistake and is one of the main reasons our churches are so anemic when it comes to authentic community.
Without meaning to, we are telling people that their confession is best left to the professionals. Sadly they will still have to manage and hide the secrets they walked in with that continually threaten their ability to be loved and to belong. How can the church accept who they really are when they hold so much back? This is a lonely way to live. And the guilt! I grew up being told that you could resolve any issue with your Bible and prayer. You just have to do it right. If you pray hard enough your shame is released. Ugh! This is a lie. It simply doesn’t work. We need others, not just the pastor, to speak grace to us. We can’t find freedom from our shame without lots of help. It’s not God’s design. We need the gracious priesthood of believers to hear our confession so we can be healed.
My husband and I promoted confidentiality with confession for years and then we stopped, changed one thing and an unbelievable transformation began to happen in our church. Instead of saying “What is said in this room, stays in this room,” we simply started asking a question. No matter how deep and dark the secret, we ask, “Is there anyone else you can tell?” The response has been stunning. We assumed people would say “No way!” This hasn’t been the case. We find that when we ask them they say “yes.” Not just a fraction of our people say “yes,” but most of our people! Some can give a couple names instantly, while others may take a week or two to sit with the idea before they come up with appropriate people they can trust with their secret. Most often the people they choose to disclose to are in our own church. Do you see what a gift this?
When someone shares their real story and confesses their sin in the church some amazing things happen. Grace increases, the church gets to be the church, people get honest with their stuff and soon others open up and we find ourselves in authentic community.
Let me unpack this a bit.
1. Grace Increases.
The grace the broken person experience instantly doubles or triples. The more they share the more grace they receive. They may start by sharing with just one or two people, then a couple more and soon a few more until they find themselves sharing with the whole church. I can’t count the number of times I’ve witnessed this. Shame’s grip is gone. The secret becomes void of its power and is replaced with a grace so real and tangible that it fills both the person and the church.
“Where sin increased, grace increased all the more.”
Romans 5:20
2. Church happens.
The church gets to be the church and do what it is called to do. The people in my little church love being the hands and feet of Jesus and extending God’s grace to the hurt and broken. This is life giving work and we all get better at it the more we do it. What a mistake to keep confession a private experience. What a loss that would be.
3. People get honest.
Confessions hardly start out clean and clear. Confessions are muddied with self-protective lies and narratives. We have such a fear of rejection that we instinctively alter our stories to minimize their impact. It is hard to own and even think through our raw experiences, let alone share them. But the more we share our stories, the more courage we have to be honest. It may take us a while to get through our mud and find some clarity. We need to be sharing our stories multiple times for this to happen. This is why we need the grace, patience and the ear of the church.
4. Confession becomes contagious.
The honest confession of one person can easily inspire the confession of another person. This changes the culture of the church. Confessions invite grace into our gatherings. Nothing equals this. Grace goes from a concept to an experience. It is highly participatory as we both give and receive it.
You may think that it takes a special church to experience these four things, but I would disagree. I think there are people in every church who are naturally drawn to what is humble and honest. The Bible says “God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6), and I think he wired his church for this too. I have seen humble confession in some pretty uptight churches and I have watched people in those churches step up in love and compassion. When the opportunity presented itself they definitely had the grace. I’m sure there are exceptions, but I’ve stopped underestimating the church. We get better with practice. We just need our pastors to stop hoarding the confessions and to start asking the question, “Is there anyone else you can tell?”
With all this in mind, let’s start discouraging confidentially and instead encourage people to confess their sins to each other. Of course we honor confidentiality when asked or appropriate but what a loss to the individual and the church. We are designed for so much more. May our churches be filled with confession. I think Jesus likes this. I think he likes to show up in His body, the church, when we confess sin and extend grace. That’s His thing.