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Archive for the ‘Fighting Evil’ Category

Guarding Clothes

Posted in About Restoring Kingdom Builders, Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Antagonists, Current Church Issues, Fighting Evil, Pastoral Termination on March 25, 2011| 4 Comments »

Several decades ago, I took a friend to a White Sox-A’s game at the Oakland Coliseum.  (The White Sox won 1-0.)  After the game, while we were stuck in traffic, we both noticed some verbal interplay between a young woman and a car full of guys.  While both parties were in their cars, the guys were yelling at her, she was yelling at them – and there was alcohol involved.  Suddenly, the young woman grabbed a bucket of ice, ran over to the guys’ car, and poured out the ice through the driver’s side window onto the lap of the driver.  She then ran back toward her car, but the guys caught her and began beating her up.

I can’t stand to watch anyone get hit in real life, especially a woman.

Instinctively, I wanted to get out of the car and defend her, but my companion cautioned, “Don’t Jim – she asked for it.”

What would you have done in that situation?

As difficult as it is to watch non-TV people fighting, it’s even more disturbing to watch one-sided combat.  And yet, that’s what Saul of Tarsus did the first time we meet him in Scripture.

The most prominent early Christian outside the apostles was Stephen, “a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit … a man full of God’s grace and power” (Acts 6:5,8).  (How many Christian leaders would be described that way in our day?)  Just like with Jesus, some Jewish leaders made up charges against Stephen, incited a mob against him, held a kangaroo court, and produced false witnesses to trump-up charges.  Unlike Jesus, Stephen was able to mount a vigorous defense of his message from the Old Testament, but the verdict had been decided long before he began speaking.

Sometimes it’s hard to read Acts 7:57-58.  Luke mentions five phrases that indicate that the mob had already made up its minds about Stephen’s guilt.  Note the phrases in italics:

“At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him.”  If a movie was made about what really happened on this occasion, it would be rated NC-17 – or maybe NC-35.

Here’s what I want to know: why didn’t anybody try and stop the mob from carrying out this horrible action?  It was clearly a miscarriage of justice.  It didn’t honor God.  It couldn’t be explained away.  It was wrong.  But according to the text, no one protested this mob action.

And then Dr. Luke slips in a little phrase at the end of verse 58 to introduce us to someone: “Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.”  Most commentators believe that Saul was more than just an innocent bystander; as Acts 8:1 notes, “Saul was there, giving approval to his death.”

Once again, what would you have done in that situation?

There is no doubt that by not protesting, and by watching the coats of the executioners, Saul’s silent tongue was an indicator that he agreed with Stephen’s guilt, stoning, and death.  I am not saying that Saul could have singlehandedly stopped it.  (Although we don’t know because he didn’t try.)  But somewhere along the line, he made up his mind: Stephen needed to die, and Saul preferred a box seat to doing anything about it.

Saul would feel much differently years later.  In Acts 22:20, while recounting his testimony before another Jerusalem mob, Saul (now Paul) found himself in their crosshairs.  He summed up his actions years before: “And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.”  One can sense the regret in Paul’s voice: “I can’t believe I did that.”

This time, because the Romans were in charge of the proceedings, Paul was able to escape the mob and live another day.  But I wonder how many times he was haunted by the fact that when an innocent man of God was being stoned, he stood idly by without registering a protest.

Why bring this up?

I had breakfast this past week with a Christian leader who started a ministry for terminated pastors many years ago.  As we were discussing the statistics of how many pastors leave their churches every month, my friend told me that the latest statistic is 1,800.  When I did a search online, I discovered that the stats being quoted now are that 1,800 pastors leave their churches every month and that 1,300 of that group are involuntarily let go.  That’s a lot of pastors – and churches – in pain.

While I concede that there are pastors who need to leave their churches, the overwhelming majority of these forced exits happen to pastors who have done nothing worthy of being fired.

And in most situations, either a handful of board members (usually three) and/or a small contingent of opponents (less than ten) conspire together to remove the pastor from office.  And when they do so, they exaggerate the charges against him and offer him no defense.

Here’s what I want to know: why doesn’t anybody protest this kind of clandestine behavior?

When there is clearly injustice being perpetrated, why doesn’t even one board member tell the spiritual assassins (called by some “the gang of three”) to knock it off?  Why don’t they threaten to expose them to the congregation?  Why do so many board members suddenly go silent when their more vocal colleagues plan to do evil?

And if matters get to the floor of the congregation, why don’t more people in the church vocally support the pastor?  Why do supposedly strong believers suddenly wilt like Peter rather than stand strong like Daniel?

In other words, why do good Christians so often end up guarding clothes rather than fighting injustice?

When I was a kid, James 4:17 used to bother me.  It still does.  Our Lord’s half-brother writes, “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.”

When you know you should protest … when you know God wants you to speak up … when you know you should walk away from the clothes … but you don’t – that’s sin.

In our new ministry, Restoring Kingdom Builders, I want to empower lay people to speak up when it looks like their pastor is being verbally or vocationally stoned.  I want to share with them specific measures they can take to counteract this plague of forcing called, trained, and godly pastors out of churches and even out of ministry.

Rather than guarding clothes for others, maybe it’s time we say, “Watch your own clothes.  I see what you’re up to, and with God’s help, I’m going to do everything I can to stop it.”

Who’s up for this?  Are you?

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Who Will Stop Me?

