One of the most common things that happens to every soul that goes through a wounding at the hands of a church leader is that somewhere in the journey they begin to see their value through the eyes of man instead of God. For some it’s just a blip, for others it becomes a lifelong battle with their spiritual identity in the light of the pain caused to them by a controlling abusive church leader. This happens for a number of reasons, but the most common is that the staff pastor or lay leader has placed at least some or all of their personal value in the opinion of their church leader. To say that your personal spiritual and emotional value should not be found in the opinions, assessment grid, and emotional swings of a person, even a beloved pastor, is an understatement. When you are going through a breaking under season, it’s vitally important that you shift the focus of your spiritual and emotional self-worth off of a person, and onto the person, Jesus. Abusive church leaders usually cultivate a church leadership culture that over-values assessment tools and too often uses a crooked ruler when evaluating success in others, and then assigns value (or non-value) to that person based on those broken standards. So, for those unfortunate enough to be sitting under one of these unhealthy leaders and look to their opinions to sustain them, it’s a recipe for emotional and spiritual disaster. It’s one of the mechanism’s that an abusive spiritual leader thrives upon, knowing that the one they abuse looks up to them on some level. So when the abuse inevitably happens, staff pastors and lay leaders are left in an emotional mess, with pain and unanswerable questions not just about the practical issues, but about who they are as a person, as a believer. Hurt, pain and wounding does its work when our self-worth is found in a leader who is abusive.