Have you ever had someone come up to you and tell you how upset they’ve been with you because you once wronged them?
One afternoon when I was in college, I was walking toward my car when someone called out my name. I turned around to see a young woman I had known for several years at church.
She wanted me to know that she had been upset with me for a long time because she liked me and I hadn’t reciprocated the way she wished.
She asked me to forgive her for all the animosity she held toward me. I told her I forgave her … she felt much better … but I don’t ever remember seeing her again.
Did I need to know how angry she had been with me?
I bring this up because some Christians carry grudges for months … if not years … against other Christians … especially against their pastors.
Paul writes in Ephesians 4:26-27: “In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.”
At least four principles about grudge-holding arise out of this text:
First, we all feel angry when we sense we’ve been violated.
It’s not a sin to feel anger. For example, I instinctively feel angry when another driver tailgates my vehicle on the freeway.
Years ago, I didn’t always handle such situations with maturity … but I’ve learned how to control my anger much better … although I still have my moments.
Although our anger antenna isn’t infallible, that initial dose of anger may be God’s way of saying, “You’ve just been violated. Don’t make it worse.”
There’s nothing sinful about feeling angry … Paul says so himself … but we shouldn’t nurse our anger.
We need to learn how to release it as soon as possible … and most of us acquire this skill as we mature.
Second, we need to resolve our anger as soon as possible.
Many years ago, I said something in a sermon that ticked off a particular woman. After the service, she and her husband vented to another couple, and they immediately left the church.
Why involve that couple when the woman was upset with me?
She eventually did speak with me about the issue, but by that time, the couple was long gone.
Most church conflicts and forced pastoral terminations occur because people spread their personal animosity toward their pastor to others.
Why?
Because they lack the courage to speak with their pastor themselves, they search for allies, hoping that (a) someone else will carry their offense, and (b) someone else will deal with the pastor so they won’t have to.
But this kind of thinking is counterproductive.
If you’re angry with your pastor, then (a) speak to him directly, or (b) forgive him privately … and let it go.
Third, deal with offenses as they arise.
In his book Love in Hard Places, theologian D. A. Carson tells about the time a Christian friend told Carson that he wanted a private word with him because Carson had offended him.
So the two of them arranged a meeting, and Carson’s friend related an incident that had happened twenty-one years earlier. Carson and his friend were having a theological discussion and his friend quoted a few words from an author who had written in French. Because Carson grew up speaking French, Carson repeated the French words after his friend because he was unconsciously correcting his pronunciation.
Carson’s friend didn’t say anything at the time, but several decades later, he told Carson, “I want you to know, Don, that I have not spoken another word of French from that day to this.” Carson apologized for offending his friend, but upon later reflection, Carson felt “there was something profoundly evil about nurturing a resentment of this order for twenty-one years.”
I agree wholeheartedly.
I once had a staff member come to me and share a list of purported offenses I had committed against him. The list went on and on. Finally, I stopped him and asked, “So what you’re telling me is that you’ve hated me all this time?” His reply: “Until recently.”
Here I was … meeting with him regularly … assuming everything was all right between us … trusting him as a ministry colleague … but all the while, he had been collecting grievances against me.
After he dumped his load on me, he felt better, but I plunged into depression. I started to wonder, “How many other people in this church feel the same way about me?”
Paul’s admonition is to resolve your anger before the sun goes down … to address the issue at your first opportunity … to repair your relationship as soon as possible … but not to wait 17 months, as that staff member did.
That incident still bothers me to this day.
Finally, unresolved anger gives Satan church entry.
Let’s assume that Satan assigns a demon to every local church. It’s that demon’s charter to use whatever means are necessary to destroy that church.
So that demon begins to probe the hearts of church leaders … trying to find those who are bitter … especially against their pastor.
And when the demon finds such an individual, he coaxes that person to tell others about his or her anger.
I have a pastor friend who served a church for several years, but nothing he was trying was working.
People began making charges against the pastor … only they didn’t tell the pastor directly.
So a consultant was called to the church to investigate.
One of the few charges against the pastor involved a tiny incident that had happened two years before at a church event.
When the incident was brought to the pastor’s attention, he couldn’t recall it at all.
If I had been the consultant, I would have thrown out the charge at that point. A minor incident from two years before shouldn’t have any bearing on a pastor’s present status.
But it did … and was a contributing factor that led to the pastor’s eventual removal.
But evidently no one said to the accuser, “How could you nurse that grudge for so long?”
There should be a statute of limitations on the offenses Christians commit against each other.
For example, in my state, the statute of limitations for:
*general assault or battery is two years.
*medical malpractice or fraud is three years.
*breach of a written contract is four years.
The less serious an offense, the shorter the statute of limitations should last. The more serious an offense, the longer the statute of limitations should last.
And yet when it comes to pastors, small incidents have a way of being magnified into spiritual and moral felonies … and this does not honor God or grow churches.