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Antagonists, Conflict with the Pastor, Fighting Evil, Pastoral Termination on March 21, 2011| 8 Comments »

Hi.  I attend your church.  You don’t know who I am, but I show up nearly every Sunday and sit in the next-to-the-last row on the left side.

And it’s ironic that I attend your church at all, because I don’t like the pastor.  I don’t like his sermons.  I don’t like his kids.  I don’t like the schools he attended and the hobbies he jabbers about from the pulpit.  I just don’t like him – and for that reason, I’d like him to leave.

The right thing to do would be for me to leave the church and attend somewhere else.  After all, at this point I’m not aware of anyone else who feels the way I do.  But I don’t want to leave.  I want to stay.  I want him to leave.

There’s a quick way for me to pull this off: start making accusations against the pastor.  It almost doesn’t matter what I accuse him of doing: sleeping around, embezzling funds, fuzzy beliefs, power plays – you get the picture.

Still with me?

I can accuse the pastor of various misdeeds through (a) a whispering campaign (“Did you hear that the pastor was recently seen …”); (b) a letter sent to select church homes (“The pastor doesn’t believe in the virgin birth!”); (c) a few strategic emails (“The pastor has been seriously overspending funds recently”); or (d) conversations with my friends (“Why does he continually refer to that TV show all the time?”).

Having done this sort of thing before, I know that one or two of my accusations will eventually reach the pastor, and he’ll be very upset.  But I also know my accusations will reach the ears of the governing leaders as well.

And if my charges are taken seriously, no one will come and talk with me.  No one will ask me for the evidence that my charges are true.

The pastor’s supporters will disbelieve the charges immediately.  His enemies (among which I count myself a proud member) will believe all the charges and more.  (We’ve just been waiting for someone to articulate them.)  It’s the group in the middle that I’m aiming for.  I just need to pick off a few to accomplish my goal.

By this time, a few people will add charges to the ones I’ve already made.  It almost doesn’t matter what they are or if they’re true or not.  The board may choose to investigate the charges, but if they do, they will almost certainly not be traced back to me.  And if anyone tries to confront me, I will just do what they do in politics: deny, deny, deny.

My first attempt may not be successful.  The pastor may survive my little campaign.  But if I keep making little charges here and there, the wind will pick them up, and when they get to the pastor, they’ll start to wear him down.

And then one of these days, the pastor will resign due to burnout or stress, or a small group in the church will add to my accusations and formally drive the pastor out.

The pastor will be told by the leaders of both the church and the demonination that he needs to leave the church to preserve its unity, that the church needs to start with a clean slate.

But no one will do anything to me.  I have ecclesiastical immunity.

Nobody will sue me.  Christians aren’t to sue other Christians according to 1 Corinthians 6:1-8, right?

Nobody will confront me.  After the board deals with the pastor, they’ll be too tired.

Nobody will finger me.  In the unlikely event that the leaders launch an investigation to find out who started the rumors, they would probably speak with others long before they got to me.  If I caught wind of their efforts, I’d quietly slip out the back door of the church, wait a couple months, and then return.  Nothing would happen to me.

Nobody will ask me to leave.  After all, I’m allowed to attend services at my own church, right?

And when the church calls the next pastor, if I don’t like him, I already know what to do.

Who will stop me?

Nobody.

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Talking About Gossip

Posted in Church Conflict, Current Church Issues, Fighting Evil on February 16, 2011| 1 Comment »

During my first year of college, someone told me about a rumor that was going around our church about one of my friends and me.  The gist of the rumor was, “Isn’t it a shame that Jim and [so and so] are no longer getting along?”  What was being said was not true and really ticked me off – so I decided to do some detective work and locate the source of the rumor.

I asked the person who told me the rumor who they heard it from, and when they told me, I went to that person’s house.  But that individual wasn’t the source.  They heard it from somebody else.

So I went to the next person’s house … and so on, for most of the morning.  And guess what?

I never did find out who started the rumor.

I learned a lesson that day.  Since you and I cannot control other people’s tongues, all we can do is control our own ears and not pay attention to everything that everybody says about us.

In other words, there will always be gossips, and we cannot rid the world of them, try as we might.

But we can rid the world of one gossip: ourselves.

What is gossip?  To paraphrase a Supreme Court judge, “I know it when I hear it.”

It’s not gossip to talk about other people, otherwise every time we talked about President Obama or the Lord Jesus, we would be guilty of a sin – and that’s just plain silly.

It’s not gossip to relay bad news about someone.  If a friend of mine goes into the hospital, and I mention that to a few people, that’s not gossip.  Or if someone at my workplace loses a job, and I share that information with a co-worker, that’s not gossip.

It’s not gossip to mention a person’s humanity.  Several weeks ago, our pastor mentioned that he is afraid of heights.  I’m not crazy about deep water.  My wife is not a lover of snakes.  If you want to repeat that information to other people, they’ll probably say, “So what?”  Everybody is afraid of something.  That just means we’re human.

It’s not gossip to express an opinion about someone.  For instance, I cannot watch any Red Carpet events that happen before the Grammys or the Oscars.  It drives me crazy to see and hear celebrity gawkers making a big deal about things that don’t matter (like hair and dresses – you know).  Even though I’ll express some cynicism about those events, that isn’t gossip.  (It’s just discernment!)

So when does gossip occur?

