You count my wanderings. You put my tears into your bottle. Aren’t they in your book?
Daily Faith with Philip Cameron: Special Guest Pastor Joe Dobbins
About this episode
Pastor Joe Dobbins, lead pastor of Twin Rivers Church in St. Louis, Missouri, joins Daily Faith to unpack the epidemic of church hurt — and the path back to wholeness. Drawing from his book Hope After Church Hurt, Joe reveals that as many as 65 million Americans hold faith in Jesus but no longer attend church, roughly equal to the number who do. "I felt like the Spirit of the Lord revealed to me that today we don't just need churches that reach the lost, but churches that also heal the found." Joe walks through eight distinct categories of church hurt, explaining why pain alone doesn't define the wound — the lie embedded in it does. Referencing 2 Corinthians 10, he describes how a stronghold is often "a wound wrapped around a lie," and points to John chapter 9 to show that healing requires a personal decision: Jesus never heals anyone against their will. He draws a powerful distinction between miracles (instantaneous) and healing (incremental), challenging the church to develop patience for the journey. The conversation closes with a reminder from Psalm 56:8 — that God collects our tears as evidence, not merely as a record of pain, so that justice can be served and peace can follow. Pick up Hope After Church Hurt wherever books are sold, or visit joedobbins.org to connect with Pastor Joe directly.
Part of our Hope collection of conversations.
Quotes worth sharing
“I love Jesus, but I don't have enough faith to come to church. And more and more we just found that there were people who were following the Lord, but their following stopped at the edge of the door of a local church because of something that had happened in a church. So as I dove into it and began to pray, I felt like the Spirit of the Lord really revealed to me that today we don't just need churches that reach the lost, but churches that also heal the found.”
“I believe within every wound there's a whisper, and in that wound is a whisper — a lie planted. A stronghold for many people is a wound wrapped around a lie. They believe they're unlovable. They believe that they're limited in life. They believe that they'll be rejected by the next person or abused by the next leader. And so healing is not just when the pain stops. It's when the lie no longer has power in your life.”
“In Psalm 56:8, it says that God in our pain collects our tears. And one day I felt like the Holy Spirit spoke to me, and he said, I don't keep them as a collection of pain. I keep them as evidence of what was done so that justice can be served.”
What's Discussed
Pastor Joe Dobbins of Twin Rivers Church in St. Louis, Missouri discusses his book Hope After Church Hurt, revealing that 65 million Americans — roughly the same number who attend church weekly — have faith but won't set foot in a local church. He identifies eight distinct types of church hurt, explains that true healing requires addressing not just the pain but the lie embedded in the wound (2 Corinthians 10), and distinguishes between instantaneous miracles and incremental healing. Citing John 9 and Psalm 56:8, Joe argues that God collects our tears as evidence so justice can be served, freeing believers to release pain and re-engage the body of Christ.
- 65 Million Believers Avoiding Church
- Miracles vs. Incremental Healing
- Wounds Wrapped Around Lies
- God's Word Removes the Enemy's Lie
- Why the Church Needs You Back
- God Collects Our Tears as Evidence
- Eight Types of Church Hurt Explained
Scripture in this episode
Episode Transcript
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Intro
Philip:Hey, welcome to Daily Faith Today. My name is Philip Cameron, and I am delighted you've passed our way. God has a purpose in your life. I've got a guest today that I think is gonna bring a word from the Lord into your spirit. We are reading and hearing about so much hurt in the church right now.
Philip:Sometimes the church can be the most likely place to have your heart broken. And he's written a tremendous book that, when I saw the title of it, I thought, oh my goodness, I wish I'd written this book myself. It's called Hope After Church Hurt. If you know someone that's gone through a discouraging season by something that's been said in church — some, choose your poison — the Lord knows there's so many. He's written a book that I would really think and suggest you get. You might know someone that stopped going to church because they've been hurt.
Philip:It's so easy in the world we live in to get hurt, because the church — it used to be kind of monolithic, all of us were facing the same direction, but it's more like a tapestry now. We all come from different backgrounds, divorced families, mixed families, and all kinds of stuff that goes on in the world. And it's so easy to be hurt in the church. The place that's meant to be our healing place ends up being a hurt place. And if you know someone that's going through this right now, I want you to call them right now.
