A Theory About People Thinking My Sermons are Angry

I’ve had opportunities to preach in a couple churches steeped in Easy Believism (apparently the Lord will only allow me to preach in such churches). They think people are saved by “saying the prayer,” and as long as a person said The Prayer, they are saved and don’t have to bother with any growth.

The latest church I’ve preached at have several church leaders that have said multiple times that you can be saved and then murder people every day for the rest of your life and still be saved.

I’m no advocate for people losing their salvation. I am an advocate for salvation is being crucified with Christ, buried with Him, and raised up with Him to newness of life. No longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me.

Murderers will not inherit the Kingdom of God (Galatians 5:21). We know that no murderer has eternal life in him (1 John 3:15). Seems pretty straight forward.

Anyway, that’s one example of many of this church’s teaching.

Teaching Easy Believism leads to massive apathy. There is no energy directed at spiritual growth. Why would there be? The church leaders tell everyone they are saved and fine, take it easy. No worries.

So, when I get my shot to preach in these places, I endeavor to stir them up a little. Philippians 3 and the last part of 1 Corinthians 9 have been my texts the last few times. Run to win. Reach forward to the prize of the high calling in Christ.

While preaching such things, I get a little excited. I want people to see the depth of the Gospel’s provision, the Lord’s love, and the way awesomer life following Christ rather than following the flesh.

It gears me up because realizing such things transformed my life and faith. I want others transformed by the Gospel as well.

Without fail, after my imploring, beseeching, and stirring people up to follow Christ with some zeal, my emotions will be interpreted as anger.

I can confess that anger is not the emotion I’m going with. Yes, there is some frustration preaching in a church overrun with bad teaching and apathy, but frustration is not my main emotion either.

It’s a desire to call them to something better, something that’s sitting right there, been fully provided by Jesus Christ. Just go get what He offers, people!

Typically, the people who think I’m angry are often the ones I’m most concerned for. It’s like they have no idea what to do with such emotion in a sermon. They think everyone is saved, what’s the big deal? “There’s nothing wrong with us, must be something wrong with that guy preaching.”

My emotions are interpreted as anger; when in reality I’m begging and imploring that very person to use the Gospel’s provision.

After a half hour of explaining how they should forget the things that are behind and press toward the mark, run to win, etc. all they come up with is, “What’s wrong with that guy?”

They have no place in their theology for impassioned pleas. They’ve already concluded they’re saved. There is nothing more. They said The Prayer, when they die they go to heaven, take it easy, man!

If you have no concern for your soul, you don’t know how to react to someone who is concerned for your soul.

It reminds me of Ezekiel crying out to the people to obey the Lord. No one listens. Instead they listen to the false prophet’s message of “peace, peace. You’re all fine, don’t worry about it.”

Ezekiel begs them, implores them, beseeches them, no doubt using emotion, and no one hears, leaving Ezekiel to cry out to the Lord, “Then said I, Ah Lord God! they say of me, Doth he not speak parables?” (Ezekiel 20:49).

For me, this was the hardest part of being a pastor—having more concern for peoples’ souls than they appeared to. They are already done. They are good to go. “Why are you so worked up, don’t you know we’re already saved?”

You hang around a church long enough you see the end of these people and you see the fruit their lives produce, and it isn’t spiritual fruit. You beg and plead and preach and convince and do whatever you can to help them wake up.

“What’s wrong with that guy? Why’s he so angry?”

Sigh. It’s the burden of the Lord. All day long His hand is stretched out to a disobedient and gainsaying people. Those same people look at God and say, “Why’s He so angry all the time?”

It is frustrating, but it’s also nice to know I’m in good company.

Either that or I’m angry, I guess.

_______________________________________

If you’d like to hear more of my experience pastoring a church in what I thought was a biblical manner, I wrote a book. CLICK HERE to get a copy of it. There are 9 tips for how to not grow your church for only $3.50!

What This Small Church Pastor Envied

Small church pastors are often envious. I was.

But I wasn’t envious of the things small church pastors are accused of being envious of.

Once I was touring another church for possible use for a wedding. They showed me around their new addition with all the new, pretty rooms. At the end of it the tour guide said, “I probably shouldn’t have shown you all that, now you’ll be envious of our building.”

“Nope,” I said. “Not really.”

I never wanted a huge building. Huge buildings cost more money, which require more people, which requires doing things I didn’t want to do to attract people to give us money we didn’t have. I wanted no part of joining that rat race.

Others think I wanted all the fancy programs and the funds to have nice equipment and impress the world. Nope, didn’t really want that either. Programs can be good, but often they take on a life of their own and eventually completely miss the purpose they were begun for.

