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When My Heroes Came to Town

July 11, 2011 by Jim Meyer

The year was 1967.  I was 13-years-old and lived in Anaheim, California, just two miles up Cerritos Avenue from Disneyland.

In just their second year at Anaheim Stadium, my hometown California Angels – as they were called then – were hosting the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

We played a lot of baseball in my neighborhood, and thanks to a couple of friends, we learned that when the American League teams visited the Angels, they stayed in hotels surrounding Disneyland.  At that time, the Oakland A’s stayed at the cheap Jolly Roger Inn.  The rest of the teams stayed at the Grand Hotel across Harbor Boulevard from Disneyland.

Most of the kids who lived near me collected baseball cards with varying degrees of success, so when we discovered that visiting players were staying about three miles from our community, we were curious to see if we could have access to them.

As it turns out, we could.

We’d arrive at the hotel in mid-afternoon and wait for the players to go to the ballpark, asking for their signatures.  Some took cabs to the stadium.  Others waited for the team bus.  A select few rented cars or stayed with friends or family.  We saw most of them, and 95% of them were cordial about signing.

It seems like a fairy tale now, but I once witnessed so many unbelievable things at the Grand Hotel.  Rod Carew rode a kid’s sting-ray bike all around the parking lot.  A kid named Gary – who didn’t have it all together upstairs – asked Al Kaline if he could interview him on his cassette recorder … and Kaline obliged.  Bobby Murcer needed a ride to Hollywood to be on a game show, and Gary volunteered to drive him … and Murcer agreed.  (None of us thought Murcer would return alive.)  A kid named Gordy – who got autographs with the rest of us – became best friends with Reggie Jackson.

And one time, my brother John and his friend Steve decided to ride the hotel elevator when the Yankees were in town – and Mickey Mantle stepped onto the elevator.  (And was not amused.)

Another day, actor Jimmy Durante – who was doing a show at the adjacent Melodyland Theatre – showed up in the parking lot, and we all got his signature.  (We didn’t have cameras on our phones in those days – much less phones – or I would have taken his picture.)  One day, two friends were walking to the hotel and decided to catch the tram ride from the Disneyland Hotel – and sat right by actor Fred McMurray.  Another time, I was at the hotel by myself when Hubert Humphrey came walking out – fast – with men in coats surrounding him.  He was running for President that year: 1968.  (I didn’t dare ask him for a signature.  I could have been shot.)

Back to the All-Star Game.  My best friend Steve and I planned to spend Sunday night, all day Monday, and Tuesday morning at the Grand Hotel getting autographs of players before going to the game itself late Tuesday afternoon.  Since the American League teams stayed in Anaheim during the year – and we could get their signatures anytime – we wanted autographs of National Leaguers instead.

This was before autographs were worth anything.  We never thought in terms of a signature’s value – we just wanted to obtain the autographs of people we admired.

At first, we obtained signatures on 3×5 index cards.  No one we knew was getting 8×10 pictures, postcards, or even baseballs signed.

But for the All-Star players, I went out and bought a brand-new autograph book – the kind we had our friends sign on the last day of grade school.

We also had to figure out the kind of pen we would use.  (This was pre-Sharpie.)  We tried out different ballpoint pens at home and brought several with us.

Steve and I finally discovered that while the National League players were staying at the Grand, the American Leaguers were staying at the Disneyland Hotel.

We parked at the Grand.

That Sunday night and the following day, Steve and I got the autographs of people like Jim Wynn, Fergie Jenkins, and the catcher for the Braves: Joe Torre.  But one guy in particular stood out.

We saw him walking toward us along Freeman Way.  He was resplendent in a light blue suit.  Honestly, I’ve rarely seen anybody with more presence or class in my life.

It was the great right fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Roberto Clemente.

Clemente signed something for everyone in the small crowd surrounding him – including my autograph book.  It was a moment that I’ll never forget – especially when he died in a plane crash on January 1, 1973 while taking relief supplies for victims in Nicaragua.

We also obtained the signatures of future Hall of Famers like Ernie Banks, Don Drysdale, Bill Mazeroski, Orlando Cepeda, and NBC announcer Pee Wee Reese.  I nearly froze, though, when I saw Sandy Koufax, who had retired from the Dodgers at age 30 the year before and was now Reese’s broadcast partner.  Koufax was my hero.  He signed my autograph book.

I went home for dinner and brought back the best card of Koufax I had, hoping I’d see him again.  It was his 1955 Topps Rookie card – and was in mint condition.  Koufax signed it for me.  Some dealers have told me that when I had Koufax sign it, the value of the card plummeted, but I didn’t – and don’t – care.

No dealers were advising us back then, thank God.

On Monday evening, not much was happening at the Grand.  Chris Short and Richie Allen of the Phillies came to the hotel in a cab, and I obtained my first and only signature of Allen for the next 25 years – he was that tough an autograph.

Steve and I eventually decided to go over to the Disneyland Hotel and see if we could find some American Leaguers.  We didn’t see any players we knew, but it just so happened that Major League Baseball executives were having a meeting.  When these older men emerged from their meeting, Steve and I asked them to sign our index cards without knowing who they were – like Frank “Trader” Lane and Bing Devine.

But we both knew who Stan “The Man” Musial was.  He signed two index cards for me.  What a great, great night!

The morning of the All-Star Game, the lobby inside the Grand was a zoo.  Since the bellmen worked hard to keep the kids out of the lobby, Steve latched onto someone – I think a friend of Cepeda’s – ready to say that he was staying at the Grand.  We got some more autographs that morning (like Pete Rose and Tony Perez), and when I reviewed my autograph book, I was missing five guys.

They were a big five, too: Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Juan Marichal, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron.

It took me five years, but I finally obtained all of their signatures in my little blue book as well.  We didn’t have baseball card shows or conventions back then, so I had to find them and get them to sign – for free.

A friend from church named Larry invited me to go to the All-Star Game with him, and so we sat together – for all 15 innings.  In the 15th, Tony Perez hit a home run off A’s pitcher Jim “Catfish” Hunter and the National League won, 2-1.  I sat through the game knowing that for two days before the game, I had met nearly every player on the NL squad.

It was quite a feeling for a Jr. High kid.

Besides that, I ended up with a full ticket to the game.  It would be worth a lot today – but I traded it to a friend, who ended up co-sponsoring the first-ever card show a couple years later.

The All-Star Game is being held in Phoenix tomorrow, and I won’t be going.  (My wife is scheduled to fly in from Kenya via New York during the game.)  And I won’t be hanging around any hotels downtown, either.  (The hoardes of people hanging out at these events nowadays are just plain scary.)  I will watch the Home Run Derby tonight (they didn’t have events like that in 1967), and I’ll watch as much of the game tomorrow as I can.

If I decided to sell my autograph book today, I’m not sure it would sell for all that much.  Some of the signatures are barely legibile.  Some were quickly scrawled.  Some – like the autograph I obtained of Willie Mays the following year – don’t look anything like his signature today.

But the book represents a time in life when fans had access to their heroes (no single player made more than $200K) and didn’t have to pay $50 to obtain one cookie-cutter autograph at a card show.

Baseball is in my blood.  It provided a connection between my father and me, and later between me and my son.  There is so much about the game that I love.

Several years ago, my wife and I stayed at a hotel in Anaheim, and while out for a morning jog, I decided to run by the Grand Hotel.  It wasn’t there anymore, and it made me sad.

But when I think of my favorite baseball memory, I think back 44 years to a time when my heroes came to town.

To quote from a song by Abba, “I can still recall our last summer, I still see it all …”

Posted in Personal Stories | 4 Comments »

Forced Apologies

July 8, 2011 by Jim Meyer

Have you ever been accused of doing something that you didn’t do – and someone demanded that you apologize to them?

