The Great Divorce: Healing the Split Between Deliverance and the Church

There’s a deep wound the body of Christ has carried for too long. It’s not just a disagreement or a doctrinal departure. It’s a tear in the very fabric. A great divorce that has brought shame to a holy husband.

It didn’t happen all at once. Like many relational breakdowns, it came through subtle mistrust, increasing dysfunction, and eventually a full rupture. The cause? An enemy intrusion. I’m not talking about a human marriage, though the pain of divorce in a family paints the picture well. I’m talking about the separation between the ministry of deliverance and the Church.

Where once healing, wholeness, and freedom were part of the Church’s daily rhythm, somewhere along the way, deliverance got moved out of the house and into a side room. Then from the side room to a tent in the yard. And eventually, it was handed over completely to the hands of others—parachurch ministries, conferences, and one-on-one specialists who loved the Lord and loved His people but often worked outside the context of a local spiritual family.

Why? Because much of the modern Church didn’t know what to do with pain. We learned how to preach over it, lead around it, and worship through it—but we rarely stopped long enough to weep with it or walk with it to freedom.

So, deliverance moved out. It wasn't long until deliverance was so taboo, that we began to attack those ministers who willingly carried this out at their own social peril. It was norm trauma.

Just like in a home torn by divorce, the “part” that couldn’t stay began to live elsewhere. In psychology, when trauma overwhelms the system, the soul can fragment. One part carries the pain, while the rest of the person keeps functioning. It’s waiting for a moment of safety, of embrace, of reintegration.

That’s exactly what happened in the body of Christ. Stick with me.

Deliverance didn’t disappear. It just had to survive outside the system that rejected it. It, and the ministers that would not allow it to be done away with. I am honored to be one of those.

And God, in His mercy, allowed that part of the ministry of Jesus to live and grow—even outside the house—so that sons and daughters could still get free. Ministries rose up to stand in the gap, much like temporary foster care, nurturing what the family was not yet ready to receive. These expressions were necessary. They still are.

But we cannot stop there. When we pushed deliverance out, the enemy won a great victory because one of the main purposes that God includes His family in deliverance, is because it teaches us to live the lifestyle of love, and educates on how power and authority are truly and purely released.

We’re approaching an hour in history when wholeness is no longer optional. God is restoring the full ministry of Jesus to the full body of Christ. Not in theory, but in structure. Not in celebrity gatherings, but in covenant communities.

And that means deliverance is coming home.

Not just as a session, but as a process.
Not just as a moment, but as a maturing.
Not as a spectacle, but as a stewardship.

It’s not that the house is rejecting what happened outside of it. It’s that the Father is saying, “It’s time to bring the family back together.”

The Return of a Reintegration Mindset

In trauma healing, the goal is never to shame the fragmented parts. It’s to bring them back into connection, into trust, into safety. The same goes for the body of Christ.

We must stop treating deliverance as a side ministry and start building it into the architecture of our churches. Not just a team on call, but a culture that recognizes the rhythms of inner healing, prophetic process, and appointed freedom.

This requires leaders who aren’t trying to push people through pipelines, but who are willing to partner with the Spirit in real-time. Leaders who listen for the symphōneō or the divine harmony that connects what God is doing in a person’s heart and what the community is called to steward. That kind of leadership doesn’t need to control timelines. It nurtures maturity.

In this kind of culture, deliverance isn’t a detour. It’s part of the journey. It’s not an interruption to the schedule. It’s a sign that the Spirit is forming us into a people ready for love. Mature love. Love that drives out fear because it has learned how to sit with pain long enough for it to heal.

The Church That Knows How to Hold Pain and Power

Jesus didn’t cast out demons as a performance. He did it as a priest. He did it because the Kingdom was drawing near. And He handed that same authority to the Church, not as an optional add-on, but as part of our identity.

The early Church carried that authority. But in many eras, we outsourced it.

We handed over the hard stuff to specialists because we didn’t know how to do family and fire at the same time. We didn't believe a table could carry authority. But Jesus broke bread and broke strongholds in the same breath.

And He’s inviting us back.

Back to the table.
Back to the power.
Back to the fullness.

A reintegrated Church is a Church that embraces all the parts. Worship and warfare. Teaching and tears. Healing and holiness. The deliverance of the soul and the development of the saints.

Where We’re Going

Make no mistake: God will still use deliverance ministries that operate outside of traditional church models. Just like He uses the "parts" of the soul to carry trauma until the appointed time, He uses these expressions as mercy structures to keep the body alive and moving.

But the ultimate goal is reintegration.

We are moving into an age of maturity—an age where the body of Christ will need every part functioning in harmony. The harvest that is coming in the 2030s will not be sustained by fractured systems. It will require houses that carry healing as naturally as they carry hope. It will require leaders who aren’t afraid of demons or dysfunction, because they know their identity and they know their authority.

Deliverance is not going away. It’s coming home. And when it does, the Church will not be weaker, but stronger. Not more chaotic, but more in tune with heaven. Because we will have learned to be a people who do not throw away what we don’t understand rather we learn to completely embrace what heaven is restoring.

The great divorce is ending.
Wholeness is rising.
And the Church is about to become whole again.