“I bet you’d like to have all these people in your church.” Is another assumption people make. Not really. My heart was so broken by a small group of people, I can’t even imagine the state of my heart if a bunch of people came.

Which leads me to the one thing I was envious of: spiritually minded people who were growing in Christ.

I’d visit other churches and see some decent, upstanding, biblically minded, spiritually mature, servant of a Christian and think, “Oh man, I wish I had someone like that in my church. I’d give my left arm to have three people like that.”

Or the pastor who had a board that actually liked the church and showed up to it and served it and prayed for it and supported the pastor so the pastor was never out there floating on his own making decisions that everyone will be mad at but no one else will man up and take a stand.

That is what I was envious of.

Actual Christians with the Holy Spirit who devoted their lives to the love and service of the Body of Christ.

I had a couple for a time over the years, but was greatly disheartened by the general lack of enthusiasm for pursuing such things in the majority of attenders.

True, there would be no limit of such people that would satisfy me, I would always want more, because in actuality, that’s sort of the person the church is supposed to be creating.

The Body that edifies itself in love because the members are growing and doing the work of the ministry, is the goal and purpose (Ephesians 4).

If you have a couple of those kinds of people they serve as an example to inspire others to follow their lead. But if there aren’t any, the general testimony of the church is apathy, and people will have no problem following that. Soon the church is filled with apathetic, distracted, shallow people who desire nothing more because they are all busy pursuing earthly things.

I didn’t want a bigger building, larger crowds, more money, or more programs. I didn’t envy those things in any serious way.

I did envy spiritually growing Christians. They are few and far between and when I meet one I think, “Man, I wish you had been in my church.” Where two or three of this kind of person are gathered together things can happen.

I just wanted two or three.

______________________________________________

If you’d like to hear more of my experience in not doing church well, I wrote a book. CLICK HERE to get a copy of it. There are 9 tips for how to not grow your church for only $3.50!

Why I Get Depressed When I’m Around Christians (as far as I know)

About 90% of the time I’m around Christians, I’m more depressed afterwards than before.

I said this on Twitter and someone replied, “Either you or they are not doing it right.”

I’m aware of this, and this deepens my depression.

I will fully admit that this experience is at least partially, if not entirely, my fault. I imagine I’m a proud, egotistical, self-righteous, judgmental jerk. I’m saying that honestly. The odds this is entirely the case are pretty good.

So, that’s one option, and probably the first one on the list. But for the sake of argument, I’ll pretend there is at least a percentage that might be their fault.

If we grant that possibility, here is my explanation of my depression around Christians.

Also, let me add real quick, that the 10% of the time I’m not depressed around Christians is very real. I am not depressed after a conversation with a Christian where we talk about the Bible and get into swapping verses and thinking together through a question, while we both come up with other verses, and by the end everyone present has been edified and it’s so cool.

This is generally one-on-one style of communication, but I’ve also occasionally had it in a group setting.

Now, to the 90%. Here’s how it goes.

1. Every time I go into a Christian environment, I pray for me, for everyone else there, and anyone who opens their mouth. I pray that we are all edified and brought closer to Christ. This is my sincere desire for every meeting of believers. This is my constant prayer going into any Christian gathering, whether it’s a church service or grabbing lunch.

2. As mouths open, I am routinely shocked by the unbiblical nonsense that almost immediately comes forth. Once one weird thing has been said, I begin praying, “Lord help me to know what to say, how to say it, and if I should say it.” I usually wait, hoping, praying someone else heard it too.

3. Inevitably, the next open mouth will not only not correct the first mouth that opened, the second mouth will dig the hole of unbiblical nonsense deeper.

4. As the unbiblical nonsense is shared, I get a pain in my gut. You know that feeling when you have diarrhea that first time and you’re not sure what’s going on yet? Yeah, that feeling. The physical pain in my stomach increases until I must say something.

5. I carefully and as humbly as possible (not always possible unfortunately) quote a verse and try to steer the conversation back to biblical solid ground.

6. People either stare at me, laugh, argue, or ignore what I said. Rarely ever has anyone taken the bait to actually correct where the conversation is going.

7. I am now the bad guy, the one who made it awkward, the one who is “sowing division.”

8. I leave the gathering feeling terrible about everything. I pray earnestly for the people who said unbiblical nonsense and for me and for the church, and for, dear Lord, please come quickly.

9. Then I go home and hash and rehash what was said. Was I right? Were they really wrong. I look up stuff. I pray. I give way better answers to the imaginary replaying of the event in my head.