Gossip occurs when I share information about another person and I add a malicious element to it.  For example, “Did you hear that Joe is in the hospital?”  (Nothing wrong with that.)  “I always knew that one day, his habit of eating hot dogs would catch up with him.”  (Ouch!  Gossip!)

Gossip also occurs when I speculate about why someone is having a problem.  “Did you hear that the Horners just separated?”  (If it’s public knowledge, that isn’t necessarily gossip.)  “I’ll bet it’s because of that new single guy in their small group.”  (Red flag!  Gossip!)

Gossip also occurs when we share privileged information about someone we know.  That individual trusts us with a secret, but we just can’t keep it to ourselves any longer.  We have to tell somebody – often the first person we see!  “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but Tim and his family are leaving the church and I’ve heard it’s because they don’t like the youth program.”  (No, no, no!  That’s clearly gossip!)

Finally, gossip occurs when I talk about someone behind their back.  If I notice a weakness in someone’s life, and I really love them, I might ask the Lord to show me a time when I might talk to them about it.  But instead of doing that, I chicken out and tell others what I’ve noticed but I never tell the person I’m gossipping about to their face.

Many years ago, when I was a youth pastor, I did a question-and-answer session with some of the kids in our church.  One of the girls asked me, “Why don’t your socks match?”  I had put my socks on in the dark that morning and had gone all day without noticing what that girl did notice.  She could have told the person next to her about my socks, and that person could have told someone else, and pretty soon, everyone in the room might have known about my mismatch except me.  But to her credit, she asked me directly about the socks – and we all had a pretty good laugh about my mistake.

In 1 Timothy 3:11, Paul discusses the qualifications for deacon’s wives in the local church.  Paul writes, “In the same way, their wives are to be women worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything.”  The phrase “malicious talkers” is literally “she-devils.”  The word “devil” means “slanderer.”  Paul tells Timothy that he is to avoid selecting men as spiritual leaders who have “she-devils” as wives.  Rather, the wife of a spiritual leader should be “trustworthy in everything.”

Why bring this up?  Because gossip destroys people.  Gossip destroys other Christians.  Gossip destroys pastors.  And gossip destroys churches.  Gossips can be “she-devils” or “he-devils,” but please notice: gossipping never advances Christ’s work.  It only advances Satan’s.  The devil is the one who uses deception to destroy the work of Christ.

Ten years ago, I had a friend who served as the pastor of a church that had purchased a parcel of land and wanted to build a school on it.  The neighbors in the surrounding community fiercely opposed the project, which was their right.  But if they dealt with the facts, they would have lost the fight outright.  One day, I visited the homeowners building in our neighborhood and noticed that the HOA newsletter devoted its two pages to a litany of reasons why the school project should be opposed.  When I read over their arguments, I counted fifteen lies!  The church had been repeating the facts about the project in the newspaper and at public meetings, but that didn’t stop the opposition.  They had gossip on their side … but they lost anyway.  Gossippers are never winners.

And maybe that’s why they gossip in the first place.  Gossips don’t tend to focus on losers.  They tend to focus on winners.  They become aware of people who seem to have more authority or money or fame or intelligence – or even spirituality – and they become jealous of their success, so they tear them down with their words to bring them down to size.  Rather than channeling their energies into building others up, they major in tearing others down.

If we recognize that we do gossip – and we all do at times – how can we stop doing it?

The most effective deterrents to gossip often come from Scripture.  Some of the Proverbs deal with gossip in a simple but powerful way.  For example, Proverbs 11:13 says, “A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy man keeps a secret.”  Which of the two do you want to be: a gossip or a trustworthy person?  (Me, too.)  Or how about  Proverbs 17:9: “He who covers over an offense promotes love, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.”  If I know about a sin someone has committed, should I conceal it from others or expose it to their inquiring minds?  (If I don’t want to have any good friends, I should expose the secret.)  Or how about Proverbs 10:19,  one of my very favorite verses?  “When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise.”  Sometimes we gossip just because we talk too much!  Like 24-hour cable TV, sometimes we don’t know how to fill the silence so we revert to talking about other people.

For some, a good dose of James 3:1-12 can stop them from gossipping for quite a while.  Much of the Book of James comes straight from the Sermon on the Mount – and that’s where I have found my greatest motivation to guard my tongue.

Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:1-2 always pierce my heart : “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.  For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”  In other words, “what goes around, comes around.”  If I harshly criticize others behind their back, others will just as harshly criticize me behind my back.  If I invest my precious time in being petty about others, then others will invest their time in being petty about me.  If I “dish it out,” I better be ready to “take it,” Jesus says, because that’s the way His universe works.

But Jesus implies that if I’m kind in talking about others, then others will be kind talking about me.  If I’m merciful to others, they will be merciful toward me.  Skip down ten verses in Matthew 7 to the Golden Rule: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12).

I can either spend my time loving others or harming them with my words.  I can either build people up or tear them down verbally.

That’s why when I write, I will be critical of practices that I believe divide Christians and churches, but I will rarely mention people’s names.  In fact, I will do my best to disguise the identity of those I use as illustrations.

What have you found most effective in curtailing gossip in your own life?

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Skipping Steps

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Antagonists, Fighting Evil, Forgiveness and Reconciliation among Christians on January 14, 2011| 2 Comments »

Imagine this:

You work as a supervisor at a company that you really like.  You look forward to coming to work each morning, enjoy your co-workers, and find your position utilizes your special gifts and strengths.  Most of all, you believe that you are making a real contribution to your company.  You are always included in management meetings and believe that your ideas make your company better.  You plan on keeping your job for many years to come.

