Recovery From Abusive Church

Definitely!

 

I appreciate the honesty of this post. There are always things we can learn from - and try not to repeat. We definetly need to avoid the obvious things that can get us into trouble.

Thanks for an open and honest post...

 

I wasn't doubting your statement of their abusiveness I was merely sharing my own experience. Just as you experienced as very abusive church I too, have experienced one as well. I pray that God will help you to heal and grow.

 

Sometimes I think we all could recount stories of abusive situations.

I just came out of an abused situation. I still have a hard time wanting to talk about it publically. I would look more towards the statement that there are abusive people more than there are abusive churches. Church members can be as dumb as lambs. Literally.

The wounds run deep and it is at times hard to want to become involved in traditional church again in a traditional way. What has happened doesn't change my love for the Lord and the knowledge and acceptance of his sovereignty.

 

Surely this sort of thing is an inevitable result of the deacons calling all the shots? He who pays the piper calls the tune and all that. The Pastor is a paid man and the deacons can fire him, end of story. it's an inevitable problem with Baptist polity, isn't it?

I have just been forced to leave my church. I'm not a pastor, I am a Lay Preacher - and a good one (sorry if that sounds arrogant but many people have told me so).

My own church flatly refused to hear me even once, because I am an Evangelical. A local small church were delighted to have me and I preached there several times. When it got to the point where I had almost finished the accreditation requirements, had been passed with flying colours on the Lay Preacher assessment for the Baptist Union, was doing the second year of my theology degree and had nothing but compliments from the churches that let me preach there, I had to see the regional minister in order to gain Baptist Union accreditation.

So my pastor finally asked the deacons if they would allow me to preach, just once, so that they could consider my application for acceditation. They refused. The pastor and the church secretary met with me and asked me to put together a statement of how I had got to this point, they seemed to think that might help. It didn't. Neither did the letter the regional minister wrote to the deacons in which he said that he had seen me and believed I had a call to preach which should be explored.

I haven't got to the bottom of it and I don't think I ever will. False accusations have been made and it seems the Pastor has swallowed them hook line and sinker. Even if he hadn't, he would not stand up against the deacons. The deacons are there for life - it might even be more accurate to say for generations - at least, officially two of them stand down every year but they always stand for re-election and as long as they stand for re-election no-one will stand against them. These people rule the church and they rule the Pastor.

D.

 

If the deacons are "calling all the shots" and can fire the pastor, then the church is not practicing Baptist polity.

The pastor has failed to lead from the Bible. Scripturally, and therefore in Baptist polity, the deacons cannot call the shots and fire the pastor.

 

But in practice they do, at least, in the UK. Which rather makes me wonder why they don't simply call themselves elders, but there it is :tear:

 

Not in UK Independent Baptist Churches. I have pastored three, and with all of them there was no doubt as to the deacon's role and the pastor/elder's role.

 

That's good to know, but I am in the Baptist Union.

D

 

Well, you can get out of it, and maybe you wouldn't be so "disgruntled." :laugh:

 

O I'd feel worse. You see, I am female.

D

 

Im sorry for posting in the pastor section, but I read this and.........well........

Disgruntled.......if you are a lady you have no Biblical right to be disgruntled with your church for not letting you preach to them......UNLESS you were referring to preaching only to us ladies. Biblically (and therefore Baptistically) ladies ought not be preaching to men. We can get into the specific arguments somewhere else if you'd like, I wouldn't want to hijack this thread. Suffice it to say, your experience is not of an abusive church, but of a church attempting to be Biblically correct.

 

Rather obviously, I disagree with you about women preaching but, as you say, that is one for another part of the board. However, that is not the reason I am not allowed to preach. More than half our deacons are women, one of those women is a Lay Preacher, and the first choice for Pastor, before our present one came, was a woman (she was offered two churches and chose the other one).