10. About two days later I’m over it. Now it’s time to go to Wednesday night church and repeat it all over again.

Let me give you an example I had last year. There was a group of 20 or 30 believers talking about Lot in the context of 2 Peter 2, particularly the verse that said righteous Lot vexed his soul over the wicked conduct of the people around him. I was not the leader in any way and am not a pastor of anyone in the group; I’m just another person sitting there.

About four people opened their mouths on this verse and it went like this:

First Person: Lot shouldn’t have moved close to those cities.

Second Person: Yeah, I heard he should have let Abraham choose first.

Third Person: It’s not right to be vexed in your soul.

Fourth Person: Yeah, it was a sin for him to be vexed; he should have been trusting God.

This verse, which is clearly a defense of Lot even though we like hating on him, was turned into saying the exact opposite point.

This is one of thousands of examples, some more distressing; some less. All annoying.

When you’re the guy who is always throwing cold water on people’s fun pontificating, people get real tired of you. I decided not to say anything about this one. I let it go. I took my diarrhea feeling home with me.

I never know what to do. But whatever I do is wrong. It never makes any difference to say anything anyway. There are times I have to though, and I hate it every time. I won’t sleep that night.

I was on the phone for an hour today with the cable company to cut my cable. After the hour long conversation I felt terrible. Maybe I was rude. Maybe I should have been more patient. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. Maybe the best thing would have been to just keep the cable and avoid the whole situation.

So, maybe it’s just me and my insecure introvert awkwardness.

I like to think my sadness over the unbiblical nonsense spoken by so many Christians might have something to do with me being in the body of the Man of sorrows who was acquainted with grief. I like to think it’s me following James’ advice to turn my laughter into mourning. I like to think this response is a good thing and shows my spiritual discernment.

Then again, knowledge puffs up.

Nothing I do ever feels like it was the right thing to do. It’s all very depressing.

I know there are many people who can’t relate to all this. I know “It’s not your job to fix people,” and “it’s not your responsibility.” I know all that. I never said any of that.

I’m looking at it more from the standpoint of judgment day and me giving an account for how well I handled God’s Word (which will judge us by the way) and how well I helped others handle God’s Word too.

If I didn’t love people, if I didn’t care, none of this would bother me. That’s my other justification. It just shows how great my love is for others.

Could be, then again, I probably just want to be right.

I don’t know.

I skipped church for two weeks straight last month and it was the happiest two weeks of the year.

________________________________

If you’d like to hear more about my depression caused by pastoring Christians, I wrote a book. CLICK HERE to get a copy of it. There are 9 tips for how to not grow your church for only $3.50!

Why Are You A Pastor?

In my talks with pastors over the years, I’m not sure why many of them are in the ministry. Some are pretty blunt that they have to make money and they don’t know what else to do. One of the downsides of seminary education is that you are not qualified to do anything. Although, that appears to be the point of all education at this point, but I digress.

When I was preparing for pastoral ministry, my main motivation was thinking I could make the church better. I was judgmental about how churches did stuff. Instead of just complaining about the church, get in there and help if you know so much.

That was my thinking at the time. There was a bit of a Messiah Complex going on, not gonna lie. The church that showed interest in my help was in sort of a desperate situation, a perfect place for a messiah to go. It was a perfect fit.

And, as you can imagine, worked out terribly.

I know other pastors who approached ministry this way as well. They were honestly trying to help the church, but by “help the church” we mean “do church the way that makes me comfortable.”

I think this is the impulse behind 97% of church planting efforts: Let’s finally get a church that does everything how we want it done.

Yes, I know, I’m cynical, I’m also pretty observant and that sure looks like what’s going on.

The Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 2 explains why he is in the ministry. It’s slightly different from my reason:

God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the ma Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle. (1 Timothy 2:3b-7a)

It appears as though Paul entered the ministry to make much of Christ and let people know Christ was the way and means of salvation. His preaching ministry was to make Christ known.

What a weirdo.

Obviously we all know this is the reason to go into ministry. Duh. In fact, most of us would probably even say it if we were asked, or at least something pretty close. Yet anytime a guy says this is his reason for being in ministry, I’ma go ahead and judge him. “Yeah right. I bet, you sanctimonious fruitcake.”

We know it’s the right answer and that actually it’s the only answer, yet we also know the thoughts and intents of our heart.

Is that really why I’m doing this?
Would I do this if I weren’t getting paid?
Would I do it on my “day off?”

What about to those annoying people I’m sick of talking to?

But wait, does that mean I don’t have to do hospital visits then because I’m too busy preaching about Jesus, because if so, I’d totally make more of Christ then.

What we say we believe is best revealed by what we do. You can say all day long that you are a pastor to glorify Christ, but what do you actually do?

