Are Pastors Abusing Their Power?

As the political season advances, it kills me to see how many Americans will vote against their own self interest. The saddest part, however, is that many will do so not because its what they want, but because it's what the guy standing at the front of the sanctuary on Sunday demands.

Pastors in America have done a deplorable job in politics. They know that many in their congregation are not thoroughly versed in Scripture. They take advantage of that. Ironically, in this day and age, the Reformation means nothing, as pastors in most churches are nothing more than "little popes", believing that they and they alone, possess the keys to Scriptural understanding and are called to deliver them to the little people. Instead of "equipping the saints for His Service", they have haughtily held back the keys to the kingdom by pretending that only through an anointing by man can Scripture be understood. And nowhere is this more clear than in politics.

Let's be clear: neither the Republican nor the Democratic Party presents a Christian approach to the problems our leaders face. Abortion is wrong, yes, but so is starving the poor and presenting a mother with no options. And so is judging someone without helping them find a way out.

I say this on the issue of abortion because it's the one I wrestle with the most. While I am politically prochoice, I am decidedly and unapologetically prolife on a personal and moral level. That means that I seek to make alternatives available, assurances that the fears of the mother considering won't be realized; that her child won't live today only to find death tomorrow through disease, starvation, or the rampant violence that fills our inner cities. In my belief, I take that further to include the guarantee that the child won't have to worry about living today to find death 20 years from now in a battlefield in some foreign country, or at the end of the executioner's needle.

That, to me, is what prolife means.

And at the same time pastors oppose moral evils, they oppose a living wage. I have seen pastors post some rather nasty memes criticizing the fight for $15, when they should be joining the fight. They insist that their congregants should stay underpaid, yet they lament when the coffers of the church aren't filled with the coins that the poor collect as their portion for a week's labor.

If the pastors will insist on allowing the wealthy to steal the wealth that the poor have earned, then I insist that the pastors should collect the tithes from the employer, not the employee, as the employer holds the pilfered wages of their employees. And I refuse to tithe to any church that does not advocate a living wage, as their teaching is heresy.

Pastors are called to lead their flock, not to manipulate and twist their minds. They are to present the WHOLE gospel, including the parts they don't like. Otherwise, they are quite definitely abusing their power.

It's past time to call theem on this.

Dear Pastor: It's Time We Had a Talk

I know that on this page, often my discussions come across as a bit harsh and abrasive. And you know what? Sometimes they are. I'm not really super at this communication thing and often choose less than imperfect means to express myself.

It's a fault, I admit it, and I am working to change that. I thank all of those patient enough to endure it.

So let's have a talk, shall we? A real one. About why it is that I keep hammering points home and going against the grain.

We've become a socially disconnected society, and the church, which once fulfilled a large role in the social structure of adults, has been a part of that. It's not the fault of pastors, even though it's tempting to say so. They're swimming hard against a cultural tide, and they endure massive criticism with scant praise. I get that part of it.

But if you will listen, if you will just TRY what I am about to say, I believe it will fundamentally change your ministry. And if it doesn't, just throw it away as one of those hair brained ideas, just as you would the book you bought off the discount rack at LifeWay and found less than fulfilling.

I'm speaking from a personal place here, so if you disagree with me, please do it respectfully. I will respond in kind.

Your congregants need to be heard. And not just the mental sticky notes, not just with a casserole delivered in time of need or the Christmas drive. Those things are great, yes, and they're essential, but not as essential as sitting down and finding out the things about your congregants that cannot be written down on paper.

Know them. Know their hopes, their dreams, their fears. Know their favorite baseball team, the kind of car they drive. And respect their politics even if you completely disagree. Every pastor I have ever known has learned the virtue of strategic silence. In getting to know your congregants, you may want to use that judiciously.

Realize that every congregant is a work in progress. If I have failed as a Christian, this has been my Achilles heel. I expect too much, expect everyone I encounter as a Christian to know the same things and have the same life experiences I do. That is an impossible expectation and is setting them up to fail.

Know WHY that person didn't put money in the offering plate. Know and understand the realities of people struggling to survive, who may remain silent because they don't want to be seen as complaining or begging. Know the reason why they didn't come to church, why they didn't give money when the missionaries came to town, why they couldn't buy that cake at the bake sale, or why their kids couldn't make it to summer. Know them, and encourage them. This doesn't have to be monetary support, sometimes the best thing you can do is just let them know that you care.

