Ex-City Bible Slave says:

“Pastor’s are insecure because they are out of touch with reality. They surround themselves with yes men who tell them everything they want to hear and they begin to believe they are bigger and better then what they really are…” 

These words show fabulous insight into the reality of the Yes Men culture in churches run by pastor-kings and some of the consequences that accompany it. I’d like to share a few examples from my own church life experience, then make a few observations, and finally ask you a few questions about your own experience with church staff members: 

Example #1 - As I was transitioning out of my home church, I called to talk to the senior pastor. The reason for my call was confidential, and this fact I told the associate pastor who took my call. The associate told me that if I informed him of the reason for my call that he would keep it confidential and allow me to tell the senior pastor myself. He did not. Instead, the associate broke his promise and told the pastor why I was calling. This allowed the pastor to get up his defenses before he picked up the phone. 

Example #2 - I shared some questions with the Dean of the Bible college about their church history chart having to do with how NT truths were progressively “restored” throughout church history. I found out later, that the dean immediately went to the senior pastor and told him of my doubts without bringing me along to explain myself. 

Example #3 - I mentioned to a former colleague some of my questions about some of the “truths” that we were teaching in our Bible college, and he told me later that after our conversation, he just about went to the Dean himself and told him about our conversation without me being there to speak for myself. 

Example #4 - One church staff female counselor told a church member in the church that if she were in her marital situation, that she would probably get a divorce. The staffer told the counselee not to tell anyone else that she made this recommendation to her. (The staffer knew that she was going against the senior pastor’s position on divorce and so didn’t want him or anyone else to find out about it.) 

The pastor-king system creates a stifled social and intellectual environment. The pastor-king himself quashes all lines of thinking that bring any of his personal values, visions or interpretations of the Bible into question. When this anti-intellectual atmosphere gets mixed with the senior pastor having the sole power to hire and fire all church staff, there is a cult-like atmosphere formed that consists of intimidation, secrecy, blind loyalty, politicking and man-pleasing to the senior pastor and his traditions.  

The senior pastor hires people not primarily because of their ministry anointing or skill-level but because of their loyalty-level. In such a system, there is an unspoken rule that all doubts and questions that pose a potential threat to the rule of the pastor-king, will be immediately brought to him. This creates a system of gossip in the leadership legitimated under the guise of loyalty and unity. When I was a kid, we used to call most of this kind of thing “tattling.” In the pastor-king system, however, it is subconsciously known as “loyalty-building.” 

In faithfully bringing all potential threats to the pastor-king, church staff members earn unspoken loyalty points with the man in charge. After all, since all promotions and ministry opportunities within such a  system depend upon the initiation or approval of the pastor-king, all church staff members know instinctively that they need to build up as many loyalty points with the senior pastor as possible in order for him to give them more ministry opportunities. 

(Some even hope that if they can earn enough loyalty points that the pastor-king might even consider them worthy enough to stand and speak for a moment behind his golden throne – the Sunday morning pulpit!)  

What has your experience been with church staff members? 

How have church staff employees respected your confidentiality agreements with them? 

What, if anything, have church staff members done to show more loyalty for Senior Pastor Tradition than loyalty to you or the pursuit of truth? 

Longtime reader BK sends in this link:

In the opening of his book, The Kingdom of God is a Party, Tony Compolo tells of a trip to Hawaii. When you travel from the east coast to Honolulu, your biological clock runs wild for a day or so, and the first night there, Compolo was both hungry and awake at 3:00 a.m. He went off to find an open restaurant., but the only thing open was a greasy spoon diner run by a guy named Harry. So he sat down and ordered a donut.

As he was beginning to eat, a group of prostitutes entered the diner and sat at the counter, trapping Compolo among them. One of the prostitutes mentioned to her friend that the next day was her birthday. Her friend said cynically, “Why are you telling me? Do you want a party and cake; is that what you want?” The first prostitute, named Agnes, said, “Why do you have to be so nasty? I was just telling you. No, I don't expect a cake and a party; I've never have had a birthday cake in my life!” There was something about this woman that touched Compolo. After they left, he asked Harry if these girls came in every night. When he found out that they did, Compolo and Harry decided to give Agnes a party. Harry did the cake, Compolo did the decorations and Harry's wife got the word out.

The next morning at 3:15 there were crepe-paper decorations, a huge birthday cake and about thirty prostitutes and street people in the diner. When Agnes walked in, everybody yelled “Surprise” and they sang happy birthday. Agnes almost collapsed, and she began to cry uncontrollably. She was at her very first birthday party, and the party was for her! She didn't even want to cut the cake; she took it back to her apartment so she could look at it for a couple of days.