Philip:Daily Faith TV is our social platform. You can go on dailyfaith.tv and watch this program, because I believe that God is going to use Joe Dobbins today to speak into your heart and to bring hope.
Philip:If you are a pastor — I'm not a pastor, I'm not called to be a pastor — but I tell you what, I admire these men and women that are leaders of the church, because everything you say, half of the church disagrees with you. You are at 50% before you say something. If you don't believe me, go and try and change the carpet in your church and form a committee, and you'll have as many different suggestions for the color of the carpet as you have people on the committee. It is an easy place to get hurt, but I believe there's healing in this situation.
Philip:If you love your pastor, give him a call right now and say, pastor, there's a program I want you to watch for a few minutes. And I believe that God's gonna speak through us today to bring hope and healing to someone that may be going through a terrible situation. So please, if you could help us by sharing the program — we're also on YouTube, you know, all the normal stuff you can do.
Philip:We've learned one thing: when you are a Christian program on Facebook and other social media, they give you a code. And that code, if you have unacceptable — in their eyes — topics of conversation, we believe in life, we believe in marriage, traditional marriage. And when you take these subjects on, sometimes you are demoted as far as how far you can reach. And one way to get around that is by you sharing this to your folks and your friends on Facebook. And by doing so, we can get this out further. If you go to youtube.com/dailyfaith, every program we've done is right there.
Philip:And you can learn a whole bunch. And if you are going through a circumstance, I'm pretty sure we've talked about it on Daily Faith. So I just believe today is gonna be a great help to you. Pastor Joe Dobbins is with us. He pastors Twin Rivers Church in St. Louis, Missouri. And I believe that God is gonna use him to speak hope and healing into your life today. I am delighted you're here. Welcome to Daily Faith.
Philip:Welcome to Daily Faith. My name is Philip Cameron, and I am absolutely delighted to have you with us today. We have got a great program for you. In the world we're living in, it seems that offense is taken really quickly in a whole lot of different ways. You can get offended in politics, you get offended in any area of life. I mean, dear Lord, you don't have to look far for that. And in the church, it's so easy to go to church and get hurt. I've got a guest today that I really believe is going to help you, and he has written a book that can help you.
Philip:My dad used to say to me, you can sit down and take a couple of hours to read a man's experience that has taken a lifetime to live. And a book is one of the quickest ways to do so. I listen to audiobooks continually, because I can glean from men that have lived hundreds of years ago and pull that experience into my life. And Joe Dobbins pastors Twin Rivers Church in St. Louis, Missouri, and he's gonna be talking today about being hurt in church, and healing and hope.
Philip:He's written a book called Hope After Church Hurt. Everybody needs to get it. Either you've been hurt yourself, or you know someone that has. And you need to start a library in your house with one book in it, and this is the one. So when this happens to your friends, or if it happens to yourself, give them the book and say, read this and give it back to me after you're finished. And by doing so, you can be God's voice in someone's broken heart.
Philip:Before we get to him — 35 years ago, my dad called me from Scotland and he said, there are babies dying. And I said, what on earth are you talking about? And he spoke to me about these news programs that were on the BBC. It was during the time when the Berlin Wall fell and Germany fell and most of the Soviet Union fell apart. And he called me up and he said, there are babies dying in Romania. And I said, isn't that where Nadia Comaneci comes from, the gymnast? And he said, yeah. He said, these babies are freezing to death in orphanages.
Philip:I said, dad, look, that's not our fight. And he called me the next day, weeping. There are babies dying. He was recovering from cancer surgery and was watching these BBC news reports of these children dying. And after a few days he said, well, I'm going. I can't sit here any longer. I'm going by myself. And if I die on the way, it's your fault. That's what he said to me. And I said, please stop it. So I flew home, and the newspapers in our town said, cancer-stricken pastor to go on mercy trip to Romania.
