Today is the anniversary of a day that changed my life forever.
Nine years ago this morning, after returning from a mission trip overseas, I entered the office of the church I served as pastor for an 8:00 am meeting with the official board. We were supposed to discuss our plans for the next year’s budget.
Instead, the board announced that they had terminated our most valuable staff member: my wife. Their sole charge against her was that she had overspent her missions and outreach budgets by a wide margin.
But she wasn’t their eventual target. I was. The board didn’t have enough evidence against me that they could take to the congregation for a dismissal vote, so they went after her instead, assuming I’d resign if she did.
I’ve recounted the story of the fifty-day conflict that ensued in my book Church Coup (which may be the most detailed and complete account of a pastoral termination ever written). I revisit the story in this blog every October 24. As one of my advisors told me, “You never want to forget what it felt like to go through that awful experience.”
The purpose of telling my story is for pastors, board members, and churchgoers to learn what to do and what not to do during a conflict with the pastor. I am not telling my story to garner sympathy or to gain followers. By relating my experiences, I still hope to teach.
So let me share some snapshots of what I experienced over the seven weeks of the conflict. Many stories are outtakes from my book while some are based on information I received after the book was published in the spring of 2013.
After more than 35 years in church ministry … I still can’t believe the following events happened to me … but they did.
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The board told me that they would give my wife a choice: she could resign or be fired. They said they felt so strongly about their decision that they were all willing to resign, the implication being that if she didn’t resign, they would.
And the following week, because she didn’t resign, they did. (To this day, I wonder who advised them to try that tactic.)
If she resigned, that would take the pressure off them … and that was her initial reaction: to just quit.
But when she thought more clearly, she didn’t believe she had done anything wrong … and she was positive she had not overspent the amount the board claimed.
So she didn’t quit immediately, as the board hoped she would. We both decided to wait and see if we could discover the truth behind their decision first.
Kim’s dad (a former pastor and Christian university professor) told her, “If you didn’t do anything wrong, don’t quit.” A Christian counselor who had advised us for years told me, “If she resigns, that would be a lie. Make it a battle.”
We didn’t want to make it a battle, but the board had not made enough of a compelling case for my wife to say, “You’re right, I messed up, I will resign.” We needed more information.
In my wildest dreams, I never thought the church board would take such drastic action.
But they did.
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For years, my wife worked for a pace setting company in Silicon Valley, and she sometimes had to fire employees … but always by the book. She was upset with the board because they had not followed any kind of protocol. She kept telling me that her rights had been violated.
Several months ago, my wife visited that company again, and briefly told her story to the organization’s founder and president, who agreed that my wife had every right to sue the church/board for wrongful termination.
On the one hand, Paul commands Christians not to sue other Christians in 1 Corinthians 6:1-8. I get that.
On the other hand, too many Christian organizations … especially churches … do violate the rights of staff members and pastors when they terminate them … and they do deserve to be sued.
But the separation of church and state usually protects such churches.
I wish some churches would be sued successfully … if only to teach church leaders to use biblical procedures … and due process … when they’re thinking about terminating pastors and staff members in the future.
Because if those same leaders were treated in a similar fashion at their workplaces, they would probably sue the pants off their companies.
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On the night after the board met with me, they convened a meeting of the church staff to announce my wife’s termination. Not only did the board add several more charges to their list, but such a meeting was probably illegal.
An advisor who later became my mentor told me that in our state, if my wife had been in a secular company, she could have sued them for four to six million dollars for telling her co-workers why they had fired her.
Five nights later, when my wife finally met with two board members at my request … so they could tell her to her face why they had terminated her … she told them that she could sue them for the way they had handled things. This wasn’t merely an emotional outburst … this was based on the careful way she fired employees for years at that Silicon Valley company.
A former board member from that church told me emphatically over a period of years that the board violated the church constitution and bylaws when they terminated my wife. The governing documents clearly stated that staff members could only be fired upon recommendation of the senior pastor to the official board. When the church voted to approve those documents, my wife was already a staff member.
One night, while walking along the Bay on a very dark night, I ran into another former board member who told me it was going around that my wife and I were planning on suing the church. It wasn’t true … we weren’t planning on suing anybody … but many churchgoers believe the first thing they hear without confirmation.
The church board totally bungled the way they handled things, and when my wife called them on it, we became the bad guys … and had to be destroyed.
All too often, this is the way Christians handle their conflicts. We’re godly … they’re ungodly.
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When my predecessor retired and left the church in December 2000, he and his wife moved to another state. But they eventually moved back to California … and settled in the very city my wife and I have made our home the past six years.