Paul said he was in ministry to proclaim salvation and sufficiency in Christ. That’s the right answer. Is it your answer? Is it your answer in words, or is that actually what you’re doing?

Think about it, and act accordingly.

________________________________________

If you’d like to hear more about my failed Messiahship of a ministry, I wrote a book. CLICK HERE to get a copy of it. There are 9 tips for how to not grow your church for only $3.50!

Don’t Forget Pastor: You’re a Sinner

In 1 Timothy, Paul says he is the “chief of sinners.” He’s #1 in the sinner rankings. Many have noted that Paul said earlier in his ministry that he was less than the least of all saints and less than the other apostles.

Paul had a serious view of his sin. Paul was a man. Never forget that biblical people were still human. Paul sinned, not just in the past, but all his life. When you see your sin, it is depressing.

I’ve heard Christians say that because of Christ’s forgiveness you shouldn’t have any regrets or shame about the past. I understand the point. Paul also said to “forget those things that are behind.” But to have a calloused attitude toward sin, to not be humbled by your trespasses, seems dangerous territory.

Paul was in ministry. Ministry has a way of making you see other people’s sins, and boy howdy will you see them. You’ll see and hear about so many of them you might be tempted to think, “What is wrong with you people?” Perhaps you’ll follow that up with, “Lord, thank you that you did not make me like those sinners.”

As soon as sin becomes “what other people do” and you view yourself as better than those lowly, evil sinners, you should resign.

Yes, forgiveness is great and yes, God has removed our sin as far as the east is from the west. We should press toward the mark and forget what is behind. But never forget you were and are a sinner.

The flip side of not seeing your sin is to have a hardened conscience, which in the Bible is always a characteristic of unbelievers. If we say we have no sin we are liars.

Paul knew his sin, remembered his sin, and regretted his sin. This is normal and healthy, a mark of true spiritual wisdom.

Paul didn’t beat himself into the ground over it, he didn’t whine and give up in mopey inadequacy. Paul saw the sin, but also saw the greatness of His Savior. Read the full quote:

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

–1 Timothy 1:15-17

Paul saw his sin right along with the greatness of his Savior, leading him to worship his great God.

There are many reports of pastors falling into disgrace. Typically this happens because they don’t take their sin seriously. They fixate on and yell about the sins of others, while feeling their “sins” are justified because of their spiritual position. They revel in their “Man of God” status, they feel they are God’s gift to humanity, the whole church needs them and their wisdom.

You’d never hear any of them say they were the chief of sinners, or less than the least of all saints (However, some do belabor this point in humble bragging, which is also a warning sign).

Humility should mark your ministry. Humility is best understood by seeing that you are a sinner, not just them other people, but you, the guy up front, the “spiritual leader.”

Don’t lose sight of your sin, your need for a Savior and the Gospel, and your need for spiritual growth and maturing. Self-righteousness is nothing more than forgetting you are a sinner.

At the same time, you do no one any good to wallow in your sinful misery and be too afraid of the master and bury your talents. Yes, your sin is tremendous, but our Savior and His Gospel are more powerful still.

___________________________________

If you’d like to hear more details about my depressing experiences pastoring my church, I wrote a book. CLICK HERE to get a copy of it. There are 9 tips for how to not grow your church for only $3.50!

How To Preach Better Sermons

1 Timothy 1:5-7

The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.

The point of ministry within the church is love. Love, in fact, is the point of the life of any believer, not just those in church leadership. The only way to truly love others is to have a pure heart, good conscience, and a sincere faith.

The opposite direction of a pure heart, good conscience, and sincere faith is “vain discussion.” People not sincerely following the Lord can’t speak truth. People don’t talk about what they aren’t doing.

Guilt is funny that way. I preached several times a week for 21 years. I know the stuff I skipped, the verses I didn’t go into too much detail right then.

When I listen to other pastors preach I’m fascinated to note what verses they skip, or what theological ideas they circumvent and explain away.

“Vain discussion” is translated as “vain jangling” in the King James. I like that better. It sounds more accurate! It’s just empty words signifying nothing. Noise. Pomp.

Pastors who skip the plain meaning of verses and instead pontificate about their own ideas, their verbal gymnastics to explain away clear commands, are revealing for anyone who is interested that their conscience is not good. That there’s something wrong in them. They know what it is. I don’t, nor do I want to speculate, but something is off.

This is Paul’s word, not mine. If you don’t live sincerely and honestly before God, you will use confusing, empty, misleading language, most of it leading to nothing in the end. Oh, it took up time, it sure sounded like you were saying something, but in the end no truth was conveyed.