Philip:So the folk in our town began to bring us hundreds of tons of clothes and food. And there's a food canning factory in our town called Crosse and Blackwell, and they brought five tons of cans of food. And pretty soon, one van became a convoy of trucks. And when I finally got there, I went into this orphanage and this stench of human waste — I wanted to throw up inside the place. And I ran outside and stood leaning against the hood of the van that I'd driven all the way from Scotland. And my dad said, get in there. I said, no.
Philip:I said, you want to see babies in an orphanage? You go ahead. I've taken you here. Go ahead. He said, you can't do this. You'll embarrass these people. I said, dad, I can't go in there. If I go in that door, I'm guilty. If I stay out here, I'm innocent. And he grabbed me by the scruff of my neck, literally, and he started pulling me in towards these doors. And he said, well, you're going to have to be guilty. And that began a love affair that I've had for 35 years with caring for young folk, young children that have no hope, nowhere to go, except living in a world of despair.
Philip:We moved to Moldova — well, 25 years ago — and we helped rebuild a bunch of orphanages. And we discovered during that time that in that country, when a girl turned 16, she was put on the street and a trafficker would come and offer her a fake job, and they would take her into captivity and use her 30 to 50 times a day. And we now have a place called Vatră Village, the most amazing place you have ever seen. It was built for rich people on the biggest lake in Moldova. And they poisoned the lake with chlorine because it was full of algae — they wanted to kill the algae. And those houses, as you're looking at, were never finished. And the Lord challenged me one day to believe God, to buy this village of homes. It's called Vatră Village. And they come to us broken.
Philip:They come with the clothes on their back, mostly having been told every day in the orphanage, you're garbage, you're nothing. Nothing plus nothing will always be nothing. And they come to us and we say, if you were born, God has a plan. You are not a mistake. And the most amazing things have taken place. Orphans have become sons and daughters. Sons and daughters have become missionaries. And our kids spend all through the year ministering. Each house at Vatră Village sponsors a village in the country where poverty is beyond anything you've ever seen — like Africa, with minus 30 degrees weather.
Philip:And our kids go and they find every widow, every broken family, every single mom that's been beaten nearly to death by an alcoholic husband. And they care for them and they feed them. They chop wood for the widows. They plant gardens. And it's the most amazing thing. But at Christmas time, it's their time. And they just sent me this yesterday. This is a brand new video that they make themselves. They edit themselves, put the music on themselves, and send it to us. So I get to see it the same way as you do. Watch them enjoying putting out the Christmas trees in all the homes of Vatră Village. Watch this.
Hi, my name is Nicoletta, and this is my first Christmas here at Vatră Village. My name is Aam. This is my first Christmas at Vatră Village. Hi, my name is Alexandra. Because of you, I got the chance to celebrate Christmas with such a big family. Hello, my name is Roma. Merry Christmas.
Philip:Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. And that is the miracle of Vatră Village.
Philip:These kids — every girl you just watched, caught by a trafficker, is worth $300,000 a year to that trafficker. Every kid you see there — there's a young man's house there at Vatră Village as well — and they're used for slave labor, literally. They take them many times to Russia to build, and they'll keep them for a year or two years, and at the end just say, what did I pay for you? And so we're just so delighted for God to be using us and your partnership in what we're doing right now.
Philip:We are in a real battle against wintertime coming up. As I said, weather that can be minus 30, and our kids go out and bring to these widows and the broken families clothes and food. And this year we found a place where we can buy a huge bag of wood. Now I'm not talking about a small bag of wood. It's massive enough to keep a family warm for a whole month. And our kids bring this wood to them. You imagine a widow, unable to chop wood by herself, too old. And they bring this bag of wood and they dump it into her yard, and then they stack it for her.
Philip:And by doing so, they take away the dread and the fear of wintertime. It allows an orphan to become a missionary. By your giving a gift today to sponsor one of these bags of wood, you allow our kids the joy to go and give it away to someone. We've learned that getting an orphan to give is the quickest way to break the orphan spirit. It's true in the church as well as for an orphan in Romania or Moldova. But when they give, something changes inside them. One of those bags is costing us $65. We've already ordered a hundred, and we're believing God could give us enough for a thousand bags.
