Confidentiality or Community?
Just this past week our DC's wife needed to have emergency surgery. I am responsible for sending out bulletins on health issues for officers in our division. We need to adhere to guidelines that only allow us to say the person had surgery or they had to be hospitalized. I typed out the bulletin so people could pray. Our DC came in the office later and shared the nature of the operation (an appendectomy)via email with the division. He editorialized with the notation "HIPPA is a pain!"
This got me thinking about the whole issue of confidentiality. How much is too much to share? I wrestle with this. Here's why I wrestle.
We use confidentiality as a cop out. Sure we need to respect the privacy of people, but often we don't know how to pray in the Body. It goes past just medical reports though. People use the confidentiality and privacy issue to cover up their weakness.
We all have weakness. For too long, we have refrained (especially in this organization)from sharing our weakness, because we are afraid of the repercussions. If we tell people the wrong thing, how can we trust them not to tell others. How will affect my next appointment? My question is, how can we not ask people to pray?
Some people believe it will hurt their careers. (Check the etymology of that word. It has to do with horses running around a track.) Maybe it will hurt their ministries. I believe that we can and should share if we are truly going to be the body of Christ that He wants us to be.
Maybe we don't need to know all of the details, but we surely would cut down on rumor and innuendo if we prayerfully shared concerns with each other. It is called being vulnerable. I believe that vulnerability is key to community. Vulnerability is not only about admitting weakness or problems, it is about allowing people to help and to share our journey. Possibly, this is the only way for us to really be the support group that we all need. The idea of spiritual growth and healing happening outside of community is something that is not biblical and is really a pride issue for the most part. Vulnerability also goes to submission. If we really want for there to be a healthy Body the Word encourages in Ephesians 5 to submit to each other. I think this idea of "going it alone" is misguided and needs to be corrected.
Now I know there is opportunity with those with a tendency toward gossip to use information shared in community as fodder for discussion, but then again, it may be an opportunity for the Body to correct gossip when it comes. You see, I think if community is really going to be healthy, we need to begin to be honest and willing to show our weakness, the weakness of our family and find ourselves accountable, if only to a strong community of mature believers.
Like I said, I think we should protect a person's right to privacy. When does that right become just another mask for our pride? I am not sure where the balance is here. I know what the professionals would say. I also know what I have practiced in the past. I am just wondering if God is calling us in transformational and healing community to go deeper. Where do we draw the line?
What do you think?
This got me thinking about the whole issue of confidentiality. How much is too much to share? I wrestle with this. Here's why I wrestle.
We use confidentiality as a cop out. Sure we need to respect the privacy of people, but often we don't know how to pray in the Body. It goes past just medical reports though. People use the confidentiality and privacy issue to cover up their weakness.
We all have weakness. For too long, we have refrained (especially in this organization)from sharing our weakness, because we are afraid of the repercussions. If we tell people the wrong thing, how can we trust them not to tell others. How will affect my next appointment? My question is, how can we not ask people to pray?
Some people believe it will hurt their careers. (Check the etymology of that word. It has to do with horses running around a track.) Maybe it will hurt their ministries. I believe that we can and should share if we are truly going to be the body of Christ that He wants us to be.
Maybe we don't need to know all of the details, but we surely would cut down on rumor and innuendo if we prayerfully shared concerns with each other. It is called being vulnerable. I believe that vulnerability is key to community. Vulnerability is not only about admitting weakness or problems, it is about allowing people to help and to share our journey. Possibly, this is the only way for us to really be the support group that we all need. The idea of spiritual growth and healing happening outside of community is something that is not biblical and is really a pride issue for the most part. Vulnerability also goes to submission. If we really want for there to be a healthy Body the Word encourages in Ephesians 5 to submit to each other. I think this idea of "going it alone" is misguided and needs to be corrected.
Now I know there is opportunity with those with a tendency toward gossip to use information shared in community as fodder for discussion, but then again, it may be an opportunity for the Body to correct gossip when it comes. You see, I think if community is really going to be healthy, we need to begin to be honest and willing to show our weakness, the weakness of our family and find ourselves accountable, if only to a strong community of mature believers.
Like I said, I think we should protect a person's right to privacy. When does that right become just another mask for our pride? I am not sure where the balance is here. I know what the professionals would say. I also know what I have practiced in the past. I am just wondering if God is calling us in transformational and healing community to go deeper. Where do we draw the line?
What do you think?
posted by Larry at 3:54 PM
12 Comments:
Vulnerability is scary for most and rips off the mask of perfectionism. It says, here I am in all of my frailty, all my imperfections, I am letting you see that I am not perfect and I am in need of you as much as you are in need of me. Do not put me on a pedestal I will fall off.
I have had a leader tell me that I will “someday learn that you can not been too open, vulnerable and lead well.” “People will not follow, someone who shows everything they are feeling”, so he said.
On the other hand I have heard testimonies where the details of what people were saved from seemed more glorified that the ONE who saved them from it all.
I too struggle with this question. The verse, “don’t throw your pearls to the swine” also has come up in conversations I have had about sharing and vulnerability. Some things are meant to be just between God and me.
Confidentiality on the other hand is; not sharing others vulnerability once they have shared it with you. (At least not without their permission.) I can be vulnerable when it is my vulnerability, my reputation, my ministry that I am willing to lay out there. But when it is someone else weakness or vulnerability…sharing it with others without their knowledge or permission…I think is wrong…even if we make it a “matter of prayer”.
Carole,
Thanks for your response. I feel sorry for the person who said you can't be too open and lead well. There are times when we need to lead in spite of feelings. Yet, we will never be whole without mutual submission and vulneralbility. I also do not advocate sharing without someone's permission. That can be come gossip. I do, however, believe we need to be vulnerable to be accountable. Accountability means being ready to be honest in spite of the pain.
