Losing People isn’t Always a Bad Thing looks at the issue from another point of view in which it is not so bad.
As a Pastor…
As a pastor, my general desire is that people come to our church so that we can minister to them. When people come, we want to do everything possible to make them feel at home with us, and that they join into our spiritual activities.
But Satan has certain people that will gladly come into a church to stir and cause trouble. In the end analysis, these people have souls also, and they need to trust God as their Savior, and they need to get rid of their bad character. But a lot of these people are “very lightly attending your church“, in other words, yes they come some, but they are very special about helping out. They need to be recognized for their high spirituality, and what they say is basically the last word on anything. The pastor has to bow before them.
We had one problem family that came to our church one time, and another man was making some problems. But the advice that the man of this problem family gave me was very interesting. He came from a Reformed Baptist position, and he basically didn’t see problems with Presbyterians, because they are Calvinists also.
But he told me that what we need in our Baptist church is elders. He and I would be the only two elders, and this other man can just be totally excluded in his thinking. At that point, I had started the church and paid all its expenses for some 20 years, and he only recently came to the church. I answered, “I planted the church from the start, so yes, I am an elder here if you want to think that way, but why should I include you since you haven’t been here even a year nor have you bore the financial and energy needs of the church?” In other words, people are always going to arrange anything in your church so that they are in control and get gain. Curious how that works.
When there is a funeral, who goes and sits with the family until the person is buried, and who preaches the funeral? Who goes out every week in evangelism? These kinds of things are “for the pastor only”, so “don’t ask me to shoulder these burdens”, but when somebody has to make a decision and half of the church is for one thing and the other half for the other, these people rush, demand they obey the church’s leaders, and they are equal to the pastor or over him as his spiritual counselor.
If you, as pastor, don’t allow this, they quietly or not so quietly leave. We have had a lot of people enter into our church family over the years, and we have seen a number of these people leave. What is curious to me as a pastor is that these people are very generous with giving to the pastor, but whenever something doesn’t go as they dictate, all that help disappears, and they leave. At first, I welcomed financial help, even from individuals. But over the years, I don’t like it so much. If they want to give something to God, put it in the offering plate, and the church as a whole can decide to give me whatever. All these “helps” come with strings attached, and if you get rid of the strings and just receive their help, you are a traitor to them.
Whether this is a rule among other churches, I do not know but suspect that it is. This is even very common among Baptist churches. We serve our people, but must answer for what we do to God.
Losing People isn’t Always a Bad Thing