Why Did Our Good God Send Us A Bad Pastor? (Part Four)

Here’s the last “bad pastor” horror story I’ll share for a while:

Even before I completed the interim pastorate, Donna and I were beginning to have concerns about the new long-term pastor who had taken my place.  He had expressed anger with our church members for not hosting him as enthusiastically as he thought they should during the candidating process. Then he betrayed my confidence – and showed no remorse over it – after getting me in trouble with a young church member whom I certainly didn’t intend to hurt.

Our worst fears were confirmed. The church grew rapidly under his dynamic leadership, until one year into his pastorate, when he found himself at odds with the board about a discipline situation. Instead of submitting himself to the authority of the board, as he had pledged to do while a candidate, he insisted that the board submit itself to him. The result was an ugly split and a number of discouraged believers.

For many good people in many good churches, the phenomenon of the “bad pastor” has been a painful reality.  It shouldn’t happen; but it does.

In my last three posts I’ve shared nine reasons why God may have allowed your church to call a bad pastor. [You can find the posts by clicking here, here and here.]

1. Perhaps it “just happened.”
2. Maybe it was because you didn’t do your “due diligence.”
3. Maybe he was a good man who was a terrible match for your church.
4. Perhaps it was because your church was bad and God gave you the pastor you deserved.
5. Maybe you were being given a very specific “lesson.”
6. Maybe you needed a rough leader to bring about needed change.
7. Perhaps he wasn’t seriously flawed; perhaps he was seriously mistreated or mis-handled.
8. Maybe you and the pastor were being refined and improved.
9. Perhaps you were given a strange and painful way of glorifying God.

Before I share my last three possibilities I want to assure you that we’ll end this series with some tips on how to respond if God gave you a bad pastor, and I want my readers who are pastors to know that I’ll follow up this series with some thoughts on “Why Would A Good God Lead Me To A Bad Church?”

 Here we go:

10. Maybe God was showing you your dependence on Him.

This harkens back to what I wrote about doing your “due diligence.” With all the great tools and training, books and notebooks, web sites, online bulletin boards and sophisticated “computer dating” processes we have for pastors and churches today, it’s easy to forget our need for God’s guidance.

At the end of the day, and at the end of our careful efforts, what we still, desperately need, is God’s choice for our pastorates. We need the kind of guidance Jesus received in choosing the twelve (Luke 6:12-16) and the leaders of the Antioch church received in sending out Paul and Barnabas (Acts 13:1-4).

Some of my readers may believe that the Holy Spirit is no longer in the business of doing this sort of thing, that He’s left the whole process up to us and our good judgment. If He made such a decision, I, for one, didn’t get the memo.

Personally, I’m not impressed with our good judgment.  I believe that we should use all the helpful tools we have at our disposal to help locate “God’s man,” but while we’re doing all that we can do, we still need to pray “like crazy,” making prayer the main business of the meeting every time we gather to work on a pastor search.

Jesus said that “…apart from me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5b). I’m not suggesting that every bad match is a result of prayerlessness – remember that I’m giving you twelve possibilities here – but I’d maintain that nothing illustrates this particular type of “nothing” more dramatically than a man-dependent search process that results in a “bad pastor.”

11. Perhaps God was pruning your church.

We know that God prunes Christians so that – in time – they may bear more fruit for Him (John 15:2). A faith-filled and godly board member recently suggested to me that perhaps the departure of a number of members from their congregation after their “bad pastor experience” was a way by which God was pruning their church. It’s certainly not impossible that this was the case.

In the same session, another excellent leader suggested that perhaps God had “pruned away” some of their people because they were needed elsewhere. This isn’t impossible either.

Harkening back to our last point – about dependence on God – our thoughts go back to Gideon and his pathetically tiny band of soldiers, through whom God defeated a multitude. Perhaps you remember these intriguing words:

“…You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands. In order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her, announce now to the people, ‘Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead.’ So twenty-two thousand men left, while ten thousand remained. But the LORD said to Gideon, ‘There are still too many men…’” From Judges 7:2-4

You know what happened next: Thirty thousand were eventually pared down to 300. God was deathly serious about Israel not boasting in her own strength.

And then there was the Apostle Paul, who was mysteriously informed that God wasn’t going to remove his “thorn in the flesh” because:

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” From II Corinthians 12:9

So is it possible that God sent a bad pastor to prune your church down to a smaller, more God-dependent band of Christians, a group which has been chosen to make many disciples, with God receiving a maximum degree of glory for the miracle?  Yes it is!

12. Maybe God allowed this to draw you closer to Him and each other.

Consider these beautiful promises:

“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Psalm 34:18

“But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Submit yourselves then to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Wash your hands you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up.”  James 4:6-10

I have seen this. I have seen church leaders and their followers – after a “bad pastor experience” – turning to God and inviting Him to examine their hearts and cleanse their lives. I have seen God’s people, in their sorrow, turning their empty hearts up toward heaven. I have seen groups of church leaders pulling together, praying together and experiencing a “band of brothers” experience of unity that was precious.

The new churches at Philippi and Thessalonica – see Philippians chapter one and I Thessalonians chapter one – were not the victims of bad pastors, but they were the victims of persecution. In their pain and weakness they enjoyed this same experience of sweet fellowship with God and intense fellowship with each other.

If this sounds something like revival, you’re right. We know that God longs to give us true, heaven-sent revitalization experiences.  If God knows that a “bad pastor experience” will draw a group of believers closer to each other and closer to Himself, by all means He’ll let it happen.

So there you have it: Twelve possible reasons why God may have allowed your church to call a bad pastor. Consider talking and praying about these together – as a group – in a prayer meeting or a board meeting. Ask God to show you how He wants you to respond and then go forward on your knees.

Next Week: Our church had a pastor disaster; What do we do now?