Control! obey
People like to be controlled!
People want to be controlled!
In a recent article that i posted in a blogsite,I raised the question of why Christians
would allow themselves to be abused in church systems that wreak havoc in their
lives and those around them.
Simply put, because deep down many Christians want a pastor
who tells them
* what is right or wrong
* what God wants or doesn’t want
* what they should or shouldn’t do with their life
In 1 Samuel 8 the people of Israel demanded that Samuel give
them a king. Samuel goes on to explain to the people that a king will control
them, abuse them, and use their lives to further his own.
And yet, surprisingly they replied, “We still want a king
over us!”
You see the pattern?
There are many Senior Pastors and church leaders who model
Christ’s example of servant- leadership (Matt. 20: 25-26)… but there are still
far too many who “lord over” their congregations.
Now laying aside the fact that Paul the Apostle wrote 9
epistles (letters) to specific churches that are chapters long and never
mentions a Senior Pastor, Lead Pastor, or Lead Elder (which may hint that we’ve
got some foundational flaws inherent in the modern church structure) …
Here are 9 warning signs that your Pastor is leading you
away from Christ’s Kingdom and towards his own
1) The Pastor is more vocal about taking the nations,
country, or city “for Jesus” than loving individual people
Mike Anderson, former leader with Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill
Church, explains in a blog post that they thought they were “changing the
world.” This is something I see often in
leaders (and at times myself when I’m honest) where the “mission” and
importance to the world gets promoted more than compassion for people; which is
often regulated to those few people in the church who are “called to do that
sorta stuff”.
Does your pastor talk about “God’s love for the world” from
the platform on Sunday morning but seems a little lacking in just simple love
for a neighbor the rest of the week?
I’m also pretty sure we are not supposed to “take” or “take
back” anything Jesus hasn’t already paid for 2,000 years ago
Something to consider…
2) Family members seem to fill key church job openings
I was reluctant to include this one as I know MANY great
churches with family members serving together in gifted capacities…but I also
know that nepotism is a rampant problem within the Body of Christ and so I need
to include it.
Hey, what pastor doesn’t want their wife, son, daughter,
husband, aunt, uncle, nephew or niece ministering beside them? I have two sons
who I would love to see with me in some capacity some day.
I get it..
But when church positions seem to come quicker and with
higher pay and perks for family members, things have gone off the rails a bit.
*I know of a church school who paid a qualified principal
less than market wage but the principal gladly did it “for the Lord”. When the principal later left he was replaced
with the much less qualified pastor’s son.
Miraculously then the funds became available to pay a market wage! Funny
that …
* I know a lady who served as a church secretary for
years. When the pastor’s daughter became
old enough to work the secretary was encouraged to move on. Amazingly though,
when the daughter assumed the position the post now came with a church paid for
S.U.V. My friend laughed when she shared the story, “All those years I never
got a car for the job, but daddy’s little girl sure did.”
If too many of your church leaders are calling the Pastor
“dad”, this may be a warning sign!
3) The Pastor is not
enthusiastic about uniting with other churches in their geographic region
Pastor’s building their own kingdoms have little interest in
corporate gatherings which involve other churches. Sure they love to have
people from other churches come to their “special event” but show little
interest in having their folk attend an event sponsored by another church.
Big name speakers coming through can sometimes get promoted
though because they’ll leave town after all and can’t take any sheep with them
on the way out.
4) Your proximity to the Pastor is directly related to your
ability to further the church’s vision.
This kinda relates to point 1. If you make money, if you can give money, if
you look right, if you will attract other people, if you solve problems, if you
don’t make problems, and if you have marketable skills that the church won’t
have to pay you for, you will get all kinds of “face time” with the Pastor
looking to build his own kingdom.
If not, you’ll be one of the few people encouraged to attend
another churches’ “special event”
5) The Pastor positions himself as having just a little
better revelation of God’s will than everyone else
Even though Jesus had total revelation of God’s will he
always engaged people with humility and compassion. A Pastor promoting his own vision though
takes the (incomplete) piece of revelation he thinks he has received and uses
it as a hammer to convince his people they are right in following him as well
as validation as to why they are just a little more right in God’s eyes than
the Christians at the church down the street.
Rather than humbly seeing other congregations as having
different, yet vital, understandings of the nature of God that they need to
have as well, this Pastor sees other Christians as just not “getting
it”…otherwise they would be at his church after all.
6) In the Pastor’s eyes you are viewed as either “in” or
“out”
The Christian life is not about a New Life and a journey
with the Creator of the Universe, heaven forbid no, it’s about furthering the
vision of the church. So in a warped
model the Pastor is not a facilitator and a builder up of the gifts of the
saints but a pilot who is taking his passengers to a particular destination…
“and we’re all going to the same place!”
In this expression the church member who begins asking
questions about the Pastor’s vision is akin to a passenger attempting to open
the cabin door at 30,000 feet. And the result tends to be the same. Fear and anger in the other passengers lead
them to take down the obviously deluded person until the pilot can have him
arrested. Crazy nut!
In this type of church you are either “on board” or
not. You are “in” or “out”. There is no
wiggle room for other journeys, destinations, or paths.
7) There is passive or aggressive pressure by the Pastor not
to associate with others who have left the church
Pastor’s building their own kingdom’s suffer from a bit of
paranoia. Someone is always talking
behind their back… someone is always plotting...someone is always out to get
them.
Trust between pastor and church members begins to break
down.
Eventually people have enough of the control and
manipulation the paranoia produces and they leave…or are kicked out!
The last thing then the Pastor in such a church wants is for
“untainted true believers” to be talking to the black sheep who could never
appreciate or understand the Vision to begin with.
Anytime a pastor calls you, e-mails you, or arranges a
coffee chat to warn (or threaten) you not to associate with former church
members be afraid…be very afraid!
8) The Pastor requires you to have your understanding of
God, the Bible, and “the world” be in total agreement with his
When the pastor is less than tolerant on you holding a
position in conflict with his be warned.
When it is expected that you have the same views on:
* political party affiliation
* eschatology
* women in ministry
* sexual orientation
* environmental concerns
* hell
or a myriad of other issues Christians of good conscious
disagree on…
…chances are you need to find another group to fellowship
with.
9) The Pastor uses pulpit teachings to address conflicts
that should be dealt with personally or privately.
Call this a “pet peeve” but for years I’ve been particularly
annoyed when pastors use the Sunday sermon as a bully pulpit to attack a
particular person or issue because they were to afraid to deal with it
directly. As a lead pastor I would often ask myself if a sermon I prepared was
instead prepared for a particular person to hear. If not…then I would preach it!
bully-pulpit-422
The problem with this type of Pastor is that the person or
person’s to whom the message is directed just end up getting ticked off
more. It also leads to insecurity in the
rest of the church who begin to wonder who the Pastor is talking about and is
it them.
Final Word
I sent a draft of this post to a good friend to get his take
and input before publishing it. He wrote
back:
Your 7 (now 9)
signs are exactly that of the how Israel was strutted under the law. We are now
free from that curse. Jesus made it clear we are not to organise ourselves in
this way just as Samuel warned Israel. The system has a king, a vision, a
mission and is hierarchical in nature. By definition it’s an institution and
that means to gain unity you must require conformity. To gain conformity you
must gain control….
Maybe the system is a contributor to the abuse and
manipulation we see in the church today.
Samuel the prophet told the people what comes with an earthly King…
And yet we still seem to want a King!
My final word is this though:
God gave you a life; Live it…or someone else will live it
for you!
Written by Steve