My predecessor became the president of a parachurch group, and that group’s founder also lived in our city at the time. The founder told me that several years before 2009, while they were playing golf, my predecessor told him that he was going to return to the church I was pastoring. The founder told him, “No, you can’t do that!” But my predecessor seemed determined.
This information tells me that the plot to get rid of me went back months … if not years … before the board acted against my wife. As a megachurch pastor who knew my predecessor told me eleven days after the conflict surfaced, “You have no idea how much you have been undermined.”
That same pastor told me that he had heard my predecessor make the exact same charges against my wife using the exact same terms that the board used. To what extent did my predecessor formulate or refine the charges against her?
Because my predecessor had been in ministry for years, his counsel seemed legitimate to the board. They most likely trusted him without questioning his motives or strategies.
But in the process, the previous pastor clearly violated pastoral ethics … which the board undoubtedly knew nothing about.
A year after I left, guess who returned to the church to preach at the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services?
That’s right … my predecessor … who had his fingers in the church board, the church staff, and the congregation for many years.
God rest his soul.
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I’ve never given a moment’s thought to returning to my former church. I served there ten-and-a-half years, resigned, and left it for good. How wrong would it be for me to interfere in the church’s governance so many years after leaving?
Why did my predecessor even want to return? My guess is that his Fan Club were telling him that things at the church were really bad and that only he could save the church.
In fact, several years before the conflict surfaced, I heard a report attributed to my predecessor that our church was losing attendees … when the opposite was true … and I informed the church board of the rumor without naming its source.
But we had grown steadily and were the largest Protestant church in our city. We had a positive reputation for miles around. We had built a new worship center. My wife and I had both been keynote speakers at the area Sunday School Convention. In our community, where a church of 150 stood out, we were like a megachurch. A Navy chaplain once told me that when he was stationed near India, and knew he was going to move to our community, someone recommended that he attend our church.
Why did things seem so bad to a tiny group of people? Because they didn’t have positions of power … and that was intentional on my part. They were not behind our mission and vision. They were not behind me as their pastor … and I knew it. They were able to serve … just not in positions of influence.
But they thought that because they were founding members, they deserved preferential treatment.
One time, my predecessor visited the campus and told me that a woman from our church was calling him constantly to complain about me. I figured as much. While I was pleasant around her, I couldn’t let her be a leader because I didn’t trust her.
And I felt the same way about some of my predecessor’s other fans.
When people once held power in a church, but no longer do so, they will sometimes do anything to get that power back … even if they have to violate half the New Testament to do it.
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One woman did her best to disguise her opposition to me, and I had to interact with her on a regular basis. After a while, pastors develop a sixth sense about such people.
After the board and associate pastor resigned, I called two public meetings of the congregation to announce their decisions. During one of the meetings, a friend went into the women’s restroom and this woman was crying because, she said, she was afraid they weren’t going to get rid of me.
After we left, this woman openly bragged about how she and some others in the church worked the plot that sent us packing.
I could never plot against a pastor. I’d leave the church first.
God calls a pastor to lead and teach. He doesn’t call anyone to force out an innocent pastor. So why is it so easy for many Christians to join a coup against the person that God called?
If you have a good answer, I’d like to hear it.
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The primary charge against my wife concerned finances. I continue to maintain that the numbers that were verbally announced to me at the board meeting had been massaged.
For example:
*My wife had committed funds to some vendors for our annual Fall Fun Fest on Halloween … but we hadn’t yet held the event to recoup any of our expenses.
*As I mentioned in my book, several thousand dollars were mistakenly sent overseas … and undoubtedly counted against her mission budget … when she had nothing to do with that decision.
*When my wife was putting together a team for a mission trip to Eastern Europe, we had to buy the plane tickets in advance … and one person backed out. We tried, but weren’t able to recoup the funds for one leg of his journey.
*When our mission team flew to Moldova, we brought along extra suitcases filled with items for poor people and the vulnerable children … but even though we were told in advance by an airline executive that we wouldn’t have to pay extra for each leg of our journey, we were overcharged for the suitcases anyway.
My wife or I could have explained these decisions had we been given the opportunity … but no one on the board asked us or the bookkeeper anything about these expenses.
The budgets of two unrelated ministries were thousands of dollars in the red … but to my knowledge, no one ever addressed those deficits with the leaders that managed those budgets.
No, my wife … our most effective staff member … was singled out for special mistreatment.
In the spring of 2009, I went to the board and asked for funds to visit two churches in Southern California to learn about their multi-venue services. The board approved those funds … and then they were charged to the worship budget without the leader’s knowledge or consent … sending his pristine budget into chaos.