Your company has been undergoing some changes recently, and there’s a lot of anxiety on everyone’s part.  Then one day, you attend an all-company meeting at which the top leaders make a presentation concerning the company’s future and actively solicit feedback from its workers.  You quickly discover that you were excluded from the latest round of meetings and that decisions have been made without your knowledge or approval.

Suddenly, one of your co-workers stands up and accuses you of violating company policy.  You’re taken aback because this is the first time you’ve ever heard of this charge.  You know it isn’t true, and you want to defend yourself, when another co-worker stands up and makes a second charge against you.  You ask yourself, “What in the world is going on here?  Why are they attacking me?”

Before you know it, some other people are making accusations against you as well.  The charges sound like they could be true to others, but you know they are completely false.  After a few minutes, the tide of the meeting has turned so ugly that you just want to crawl in a hole and disappear.

For those of you who work in a company, how likely is the above scenario?

It’s not.  Why not?  Because most companies create policies that protect their workers – and leaders – from being ambushed like that.  If your supervisor believes that you’ve done something wrong, he or she is supposed to sit down with you and talk to you about it face-to-face.  You should never, ever hear negative information about yourself for the first time in a public meeting, and if it did happen, you might very well have legal grounds for taking action against that company.

Then why do all too many churches allow this kind of attack against their pastor?

Jesus, the Founder and CEO of the Christian Church, described the required protocol whenever one worker has a complaint against another worker.  The process is given to us in Matthew 18:15-20.  The steps are simple:

*If I believe that a fellow believer has sinned – especially against me – than I have the responsibility of going to that person directly and confronting him or her with what I have seen or heard.  If they “listen to you” and repent of their actions, then you have restored that person and no further action needs to be taken.

But you don’t first bring up their offenses in a public, all-church meeting.  That’s skipping steps.

*If they refuse to “listen,” Jesus says, then you are to take along one or two other people.  Once again, you repeat the first step but with additional witnesses present.  This elevates the seriousness of the charges.  Once again, the goal is restoration and redemption, not destruction and termination.

But you still don’t go to the church with your charges.  That’s skipping steps.

*Only if the accused individual refuses to change after the first and second encounter should anything be brought up before the church.  Jesus concludes in Matthew 18:17, “If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector” – in other words, as someone who is excluded from the fellowship.

These steps are redemptive and deliberate.  Confronting another believer with sin involves a progressive process, Jesus says, and the steps are crucial.  You must work the steps in the order prescribed without blowing past the first two steps.  If you can’t work step one, then quit.  Don’t jump right to step three.

But in way too many Christian churches, pastors are ambushed in public meetings with charges they have never heard before.  And sadly, most people who attend those meetings let it happen.

Can you imagine how horrible you would feel if you were abused at your workplace in that fashion?  You’d probably reach for the phone and call an attorney right away.

But who can pastors call when this sort of thing happens to them and no one stands up for them?

If I attended a public church meeting, and someone stood up and began making public charges against a pastor, here’s what I would do:

I would grab my Bible and asked to be recognized by the moderator of the meeting as soon as possible.  Then I would read Jesus’ words in Matthew 18:15-20 in a clear, bold voice.  Then I would ask this question of the accuser:

“Have Jesus’ steps in this passage been followed?”

If the answer came back, “I don’t know” or “I’m not sure,” then I would ask the moderator to dismiss the meeting and make sure Jesus’ steps were followed before any charges were ever brought to the congregation again.  If the moderator would not comply, then I would turn on my heel and walk out of the meeting – because Jesus had ceased being the Head of that church.

But I would go further.  (It’s dangerous to have a pastor as a regular church member, is it not?)  I would insist that if the charges made against the pastor turned out to be false that the church exercise discipline on those who made the charges.

What’s the biblical basis for that?

In the Old Testament, what happened to false witnesses?  Moses writes in Deuteronomy 19:16-19: “If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse a man of a crime, the two men involved in the dispute must stand in the presence of the Lord before the priests and the judges who are in office at the time.  The judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against his brother, then do to him as he intended to do to his brother.  You must purge the evil from among you.”

Did you catch the second-to-the-last phrase?  “If the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against his brother, then do to him as he intended to do to his brother.”  If the witness hoped his charges resulted in the stoning of the accused – and the charges proved to be false – then the witness should be stoned, Moses says.

The result?  One less malicious liar in Israel – and all the other gossips and haters are put on notice that their crap won’t be tolerated.

You say, “But that’s the Old Testament.  You won’t find anything like that in the New.”

But we do in Titus 3:10-11, where Paul writes, “Warn a divisive person once, and then warn him a second time.  After that, have nothing to do with him.  You may be sure that such a man is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.”

Paul advocates turning the tables on divisive individuals, working the steps in Matthew 18 in an attempt to get them to repent of their body-fracturing behavior.  While many of us would prefer just to boot them out of the church with a “don’t let the door hit you on the way out” sentiment, once again, the steps cannot be skipped: they must be worked.

Even though these verses are in Scripture, how often are they carried out in our churches?  And if not, why not?  I’d like to hear your thoughts.

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Detecting The Enemy’s Work

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Antagonists, Conflict with the Pastor, Current Church Issues, Fighting Evil, Pastoral Termination on January 7, 2011| Leave a Comment »

How can we know when the devil is responsible for conflict in a church?

