Autoimmune Disease

Before my husband got hired to this new church, we knew that it had some internal problems. Their previous pastor left, and many of his loyal followers went as well. Turns out, he was a dictator when it came to making decisions, and many leaders in the church strongly recommended he take his leave. Cue the mass exodus. For about a year and a half, an interim pastor has been teaching while a search committee looks for a full time senior pastor.

The committees are also somewhat of an issue. I never knew what committees in a church looked like. Our previous church had elders, which were composed of all the pastors and a few male, church members. They took care of every decision in the church. Then the deacons would carry out was was needed whether it was help with budgeting or landscaping. However, this new church has a committee for every. single. dang. thing. And every committee has many members. The product of this is confusion and chaos. They have no idea what each other is doing. There is no unifying factor between these committees, and the pastors don’t even have an idea of what each one is doing! Also, there doesn’t seem to be any drive to change that fact.

What an incredibly terrible model.

It makes me think of a cancer. Our bodies are designed to self regulate itself. Our cells not only “talk” to its own organelles, but also to other cells. When a cancerous cell rears its ugly head, other cells help destroy it before any real damage can occur. However, cancer occurs when a cell’s own organization goes off the rails and when this cross-talk between cells is flawed. Thus, the cancerous cell is free to grow and multiply until its burden is too much for the body to bear.

The cancer of the church is starting to show. Early last week, it was rumored that the personnel committee would terminate the education and administration pastor (a decision they can legally make thanks to the new constitution and by laws approved two weeks ago). The news of this was spread to the pastor before the actual committee told the pastor this. When the committee heard that many already knew about their decision, they decided to tell him immediately that his last day was next Monday. They even hired attorneys. This decision seemed to come out of nowhere, and 2 faculty members gave their resignation when they heard the news.

During the evening service of the following Sunday, members of the congregation tried to discuss his termination. However, the topic was quickly shut down by the committee and interim pastor since the termination didn’t technically happen yet. Many people are upset and seems like they don’t trust the committee or interim pastor anymore. The education and administration pastor claims that he has no idea why they would terminate him instead of coming to talk to him to ask him to change his ways of teaching. He also said he was confused as to why they didn’t just ask for him to resign instead. He said he would have willingly resigned quietly if that were the case.

My husband and I were livid. We were unsure of why all the secrecy was necessary, and of course his termination should not have been handled this way according to Matthew. Scripture is very clear about conflict in the church. So, he decided to go talk to the interim pastor about it personally. What we learned has me feeling muddled. Turns out, the committee DID come to talk to the education and administration pastor before terminating him. They even came to him later to ask him to resign when he wouldn’t change. So the committee terminated him and are in the process of filling out legal paperwork so that way the pastor cannot take it to court. This paperwork requires the committee to keep silent while the paperwork is pending.

So, it turns out they had a reasonable explanation to the termination. BUT it was still not handled appropriately. The matter should have been brought to the church, not just an elected committee. As a result, the congregation is bitter, suspicious, and troubled.

The burden of the lack of organization is almost to much for the church body to bear. We’ve already lost some faculty members over this, and I’ll be surprised if we don’t lose many members as well. It seems that this church is killing itself from the inside out.

There is always hope, though. God gives us his presence and promise of something better. Additionally, a potential senior pastor is coming to preach at the end of the month. We have met him, and he seems like he is wanting to change things in the leadership. I am trusting God throughout this process, and I’m praying that He brings healing and unity to the church body.