Were other unrelated expenses charged to my wife’s budgets without her consent or knowledge?
When I finally asked for the board’s accounting, I received something incoherent from the bookkeeper. When my wife asked to see the board’s numbers, they did not give them to her.
When my wife finally met with the bookkeeper a month after the conflict surfaced … and the board members had all quit … the numbers told a completely different story. When a nine-person investigative team examined matters a month after that, they concluded that “there was no evidence of wrongdoing” on our part.
Was the financial charge against my wife a bluff to prompt us both to resign?
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Someone made a public charge that I mismanaged church finances. That was an outright lie.
What’s ironic is that even after the conflict erupted … and even after I left the church … I was still a central person concerning church finances.
*When the board refinanced the loan for the worship center, I had to sign the document. If the credit union had known the board’s plans, they might not have approved the refinancing. When companies make loans to organizations, they want to know in advance that the leadership is going to remain stable.
I wonder what the board told them about their pastor’s long-term prospects?
*During the conflict, the church bookkeeper stopped by my house once or twice a week so I could sign checks, which I’d do on top of her car on the street.
*Months after I had left the church, I was still the key person concerning the church’s credit cards. The bookkeeper was still contacting me, asking me to call the company and give them directions.
If I had really mismanaged funds, would I have been able to do any of those things?
When a pastor mismanages funds at church, it’s often because his own financial house is in disarray … but our personal finances were and are pristine.
It’s so easy to throw general charges around without being specific and without doing it to the face of the accused.
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When the composition of a church board changes, it can throw the entire congregation off-balance.
For years, I had worked with three men on the board who were all older than me. We had been through a lot together. I trusted them, and their actions indicated that they trusted me.
One moved away about six months before the conflict surfaced. He was the person who always had my back. The other two termed out but stayed in the church.
Had even one of those men still been on the board, the coup never would have taken place. They would either have stopped it or exposed it.
In the end, the new board in 2009 was composed entirely of people younger than me. They lacked the experience and maturity of the older men … one of whom had experienced a church split years before in another church and would never have tolerated the tactics used by my opponents.
Someone on the board ended up leading the coup. I always knew his identity. May God forgive him for all the lives he harmed in his attempt at personal payback.
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The board never attempted anything resembling restoration. It was all about punishment. As Charles Chandler from the Ministering to Ministers Foundation told me, the board members were personalizing matters.
As a Christian counselor asked me, “Where’s the redemption in all this?”
There wasn’t any pathway to redemption. Coups don’t involve restoration. They can be bloody or bloodless, but they are always about one thing.
Getting rid of the leader at all costs.
If you can show me where in the New Testament we find such behavior commended, I’d be grateful.
I’ve been searching for years … and I still can’t find it.
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Wherever you find deceit and destruction, you find Satan. Jesus called him “the father of lies” and “a murderer from the beginning” in John 8:44.
Based on some of the stories I’ve heard, I don’t believe Satan is centrally involved in every church conflict. Some believe that he is. I don’t.
I look for deceit and destruction. Someone in ministry suggested adding “doubt” to the calculus as well.
There was definitely deceit in our conflict. There were a lot of falsehoods going around: exaggeration, character assassination, misrepresentation, false allegations … it was all there.
And there was a lot of destruction as well. Satan’s aim in most church conflicts is to destroy the pastor’s well being … reputation … and career … but ultimately, to destroy the church itself.
Although I was not personally destroyed, my effectiveness for future ministry was. I don’t claim to know if that was the aim of anyone in the church. Maybe so, maybe not.
But I do know this: Satan gained a foothold in the lives of too many of God’s people in that church. Hatred and two-faced hypocrisy are not from God.
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Most pastors who are forced out of a church are never exonerated. Their reputations are ruined, at least inside their former church.
But I was exonerated … twice.
The first time, a consultant the transition team and I hired during the conflict issued a report that the board had acted “extremely and destructively” and that my wife and I had been abused.
The second time, an investigative team of nine people from inside the church claimed that “there was no evidence of wrongdoing” on our part.
But some people could not allow those verdicts to stand.
When I left the church in December 2009, I was told that 95% of the church supported me. A year later, I was told that support was down to 20%.
I don’t know the truth of either percentage. But I do know that throughout 2010, there was a whispering campaign inside my former church to pin the blame for the entire conflict on me.
When an interim pastor (a friend of my predecessor’s) came to the church several months later, he convened a meeting of the old and new boards, and made everyone who knew the truth about the conflict promise that they wouldn’t discuss it with anyone. So when people attacked my reputation, those leaders were told not to counteract any lies and to remain silent.