One time, the church I was pastoring held a service on a major holiday.  After the service, the musicians and vocalists and others involved in the service were milling about and congratulating each other on a job well done – all except for a man who had also participated in the service.  Out of the blue, he told me that he overheard me saying something derogatory about him right after I closed the service.  He was visibly hurt – and angry.  He implied that I better apologize to him – and quickly.

But I didn’t say anything negative about him at all.  In fact, I don’t think I had ever said anything negative about him in my entire life.

When I tried to tell this gentleman that he was somehow mistaken, he insisted that his hearing was excellent and that he had heard me loud and clear.

I had to give him credit for speaking with me directly and swiftly.  He didn’t let it fester and he didn’t spread his discontent to others.  But he was just plain mistaken.  I never said what he claimed I said.

Now what should I have done?  What would you have done?

I apologized – and have regretted it ever since.

Pastors face this problem all the time, as do believers in visible roles like staff members, ministry leaders, vocalists, and musicians.  Well-meaning individuals sometimes misinterpret what we say or do – or accuse us of doing things we never did or saying things we never said.  And when the matter finally comes to our attention, the person who is upset with us demands an apology.  Should we give it?

Many Bible teachers say, “Yes, we should.  It is important for Christians to get along with each other, so if I offend you, and it comes to my attention, then it is my responsibility to apologize to you and make things right with you.”  Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:22-24 are often cited as the text that supports this idea.  (Although I have never been convinced by some of the interpretations of this passage that I’ve heard.)

But incidents from Jesus’ own life make me wonder.

I John 2:6 says that “whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.”  Although Jesus led a sinless life, He is still our Ultimate Role Model.  Believers are to major in Christlikeness.  WWJD, right?

What do we do with the story in Matthew 15:1-14 then?

On this occasion, the Pharisees and teachers of the Jewish law confronted Jesus about the fact that His disciples didn’t wash their hands ceremonially before eating.  Jesus defended His followers by accusing the Jewish authorities of being hypocritical in the way that they applied Scripture to their lives.

Jesus’ disciples came to Him privately and informed Him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”

Now if Jesus responded to this charge the way that many preachers teach us to, then He would have said, “You know, you guys are right.  I was a little hard on those leaders, wasn’t I?  The next time I see them, I’ll tell them I was sorry and that it won’t happen again.”

What did Jesus say instead?

In Matthew 15:13-14, He said, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots.  Leave them; they are blind guides.  If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into the pit.”

Did you catch that?  Instead of expressing remorse that He had offended the Jewish leaders, Jesus intensified His attack against them by calling them “blind guides.”

Now Jesus clearly offended the Jewish leaders, and if He wanted to get along with them – and set a good example for His closest followers – then He should have apologized to them, correct?  The text seems to imply that’s what they wanted from Him.

But Jesus refused to do it.  Why?  Because He didn’t do anything wrong.  And if He had apologized, it would have been a lie.

And even though Jesus was accused of doing and saying many wrong things during His three-year ministry, He never apologized for anything He said or did.

Had you and I been living during Jesus’ ministry, we probably would have been offended by some of the things He said as well.  For example, we’re told in John 6:60-66 that Jesus made some statements that offended the crowds to the point that most of them deserted Him.  His congregation dwindled significantly.

Faced with an identical set of circumstances, some pastors might have gone on television to explain themselves a little better, or taken out a full-page ad in the newspaper.  Not Jesus.  He let them all go – without apologizing.

This means there will be times when leaders offend people and they need to stand by what they said or did.  But if a leader has done something wrong, he or she does need to apologize for it.

One time, a church leader wanted to meet with me and “clear the air” over some issues.  He brought a whole list of things that I had done to offend him.  (I wish he had kept short accounts and spoken with me about each issue as it arose, however.)  I sincerely apologized for a couple of behaviors where I was wrong, and he said he forgave me – but I staunchly disagreed with some of the other issues he raised, and I did not apologize for those.

Which of the following three leaders would you rather follow?

Leader One never admits he makes any mistakes.  If he gets a date or a name wrong in a sermon, and you mention it to him, he’ll defend himself rather than admit he did anything wrong.  If he falsifies an expense report, and you happen to catch him, then God help you for confronting him.  This kind of leader blames all of his problems on other people.

Leader Two is always apologizing for everything.  She apologizes if she makes a tough decision and someone is hurt by it.  She apologizes if even one person doesn’t like what she says after leading her small group.  She even apologizes for sharing the gospel with a seeker if someone objects to being identified as a sinner.

(I once knew a woman who apologized to the congregation before she sang a solo.  She was sitting near me in the back of the church, and right before she got up to sing, she overheard someone mentioning her name and assumed it was done in a negative fashion.  When the soloist got up to sing, she told the congregation that even though she knew that some people didn’t care for her singing, she would try and do her best for the Lord!  What she never heard – but I did – was that the woman who mentioned her name was looking forward to hearing her sing!)

Leader Three apologizes to the appropriate party when he has done something wrong.  He realizes that as a leader, people will occasionally misinterpret what he says and misunderstand what he does.  When he’s wrong, he quickly admits it – often before anyone confronts him on his offense.  When he’s right, he stands his ground and tries to deal with the hurt feelings that someone might be feeling.

(This whole area of forced apologies gets trickier when a husband and wife have a big argument, so for now, this article applies only to church leaders!)

If Christians are to live in community with each other inside a local church, then we all need to admit that we make mistakes at times, ask people to forgive us for those mistakes, and then grant people forgiveness when they do mess up.  This should be an ongoing part of church life – and it should all be done from the heart.

But when certain people insist that we’ve sinned against them – and we know that we haven’t – then we need to follow Jesus’ example and stand our ground.

Posted in Church Conflict, Forgiveness and Reconciliation among Christians | 7 Comments »

Take Your Hands Off the Church!

July 5, 2011 by Jim Meyer

A friend sent me an article yesterday reporting that Dr. Robert Schuller, founding pastor of the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California, was voted off the church’s board.  He had retired as the church’s pastor five years before.

Christians often have strong opinions about Dr. Schuller.  I have met believers who watched the Hour of Power every week without fail and loved it.  Others have not been as complimentary.

Dr. Schuller once lived across the street from my uncle and aunt when they lived in Garden Grove.  He invited them to help him begin his drive-in church.  They ended up at a different church instead.

When I was a kid, our family took a Sunday off from our own church and visited Garden Grove Community Church, as it was known then.  We all sat in our car and watched the service from the parking lot.  While it was definitely different, it was hard to see what was going on from our car’s back seat.

Years later, when I was in seminary, I read Dr. Schuller’s book Your Church Has Real Possibilities!  The book upset me.  There was little Scripture to back up Schuller’s approach to church growth.  Instead, he married American business principles with church ministry.  I probably wrote more disparaging comments in the margins of that book than any other book I’ve ever read, even though his ministry seemed “successful” at the time.

Eleven years ago, my son lived about a mile from the church, so one Sunday I decided I’d attend a service at the famous Crystal Cathedral.  While I didn’t care for the dueling organs or the TV cameras, Dr. Schuller spoke on “You shall not commit adultery” and absolutely nailed the message.  But when I looked around at the congregation, it was obvious the church was aging without reaching younger people.

Let’s put it this way: several years ago, there were twice as many kids at Vacation Bible School at my former church in the Bay Area than they had at VBS that year at the Crystal Cathedral – their multi-story children’s building notwithstanding.

There are many ways to look at the decline of the Crystal Cathedral: aging leadership, overly optimistic growth projections, too much debt, a watered-down gospel message, an ostentatious property (complete with statues and a cemetery), several unfortunate suicides on church grounds, and an inability to connect with younger people, to name just a few.

But there’s another possibility (no pun intended): Dr. Schuller’s inability to take his hands off the ministry.

Founding pastors have enormous clout in a church.  Their family members form the original core group even before the pastor selects his own.  Everyone who attends the church likes the pastor’s preaching and leadership.  If the average pastor gets two votes on the governing board, the founding pastor gets five.  The power can become intoxicating.

