Saw this from a Baptist pastor on FB:
How would you answer this pastor?
I was faced with a difficult situation this past Sunday, and I think I— and my fellow elders— failed to do the right thing. I’d greatly appreciate your thoughts and advice on how to handle this.
For context’s sake, we’re a small, rural church in Iowa. We average about 45 attendees a service. I’m a young pastor (mid-twenties) with two years of experience under my belt. I invited a Gideon to speak for 10 minutes on their ministry of providing Bibles. He was cordial and polite, and he spoke for the allotted ten minutes after our worship songs, and then I preached my sermon.
At the tail end of the service, right after our closing hymn, I was about to lead our congregation in prayer, when the Gideon speaker’s wife loudly called my name from the audience and asked to give her testimony. She was very emotional, on the verge of tears. She said something along the lines of “Pastor Micah, this is a Baptist church, and I don’t know if this is allowed, but I would like to give my testimony.”
Wanting to follow the instructions of 1 Timothy 2:12, but at the same time wanting to be considerate of our guest and not unnecessarily inhospitable, I told her to “wait until the service is over.” This church has had some pastors’ wives give testimonies before, but not in the context of the gathering of the church in worship. It’s been done in the context of Sunday school “prayer and praise” time, and other similar circumstances, but not in the service.
I thought that the lady would recognize what I *meant*— namely, that she should share on her own time, *not in the context of congregational worship in church.* But she took my specific wording too literally.
Immediately after my prayer, she began to speak in front of the congregation. She immediately took the opportunity to briefly jab at Baptist churches for “shutting her down,” which was an accusation that (given what she did in my own church) I have reason to believe was inaccurate and warped. She was very clearly unstable, mentally. Part of me wondered whether she was literally on drugs. It’s not that her testimony was completely incoherent, or that God hasn’t done some good things for her health (the core of her “testimony,” outside of the rambling, was about how she’d been refocused on God in the midst of some health troubles) but it wasn’t the appropriate setting for a woman to speak (Biblically), and some of what she said was very unsound.
In retrospect, my choice of wording to express what I meant was a dreadful mistake. My intention was to gently dissuade her from speaking in the context of the gathering of believers for church, but clearly she either didn’t understand, or didn’t care, or some combination of the two. I take full responsibility for the lack of clarity in my response to her. I should have simply said “No,” even though it would have seemed rude, and been perfectly clear in my answer, rather than trying to put it in a way that was more palatable and “nice.” I’m frustrated with my deer-in-the-headlights response and lack of preparedness.
I thought that her husband would have understood what I meant, and that he would have stopped her from going on, but he didn’t. He just stood there, looking down at the floor, clearly embarrassed, but not enough of a leader to gently tell her “No.”
Then again, my leadership in that situation wasn’t much better, since I didn’t put a stop to it before it started.
Meanwhile, I’m disappointed that the three other elders of my church didn’t do anything to assist the situation. I think they, like me, were taken aback by her audacity, so I don’t blame them for it happening, but I do wish that one of them would have recognized that it was a problem.
She rambled on for a few minutes before I eventually cut her off by asking if she would stay after our council meeting so my elders and I could pray over her. I sensed that she deeply needed prayer that God would give her respect for His order of worship and for His Word’s sufficiency, and that He would help her to see some of the errors that she had fallen into. I thought my fellow elders would have the discernment to sense that, too.
But when we went to pray over her, the other elders thanked God for what He’d done in her life and for her testimony, and pretty much just affirmed her. They didn’t even try to pray for God to give her clarity (despite her clear lack of it, mentally), or for anything. They just seemed confused.
Afterward, I took the elders into my office and confessed to them that I had sinned against the church by not putting an end to that situation, and I explained to them why it was inappropriate for the speaker’s wife to usurp authority by speaking to the congregation in that way. (It would still have been wrong if she was a man, but Paul’s instructions to Timothy regarding gender roles and speaking in church at all are perfectly perspicuous). I told them that we would need to meet again to formulate a protocol for how we should handle people interrupting the service, so that we can avoid the same mistake while maintaining grace.
I spoke with a few trustworthy, spiritually mature people from the church afterward. Two of them acknowledged that I should have handled it better. The rest didn’t think that I could realistically have done anything differently. None of them were able to provide much in the way of thoughts on how to address the situation further. I also spoke to my father, who watched the live stream, and he agreed with me that it shouldn’t have happened, but he thought it was handled better than most. The problem is that “better than most” doesn’t cut it when it comes to honoring the Lord in how I lead and defend the flock.
My questions are:
1.) How should I, as pastor of this church, address this situation Biblically?
2.) How can I communicate my sin to my congregation while helping them to understand *why* it was a sin, and while not bringing further shame upon the church?
3.) How can our council of elders prevent these situations in the future?