You are in a place to be powerful change agents, a position I wish I could have, but am increasingly understanding why I do not. In pursuing your doctorate, in meetings with deacons, in your outreach to the community, do not forget that young man who came in five minutes after the sermon started and left as the organist struck up the opening notes on the closing hymn because he has difficulty interacting with people and wanted to avoid the awkwardness.

He needs you. I need you. Jesus needs you.

And these things are far more important than the broken projector.

Blessings and peace.

Church Leaders: The Problem is Not the WORLD, The Problem is YOU! The Problem is Me!

I have weighed posting this. I realize that it will sever my relationship with the evangelical church fully and finally, and I realize the horrific cost if I am wrong. But watching the growing elephant in the room, I feel that I must speak, even at the risk of being wrong.

I have listened to numerous pastors lament declining membership, declining contributions within their churches. And always, always the blame has been cast on the congregants. They're not guided by faith, they're putting money before God, they're putting the world before church; I've heard them all. But I am going to tell you from firsthand experience why I believe with every fiber in my being that you are wrong, and that the problems emanate from the front of the church, rather than the back.

First, the most fundamental role of leadership is accountability. Satan cannot steal from a properly tended flock. Pastors have listened too much to experts that focus more on MBAs than they do on their relationships with Christ. Experts who make Jesus out to be a CEO and tell you to cut your least profitable elements.

They will tell you that those who walk away will walk away anyway, and that they are merely malcontents. They will tell you to cut the least profitable elements of your ministry. They will tell you that marketing and multimedia make a church.

But as the old rule goes, nobody has to advertise toilet paper. It is a needed product, and people WILL find it. The same goes for the church, if you are properly tending your flock.

People are hurting like no time in recent history. For many Americans the recession never ended, and for many more, wages have lost ground against inflation. You can judge them for their iGadgets and their cars, but the truth is, in an increasingly connected world, many of those gadgets are necessary, and since the only way for many folks to buy a car is through payments, they are buying newer cars in the hopes their cars can outlast their payments. There are too many variables for you to make those judgments, so don't.

Jesus railed AGAINST the status quo; He spoke out AGAINST the exploitation of the poor, yet modern ministers are enabling it. The very best seats in the church go to the biggest donors, and the church has done so much to dismantle social safety nets and shame the poor that it is becoming very clear who too many of these ministers are working for.

Want to find the problem with church leadership? Get up, walk down the hall and look in your bathroom mirror. You will find it. And I am saying this as much about myself as you, for I have known this for many years, but remained silent because I hoped at one point to actually be able to be a leader within the church and make change. I did not know that there was an entire system in place to keep people like me from ever inheriting the mantle of ministry.

We come from a church of simple faith, a church that didn't busy itself with political endorsements. A church that realized the role of the church and the role of the state had conflicting interests, and that taught its members to respect their authority, not to rebel against it, and certainly not to seize government land and force standoffs. A church that despised injustice.

Today's church leaders are as bought and sold as our politicians. Instead of guiding the church by faith, they have guided it by business principles. I understand that; it's hard to see a light at the end of the tunnel sometimes. But as I have discovered in my personal life, sometimes you have to believe.

I am closing this article with a purpose: I have wrestled long and hard against what I have to do. Today, I am officially beginning my personal ministry (appropriate, as I am writing this on the first day of Lent). I know the road ahead of me will come with many bumps, and I know that I will fall at least as often as I walk, but I know with God's guidance I will get there.

The service to the poor in our community has been abandoned to the "liberal" church, and they have been too long despised for doing the work that Jesus commanded. I intend to be about that business, and that alone, for as long as God allows me to remain on this planet. I am renouncing any material comforts beyond what is needed to communicate and to continue to do what I am called to do, and I am building my ministry without walls. I'm no longer complaining about it, I am setting about fixing it.

And you are free to join me. I hope you will. But if not, I will not wait for you to join, or to lead. I am open to instruction, I am open to Godly correction. But I am not open to anything or anyone that will derail me on this course. I will no longer be the problem. And I hope my words will inspire you in that direction as well.