Photo provided Columbus resident Karen Sjoblom’s latest book titled “Holy Disturbance: Reacquainting the Church and Her People with the Gifts of Suffering,” is now available.
After about eight years of research and development, Columbus resident Karen Sjoblom’s latest book is now available.
The book, titled “Holy Disturbance: Reacquainting the Church and Her People with the Gifts of Suffering,” came out last week. Utilizing research and stories from pastors around the country including Columbus, this book aims to reacquaint the church and its congregants with the gifts of suffering and return the church to focusing on helping those who are suffering.
Sjoblom, who moved to Columbus about four years ago, has written a few books such as her 2024 memoir “Gone For Good: Lessons from a Midlife Exodus.” “Holy Disturbance” was inspired by a 1945 poem by Rev. Addison Groff titled “Disturb Us, O Lord,” which Sjoblom heard in 2017 at the church she was attending at the time.
“And the story behind the poem was essentially ‘disturb us Lord when we are too complacent, when all of our dreams came true because we dreamed too little,’” Sjoblom said. “All of the things that were so poignant for where we’re at in America these days. We tend to want to seek safety and ease and predictability and comfort, but the faith-based life is usually none of those things.”
In the past, Sjoblom said that people used to seek support from the church when life got hard, and the church would provide a place for people to suffer together. In the modern age, however, she believes that churches are focused more on big growth, money and positive stories, and she feels that is not where the focus should be.
The book outlines the poem in six sections that discuss what’s happening with people of faith and how churches need to be more focused on those who are struggling. The gifts of suffering mentioned in the subtitle refer to things in one’s life Sjoblom said they can only receive during times of suffering.
“And those gifts are things like empathy and grace and love and strength and tenacity and second chances and those are the things that don’t come to us during the easy times, they only come to us in the hard times,” Sjoblom said.
Sjoblom interviewed more than 25 people, several of whom are pastors, for her book, hearing stories about how churches hurt, churches heal, the impact healing and hurting had on the trajectory of their own lives and where the focus should be these days when life is hard for many people.
“So how can we make the biggest impact and be the greatest help as believers?,” Sjoblom asked.
From her research, Sjoblom found that pastors say there is a misconception that churchgoers can have that pastors’ lives are perfect and have no problems, which she said is not true. That can cause a division between the church leadership and the congregation.
She also finds that churches have become more focused on victorious and triumphant stories, which can make people who are struggling feel worse about themselves. But by pastors being transparent about their struggles, it makes the church a more approachable place for people to talk about their problems, she said.
“So I’m a big proponent for transparency, tactfully done of course, in church, but just being more real about life is hard for most people and in a lot of different ways,” Sjoblom said. “And so how do we focus on living in that place and being able to help others in the midst of our own suffering?”
Sjoblom shares examples of how churches can answer that question in her book. Pastors being transparent in their own struggles is one example she lists, but churches opening up their spaces for programs such as 12-step meetings to get integrated with the community while being a support for people who are seeking it is another such example.
“Another example would to be mindful of what is happening in the communities,” Sjoblom said. “Do you need to have an emergency food pantry, for example? Do you need to have a couple of community-wide supply drives, for example back to school or at Christmas time? Are there ways that you can integrate yourself into the community such that you are meeting a very tangible need?”
Each of the six sections also concludes with a story from a pastor Sjoblom interviewed. These stories share their background and what they are trying to do in their churches to bridge the gap with people who are struggling in the community or how they’re handling suffering in their own churches, Sjoblom said.
One of the six pastors featured in these sections is Robert Vester, the lead pastor at Westside Community Church in Columbus. The book also opens with a foreword by Sandy Hook United Methodist Church Pastor Paul Dazet, who Sjoblom said is familiar with suffering in his own life with illness.
“… he said that suffering is not the enemy of the church’s mission; it’s the birthplace of her witness and that this book invites us to re-imagine suffering not as something to avoid, but as a sacred space where Christ is most intimately known and where the church becomes more like Him,” Sjoblom said.
