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Adult Bullies In Pastor Bodies

February 21, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                           February 21, 2014

 

Earlier this week I wrote a blog about “Adult Bullies in Churches”. It got more views, clicks, hits, or whatever you want to call it then any other blog post I’ve had except one. One of the comments about it was from someone who wondered about pastors and churches that are bullies. I promised that I would pursue the suggestion. Since I’ve been a pastor for just shy of thirty-five years it is right in my backyard. I’ll try not to be threatened by it, but also offer a balanced view of the situation.

Quite honestly, I think there have been, and are, pastors that bully. Most of the time the bullying is veiled behind an appearance of spirituality. The pastor conveys the idea that he/she is closer to God because he/she is more into the Word of God, and spends more time meditating about the ways of the Lord. People who question the pastor’s leadings and motives are often subjected to scorn and ridicule “in the name of Jesus.” 

When a pastor communicates by words and actions that he is closer to the Lord than anyone else a power play in is the works. When a pastor keeps promoting his vision that the Lord has given him…that, ironically, needs to be funded by the congregation, beware of the pleas that question how committed the people of the Body are.

I remember the words of an American Baptist pastor from Michigan, Jack Harris, spoken many years ago. Jack who served churches for a span of time just shy of Methuselah, said that the pastor was the sheep dog. Jesus was the shepherd. The pastor is entrusted with the responsibility of keeping the congregation headed in the direction of the Good Shepherd, not trying to be the Good Shepherd.

Some are uncomfortable with such a picture. They think a sheep dog has a little bullying in his actions, but the sheep dog is always about keeping the herd safe and headed in the direction they should be headed. Sometimes that requires a little more barking, but it is never to make the barker look more important than anyone else.

There are also pastors who firmly believe that they have been empowered with the authority to do anything. They view themselves as being like Moses, who was up on the mountain with the Lord receiving some divine words, and then had to return to the chaos of people dancing around a golden calf. I think it is easy for pastors to take on the “Moses Mentality” that the people they lead are prone to screwing up their lives. Thus, they need a strong voice that doesn’t put up with any nonsense and indicates it is either the pastor’s way or the highway. If such an ultimatum doesn’t work the pastor will sometimes even bring Satan into the equation. In other words, it is either his way or he’s going to hand them over to the Dark Side.

Accusing people of being of the world is a favorite bullying tactic. Sometimes I get discouraged by those who choose to follow other pursuits and interests instead of being at church on a consistent basis on Sunday morning. The temptation to focus on the lack of commitment gets especially strong around June and July.

A last thought! A pastor has been called to lead, but the leading must mirror the Philippians 2 passage about Jesus, who “being in very nature God (Not us! Don’t think that I’m saying we’re God, or God-like, but rather with a leaning sometimes towards being “Godly!”), did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant.” (Philippians 2:6-7) Being a pastor is more about serving than it is about getting one’s way. A pastor gets the privilege of administering the communion elements, baptizing a new believer, talking to someone about a major life decision, conducting the union of two people coming together in the covenant relationship of marriage, saying the final words as a follower of Jesus is lowered into the ground, sitting with a heart-broken family who has lost a special person. If a pastor’s base grows out of bullying and intimidation it leads to a fracturing of everything else, including the devastating fracturing of people’s lives.

Being like Jesus will always be more about a basin of water and a towel than a charge up a hill.

 

Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Faith, Grace, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
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Adult Bullies in Churches

February 18, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                     February 17, 2014

 

                                  

 

    We shouldn’t expect it to be different from how it has been. The church has always had bullies. John wrote about one in his third letter. His name was “Diotrephes.” (3 John 1:9-10) He had a reputation for gossiping maliciously, being inhospitable, and keeping others from being hospitable. Diotrephes didn’t invent bullying. He just excelled at being one.

The Sadducees were bullies. They were also “sad, you see!” Sorry, reverted to my Southern Baptist childhood Sunday School class there for a moment!

In this age when there is a growing emphasis on “anti-bullying” in our schools, at our workplaces, on our sports teams, and in our neighborhoods, we must realize that churches have the worst kind of bullies. They are the worst because they clothe the bullying in spiritual language and act like Jesus has ordained their actions.