But … when a pastor resigns or retires, he needs to leave that church for good.

For starters, it’s wise for him to leave the community.  If a pastor leaves a church but chooses to live in the area afterwards, his presence will linger like a long, dark shadow over his former church.  And whenever people are disgruntled with their new pastor, they will be tempted to consult with their former pastor.

A friend of mine was the associate pastor in his church.  When the senior pastor stepped down because of a medical condition, my friend was asked to be the senior pastor.  However, the previous pastor remained in the church and the community, gradually undermining my friend’s leadership until he was forced to resign.

People inside the church chose not to follow my friend’s vision for the church because his predecessor failed to support him.  But if the previous pastor had moved away, my friend could have led the church unhindered.

There are exceptions to this practice, of course.  The pastor or a family member might be ill and need to stay in the area for medical treatment.  Or the pastor might have a daughter who wants to complete her senior year of high school before moving.  But even if the former pastor stays in the community …

Next, he should never intervene in that church’s affairs.  My former denomination had a code of ethics for pastors, and those ethics clearly state that once a pastor leaves a church, he is no longer to interfere in the way it’s governed.  If a pastor does intervene, he should be called out on his lack of ethics, but this only works well in hierarchical denominations – and many former pastors know this, which is why some undermine their successors from the cover of darkness.

The pastor, staff, and governing board have been given both the authority and responsibility under God to lead a given local church.  A former pastor – no matter how wise or powerful or popular he is – must relinquish his influence to God.

John the Baptizer said it best while talking about Jesus in John 3:30: “He must become greater; I must become less.”  John was saying, “My ministry is nearly over, while His is just beginning.  It’s time for me to step aside and give someone else the spotlight.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Third, it’s crucial that departing pastors direct complainers back to church leaders.  Let’s say that while I’m writing this article, a friend from a former church calls and wants to tell me about an issue involving the new pastor.  Ethically, I shouldn’t even listen to her concern.  Instead, I need to encourage her to speak directly with her pastor and the church’s governing leaders.

I’m not on campus.  I don’t know all the facts.  Besides, I’ve only heard one side of the story and may never hear the other side.  While I want to help my distressed friend, the best way I can help is to stay out of it and encourage her to resolve matters on her own.  Later on, I wouldn’t want to hear that that pastor was mistreated and wonder if I had something to do with it.

Finally, it’s all too common for pastors to have vendettas against their successors.  Let’s say that I’ve been the pastor of a church for fifteen years.  I’ve grown to love the staff, the leaders, and the people, very, very much.  We did some great things together: increased attendance, baptized new believers, and built a building.  The memories are precious.

But eventually I resign and move out of the area.  And after a while, the church calls a new pastor, someone who doesn’t know me and all the great things I did for the church.  While I’m bewildered as to why the church chose him, I share my opinions with my wife and no one else.

But as time goes on, I begin hearing about some decisions that the new pastor has made, and they baffle me.  When some friends from that church visit me, they tell me how much they despise the changes … and I have a decision to make.

If I agree with my friends at all, I validate their complaints and indirectly embolden them to take action against their pastor.  It’s like I have become their pastor-in-exile – and if they look to me as their pastor, they may want to remove their current pastor from office – and use my words to do it.

Because make no mistake, my opinions still carry enormous weight with some people.

The truth is that some pastors are egomaniacs who always view a former church as their church.  They want to take credit for every good thing that happens at that church even after they’ve left.

They haven’t learned to give all the glory to God.

Let’s return now to Dr. Schuller.  He retired as the senior pastor of Crystal Cathedral at the age of 79 but remained on the church board five more years until he was removed on July 3.

Wouldn’t it have been better for him to leave the church a few years ago – and possibly the entire Orange County area – so that his successor could lead and teach without his gigantic influence?

In fact, Dr. Schuller chose his son to succeed him, and less than three years later, removed him as senior pastor.  Now his daughter leads the church, and a lot of people don’t like the changes she’s made.  The church continues to decline.

While Dr. Schuller did build the church (humanly speaking), the church desperately needs to turn around – and it’s an axiom of leadership that the same leader who built the church cannot turn it around.

Wouldn’t the church benefit without any Schullers but with fresh leadership?

And haven’t attempts to control the church fractured their own family unity?

But here’s the problem: the Schullers can’t take their hands off the ministry.  They seem to view the Crystal Cathedral as their church.  In the process, they’re running it into the ground.

When Dr. Schuller dies, he won’t be able to control the church anymore.  Why not just “die” to the church and walk away right now?

Why not leave it in the capable hands of the Head of the Church, Jesus Christ?

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with the Pastor | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

How Would You Handle This Church Nightmare?

July 1, 2011 by Jim Meyer

The following post is meant to be interactive.  Along the way, I have included some questions that I’d like to have you answer for your own benefit.  Compare your responses to what actually happened in the story.  Thanks!

Yesterday I read a true story about a church that faced a terrible situation.  The story comes from church consultant Peter Steinke’s book Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times.  I do not wish for anyone to be upset by this story, so please know ahead of time that the story turns out favorably for all.

Here’s what happened:

A young girl in a church accused her pastor of molestation.  Two leaders, Tom and Diane, met privately with the pastor to notify him of the charge.  By state law, they had to report the charge to a governmental agency.

The pastor shook his head and quietly responded, “I have never touched her.  Never.”

1.  Which option would you recommend for the pastor if you were Tom or Diane?

  • Stay and fight the charge.
  • Take a leave of absence.
  • Resign immediately.
  • Hire an attorney.

Which option did you select?

Tom and Diane recommended that the pastor take a leave of absence.

However, the pastor eventually decided against that option because he felt it indicated guilt.  He told the leaders, “I need to clear my name, but I don’t want to drag the church through this for months.”

Tom and Diane knew they had to inform the congregation of the charge, and when they did, a group of members thought the pastor should resign.  The leaders of the church were warned that most cases like this one are based in fact.

2.  What should the leaders do now?

  • Insist that the pastor stay and fight.
  • Encourage him to take a leave of absence.
  • Recommend that the pastor resign.
  • Let the process play itself out.

Which option did you select?

The leaders decided to let the process of justice go forward and stand behind their pastor until the legal system made the next move.

The leaders also decided that they would meet every week for prayer followed by a sharing time where they would openly discuss what they were thinking.

Tom shared that he believed the pastor was innocent.

Diane wondered how stable the girl was based upon the fact that her parents had gone through a terrible divorce two years earlier but had now jointly hired a lawyer.

Another admitted that she was being pressured by other members to withdraw her support for the pastor.

The pastor told the leaders that he would hold no resentment if anyone felt compelled to withdraw their support from him.

One leader chose to resign.

Marie, another leader, stood solidly behind the pastor because she had been falsely accused of something at her own workplace.

A few anxious leaders turned against the pastor and condemned him.

3.  If you attended those weekly meetings, what would you as a leader do now?

  • Insist the pastor stay and fight.
  • Encourage him to take a leave of absence.
  • Recommend that he resign.
  • Let the justice process run its course.

Which option would you select at this point?

The leaders chose the last option once again.

Fourteen weeks later, the charges against the pastor were suddenly dropped.

4.  What should Tom and Diane do now?

  • Verbally berate every person who doubted the pastor’s innocence.
  • Encourage all the doubters to return to the church.
  • Shame those who didn’t stand with the pastor.
  • Just turn the page and move on.

Which option did the leaders select?

They decided to personally contact anyone who doubted the pastor (or the leaders) and welcome them to return to the church – no questions asked.

5.  What did the leaders of this church do that was so unique?

  • They stood behind their pastor whether he was innocent or guilty.
  • They ignored almost everything the congregation told them.
  • They waited for the truth to come out before making a judgment.
  • They took the easy way out.

Which option did you go with?

The third statement best reflects the mindset of this church’s leaders: they chose to let the justice system take its course before deciding the pastor’s future.

