Even though I have several more articles burning to be posted on this blog right away, I have realized that I first need to finish my book against the Mandatory Tithe. One of the things that I have found very difficult if not impossible for me on this blog is not to carry on extended conversations with those who choose to interact with the subject matter I post. Posting articles as well as conversing about them can involve much time.

I have been researching this book for several years now, and I feel that I must focus exclusively on it until I get it published. I want to thank the many others who have posted their thoughts about the tithe on this blog, too. All of the comments have been very enlightening. 

I will return to the blog when copies of my book are available. Please forgive me if I have left any topic or conversation too open-ended. That was not my intention. Blessings to all!

Galatians 5:1,

David  

Recently, I posted an article entitled, “The 3 Dirty Words of a Mega Church Pastor.” Someone brought my article to the attention of the pastor I named in it, i.e., Pastor Ted Roberts of East Hill Family Church (Gresham, Oregon). Pastor Ted posted a strong disagreement to my article with the words, "I challenge you to post this response and speak with me directly."  Ted’s response had already been posted, and I happily met with him on May 22. I brought a very good friend to the appointment with me.  Here is what happened:

1-Ted told me that he “had no doubt” that what I posted was accurate, as far as his former church employee understood him to have said about platform protocol. Ted believed that his former church employee, Will (name changed) had told me that he understood Ted to have forbidden the 3 words "sin, hell and repentance" from being spoken from the platform at East Hill Family Church.  
 
2-Notwithstanding, Ted further explained that even though Will had understood him in this way, that as the senior pastor of East Hill, Ted had never forbad the words "sin, hell or repentance" from the church platform. He did want everyone on the platform, however, to have tears in their eyes when/if they were ever to use the word “hell” – “like Jesus did,” Ted said.  
 
3-Furthermore, Ted explained that he personally believed in using the words "sin, hell and repentance" both theologically as well as ministerially. Ministerially, Ted is now traveling with his book and seminar, Pure Desire, calling Christians to repent from sexual sins so that, as Ted explained: true revival might come to the Church.  

 
4-The mistake I made, as Ted pointed out to me, was that I posted what Will had understood Ted to have said without first running it by Ted. I did this because Will was a very credible source to me, but this was a mistake in judgment. I sincerely apologized to Ted, and he gladly received my apology and we parted on very good terms. I also apologize to this blogging community.

  
5-For clarification purposes, before I composed this follow-up article, I asked Ted whether he ever had had a platform policy that forbad certain language being used in the church services. He wrote back to me these words:
 
“Once again, I cannot comment about what a 'former staff member' may have said I said. I just know I didn't put any overt or implied restrictions on sharing from the pulpit other that it be truth (biblical-practical truth) expressed with compassion and grace. I don't communicate that clearly at times and we are all in desperate need of a Savior every single day of our lives—so I have long ago stopped trying to get everyone one to fully understand me. I am just trying to love and help get as many folks as I can get healed. You don't have to run your comments past me. I am sure you will communicate as clearly and truthfully as you possibly can. In His Love, Ted”  

6-I spoke with another former East Hill Family Church employee, Craig (name changed), who worked with Ted for many years. Craig told me this about “The 3 Dirty Words…”: “The short answer is there was no implicit directive…. but also it is important to acknowledge what I would call (un-written but strongly implied "no-go" language).” Surprisingly, Craig also wrote, “Much of this actually originated with me.”
 
7-Ted shared with me that there was a very redemptive event that came out of the posting of my article. It was the fact that he and another estranged brother got together and found reconciliation in Christ. When my friend and I heard this, we gave God thanks.
 
I was very impressed with how Ted came onto the blog using his real name and challenged my article. This gave me the opportunity in Part 2 to give the other necessary side of the story. I was also very impressed with Ted during our meeting. He was gracious, honest, respectful and kind both to us as well as to Will. At the end of the appointment, all of us prayed together.

God brought much unexpected good from my first article. Not only did it create the opportunity for Ted to reconcile with a person who had sadly been estranged from him, I, a City Business Church (CBC) blogger who has come out very strongly against some senior pastors for operating like “pastor-kings,” am now posting a very positive report about Pastor Ted from my own meeting with him.   

Maybe this can be a beginning of reconciliation between some CBC bloggers and pastors. My hope is that more CBC bloggers would admit when they do not fairly give both sides to a story. I pray that more pastors would follow Ted’s example by coming onto the blog using their real names inviting us to meetings of deeper understanding and reconciliation. 

P.S. I will be taking a sabbatical from this blog in order to finish my book against The Mandatory Tithe. I will let you know when copies are available. Blessings to all!

Galatians 5:1,

David  

Jesus criticizes the pastor/leaders of his day. Among other things, he describes them as false prophets (Mt. 7:15-20), false wonder workers (Mt. 7:21-23; Mt. 12:38-42), false builders (Mt. 7:24-27) and false teachers (Mt. 12:33-37). He tells his followers that they can recognize these false ministries “by their fruits” (Mt. 7:16, 20; 12:33). What did Jesus mean by the phrase, “by their fruits?” 

False prophets pretend to be sheep and/or shepherds in order to get closer to their prey. When they get close enough to the sheep, they ensnare them and then eat them to enrich themselves. The nature of wolves is to live off of eating sheep. As long as they are wolves, they cannot change their sheep-eating nature. Jesus subtly contrasts the wolf nature with the nature of grape vines and fig trees that yield their fruit freely to any passer-by. Wolves are sheep hunters and killers. Grape vines and fig trees are givers and nourishers. 

False wonder-workers operate in the gifts of the Spirit. They use the name of Jesus to prophesy, cast out demons, heal the sick and do many mighty supernatural signs. Outwardly, God’s people only see attention-getting, jaw-dropping phenomena. The problem, however, is that what the people do not see is the life of lawlessness that they live when off stage. 

False builders erect large buildings, attract huge crowds and grow sizable church organizations and institutions. What they build on the outside attracts much public attention and even influences others to follow their example. The hidden danger, however, is that they have built their entire ministry on a faulty foundation: They encourage the people to come every week to hear the words of Jesus (act as an audience), but they do not insist that the people do the words of Jesus (live as disciples). Eventually, what they have built falls because they have not discipled the people properly on how to weather the inevitable storms of life through demonstrating and insisting that they literally put into practice everything that Jesus tells his disciples to do. 

False teachers speak “evil words,” i.e., they promote unbiblical doctrines against the true gospel of Jesus Christ. These false doctrines proceed out of their flesh rather than the Spirit. In this sense, what they teach comes from the wrong source: it comes forth as the “offspring of snakes” rather than the offspring of God. 

(Who or what have you seen in the church world today that might fit the description of a false prophet, a false wonder-worker, a false builder or a false teacher? By what “fruits” are you recognizing them?)

Will (name changed) attended East Hill Foursquare Church (a mega-church in Gresham, Oregon) for many years. He was there during the days of Jerry Cooke, the pastor who was known for sitting down casually on a stool to preach and before the recent retirement of senior pastor, Ted Roberts, author of, Pure Desire. 

Will was a good counselor and blessed many people with his class called, “New Images.” Approx. 2 years before he passed on, I spoke with him over the phone about his long experience at East Hill Church. This is part of what he told me: 

Ted Roberts, the senior pastor of East Hill Church at the time, forbad anyone to use three specific words from the pulpit or the platform of the church. The forbidden words were: “sin,” “hell,” and “repentance.” If anyone would ever slip and use any of these words publicly, the pastor would have a talk with him/her in his office. 

When the pastor traveled for ministry out of town, Ted would allow Will to preach. Kind of for the fun of it, Will told me that he would purposely let one or more of the pastor’s forbidden words slip out of my mouth just to see what would happen. Each time, his mentioning of one or more of the pastor’s forbidden words would get back to him after he returned home, and the pastor would call him into his office and confront him about it. 

This happened so many times, that finally, Will had to resign his church staff position. He just could not see how a church could stay true to the gospel of Jesus Christ or the Bible without ever mentioning the words “sin,” “hell,” or “repentance” from the pulpit. 

P.S. Several years ago, Ted Roberts told a Saturday morning class of which I (DM) was a part that the church growth experts were recommending that in order to get more non-churched people to attend church on Sunday mornings, that pastors should cut out their worship services entirely! Ted told the class that he was unwilling to go that far. 

Ted Roberts has fairly recently turned the pastoring of East Hill Church over to his son-in-law, Jason Albelo, the son of the director of East Hill Adult Education, Gil Albelo. 

