How to Insult Your Pastor Creatively

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I have concluded that most church people are positive, encouraging, and supportive. Nonetheless, it generally takes at least ten encouraging things to offset one discouraging thing (this varies a lot with intensity).

The greatest discouragement most pastors face is from within the Kingdom. Jesus warned his disciples that they would have to bear insult because they belong to him (Matthew 5:11). What Jesus did not warn his disciples about is that Christians would insult fellow Christians, and particularly that Christians would insult or demoralize their leaders. I call these offenders the “ungracious ten per cent.”

Most insults are passive-aggressive—insinuation and inference. Here are some common insults—coupled with my subjective rating scale rating intent to insult.

1. All brain and no heart

“You should have been a scholar or seminary professor.”

Chance of being an insult: 67%

Some mean this as a compliment. Odds are this is a passive aggressive insult.

Interpretation: “You are not good at meeting people’s needs (or your teaching is not relevant to me); you belong with the egg heads.”

2. Preacher vs. Teacher insults

A. “You are more of a teacher than a preacher.”

Chance of being an insult: 70%

Negative Interpretation: “Your sermons are not practical (or challenging or inspiring) or they bore me.”

B. “You are more of a preacher than a teacher.”

Chance of being an insult: 70%

Interpretation: “Your sermons are too emotional and shallow in content and doctrine.”

One pastor friend chatted with two different men from his church in the same day, both of whom had set up appointments with him. One man informed the pastor he was leaving the church because the pastor’s preaching was too passionate, the other because it was not passionate enough.

3. Comparison to other pastors

A. “I love to listen to Pastor___________ on the radio. His messages really help me and motivate me to walk with the Lord.He’s the best!”

Chance of being an insult: 60%

B. “Pastor so and so (your predecessor perhaps) used to ______________, and God blessed our church more in his days.”

Chance of being an insult: 95%

C. “At my friend’s church, the pastor is involved in practically helping the community.”

Chance of being an insult: 95%

Interpretation: “You are inferior to the radio pastor or your predecessor or my friend’s pastor, so you should either leave so we can get a better pastor or work hard at imitating him.”

Many people do not realize how intensely insulting it is to suggest you surrender your personality and become a robot or actor who imitates another.

Could you imagine a pastor telling a member the following? “You should be like Mrs. Smith. She volunteers for every ministry, has a beautiful voice, never misses church, is always on time, tithes, and has never gossiped or complained.”

4. Implications of failure, and the pastor is to blame.

A. “People are saying that the church is declining or losing quality under your ministry.”

Chance of being an insult: 95%

Interpretation: “I believe the church is declining under your ministry and it is your fault.”

There are few insults more cowardly than the “people are saying” insult. Another variation is, “The church is growing numerically under your leadership, but people are saying the type of people we are drawing are shallow or odd.”

Sometimes baseball teams lose, not because they have a bad manager, but because they have bad players, or their players have been injured (unfortunate circumstances). The same can be true in a church.

B. “We need to the get the Holy Spirit’s power and passion back in our church.”

Chance of being an insult: 85%.

Interpretation: “You are not a Spirit-filled man or leader. You are leading the church downward because you don’t have the relation to the Holy Spirit that I do.”

A theological agenda or an attitude of superiority is often hidden in such statements.

C. “That church over there is growing leaps and bounds. Why can’t we?”

Chance of being an insult: 50% (might not be directed at the pastor)

This is not always an insult, sometimes simply the expression of frustration the person feels when comparing his church to another.

Negative Interpretation: “You are not in tune with God or are not diligent enough or a strong enough leader; if you were, our church would be growing numerically.”

The belief that bigger is better remains to be proven. By such a standard, Jesus was a major flop as a shepherd (John 6:66).

4. Bolder Insults

A. “Today’s sermon was better.”

Chance of being an insult: 99%

This is very different from saying, “I really enjoyed today’s sermon,” or “Better than usual.” In that case, the baseline might be “good” or at least “fair.” In the quotation above, the baseline is “poor.”

Interpretation: “Hallelujah—finally a decent sermon out of you. It wasn’t great, but better than your usual flop. Your sermons are typically poor.”

B. “I was just teasing. Can’t you take a joke?”

Chance of being an insult: 85%

Interpretation: “I am too cowardly to insult you directly, so I do it indirectly. If you are offended, I can escape responsibility by claiming it as a joke and put you in the hot seat instead of me, accusing you of being a poor sport.”

C. This is a generalized insult not directed toward the pastor (supposedly), but actually is so directed. “America has too many pastors who think they own their churches and won’t share authority.”

Chance of being an insult: 75%

Interpretation: “You are one of them and need to be reined in” (probably spoken from someone who has an agenda and actually needs to be reined in himself).