Philip:If you could help us today by sponsoring one of those bags, you could bring hope to a broken family, but you can also allow an orphan the opportunity to be God's hand extended. It's a great opportunity. You can contact us by writing to Daily Faith, or The Orphan's Hands, at PO Box 25, Clinton, Tennessee, 37716. You can also go to dailyfaith.tv — there's a giving page there. And also you can dial 833-DAILY-FAITH, just dial Daily Faith, and a real life person will pick up the phone and receive your gift. Do something special today. Be God's hand extended, and God will bless you for it.
Philip:I'm excited to introduce you to a guest of mine today. I've just met him, but he almost feels like he's a Scotsman somewhere in the back of the history of his life. I dunno, I'll have to check up more on this. But Joe Dobbins pastors Twin Rivers Church in St. Louis, Missouri, and he's written a book that I think is so appropriate for the days we're living in. Almost every day you're watching on the news, another church leader falls or something else is going on. It brings hurt. And he's written a book that I believe is just so appropriate — Hope After Church Hurt. And Joe, I'm delighted to have you with us on Daily Faith Today. Thank you for taking the time to be with us.
Joe Dobbins:Oh, Philip, it's an honor to be here. And to see everything that God is doing through you in Moldova is wonderful, amazing. I was tearing up as I was watching some of those clips. It's amazing. And what happens is, you don't realize when you do all these things — you start out just like building a brick road, and then you look back and you go, oh my goodness, this is really getting you somewhere.
Philip:We also have a home that I didn't mention in the clips. We have a home in Ukraine, in Odessa, that we've had there for many years — eight years now — and we take these kids in and watch the gospel work. It's the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life. And this gospel works. But sometimes people can go to a church to find hope, and sometimes they can get their heart handed to them by circumstance, by personalities in the church, or whatever's going on.
65 Million Believers Avoiding Church
Philip:You've written a book that I think is absolutely a necessity for Christians to have within the arsenal of understanding what's taking place in the church. Tell us how the Lord brought you to this place.
Joe Dobbins:Yeah, well, you know, it was connecting a few dots, conversation after conversation. And this is what I would commonly hear: I love Jesus, but I don't have enough faith to come to church. Wow. And more and more we just found that there were people who were following the Lord, but their following stopped at the edge of the door of a local church because of something that had happened in a church. So as I dove into it and began to pray, I felt like the Spirit of the Lord really revealed to me that today we don't just need churches that reach the lost, but churches that also heal the found.
Joe Dobbins:There's a great group of people. As a matter of fact, the University of Northern Colorado says as many as 65 million people in America have faith but not enough to attend a church.
Philip:65 million?
Joe Dobbins:Yeah, it's roughly the same number of people who attend church each week.
Philip:Oh my gosh.
Joe Dobbins:And if we could heal that group of people and have them reengage, could you imagine the difference we could make as a kingdom in unity?
Philip:I'm stunned at that number. I mean, that is just unbelievable. So you're telling me half the church doesn't go to church?
Joe Dobbins:That's roughly what their study showed. And it's because — you could imagine if you went to a hospital and you had a preexisting condition and you decided that you wanted to go there to get healed, but then after your procedure, someone comes and says, I'm sorry, but due to the negligence of a doctor or a technician or a nurse, you actually weren't healed and you have a new issue. Well, you would lose confidence in this institution.
Miracles vs. Incremental Healing
Philip:Absolutely.
Joe Dobbins:And that's what's happened for many people. They came looking for healing from the effects of sin, and instead, due to judgmentalism, abuse, mistreatment — things that don't look like Jesus — they ultimately left worse than they came. And there's a lot of people sitting on the sidelines who need to take time to address that wound in their heart.
Philip:That is so true. You go in and your left leg is in agony, it needs to be amputated, and you leave with your right leg amputated and you've still got a hurting leg. That's so typical of the church today. And am I right to assume that we're living in a day of offense? People — I mean, it's an entire industry of offense. People are mad at everything. Everyone is mad at someone for something. And in the church it's no different. So people come in, and there's cliques in the church, and they get caught up in the politics of church rather than the wonder of a Savior.