Churches are also the worst place for bullies because we believe strongly about grace and forgiveness. We’re suppose to love our brother…even the ones who will use that to intimidate us. As one person said many years ago: “Churches put up with people that no one else will.”

Adult bullies in church come in all legal ages. They are not gender-specific, or based on a certain level of income. They come in all shapes and sizes, some with frowns, but others with smiles that fool.

How do adult bullies in church do what they do? One vehicle that is used is making people think it’s all about the person instead of the mission of the church. Bullies think they are irreplaceable, that the church’s one foundation…is them! Part of their intimidation, strange as it sounds, is getting people to buy into that idea. When that happens other members of the church start saying things like, “We can’t afford to lose them. They give so much money!”

     Money is a power play for much of our culture, but it should never hold that kind of sway in the church. Money is a way of showing gratitude, not getting people to follow what I want to do.

Adult bullies in churches use fear to keep themselves in power. Fear fosters spiritual immobility.

Other bullies in the church use their special talents to hold people hostage. “If she leaves who will teach the elementary age Sunday School class.”  

     “There’s nobody else to play the organ. Give him what he wants.”

     Talents become a trump card, not a way of performing an act of service.

So what does the church do when adult bullies throw their weight around? Love them, but hold the door open for them also. The church is bigger than any one person. The mission is more important than any one threatening individual.  The agenda of the Kingdom of God is more urgent than the preference of any “self-proclaimed king.”

There are times in any church’s life where it is essential for someone to step up and give words of conviction or exhortation. That’s not bullying, that’s motivating. there are times when a church needs someone to lead the charge. That’s not bullying, that’s spearheading a charge.

It is easy to forget that Paul compared the church to a “body”, where every person is a part, and every person is important. God’s plan is for a smoothly functioning Body of Christ. The reality is we often fall short. The reality is that there are periods where the Body is functioning smoothly, that there is a rhythm…and then long gaps of dysfunction.

May the Lord help us!

Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Faith, Grace, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
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Being Free, Being Passionate

February 3, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                       February 3, 2014

 

 

Two weeks ago I wrote about my former college classmate, Tom Randall, who was being held, along with two Philippino men, in a jail in the Philippines. After 22 days the charges against Tom were dropped and he is now free.

Praise the Lord!

The other two men, Toto and Jake, are still being held at this point.

As I’ve been reading the daily updates from Tom’s wife, Karen, who I also went to school with, I’ve been amazed by the stories that have come out of Tom’s imprisonment. First of all, over 58,000 people have “Liked” the “Free Tom Randall” facebook page. the prayer support and encouraging words have been incredible.

But then there’s the stories! Tom Randall is passionate about the gospel. He understands the rescue that God did in his life many, many years ago. He has experienced a sense of peace in his life that was punctuated with restlessness. He knows the hope that can stay within a person when everything seems to be falling apart.

His passion for living a life that makes a difference for others has been evident. The charges that had been leveled against him came out of accusations about the treatment of some of the children at the orphanage that he has operated for the past thirty years. Understand that Tom began the orphanage to help rescue lives of kids who had no hope. As time goes on it will become clearer as to how these accusations came to be, but for now it is important to note that the orphanage was begun out a man’s heart for kids…hope for the hopeless. It’s an indicator of what his life is about.

In his time of incarceration he shared the gospel with a number of the men who were locked up with him. He introduced Jesus to them, and several became followers of Christ behind the iron bars of a cell.

It tells us that a person’s passion does not fade away just because his surroundings take a significant dive. Tom would probably say, although I’m presuming here, that God orchestrated this whole thing so he could be a proclaimer of the good news to some men who desperately needed to hear it. So us it is hard to see the “forever of a person’s soul”, but God demonstrates his love for all of us in the creating of temporary harshness for everlasting change.

How will this experience change Tom and Karen? It will only make them more resolved to love the people they have been serving. Passionate people rarely have their flame fade, but rather burn more intensely because of their experiences.

Perhaps the more significant question is how will this experience change us…the thousands of people who have been following it? My hope is that it will give us more resolve to be agents of change wherever God has placed us to serve, that we will seek to be people who will make a difference for the Kingdom.

A passionate life is never totally free because the calling won’t release us from it’s urgency.

Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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A Guy Named Tom

January 21, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                  January 20, 2014

 

                                     

 

I went to college with a guy named Tom Randall. He had grown up in Detroit, gone to Redford High School, and had a tough outer core about him. We ran cross country and played basketball together at Judson College. Tom was one of the most popular students on our small campus. Being 6’5” made him stand out in the crowd, but he was also an amazing athlete, a stand-out basketball player.

This past week he was arrested, along with two other men, in the Philippines and charged with sex trafficking. Our tendency these days is to hear that someone has been charged with a crime and decide he is guilty as charged. Sex trafficking is a horrendous crime that is rampant across the world. To be charged with it immediately gives most readers a picture of the person as cruel and heartless.

Since I’ve known Tom since 1974, and I’ve seen his journey, I am firm in my belief that he is innocent. The evidence of his life is my convincing of his innocence.

Let me tell you a little bit about him. He became a follower of Jesus in the spring semester of his senior year of college. I would say his decision to be a Christ-follower was the result of the influence of a multitude of people upon his life…guys who played on the basketball team, professors, college administrators, coaches, and his wife-to-be, Karen. Shortly after Tom became a believer he began working in a factory in Elgin, Illinois, making a little bit of income as he faced graduation. He would go into the Director of Admissions, Press Webster (a memorable first name for us all), and talk to Press, and then he would look at all the Bibles that were on one of the bookcases in Press’s office.

“Press, what are you doing with all of those Bibles?”

      “Well, Tom, they are just there.”

      “I’ve got guys down at the factory who don’t have Bibles. They could put those to use.”

      “Well…okay Tom, take a couple of them.”

So Tom would take a couple…and then a couple more..and then a couple more. A little while later Press, who often had to travel for the college, came back to his office to discover his shelves of Bibles were empty.

“Tom, did you take all of my Bibles?”

     “Yes, Press! Do you have any more? I gave them out to the guys that work at the factory.”

     “Did you have to take all of them?”

      “Press, they weren’t doing anybody any good just sitting on your shelf!”

     That what the beginning of his ministry. Soon after college he went to the Philippines where he played professional basketball for a while, and then was involved in a sports ministry where he would travel around in the country, play basketball, and share the gospel. He began a ministry in the Philippines in 1979.

Because of health issues he and Karen had to come back to United States about fifteen years ago and Tom became the Chaplain of the PGA Champions Tour. He would do Sunday chapels, Bible studies, and be available for counseling for any of the senior golfers.

The last fifteen years or so he and Karen have traveled back to the Philippines for a couple of months each year. Their practice is to be their for the month of December. Tom has also taken a basketball team on a tour for a week each year, playing games in different locations, and then sharing the gospel. Their ministry, World Harvest Ministries, continues in the Philippines.

Now, after a lifetime of work and ministry, he’s being held in a jail. Karen has shared that he has been able to give Bibles to several of the other cellmates that are in the crowded room with him. So, in essence, he keeps being a proclaimer as a prisoner.

I don’t know how this will turn out. He has a hearing on Wednesday, January 22. He has a legal team that is representing him. For now we are praying and waiting. I hope you will also.

The evidence of his life is my convincing of his innocence.

     I encourage you to check out one or more of these social media information sites about Tom and Karen’s situation and their ministry.

Facebook pages:  “Free Tom Randall”

“World Harvest Ministries”

web site: “tomrandall.org”

Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Complacent Contentment

December 23, 2013

 

“Complacent Contentment”

All of us like routines. Even the most schedule-free person has routines. It’s part of our nature.

I brush my teeth a certain way.

When I go to the grocery I always enter the store and go to the left.

I like listening to the Country Top 30 on Saturday morning as I drive to church for men’s Bible study. I usually get to hear #29, #28, and #27. I never know what’s number one.

All of those aforementioned things are routines.

But sometimes God breaks into our routines in radical ways.

For instance, Zechariah was a first-century priest in the Abijah division. His life was pretty well set. Be a priest. Serve God. Lead the people in the Jewish festivals. Do what the priests before him, whom he had been related to…kind of like generation after generation of a family business.

And then an angel breaks into his life and tells him his wife, who was border-line AARP eligible, was going to have a baby…which she had never experienced before. The closest they had come to children was babysitting the neighbor’s kids.