I’ve listened to many of these sermons.

Many of these guys, according to Paul, want to be teachers of the law even though they have no idea what they are talking about.

Perhaps he’s going after legalists in particular, but I think we do a disservice if we limit it to that group. Guys who relish telling other people what to do are often covering their own rebellion.

The preachers who rail on sin the most vocally and outrageously, are often making up for their own guilty conscience. I know guys who were staunch defenders of law commands who later were disqualified from ministry for doing the vary things they railed against, or sometimes the one part of the law they never brought up!

Paul says they don’t understand their own confident assertions.

There’s a pastor I know, I’ve heard many of his sermons, who whenever he departs from Scripture to pontificate about his own theories, his volume rises and his finger wags at the congregation. It’s almost a guarantee, the louder and more exuberant a preacher gets, the more seemingly confident they act, that’s when they’ve veered from Scripture the most.

The best way to preach good sermons, to uphold Scripture in word and deed, is to actually live by it. Having a pure heart, good conscience, and sincere faith is the best way to have right doctrine and sound preaching.

Departing from your own personal virtue before the Lord will lead you to preach empty sermons, riling people up about vain commands, and misleading people to follow your own proud assertions.

Souls are on the line. Get yours right before preaching to others.

____________________________________

If you’d like to hear more of my accumulated pastoral “wisdom” that shrunk my church, I wrote a book. CLICK HERE to get a copy of it. There are 9 tips for how to not grow your church for only $3.50!

Is Your Church’s Leadership Paying Attention?

In my many years of familiarity with churches, I’ve noticed that many people in positions of church leadership have no idea what’s going on in their churches.

And let me make clear that the church I was a pastor of was no exception.

I took my role as pastor/overseer seriously and felt the role required utmost attention since I would give an account before God. Souls were at stake and I wanted to be careful.

The people on the church board were mostly checked out though. This was frustrating on several levels:

1) They had no idea what was going on and they didn’t care. They were “busy.” They had zero time for church considerations. Oh sure, they mostly showed up for meetings and said “aye” at the right time, but they spent very little time thinking seriously about what the church was doing.

I remember one month at a board meeting asking them if they prayed about the church. They unanimously said no, not with any regularity. I asked them in the coming month to do so. They said they would. “Aye.” I asked them at the next board meeting if they prayed regularly for their church. They all said “no.”

This broke my heart. I can’t even get them to think enough about the church to take a few minutes a day to pray for it, how in the world are they going to be effective and helpful leaders in the church?

2) Even if a few people are paying attention, no one understands concerns when brought up. The one guy paying attention gets branded as “that guy” who is “always against everything.” After a while that guy isn’t listened to.

For most of the years as a pastor the board of the church was not involved in anything in the church. It was actually a rare occasion when all board members would be at church on a Sunday morning. “Why didn’t you choose more faithful people to be on the board then?” you may ask. There weren’t any others. These were it.

If they are never at church activities seeing what I’m seeing, how are they going to care? “Just do what you want, that’s why you get the big bucks” was actually a regular answer I received from the board. Doing what I wanted wasn’t the point. Having a group of dedicated people in agreement, and having each other’s backs, and ultimately the health and safety of the church as a prime concern, was the point.

I’m in a church now as not a pastor. I have no official authority of any kind in the church. I struggle with this. Not because I want to be in charge! But I do see how the leadership of the church is not really paying attention. There is so much inconsistency and compromise and sloppiness in adherence to biblical standards, it’s rather distressing to me.

I find myself looking up things just out of curiosity, things that make me wonder, “what’s that about?” I find out. Turns out usually there is a reason my attention was pricked. I’ll ask about it from various members of the church leadership. “Oh, I don’t know what that’s about.” One recently said, “I wasn’t paying attention, I just tune that stuff out.”

There are, in my opinion, pretty dangerous things being floated about in this church, yet this seems to not get anyone in leadership’s attention.

I was unable to get a group in my church to actually care about the church; I know how hard it is to do. I do not stand as one who knows how to do it. I don’t know, I couldn’t figure it out. The inactivity of the board was one of the main things that drove me to resign. Obviously I don’t know how to lead.

I’m wondering if my old church and the church I go to now are exceptions or just how it is. From the various pastors and churches I know about, I’d wager that most churches have barely attentive leadership. How else do we account for the sad state of churches in our day?

Even if they were paying attention to church activities, are any of them regularly in the Word as well? Do they even know what a biblical standard is? What exactly is our guide for decision making? Is anyone paying attention to that? Or have we all agreed to not challenge anything so we can all just coast and get by doing the bare minimum?

