Why Did A Good God Send Me To Pastor A Bad Church? (Conclusion)

I would guess that most pastors have believed, at one time or another, that they have been sentenced to serve as the pastor of a “bad church.”

The problem is inherent in the job itself: In the best-case scenario, serving as the solo or senior pastor of a church is a challenging role.

In far too many churches however, it’s an impossible role, as the pastor is expected to excel at performing all the responsibilities that God originally assigned to an entire team of qualified individuals (I Timothy 3:1-7, Titus 1:5-16, Acts 20:28-32, I Timothy 5:17-21 and I Peter 5:1-4).

In short: Any church looks like a bad church if the written or unwritten job description says that the pastor is supposed to be a compassionate and unhurried chaplain, a wise counselor, an outstanding preacher, an inspiring leader, a zealous guardian of theological orthodoxy and a detail-oriented administrator.

As I’ve said elsewhere, few if any human beings have the gifts to do all of those tasks well and no one – however gifted – has the time or energy to do them adequately. Besides that, the role conflicts built into such a hideous job description can turn the nicest group of saints into a “bad church.” (For more on this topic, see The Parable Of The Headhunter by clicking here.)

Assuming for the moment that my reader is a beleaguered pastor who feels that God cruelly sent him to what feels like a “bad church,” let’s return to the seven possibilities I’ve mentioned so far and conclude this with two more. Our question is: Why would a good God send me to pastor a bad church?

Possibility #1 – Maybe it just happened.

Possibility #2 – Maybe you didn’t do your “due diligence.”

Possibility #3 – Maybe you were simply a bad match for the church.

Possibility #4 – Maybe it really was a bad church, but God allowed the dysfunction to refine your character.

Possibility #5 – Maybe your bad church experience was about teaching you a very specific lesson.

Possibility #6 – Maybe you were “assigned” to the church to knock some rough edges off a seriously troubled congregation.

Possibility #7 – Perhaps you were given a strange and painful way of glorifying God.

Possibility #8 – Maybe God was showing you your dependence on Him.

Our dependence upon God is one of those truths which we must learn and re-learn and re-learn at ever-deeper levels.

As a brand-new Christian, I memorized some wonderful verses of Scripture about my dependence upon God, like Proverbs 3:5,6, Philippians 4:13, Isaiah 41:10 and John 15:5b.  Since I knew the verses, I thought I understood this truth.

I didn’t.

I launched forth from seminary to plant a church. After getting nowhere (fast!) with all my laborious efforts, an older pastor friend said: “Maybe God brought you here for what He wanted to do in you rather than for what He wanted to do through you in this town.”

That was painful to hear, but I think he was right.

After years of frustration and failure I began to catch on. I’ve often shared that for several years Jesus kept asking me, “When I said that without me you can do nothing, what part of the word nothing did you not understand?” When God started blessing my work beyond what I expected, it seemed like Jesus was now asking me, “When I said that nothing is impossible with God, what part of the word nothing did you not understand?”

So maybe the correct formula is something like this:

God’s power + my self-confidence = nothing.

God’s power + my humility = anything.

Of course, learning this truth at deeper levels doesn’t mean that I pray all day and do little else. It means that I pray desperately before and after I do anything, knowing that it’s what He does that matters most. It’s not that my sermon preparation doesn’t matter; it means that it doesn’t matter much compared to what only the Holy Spirit can do in my church member’s hearts.

Chuck Lawless put it like this in a recent post: “Through my brokenness, God taught me dependence. My personal strength had been a detriment to my leadership, not an asset. I had been praying primarily only when I faced something I could not first fix. All of that changed when I could only lean on Him.”¹

 Possibility #9 – Maybe God allowed this to draw you closer to Him.

This is another truth that I’ve known at a shallow level – better than not at all perhaps – for a long time. As a young Christian I was deeply affected by A.W. Tozer’s wonderful book, The Pursuit of God.  Within a few years, as a young pastor I preached about Jesus’ words to Martha, sister to Lazarus, in Luke 10:38-42: “Martha, Martha…you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

 In spite of the varied interpretations I’ve heard of the “one thing” over the years², I maintain that the meaning of the passage is pretty simple: Mary had prioritized fellowship with Christ while Martha was so busy serving Christ – Dr. Luke says she was “distracted” – that she neglected the Savior Himself.

It’s pretty clear that Jesus – as astonishing as it seems – prefers our fellowship to our service. He’d rather have a peanut butter sandwich with my fellowship than a four-course meal without my company.

Most pastors would agree with this. Many of us act like we don’t agree with it.

We’re guys. That’s part of the problem.  We like to get things done.  We like to fix things. We like to build things. We want to tear things down if we can’t fix them.

Like Jesus’ twelve leaders in training, we want to build the kingdom of God. Now. Today. Let’s get on with it!

But God can cause stones to cry out if he wants to. He can use donkeys and stars and angels as messengers. He really doesn’t need us. The work that we do because we think that He needs us is work which He doesn’t want (II Samuel 7:5-16).

He wants us close. He makes us to lie down in green pastures, even if that requires failure on our part or violence done to us (Psalm 23:2). Some claim that a Bible-era shepherd would break the leg of a rebellious sheep to re-train him (I’m assuming it’s a “him”) to stay close to the shepherd and stop running away.

James promises, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8).

Will you draw near to the One who led you to a “bad church”?  Waiting for God to apologize is not going to work out well for you.

Let’s wrap this up with two more thoughts from Chuck Lawless:

“Through my brokenness, God focused my attention on His kingdom more than my kingdom. I had my own plans for how God would use me, but my attention had been riveted on doing God’s work for my glory. That focus changes when God reduces you.”¹

“Through my brokenness, God taught me a new sense of His love. It’s one thing to talk about God’s sustaining love when it’s really just theory to you; it’s a completely different matter when God sustains you through brokenness. His love is uniquely sweet in the valley.”¹

 Amen and amen.

¹Chuck Lawless blogpost dated May 18^th, 2026. 8 Blessings of Brokenness under God’s Hand. Sign up by going to www.ChuckLawless.com.

²Everything from a gyro to intensive, personal Bible study!