5. Family insults

These can be directed at the pastor’s wife or the pastor’s children. Nothing nastier than attacking a pastor through his family.

“The pastor’s wife in the church down the block volunteers for our club. She believes in getting out into the community.”

Chance of being an insult: 99%

Interpretation: “Your wife is a loser as a pastor’s wife. We own you and your family.”

6. Praising someone who has hurt the pastor badly

“That person (who hurt you badly) is really a great Christian guy who really cares about this church.”

Chance of being an insult: 50%

Sometimes a comment like this is based upon the misguided belief that talking kindly about someone who hurt you will help you to like him or her. People often fail to realize that this just rubs salt in the wounds.

Negative interpretation: “That guy is right and you are wrong. I’m with him.”

7. Broadcasting disagreement with the pastor

From the platform/microphone,“I know our pastor doesn’t’ believe in (getting emotional, healing prayer, the Holy Spirit, revival, etc.), but I see it this way.”

Chance of being an insult: 90%

Interpretation: “The pastor is defective in his thinking, theology, or practice. I want you all to know it.” There is a 10% chance the person is just incredibly ignorant.

8. Negative Assumption Insults

A. “I thought you might be willing to take on this or that, since you have the time.”

Chance of being an insult: 80%

Interpretation: “Pastors have little to do with lot of free time, unlike ‘we who work for a living.’” No other way to interpret this one. The truth is that most ministers have to switch hats so often and squeeze their schedules for an amazing amount of tasks. Flexibility of schedule, however, is a great benefit. But it doesn’t mean we work fewer hours (we don’t), and it certainly doesn’t mean we have less stress!

The reason I allowed for 20% otherwise is to make room for new believers or people who have never done much with the church.

B. “I know you wanted to get the funeral, but they wanted another minister to do it.”

Chance of being an insult: 50%

I have been insulted many times this way, mostly by people who do not know me and perhaps either are not involved in church nowadays or never were.

Negative Interpretation: “I know you ministers love the money from doing a few minutes work at a funeral.” Or, “I know you are in a competition with other ministers, and you lost this one, buddy.”

Positive Interpretation: “I don’t want you to feel rejected or unappreciated because I know you cared about that person.”

Most ministers have a holy jealousy for their flock, but they do not stand ready to pounce on an opportunity to officiate a funeral to pick up an honorarium, as cynics believe.

Conclusion

In this world of ours, insulting and being insulted is part of life. We all must develop a thick skin, but even thick skins can be pierced and feel pain.We all slip up, but we must heed the Scriptures, which tell us to “show perfect courtesy toward all people” (ESV, Titus 3:2).

Pastors deserve the same courtesies we show to other people, and perhaps a little more: “respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you” (1 Thess. 5:12). The good news is that the overwhelming majority of believers treat their pastors with great compassion and respect. The bad news is that some do not.

Ed Vasicek Bio

Ed Vasicek was raised as a Roman Catholic but, during high school, Cicero (IL) Bible Church reached out to him, and he received Jesus Christ as his Savior by faith alone. Ed earned his BA at Moody Bible Institute and served as pastor for many years at Highland Park Church, where he is now pastor emeritus. Ed and his wife, Marylu, have two adult children. Ed has published over 1,000 columns for the opinion page of the Kokomo Tribune, published articles in Pulpit Helps magazine, and posted many papers which are available at edvasicek.com. Ed has also published the The Midrash Key and The Amazing Doctrines of Paul As Midrash: The Jewish Roots and Old Testament Sources for Paul's Teachings.

Discussion

Thanks, Ed. Good reminder to watch what we say, especially to guys who are in a position where discouragement has a target rich environment. (I think the whole book of 1 Timothy is evidence of that!)

I have heard a few of these myself a couple of times, too. In the case of “you’re more of a teacher than a preacher,” I chose to take it as a compliment. :-)

There’s an overlooked category here though, maybe. Sometimes church goers/members have criticism they believe needs to be delivered but they just don’t know how to say it. And it comes out “wrong”… though the right/wrong is often up to the hearer as much as the sayer.

One thing I often comforted myself with when hit with a doosey (intentional or otherwise) is that this is somebody who is at least delivering their criticism to me directly. It’s the ones delivering to others behind your back that really do the damage (though some do both)

But it’s kind of an interesting question: what’s the difference between “insults” and “criticisms,” anyway?

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

Aaron, I had to pare down this article or it would have been a two parter, but to cover it all would require even more parts.

For example, in the earthly realm, Pastors are generally held accountable to (1) the majority of the ruling board, (2) a majority of the members, or (3) both of the above. Assistant pastors are generally additionally accountable to the pastor. This varies. However, when an individual board member or an individual church member thinks the pastor is accountable to him/her, that creates a problem.