Our shepherds are not keeping watch by night or day. Wolves are in sheep’s clothing tearing up the flock. Church leadership is “busy.” Not busy overseeing and protecting, but busy nonetheless.

I imagine this will be a deal on Judgment Day.

____________________________________

My Failed Attempt to Pastor a Diseased Church

One criticism I hear frequently from Christians is that when a pastor resigns or a church doesn’t grow, it’s because the pastor wasn’t called, or lacked faith, or was doing it in his own power and not the Spirit’s, and other similar things.

In other words, it’s the pastor’s fault if a church doesn’t grow or the pastor quits.

As if the church doesn’t have anything to do with it.

I know good pastors who had churches with problems. Those pastors left in total discouragement. They did a good job. They had good hearts. The church is at least partially at fault.

I’m observant enough to know it’s not always the church’s fault. There are bad pastors who do their job terribly. I am not attempting to justify terrible pastors. My attempt is to defend quality pastors.

I, in my own humble opinion, was a quality pastor! Was I perfect? No, I made mistakes and can list the top ten without too much pause for reflection.

But my heart was right. I was devoted to the Lord Jesus Christ and His Word and His Gospel. I preached the Word faithfully. I prayed regularly, visited people, knew the people, and honestly loved the people even if I was often confused about what that love should do. I took stands for righteousness and truth, while doing my best to extend grace and mercy.

I got nowhere.

The church didn’t grow. It shrunk. I earned less per year after 21 years than I did when I began. To all measurable standards of success, I was a complete failure.

Although many miss this, the reason I call myself the Failing Pastor is not because I think I’m a failure; it’s because the church clearly let me know I was. Before the Lord, I did what I thought was right and I’ll let Him judge my ministry. Before people, well, they all let me know what a loser I was.

As I said, it doesn’t take long for me to come up with legit mistakes I made. No pastor thinks they nailed everything correctly.

But I also know my church had issues that more or less made it impossible for anything good to occur.

No doubt some of you are thinking, “Wow, who does this guy think he is?” Let me explain some stuff about the church I was at and you tell me if this church didn’t have issues!

Here are some facts about the church I served for 21 years. All of these things were true of the church before I got there. None of these things were my doing! They were in place before I arrived.

1. They thought the only part of the Bible we had to follow were the epistles of Paul. You could not make any point to them from any other book of the Bible. The Old Testament was right out. The previous pastor even said OUT LOUD that he didn’t think the Apostle Paul understood grace until the last two chapters of 2 Timothy!

2. Salvation was proved by having said The Prayer. That’s it. Nothing else was needed or required. Repentance was out. Obedience was legalism. Faith was simply a mental assent that Jesus did a thing and I like it.

3. Grace was emphasized so much that good works were viewed as being bad. If you did something good, now you had your own righteousness to depend on. It’s better to sin and rely on grace. Should we sin that grace may abound? They pretty much yelled, “ABSOLUTELY, YES!”

4. They determined that baptism and communion were not necessary for the church age. All physical things like that were Jewish and law.

5. They turned grace into legalism. My favorite example is when I wore a tie to church one Sunday a few months into my pastoral career. I was confronted in the hallway, backed up against the wall by the supposed “head of the church,” and told “Why are you wearing a tie? We don’t wear ties here; we’re not legalists.” The irony of that statement has not even to this day ceased to amaze me.

6. They had no board. Church leadership resided in the pastor and his two yes-men. They controlled the money and all decisions in the church and did a fine job lording it over the people. The two yes-men continued to lord it over me when I got there.

7. There were many odd money things going on in the books that I soon discovered upon getting there. Their largest expense of the year was “Miscellaneous.” There was some money laundering going on. It was a mess to sort it out and get it cleaned up.

8. The only thing the church did was a one hour meeting each Sunday. That was it. One hour. Fifty-five minutes of which was the pastor berating the people about his peculiar views of gracish legalism.

9. The previous pastor once preached that he hoped more people in his church would live with each other and do all the sexing outside of marriage so they would know they trusted God’s grace. If anyone disagreed with him, he once said (in a sermon recorded on tape) “you can go to hell.”

10. People on one side of the church didn’t know the names of people on the other side of the church. There was no love, no fellowship, just a worshipping of the pastor with some Pauline verses about grace sprinkled in.

So, yeah, go right ahead and tell me the reason I failed at this church was because of me! I confronted all these issues. I confronted the two yes-men (who left soon after). I preached the Bible. This church who didn’t like the Old Testament, guess what I did? “Take your Bible and open to Genesis chapter 1.” Then I spent twelve years expositorally preaching through the Old Testament. Ha! That still cracks me up.