After Agnes left to take her cake home, something just prompted Compolo to say, “What do you say; let's have a prayer for Agnes.” It just seemed like the thing to do at the time. After the prayer, Harry said, “Hey, you didn't tell us you were a preacher. Why kind of church do you belong to anyway?” In one of those flashes of inspiration where you to say exactly the right thing at the right time, Compolo answered, “I belong to a church that throws parties for prostitutes at 3:30 in the morning!” But it was Harry who told the punch line to this story; he said, “No you don't. There are no churches like that. If there was, I'd join. I’d want to be a part of a church like that!” You know, who wouldn't?

Who was it with whom Jesus spent his time? Why was Jesus criticized by the religious establishment in Luke 15:2? He ate with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus wasn’t refined or discriminating enough in his selection of companions. He threw parties for prostitutes (metaphorically if not literally). Has the church become too refined and sophisticated to walk where Jesus walked? Maybe we need to throw a few more parties for people who have never been to the party.

Let's ask that question again:

Has the church become too refined and sophisticated to walk where Jesus walked?  

I listened to a sermon by Rick Snow a little while ago (The Simplicity of Grace, November 25^th 2007). He spoke on my favorite subject, grace, and there were two things that he said that stood out to me:

1. Rick said that he had allowed a religious spirit to creep into his life.

2. Rick mention that he doesn’t believe in generational curses.

  The first comment struck me as being rather humble. Throughout his sermon, Rick did a good job of teaching the difference between Justification and Sanctification. His view on grace was good…honest…and Biblical. I haven’t listened to any other sermons in this series on grace, but message 1 was good. It certainly was a far cry from the 2 sermons I heard him speak at City Bible Church… 

The second comment shocked me because I have always assumed that “generational curses” were deeply rooted in MFI theology…CBC has taught (and fought) “generation curses” for years. I was even taken on a weekend retreat once where the main focus was breaking generational curses off my life…quite honestly, I’m not even sure what curses have been passed down the Morton line from generation to generation (likely bitterness), but I went anyway.

  It was very interesting to hear Rick Snow talk about how ridiculous the idea of a generation curse actually is. I hope it doesn’t keep him from being invited back to CBC this year…actually, his recent change from Legalism to Grace probably ruined that speaking engagement.  

Anyway, good for you Rick, I enjoyed listening to your sermon…I love hearing about the grace of God and I’m sure your congregation has benefited from your teaching.

  On a side note, during the sermon Rick played a video of someone, I believe from his church, telling a story about their son lying. I don’t know who this guy was, but he can really tell a great story. I absolutely loved it…and the story itself wasn’t all that entertaining. Anyone have any info on this guy…he should record books on audio…I’m a huge fan.

I have met doctors, lawyers, policemen, professors, cabinet makers, real estate agents and many other professionals over the years, but I have never met as many insecure men as those in the pastorate. 

In one church, the pastor did not have a college education, so every time I’d try to talk with him about something on an academic level, he’d show obvious signs of insecurity. One time I was carrying the book, The Institutes of Biblical Law by R. J. Rushdoony, an intellectual Christian Reconstructionist, and the pastor said with an insecure smile on his face, “Oh! Rushdoony; he’s a nice guy!” (probably not even knowing that Rushdoony was polar opposites with him on many theological points!) 

I have had more than one pastor ask me to proof read a paper for them only to find out after I looked it over, their insecurities flared up so much that they never talked to me about their paper again and showed no sign of appreciating my efforts to improve their work. 

Here are some theories as to why so many pastors might suffer with the emotional problem of insecurity: 

1-Pastors are sensitive, people-persons and so their insecurity stems out of their super-sensitivity to God and people’s needs. 

2-Some pastors do not have college or advanced degrees, and so they feel easily intimidated by those in their congregations who have more education than they do. 

3-Pastors who see their churches as business enterprises will exhibit signs of insecurity because they are always operating with a hidden agenda: to somehow manipulate those in the congregation to donate their time, money and talent to help them to fulfill their personal ministry vision. 

4-Pastors are insecure because they have a deep need to be loved and appreciated by others. They will sometimes do whatever it takes to get that affirmation from their congregations. 

5-Pastors operate as political animals if they belong to a denominational or hierarchical structure. Their various social posturings and foci on self-advancement contribute to their insecurity in their effort to climb their organizational pyramids. 

6-Pastors who make public image their number one priority in life never give themselves the chance to be transparent about their feelings, weaknesses or needs because they constantly have to try to be a “good example” to the flock. 

Do you think that pastors tend to rather insecure people? If so, why? 

What do you think might be some of the consequences to a congregation if its pastor is extremely insecure? 