I am not allowed to preach because I believe the Bible, it is that simple. There is only one visiting preacher I have ever formally compained about at our church and that was a woman. I complained because her sermon owed more to new age thought than to Christianity. The fact that I complained about her (to the right people ie. the Pastor, the church secretary and the deacon in charge of booking visiting preachers) is one of the reasons they won't let me preach. Another reason is that I once led a Bible study where I said that unrepentant sinners go to hell. A third is that I challenged a man who said, in a Bible study during the discussion time, that Muslims believe the same things as Christians. The Pastor was not willing to correct this man (a recent convert) so I did. A fourth is that I once said at a Bible study (during the discussion time) that Christians should not marry non-Christians. And I believe in a six day creation, this counts as an "extreme view" and the deacons will not allow extreme views in the pulpit. The rest of it seems to be down to gossip - my extreme views have apparently hurt a lot of people, but no-one will tell me who these people are or precisely which of my extreme views they object to.

If I was a man I would certainly be in a Strict Baptist church. As a woman with a call to preach, such a church is a non-option, though I do take the opportunity to go to a monthly meeting put on by a local group of like minded Strict Baptist type churches, and at the moment I am attending a Strict Baptist church in the evenings, because the small church to which I am transferring my membership has only a Sunday morning service.

D.

 

If you don't know what it's like here, then how can you say that she got it right? Its not right to tar all churches with the same brush. I have been very privileged to serve some wonderful gracious people in my Independent Baptist pastorates.

That said, for the reasons Bapmom gives, we would not allow Disgruntled to preach at our church either.

 

:1_grouphug: First of all, I would like to say that my "Baptist" experiences from the past are like a roller coaster ride. The bad was very bad but the good was great!

I gave my heart and life to Jesus at a traditional southern Baptist church. I will forever be grateful to the youth group at West end Baptist church in Manchester GA.

But that same church body was also were I first experienced "abusive" church. I wont go into the situation that was so offence to me but suffice it to say the lack of Christ like behavior of the pastor cost him his pulpit. I had already left for college when the church split but it never felt like "home" ever again.

I began attending Northside Baptist and when I was away for the summer as a student summer missionary I came home to find that church had also split. I was in great need of spiritual refreshing and came home to "bitter waters". So as a college student I had "bitterness" that took years to overcome.

In the years since I have experienced personal rejection and was told by "the rock Baptist church" in Rex Georgia that if I was to attempt to become a member that i wouldn't have the votes. (my ex husband is black and we were still married at the time).

I could write for days of the heart break I experienced at Metro Heights Baptist Church in Stockbridge GA... the pastor (M Calvin Yarborough) ended up Marrying His wife's best friend and left the church with millions of dollars of debt.

But you know what.... It was Not Jesus that cheated on his wife, It was not Jesus that mismanaged the tithes of orphans and widows, it was not Jesus that judged based on skin color, It was not Jesus that split the church where I was saved. And Jesus was not the "root of bitterness".

Had they all been focused on Jesus and Christ like character we would all be closer to being ONE in Christ!

There is a passage in scripture (1Cor 13) that says that love keeps no record of wrongs... oh if we could only keep records of "rights"!!

Remembering the pains of the past re-rips the wounds, I think I will now focus on the day Jesus saved my soul... And the day my daughter asked Jesus to be her savior at metro heights and Last Sunday's sermon at Eagles Landing... pastor Tim defiantly has us "focused on Jesus"!!

:jesus:

 

Ultimately, the problem is lack of focus on the author and perfector of our faith.
When pastors and church leaders fall, more often than not it is from when they are not doing what they should be doing and not filling the office of pastor as they should.
And as for the churches that are abusive, it is because the Holy Spirit had been removed for quite sometime...if He had ever been part of the church to begin with.

I do know that in my previous pastorate, i was no where near perfect...that doesn't change the fact that it was an abusive church that is just a step closer to being shut down for good. All i can do now, as was mentioned before is learn from my experiences, place my faith in the God who is ultimately the One who called me, and do what i need to do for His kingdom, His glory and His honor alone.

 

Wow, what a statement to make about a movement of 10,000 churches in America alone, in many different groups (BBF, FBF, ABWE, WBF, SBF, etc., etc.) with literally thousands of missionaries planting churches around the world. There are now more IFB missionaries in Japan than SBC, in spite of the fact that the SBC has three times the churches.

Can we say "narrow viewpoint?" Can we say "broad brush?" Can we say "judgmental?" I'd better quit before I hijack the thread.