I Was Fired for My Preaching

OK, yes, it was horrible luck to be in a church where the traditions of men were more important than the Word of God, yes--and I would assume he did some soul-searching asking himself "how did I miss this? Is there anything I could have or should have done to figure this out earlier?".

But that said, I am reminded of a work situation I used to have--I was discussing some of the things that had been done there a few years after being let go at that place, and the person I was talking to--a fellow quality guy--told me that I'd been very lucky to be let go before the things they were doing attached themselves firmly to my name and made me unemployable.

In the same way, if a church is firmly devoted more to the words of men than the Word of God, he was lucky to be sent on his way before they had their talons into him too firmly.

(side note; for that job, I remember interviewing with a VP there and thinking "interesting guy, but can I trust him?"....within a year, I learned the hard way the answer was an emphatic NO. Perhaps I should have trusted my gut there...)

A shared statement of faith, though extremely helpful, is not a guarantee that your entire congregation will always agree on doctrine, the ordinances, or church membership.

While this article is a bit vague on why the author was fired or asked to resign by the church, I want to emphasize that full disclosure up front will help to eliminate these situations. I've seen both eager pastoral candidates and desperate churches pull punches during the "dating" period. This leads to not disclosing weaknesses, past history, doctrinal convictions, sacred cows, and differences in "vision" or ministry philosophy.

Years ago, I knew a young church who was looking for their first pastor. They decided to call the youth pastor at my church at the time. Everyone at both churches was excited. Less than two years later, he left that church and moved his family back to our community and sought non-pastoral employment. When I asked about what happened, I was told there was a major disagreement between him and the young congregation about pastoral authority. Apparently, he went in thinking he would call all the shots, and the young congregation had a more shared leadership model in mind.

More recently, a church in my community has a strong aversion to reformed soteriology. They are currently in the process of hiring their next pastor. The pastoral candidate they have chosen is reformed (based on conversations I've had with those who know him). If there was not full disclosure by the church or this candidate, that decision may turn out very badly.

Full disclosure... The good, bad, and the ugly.

Tom, it strikes me that I cannot for the life of me figure out a church model--congregational, presbyterian, or episcopal--where a pastor ought to be thinking he ought to "call all the shots" at that church. Each form of church government at least theoretically has some counterbalances in case someone (deacon, elder, pastor, whoever) goes off the rails.

(possible exception of the Catholic papacy, I guess, but other than that...am I missing something here?)

Nor can I for the life of me figure out a situation, apart from Christ Himself assuming the pastorate, where one man making all the decisions would be healthy. You've got numerous examples of the heroes of the faith being rebuked publicly--David, Peter, etc..--and then when we're talking about a complex body of believers, you've got the spiritual equivalent of Hayek's problem of knowledge in economics; one man cannot know every important bit of information/reality going on in a church, so relying on one man to make all the shots...yikes!

(sorry, this is a side topic, but I've seen a fair amount of disasters related to this sort of thing...)