"Let my people go!" Why Saying Goodbye Is Often a Call to Freedom

Sunset. Lake. A Lyric Video. Its called Alabaster and the band Rend Collective.

It is not easy to leave behind something that shaped the majority of your life. It’s familiar – like a hometown might be familiar. You walk its paths automatically, with your eyes closed. You know where to find things, where the beautiful places are – and each of them echoes with emotion, memory, and home.

And so I remember. So much. My heart grows heavy, sad, at times melancholic. It feels robbed – even though a hand lays itself gently but firmly on my shoulder and says with determination: “Come. It’s time. It’s time to go.”

In my hand? A backpack. Filled with what I am taking with me. As I watch the house behind me catch fire, see the treacherous smoke rise, slowly igniting flames. I know: when I look back in a few years, nothing will feel familiar anymore. Nothing will be as it was. And it has already begun.

I was part of the evangelical scene for many years. Not because I was born into it. Not because my parents were part of it. I came voluntarily – like someone moving in from outside. And much of it remained foreign to me, filled me with skepticism. But I also found home. In between the dominant streets. I found many moments of deepest connection. And I loved those people. That atmosphere.

But most of all – and that has never changed – I loved Jesus.

How then does one begin a project that names structural abuse?

Perhaps by first explaining what that even means – structural abuse. What a word. Stilted. Technical. But if we don’t understand it, then for many who, like me, have left, it will always remain unclear what actually happened. And that much of what they experienced wasn’t personal.

Structural abuse arises where the structure, the concept, the vision or ideology becomes more important than the person. And God shakes these structures again and again. In waves. By calling out people who begin to think of faith differently. More original. Freer. Simpler. Freed from the dust on the shelves that no one wants to see. From the dirt under the rug, that seemed so well hidden there.

In the 1970s, one such movement was the Jesus People.

I smile. Swarms of young people in Indian tops, barefoot, somewhere between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Hungry for love. Angry at the system. Desperate and searching – for realness. For life. For friendship. For mysticism.

And one person said: “Enough.” Opened the church doors. And they came. Washed feet. Sang. Prayed. Turned everything upside down – with cafés, with love, with burning hearts. Alabaster. They threw themselves on the one who promised home. And he received them. As barefoot and confused, as hungry for life as they were.

I truly believe: back then, old structures broke.

They began to play djembe. To praise God with rain sticks. They brought the beat. The freedom. The communal life. They came – and with them came everything they brought out of Egypt. They were young. Wild. Free. Determined never to betray Jesus.

But life… is different.

I often wonder: Can the fire be tamed? Can the wind – Ruach – be pressed into concepts? Into ministries? Into structures? I don’t think so. God watches for a long time. But when the structure becomes more important than the person, he begins to throw fire on the earth. Quietly. Quietly. The water of life begins to wash away the rigid.

Not because He doesn’t honor what was once built for him. But because abuse creeps in. Because compromises are made. Because networks exist to protect themselves – with gentlemen’s agreements never to critique one another’s work. Because the system, the ministry, the brand becomes more important than the mission – and what was built must now be preserved. At all costs. Even if it means boarding up doors and sacrificing individuals.

Control. Power. Hierarchy. Corporate structures.

Such movements begin on equal footing – but quickly, like in Animal Farm, some are more equal than others. More anointed. Higher. More called. And those who do not follow? They are inconvenient. Unwelcome. Success becomes laced with the intoxication of money, with non-disclosure agreements, or the slow process of whitewashing, painting over.

More conversions in the newsletter than there were on stage – to keep the donations flowing. A bit of gold glitter, so the revival feels real. A breeze from a machine, so the Holy Spirit feels tangible.

“It helps them believe,” a world-famous evangelist once said, when confronted with the fact that he had placed healthy people in wheelchairs before healing services. Deception. Justification. To keep the business running. And control – to avoid the loss of control, which would mean the loss of image.

Structural abuse is preserving what was built at all costs. It is placing rules above people. Principles that have lost their values. It is the deliberate removal of those who question things. Who bring reform. Structural abuse is the safeguarding of power, the culture of rebuke that is really a culture of shame. It is walling – the conscious refusal to reflect. It is devaluation, humiliation, gaslighting, the calculated confusion of the other.

Because the institution must be protected. Because otherwise power slips away. Spiritual abuse is the endless panic in the face of freedom, uncertainty, and change.

We must understand this. Whatever you’ve been told. And I’ve been told a lot:

That God would punish me if I didn’t give up. That I was too much. That I was sick and should withdraw. That I needed someone else to hear God for me – because I clearly couldn’t.

I heard it – after they excluded me. Humiliated me. To protect their structure.

Alabaster Jar. A project that brings understanding – not new leadership. Bit by bit, I will explain how these methods work. I will expose distortions. That strange feeling – the one that makes you want to run away from overly sweet piety. That feeling of being hit – “though your counterpart surely meant well.”

I am convinced: More helpful than any therapy is knowledge. Understanding. Clarity. Because when you recognize the pattern – you become free.

Much is happening now that leaves many of us speechless. And with every new betrayal, every act of fanaticism, xenophobia, abuse, book banning, and open misogyny, more and more of that old loyalty breaks. And with it – maybe – our faith.

Because you are not that. You don’t want to be named in the same breath. Me neither. And neither do others. So: It’s time to leave Egypt. To begin again – in a tent. In the wilderness.

They are just narratives – and they are not healthy. It is not healthy when the followers of Jesus want to preserve power. It never was.

And you were not wrong. You were not conformist. Not convenient. And maybe you hoped you were wrong. Hoped they would wake up.

But I tell you: Jesus is calling those who go to the battlefield to rescue the wounded.

But to do that… we must first heal.

"But you are not to be called 'Rabbi,' for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth 'father,' for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant." (Matthew 23:8–11, ESV)

I hope you’ll walk with me. With a heart full of grief, perhaps. But knowing that new structures, or reform from within, won’t be enough.

Because it’s time.

Sibylle.