I did not back down from the church’s weirdness and endeavored to do all I could to rescue the perishing in the church. Several were set free from the false teaching. But most clung to it desperately and fought me for years before leaving in terrible, not very gracious, ways.

I added a Sunday School, a midweek Bible Study, social events, we supported missionaries, which they had never done before. I began a benevolence fund. We did communion regularly and I baptized people. I had a board of deacons and always endeavored to train up more elders. I tried doing church the way the New Testament says to do it.

I fought the fight. I thought it might work. It didn’t. It just slowly died.

Two weeks after I resigned the church voted to cancel all church events except one hour of preaching on Sundays. Right back where it started. They didn’t want a church. I didn’t want to pastor a non-church.

Any charge that my resignation was a result of me not caring, only doing it for the money, not being called, or anything else, is rather humorous to me. I took a diseased church and tried to get the people to heal it. They preferred the disease.

I got out before I got diseased.

That’s my story. Sometimes there are bad churches. I applaud all pastors who are fighting to help those churches become true, legit, New Testament churches. It’s a battle worth fighting, even if in the end you “lose.”

You were at least in the arena fighting it out. There came a point for me where I had to get out. It wasn’t working, nor was it going to. I was done. I tried. The swine won’t get any more pearls from me. I’m out.

21 years, to all appearances, I failed. The church is right back where it started before I spent 21 years trying to help it. I have something to do with the failure, I have to admit I wasn’t perfect. But the Lord knows my heart was in it and I tried to do the right thing.

Fight the fight, pastors! Do the right thing before the Lord and don’t let the goats get you down. The Lord is the ultimate judge of my ministry and I’ll let Him do it and let me know if I failed or not. He’ll do the same for you.

Pastor like you’re standing before the Lord, because some day you will be.

__________________
If you want to hear more about my failed attempt to do what I could do help a diseased church, I wrote a book about it. CLICK HERE to get a copy, because I went through the trouble of writing it!

How Can I Get Out of Pastoral Ministry?

About once a week I receive a message from a pastor who found my Failing Pastor blog or Twitter account who is discouraged and wants to know how to get out of ministry.

This is cool and sad.

I’ve been out of pastoral ministry for over a year now. I don’t get much material for Twitter or the blog anymore. It’s crossed my mind to quit many times. But the private messages I get from hurting pastors keeps me doing it.

I remember so well the loneliness I felt as a failing pastor. Nothing I did mattered or seemed to help. The surrounding apathy was sucking the life out of me. But I didn’t know what other job I could do.

Several times a year I hit the depths of quitting depression. I sent out resumes to teach for Christian schools. I even sent a few for janitorial positions. All my education and experience was in and for church. The exit seemed impossible.

I didn’t want to move to another church. I’d just have to start the battle all over. Stabbed in the back for brand new reasons by brand new people. Step in issues I didn’t know about all over again. No thanks.

I figured my only true out would be going into business. Doing something I was entirely in charge of. I didn’t need a fancy resume or have to meet any qualifications.

I’ve always liked books. I began buying and selling books. For about three years my wife and I talked about having a bookstore. I researched bookstores, interviewed bookstore owners, and learned more about the book business while selling books online.

My hope was to hang on until our last kid graduated from high school. All the kids would be out of the house, expenses would lower, and we’d be free to try it out. Unfortunately, I couldn’t hang on that long. A very frustrating time hit and I lost all joy and hope and motivation. I had to get out. If I stayed in longer I’d hurt someone.

Also during this time my mom was dying and she was not handling it well. I was stressed from both things. I resigned on a Sunday. Took my Mom into the hospital on that Tuesday and two weeks later she died. Things went so quickly and dramatically, I never even told her I resigned from being a pastor.

We opened our bookstore about three months ago and are completely thrilled with the decision and how things have worked out.

Pastors ask me all the time “How do you make money now? I’d quit in a heartbeat if I could make money some other way.” This is what I did. It’s probably not what you should do. I have no idea.

I know the pain and the anguish and I feel for you. I do. I get it so much. All I can suggest is that you work on an alternative plan while still pastoring. This is especially true if you have a family. Your decision affects other people.

At the same time, I got to the point where I had to scrap my plan because I was done. Like, legit done. I felt something shift in me. I had to get out. You might be there too. In that case, you go on faith that the Lord will help you out.

We are in an economy right now where everyone is looking for good help. I know it might be embarrassing to get the job at Home Depot, but hey, it’s better to do that than to disparage the ministry with a bad attitude. Take a grunt job for a while and work on an alternate plan.

