A letter given to a Baptist Minister (Southern)this AM. See what you think is going on here. The minister, James Bennett is a friend of mine and he loves the Lord greatly. letter: Because of oour deep love and commotment to Canal Point Bapptist Church, we are expressing our concern over the broken fellowship that we are now experiencing. It is our utmost desire for the restoration of the loving spirit that we have enjoyed in the past. We have met with our pastor and voiced the concerns of our hearts over things that have been or are being said, relatioonships that have been damaged and overall discord present among the membership. He was told that many believe that the problems have begun with him. He was asked to make some efforts to correct the situation, but unfortunately this has not been done. Several weeks ago, he was asked to seek a vote of confidence from trhe church as to the feeling of whether his service has been satisfactory or not. He flatly refused to do this. It is important that everyone understands that no one was or is on a witch hunt or "out to get Jim." We cannot continue on the path we afre now trodding, but must rectify our problems, and heal out fellowship because above all, we need to be about the Lord's work. There are hurting souls in our community that need to be reached, but because our troubles have found their way to the streets of Canal Point, Pahokee, Belle Glade, and even Clewiston, it is hard to invite someone to weorship in a place of discord. Our Father in Heaven is not the author of confusion and we are to follow His example. At this point in time, we feel that it is time for us, the membership of Canal Point Baptist Church, to decide if we want to continue with our present pastor or if it is time to terminate our relationship with him and move forward. We urge you to attend a special called business meeting for this purpose on Wednesday, March 21, 2001, at 7:00PM.

In Christ's abiding love

A group of concerned members.

-- Anonymous, March 11, 2001

Answers

HBJ,

Unfortunately, this sounds like a typical Florida church. When you have so many people, coming from so many areas, with so many different traditions & ideas - it is inevitable that this type of conflict will occur from time to time. From personal experience - "been there, done that, & brought back the T-Shirt"!

Personally, I would not ask for a vote of confidence - as that just tends to fuel dissension, not stop it.

It sounds to me that there are a lot of immature people making calls, inuindoes, etc that they have no right to make. Bottom line: a or some men in the Congregation need to publically stand up and call the congregation on the carpet for their actions, let the axe fall where it may, and then move on in the proper direction.

Unfortunately, such action is just as likely to split or destroy the chruch as it is heal it. But then again, if the church is actually this bad off and has lost its witness in the community - then it is aready being destroyed; so what is there to loose?

Just my thoughts,

-- Anonymous, March 12, 2001

Pastors/Preachers/Elders are far from perfect, but more often than not when a congregation is unhappy with a minister it is because they are avoiding dealing with some of the garbage in their own lives. It is often easier to focus on the preacher than confront one's own shortcomings. A good book to read here is GENERATION TO GENERATION: Family Process in Church and Synagogue by Edwin Friedman. He was a Jewish rabbi so I am not endorsing his theology but he has some very helpful things to say about how ministers relate to congregants.

I have been through something similar to this in the past 3 months. The most important thing is to not take the criticisms personally and avoid anxious behavior at almost all costs. If youo just love people and pray for them, I believe many times the Lord will open their eyes. Mark is right that someone in the church needs to call them on the carpet, but it should not be the preacher. That is usually ineffective.

-- Anonymous, March 12, 2001

CG,

I whole-heartedly agree that it should not be the preacher that does the "calling out". That's where the Restoration/1st Century pattern works well - it is the Elders' job to pastor & CORRECT the flock when it strays.

Loving people is important, but situations like this usually call for "tough love" to get the point across. We ARE in Spiritual Warfare and it looks like Satan has established a big "beachhead" in this church. Like in all combat, there will be causualities of war - that is not due to a lack of love, it is just a byproduct of dealing with a sin-stained world.

-- Anonymous, March 12, 2001

Mark, Of course, in the Bible, the elders were the 'pastors.' There wasn't a man with the title of 'pastor' above all the elders, except for the 'Chief pastor'- Christ Himself. The 'preachers' in these churches would have been many of the people in the congregation, including the elders of the church.