According to Steinke, many people facing these conditions become what psychologists call “cognitive misers.”  They instinctively draw either/or conclusions: either the pastor is innocent or he’s guilty.  Either the pastor is good or he is bad.

But the leaders of this church are to be commended for not letting anxiety make their decision for them.  When certain people were calling for the pastor’s resignation – and even staying home from services until he left – the leaders stuck to their original decision and let the legal system do its work.

The pastor’s job, career, and reputation were all saved.

The church’s reputation and future were preserved.

The decision of the leaders was vindicated.

Why?  Because the leaders chose to make their decision based on truth rather than (a) unity, (b) politics, (c) groupthink, or (d) anxiety.

Let me quote Steinke on this issue fully:

“Nowhere in the Bible is tranquillity preferred to truth or harmony to justice.  Certainly reconciliation is the goal of the gospel, yet seldom is reconciliation an immediate result.  If people believe the Holy Spirit is directing the congregation into the truth, wouldn’t this alone encourage Christians who have differing notions to grapple with issues respectfully, lovingly, and responsively?  If potent issues are avoided because they might divide the community, what type of witness is the congregation to the pursuit of truth?”

In other words, the church of Jesus Christ does not crucify its leaders just because someone makes an accusation against them.

Think with me: if unity is more important than truth, then Jesus deserved to be crucified, didn’t He?

The accusations against Jesus caused great distress for Pilate, resulting in turmoil for his wife and animosity between Pilate and the Passover mob.

The Jewish authorities had to resort to loud and vociferous accusations to force Pilate to act.

The women around the cross wept uncontrollably.

The disciples of Jesus all ran off and deserted Him in His hour of need (except John).

Jesus’ countrymen engaged in mocking and taunting while witnessing His execution.

Who caused Pilate, the Jewish authorities, the women, the disciples, and the Jewish people to become angry and upset and depressed?

It was JESUS!  And since He disrupted the unity of His nation, He needed to go, right?

This is the prevailing view among many denominational leaders today.  If a pastor is accused of wrongdoing, and some people in the church become upset, then the pastor is usually advised to resign to preserve church unity, even before people fully know the truth – and even if the pastor is totally innocent.

In fact, there are forces at work in such situations that don’t want the truth to come out.

That is … if unity is more important than truth.

But if the charges against Jesus – blasphemy against the Jewish law and sedition against the Roman law – were false and trumped up, then Jesus should have gone free even if His release caused disunity in Jerusalem.

The point of Steinke’s story is that leaders – including pastors – need to remain calm during turbulent times in a church.  There are always anxious people who push the leaders to overreact to relieve them of their own anxiety.

If Pilate hadn’t overreacted … if the mob hadn’t … if Jesus’ disciples hadn’t … would Jesus still have been crucified?

Divinely speaking: yes.  It was the only way He could pay for our sins.

Humanly speaking: no.  What a travesty of justice!

20 centuries later, Jesus’ followers can do a better job of handling nightmarish accusations against pastors.

Instead of becoming anxious, they can pray for a calm and peaceful spirit.

Instead of making quick decisions, they can make deliberate ones.

Instead of aiming for destruction, they can aim for redemption.

Instead of holding up unity as the church’s primary value, truth should be viewed that way.

If the pastor in this story had been guilty of a crime, then the leaders would have had to agree on a different course of action.  Sadly, these things do happen in our day, even in churches.

But in this case, the leaders stood strong and did not let the anxiety of others – or their own – determine the destiny of their pastor and church.

They opted for truth instead, and the truth will set you – and everyone else – free.

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Antagonists, Conflict with Church Board, Conflict with the Pastor, Current Church Issues, Jim's Ten Favorite Articles, Pastoral Termination, Please Comment! | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments »

Why Do Staff Flip on Their Pastor?

June 29, 2011 by Jim Meyer

In my last post, I discussed a problem that seems to be increasingly prevalent in our day: staff members forming alliances with board members or other staff against their pastor.

This kind of behavior is one of the reasons why pastors are being forced to resign from their positions at the rate of 1,300 every month.

Of course, we can find an example of this inside Jesus’ inner circle when Judas collaborated with the Jewish authorities to tell them where Jesus was hiding out the night before He died.

Betraying an innocent man is an evil action, whether it’s Judas flipping on the Messiah or a staff member turning on his pastor.

Theologians have wrestled for centuries about Judas’ motives for turning in Jesus.  Was it purely for the thirty pieces of silver he received?  Was it because Jesus disappointed Judas in some fashion, like not being the political leader he wanted Him to be?  Was it because of Satan’s gradual influence in Judas’ life?

We may never know for sure this side of heaven.  However, let me share with you four reasons why staff members – most often, associate pastors – flip on their supervisor, the senior pastor – and I’m assuming here that the senior pastor is innocent of any major wrongdoing.

First, the associate pastor wants to be a lead pastor.  I wanted to be a pastor when I was nineteen years old, but I knew I’d have to finish college, complete seminary, and be ordained before that would happen.  I was a youth pastor in three churches before ordination, and because none of those churches had associates, I was the top staff member in the church behind the pastor in each situation.  While it was no secret that I wanted to become a pastor, I knew that I had to undergo a process before that would ever occur – and I had a lot to learn.  There was no way I could hurry the process along.  Since I believed that God had called me to preach, it was a matter of waiting for God’s timing.

It never occurred to me to conspire with some board members to “take out” the pastor so that I could become the senior pastor – and no one ever suggested it to me.

However, this scenario is happening more and more in churches, and when it does, my guess is that most people never discover what really happened.  All they know is that the lead pastor resigned and that the board announced that the associate would assume the pastor’s duties – either as an interim or as a pastoral candidate.  Most people never discover that the associate and some board members engineered the whole thing.

A variation on this is that the staff member resigns and starts a new church a short distance away from his former church.  The core group for the new church is almost exclusively composed of friends from the ministry he just left.  This kind of church plant creates pain for all parties that lasts for years.

Second, the associate chooses to rebel against the lead pastor.  Senior pastors all have different management styles.  Of the five I served under, only one was directive, while the others let me run my own ministry.  The only pastor who really gave me direct orders was the first one – and I did my best to do what he said.

As a pastor, I tried to hire staff members who were self-starters and who could do their job better than I could.  While I gave them general direction, I rarely gave them orders – and when I did, they usually didn’t like it.

Here’s my theory: when a pastor hires a staff member, he often does a “sales job” to convince that person to come aboard.  Sometimes the sales job continues for a few months as the pastor acclimates the associate to the ministry.

But when the pastor has to correct the associate for any reason, he becomes upset and thinks that the lead pastor has turned on him.  Looking back over my ministry, I have found that this was often the key moment in our relationship.  In my mind, I was just trying to make their ministry better, but in their mind, I was criticizing them needlessly.

When I was in eighth grade, I had a math teacher named Mr. Heymers.  Even though he was young in age and short in stature, he started the year using a firm tone and letting us know in precise terms what he expected from us.  Most of us were scared of Mr. Heymers at first, but as the year progressed, he loosened up a lot.  He became the best math teacher I ever had.

When I supervised staff, I may have started a bit too loose, so when I eventually had to get firm about something, some staff members couldn’t handle it – and they went in search of allies.

By the way, I believe that if a staff member is given a direct order by the senior pastor (provided he’s not asking him or her to sin), and the staff member refuses to carry out the senior pastor’s directive, the staff member is guilty of insubordination and subject to dismissal.  While I never fired a staff member for this reason, in several cases, maybe I should have.

Third, the associate has an immature spouse.  Which of the following associate pastors has the best chance for success?

Associate A is married to a woman who never wanted to be a pastor’s wife.  She has a high opinion of her husband and an even higher opinion of herself.  She constantly tells her husband things like, “You’re a better preacher than the lead pastor.  You’re a better leader.  You work harder than he does.  You should receive more recognition.  You should be paid more.”  And when her husband comes home and says he had a disagreement with the senior pastor, she becomes angry and complains about the pastor to family and friends – most of whom take her side.

