It’s strange how a place meant for healing can sometimes hurt the most.
If you’ve been through a divorce and stayed close to the church, you know this tension. There’s a seat for you, sure, but is there a place for your story? Your heartbreak? Your questions? Often, there’s silence. Sometimes judgment. Rarely, grace in full.
As someone who walked through divorce while clinging to Christ, and now helps others do the same through the UnYoked podcast, I’ve heard the pain again and again: “My church didn’t know what to do with me.”
Let’s be honest, most churches don’t. Divorce upends the picture of what many Christians think a “good life” should look like. But pretending people aren’t wounded doesn’t make the wounds go away. It just makes them fester.
Preaching about Car Wrecks
Many Sunday mornings feel like this: You walk into church carrying the wreckage of a head-on collision, and the pastor is preaching a message about how cars are supposed to stay in their lanes. Cars were not built to be wrecked. Marriage is presented as the perfection of Genesis 1 and 2. Male and female, united. One flesh. Forever.
And yes, that’s God’s design. But we’re not living in Eden. We’re in a Chapter 3 world now. People are bleeding. Engines are on fire. And too many churches are still offering a blueprint instead of first aid.
What if the sermon changed sometimes? What if we acknowledged that some people didn’t wreck their car on purpose, they were hit? Or the brakes failed? Or they tried everything they could, and it still wasn’t enough? Preaching only the design without acknowledging the damage makes survivors feel like they’re crawling into a hospital and getting a lecture on how the human body was built..
We don’t need a church that only speaks to the dream. We need one who knows how to show up at the scene of the crash. Churches should value GRACE on an equal plain with TRUTH. Jesus did.
4 Reasons the Church Must Rethink How it Treats the Divorced
1. Divorce Isn’t the End of a Person’s Story
Divorced Christians don’t need a scarlet letter. They need shepherding.
Not loopholes. Not gossip. Not forced smiles in the foyer. Real, honest community. Real teaching that deals with grief, loneliness, custody battles, regret, and rebuilding. Real friendships that aren’t afraid to sit in the ashes for a while.
Divorce is not a category of exile. And we’re doing lasting harm when we treat it that way.
2. Grace Has to Be More Than a Slogan
We sing about grace. Preach about it. Brand our churches with it. But when grace meets real-life messiness, when a mom shows up without a ring, when a dad doesn’t get his kids for Christmas, when someone admits they’re not okay, that’s when we see what kind of grace we really believe in.
If we only offer grace to those whose lives are still neat and intact, we’ve missed the whole gospel.
3. There’s a Harvest in the Hurt
Churches that lean in, not away, when a marriage falls apart will find something beautiful: a community of people who are raw, teachable, and ready for God to move. Divorced believers aren’t projects to be fixed. They’re people who often end up with a deeper hunger for God than they ever had before.
I’ve seen it in the emails. I’ve heard it in the coaching calls. The wreckage, when brought to the feet of Jesus, becomes the soil where hope grows.
4. It’s Time to Build Ministries for the Divorced
We build ministries for couples. For singles. For students. For parents. But when a married person becomes single again, who's past the “young adult” years and now carrying trauma, paperwork, and weekend custody schedules, they’re often left spiritually homeless. They do NOT need to jump into a marriage class to be “better prepared for the next try.”
Churches must do better. This means more than a one-off sermon. It means trained leaders, support groups, divorce recovery courses, and most of all, an open door.
Let the divorced lead worship. Serve on teams. Teach the Word. Speak from their scars. God isn’t done with them, and neither should we be.
Your Story Still Belongs in the Church
If you're a pastor or church leader reading this, hear me clearly: the divorced in your congregation don’t need pity or passive theology. They need to know they’re not spiritually sidelined.
And if you're someone who’s walked through a divorce, maybe quietly, maybe publicly, I want you to hear this: God isn’t just healing you. He’s re-commissioning you. God has a lot more to say than, “I hate divorce.” God gives a standard and then graciously restores and renews people even when His standard isn't met.
Those of us who are navigating the life changing event of unYoking from a spouse and/or uprooting a family have to journey through some dark, lonely, and confusing places. Our issues aren't frequently tackled from the pulpit and the advice we receive isn't always relevant to our current place.
This isn't the end. It's the middle of a story still being written by a God who specializes in resurrection.
Photo Credit: ©GettyImages/AntonioGuillem
Learn more at church-generosity.com.
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