But what about the people who were spreading falsehoods inside the church? Why didn’t anyone warn them to stop destroying the reputation of their previous pastor?
Because unity is based on truth … not lies … such diversions do nothing to heal people’s souls.
Even though I urged people to stay, scores of people eventually left the church and either changed churches … changed faiths … or sat at home for years because nobody had the guts to tell the church the truth about what happened.
Just another Christian cover up. Business as usual.
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One day, I met with the rookie district minister to share my side of the conflict. He listened politely and later helped reveal the part my predecessor played in the coup.
Several years later, when I was in New Hampshire, the DM called me out of the blue one Sunday morning to tell me that “I respect you and admire you.”
While that was nice, there was evidence to the contrary, so I didn’t know what to think.
But I had once served in the same church as an executive from that same denomination, and when he heard about the conflict … not from me … he told a friend, “[The church] owes Jim an apology.”
While I would welcome any kind of apology, nobody has ever apologized to me for their role in forcing me out of office.
Because if I’m innocent, they’re wrong … and I’ve learned that many, if not most, Christians hate to admit when they’re wrong.
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This is the last blog article I plan to write on what happened to me in 2009 unless there is some major future development.
The accusations against Judge Kavanaugh brought back a truckload of hurtful memories because the same tactics used against him were used against us.
My wife and I live in Southern California and are content with our lives.
We live about an hour from our son, his wife, and our three grandsons. I wouldn’t trade being near them for anything in this world.
Our daughter – who was so strong for her dad and mom during the conflict – still lives in the Bay Area and leads a fruitful life. We love her dearly.
God gave me a ministry to pastors and board members who are going through conflict, and I’m grateful for all the people I’ve been able to help.
Just last year, I advised a pastor from the East Coast who was able to beat back his own church’s coup attempt. He stayed … and his opponents left.
I pray that happens more often.
I’ve written 596 blogs over the past eight years. I plan to write four more and then take a break … maybe a long one.
As always, thanks for reading.
the world is filled with stupid idiots. any arguments out there ?? just think of the condition, and state of affairs in america today after 250 years of existence. complete morons have plunged this country into oblivion ! we are virtually living on the eve of destruction, is it any wonder what is occurring in our churches? more than meets the senses is involved here however….. much, much more. it’s common knowledge the world operates on the principle of cause and effect. the best example i can relate here is the effect one single man named adolf hitler caused resulting in the deaths of over 70 million people,and billions of dollars in property destruction in his ww2. now, just imagine a world today had hitler CONVINVED the entire world he was it’s savior ??? well all, that is exactly what has been happening for centuries up to this moment. you see there is another individual exacting “cause and effect” in the world today, and he has most successfully convinced the MAJORITY of the world at large that [he] is a myth, a fiction, a subject of fairy tales, folly, and wild stories created by celebrated writers of the past. but hold on everyone, before you chuck your brains there is hope. you see, this individual has a creator as do all of us, and the creator- GOD refers to [him] as the “god of this world” imagine that ! his proper name is lucifer, which translated means “son of the morning”, WHAT !! now this, when the true savior of the world arrived, GOD in flesh the lord jesus christ, [he] our fairy tale lucifer came along and has convinced the world at large for centuries ever since that christ was only a long haired, unshaved, and unbathed bum who roamed about spreading fairy tales and fiction about someone named GOD. {he never tells anyone that jesus healed the sick, gave the blind their sight, raised the dead and rose from the dead himself after being murdered by [his] thugs. for more info other than the ultimate source of the scriptures read “the screwtape letters {c.s.lewis}, and, “satan is alive and well on planet earth” { hal lindsey}. yes, satan is alive and well, but thankfully not for much longer, for nowdays those of us who know see his ultimate destruction clearly in view and soon. for the time being though, much prayer is necessary for [he] highly utilizes the morons of this world, both the chistian, and the pagan variety to futher his agenda. maranatha !!!!
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Hi John, Thanks for your analysis of what ails the world and the church. I agree with you … the enemy of our souls delights in convincing people that he does not exist, and yet look at how many people serve him without knowing who they are serving!
By the way, I’ve been thinking about the night 40 years ago that you and I went to LAX after game 5 of the World Series to meet the Dodgers … and they didn’t arrive until 1:00 am! Those were the days, my friend. Hope you’re doing well, John!
Your Friend,
Jim
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Jim, your insights – drawn from personal experience – will be missed. But I get the decision to take a break. Life is to be lived…often that requires a routine change up.
We shall stay in touch.
God bless…Paul.