Associate B is married to a woman who believes she was called to be a pastor’s wife.  While she believes her husband is a gifted man, she constantly encourages him to work with the senior pastor in collaboration, not competition.  She tells him often, “Our pastor is a good preacher, and I thank God for him.  You’re a good preacher too, although you’re both different.  You’re a wonderful leader as well, although you still have some issues to work on.  While I wish you made more money, our day will come.”  And when her husband tells her about a disagreement that he had with the lead pastor, she tries to get him to see his supervisor’s viewpoint as well as understanding his.

The first associate is far more susceptible to flipping on the senior pastor because of an entitlement mentality.  The second associate can look forward to a long career in ministry because he’s waiting for God to elevate him.

Fourth, the associate starts collaborating with a board or staff member.  If an associate has problems with the senior pastor – and I’ve been in this position myself – he has four options: (a) prayerfully submit to the pastor’s wishes, (b) discuss the situation directly with the pastor, (c) seek counsel from someone outside the church (like a counselor, a pastoral colleague, or a seminary professor), or (d) leave that ministry.  If the associate doesn’t feel he can speak directly with the pastor (or has tried but become frustrated), he may look around the church for sympathetic ears and “triangle” someone into their situation.  This is where division starts.

Once the associate finds this person, then (a) he stops working on his relationship with the senior pastor, and (b) his new collaborator carries his burden for him.  In fact, the collaborator may very well pass on the associate’s complaints to other board or staff members – and over time, a consensus may form: the senior pastor has to go.

The lead pastor’s offense?  “He hurt and upset the associate pastor – whom many of us love very much.”

Let me share two possible solutions for this perennial problem:

First, if the associate cannot support the senior pastor anymore, he should resign as soon as possible.  Don’t stay in the church and undermine the pastor, forcing him to leave – the associate should leave quietly.  It is not up to the senior pastor to adjust to the staff – it is up to the staff to adjust to the senior pastor.

Second, the associate pastor may choose to admit his mistakes to both God and the senior pastor and renegotiate their relationship.  This is possible only if the associate hasn’t already complained to others inside the church about the lead pastor.  A humble, teachable spirit works wonders.

What are your thoughts on this issue?

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Staff, Conflict with the Pastor | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments »

Anatomy of a Church Staff Betrayal

June 27, 2011 by Jim Meyer

There is a problem in Christian churches that I keep hearing about.  It’s not an issue that most of us think about very often, if at all, but it’s one that demands attention if the kingdom of God is to advance in our day.

How loyal should staff members be to the senior/lead pastor?

Throughout my more than three decades in church ministry, I’ve viewed this issue from both sides.

As a staff member, I did not always agree with the senior pastor, and I served under five of them.  Sometimes I didn’t like what he said from the pulpit.  Other times I disagreed with his private assessment of the direction the church needed to go.  One pastor I worked with worked way too hard.  Another hardly worked at all.

Being the Number Two Man in each of these churches placed me in a position of trust.  I saw and heard things that few other people knew about.

But that was the whole point.  I was hired for those positions because the lead pastor felt he could trust me, and I always believed it was my job to reciprocate that trust.

This was especially a problem when someone from the church tried to “triangle” me into a problem that they had with the pastor.

In one church, a man approached me and made a threat against the pastor.  I was uncertain if he wanted me to join his cause or pass the message on to the pastor himself.  When our conversation was finished, he knew that I would not join his cause.

How could I ever do that?  In all five churches, the pastor chose me to serve alongside him, and I chose to serve with him as well.  In my mind, we were a team – as long as I kept doing my job.

In each situation, I worked for the pastor, and the pastor worked for the board.  I did not work for the board, and the pastor did not work for me.

While I privately had reservations about some of the things my pastors did and said, I kept those to myself.  He needed to know that if everyone in the church turned on him, he’d have at least one person standing by his side.

So when I became a pastor myself, I was able to see the pastor-staff relationship from both sides.  But the staff members – none of whom had ever been a pastor themselves – were only able to see the relationship from their side.

And some of them made choices that eventually demonstrated their disloyalty.

Let me give you an example of the kind of problems that pastors are having today with staff members – especially associate pastors.

Jack has been the pastor of a church for three years.  At first, he was able to juggle all the leadership, administrative, teaching, counseling, and pastoral duties, but the church gradually grew to the point he couldn’t handle things anymore.  Both Jack and the governing board agreed that they should hire an associate pastor as soon as possible.

So the board appointed a search team, and since there weren’t any suitable prospects inside the church, the team eventually recommended several candidates from the outside to Jack, who settled on one in particular.  Since the top choice had some concerns about coming to the church, Jack engaged in a sales job that proved successful.

While still in sales mode, Jack welcomed the associate to the church and spoke glowingly of the church’s future and the way the associate could make a difference with his gifts.  And at first, that’s exactly what happened.

But just a couple months after the associate’s arrival, Jack began to notice some things that bothered him.  For starters, the associate had a habit of showing up late on Sundays – and then he’d leave as soon as the last service was done.  Jack believed it was important for all staff members to mingle with the congregation on Sundays, but the associate just wasn’t doing it.

So Jack spoke to him about it.  The associate promised to change, but a couple weeks later, he was doing the same thing.

In addition, the associate left a mess everywhere he went.  If he used a room for a meeting, the next person to use the room would complain that they had to spend 15 minutes cleaning up before they could arrange the room the way they wanted.

Once again, Jack spoke to the associate directly and swiftly, and the associate promised he would change, but a few weeks later, he reverted to his previous behavior.

Now every staff member has their flaws.  Some are messy with rooms but incredibly effective with people.  Others hang out at the church all day but never get anything done.

The wise pastor – conscious of his own failings – has to decide which issues he’s going to press and which he’s going to let go.  He has to both model and set the boundaries.

And he has to treat all staff members with fairness.  If he requires all staff members to show up at 8:15 am on Sundays, then the associate needs to show up at 8:15 as well – because if he shows up at 8:50 instead, the pastor will hear about it from the other staff members – guaranteed.

As the months went by, the pastor spent a lot of time with the associate pastor, discussing the church’s future and trying to plug holes in the ministry.  It appeared as if the two of them had negotiated their differences and were working well together.

But after the pastor returned from a vacation, he discovered that the associate had allowed people to do things that the senior pastor expressly forbade.  So the senior pastor sat down with the associate to discuss what happened.  During their time together, the associate demonstrated insubordination and defiantly said that his decisions were correct and should not have been questioned.

The senior pastor was shaken.  While the associate deserved to be fired, the pastor realized that he’d need board support to take that action.  If the board backed him up, the senior pastor knew that some people would leave the church and that momentum would grind to a halt – at least for a few months.  But if the board didn’t back up the pastor, wouldn’t that just empower the associate all the more?

So for the time being, the lead pastor did nothing but pray and seek counsel from colleagues outside the church.

But while the senior pastor waited for divine wisdom, the associate went on the offensive.

Knowing that the senior pastor would have to go to the board to dismiss him, the associate contacted several board members that he sensed were on his side and told them he was having trouble with the lead pastor.  He told these men that he couldn’t sleep, that his wife was barely functioning, that his kids were feeling the stress, and that he was thinking about leaving the church because of the senior pastor.

This is the point at which the entire future of the church is at stake.

If the board members take the side of the associate pastor, the senior pastor’s future in that church is in serious jeopardy.

If the board members take the side of the senior pastor, the associate pastor’s fate is probably sealed as well.

The best decision for the church is for the board members to support the senior pastor.  If they do, the associate won’t have many options left.  He can either apologize to the senior pastor and vow to fully support him or make plans to leave the church.

The worst decision for the church is for the board members to support the associate pastor.  If they do, then they have betrayed their senior pastor and their decision will eventually manifest itself.  If the senior pastor comes to a board meeting to discuss his problems with the associate, the board members who met with the associate will either fail to support their pastor or veto any recommendation for dismissal.

