The Problem with Power

 It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.

Thomas Sowell

    I was a member of an IFB church for years, and in that time I saw a few things that always gave me pause. First it is usually made abundantly clear that if you don't want to be there you should leave. You will only hold those that are there. Second, if you blindly accept everything that comes out of the mouth of leadership you become a member in good standing. Challenging anything is not really appreciated, even if your questions are honest. Third, it is very easy for the leadership team to take advantage of those that are under them. I don't have a problem with the setup, I mean let's be honest someone has to be in charge, it is a fact of life in any organization. You don't have Fortune 500 companies without leadership. What we have been taught in America however is that the leader reaps the benefits of leading. We assume that because we are in charge we get certain privileges, we are allowed certain liberties. The issue with that thinking is the biblical model is clearly not set up that way. In the early church deacons were organized so that the leaders would be able to stop serving long enough to learn the scriptures. In the modern setup a full time pastorate is one in which the pastor has all the time they need to study, make visits, and do the work of the church for a salary large enough to live on. His regular office hours are his to dictate as he sees fit as long as the church sees that he is working and diligent there is usually no problem. The bi-vocational pastor, which is what I was, works a job as well pastors and they are given a lower wage to supplement their income. The work is not easy. I know it seems like there isn't much to it, but there are pressures that will absolutely grind you to powder sometimes. There is the pressure to make decisions, lead the service, visit the sick, and then the pressure of teaching and preaching which are both not easy. There is the pressure of home life as well. Am I taking care of my family? Is this burden too much for them? How will my spouse feel if I preach against xyz? Then there is the added pressure for bi-vocational pastors of will my job impact my service? These pressures are not just pressures for the pastor, but for all members of the leadership team in churches one way or another. In most smaller churches you will have a pastor maybe an associate pastor, a song leader, a treasurer, some musicians, and a few deacons. I can promise you they all feel the squeeze of leadership, but they are all also subject to the possibility of abusing their power. 

    Once I was with a group preaching on the street on Halloween, I was standing on a sidewalk and some teenager got out of a car at the end of the street, (150 yards away) and started yelling back at us, and I used that opportunity to single that individual out. I had a microphone and he didn't and I used my position to bully a person who was attempting to bully our group. That night I felt justified in that, but now years later, I have come to realize that having power to do something, doesn't mean that it should be done. I have known pastors who have complete and total control of the church. They ran things from the pulpit to the treasury, and it is never good for the pastor, or the congregation. When the pastor reaches past the pulpit and begins to dictate things outside of his office it opens the door for a toxic church environment. I don't even like using the word toxic. It seems like a silly thing to say, but when a person has the power to ruin you in a place that is supposed to be safe and inviting it is hard to push back. It is this attitude among church leaders that causes people to ultimately reject the church, because the love of a man, even a man of God, is conditional. Whether we want to admit it or not we all have biases. We all make snap judgements against others. When a person displeases the pastor/leader then they are wrong, and the group mentality of the congregation takes over. That person either conforms, and gains the approval of the group or they hold their ground and the love, care, and devotion they had in the congregation is gone. It was always conditional on whether the pastor approved of them or not.  If you contrast that with the message that God places no conditions on his love, and you get confusion and eventually bitterness. 

    It is not the place of the pastor to take on the role of God for those in their care. It is his role to point them to God. If you polled pastors who abused their power this way I am sure you would find that they didn't think they were doing this. You would find that they felt like they were only doing what they felt "led" to do. That only begs the question, who is doing the leading.