Correcting sin in the church is the responsibility of the church as the whole, adn not only that of the elders. Jesus said to call the unrepentant before the church, not just the elders. I Cor. 5 doesn't even mention elders. Corinth may not have had appointed elders at this time. We don't know. The epistle doesn't call them elders.

The clergy/laity, hired minister system has a lot of problems. Instead of an elder working in his own Christian community, and receiging payment out of appreciation, ministry becomes an occupation, where a man can feasily fall into the trap of working for his salary, isntead of working out of a willing heart and then just receiving compensation if it is given. I Peter 5:2 teaches that elders are not to work for filthy lucre.

In a lot of 1-pastor churches, that one man exercises a lot of power. Sometimes, the by-laws allow the congregation to fire the pastor. So the pastor, if he thinks of his ministry as a job to support his family, may get defensive if he sees problems in the congregation. He may see it as a threat to his job. So he might use his power and influence in the congregation, and guilt-trip people about submitting to authority out of fear that he might loose his job. The result of the power struggle is that people get wounded and there are hurt feelings.

This is a problem with having a system where pastors are 'hired guns' who aren't raised up to be overseers of the flock from within the flock. This is a problem with making 'pastor' a paid profession.

-- Anonymous, March 12, 2001

Link,

You seemed to well versed in this. Do you belong to a certain religious preferance that may progress this idea of elders doing the pastoring? If so, which one?

-- Anonymous, March 19, 2001

I'm in a cell type church now, but I'm more interested in house churches. There are a lot of house church home church websites you could check out if you are interested.

-- Anonymous, March 19, 2001

What is a cell or house church? Yes, I am curiuos.

-- Anonymous, March 20, 2001

Cell group churches are pretty common nowadays. Some large churches also have small house meetings during the week. These meetings can be called 'cell groups' though there are other names for them as well. The term 'cell group' comes from an author who compared this kind of system to the cells of the body which divide when they get too big, and multiply.

A cell church might have a pastor, with a heirarchy of cell group leaders below him, or it may have a plurality of elders. The one I go to has a plurality of elders.

The house church movement is a little different. each house church is a chruch by itself. The early church met from house to house. We see this in Jerusalem, and we also see that there were chruches int he houses of Priscilla and Aquilla, and Nymphas. The early Christians met in homes. They didn't build sanctuaries for some time.

Many in the house church movement want to get back to primitive Christianity. here are some common practices:

1) Return to a more Biblical way of meeting: Mutually participatory meetings instead of the tradition of listening to a religious specialist give a sermon. (I Cor. 14:26, Hebrews 10:24-25.)

2) Eating the Lord's Supper as an actual meal. The early Christians ate an actual meal called 'the Lord's Supper' or 'the Love Feast.' Somewhere along the line int eh 2nd century, maybe, they separated the Eucharist from the love feast, and the love feast faded out, because it didn't have the same meaing anymore. 'Supper' in Greek refers to an actual meal eaten toward the end of the day. Paul refers to 'the Lord's table' which makes a lot of sense if there was an actual table involved. The abuses of the Corinthians also show that the Corinthians were eating a meal, though they were going to extreems.

3) Plural leadership. Many house church people see a problem with the traditional one-pastor model, and believe in a plurality fo elders. Some start without elders, and at a later stage, elders are appointed. Since house churches are independant, there are many different views. Some house church people just htink that elders are elders and don't ned to be ordained, but that they are 'leading brothers.' These types, imo, seem to havea more Quakerly view of church government, with emphasis on consensus.

4) Recognition of apostolic ministry. This certainly isn't universal among house church people. But some consider apostles to be church planters called by the Lord to do their work. The word 'missionary' comes from a Latin word used to translate 'apostle' in certain places in the Bible.

-- Anonymous, March 20, 2001

The final answer to "What's Going on here?" A vote was taken Wed. night 3/21/01: Terminate Pastor 35 Keep Pastor 24 Many of the 24 are going to start meeting in a local physicians office until we can establish where we are headed from here..Your responses were appreciated and I ask you all to pray that we are led to speak where the Bible speaks and remain silent where the Bible is silent. In Him, Bruce

-- Anonymous, March 23, 2001