You know, Jim, I can think of a situation in a ministry at which I worked which sounded a lot like the one you described, at least to one who wasn’t an insider.

I don’t think I’ll write War and Peace length post on specifics, but skip to the end:  In that situation, there were no innocent victims except the congregation.

And the ones I hold most accountable are the elder board who, while acknowledging some very serious problems (I’m talking violations of the law, among other things) refused to man up and confront the pastor about it.  They believed that the ministry needed his name recognition, and that it would be divisive to the church.  (Let’s just say that he was a man known to be opinionated, even a bully at times.) So, some bootlickers with evil intent managed to come in the back door and literally seize the ministry, resulting in a division.

Pastors do NOT need a fan club serving as their elder board.  They need mature men of God with guts and enough love to face them down when they are on a wrong path, and help them to return to the right path.  And pastors need to remember that Judas betrayed our Lord with a kiss, rather than confronting him.  What’s that line from the song?  “True friends stab you in your face.”

Just a few comments:

I think there is a bit of a bad attitude going on here: People generally do not take to change easily, nor do they change churches easily; when people move, it is because they do not feel their needs are met, or that people (pastors) do not care about them. Yes, there are those that flitter from church to church to find “the next big thing”, but if being the “next big thing” is what your church is about, that is the risk you take, and you knew it going in.

There is a bigger risk to the small(er) church when the mega church decides to “extend its boundaries” by a satellite congregation into an area where smaller churches are. The “corporate (in structure)” “celebrity (senior pastor)” church is hardly a biblical model. Often these churches, with their “video congregations” breed the very thing Ed is afraid of, betrayal by a staff member who goes out and starts a church because where he is, there is never going to be an opportunity to have a preaching ministry.  What nobody seems to be willing to say is, every time that Ed’s visage graces a video screen, that is one less younger pastor in his church that isn’t preaching. All too often, one gets exactly what one plants. Ed seems to be bent on a lot of churches where he is the pastor, and so he doesn’t raise up new leaders in the faith to pastor a local church.

I see that the biggest problem in most churches is the tendency of leadership to think that they have to be in control. I’m sorry, Ed, but if one of your staff starts a church plant downwind from you, perhaps is it because of the tendency of most in a corporate structure to be “control freaks” that must be the ones who decide who can minister when and where. If someone moves on after twenty years, perhaps it is because the leadership is so intent on the status quo that they can not bear for there to be any growth except what they have personally mandated.

To put it in perspective. in my area, there are 4 megachurches, and a host of smaller churches. If every seat was filled for every service, less than 4% of the population would be in church at any time. I thought that we are to be salt and light, not builders of the great church corporate in this life. The world is literally going to hell, and unless we reach them, they will continue on that path.
Isn’t it pathetic when a leader of such a large church is whining that he is worried about “pirates”; perhaps he should look in the mirror.  Attitude check! Perhaps he really does believe that his is the only church in town that has the right to exist. How pathetic.
We need to get back to the mission: Go and make disciples of all the world; and let God take care of all the rest.

Sincerely,

Bob Patterson

To reduce this to basics, is it not true that the more churches, the better?

Is it not a good thing to hire and develop pastors who want to start their own church?

Is it not a good thing that we now have technology that can illuminate these issues?

As far as “In my experience, if you feel a call from God which is not confirmed by those who you are under the authority of in the church… it ain’t a call from God”—that’s absurd.  Before God speaks to me, He doesn’t check with my senior pastor to see if she’s OK with His plans.

The original reference wasn’t to a situation where everyone says “no, you’re not.....”

It was that, if the senior pastor didn’t agree, the calling didn’t come from God.  Didn’t matter what anyone said or thought. Even God, it seems.

We’ve all seen situations where what someone thought was God’s call turned out to be their own ego talking.  I’ve been guilty of that myself.

But I daresay we’ve also all seen situations where the senior pastor’s ego or needs are what is talking.  And I’ve been there, too. 

I’m not saying that the senior pastor’s opinion doesn’t carry a lot of weight.  But they’ve got their own agenda, and they’re human like the rest of us.

Jesus defied a few “senior pastors” in His day!

Dedicated writes:
“Agreed!!!  How many would be serving today if there was no pay as in His day?”

Not trying to pick on you, but your point is mistaken.  Even back “In His day,” ministry had expenses.  Unless we believe Jesus worked miracles every day to meet his needs and those of his companions, some source of income was needed.  Did he have a day job?  You know… the bi-vocational thing - making furniture by day in the carpentry shop and preaching on his days off?  We have no scriptural indication of such a situation. 

BUt we do have one description of how the ministry needs were met.  Whether we call it “pay” or not, Jesus’ needs were met by people financially supporting his ministry - the same way it works today.  Take a look at Luke 8:1-3, which lists some of those who financially suported Jesus and the disciples.  And Paul clearly establishes that he and his ministry (and ministers in general) were entitled to support.  See 1 Timothy 5:17-18 and 1 Corinthians 9:14.

