A growing problem

A judicatory leader recently told me he had contacted a new pastor of one of his churches. The church had called this pastor a few months earlier, but the judicatory leader had not been able to find out any information on the pastor and could never catch him in the church office. After a few minutes of conversation the pastor informed the judicatory leader the church had voted to leave their denomination, but he didn't know who should receive the letters informing the denomination of this decision. The judicatory leader asked why the church had decided to do this, and the pastor replied he was an "independent, fundamentalist Baptist who didn't believe in denominations."

It is incredible to me that a church with a 100+ year history of belonging to their denomination and their association could decide within 2-3 months to leave that relationship because a pastor who had just began work with their church asked them to. I do not understand why the congregational leaders would not at least invite their denominational representative in to discuss their thoughts about doing this. I certainly do not understand the arrogance of a pastor who believes that it is his duty to lead this church in making this decision. He knew he was an "independent, fundamentalist Baptist" when he went there, and he knew this church belonged to a denomination. If he had any sense of pastoral ethics he would never have accepted a call to this church if he could not support the denomination in which the church belonged, and, in my opinion, this pastor's actions in leading the church to become independent illustrates that he is lacking in pastoral ethics. The result is this church of 70 people is now independent, the pastor is likely to leave in 2-3 years, and they will be out there by themselves.

A similar problem is occurring in churches who call pastors from a different denomination and soon find themselves being asked to leave their present denomination to join the one the pastor has belonged to. Two different denominations have recently told me they are having problems losing churches in this manner. Most of the pastors are from a certain denomination that set a very aggressive goal of new church planting. Anytime a church leaves their denomination to join this denomination it is counted as a new church plant. I suppose it's easier to steal churches that to do the hard work of actually starting a new church, and again I personally believe there is an ethical boundary that must be crossed before this can happen.

Does this mean that a church must remain forever in the denomination in which it is a member? No. It is possible that a denomination may significantly abandon its core theological beliefs and adopt practices and doctrine that is contrary to biblical teaching. In such cases churches may choose to leave and become part of another denomination that better reflects their beliefs. However, such decisions should be made very carefully and only after much prayer and conversation with their judicatory leaders. Too often people react to some headlines that tell of isolated incidences that occur within a denomination, but these incidences do not reflect the denomination or the beliefs of the vast majority of that denomination.

What bothers me most is the arrogance of pastoral leaders who will knowingly go into a church that belongs to a denomination they cannot support and who immediately begin to encourage the church to abandon their roots. Smaller, bivocational churches seem to be at most risk for this because they often struggle to find pastoral leadership. Too often, they are willing to accept the first person who shows an interest in their church regardless of this person's qualifications or background. Now that they have this person serving as their pastor, they are willing to do almost anything to keep him or her including leaving a long historic relationship with other like-minded churches. This is a decision that will have long-term impacts on the church, and I caution churches to not make that decision quickly or lightly.

A final word to pastoral leaders: If you are talking to a church about becoming its pastor and you do not like the denomination in which that church is a member, make a decision about whether or not you can work within that denomination. If you believe you cannot, have the ethical integrity to refuse to become pastor of that church. Find a church whose beliefs are in alignment with your own and begin to pastor that church. To do otherwise is wrong.