Note: Please see "The 3 Dirty Words of a Mega Church Pastor" Part 2 for my follow-up conversation with Ted.  

One of the classes that I taught in Bible College was called Leadership. We offered Leadership I and Leadership II levels. It was normally only Juniors or Seniors who took the classes.  I team-taught this class with the academic dean of the school whose name was Bill (name changed). One day, Bill distributed a handout to the class that truly began to open my eyes. The handout said that everyone in a local church, including all of the staff and congregation (I’m not absolutely positive about the congregation being included), was to function in the “ministry of helps” and serving to minister to the senior pastor and his vision.

Since the NT mentions the ministry of helps in I Corinthians 12:28 and the gift of serving in I Peter 4:11, I believed that there were (and are) such gifts in the church. But, to hear Bill say that everyone in a church and on a church staff was to function in those gifts to help the senior pastor accomplish his vision began to be too much for me. This handout raised many questions in my mind. Among them were these two:

(1) What if there are believers in a local church or on a church staff that have other gifts besides the gifts of helps or serving? What are they to do with their gifts?

(2) How are the other spiritual gifts like the gift of teaching, prophecy or leadership suppose to function within the confines of a service of “helps” or “serving” directed to benefit the senior pastor? 

Young, docile, ambitious, uneducated, financially dependent, inexperienced, and insecure men (who are also in need of father figures) are the politically-safest kind of men for pastor-kings to promote in their kingdoms. (Why do you think so many corporations prefer in-house training?) 

The fattest carrot of all that pastor-kings offer to young men (or women) who feel a call to the ministry is ministry opportunity itself e.g., teaching a church class; sitting on the platform; preaching on Sunday night; traveling with the senior pastor; preaching in a sister church, team-teaching with one of the elders, etc. 

In the kingdom of the pastor-king, it is communicated in various ways that those who kiss the ring of the pastor-king obtain the big carrot – ministry opportunities; those who do not miss out on the same opportunities as well as promotions. (I declined becoming an elder in my home church more than once and it was clearly not appreciated.) 

Jesus said, "I am the door…" (application only) but in the kingdom of the pastor-king, it is the senior pastor who is the door to all ministry opportunities (of course, as "ministry" is narrowly defined and expressed in the confines of that pastor-king's kingdom). 

As one of my former pastors told me when I pressed him as to why he was hinting to me that I should quit my teaching position in his Bible College that I had successfully held for about nine years and go to another church: 

"If you will become more like us; I will open up more ministry doors for you; if you won't become more like us, then I won't open up anymore ministry doors for you." 

Young men expend too much time and energy – even compromising their personal convictions and swallowing their sincere questions and doubts – getting on the good side of their pastor-kings so that he will give them opportunities to “minister.” 

All these ambitious men really have to do, if they would just take a lesson from Jesus with the masses or John Wesley with the coal miners as they lined up to go work, etc. is open their front door and go preach to their neighbor or on the sidewalk or someplace there are needy people. 

Instead, the Yes Men of the pastor-king's court seek the honor and approval of men. They choose comfortable pulpits (with flowing water falls or rotating globes in the background), honorariums and choirs who will applaud their shallow, topical messages even though they lack originality and are filled with hackneyed clichés of the politically-correct traditions of their pastor-kings. 

One Sunday evening, I preached a controversial message in my home church; one to which I no longer hold. It was a sermon that supported Postmillennialism (the belief that all of the nations will gradually become Christianized before Jesus returns). Before the message, I playfully told the congregation that the pastor should feel free to correct me after I finished!

My comment was not appreciated. After I ended my message, instead of the pastor getting up to the pulpit and saying something like, “It sure is great that Christians don’t have to all believe the same thing on the End Times,” he tapped the elder who was sitting in front of him on the platform and asked him to dismiss the service; which he did very clumsily.   

The next morning, the pastor called me into his office. He told me that he was the only one in the church who defined doctrine and it was not going to be me! 

I asked him, "Why can Ern Baxter (now deceased) come into our church as a guest speaker and preach Postmillennialism from the pulpit and get away with it but I can't?" He said, "It's because Ern Baxter is not a member of this church; neither is he on staff here. What he says will be heard today and gone tomorrow. Anything Ern says that I choose not to re-emphasize, I just allow to fall through the cracks. In your case, however, since you are on church staff, it is an entirely different story.”