“A psychologist then asked Dan a series of questions about the losses he had experienced in the church. He ended up counting 180 different lost relationships due to death or people leaving the church. These are all losses where he was never given a chance to mourn, but had to continue to be the leader in his community regardless of how emotionally painful these severed relationships might have been. The result is that Dan internalized all this unprocessed trauma, which was contributing to his neurological condition.”

“I am firmly in the camp of growth mindset and I assumed that was the entire purpose of the church. When I became a pastor, I thought that the reason why this group of people gathered every Sunday was to explore deep questions about life and to push ourselves to become better humans. What I have learned over the last 10 years is that my assumption was wrong. Although there are definitely some people who come to church for the reasons I outlined above (these are some of my biggest supporters), the majority of people who attend churches are in the fixed mindset category.”