Protestant churches are designed for the lead pastor to work closely with the church’s governing board.  In most cases, staff members – including the associate pastor – work directly for the senior pastor and do not attend board meetings.

The senior pastor is the key to everything.  He must get along with both the board and the staff.

But if staff members form covert alliances with other staff or board members against the senior pastor – that church, and its entire leadership structure – is in serious trouble, and ripe for a satanic invasion.

I do not pretend to offer easy answers for these situations.  Sometimes if the key players pull back and look at matters more objectively, they can work things out.

But these situations are usually about one thing, and one thing only: who is in charge of the church?

I’ll write more about this issue in my next article.

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Staff, Jim's Ten Favorite Articles | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Why So Few Teachers?

June 22, 2011 by Jim Meyer

Many years ago, I saw an ad in a Christian publication promoting a product I found offensive.  A certain televangelist was inviting churches to buy satellite equipment so they could beam the messages from his church into their worship services.  The idea behind the ad was that if a church really wanted to grow, then its people needed to listen to this single gifted man.

The ad outraged me.  This televangelist came from the South, while our church was in the West.  He came from a charismatic church, while ours was non-charismatic.  He often used a condemning tone, while I tried to speak with grace.  He did not know our people, but I did.  And he was not a biblical expositor, while that’s what I loved doing most.

How dare he presume that every church in America needed to hear him preach every week rather than their own pastor!

I hope that few churches signed up for this offer.  Not long after that ad came out, that televangelist engaged in some extracurricular activities that resulted in the satellite dishes being turned off – for good.

While that was an extreme case, the Christian world seems to be increasingly listening to fewer and fewer biblical teachers.

Many churches now have only one teacher in the entire congregation: the pastor.  Since most churches don’t offer adult classes or Sunday evening services or midweek worship anymore, the pastor becomes the lone communicator of biblical truth by default – or design.

Even if a church has small groups, leaders are usually instructed to facilitate discussion rather than teach in any meaningful way.  And increasingly, that discussion is about the pastor’s message from the week before.  So even gifted teachers who lead such groups aren’t supposed to teach anything but let everyone talk.

There are pros and cons to this new approach.

For starters, it helps some preachers lead a more balanced life.  I once knew the pastor of a megachurch who told me he studied 50 hours every week.  (You read that right.)  He studied 15 hours for the Sunday morning service, 15 hours for the Sunday evening service, and 20 hours for the Wednesday night prayer meeting.

Why so long for the Wednesday night service?  Because he never knew who might show up to hear him, and he wanted to be accurate in his teaching.  (John MacArthur showed up a few times unannounced.)

Forgive me, but that’s insane, if not self-destructive.  In fact, that pastor died less than two years after he shared that information with me.  Since studying is a sedentary habit, the lack of bodily movement may have done him in.

So that’s one extreme: the pastor is the primary teacher in the church and teaches all the time except when he’s on vacation.

We now have another extreme which I believe is much more healthy: the pastor shares the teaching role with several other gifted communicators.  Each teacher may teach for an entire series and then take the next one or two off, or each teacher might be assigned a different Sunday during the same series.

The advantages are enormous.  The congregation gets to hear from several gifted teachers.  The pastors have plenty of time to prepare their messages.  And messages can be divided up by specialties.  It can be difficult listening to the same voice all the time, but if you hear two or more voices, it’s much easier to take.

The downside, of course, is that most churches can only afford one gifted teacher, not three or four.  And the more gifted someone is, the more often they want to speak.

Now a few megachurches are planting satellite churches in outlying areas and sending a live feed of the message from the mother church into those venues.  The church we’ve been attending for the past year plans to do this all over the Phoenix area and has already started a satellite campus in the area where we used to live.

When they did this, they absorbed another megachurch.  The pastor from the megachurch now teaches periodically at the mother megachurch.  While he now speaks to more people, he also speaks less often.

It seems to me that technology is leading to a social Darwinism in the Christian community.  For example, what would happen in your church if Rick Warren or Mark Driscoll decided to open up a satellite campus in your area?  Would people from your church flock to the satellite campus and desert your church and pastor?  (By the way, I know an area where both Warren and Driscoll are planning on opening satellite campuses.)

Is this about reaching more people, trying to amass the most followers, increasing revenue streams, or all of the above?

Sometimes it feels like there are only going to be ten preachers left in the entire US: Warren, Hybels, Driscoll, Lucado, Osteen, both Stanleys, Piper, Beth Moore, and a few others.  There will be Warren churches, Lucado churches, and Piper churches.  The music will be different in each locale, but instead of being known by denominational labels or movements, a church will be known by the name of the teacher it beams in on satellite.

Isn’t there a biblical prophecy about this phenomenon somewhere?  Does Harold Camping have any insight about this?

I have five concerns about this particular trend:

First, what happens when a popular teacher veers off course theologically?  If thousands of people have to choose between the teachings of Paul the apostle or their favorite Christian communicator, who will they choose?  There is a Gen X preacher who is clearly off the rails theologically, and I know someone who thinks he’s great.  How much effort should I expend in trying to convince him otherwise?

Second, what happens if a famous teacher falls morally?  Twenty years ago, some of America’s best-known Christian leaders were involved in sexual scandals.  It was a hard time to be the pastor of any church.  I remember one woman (who did not attend our church) who kept calling and implying that all these guys were crooks.  Although there have been fewer scandals in recent years (thank God!), when we farm out our teaching to a chosen few, those teachers seem to represent all of Christianity to many people.  And if a few of them go down, it impacts all of us.

Third, what happens to smaller and medium-sized churches?  Back in the 1990s, Christian pollster George Barna predicted that the days were coming when most churches in America would be either small or large and that medium-sized churches would soon become extinct.  I’m not worried about the satellite churches winning lost people to Christ.  There are enough unbelievers out there for everybody.  Instead, I’m concerned about believers in smaller churches who have struggled for years to make their church go and finally leave it to join a satellite church.  While the jury is out on this approach, I hope we’ll see the results of surveys on this trend soon and be able to adjust accordingly.

Fourth, why are we letting a few people do all our thinking for us?  I once heard a new pastor in Silicon Valley tell a group of pastors that whenever he started preparing for a message, he first read all the commentators and then added his own thoughts.  My immediate response was, “Why aren’t you letting God speak directly to you first?”  Like many pastors, whenever I selected a passage to preach on, I first did all my own work and then consulted with the commentators to check my conclusions.

I didn’t want to preach a message that God gave to Chuck Swindoll or Bill Hybels: I wanted to bring a message to our people that God had given me.  Since many of these satellite churches hire pastors to be on premises while the megachurch pastor is speaking on satellite, how do they feel about having their teaching gifts shelved?

We need tens of thousands of pastors all over the world who don’t buy sermons from Rick Warren but who let God’s Spirit speak directly to them through His written Word.

Finally, what happens to rookie preachers?  I preached my first sermon at 19 years of age in a Sunday night service at my home church.  While it wasn’t very good, my church let me teach many more times because I told them I had been called by God to preach.  There were a lot of venues back then for someone who was learning to preach: Sunday School classes, the Sunday evening service, the midweek service, as well as the local rescue mission.

But where does a preacher learn to teach today?

I have always believed that if someone is called by God to preach, they should preach first in front of their home church.  But the larger your home church is, the less likely that is to happen.

Before I became a pastor at age 27, I had preached in a church setting about 50 times.  There were a lot of things I had to learn – and a few I had to unlearn.

But with increasingly fewer opportunities, where can a young preacher learn to develop their gift?

What are you seeing?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Posted in Church Conflict, Current Church Issues | 2 Comments »

Restoring Kingdom Builders Update

June 20, 2011 by Jim Meyer

I want to thank all of you who read this blog on a regular basis.  Let me share with you some quick updates about how the ministry is going.

