By: Tom White

After the choir sits and the last amen fades in most Sunday services, a familiar moment unfolds: prayer requests. Names are offered for healing, travel mercies, or strength through grief. But rarely does someone stand and ask for prayer because their home has become a battlefield. The silence is not due to a lack of suffering. It’s due to a lack of safety in speaking.
This silence can speak volumes. How does a sanctuary meant to embody love become a shelter for harm?

Pastor Michael Neely doesn’t enter this space with a bullhorn or a crusade. He enters gently, not as a disruptor, but as a reconciler. His voice is soft, but his message is intended to be clear: if faith is real, it must make room for truth, even when it’s uncomfortable.

Faith Marked by Survival

Neely’s ministry didn’t begin with sermons; it began with survival. Encouraged by elders, he started preaching in 1985. But beneath the growing pulpit presence was a personal reckoning with pain. His own experience with abuse left spiritual dissonance, a gap between scripture’s promise and the silence he felt when he needed protection most.

By 1999, he stepped into full-time ministry as assistant pastor at First Baptist Church of College Hill. Five years later, following a vision to reach overlooked communities, he founded New Millennium Community Church. It was never about prestige. There were financial struggles and moments of doubt, yet provision often came. This was not a platform but a calling forged in the fire of personal truth.

The Gap Between Scripture and Support

Domestic violence did not simply become a ministry focus. It became his mission. Neely worked with the Family Justice Center for five years, combining sacred responsibility with practical involvement by bringing church volunteers into domestic violence support services. He began to speak openly about the potentially harmful misuses of scripture in these contexts.

Certain verses, when filtered through patriarchy or mishandled by untrained leaders, became weapons. Pastors with good intentions often defaulted to preserving marriages rather than protecting lives. Neely challenges this. He believes spiritual counsel must carefully avoid asking a survivor to choose between faith and safety.

What the Church Won’t Say Out Loud

Church culture rarely says the quiet part out loud. It upholds loyalty, silence, and respectability. Survivors are often told to pray harder, forgive faster, and trust God to fix what hurts them. Neely does not rage against these habits. He invites the church to reconsider them.

Instead of asking, “How can we save this marriage?” he reframes the question: “What would Jesus actually do?” He knows the answer isn’t found in denial, but in listening, believing, and protecting.

The Early Stages of a New Movement

Neely’s work is changing. It does not wear a brand yet but breathes through small group sessions, quiet dialogues, and church training. His initiative, Black Eyes Sweet Talk, is taking shape not as an institution but as a murmur becoming a voice.

He is not looking to scale. He is listening to the survivors. To scripture. To what has long gone unsaid.

A Different Gospel for the Wounded

Neely imagines a faith where safety is not a luxury, but a foundation. He calls pastors to shift their roles, stepping away from preserving dangerous unions and toward protecting sacred lives. He teaches that faithfulness sometimes means walking away. That obedience may look like escape, and that freedom is a spiritual practice.

Love That Tells the Truth

One day, a survivor told Neely, “You helped me believe in God again.” That moment, quiet and weighty, captured the essence of his ministry. This is not a side mission; it is the heart of the church’s credibility.

Michael Neely does not need to shout. His voice is soft, but it tells the truth, and the truth, when spoken with love, can be loud.

Follow Pastor Michael Neely’s journey and message on LinkedIn.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational and inspirational purposes only. It does not constitute professional, legal, or medical advice. The experiences and perspectives shared are those of Pastor Michael Neely and do not guarantee specific outcomes. Readers facing domestic violence or abuse situations should seek help from qualified professionals or support organizations.