I asked that question over lunch many years ago to a worldwide expert on spiritual warfare, Dr. Ed Murphy, who wrote the massive book The Handbook for Spiritual Warfare.  Dr. Murphy was a professor of mine both in college and in seminary and had been supported as a missionary by my home church.

His answer?  “That’s the $64,000 question,” he replied.

James seems to indicate that conflicts originate in our sinful nature.  He writes in James 4:1-2: “What causes fights and quarrels among you?  Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?  You want something but don’t get it.  You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want.  You quarrel and fight.”  Paul appeals in the name of Christ to his spiritual family in Corinth and pleads “that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought” (I Corinthians 1:10).  Neither James nor Paul indicate that Satan is involved in every conflict, whether it’s between a husband and wife, parent and child, or pastor and staff member.  Many conflicts – perhaps most – arise out of our stubborn desire to get our own way.

It’s important that we discern the real source of a conflict so that we know best how to resolve it.  Jesus’ words in Luke 17:3-4 indicate the best way to resolve an interpersonal conflict: “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.  If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.”  Jesus states that rebuke + repentance + forgiveness = reconciliation.

While we have all experienced interpersonal conflict, and know how to resolve matters in most cases (though we often lack the courage), devil-inspired conflict is very, very different.

In the midst of a knockdown, drag-out debate with the Jewish leaders in John 8, Jesus attributed their attitude toward Him to “your father, the devil.”  Beyond supernatural discernment, how did Jesus know that His enemies had aligned themselves with the enemy?  Boldly and confidently, Jesus says:

“You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire.  He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.  When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).

This is the single greatest statement in all of Scripture on the work of Satan, made by the single greatest authority on spiritual matters.  In short, the devil is “a murderer” and “a liar.”  That is, Satan specializes in destruction and deception.

The Jewish leaders were trying to destroy Jesus.  They hated Him so much that they wanted to kill Him.  He knew it and deliberately attributed their hatred to Satan.  And because those who want to destroy another person will use any means necessary to accomplish their goal – including blatant lies – Jesus attributed the malicious charges of the Pharisees to Satan as well.

Peter, who may well have witnessed this very debate, wrote in 1 Peter 5:8, “Be self-controlled and alert.  Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

Over the past several weeks, I’ve seen a large coyote trotting through our backyard on two occasions.  (None of the backyards have fences.)  This morning, while driving home from an errand, I saw what might have been the same coyote walking through a neighborhood near our house.  (I pulled off the road to watch him.  He split.)  What is that coyote doing?  “Looking for someone to devour” (like a rabbit).  While that coyote doesn’t frighten me – my four-pound dog Tito barked at one and made it run last summer – a roaring lion gallivanting through my neighborhood certainly would!

But notice Peter’s language: the devil is seeking someone “to devour.”  He is in the job of destroying Christians.  While he destroys believer’s bodies all the time through terrorism and martyrdom, he also tries to destroy Christian movements and churches by targeting spiritual leaders (like Jesus, the apostles, missionaries, and pastors).  And what’s saddest of all is that sometimes Christians are the perpetrators of that very destruction.

Let me confess: I have known some Christian leaders I don’t like.  Some are interpersonally cold.  Others never listen to anyone’s voice than their own.  A few just care about money.  A handful are massive hypocrites.  But I would never, ever take action to destroy them or their ministries, even if I had likeminded allies.  That’s doing the devil’s work for him.  That is what he wants.  Remember, the Pharisees and Sadducees believed they were doing God’s work by arranging for Jesus’ execution when all the time, they were just putty in Satan’s ugly little hands.  Their hatred for Jesus caused them to form an alliance with Satan.

In addition, Satan aims to deceive people into believing lies.  His arsenal includes innuendo, exaggeration, speculation, rumors, misinterpretation, false accusations, and outright falsehood.  Jesus asked His countrymen’s leaders in John 8:46: “Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?”  They couldn’t.  But because they wanted to destroy Jesus, they eventually chose to deceive people into believing that He was guilty of three capital crimes: blasphemy against God, desecrating the temple, and sedition against Rome.  Jesus was executed on trumped-up charges and behind them all was the forked tongue of the deceiver himself.  Satan’s lies were parroted through the mouths of religious people.

If Satan uses destruction and deception to eliminate Christian leaders – and he hasn’t changed his template in twenty centuries – how can twenty-first believers defeat his attacks?

First, seek restoration rather than destruction.  When Christians lie about a leader to get rid of him, that’s Satanic.  When believers “play politics” to kick out a leader, that’s Satanic.  When believers charge a leader with unproven charges to force him to resign, that’s Satanic.

Before Christmas, I was sharing the story of the way I was forced to leave the last church I served as pastor, and the person with whom I was speaking, a long-time Christian leader, interrupted me and said, “That’s Satanic.”

The biblical way to handle a sinning or ineffective leader is to gently encourage that person (Galatians 6:1-2) to repent of any known sin (1 Timothy 5:19-21) with the purpose of “winning” them (Matthew 18:15-17) or “restoring them” (Galatians 6:1) to spiritual health.  While the New Testament clearly permits “kicking out” believers from a church, it is only to be done when those same believers have been sinning and repeatedly refuse to repent (Matthew 18:15-17; Titus 3:9-10).  The New Testament knows nothing about destroying a leader’s reputation or lying about him just to force him to leave.