They had reached that point in their lives when they were complacently contented…like a Sunday afternoon nap that ignores phone calls!

God had a special plan for Zechariah…a special son. What if he had simply ignored the angel?

What are you susceptible to in your life that would border on complacency? It is different for each one of us. For some of us it is losing our hearing of the hurting voiced around us. For others it’s becoming so involved in church that we become complacent to what the Spirit is saying to us.

What might your “caution tape” be partitioning off?

Categories: Bible, Christianity, Christmas, Community, Jesus, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
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The Five Wise Boys

December 20, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                               December 20, 2013

 

 

The five young boys started their stroll down the center aisle of the church’s sanctuary. They carried gifts made out of plastic and cardboard, but painted to look like expensive presents from Dilliard’s. Boys have a tendency to drop things. Better to have a plastic container painted gold than a gold container containing something fragile.

There were five of them, each wearing a decorative hat or head wrap to convey their roles as the three wise men…plus two!

It wasn’t necessarily the plan! The program called for three boys dressed up to be like the “We Three Kings!”

“We Five Kings” or “Us Bunch of Kings” just didn’t quite have the same ring to it. Nevertheless, there were five of them marching down the aisle in all their glory.

Magi #4 and Magi #5 had shown up for the first time that morning…and been invited to carry some fragile-looking cardboard containers to the manger scene. They were a little apprehensive.

“We haven’t practiced.”

One of the other wise boys asked the question: “Can you walk and chew gum at the same time?” He got two cautious nods. “Then you qualify! Just follow us and we’ll lead you to the right spot.”

“After all,” added Wise Boy #2, “the Magi followed a star! They didn’t really practice either, and they made it okay!”

The first wise boy took Magi #4’s hand and said “It will be fun!” He tugged a little bit to get him to follow.

The two additional characters had come to church that morning with their mom and dad who had just become homeless. A world of confusion and closed doors had greeted their parents as they tried to keep the family together, safe, and fed. The journey to the sanctuary manger scene that morning has been preceded by visits to filled homless shelters, tapped-out agencies, and declined appeals.

Christmas looked dark.

Mom and Dad and their two boys carried all their possessions in two suitcases and four backpacks, and they walked from one place to the next. Desperation was starting to seep in to their minds. Fears about survival were becoming constant.

And then the parents met someone who said, “Let me see if I can help you!” A roof over their heads, food in their hands, and an invitation to come to church. The genuineness of the helper convinced them that this was not a superficial offer, but was undergirded with concern for their well-being.

And so they had come. Someone had picked them up and brought them…and soon after the wise boys had multiplied by sixty-seven percent.

After the program as the five boys stood around munching cookies and not worrying about crumbs on the carpet, Wise Boy #1 said, “Hey! I wonder if this is how it happened in the original Christmas story? Do you think the wise men picked up people on the way and invited them to join them?”

Wise Boy #2 responded, “It doesn’t seem right that they wouldn’t have. Why keep good news a secret?”

Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Christmas, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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What Do You Expect?

December 20, 2013

 

      Expectations.

When I’ve heard someone ask the question “What do you expect?” it has conveyed one of two opposite extremes.

I’ve heard it asked mockingly, referring to the lack of intelligence or ability in another person. A college student flunks a math class, and his father says to his mother, “What do you expect?” In other words, the parent had no expectations of his child for any kind of success. Sad as it is, the failure is almost hoped for by the cynical dad.

Expectations can be extinguished by past experience. It is easy to predestine personal failure because someone believes it would be out of character for him to rise above mediocrity.

But there’s another way to ask “What do you expect?”, and it is in a way that elevates, dreams, thinks of new possibilities.

Ask a class of first-graders what they want to be when they grow up and there will be lofty pictures and occupations. First-graders want to be President, or doctors, or olympic athletes, or zoologists (Okay! Maybe they just say “someone who takes care of the giraffes!”) , or Air Force pilots . Their expectations are still mountain-top like!

The story of the shepherds out in the fields taking care of their flocks as the Christ-child is being birthed is a picture of people who were raised out of their mediocrity. Shepherds usually resigned themselves to a life of mundane sheep-watching and protection. And now here is a group of sheep-herders who are pulled into the incarnation event.

No one had ever asked themselves about expectations. They hadn’t been included in such lofty  conversations.