Obviously when someone is offended, he should speak directly to the pastor, as per Jesus’ teachings. But we are focusing on matters that are not directly addressed in Scripture and are not moral or doctrinal issues.

A straight-forward criticism, in my opinion, is more honest than passive-aggressive “hinting” criticism. Still, the criticizer has to determine whether he has the right to criticize. If an individual prefers topical preaching, (as a hypothetical example), it is not wrong for him/her to express an opinion on an appropriate occasion: “My favorite sermons are the topical ones.”

But when that person asserts that the pastor should preach only topical sermons, he is doing several things: (1) he is potentially messing with the pastor’s convictions; the pastor is not a consumer, but came to the church with a certain philosophy of ministry and certain convictions; (2) he is assuming that everyone feels the same way; he might be surprised to find otherwise; pleasing one person or group often means displeasing another; (3) he is implying he has a right to do this, as though his opinion counted as much as the pastor’s and the majority of the ruling board; John Piper, there is a sense in which pastors ARE professionals who have disciplined themselves and been schooled to learn about ministry and develop convictions. All opinions are not equal.

Now if the majority of the board said, “Preach topically,” the pastor has a choice; he (1) could conform if his preaching style is not a matter of conviction, but just a preference, or (2) he could leave the church to pastor another church that is receptive toward his convictions. But to ask a pastor to do what he does not believe in, that takes a lot of nerve. And to think one’s opinion outweighs the combined opinion of the church board may often be a sign of arrogance or a very bad board.

"The Midrash Detective"

…of this Babylon Bee “article”. I also wonder how the likelihoods Ed gives would change if we somehow found a way to change the culture of a dagger behind a lot of choir robes, so to speak. I would guess a certain number of well-meaning people unintentionally deliver a good swift kick to the pastor simply because he’s heard that before so many times—again, with that dagger. Probably including me.

Had a nice time trying the art of teaching this weekend—Phillippians 3:16-21—and was treated to a fair number of blank stares and awkward silences as I explained some of the nuances of the Judiazers to my Sunday School class. Teaching is harder than it looks, especially when you’re trying to involve the people you’re talking to.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

How funny - I spent seven hours yesterday doing translation work on that exact same passage!

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.

I would say great minds think alike, but I wasn’t working from the Greek. :^) The thing that caught my eye was that Paul was weeping for those enemies of Christ, which brought Romans 9:1-4 to mind for me, and that Paul’s more or less saying that he wept for Judiazers as they…made a god of their own belly.

Stunning to contemplate, especially as most classicists would characterize the Jews as fairly modest in their appetites compared to Greeks and Romans!

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

I never claimed to be working from the Greek competently! I hope nobody issued any of Ed’s “remarks” to you.

On a serious note, I am more convinced than ever that every new Seminary student who intends to go into the ministry must be challenged to quit and do something else if he has any doubts about God’s will for him to go into the ministry. Quit. Save yourself. Be a normal church member. Don’t ever go into the ministry unless you’re certain you can do nothing else. You will be attacked. Prepare yourself. Prepare your wife. People are evil. Some people in your church are not Christians. Prepare for battle.

I’m not being hysterical. I’m just “bein’ real” about the kind of struggles you’ll face in the ministry.

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.

None of Ed’s classic insults, no. But I would not expect to see them—it is my hunch that what Ed’s writing about is not as much theology as it is about power and control. Since I was in a position of only very nominal authority, I simply ordinarily wouldn’t be a target.

I really liked Ed’s comment about topical sermons. I remember one time that I noticed that the youth pastor did an OK job with topical sermons, but his exegetical sermons were just dynamite. So perhaps foolishly (and I hope not too rudely), I asked him about that, and he was gracious enough to admit that for him, the exegetical model was a lot easier because the text just “unwrapped” itself for him. And that is, in a nutshell, what I learned yesterday. The teacher’s/preacher’s job seems to get exponentially more difficult when your topic requires more thinking out of the hearers.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

I’ve observed that there are a significant number of pastors who do not take criticism well. They either get defensive or dismissive. Recognizing that, some people have chosen to take the veiled insult route. If someone tosses one of these insults at you, please realize that they may have a point.

"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan

I disagree with you, Ron:

If someone tosses one of these insults at you, please realize that they may have a point.

We have to learn to speak the truth. Responding to hints encourages the very passive-aggressive behavior I am talking about. It does not need to be reinforced. Nothing worse than someone making a point in a cowardly, manipulative way, IMO. I would say, “Please don’t respond to hints. It encourages more less-than-honest communicaiton.”

If you cannot talk to your pastor about what ails you in the appropriate times (not before church) and in an appropriate way (speaking the truth in love), then you have a problem. You need to obey Scripture. Go to him, talk to him. If he gets nasty, bring someone with you and talk again. If it is not worth the effort, then it is not worth bringing up.

