Featured How does one walk away from a pastor?

I suppose that's always a risk. Writing a letter seems like an acceptable alternative. My point is, don't leave the pastor in the dark.

 

I used to agree re not leaving the pastor in the dark.

That is, until I encountered real emotional abuse within a church that would spill over outside the walls of that one church.

Sometimes situations are such that for your own sanity and safety spiritually, the best thing to do is just to quietly leave.

 

It depends on the situation. Sometimes it is best to just quietly leave if you have a pastor going bad. Having gone throught this about 40 years ago, I found that whatever you say can be misquoted or taken out of context, resulting in him making false accusations about you to others. It only happened to me once, but once was enough.

 

Let me throw out another alternative. How about sharing your decision with a deacon or teacher in the church? You avoid a direct confrontation with the pastor, but know that he'll probably hear about it.

 

If one is leaving over theological matters but otherwise in good accord with a church, by all means tell the pastor or someone why. An example would be if you are strongly a calvinist and the church leadership is strongly dispensational, just nicely explain you will seek a better fit rather than cause dissension and go.

But there are some pretty vindictive egotistical ruler type pastors that will literally blackball you not only in the church setting but also out in the job setting if they can. I've know them to state upfront that if you try to leave their church without their permission, they will call the other area pastors and tell them you are a troublemaker that needs to be reconciled to the church you are already part of before you can move on. I know of one in the OP's larger general region that says he will do that wherever you might move if you accept a job transfer and thus "break covenant" with him.

Church is a freely assumed voluntary association of believers.

In the OP's case, I would probably just leave quietly and without fuss. If the pastor wants to know why, he can call the OP and the OP can nicely state the ministries he feels called to be part of, point out their lack at the church in question, and just state that he believes he should find a better fit.

 

I have done it once.

I simply left and never came back.

 

Paul said "be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ". 1 Corinthians 11:1 and again, "But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." Galatians 1:8.

Those are the only two things anyone should be looking for in his pastor because Christ is THE Shepherd, and pastors merely UNDERshepherds.

Unfortunately, many who are supposed to follow want to be THE leader, with their own ideas of how things should be run, and visions in their heads on how a church should be performing, and a pastor leading.

I say leave him alone.
If he has been called of God to be where he is at, then he will prosper, and if not, then God will deal with him.
As for you, OP, there really is no issue except that you think you are there to BE the church corrector.
Leave, just walk away, or maybe start a congregation of your own somewhere that you can run as you THINK your current church should be run.

 

Wifey and I needed to leave a church of which we were members a number of years back. The new pastor held to a teaching that we could not reconcile Biblically. I met with him to talk it over. Due to responibilities in the church, quietly walking away was not an option. Eventually I resigned and explained to him why. As the pastor, he was owed that courtesy.

We may not have agreed with his teaching, but as Our Lord's shepherd of our church, he was still owed the respect due his position.

 

Here ya go.....from New Jersey & my wifes home town.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv7Gxdu2vag