If you still nurse a grudge toward a pastor from your past, I encourage you to do one of two things:
*Either forgive the pastor unilaterally and let the incident go, or …
*Contact the pastor directly and try to reconcile your relationship.
Why do you think so many Christians nurse grudges against their pastors?
Restoring Kingdom Builders 
Confronting and Forgiving a Pastor
Posted in Conflict with Church Antagonists, Conflict with the Pastor, Forgiveness and Reconciliation among Christians, Pastoral Termination, Please Comment!, tagged confronting a pastor, forgiving a pastor, pastoral termination on February 9, 2018| Leave a Comment »
When I was in high school, there was a girl at my church who liked me … and I knew she did.
Because I didn’t feel the same way, I tried never to say or do anything that would make her think I wanted to be more than friends.
She ended up going to my college, although I didn’t recall seeing her around campus.
One afternoon, as I was getting in my car to drive home, she came running toward me and asked if she could speak with me.
She asked me to forgive her.
She confessed that she had liked me for a long time, but because I didn’t reciprocate, she came to hate me instead … and her hatred was eating away at her so much that she wanted to get rid of it … by telling me how she felt.
I verbally forgave her on the spot, which seemed to help her feel better, and she left with a heavy load removed from her shoulders … and transferred onto mine.
But I’ve always remembered that encounter.
The good: it took a lot of courage for her to track me down at school and speak with me, and I’m sure she felt better after our little talk … but I never saw her again.
The bad: I wish she hadn’t told me that she had hated me for several years. I started wondering, “Who else hates me but hasn’t told me?”
Scripture encourages God’s people to deal with interpersonal issues as they arise. Paul writes in Ephesians 4:26-27:
‘In your anger do not sin’; Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.
Paul tells us four things in these two verses:
*It’s normal for believers to feel anger at times.
*It’s possible to be angry without sinning.
*We are commanded to resolve our anger before nightfall.
*When we let our anger fester, Satan gains an entry point into our lives.
Please note that pastors and church leaders are included – not excluded – in these verses.
Unresolved anger can turn into bitterness, and Satan loves to take one person’s bitterness and disseminate it throughout a family … or a church.
As I often say, division in a church starts when people begin to pool their grievances … usually against their pastor.
So God’s counsel to all of us is:
RESOLVE YOUR ANGRY FEELINGS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE … AND RESTORE BROKEN RELATIONSHIPS AT YOUR FIRST OPPORTUNITY.
If every Christian did this, we’d have fewer conflicts in churches, and fewer pastors would ever experience the heartbreak of a forced termination.
But many … if not most … believers fail to deal with offenses as they arise, so they hoard their grievances – which eats them up alive – and end up passing them on to others.
Bitterness then becomes a cancer that eats away at the joy and effectiveness of people’s lives.
People then tell themselves, “I can’t get rid of my anger until I get rid of the object of my anger” … in all too many cases, the pastor.
Let me share two stories that present opposite ways of handling an issue with a pastor.
The first story involves confronting a pastor immediately about an offense.
One Easter many years ago, a man in my church ended our first service with a performance song. As the singers and musicians gathered at the front to receive directions for the second service, this gentleman approached me and accused me of saying something derogatory about him right after the service.
I assured the man that I did not say what he claimed, but he was adamant. (It’s not something I would even think, much less say about another person.)
If I apologized to him, it would be a lie … but if I didn’t apologize to him, I knew he was going to spread my “offense” to as many people as possible.
I’m glad he came to me directly before he said anything to anyone else.
But he couldn’t have chosen a worse time.
I understand that singers and musicians can be very sensitive … especially on a big Sunday like Easter.
But pastors can be sensitive as well … especially right before or after they preach.
That’s a sacred time for a pastor.
I can remember times in my ministry where I was so shook up over something someone said before a sermon that I couldn’t wait to finish my sermon and go home.
One person’s need to “unload” can impact an entire congregation.
So if you do need to speak with your pastor about an issue you feel strongly about … wait until he’s done preaching for the day first … or you might indirectly harm your church family.
Or better yet … calm down … forgive him from the heart … and then either speak with him or let it go.
Dr. Archibald Hart believes that before we confront someone, we should first forgive them, and only then should we confront them.
Because otherwise, we may confront them in anger … as the singer did with me … and we end up making matters worse.
_______________
The second story involves waiting two decades to confront a pastor.
In his book Love in Hard Places, theologian D. A. Carson tells about the time a Christian friend took Carson aside.
The friend told Carson that he wanted a private word with him because Carson had offended him. So the two of them arranged a meeting, and Carson’s friend told Carson about an incident that had happened twenty-one years earlier.
Carson and his friend were having a theological discussion and his friend quoted a few words from an author who had written in French. Because Carson grew up speaking French, Carson repeated the French words after his friend because he was unconsciously correcting his pronunciation.
Carson’s friend didn’t say anything at the time, but several decades later, he told Carson, “I want you to know, Don, that I have not spoken another word of French from that day to this.”