Second, seek truthfulness instead of deception.  Christians, who believe that Jesus is “the truth” and that “the truth will set you free,” can sometimes become the purveyor of lies.  If we like someone, we are slow to believe anything negative we hear about them.  If we don’t like someone, we are quick to believe the dirt.  The better way to handle rumors and speculation is to go to the source about an accusation and ask him/her about its accuracy.  If possible, ask the person for evidence that they’re telling the truth.  Sometimes it takes just one phone call to dispel a rumor.

But more than anything, be determined to tell the truth in every situation and to every person.  I know that’s what our parents taught us to do, but it’s amazing how Christians have a hard time doing just that sometimes.  The best way to combat lies is with the weapon of truth.  Tell the truth, over and over and over again, and watch Satan run!  Lie and he’ll move toward you.  Be truthful and he’ll scamper away.

One of my mentors was forced to leave his church as pastor, but before he left, he told the congregation that he would vigorously defend his character and his ministry.  (And he had an attorney friend in the church to make sure that happened.)  Pastors, when people lie about you and you leave the record uncorrected, who gains?  Not Jesus.  Not the kingdom.  The enemy does.  And he not only seeks to harm you, he seeks to harm that church as well.

If you’re in a church, and you’re unhappy with your pastor for some reason, refuse to harm him or spread lies about him.  Instead, pray for him.  Encourage him.  Do something tangible for him.  Expect nothing in return.  If matters don’t change after a while, refuse to say, “This is my church!  He needs to leave!”  Instead, you quietly depart and begin searching for a church where you can fully support the minister and the ministry.

The greatest thing Peter ever said was that Jesus was “the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  Jesus attributed Peter’s insight to “my Father in heaven” (Matthew 16:16-17). But maybe the worst thing Peter ever said followed Jesus’ prediction that He would eventually be killed: “Never, Lord!  This shall never happen to you!”  Jesus immediately told Peter, “Get behind me, Satan!”

If God could speak through Peter one moment, and Satan could speak through him the next, then you and I need to be on our guard so that the enemy does not use us as well.

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Neutralizing the Church Police

Posted in Church Conflict, Church Health and Conflict, Conflict with Church Antagonists, Fighting Evil, Personal Stories, Please Comment! on December 29, 2010| 3 Comments »

It’s quite a challenge to be a youth pastor in any era, but it was particularly difficult in the late 1970’s.  I served in a church that was about ten miles from Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California, and many of our people were drawn to the verse-by-verse teaching of Pastor Chuck Smith as well as the praise choruses emanating from that body.  (Contemporary Christian music originated at Calvary.)  Some people would attend the Sunday morning service at our church but then sneak over to Calvary for the evening service – and then they would come back to our church and want it to be like Calvary, which it was never going to be.

Our church had a piano, an organ, and a choir (with robes), but Calvary had guitars at several of their evening services during the week and rock bands at their Saturday night concerts.  It wasn’t long before that influence crept into our youth group, a development I welcomed.  We sang a lot of praise songs – with acoustic guitar accompaniment – but that was as far as we could go.

Until one day, a young man in the church decided to put on a youth musical written by John Fischer.  The musical required drums.

One Saturday afternoon, before or after practice (I forget), as the youth were banging on drums and other instruments in the worship center, two retired men walked into the sanctuary and threw everyone out.  These men especially expressed their disdain for drums.  (Hadn’t they read Psalm 150?  Guess not.)

I liked these men personally and always counted them as friends and supporters.  But without warning, they assigned themselves the unofficial role of church police.

Suddenly, they were wreaking havoc everywhere they went.  They would drive by the church at different hours of the day.  If the pastor’s car was missing from its customary space, they assumed he was at home napping or watching television.  If my car was missing, they assumed I was out goofing around someplace.  The pastor preferred being away from the church building because he liked to visit people in hospitals and their homes.  Because I was attending seminary in the mornings, I didn’t arrive at the church until 10:30 am, but even then, my ministry wasn’t confined to the church campus.

Before long, the church police began making all kinds of wild accusations, mostly against the pastor.  They believed that because they didn’t see his car parked outside his office all the time, he wasn’t working hard enough for them.  They successfully began to find allies who agreed with them.  A man walked up to me after a Sunday evening service and told me that if the pastor didn’t start working harder, ten percent of the church was going to leave.

I loved my pastor and tried to do everything I could to defend him against the attacks that were building against him.  I went to the governing board and pleaded with them to stand behind their pastor, but they chose to do nothing.  Frustrated, I then took a friend with me and we visited the most powerful layman in the church, but only because we knew he supported the pastor whole-heartedly.  As we recounted the onslaughts against our pastor, we tried to protect the identity of the troublemakers, but this wise man told us, “Gentlemen, when Paul talked about those who caused him trouble in his ministry, he used names.  Who are these people you’re talking about?”  Reluctantly, we told him.

As far as I could tell, no action was ever taken against the Destructive Duo.

Then one day, when the pastor was on vacation, I received a phone call.  One of the two “church policemen” dropped dead of a heart attack.  He was in the process of moving to another state when he collapsed and immediately expired.  Since I was the only other pastor on staff, I went to this man’s home to console his shocked widow.  His funeral was held a few days later, and I’ll never forget it, because our pastor had to come home from vacation to conduct the service – and he wasn’t very happy about it.

After that pastor retired, another pastor came to the church.  After a short while, he was tired of the antics of the second retired guy who complained about everything.  After several warnings, this pastor told the complainer to leave the church campus and never come back.  It didn’t matter that his wife was a sweet woman, or that they had friends in the church, or that they had been there longer than the pastor.  The pastor had had enough, and since nobody was willing to take any action concerning the griper, he took matters into his own hands – and it worked.  The church was able to get on with its mission because an internal dissenter had left.

Hear me loud and clear: when people cause trouble in a church – whether they are charter members or have many friends or are politically connected – they need to be informally or officially confronted and warned to stop their complaining, because complaining has a way of growing into church cancer.  If they won’t stop, then there are at least four possible scenarios:

First, their complaints spread while more people take up their cause.  This is a recipe for a church splinter, split, or coup.  Believe me, you do not want this to happen.

Second, their complaints spread and eventually focus on the pastor, who becomes the scapegoat for all that is wrong in the church.  These kinds of complaints can easily lead to the pastor’s forced exit and throw the church into chaos.

Third, the official leaders of the church gain some God-given courage and confront the complainers, telling them that they have three choices: (a) come to a board meeting and lay all your complaints out there, (b) then stop the complaining altogether and let the board handle matters, or (c) leave the church without taking anyone with you.  Unfortunately, many boards back down at this point because some of the complainers are their friends, and after all, they reason, it’s easier to get a new pastor than it is new friends.

Finally, God strikes somebody dead.  “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:26).

One of the constant themes of this blog is that the people of the church – not just the pastors and the governing board – have the power to stop troublemakers dead in their tracks.  Complainers are only permitted to operate because the people of the church listen to their gripes or look the other way even when they are aware that divisive actions are happening all around them.

If you attend a church and know that certain people are engaged in divisive activities, what could you do about it?  I’d love to hear your responses.

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Lying About Pastors

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Antagonists, Conflict with the Pastor, Fighting Evil, Personal Stories, tagged , , , , , , on December 28, 2010| 2 Comments »

My family enjoyed Christmas dinner with my brother-in-law’s family this past weekend, and we played a game around the table that proved to be oodles of fun.  Someone called it “telephone pictionary.”

We were each given small notepads and asked to write down a Christmas phrase like “figgy pudding” or “Santa Claus is coming to town.”  Then we passed our notepads to the next person who had to draw a picture of the phrase on the next page.  When that person was done drawing, they passed the notepad to the next person who examined the crude drawing, flipped the page, and tried to write down the original phrase.  Then we passed our notepads along, alternating between creating a drawing and coming up with a phrase.  When all fourteen of us finally received our original notepads back, it was quite amusing to hear how a phrase like “silent night” ended up becoming “dead potato” within just a few minutes.

The same phenomenon happens in churches all the time.  And unfortunately, the greatest victims of distorted communication are pastors and their families.

Years ago, I served as the pastor of a church that chose to write a new constitution and set of by-laws.  Four people served with me on the “constitution team” and we had some fascinating discussions about how our church should operate.  When we completed our draft, I preached on every major section of the document and invited questions and comments after each message.  (This was done at a Sunday evening service.  Remember those?)  The team recorded the best suggestions and included them in the final document before the congregation voted on it.  The whole process was transparent and participative.

I specifically asked that the following phrase be included: “This constitution will be null and void after five years.”  I took the phrase from a suggestion made by Ted Engstrom, one of the leading Christian management experts.  The purpose of the phrase was to ensure that the church’s governing documents would constantly be reviewed and revised.

However, a group in the church held a meeting around this time and invited a secular attorney to join them.  When the attorney was told about the “null and void” phrase in the proposed constitution, he concluded that I didn’t want the church to have any constitution after five years so that I could become the constitution and take over the church!  Sadly, this is what some people chose to believe even though they never asked me about it.

More recently, in the midst of a major conflict, a former attendee began telling people that “They finally caught him!”  (The “him” was me.)  Evidently she believed that I was guilty of some horrible sin in previous churches (even though she had never attended any of them) and that I was using the same modus operandi.  But I had no idea what she was talking about, although I’m sure there were souls who were willing to supply that information.  In some people’s eyes, my ecclesiastical crimes – although still unspecified – merited the worst possible punishment.  But, to be honest, being lied about is punishment enough.

Not long after this accusation surfaced, I ate separate meals with three different former board chairmen, none of whom evidently knew that they were breaking bread with someone who had committed unspeakable felonies when we had served the Lord together!

I have heard terrible things about many Christian leaders over the years.  While the charges are occasionally dead-on, more times than not they are completely twisted.

Charles Spurgeon, whose sermons were often harshly reviewed in the London papers of his time, encouraged the pastors of his college with regular talks on ministerial life.  In his classic book Lectures to My Students, Spurgeon’s chapter “The Blind Eye and the Deaf Ear” is the single greatest counsel on handling criticism I have ever read.  Spurgeon writes:

“In the case of false reports against yourself, for the most part use the deaf ear.  Unfortunately liars are not yet extinct, and … you may be accused of crimes which your soul abhors.  Be not staggered thereby, for this trial has befallen the very best of men, and even your Lord did not escape the envenomed tongue of falsehood.  In almost all cases it is the wisest course to let such things die a natural death.  A great lie, if unnoticed, is like a big fish out of water, it dashes and plunges and beats itself to death in a short time.  To answer it is to supply it with its element, and help it to a longer life.  Falsehoods usually carry their own refutation somewhere about them, and sting themselves to death.  Some lies especially have a peculiar smell, which betrays their rottenness to every honest nose.  If you are disturbed by them the object of their invention is partly answered, but your silent endurance disappoints malice and gives you a partial victory, which God in his care of you will soon turn into a complete deliverance.  Your blameless life will be your best defense, and those who have seen it will not allow you to be condemned so readily as your slanderers expect.  Only abstain from fighting your own battles, and in nine cases out of ten your accusers will gain nothing by their malevolence but chagrin for themselves and contempt for others.”

