You haven’t added to my troubles. I totally understand your comment about abusive pastors. I’ve spoken with many people who have been abused by a pastor. Church hurt is hard to overcome because you’re hurt by professing Christians who are supposed to love God and their neighbors. I write from my own personal experiences as a pastor and of course it is purely subjective and I have prayed for healing and reconciliation for many years for people who have hurt me in ministry. I desire for healing in the body of Christ but unfortunately that healing does not come if one party does not want it or desire it. All I can be or do is try my best to be obedient to The Word of God. Am I perfect? No. But my desire is to honor The Lord and walk in obedience. Thanks for your comment, have a blessed evening.
Interesting post. I suppose that you know there is another side to it.
I have seem many self-righteous pastors manipulate the congregation into doing what the pastor had determined was God's will and feel totally justified in it.
Many that think being a professional minister makes them more in tune with God, more knowledgeable, more plain out entitled. The cult of expertise is bad enough in government or public life, in the church it is pure Hell, like having your brother tell you he knows your dad better than you do because he studied him in college.
We can all agree that that church today is in a shameful state, so any expertise that any of us have should be highly suspect. The fundamental point is that we are all VASTLY overestimating our own spiritual maturity, actually the 'worldly Christian' who knows he is worldly and beats his breast saying 'Lord have mercy on me a sinner' is way ahead of us spiritual types.
My sympathy in dealing with unforgiving brethren, I am sorry if I have added to your troubles. My experience as a laic tells me that it is easy to have bitterness grow up against a pastor and Bitter Betty may not be acting out of bitterness so much as genuine offense over possibly another matter entirely. It can be very difficult to fix because it isn't easy to take an apology from a pastor as sincere when you know that being humble is their career choice and being spiritual and loving is their power move. I might try something else, I might try telling Betty that I am bitter, that I am mad as hell too about some of the things that she has done, not mad as a pastor or an administrator, not mad for the good of the church or for the Lord's glory, just mad as a person, as a man. Maybe talk to her one sinner to another, after all the great prerequisite to receiving grace is...being a sinner who needs it.
I've thought about it and this issue of church government is clearly very important to you.(not a deep insight I realized that when I saw how prominent it is in your profile.) Not to be rude but it is not at all important to me. Certainly not important enough to argue with a brother. So thank you for the intellectual stimulation and hopefully edification but I fear that, as you say, we are talking past one another. One point I did want to clear up, although I did have the impression that you were a member of a Presbyterian denomination that is presbuteros is simply the Greek word for elders. And the form of government to which you are so attached is generically known as Presbyterian whether you refer to your denomination or church by that name or not. Thanks. Love and peace, jc
You haven’t added to my troubles. I totally understand your comment about abusive pastors. I’ve spoken with many people who have been abused by a pastor. Church hurt is hard to overcome because you’re hurt by professing Christians who are supposed to love God and their neighbors. I write from my own personal experiences as a pastor and of course it is purely subjective and I have prayed for healing and reconciliation for many years for people who have hurt me in ministry. I desire for healing in the body of Christ but unfortunately that healing does not come if one party does not want it or desire it. All I can be or do is try my best to be obedient to The Word of God. Am I perfect? No. But my desire is to honor The Lord and walk in obedience. Thanks for your comment, have a blessed evening.
Interesting post. I suppose that you know there is another side to it.
I have seem many self-righteous pastors manipulate the congregation into doing what the pastor had determined was God's will and feel totally justified in it.
Many that think being a professional minister makes them more in tune with God, more knowledgeable, more plain out entitled. The cult of expertise is bad enough in government or public life, in the church it is pure Hell, like having your brother tell you he knows your dad better than you do because he studied him in college.
We can all agree that that church today is in a shameful state, so any expertise that any of us have should be highly suspect. The fundamental point is that we are all VASTLY overestimating our own spiritual maturity, actually the 'worldly Christian' who knows he is worldly and beats his breast saying 'Lord have mercy on me a sinner' is way ahead of us spiritual types.
I wrote on this issue some time ago here:
https://comfortwithtruth.substack.com/p/baby-christians
My sympathy in dealing with unforgiving brethren, I am sorry if I have added to your troubles. My experience as a laic tells me that it is easy to have bitterness grow up against a pastor and Bitter Betty may not be acting out of bitterness so much as genuine offense over possibly another matter entirely. It can be very difficult to fix because it isn't easy to take an apology from a pastor as sincere when you know that being humble is their career choice and being spiritual and loving is their power move. I might try something else, I might try telling Betty that I am bitter, that I am mad as hell too about some of the things that she has done, not mad as a pastor or an administrator, not mad for the good of the church or for the Lord's glory, just mad as a person, as a man. Maybe talk to her one sinner to another, after all the great prerequisite to receiving grace is...being a sinner who needs it.
I've thought about it and this issue of church government is clearly very important to you.(not a deep insight I realized that when I saw how prominent it is in your profile.) Not to be rude but it is not at all important to me. Certainly not important enough to argue with a brother. So thank you for the intellectual stimulation and hopefully edification but I fear that, as you say, we are talking past one another. One point I did want to clear up, although I did have the impression that you were a member of a Presbyterian denomination that is presbuteros is simply the Greek word for elders. And the form of government to which you are so attached is generically known as Presbyterian whether you refer to your denomination or church by that name or not. Thanks. Love and peace, jc