In what ways do you think that Christians might be able to help pastors become more emotionally secure?  

Just so we hit every major issue. Here's a story from a "person of color" who attended City Bible in the 90's.

I was at Bible Temple/CBC back in the mid to late 90s. Became a Christian there in fact. I was heavily inovled for about 5 years and met my wife in TREK (yeah baby, I married a true blue BT princess!) youth group.

However, around my senior year when me and her were getting really serious, I was ostrosized by the leadership because she is white and I am primarily black. They weren’t really for the inter-racial thing (dame fools) and came out really hard against us. Had multiple meetings, phone calls to parents, and “pastorial” warnings about what we were getting ourselves into. They told her (and I quote verbatem) that “black men only take white women as trophies.” Can you believe that sh*t. Anyway, going through that expereince on top of questioning what I really wanted to do with my life (they were all trying to force me to go to PBC because I needed some “biblical training if I wanted to serve in ministry”), made be bounce out of there real quick.

The best part about it though, is that I took my wife with me (boy were they upset about that - we both lost our best friends over it because the leadership told them to stop talking to us). Anyway, we got married a few years later and served as youth pastors at another church for awhile. then decided to move to Los Angeles so I could pursue my dream of becoming a sports agent. So far so good.

This is why sometimes bitterness is acceptable folks. It's not good to stay bitter. But uh, just because you leave a church angry and bitter, doesn't mean you are necessarily at fault. It may just be that the church is full of racist old white guys.

In your post, you said that your bitterness toward a pastor helped to ruin your marriage. As I read your words, I remembered one evening when my first wife and I had dinner over at a leader's house in our home church. After we had dinner and visited awhile, we left for home. On the way to your house, my wife at the time said to me something like: "Did you notice that all you could talk about at the table was your problems with the church? You didn't talk about anything else except the pastor, the church and ministry there: the church, the church, the church; the pastor, the pastor, the pastor!  It wasn't a very enjoyable conversation!" 

In looking back on her comments, even though there was much more that went into her filing for a divorce, I realized that I had become obsessed with the church and the pastor. So much can play into a church/pastor obsession in addition to bitterness:

low self-image; deep father hunger; a need for male approval; lack of personal identity; lack of vocational niche and satisfaction; the need for attention and affirmation, emotional insecurity, the need to be needed and recognized, the desire to a part of a leadership team, etc. 

In my life I discovered that the criticism and rejection that I had experienced for many, many years from my biological father set me up to over-need the affirmation of other father figures and get emotionally fixated upon them and what they could give to me. What has helped me is to be filled with the unconditional love and affirmation of my heavenly Father, who is my closest friend, lover and source of every one of the ministries that he has given to me.   

As I have grown in self-understanding, through reading, prayer and counseling, by God's grace, I have experienced deep emotional and psychological healing. My prayer is that you will experience the same.

I know that it is almost impossible at a time like this probably for you to believe this - I know that I didn't believe it when I was told it by others - but no matter what happens with your "ex" and you - there is a bright and good future ahead of you as you allow God to heal the depths of your being and your wounded sense of manhood.

The following is a great comment from blog reader Jeff Dahl: 

 Dear Friends,

I am writing from a heart that has been transformed from twenty years of bitterness that I have finally shed towards Frank Damazio and at some great cost indeed.

My name is Jeff Dahl and I used to attend PBC back in 1981-82. Recently my wife of 20 years has divorced me and my life has been turned on it's head. After now being separated 9.5 months and divorced 4.5, I came to the realization that my bitterness towards Pastor Frank, (who married us) was a key element in the destruction of my marriage.

I invite anyone to write to me @ jeff@tahtinen.org and feel free to forward this to anyone. I want to spread the message of MY FORGIVENESS experience. I have been stuck for so long. Many of us that god makes sensitive and creative fall into this pit, this clay, this manure. Lord Jesus cleanse each and every one of us that have ever been hurt and grace us with the ability to do as you do and lay your life down for us while we are yet in sin (and loving every minute of it). May you further your kingdom and let your power and glory be evident in your temple…..US!

Jeff Dahl

Thank you Jeff for your honesty and openness. Bitterness is a real killer and we must always be on guard to watch that our hearts do not become consumed by it.

Inasmuch as we were fairly bombarded in January by more "politcal" posts than I care to go back and try to count, all seeming to originate from in or around the region of our nation's capital , I thought it might be interesting to post something of a slightly different nature for a change.

I’ve always regarded Martin Luther as one of the true giants in the history of the world.

(And yeah, I know all that stuff he said about the Jews.  But, haven't we all — in the heat of battle, or in an unguarded moment — said stuff we wish we hadn't?)