4.) Have I disqualified myself?
How would you answer this pastor?
I was faced with a difficult situation this past Sunday, and I think I— and my fellow elders— failed to do the right thing. I’d greatly appreciate your thoughts and advice on how to handle this.
For context’s sake, we’re a small, rural church in Iowa. We average about 45 attendees a service. I’m a young pastor (mid-twenties) with two years of experience under my belt. I invited a Gideon to speak for 10 minutes on their ministry of providing Bibles. He was cordial and polite, and he spoke for the allotted ten minutes after our worship songs, and then I preached my sermon.
At the tail end of the service, right after our closing hymn, I was about to lead our congregation in prayer, when the Gideon speaker’s wife loudly called my name from the audience and asked to give her testimony. She was very emotional, on the verge of tears. She said something along the lines of “Pastor Micah, this is a Baptist church, and I don’t know if this is allowed, but I would like to give my testimony.”
Wanting to follow the instructions of 1 Timothy 2:12, but at the same time wanting to be considerate of our guest and not unnecessarily inhospitable, I told her to “wait until the service is over.” This church has had some pastors’ wives give testimonies before, but not in the context of the gathering of the church in worship. It’s been done in the context of Sunday school “prayer and praise” time, and other similar circumstances, but not in the service.
I thought that the lady would recognize what I *meant*— namely, that she should share on her own time, *not in the context of congregational worship in church.* But she took my specific wording too literally.
Immediately after my prayer, she began to speak in front of the congregation. She immediately took the opportunity to briefly jab at Baptist churches for “shutting her down,” which was an accusation that (given what she did in my own church) I have reason to believe was inaccurate and warped. She was very clearly unstable, mentally. Part of me wondered whether she was literally on drugs. It’s not that her testimony was completely incoherent, or that God hasn’t done some good things for her health (the core of her “testimony,” outside of the rambling, was about how she’d been refocused on God in the midst of some health troubles) but it wasn’t the appropriate setting for a woman to speak (Biblically), and some of what she said was very unsound.
In retrospect, my choice of wording to express what I meant was a dreadful mistake. My intention was to gently dissuade her from speaking in the context of the gathering of believers for church, but clearly she either didn’t understand, or didn’t care, or some combination of the two. I take full responsibility for the lack of clarity in my response to her. I should have simply said “No,” even though it would have seemed rude, and been perfectly clear in my answer, rather than trying to put it in a way that was more palatable and “nice.” I’m frustrated with my deer-in-the-headlights response and lack of preparedness.
I thought that her husband would have understood what I meant, and that he would have stopped her from going on, but he didn’t. He just stood there, looking down at the floor, clearly embarrassed, but not enough of a leader to gently tell her “No.”
Then again, my leadership in that situation wasn’t much better, since I didn’t put a stop to it before it started.
Meanwhile, I’m disappointed that the three other elders of my church didn’t do anything to assist the situation. I think they, like me, were taken aback by her audacity, so I don’t blame them for it happening, but I do wish that one of them would have recognized that it was a problem.
She rambled on for a few minutes before I eventually cut her off by asking if she would stay after our council meeting so my elders and I could pray over her. I sensed that she deeply needed prayer that God would give her respect for His order of worship and for His Word’s sufficiency, and that He would help her to see some of the errors that she had fallen into. I thought my fellow elders would have the discernment to sense that, too.
But when we went to pray over her, the other elders thanked God for what He’d done in her life and for her testimony, and pretty much just affirmed her. They didn’t even try to pray for God to give her clarity (despite her clear lack of it, mentally), or for anything. They just seemed confused.
Afterward, I took the elders into my office and confessed to them that I had sinned against the church by not putting an end to that situation, and I explained to them why it was inappropriate for the speaker’s wife to usurp authority by speaking to the congregation in that way. (It would still have been wrong if she was a man, but Paul’s instructions to Timothy regarding gender roles and speaking in church at all are perfectly perspicuous). I told them that we would need to meet again to formulate a protocol for how we should handle people interrupting the service, so that we can avoid the same mistake while maintaining grace.
I spoke with a few trustworthy, spiritually mature people from the church afterward. Two of them acknowledged that I should have handled it better. The rest didn’t think that I could realistically have done anything differently. None of them were able to provide much in the way of thoughts on how to address the situation further. I also spoke to my father, who watched the live stream, and he agreed with me that it shouldn’t have happened, but he thought it was handled better than most. The problem is that “better than most” doesn’t cut it when it comes to honoring the Lord in how I lead and defend the flock.
My questions are:
1.) How should I, as pastor of this church, address this situation Biblically?
2.) How can I communicate my sin to my congregation while helping them to understand *why* it was a sin, and while not bringing further shame upon the church?
3.) How can our council of elders prevent these situations in the future?
4.) Have I disqualified myself?