First of all, thanks to all of you who read the article “Thoughts on a Scandal” last Friday.  It was the largest number of views I’ve ever had, thanks in part to my friend Kathi Lipp, who linked the article on Facebook.  Kathi is the author of the books The Husband Project, The Me Project, and the almost-published The “What’s For Dinner?” Solution and has, at last count, 2,462 friends on Facebook, some of whom were gracious enough to read the article.

Kim sent the article to Sean Hannity and Mike Huckabee but I haven’t heard anything from them yet!

If you’re interested in Kathi’s Amazon page, here it is: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=kathi+lipp

Next, I had breakfast today with my good friend Chuck Wickman, who just published the book Pastors at Risk.  Chuck was a pastor for 40 years and has been doing research and ministering to pastors who have gone through forced terminations for many years.  He is the founder of Pastor-in-Residence.  His wife’s uncle was John W. Peterson, who wrote gospel songs like Jesus is Coming Again and Heaven Came Down and Glory Filled My Soul.

If you’re in a church where the pastor is hurting – or you know of a pastor who has been wounded in ministry – Chuck does a great job of laying out the problems and offering solutions.  You can order the book from Amazon by following this link: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=chuck+wickman

Third, I’ve completed the manuscript for my book, and six people are reading and reviewing it right now, with others agreeing to read it as well.  Most of the book is in narrative form with the last one-third of the book analysis.  It is my desire to lead a crusade to stop the forced termination of pastors in churches today.  While we can and should minister to pastors who have already been victimized by this epidemic, we also need to work together at preventing this plague that harms pastors and their families as well as churches for many years.

Finally, I want to pay tribute to my family.

For Father’s Day, Sarah arranged for Kim and me to go and see the Giants and Diamondbacks play at Chase Field here in Phoenix last week.  It just so happens that was the last game the Giants won!  Thanks, Sarah, for being such a blessing to your dad and mom.

Also for Dad’s Day, Ryan and his fiancee Vanessa gave me a framed photo of our son – in a baseball uniform – when he was just two years old.  He also wrote a wonderful note in a card that indicated that he is happy that I’m conducting their wedding two months from today.  I can’t wait for that special day to arrive!

Also for Father’s Day, Kim took me to a special place in Scottsdale yesterday where you can watch a movie and eat a great meal – both at the same time.  I am truly blessed to have such a special woman in my life.  We celebrate 36 years of marriage in early August.

To Sarah, Ryan, and Kim: I love you all so very much!

Kim is going on her fourth trip to Kenya next week, so please pray for her ministry there when you think about her.  Her main ministry is coordinating a conference for pastors, many of whom are very poor.

A few minutes ago, I passed 5,000 views on this blog.  While some bloggers get that many views in one day, I’m still learning about the wonderful world of blogging.  Thanks for reading and for all your comments!

And if you would like me to address an issue involving pastors, churches, or conflict, please let me know.  If you’d like, you can email me at jim@restoringkingdombuilders.org.

Enjoy a God-blessed week!

Posted in About Restoring Kingdom Builders, Personal Stories, Please Comment! | 2 Comments »

Thoughts on a Scandal

June 17, 2011 by Jim Meyer

New York Representative Anthony Weiner announced his intention yesterday to resign from his seat due to a “sexting” scandal.  While he was making his announcement, some in the audience jeered him.

There are many ways to view such a scandal: politically (does he have a future in politics?), legally (did he break the law?), ethically (did he “sext” on the taxpayers’ dime?), morally (how damaging were his actions?) and relationally (should his wife stay married to him?).

Let me add one more perspective: the spiritual one.

I have seen Anthony Weiner on television many times in the past.  In my opinion, one word best describes his television persona: obnoxious.  Whenever I saw him, he consistently talked over people in an argumentative and combative tone.  While I’m not sure that he convinced anyone from the other side of the aisle to adopt his positions, he undoubtedly cheered his own constituents with his relentless rhetoric.

Party politics – and last name – aside, I never liked the man.  And to many people, he seems even more unlikeable – even repulsive – after his recent revelations.

However, we need to remember a few simple truths about anyone – whether we like them or not – who is caught in a scandal.

First, God loves Anthony Weiner.  The same Bible that tells me how much God loves me specifies that God loves everyone, regardless of their politics, height, accent, ethnicity, or spirituality.  John 3:16 settles this issue once and for all.  God loves the world of people, and Mr. Weiner is a person created in the image of Almighty God.

A wise man once said that there is nothing we can do to make God start loving us and there is nothing we can do to make God stop loving us.  If God only loved those who are perfect, He would only love Jesus – and definitely not me or you!

Second, Anthony Weiner is a sinner – just like each one of us.  While many Christians readily admit that they have a sin nature and commit general sins, it’s much more difficult for us to admit that we’ve committed specific sins.  In fact, whenever someone  accuses us of a particular sin, our immediate reaction is either to deny that we did anything wrong or to defend ourselves.

When confronted about doing wrong, few of us immediately admit that we err.  Like Mr. Weiner, we have a tendency to blame others (“someone hacked my account”) for our own indiscretions.  Sometimes we do this because we don’t want others to know what we’ve done.  But other times, we do this because we refuse to admit to ourselves what we’ve done.  We have an image of ourselves that we present to the world, and when that image gets tarnished, we try and convince people that they’re seeing things the wrong way.

Of course, this is the essence of sin: believing that I don’t engage in it.  But I do – and so do you.

While you and I may never be guilty of the offense of “sexting” anyone – much less people we don’t know – we are guilty at times of presenting a false image of ourselves to the world.  For that reason, I saw some of myself in Mr. Weiner’s recent public appearances.  Didn’t you?

Third, Jesus died for every sin – and sinner – including Mr. Weiner.  I haven’t yet heard any television or radio commentator frame this scandal in spiritual terms, so let me briefly do that.

Jesus died for every sin: for anger, manipulation, interrupting people, gossip, heresy, being judgmental … and thousands of others.  Even though it’s never mentioned – or envisioned – in the New Testament, Jesus paid the price for “sexting” strangers as well.

According to my favorite Bible verse, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Jesus actually became sin incarnate on the cross.  He became anger and gossip … and sexting … to take them away.  To use an Old Testament analogy, Jesus became our scapegoat.  He voluntarily took the blame that we deserve.

Jesus also died for every sinner.  He died for those who loved Him – like Peter, John, and Mary Magdalene – as well as those who didn’t – like the chief priests, Pontius Pilate, and King Herod.  In our day, we might say that He died for Joel Osteen and Rick Warren just as much as He died for Charlie Sheen and Anthony Weiner.

No sin or person is ineligible for forgiveness.

Fourth, Jesus wants to redeem every sinner – even Mr. Weiner.  Jesus wants to redeem his soul.  Jesus wants to redeem his marriage.  Jesus wants to redeem his usefulness.  Jesus wants to redeem his talent, and his relationships, and his life.

Remember John 3:17?  “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

It’s important that we all learn lessons through this experience.  Don’t send risque photos of yourself to anyone, much less strangers.  Don’t lie to people who trust you.  Don’t blame other people for the things that you’ve done wrong.  These are all legitimate issues for discussion around the family table and water cooler.

However, God does not want Mr. Weiner to be condemned.  He wants to see him redeemed.

Whenever these celebrity or political scandals occur, I’m always concerned that the negative publicity will drive someone to self-destruction – and that would please the devil, not the Lord.

I once read about a prominent pastor who said something stupid to a woman on the phone.  The two of them were not having a relationship, and she lived in another state, but his comment was overheard by his son.  When later confronted, the pastor immediately repented.  While the pastor should not have said what he did, the Christian community became involved and made things far worse.  He eventually was forced to resign.

A restoration team was set up.  The pastor was disgraced.  Before the dust settled, he lost his ministry, his career, and his reputation – and in the end, he took his own life.

I’ve heard people say about this situation, “Well, we just don’t know what demons lurk inside of people.”  But maybe we don’t know what demons lurk inside the church of Jesus Christ, either.  Sometimes we make things worse by trying to make things better.

