According to Ephesians 4:7-16, the gifted church leaders whom we typically call “pastors” are gifts of the risen, glorified Jesus Christ to his churches. According to Ephesians 2:10, each of them is a custom-designed “masterpiece” and Acts 20:28 adds that each one has been appointed an overseer by the Holy Spirit himself.
The great pastoral transition passage, I Corinthians chapters 1-4, indicates that God sovereignly moves these men in and out of our churches, as He pleases, for our good.
I Thessalonians 5:12-13 indicates that we are to respect them above any class of persons on earth (“…hold them in the highest regard in love…”). That means: higher than royalty, higher than rock stars, higher than movie stars or athletes.
All of this is lost on some churches. It isn’t like they haven’t heard this material; they’ve heard it but have never heeded it. Some of them treat pastors so poorly that they don’t deserve to have one. Ultimately of course, it’s not about their feelings about pastors; it’s about their feelings about God himself. To disrespect the gift is to disrespect the giver.
The operative word here is “few.” While some pastors can take on this extremely challenging role – usually as interim pastors – with unusual strength and grace, with a Spirit-given tender toughness, most pastors are simply destroyed by these congregations. In a few years (or months!) they are teaching school, selling insurance or delivering pizzas.
Sadly, sooner or later, these highly dysfunctional congregations are usually able to find an individual who is young and naïve enough, foolish enough or arrogant enough, to come and be their new pastor.
Here’s what I’ve seen:
(1) Churches that treat their pastors like low-level servants. These folks will tell you that they believe in “servant leadership.” But when Jesus described servant leadership (Mark 10:35-45) he wasn’t talking about a leader adopting the job description of a servant; he was speaking about serving as a leader – as he did, with great assertiveness – with the selfless attitude of a servant.
(2) Churches where each board member is the pastor’s “boss.” I believe that in most congregations it’s reasonable and even important that the pastor is accountable to some kind of church board for everybody needs a boss. But churches which make every individual board member into the pastor’s supervisor put the pastor into an impossible situation. Even if the board members and pastor are all considered elders (Acts 20:17-32, etc.), it makes no sense that unpaid or part-time elders should each serve as supervisors over the one full-time elder – who is usually the only one who has gone to school to learn how to lead churches.
(3) Churches with disloyal, divided boards. Larry Osborne “nailed it” with his books (“The Unity Factor” followed by “Sticky Teams”): the key to a united church is a united board. A united board can withstand any storm; a disunited board creates its own storm. Church leadership teams must speak with one voice. No backstabbing. No meetings in the parking lot. No rumor mongering or complaint soliciting. No invisible petitions. No pastor that I know can lead a church with a divided board. Godly board members are willing to discipline or remove board members who secretly work behind the scenes to undermine the church’s leadership. While we scrap in private we must stand together in public.
(4) Churches with bullies and bosses. Church bullies and bosses “happen.” Every congregation has candidates for these positions; the key is that a godly, united board (as above) helps the designated leader (the pastor) to lead and does not allow latent bullies or bosses to rise to the surface.Being a church leader in one decade doesn’t give you veto power in the next decade. Thinking you’re the most capable and qualified leader in the church (“I’m the real spiritual leader of the congregation”) doesn’t make you the legitimate leader of the congregation. God feels very strongly about those who usurp authority.
(5) Churches which tolerate gossip. Gossip kills churches. Godly church leadership teams take this sin as seriously as fornication or adultery. It is forbidden in Scripture and it is mentioned in most church by-laws and/or covenants. In too many cases, church boards know who the gossips are and are unwilling to do anything about it.
(6) Churches which don’t love their pastors enough to learn about the challenges of their lives and ministries. I’m not suggesting that church members should intuitively understand what it’s like to be a pastor; most have no clue. But we all should care enough about the pastor and his family as fellow members of the family of God to be willing to learn about their lives and needs. Too many pastors have unlivable salaries, little vacation, no chance for sabbaticals, late night phone calls, unreasonable demands on their wives and children, etc.
A variant of this is the church that boasts about how much it gives to missions while not paying their pastor a livable wage. In some cases their missionaries are living “higher on the hog” than their pastors – and this is considered “spiritual” on the part of the church.
Here’s my admonition: Unless you’re so tough that you chew nails to relax and pound your whiskers in with a hammer and bite them off inside (instead of shaving), OR you have a very unusual calling from God that you are humbled and amazed by…just stay away from these churches. There are other ways to serve God. As we say in the abstinence movement, “just say no.”