We serve a God who asks the question “What do you expect?”

He asks it, however, in ways that seek to have us look for the possibilities?

Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Christmas, Community, Jesus, Parenting, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Worship That Is Dangerous!

December 19, 2013

“Where is the one who has been born long of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.” (Matthew 2:2)

 

“The elephant in the room” in King Herod’s court was that there was a different star in the sky then his. If Herod could have been voted deity status he would have gladly accepted. In fact, he expected to be worshiped like a god. To have wise men from a long distance away come looking for someone else who they deemed more important than Herod spelled trouble.

It disturbed him, and when he was disturbed he was usually perturbed! Having Herod perturbed was a recipe for disaster for some unfortunate people around him.

Worship is at the core of the church and for followers of Christ, but worship is recognizing that it is about someone other than myself. I’m not the focus. Some people get perturbed with that.

Recently I read an article about some “rock star worship leaders” who were having a tough time. Some of them, brought into mega-church settings to lead worship, were getting disenchanted…and some were getting fired…because they were trying to create a concert-like atmosphere that brought the spotlight upon themselves. In the concert scene of our culture that was the norm, but in church the focus of worship is on the One we are sining to.

Here’s the weird thing! If we focus our worship, individually and corporately, upon the Lord, it will have a strange side effect of inspiring ourselves. Some people don’t get that, and some people are pretty perturbed by that, but “wise men still seek him!”

Categories: Bible, Christianity, Christmas, Community, Death, Faith, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
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Pregnancy Stories

December 5, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                 December 5, 2013

 

                                     

 

     When pregnant women converge it is best for men to keep some distance! That isn’t because the women become violent, but rather that they share a bond together that, try as we may, men don’t quite understand. Pregnant women speak a different language. They talk about baby names, breastfeeding, the doctor who will deliver the baby, “Babies-R-Us”, labor pains, and swelled ankles. 

     Most men want to talk about some of those things, but only with the woman that is going to give birth to their child. Men rarely mix conversation of deer hunting season, the BCS football national championship game, and the best tires to buy for their vehicles with talk about 2 A.M. feedings and what they will do to pass the time in the birthing room. 

     When I read the birth narrative story in Luke I notice the moment where Mary greets expectant Elizabeth. She has been told by the angel that Elizabeth is pregnant and is “in her sixth month.” (Luke 1:36b)

     The story proceeds this way:

   “At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me?’” (Luke 1:39-43)

     There was a bond between two pregnant women, and more than that, a revelation within both of them as to what was going on- an old woman expecting her first child, and a virgin impossibly pregnant. They begin speaking a new kind of language that only the two of them could understand. Something of the Lord was happening in each of their lives. 

     It was an improbable meeting. Elizabeth great with child, and Mary, were assuming, just beginning her pregnancy. For three months they shared pregnancy stories, but more than that, shared stories about expectancy…what was God going to do through their two sons!

     

Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Christmas, Faith, Holy Spirit, Jesus, love, Parenting, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
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Moving the Cross Outside

December 5, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                     December 4, 2013

 

                                  

 

In our decorating of the sanctuary for the Advent season we needed to move some things around. There needed to be space for a place where Christmas cookies and coffee urns were available, and a few Christmas trees that were promoting the theme of our children’s Christmas program.

In the back of our sanctuary there is a eight foot tall heavy wooden cross that has it’s own handcrafted stand. We use it during the season of Lent and move it to the front of the sanctuary. For those who are wondering, there is another cross mounted on the wall at the front of the chancel area.

So this year we moved the cross outside. It is propped up beside a utility shed, looking lonely and forgotten as we celebrate the birth of the Christ-child.

The symbolism of the events has not gone unnoticed by me, although our congregation does not think the cross is an irrelevant relic.

I do, however, believe that we would rather push the Cross of Christ to the side because it makes us too uncomfortable. If you read the history of crucifixions you will discover how brutal they were. The Romans of Jesus‘ day were known for their brutality.

I feel more at peace when I look at a manger surrounded by hay and farm animals than I do with an execution scene complete with the gambling of the executioners to win the robe of one of those men who is hanging above them.

As followers of Jesus we must understand that “the way” goes through the Cross.

Categories: Bible, Christianity, Christmas, Death, Faith, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
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