Joe Dobbins:Yeah, it's absolutely true. You know, the reality is, for all of us, pain is a powerful motivator. And it has caused many of us to hold grudges. It's caused us to disengage. It's caused us to take on lies and false beliefs. And so healing is something that we have to first decide to do. Jesus came to a man in John chapter 9, and he asked him a very strange question, considering he's been lying in a lame state for 38 years. Jesus says, do you want to be made well? And this almost seems offensive, but here's what Jesus is teaching us: he never heals someone against their will. We must decide to heal, and then we must dedicate time to healing.
Joe Dobbins:Now, I think that one of the problems in church today is that we don't understand the difference between miracles and healing. If you look in the New Testament, both are listed as spiritual gifts. We use them interchangeably. But in God's economy, they're different. Miracles is when God does something instantaneous. Healing is when God does something incrementally.
Joe Dobbins:And I think that in the church we have a lot of faith for miracles, but we don't have the patience for healing. And I think healing is a journey that people have to go on, and we have to give them space and equip them to go on that journey so that God can mend their broken heart.
Philip:That is — you have just spoken truth right there. We tend to want — I mean, growing up in a Pentecostal church, it was always, you know, go down to the altar, you are gonna get zapped by the Holy Ghost and everything's gonna be all right. And frankly, sometimes that just isn't the case. Sometimes it takes the progressive maturing and healing process in your life to get over the hurt before there's any healing in your life. You gotta get over the hurt first.
Philip:And if you don't get the root cause out of your heart, then what happens is you go around the mountain again. You go around the mountain and you feel you're getting better, then you trip up again. It's like, when I was growing up, we used to have LPs. And lo and behold, if the thing got a scratch on it — you know, the song was great all the way around, it was perfect, it sang fabulously — and then the hiccup would come, and it destroyed many a good song in my world. And it's the same with hurt in the church.
Joe Dobbins:Yeah, absolutely. You know, what I've found is that when you get hurt by someone — you're rejected, they gossip about you, they mistreat you — as human beings, we're better survivors than resolvers. Which means we put our head down, we press forward, and we just try to get away from it as quick as possible. Well, the problem is your heart doesn't forget. Your heart holds on to that scratch on the LP you just mentioned. And until we take time to truly recognize this hurt — what they said mattered, it affected me, what they did impacted me — and allow the Holy Spirit to address that, many of us live really open to the lies of the enemy.
Wounds Wrapped Around Lies
Joe Dobbins:You know, what the enemy lacks in power, he makes up for in cunning. And I believe within every wound there's a whisper, and in that wound is a whisper — a lie planted. As a matter of fact, I would go to 2 Corinthians 10 and say that a stronghold for many people is a wound wrapped around a lie. They believe they're unlovable. They believe that they're limited in life. They believe that they'll be rejected by the next person or abused by the next leader. And so healing is not just when the pain stops. It's when the lie no longer has power in your life.
Philip:What an amazing statement that is. That is the crux of the matter. You can go down to the altar all day and all night, but until the scratch is taken off the LP, that will reoccur in your life and reoccur in your life. And so it's not just healing from the wound you need, it's healing from the cause that you need.
Joe Dobbins:That's so true. And here's the reality — the peace of God lets us go to the word of God, but the word of God is what removes the lie of the enemy and allows us to begin to believe the truth. The only person that can limit your life is God. But the enemy wants you to believe that your life's limited, that you'll always be an outcast, that you'll never be used by God. None of that is true. But we have to let God's word unsettle that lie and mend that wound.
Joe Dobbins:Now, the last step I think in healing though, is this, Philip — and you kind of referenced it earlier — in our economy, healing is when the pain stops. In God's economy, healing is when the purpose starts. See, God's not just in releasing pain. He's in redeeming pain. And so you mentioned it a minute ago, how the spirit of an orphan goes away when they start to give.
God's Word Removes the Enemy's Lie
Philip:Absolutely.
Joe Dobbins:Well, the truth is that in God's plan, every person that's ever been hurt in church, he wants to use them to build the church, and he wants to use their gift. So let me just say, if there's someone watching today who feels like, you know what, I'm gonna stay away from church, I'm just gonna do my own thing — here's the first thing I wanna ask you: who are you following? There is a lie that says, I can follow Jesus and never engage the church. But here's what I wanna say: if you're truly following Jesus, he's always gonna lead you to forgiveness. He's always gonna lead you to healing, and eventually he's gonna lead you back to the church. It may be a different church, it may not be the same leadership, but he's going to lead you back there.
