Talk to any minister or pastor or elder of any church and they will tell you that their church has issues. Probably one of the greatest tragedies of the pastorship is church mutiny or rebellion. I once heard T. D. Jakes (while I disagree with him theologically, I respect the man as a leader) say to a group of leaders, “We all have a Judas sitting at the table with us.” Chuck Swindoll, Sr. Pastor of Stonebriar Community Church and Chancellor of Dallas Seminary, once said, “If there is any other profession that you can do other than the pastorate, do it.” This from a beloved pastor, a great pastor, a good teacher, President Emeritus of Dallas Seminary, a great seminary that produces solid, biblical, expositional/exegetical pastors. However, Swindoll would never tell anyone who was called to be a pastor that they should not pastor. Instead Swindoll simply means that if your conscience before God can live without blemish or trouble or guilt or shame and do something other than the pastorate, do it. However, if one is compelled by God and will only deteriorate doing something else, they should pastor. So what does Swindoll know that make him say this? Simply, the highest causality in churches is that we shoot our own. Maybe Swindoll had this in mind or what Jakes said or something else, when he said that. Simply, many pastors are wounded, beaten, hit, and then they are “killed” while they are down. Though they live, their passion is gone. Their heart is broken. Their spirits are weakened. They are lost, drifting, sinking, or dead.
Not knowing this, full of zeal and spirit and some truth, I entered “ministry.” I transferred to a Bible College. I had a great experience at my former college church founded by someone who went to a Bible College. That church was unique, vibrant, healthy, and good! Let me give you two examples of that church. First, one day the pastor sent out an email about a member of the church, a college student (being a college church, about 80-90% of the congregation were college students). He just received a call that one of his parents was deathly ill and that he had no money (nor did his family) to fly him back. So the email came. Within the hour, the guy had more than enough funds, a ticket to Seattle, and a ride to the airport. Amazing! The second was during church. Instead of an offering plate (which was normally a felt bag of sorts), a wooden offering plate full of $5 bills was passed. We were to take money out or let it pass. We were encouraged to take money for ourselves or for someone close to us (roommate, etc) that needed it, but we couldn’t take more than $50. And this happened fairly regularly! Wow!
Well, I came back to the church that was responsible for my conversion upon my transfer to a Bible College. I began to be discipled by the Sr. Pastor, for his name sake and protection let’s call him Ken. Ken agreed to meet with me weekly while I was at Bible College to teach me about communication, preaching, hermeneutics, etc. It was great. I traveled with him to speak at various places. I attended church meetings (deacon meetings, elder meetings, leadership meetings) and was becoming actively involved in the leadership myself. Everything seemed to be going well. While my memory is not the best as far as what happened chronologically, several things happened and they happened fairly quickly. First, Ken missed a couple (maybe even several) meetings. I remember one in particularly that was scheduled and re-scheduled at a local Waffle House. I arrived on time and ready to chat; however, he never showed up. I called his cell and got no answer. I called the church and got no answer. Nothing. From that moment forward, he began to ignore me. He failed to return my calls, emails, etc., which normally were returned. I could not and did not understand what happened. Surely Ken felt betrayed by the church and pushed people away.
A bit later, the church went through a massive church split. I was asked by both sides to come on staff as the youth minister (the side that the youth pastor did not choose) or the college minister (the side that the youth pastor did choose). I was frightened and shocked that a church could do this. Believing that both sides were at fault somehow in some way, I walked away. Broken, confused, churchless (which felt like homelessness), I wondered. From here I have struggled with churches ever since. I was never told why the church split and still to this day I have no idea what happened. I have also never been to get back in touch with Ken for whatever reason.
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