But I still think he was indisputably one of the greatest of men. He had an amazing relationship with the Lord, praying several hours each day before dawn, and the way he was able to express things — he is one of the most quotable of all churchmen — was just outstanding. I think I may have posted this before, but just look at what he says in one of his first extant letters, written, as I recall, when he was only 21:

“Learn to know Christ and him crucified. Learn to sing to him and say ‘Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness, I am your sin. You took on you what was mine; yet you set on me what was yours. You became what you were not, that I might become what I was not.’”

Now I'd say you'd be hard pressed to find a more succinct, simple, and pure description of the entire Gospel message than that.

In our day, a lot of things, mostly the media I guess, has driven us to classify just about anything as heroic — even calling someone a “hero” — for doing nothing of more significance than merely performing their job.    But hero, as well as other words like bravery and admiration, are definitely terms I would use to describe my regard for this lowly German monk (did I mention that I also am German?) who took on— and defeated — the Roman Catholic Church, an institution which held sway over pretty much most of the world in that day. 

Unlike nowadays when anyone with an extra 23 bucks in his or her pocket can throw up a website in which to opine, make fun of, or even attack anything that suits his or her fancy, in the 16^th century-Roman Catholic-dominated-world it was not so.  If one slightly opposed — or was even suspected of opposing — the religious status quo of that day, they could be deemed a heretic, for which offence they would promptly be tied to a stake and burned alive. 

In virtually single-handedly launching the Protestant Reformation by nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenberg church door in 1517 — wherein he questioned everything Catholic — Luther came under horrendous attack from the Church. Later, in defending himself against the inevitable charge of heresy (and thus death) at the Diet of Worms in 1521, he is said to have defiantly replied to his Catholic inquisitors,               

“Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures,               

"I cannot and will not recant anything.               

“To go against conscience is neither right nor safe.                

“Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God! Amen.” 

Reading those words and trying to envision the scene in my mind always moves me.  I don’t think any of us can imagine — nor still less appreciate — the magnitude of the social and spiritual pressure that was bearing down upon the emotions and soul of Luther at this time, not only from all of society, and from all of the world as he knew it, but also from the Enemy himself.

I suppose it would be somewhat akin to an outspoken person going on national TV and saying something like “Screw all the Democrats! Screw all the homos! Screw all the women’s libbers!…And oh yeah, screw all the ___________ (pick any racial slur) too!”  

I do believe that, among others, the ACLU — and depending on which epithet was used, a couple of so-called — and well-known — “reverends” — would call for his (her? AC? ) immediate stoning. 

Looking back over the years, I’m rather ashamed at the times — mostly in the work place — when I had so little courage to stand up for the Lord when someone, hostile to the Gospel, might have said something critical about this or that famous minister, perhaps about Christians in general, or even against Jesus, and instead remained silent. 

I’m not saying I think the Lord necessarily wants us to be engaging in hot-blooded debate with unbelievers/complainers in a (misguided?) attempt to defend the merits of Christianity every time some wag makes a disparaging remark. But I do think we have a responsibility to say/do something.  

I mean, don’t we? 

-joebib

After watching both the Republican and Democratic debates over the last couple of days, AND after a long and thorough look into each candidate's stance on the issues, AND after a heated debate of our own…City Business Church has decided to officially come out and endorse:

BARACK OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT

We represent White, Christian, Twenty-somethings, for Barack Obama (a small but growing contingent).

On a side note, how much will it help our leader Barack that Super Tuesday is taking place during Black History Month?

The NFL is telling churches they are no longer allowed to show the Superbowl on big screens in their sanctuary.

After a crackdown by the National Football League on big-screen Super Bowl gatherings by churches, the Springfield church has sacked its event. Instead, church members will host parties in their homes.

Immanuel is among a number of churches in the Washington area and elsewhere that have been forced to use a new playbook to satisfy the NFL, which said that airing games at churches on large-screen TV sets violates the NFL copyright.

The issue here is that when lots of people watch the game on a big screen, then there are fewer people watching them on TV's. And Nielsen measures TV sets not people. Which is really a problem with how ratings are measured, not with churches.

Large Super Bowl gatherings around big-screen sets outside of homes shrink TV ratings and can affect advertising revenue, McCarthy said. "We have no objection to churches and others hosting Super Bowl parties as long as they . . . show the game on a television of the type commonly used at home," he said. "It is a matter of copyright law."

It's also a matter of money. The NFL should look at the record industry to see how succuessful it is to attack your fans. And I don't understand why bars are allowed to show the games on huge TV screens and churches are not. I'm betting this rule is changed next year.

Oh, and who do you think wins on Sunday? I'm pulling for Eli.