While Spurgeon notes exceptions to the above rule, his counsel is timeless.

They lied about David.  They lied about Job.  They lied about Jesus.  They lied about Paul.  And if you are doing anything worthwhile for the Lord, “they” (meaning Satan and his minions) will lie about you, too.  While I don’t like to be lied about (no one does), haven’t we all – knowingly or unknowingly – spread lies about others at times?

Years ago, I read Steven Covey’s classic The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  Some of the phrases in that book have become part of our culture (like “seek first to understand, then to be understood”).  But one of the best phrases in that book is just five words long: “Defend those who are absent.”  As conflict expert Speed Leas says, we tend to exaggerate when we talk about someone who isn’t around to defend themselves.  But when that person is in our presence, it’s surprising how carefully we phrase our words.

Resolve that you will never intentionally lie about anyone, especially Christian leaders.  If you hear what you suspect might be a lie going around about someone, contact them directly and ask if it’s true.  Isn’t that what you would want that person to do for you?

Proverbs 6:19 links “a false witness who pours out lies” with “a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.”  Deception and division go together.  Liars destroy reputations and separate friends.  Resolve to tell the truth in every situation, especially when it comes to Christian leaders.

Because when we spread lies about another person, we are doing the devil’s work for him.

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Reclaiming Abused Pastors

Posted in Conflict with Church Antagonists, Conflict with the Pastor, Fighting Evil, Personal Stories on December 2, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Soon after I was born, my parents took me to their church  in Inglewood, California, and dedicated me to the Lord.  The pastor who presided over my dedication was a man with a large forehead and a contagious grin.  As a kid, I could never understand him when he preached, but for some reason, I liked him.  He seemed … well, jolly.

When our family moved to Anaheim (I was only four), my father pastored several churches, eventually planting a church in Garden Grove.  After he died, I eventually became a youth pastor at a second church – also in Garden Grove – but my first pastor, the one who dedicated me as a child, was called to still another church in Garden Grove, just a couple miles from our home.  (No, none of these churches was The Crystal Cathedral!)  My wife Kim and I attended that church during my first year of seminary and I later became that church’s youth pastor.  I peformed my first wedding and baptism in that church, and I was ordained to the ministry there a few months after graduating from seminary.

One night, a man I knew approached me in the church parking lot after a service and told me that a group in the church was unhappy with the pastor.  When I asked him how large the group was, he told me that his group consisted of ten percent of the church.  As I probed further, the issue seemed to be that the pastor didn’t work hard enough for this group and they were going to make some demands until he complied with their wishes.  Many of the members of that group were retired and were constantly snooping around the church looking for any problems they could find with the ministry.

Although I had never before attended a meeting of the governing board, I asked the chairman if I could come to the next meeting, and he permitted me to do just that.  I told the board that there was a group of dissidents in the church that were threatening the pastor and that they had begun to make his life a living hell.  (The pastor’s wife had already received a nasty anonymous phone call.)  The pastor himself told me that the attacks on him were becoming so vicious that he couldn’t focus to study for sermons.  I asked the board to do something to protect their pastor from this abuse.  They voted 5-2 to do something, but they never did  anything about the problem.  In fact, the pastor himself cast one of the two votes not to take any action against his opponents.  Why not?  Well, years before, in that same church where I was dedicated, the associate pastor had led a rebellion against the pastor and the ensuing conflict was so painful that it altered the pastor’s personality, rendering him almost paralyzed to deal with personal attacks.

After the pastor retired a few years later, he refused to ever do any pastoral work again – no funerals, no weddings, nothing.  The conflicts he had experienced had taken their toll on his body, mind, and heart.  And he was such a tender man, the only man I’ve ever called “Pastor.”  (He is now resting in the arms of Jesus.)

There are thousands of pastors just like the one who dedicated me as a child.  They are committed to Christ.  They use their gifts to touch the lives of others.  They really care about people.  They want to build Christ’s kingdom.  But sometime during that pastor’s tenure, a group inside the church opposes his/her ministry and abuses the pastor – and sometimes his family – continually.  Such pastors are often so worn down by the opposition that they resign from ministry and never lead a congregation again.  They are kicked to the curb, their experience and gifts going forever unused.

That’s why my wife Kim and I are launching a new ministry called Restoring Kingdom Builders.  We have experienced opposition from antagonists firsthand and know exactly how it feels.  We want to provide emergency treatment for pastors and their spouses who go through such tough times through retreats, counseling, consulting, and writing.  We don’t want such pastors to end up bitter and useless to Christ’s kingdom.  We want to love them and direct them toward healing and wholeness.

Look for the official launch of our new ministry in early 2011!  I’ll be revealing more details over the next few weeks.  Please pray that we will honor the Lord in all we do.  Thanks for reading!

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