I don’t know. I feel unqualified to give advice really. All I can do is tell you what I did. I know several pastors who went into business as an avenue out of ministry. It’s scary, but also a fascinating learning experience. Many pastoral functions are good preparation for going into business: dealing with people, operating budgets, filling out forms/office work, etc.

As an added bonus: I have received more encouragement and compliments in the last three months in our bookstore than I did in 21 years of being a pastor! That’s kind of nice! I know it’s not everything and it’s really not all that important, but when you get beat up for so long, it is nice to be appreciated!

Anyway, I feel for you if you feel stuck in your pastoral job. You’ll get criticized and judged by other pastors and anyone else you share your feelings with. It’s a bummer and part of what makes pastoral depression even worse.

I don’t judge. I know what it’s like. It’s tough. Life is bigger than ministry. Do the right thing before the Lord and I am convinced He will take care of you. Make the right call for you before Him. Hang in there. Fight the fight.

Problems of a People Pleasing Pastor

I think most pastors think they are doing pastoring the right way. Many even think they are doing it biblically.

Perhaps some are, but I think the major influence on how a guy pastors is simply personality. I come from a people-pleasing family. Serving people and being empathetic is what we do. We feel things for people and do what we can to help. This all sounds good and there are many verses that say we should do such things.

However, most of my empathy, care, and service was done out of fear. People pleasers are afraid of rejection, among other things. Much of my service was not done out of spiritual conviction but out of fleshly fear. This was especially true when my church began to shrink and I wasn’t getting paid much. I couldn’t afford more people to leave.

I would say my family and I were on the extreme end of people pleasers. My dad was probably the most people pleasery person ever. I was never as bad as he was. People liked him as their pastor, but he also attracted bullies. Bullies identify weak people and take advantage of them. I was pretty successful at attracting them too!

Both my dad and I did a lot of good for a lot of people, yet we also have long lists of people who took advantage of us, people who trampled on us and we were not always able to stand up for ourselves. We can justify it as Christlikeness; in reality it was simply fear.

Then there are those on the other end of the spectrum. Those who are oblivious to other people’s feelings. They don’t mind fighting and arguing. They are confident in who they are and what they believe and kind of don’t respect anyone but their own brilliant selves. They are sometimes known as Calvinists. I tease, I tease. Sort of.

These are the pastors who when I express my frustrations and failures as a pastor tell me I wasn’t called to ministry. They don’t empathize at all; they simply pile on and tell me how utterly awful I am. They are right to the extent that I was wrong, but they go too far. They don’t understand that the reason they don’t have the same experiences as a pastor as I do is because they are oblivious to all the things that make people with my personality miserable. I felt them too much; they feel them none at all. Both are problematic.

(One way to tell which end of the spectrum you are on is this: when someone argues with you do you enjoy it and it makes your day, or do you get tight and can feel your pulse in your eyes?!)

I think the best pastor is a combination of both, knowing when to please and when not to. Paul said if he yet pleased me he would not be the servant of Christ. The same Paul also said he became all things to all men so that by all means he might save some. That’s the balance.

I was unable to hit it. Most of my inability was wired into me. I was raised to fear people, although I have gotten better. Yes, I did lots of nice things and took many shots without responding and served. But I also resented the people I had to serve, especially if there was no reciprocation. That’s what people pleasers do. We please people with the assumption they will please us back. If I visit this person they will come to church. They don’t. I get bitter.

The non-people pleaser doesn’t get this at all. Their response to that paragraph is “yup, you are one sick person. Never should have been a pastor, that’s for sure.” Pause for a second though. Perhaps your response is a sign that you are too far the other way. You don’t weep with those who weep, you belittle those who weep.

A good pastor would have balance. They know how to serve out of love, out of Christlike compassion, yet also know how to confront and speak truth. I could and did speak truth, but felt awful about it for days afterward. Sick to my stomach at times when people had problems with what I said. Was that right? I don’t know. I know I cared deeply about people hearing the Gospel.

I don’t yet know the answer to either side of the spectrum. How does a pastor reach the right balance? I don’t know, that’s why I resigned! But I also know, after a year and a half out of ministry, where my problems came from. I’m still seeking to address this issue in my personality and in my faith even if I never pastor again. I want to do things right. I want to fix what is wrong and make progress.

In the end, the fact that you do pastoring a certain way and it feels good or “works,” or it feels terrible and “doesn’t work,” doesn’t necessarily mean anything. God’s opinion on the matter is what counts. I’ve learned that my personality dictated much of what I did as a pastor. This wasn’t always good and was sometimes terrible. We’re all in this together, aint none of us perfect. There is hope though! Growth is always out there for us to go for. Keep going for it.