Carson apologized for offending his friend, but upon later reflection, Carson felt “there was something profoundly evil about nurturing a resentment of this order for twenty-one years.”
After all, how can you even remember what happened if the incident occurred so long ago?
Hold onto that last line as you read the next story.
_______________
This is my concern about the “Me Too” movement in our culture right now.
It’s not only in the culture … it’s spread to Christ’s church as well.
WORLD Magazine – a Christian publication – ran an article recently that greatly disturbed me.
Twenty years ago, a twenty-two-year-old youth pastor took a seventeen-year-old high school senior girl on a date.
They parked on a secluded road. He asked her to do something to him that was wrong.
She started doing it … he realized how wrong it was … and he got out of his car, collapsed, and repeated over and over how sorry he was.
This young man confessed his wrongdoing to the young woman.
He also apologized to the girl’s family and her discipleship group, as well as the church staff and the church leadership.
(Most people … even in ministry … would not speak to as many people as that young man did in admitting what he had done wrong.)
And when he admitted his sin, he lost his job.
(I might add, in that state, seventeen is still an age of legal consent.)
This young man ended up moving to another state and eventually becoming a staff member in another church. Several decades later, he became a teaching pastor in that same church.
He is married with five sons.
The pastor believes that his sin “was dealt with … twenty years ago.” He disclosed his sin to the leaders of his former church … to his wife before they married … and to the staff of his new church before joining the ministry.
The woman contends that the original church hid the youth pastor’s specific sin from the congregation and then allowed him to resign without public confession. She claims they engaged in a “big cover up.”
But the pastor said, “Until now, I did not know there was unfinished business with [her.]”
The pastor has been placed on a leave of absence. There is now an online petition calling for the pastor’s resignation, and a book that he’s written has had its publication date canceled.
Because of the backlash of the Me Too movement, there is now a Christian backlash against this pastor as well.
What does this story tell us about the forgiveness of sin among believers … and pastors?
Maybe the following story can shed some light on this situation.
_______________
In his book Pleasing God, the late R. C. Sproul – one of my favorite theologians – tells the following story:
“When I was in seminary, I was a student minister in a small church. I insulted the daughter of a woman who was a pillar of the church. The daughter was deeply offended. I went to her and apologized profusely. She refused to forgive me. I went two more times and apologized literally in tears. Still she refused to forgive me.”
Sproul continues:
“Eventually, the time came for my monthly meeting with the minister who was my pastoral supervisor. He was an eighty-five-year-old retired missionary who had spent fifty years in the interior of China and five of those years in a communist prison camp. He was a man of extraordinary godliness. I went to him with deep embarrassment for the mess I had made of my first pastoral experience. I told him what I had done. He listened carefully and then replied calmly: ‘Young man, you have made two serious mistakes. The first is obvious. You should not have insulted the daughter. The second mistake is this: you should not have apologized three times. After the first apology, the ball was in her court. By refusing to forgive you, she is heaping coals of fire upon her head.'”
But … and I know this from firsthand experience … a single person who is angry with a pastor can destroy his reputation and career.
We’re living in the time of “one strike and you’re out … forever.”
Most of the time, if someone tries to destroy their pastor, they will indirectly destroy their church as well.
_______________
When I left my last church in December 2009, I knew what was going to happen.
Everybody and anybody who didn’t like me was going to float their grievances against me to others in the congregation.
Although I made mistakes during my 10 1/2 years in that church … as I did in every congregation … I felt I made far fewer mistakes there than in any church I’d ever served.
And yet, how ironic that soon after I left, I was charged with committing far more mistakes in that church than in all my other ministries combined.
When a pastor is charged with wrongdoing, those accusations may or may not say something about him … but they almost always say something profound about his accuser(s).
I’m reminded of Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:14-15:
“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.”
_______________
My wife and I just received a bill for nearly a thousand dollars. It was for medical care that she had received fifteen months ago.
We were very upset about the bill, as you might imagine.
In fact, we were positive we had paid that bill completely.
My wife contacted the medical office, but they said that we owed the money.
When we did some research, we discovered that we did in fact owe the money … but that it took the medical office seven months to send the bill to us.
I hate it when that happens.
And I hate it when somebody hoards a grievance against me … especially when I assume that our relationship is fine … when it isn’t really fine at all.
It’s unbearable for a pastor to ask himself, “I wonder who is going to tell me that they hate me next?”
_______________
Pastors make mistakes, and they need to admit their mistakes … ask for forgiveness … and, if necessary, engage in restitution if it’s required.
But pastors aren’t angels, either, and when they sin and repent, they need to be forgiven … or their career and reputation can be destroyed.
I saw a video last night of a shepherd and his flock. It’s here:
The flock knocks the shepherd over, but when he tries to get up, another sheep charges at the shepherd and knocks him down.
It’s actually pretty funny.
But what isn’t funny is when a pastor does something wrong … admits it … tries to make things right … and is knocked over by the sheep anyway.
Your thoughts?
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