Some would say, “We all need to be careful.  Be sure your sin will find you out!”  But we all sin – all the time – and most people never find out what we’ve said or done wrong.  It’s enough that we know it, confess it to God, receive His forgiveness, and move on.  It’s Satan who wants to publicize our sins and destroy us.

If Mr. Weiner has truly apologized – and it appears as if he has – then he should not be condemned anymore.  Those who try and jeer and shame a repentant person are guilty of sin themselves.  Wasn’t it Jesus who uttered these words after presenting The Lord’s Prayer?

“For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matthew 6:14-15).

Finally, we need to pray for Mr. Weiner.  Some of us have talked about him to others.  But have we talked to God about him at all?  Rather than feeling smug about the fact that we’ve never “sexted” anybody, we should realize that we have our own personal struggles with certain sins.  I know some older Christians who still commit the same sins they committed decades before.  Rather than dump on someone they don’t know, shouldn’t they do something about their own shortcomings?

Let me offer a prayer for Mr. Weiner:

“Heavenly Father, I thank You for the privilege of living in this great land where we elect our own officials.  Lord, one of those officials has been guilty of some serious indiscretions, and although he has asked forgiveness from many people, I pray that he will ask forgiveness from You as well.  Through this experience, may he hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and respond to Christ’s invitation for salvation.  May he receive the help he needs to conquer his personal demons.  And may his friends and family – especially his wife – love him unconditionally so that he may once again become productive.”

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this issue.  Thanks!

Posted in Please Comment! | 16 Comments »

Whatever Happened to Satan?

June 15, 2011 by Jim Meyer

Have you been hearing anything recently from major Christian leaders about Satan?

It recently struck me that ever since my wife and I moved to Arizona, I can’t recall any mention of the enemy in any message that I’ve heard, much less any message about the devil.

He has suddenly become as unpopular as hell.

Maybe there’s a good reason for that.

Years ago, I learned that whenever I planned to present a message about Satan – and it wasn’t a regular occurence – a bunch of weird stuff would happen right before the service.  The microphone wouldn’t work, or the sound would go out, or a key participant in the service would suddenly fall ill.  It was inevitable.  I’d still give the message, but it felt like I was running uphill.

And that’s how I felt last Monday when I tried to make my last point on the blog about Satan.  Suddenly, the formatting went haywire.  I wrote the entire point, quoting both the Apostle Paul and Martin Luther, but things became so messed up that I couldn’t present it to you.  It became so frustrating that I resolved to wait until today to finish.

Satan is real.  We shouldn’t spend too much time thinking about him – as C.S. Lewis said, that would please him greatly – but we shouldn’t ignore him, either.  There’s a lot of stuff going on in this world that can only be explained if there is a devil.

If you haven’t done any reading about Satan, but you’re willing to work up your courage and do so, I recommend Michael Green’s classic book I Believe in Satan’s Downfall.  Green is both a scholar and an evangelist – a truly rare combination – and he writes both eloquently and passionately about the one who forments mischief and evil behind the scenes in both our communities and our churches.

Twenty years ago, I was involved in launching a new church in Silicon Valley.  Our core group settled on a warehouse at a key intersection.  But we ran into all kinds of problems, especially with the city planning commission.  They refused to issue us a conditional use permit to meet there, even after we signed a lease.

So we appealed to the City Council and called for a special day of prayer and fasting.  John, our outreach director, created a one-page flyer on a Macintosh computer encouraging everyone in the church to pray for “our building, God’s will, God’s power, and unity.”  When John looked at the flyer on the computer screen, all the words were right side up.

When he printed the flyer to hand out to our people, the word “Pray” was upside down while all the other words were right side up.

No matter what John did, he could not get the word “Pray” to print right side up.

We eventually handed them out that way, and some of our people freaked out because they had never seen any supernatural mischief before.  But to me, this was an indication that what the devil didn’t want us to do was to pray.  In other words, he had laid out a plan of victory for us.

During this time, Ephesians 6:13 became my go to verse:

“Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”

We did try and do “everything.”  Along with several of our board members, I talked to other pastors, Christian leaders, attorneys, planning commissioners, and City Council members in our city, along with the Mayor.  One of the Christian leaders, who is well-known in the Bay Area, told his attorney to distance himself from our situation because he predicted we were going to lose.

But when our appeal came before the Council, we won an incredible 7-0 vote and received our conditional use permit – the first church in our city to ever go into the light industrial area.

I didn’t know it at the time, but we had situated ourselves smack in the middle of the devil’s territory.  No wonder he fought us so hard the entire time we were there.

Years later, I learned that the intersection where our church was located was a haven for drug dealers.  And across the road was a massage parlor that, like the House of the Rising Sun, ruined many a poor boy.  (As our church was getting ready to relocate from that intersection, a man called to ask me to do whatever I could to close down that massage parlor because, he said, it had ruined his life.)

During our whole time together, the church stayed united against outside forces that tried to assail us – and they were continually trying to do so.  I have never been in a church that was so effective at winning lost people to Christ – or a church that endured so much external suffering.

We were successful in defeating the devil time and time again, but he was relentless, and in the end, he and his minions wore us down.  When our church was forced to relocate five miles away, I knew I was going to need a long break away from church ministry.

After years of putting it off, I finally did a series on controversial social issues, including homosexuality.  The night before I planned to give that message, all hell broke loose in my home and in our church.  In fact, it was so bad that I typed out a resignation letter because I felt too weak to deal with the assaults anymore.  (However, I never gave it to the board.)

The next day, I did give the message I had planned to give, but only after making peace at home.  I have never, ever sensed spiritual warfare like I felt the 24 hours before I gave that message.

And the truth is, I never want to feel that way again.

But when we invade the enemy’s territory, we never know what’s going to happen to us.

Twice in Ephesians 6:13, Paul encourages believers to stand.  By contrast, the devil wants us to run and hide (like Jesus’ disciples did the night before He died), or to deny Him (like Peter did), or to hang (like Judas did).

But Jesus wants us to stand.

The only way we can stand against Satan is to do it together.  The strongest pastor in the world cannot fight the enemy by himself.  Even Paul ended this passage by telling the Ephesians, “Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains.  Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should” (Ephesians 6:19-20).

Let me make four quick points about Satan:

First, he is real.  He tried to take Jesus’ life as an infant through King Herod the Great.  He battled Jesus in the wilderness, infiltrated His disciples through Judas, and was behind most of the events in the final 24 hours of Jesus’ life.  Jesus said that Satan exists, and that should be good enough for us.

For an interesting take on Satan, read the lyrics to Bob Dylan’s song Man of Peace.  They ring true.

Second, he hates God.  Most of the hatred directed against God in our country doesn’t come from the ACLU or a certain political party or candidate or from godless late-night comedians.  The hatred originates with Satan.  He influences people to hate God and even injects thoughts into their brains, but as many Christians have pointed out, godless humans are not the real enemy, but victims of the enemy.

Third, he hates God’s people.  So he deceives and destroys – often among Christians – so that he can divide us and negate our united front to the world.  I have noticed recently that many younger evangelicals view older Christians as their enemies, embracing the culture while condemning other churches.  When any of us succumb to this hatred, we are doing the devil’s work for him – and we are all susceptible to it.

Finally, he has been defeated.  We all know this – we just need to be reminded.  He cannot overthrow God, or undermine Jesus, or take out the Spirit – so he focuses on frail humans like us.  But I love the way the writer to the Hebrews puts it:

“Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil – and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Hebrews 2:14-15).

Jesus’ death defeated Satan.

Let’s let Martin Luther have the last word in A Mighty Fortress:

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;

Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing;

Dost ask who that may be?  Christ Jesus, it is He;

Lord Sabaoth, His name, from age to age the same,

And He must win the battle.

Amen?

Posted in Church Conflict, Current Church Issues, Fighting Evil, Please Comment! | 3 Comments »

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