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Paul, Thanks for your comment and for your friendship over the past few years. I look forward to your notes when the reports about Willow finally are released. May the Lord continue to bless you and your wife and use you to bless others!
Jim
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Thank you for sharing.
Would you have any advice for a congregation left in the wake of a pastors wrongful termination? Unfortunately this is something my church is now facing.
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Hi Marcie, Thanks so much for writing! I’d recommend you find one of my blog posts, look up toward the right corner, and type in the following phrases in the little box there: first, “forgotten victims”; second, “covering up a pastoral termination”; finally, “telling the truth after a pastoral termination.” Those articles lay out my viewpoint on the subject quite well.
In a nutshell, those who engineered the termination will have the attitude, “The pastor is gone. Nothing to see here. Let’s move on and look toward the future.” And they will move quickly to consolidate power. Most terminations are about seizing power, regardless of what anyone says.
As time goes on, those who loved the pastor will either become passive and drop out of the church, or will leave the church, either quietly or angrily.
After 36 years of ministry, and 10 1/2 years in the same church, I was forced out of my last pastorate in 2009. Most of the dedicated attendees, workers, and givers eventually left the church because the interim pastor, board, and new pastor all tried to cover up what happened. I wrote a book called Church Coup which was published in 2013 and there is a lot in that book (which you can buy on Amazon) about our situation. But most of the time, the good people end up leaving and the bad people end up staying, which results in the church going into a tailspin.
For the church to heal, the board and/or staff needs to tell the congregation the truth about why the pastor was terminated. The board/perpetrators will hide behind legal reasons and confidentiality, but tell them you want to see in writing a copy of the process they used to push out the pastor. There is nothing confidential about that. If they did things biblically – and I’d say less than 10% of church leaders fire their pastor in a spiritual manner – that’s one thing. But most of the time, the board took shortcuts and violated Scripture, labor law, and the church’s governing documents, as they did in my case.
Unless the board/perpetrators admit what they did publicly and why, your church is looking at two to five years of hurt and pain.
All of this presumes that the pastor was not guilty of heresy, sexual immorality, or criminal behavior.
Feel free to comment or ask other questions, Marcie. God bless you!
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Jim, I am interested in the consequences of their actions. Please share one by one what has now become of the conspirators. I know they will have bad endings even if they are forgiven.
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Hi Jim, it was interesting reading your post. I mean reading from the victims view. Your words are true and only one like me who just suffered a harsh defiance led by two deacons would understand how it feels. Brother, I feel hurt. My consolation is that there was no incriminatory allegation raised against me. The pain of this rebels was that I did not recognize them and give them officiating and preaching roles.
Jim, I observed that your predecessor, a culprit in the saga, is dead. If this is true, I want to know the fate of the others. This is because I have learned and seen from experience that those who plot against their pastors usually have bad endings at last. Please I will like you to post your response directly to my email. Thanks
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Greetings Adeniyi, I am sorry for the hurt you have experienced. In my view, most church leaders who attack and try to remove their pastor do not know what they are doing. They are blinded by anger and hatred and are not thinking rationally. On the cross, Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, because they don’t know what they are doing.” Jesus’ executioners thought they were doing something good when they were really doing something evil.
I have a pastor friend who was removed from his position years ago … and within a short time, without their pastor, the church died. My friend believes that the laymen who take out their pastor will later be embarrassed by the actions they took. Maybe so … maybe not.
In my case, my predecessor … who chose me to succeed him as pastor … never contacted me in any form after I resigned and left the church. I had become a non-person to him. I do not know the “fate” of any of the board members who tried to remove me as pastor. They all left the church together and I don’t know what happened to any of them.
I have known two people who suffered after trying to take out their pastor. In a church where I was a staff member, a man who had been attacking the pastor died of a heart attack on the same day he was moving out-of-state. The pastor had to leave his vacation to do the funeral and he wasn’t very happy about it!
In another case, a woman who attacked me full force for months died of a heart attack on an interstate highway in the middle of nowhere.
What bothers me, Adeniyi, is how easy it is for “Christian” leaders to attack their pastor viciously without using any kind of process and without looking at their own lives first. And yet, there are few Christian leaders who care about this issue. Very few.
The Christian world is divided into “winners” and “losers.” If you’re attacked and you overcome your opposition, you’re a winner. If you’re attacked and you’re forced out, you’re a loser. Never mind which group used Scripture and which group did not. This is how the game is played in our day.
If I can be of any help to you, I’d be glad to set up a time to talk. Please let me know by writing me at jim@restoringkingdombuilders.org! I couldn’t find your email address anywhere so this note will have to do for now.
Jim
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