Deb,
You have also written well. The comment on the intimacy of the church is so true. If we are not open we cannot be brothers and sisters in Christ, we are aquaintances at a religious club.
I agree Larry. Being vulnerable opens us up to pain but if we do not lay down our lives for one another than what are we doing?? I would rather have someone know me as I am and love me still ( warts and all) then just love who they "think" I am.
The confidentiality restrictions of HIPPA concerns seems to strangle a freedom of contact and holy community. Before the HIPPA restrictions were tightened so dramatically, our family experienced an unbelievable tragedy. There are not very many places within the thesaurus to find a less painful word that describes suicide.
For weeks following my mother-in-law in her grief faced each broken day, clouded by pain and anger, waiting for the mailman to visit her mailbox...
...for there were notes of specific prayer from specific souls who gained specific knowledge carefully delivered to sacred people who would be honored to bow before the Lord of all creation and pray. Knowledge that was detailed, yet succinct, brief. She felt a ministry from people she may never meet, but ones who heard a specific word and knew, just knew that prayer and encouragement would be necessary, Christian. She has retained every single one of the hundreds of cards she received, they are treasures to her, that someone understands and cares and doesn't have to be bound by the limits of address to know that she a widow needs God's touch.
Today, a HIPPA bulletin would simply express a need for prayer. The careful wording required by HIPPA never reflects the immediacy of need (sick unto death) or the smallness of detail of surgery (bunion removed).
"Honest and willing to show our weakness" - to encourage a relationship of trust.
You are right when you say protecting confidentiality is a cop out. It is much simpler-less complicated and time inducive - to protect a policy than it is to protect, support, encourage, lift up a person that you know.
And the editorialization "HIPPA is a pain" right on the money.
Jessie,
With these restrictions that are currently placed on us, how do we build community and still remain private?
I agree that HIPPA can be a pain. We need to protect too. I just wish there was a happy medium.
How do we walk in truth, show integrity, help people to understand that we relate to their struggle, and appear to be above reproach...all at the same time?
In the last three years I've decided that vulnerability is the single greatest gift that I can offer to those whom I mentor. To let them know that I hurt and that I mess up, so that they know that their own struggles do not make them any less called or any less capable of being used by God.
I stole a Blowpop once and got caught. I also stole a pair of sunglasses and didn't.
I am now vulnerable.
blue,
thanks for sharing
Some of you may or may not have heard of the revival at Asbury College in the 70's. During this revival there were many that gave testimony to God's saving and redeeming grace. Men a women who had fallen into sin now felt compelled to share the sin in front of the student body and some even in front of their spouses.
For some this open confession of sin was extreemly difficult to hear, especially if you were the unaware spouse.
What I'm saying is stealing Blow Pops is one thing but infidelity is quite different. Yes, they are both sins but one could argue that they should be dealt with in very different manners. Is one worse than the other, no. But for me to say that I need to open up to all and be vulnerable in every facet of my life could be very damaging to the people around me.
While the revival at Asbury was very real and life changing for those involved. The way some revealed their sin was devestating to others.
There is a time and a place for vulnerability and a time to keep our mouths shut until the time becomes proper to open said mouth.
Ah, I just wrote a long post and then the computer told me I had an incorrect password - duh. So of course I forgot what I wrote, and now the game is back on. Anyway, Carole - the pearls to swine verse just doesn't make sense - it's in the context of "don't give what is holy to unholy people" - that's not the point at all, for we are giving our vulnerability to our brothers and sisters in Christ.
And if, as James teaches, we are to confess our sins to each other, we must do that - in community. This is an important subject - thanks, Larry, for raising the questions.
HIPPA gets blamed for more than the law actually requires, by the way.
blue,
bad news is hard to swallow and devestating no matter what. the point is that God moved at asbury and lives changed. many of those marriages as i remember reconciled and grew stronger as a result of the grace extended to those who confessed. while i probably would have chosen a different venue, the Holy Spirit chose differently.
I'm am UK Sally so not sure what HIPPA is - sorry.
Anyway, for a while now I have been thinking that at our Corps (Church) our failure to use the Mercy Seat is a sign of our unwillingness to appear vulnerable. I think too that people equate using the mercy seat with failure and weakness.
I have a Good News Bible with simple illustrations. One I my favourites illustrates Galatians 6:2 “Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ.”
This picture is of a line of people - each one carrying a package and each one reaching forward with one hand to help the person in front.
Sometimes I get the feeling in my Church that we can’t carry one another’s burdens because we are not willing to let other people know what we have to carry. That’s not true all the time. Generally we are a loving and caring community but sometimes I thing we are a bit “British” about keeping ourselves to ourselves.
Since September I’ve been doing a counselling course (non a Christian course but with a Christian tutor). One of the thing we do most weeks it talk about how we are. We have strict rules about confidentiality, not passing judgement and not giving advice.
Very early in the course I discovered that most people were willing to share some very personal and emotional stuff - in fact some weeks it felt like people we just looking for “an excuse” to join in with the crying.
Since then I have come to the conclusion that everyone needs a safe place to share how they feel and permission to cry. And a recognition that it’s a good healthy thing to do.
A verse that keeps coming to me is Romans 12:15 “Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep.” We need the freedom to do the weeping and an understanding that being a Christian does not give immunity from life’s sadness.
Having said all this I’m really pleased to say that we have just started a “Loss and Bereavement” support group as part of our community programme. Although Church members are welcome I wonder how willing they will be to join in.
I do think though’ that there is a time and place for sharing and sometimes this is better done in private or at least in less public ways. I guess we need to create more “safe places” like the loss and bereavement group, where people can be honest with themselves and with others.
Sorry if this is a little off your subject but it’s been helpful to me to put these thoughts into writing.
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