Spiritual Abuse

How to Identify and Break Free from Toxic Churches Without Losing Your Faith

By: Casey M. Sabella

Narrated by: Casey Sabella

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What happens when the church you love begins to exhibit alarming unchristian behavior? Do you hang in there and hope things get better? Do you stay to fix what is broken or leave before it is too late?

Casey Sabella invested 15 years of his life serving a dynamic church that blossomed to several satellite locations throughout his state. Many people came to Christ, experiencing an extraordinary life change.

His church acquired land and built a center for boys while publishing a national newspaper to invite people to well-attended seminars featuring popular authors and teachers. For two years, the church sponsored four days of meetings in the civic center in the capitol city.

The church was on track to become one of the first mega-churches in the region. Unfortunately, this amazing ministry collapsed under the weight of many unfortunate choices. All that remains today is an open field where horses graze.

Casey joined the church as a teenager and soon felt the call to vocational ministry. Serving first as a deacon, Casey met and married his wife Patti and rose to become an associate pastor. Spiritual Abuse: How to Break Free from Toxic Churches Without Losing Your Faith is the story of what happened to a ministry that descended from great to horrific.

The book comes with a free audio course with additional materials to help listeners work through their own situations.

Paul, the apostle, wrote his letters to address difficulties in churches and create the foundation for sound teaching. Unfortunately, there some churches today are the problem and must be allowed to fail.

Casey and Patti have served in ministry all their married lives. They raised four children who, together with their spouses, serve in the ministry. He is a prolific author, conference speaker, and podcaster. You can hear his weekly podcasts at ministerstoolbox.com or connect with him through caseysabella.com.

©2019 Casey Sabella (P)2019 Casey Sabella

This is well written

I listened to this book in one day. Mr Sabella described spiritual abuse to a Tee. I can relate to seeing spiritual abuse at a church I used to be a part of. He described how the pastor was controlling and how he was afraid to speak up. I can relate as well. We never question the pastor for fear of being called out in front of the congregation. I no longer attend there although there are people who I love that still attend my former church. Sometime you have leave a church that is not serving you spiritually and that is controlling. Book is short but well written.

Great book for those that I've dealt with or are dealing with church issues

Really enjoyed the authors honesty and clarity and encouragement. I like that they also offer a course online that you can work through as you read the book

Outstanding

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

The book brilliantly describes a pastor's experience over a 15 year period at a large New England church. More importantly Casey provides you with tools for evaluating your own church and your own faith. This is a must read!!!

Has When a Good Church Goes Bad turned you off from other books in this genre?

No

Would you be willing to try another one of Casey Sabella’s performances?

Absolutely

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Great Insight

Lots of repeats

I got the audio version of this book after having read his other book When good church goes bad.” I thoroughly enjoyed that book and thought I would give this one a try.

I have to report that it was hard getting into this one because it kept stopping and restarting sentences and you could hear the author clear his throat at times. You would hear the same phrase or sentence repeated two or three times before moving to the next sentence. It was really hard to stick with it.

I really was hoping to give this a better review but the performance part is sorely lacking. I’m sure the content was wonderful, but I just didn’t find out because of the constant interruptions starting over and throat clearing

Unedited audio

The audio version is of the author reading the book, and it is a joke. He repeats lines and clears his throat about every 3rd sentence. He apparently decided to skip having the audio professionally edited. I have no idea if this is a good book or not because I will never be able to finish the audio version that I bought.