Joe Dobbins:And then the second thing is, I don't want you to think of it as just what you give. I want you to think of what you can contribute. When you're not a part of the church, we miss you. We're not as strong as we should be. You have gifts and perspectives and experiences that could be used to do a mighty work. And so please don't just consider that you don't need church. Consider that the church needs you.
Philip:Wow. My wife Chrissy — we send containers of supplies to Moldova regularly, half a dozen times a year. So my wife Chrissy starts now, as we're speaking, and she starts buying the Christmas gifts for next year. Now she works — she lives, in fact, above us. We have a great big room that she does all her Christmas things. I call it Chrissy's Christmas cabin. It's a gorgeous place. Christmas tree up there all year long. So she's busy all year making Christmas. Then she and my daughter Mel are flying the first week of January over to Moldova to have Christmas in the orphanages with our own kids.
Philip:And this is a hard thing. But yet at our church, our pastor will call on Chrissy to be part of the decorating team. The last thing Chrissy needs to do is decorate more Christmas trees and get involved in more Christmas. And she'll be working here all day long, and at six o'clock I'll say, where are you going? Oh, I'm going down to church for Jingle Jam — that's what we did this last year. And she disappears. I don't see her for two or three weeks at Jingle Jam. And she's got every right to say, look, I do this all the time, I don't have to do this. But that's not the church.
Philip:And the part of the growing process in your life is when you're part of a family. When you sit down at Thanksgiving, you don't love everyone at the table. You don't see eye to eye, but they're still family. You could kill 'em sometimes, but they're still family. And when you're born again, you're adopted into the family of God. And your job and the growth of your life is not being justified — I'm right and they're all wrong. The truth of the matter is, you gotta get along with your family whether you love 'em or not.
Why the Church Needs You Back
Philip:And sometimes we can just walk out of church so easily and say, well, I'm done with that, I'm not going back. That's your growing ground. That's your proving ground. That's where God grows you in adversity. And so if you are watching us today and you're going through a terrible time, and you are right, you are justified, everyone else is wrong except you — if your attitude's wrong, you're still wrong.
Philip:And I just suggest to you today, in the name of Jesus, why don't you just turn around and go back to the family and say, I'm gonna be a part of this thing. It might hurt me at times, it might bring me joy, but I want the devil to know that he can't get me as an orphan by myself. I'm part of the family of God. And that's how you get healed from church hurt.
Joe Dobbins:Yeah, absolutely. You know, Philip, I just wanna say to anybody that has been hurt, I hope that they'll get the book. There are eight unique hurts in it, and I think it could help them really put some language to what they've been through. But I wanna say this: first of all, I want you to know God understands. No one was hurt by religious people more than Jesus Christ. He understands the pain of words spoken. He understands the pain of physical abuse. He knows what it's like to be overlooked by leaders and to be used and abused. And so he understands this unique hurt.
God Collects Our Tears as Evidence
Joe Dobbins:And then the last thing I just wanna remind everyone: God is just. Oftentimes we hold onto pain because we believe if we let it go, that the person gets off the hook. You know, when a crime's committed, a detective comes in and goes through a tedious process to collect the evidence, and it's very specific, because the evidence is what ensures justice is served in the court of law. Well, in Psalm 56:8, it says that God in our pain collects our tears. And one day I felt like the Holy Spirit spoke to me, and he said, I don't keep them as a collection of pain. I keep them as evidence of what was done so that justice can be served.
Joe Dobbins:And so I just wanna say to anybody listening today that's been through pain: the Lord saw. Nothing has escaped his gaze. He has the evidence of what was done. You can release the pain, allow him to serve justice, and you can receive his peace as you begin your healing process.
Philip:That is profound. That is profound. You need to get this book. You need to give it to your pastor, because most times a pastor hears about the hurt as they're leaving out the door. And this can really help you. I think it's available on Amazon or bakerbookhouse.com. That's the book right there — Hope After Church Hurt by Joe Dobbins. And you can get it at other retailers as well.