Also, many of the comments on this thread really sound resentful towards church leadership.  “Pathetic” pastors and “bootlickers with evil intent.” It all sounds like sour grapes because the pastor doesn’t do things the way you think he should, but as I said elsewhere, God did not place you in charge.  And the church of Jesus Christ is not a democracy - it is a Theocracy with God/Christ at the top and the authority structure he ordained from there down.  If scripture is true, God has placed YOUR pastor into his position.  Don’t these passages mean something?

Heb 13:17 “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.”

1Pe 2:13 “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men ...”

Dave

I think I come off pretty hard, so please just take this for what it is: the opinion of an average guy in staff-level ministry in a local church.

Once again on this blog, something touches such a nerve that it opens up the “I got hurt by a leader, so I now adopt a ridiculous ecclesiology so I can prove the MAN wrong” crap.

Listen, church hurt is the worst thing that can happen to a person. It hits people at their most open and vulnerable, and Ed is right on the count that “you give people your heart and they throw it back at you.”

There does come a point, though, where you have to choose to embrace health, and many times, that doesn’t mean changing theology or ecclesiology, but rather simply learning to forgive and give up your right to feel right. You don’t need to be right, you need to be healed and at peace in your soul. So, in response to those who have expressed abnormal/anti-megachurch/I’m more biblical than YOU ideas, please just get healing, get over it, and re-embrace mainstream faith in Christ again. It’s really not healthy to be at war with the Body of Christ.

Is Ed Young right? No. He’s operating out of obvious insecurity about his own influence here. If he was healthy, he’d hand whoever this guy was a church directory, and tell him “You take anyone you want and go start something if you think you’re supposed to.” If you only teach from a platform, and you don’t have deep pastoral relationships with people, you have a right to feel insecure, because your mode of ministry is the very reason you struggle with this issue. If you lose people, you lose the ones who disagree with your vision and teaching, which is a blessing, or you lose the people who don’t really know you off the platform, which is your fault for disconnecting from pew-sitters.

This is why I’ve come to an interesting theory. If God uses you as a speaker and author, resign your church to a Pastor who’s interested in getting into peoples’ stuff, and go itinerant speaking at conferences, etc. If you’re going to pastor a church, pastor a church, don’t make it about the platform and the programming. We have too many megapastorCEOpersonalities and not enough local “he married us” pastors anymore. The culture will ultimately be reached through spirit-filled disciples of Christ on the streets being mobilized by the churches to reach everybody they come in contact with. And there’s no better place for that to start than with a local pastor who gets his eyes off of media-driven ministry and on to “How can I get people equipped and driven to win souls and make disciples?”

Ken sadly says:

“I had the church board’s support but because he was the founding pastor of that church he overode their support of me,”

Which is the case in the vast majority of “churches” in America.  This is nothing more than empire building and is anathema to Jesus Christ and His Body.

Ken again:

“When we left my ex-pastor thought I was going to tell everyone why we were leaving but he needed not worry as a preachers kid I knew better than to “split” the church and take people with me that weren’t mine.”

The last time I read the New Testament, it clearly stated that the “people” are the property of Jesus and not a man.

Again, this is nothing more than that generations old mentality that people or rather sheeple or nothing more than chattel to those in power.

Peter Hamm:

“There is BIG difference between “sheep straying in” and planting a church with the intent, or with the only real plan, being attracting already-churched believers from other places. I encourage people all the time to stay in their churches and not come to our much bigger one.”

My how sweet of you to encourage people to stay away from your “bigger” “church.”

I’d be willing to bet you’d sing a different tune if you were the upstart organization.  I’d bet you love to see anyone show up...especially if it’s to hear the word of God, right?

The arrogance is staggering.

So, Ricky,

FIrst off, no, I’m not arrogant. Thanks very much.

If you pastor a church and someone joins your staff with the express purpose of gaining a following and then “splitting” that following off to start a new church, you think that’s just peachy? (Oh, I forgot, you seem to hate all churches.)

I tried to post a “constructive” critique of Ed’s video on his blog (edyoungblog.com).  It was basically the same one I posted here earlier.  It was friendly, conciliatory and not anonymous.

It was not approved.

I began to look at all of the 50 + comments and ALL of them were supportive and positive.

Seriously folks, this guy has issues.

Could Ed Young actually revealing a desire to “hoard sheep?” I found nothing in his talk edifying or Biblical.  Sounded a bit whiny.  And his conclusion about God’s will sounded too cult-like for me.

Wilson:

“The associate said ‘all you have to do is put a large ad in the paper and let the people know ‘who you are’ He went on to say, ‘I did that and I had 300 the very first Sunday’”

Like it or not, that is the standard procedure for all new “church plants.”

You’ll find it in most “church” planting literature and classes.

It’s the system that breeds this sort of stuff...the system.