Anger and the Church

This Sunday we encounter Jesus’ teaching about anger from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:21-26), which I find striking given our current times.

Large-scale, there is disenchantment with the (conservative) church in the U.S. for its endorsement of Donald Trump, who many feel doesn’t espouse Christian values. I know of numerous people who have left church angry over perceived injustices or hypocrisy or poor treatment. There can be anger towards the powerful in the church, whether the Pope or denominational leadership or, in my case, Presbyteries, who oversee individual congregations. Many churches have annual meetings at this time of year where budget and other challenging decisions can bring out the worst in the flock, and where discussion can become heated and even insulting and nasty.

And yet Jesus reminds us that anger gets in the way of our worship and relationship with God. We are supposed to go and reconcile with those who “have something against us” before we offer God our gifts. We are supposed to find solutions before getting all the way to the courtroom and risking jail time. This is hard enough for adults to do and to model, when our frustrations with life in general can spill over into our church life. Just imagine how tough it is for kids who have so little power to begin with, and who struggle to understand a complex and often dark world.

What can we do to address the issue of anger and how Jesus wants us to live? Maybe one or more of these ideas will provide a starting point for rich exploration of this topic:

1. Our anger, and the anger of others, can cause us to clam up in fear and anxiety. We often give away our power, assuming that anger will hurt us somehow. Instead, talk with your learners about how even Jesus got angry at times. Anger is a healthy emotional response when we are in danger or people have been treated badly. The trouble comes in how we express it. Encourage your group to talk or write about times when they have felt angry and what happened. Did they have control or lose control? Who was affected?

2. Adults need to model the ways of Jesus for our kids. Talk as a leadership team about how anger has affected your church and your ministries (i.e. a parent yelling, an outburst at a meeting, people leaving the church, nasty gossip, etc.). What was the response to the anger? Why did the situation possibly happen? Should the response have been different to allow people to understand and be heard while respecting others? How could these situations be avoided in future? (i.e. assure parents from day one of safe space to talk about concerns, check in with committee members often, notice attendance patterns and follow up on those rarely coming, etc.)

3. There is no way to eradicate anger rearing its head at church. If it happens, make sure that you debrief with learners who saw it or have heard about it. It may impact them almost as much as witnessing a fight between their parents, because this is their church family who love them and they may never see it resolved. Help them to understand that God loves everyone involved. Reassure them that though disagreements can happen, we can get past them and make up and be friends again. Talk about the idea of reconciliation and what it means. Pray with them asking for God’s guidance and care.

4. If conflict happens between children or youth, try to address it as soon as possible, after the parties have calmed down. Remove them from being the centre of attention and talk about what happened, possibly separately first. If a child is having a bad day due to home life or other concerns, have a leader take them aside in safe space (in view of others and comfortable for the child) to talk about what is going on. Don’t allow a child to derail everyone else’s learning experience. Provide reassurance and listen carefully. If possible, have the child/children come up with suggestions of how to make things better. It is probably wise to pass on this situation to the parent.   

5. Act out or brainstorm positive and negative ways to use our anger, the sillier the better. Help your learners to overcome their anxiety about anger and to instead use it as an ally. Talk about people who have made a difference in the world because they got angry about injustice and channelled their anger into helping people and making change. Have your learners write down, “The next time I get angry I will ______________”. Let your learners know they can come to you to talk through tough feelings or pray about them.

I know a lot of angry people right now whose anger could easily turn to destructive behaviour or despair and depression. Our challenge is to see anger for the gift it is, and to respond to what it may be trying to tell us in a healthy way. How is your anger level? Do you need to talk to someone about your frustration before the lid blows off or you turn inside yourself?

May God’s peace find you this day and always as you continue to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, and may you be courageous in modeling reconciliation as you live in worship of God.