Eight Types of Church Hurt Explained
Philip:But if you wanna get in contact with Pastor Joe Dobbins himself, his website is joedobbins.org — that's Joe Dobbins with two B's — joedobbins.org. It's up on the screen right now. And listen, don't carry this grief anymore. Don't carry the grievance anymore. Give it to Jesus. Give it to Jesus.
Philip:And Pastor Joe pastors Twin Rivers Church in St. Louis. And I'll tell you what, I know by talking to you these few minutes, it's a great church. And I'm so grateful you came on to be with me today. Thank you so much.
Joe Dobbins:It's our honor. Thank you, Philip. And hey, listen, I'm gonna be in contact. I want to help purchase some of those bags of wood. I believe in what you're doing. My church wants — I didn't ask on here to purchase bags of wood, I want you to know that I want to do it. I want to do it. And I hope other people will join me in seeing a need met. I want to help those students, those young people. I want to help them be the hands and feet of Jesus.
Philip:Thank you so much. Thanks for watching Daily Faith today. We'll see you again tomorrow. Bye-bye.
For over 25 years, the Cameron family has been changing the lives of orphans in Romania and Moldova — from providing running water, flushing toilets, and clean wells, to coal for heat, new windows, as well as food and clothing. They champion the physical needs of the orphans in these broken and desolate countries. Many of Moldova's orphans are saved from the horrors of trafficking through homes founded by the Camerons. And in the process, orphans become daughters and sons. They come to know their heavenly Father and are forever changed by the love of Jesus.
God help the Camerons lift these amazing young men and women out of darkness. Now no longer orphans, they want to return and invade that very same darkness with the light of Jesus Christ. The Orphan's Hands equips these daughters and sons to become missionaries. Your monthly gift of $31 will allow us to rescue and take in more girls and boys, saving them from the hell of human trafficking. Your monthly partnership will allow us to care for those in the Orphan's Hands homes in Moldova and Ukraine.
If you want to join Philip and Chrissy in taking care of these precious young people, please contact us today by calling 833-DAILY-FAITH. You can also give by going online to www.dailyfaith.tv, or by writing to PO Box 25, Clinton, Tennessee, 37716. So many lives depend on what we do. Thank you for loving the lost.
Common questions
How many people in America have faith but don't go to church because of church hurt?
According to a University of Northern Colorado study that Joe Dobbins cited, roughly 65 million Americans have faith but not enough to attend a church — approximately the same number as those who do attend church each week. Dobbins says if that group could be healed and re-engaged, the kingdom impact would be enormous.
What's the difference between miracles and healing that Joe Dobbins talks about?
Dobbins explains that in the New Testament both are listed as spiritual gifts, but they work differently: miracles are instantaneous, while healing is incremental. He believes the church has a lot of faith for miracles but not the patience for healing, and that recovering from church hurt is a journey, not a one-time event.
What does Joe Dobbins mean when he says 'within every wound there's a whisper'?
Dobbins teaches that when someone is hurt in church, the enemy plants a lie inside that wound — for example, that you're unlovable, limited, or will always be rejected. He says true healing isn't just when the pain stops; it's when that lie no longer has power over your life, which requires letting God's word uproot the false belief.
Does Joe Dobbins think you can follow Jesus without going back to church?
No — Dobbins calls that a lie. He says if you're truly following Jesus, he will always lead you toward forgiveness, healing, and eventually back to a local church, even if it's a different one. He also flips the perspective: rather than asking what church gives you, he urges hurt people to consider what the church is missing without their gifts and experiences.
What does Joe Dobbins say about justice for people who were wronged in church — do they have to just forgive and move on?
Dobbins draws on Psalm 56:8, where God collects our tears, and says he felt the Holy Spirit tell him those tears are kept not as a collection of pain but as evidence of what was done so that justice can be served. His point is that releasing the pain doesn't let the offender off the hook — it hands the case over to a just God, freeing the wounded person to receive peace and begin healing.
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church hurtdobbinshealingstrongholdsforgivenesstwin rivers churchwounded believers