William Backus authored the ultimate book on Christian communication, IMO, entitled, “Telling Each Other the Truth.” A part of our issue under discussion occurs precisely because people steer around doing just that. I keep a stockpile of that book for counseling. It is a great read, and I highly recommend it to all SI participants.

The other week, I was preaching on communication, and I stated, “Assume other people are oblivious and cannot connect the dots, especially your spouse.”

When someone speaks kindly and honestly to me and at a good time, I am much more prone to listen. I cannot say this is true for all, but I can opine that I think that most pastors would respond well to it. This is especially true if you have been offended. If you expect him to revamp his ministry to satisfy a new bug in your ear, however, you might need to examine your heart for arrogance.

To those of you in the Philippians twilight zone, I posted Philippians 3:20 this morning on my Facebook! Don’t know what this means!

"The Midrash Detective"

[Ron Bean]

I’ve observed that there are a significant number of pastors who do not take criticism well. They either get defensive or dismissive.

I once made several comments in jest about how my former pastor dressed on Easter (something to the effect of looking like Benny Hinn). Concerned that I had offended him, I went to him and asked him about it. He told me he wasn’t offended and found my comments humorous. Fast forward a couple months later, when we were discussing a completely different topic, he told me I was challenging his authority and making him look bad in front of his church members just like when I made my comments about his Easter suits.

Looking back, I did take the joke too far, and, in hindsight, was acting like a jerk.

That being said, if pastors are offended by criticism, they should not become passive-aggressive and act like everything is okay when they are secretly harboring anger or resentment.

I can understand the disgust Ed feels when people use rather “sneaky” methods of presenting concerns, but at the same time I’ve also been where Ron is—seeing a lot of people who, having received “the right boot of fellowship’ and such, are “once bitten and twice shy.”

If you work with hourly factory workers, you’re going to see it a lot—the hierarchy is perceived as “know it alls” and hence people find other ways. It forms a “hidden factory” that does a lot to keep quality engineers employed. The smart ones find the “smoke shack”, listen but don’t promise much, and then figure out how to get something done according to what they’ve heard. Rarely did the hourly guys steer me wrong—I might have to rephrase to make their concerns understood, but they generally drew a picture I could work from.

(and yes, sometimes the literal smoke shack—never smoked, never will, but that’s where they let their guard down, at least among non-managers)

So what the “once bitten and twice shy” parishioner is telling you is two things. First of all, they have a preference of X or Y in ministry. It may or may not be a dig, as Ed’s estimates of likelihood show. They are also telling their pastor that they either have not learned, or have learned to ignore (that once bitten/twice shy thing), Biblical wisdom on conflict resolution.

In other words, they are giving their pastor two great avenues for spiritual growth, not just one. Ain’t easy, and rhino hide’s a great idea. But when life serves you lemons….

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

First off, I have any number of mystical ideas why Ed, Tyler, and I all went to Phillipians 3….which in the interest of avoiding heresy, I’ll just shut up about right now. :^)

Seriously, one thought that comes to me is that in my interaction here, I’ve met (online at least) a bunch of people who are in the “once bitten twice shy” category. I’ll fess up to it for myself. Or….given that we all have our wounds….is that even a category that means much? I’m not sure.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

By the end of 15 years of the pastorate, my hide was so thick nothing bothered me

At my last church, we had a major financial crisis related to Bearer bonds (these instruments are now illegal). We had $ 75,000 of bonds that were outstanding and were not known to our treasurer at the time. I can say that they never were reported on a balance sheet as debt the entire time I was there nor in any annual report that preceded my arrival (that I had access to). Surprise! They came due! Had to be paid! Guess who didn’t get paid!

My wife went back to work while I was unpaid (and her salary was half of what mine had been!)

After 2 years of no pay I myself went back to work while still pastoring

Every church bill was paid. We did not decrease any missions giving. Every bond was paid off.

The year before I left there was a select committee on church strategy in our church. Neither I nor my assistant were members. It was to be independent.

I was interviewed by this committee and they asked me why my wife went back to work. They were completely oblivious as to the events.

Trust me … thick hide!

I left a church debt free (as I did my previous church). Unfortunately I did not leave myself being debt free. That would come later.

––—

Probably most S/I readers (because of your youth) are unware of the abuse of bearer bonds. They were commonly issued to finance church construction. More on them here and here. Having a degree in fiance was a big help to me

There are people who “feel” that they can’t talk to the pastor. (I’ve heard that a lot.)

There are people who are terrible and/or tactless in their attempts to communicate.

There are people who prefer to speak in fluent sarcasm.

And there are pastors who will not tolerate criticism. They will burn members who may have a legitimate criticism and those members will carry the scars to their next church.

"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan