The Cost of Mean Treatment of Pastor's Wives

It could be worse than that. I think we very well may have lost the gospel itself.

 

Am I reading this correctly? Are you saying that when a pastor falls into sin or has other problems, the issue was a faulty interview?

Why is it so difficult to conceive that a godly man, even a pastor can fall into sin?

Pastor 1 had been the pastor of our church for more than 10 years and was greatly respected by anyone who knew him. In context of OP, the pastor was the person treating the pastor's wife meanly.

 

\

When I was in business I seldom terminated a person. However I saw men who could seldom keep employees partly because they did not take the time and ask the right questions as well as check out all of their references.

The future pastor should be interviewed as well as his wife. Each of them should be interviewed apart from each other. The children should be looked at as well. It should be noted how the children and wife interact with each other and with the future pastor.

Having an immature man for a pastor sets him up for failure. It also sets the church up for failure. When I was in seminary I saw quite a number of men who expressed that they could not wait to preach. It was almost a compulsion. When I brought up the issue of making disciples I seldom saw the same passion. Jesus said to make disciples not just stand before people and give sermons.

Sin does not just happen. Men who desire accountability will be much less likely to fall into the sin you describe. Seldom does sin begin in public. In the churhces I pastored I would never meet with a woman alone at the church or anywhere else. It was the ladies in the church who thought that was unreasonable. Teh men understood. It was the ladies who gave me trouble about that but never once did a man ever say anything negative about that.

I have seen many pastors who have never made disciples and because of that are not qualififed to be a pastor. If he has not proven himslef in a smaller way how can he lead a church to make disciples when he has not done that.

Just because someone was a pastor for ten years does not mean that everything was ever okay at home. If he treated his wife meanly then his home was not in order. That should have been satisfied before he was hired.

I have never met a man who was making disciples and doing ministry with his wife who treated her in that manner. When a person is making disciples he must be transparent and others will look to him for leadership. It becomes much more personal when leaders are making disciples instead of just leading a Bible study or preaching. Too often preaching can be a cover up for turmoil going on inside. Preaching can be an escape from close relationships with people.

 

Actually, a pastor should be disciplining his flock with his preaching and teaching. While it is true that many do not do this, but rather rant and rave and foam at the mouth for half an hour on Sunday morning, there are many pastors who do disciple their flocks this way. There is no hard and fast rule that states all discipleship must be one-on-one.

Very true. I have seen it many times.

 

No, you are not reading it correctly, but you are being rather rude and obnoxious.

gb93433 makes a very valid point. Most search committees have no idea what they are really doing, and have no idea what they are really looking for. The proper questions are never asked going into the whole thing, and the end result is much more the worse for it.

It's not difficult to conceive at all. We are all sinners, and will be until God takes us home. Pastors are no different, other than they are usually more the focal point of the adversaries attacks.

 

I agree. There are some who are able to be discipled in groups. However before a man begins pastoring don't you think that he should be able to personally disciple someone as proof of his leadershp in carrying out the command Jesus gave?

The only people I have ever had come aginst me were the antagonists who had never been taught to be obedient to the command Jesus gave in Mt 28:19,20.

It seems to me that personal discipleship does not happen without at least the smallest amount of leadership by someone and being accountable to those he is leading. The person must know how to lead at least one person. If he cannot lead one person then how is it possible for him to lead an entire church. I have noticed that anyone who has discipled someone seems to betetr understand what it means to lead and better appreciates good leadership and what it involves.

 

Gotta agree with you there, gb.

 

I believe from the response gb posted that he does believe that a large part of the problem was in the interview process.

Please explain to me how this statement is edifying or how it contributes to the thread. I was not trying to be obnoxious, only to encourage a person to view the situation from another perspective. Your words are not edifying, called for, or appreciated.

 

My apologies. I need to sleep before I post. Please forgive me.

I agree that a large part of the whole thing could be stopped during the interview process, but not all of it. Man in inherently sinful despite the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and the advesary waits around every corner for the man of God.

 

In most cases problems will not be discovered or noticed until someone digs deeper. It takes someone who knows what is most important to value a man who lives what is most important.

Most every church that advertises for a pastor seldom wants one who has made disciples. Almost always they want a good preracher and various other much less imortant qualitities.

How many churches ask a man about his ministry with his wife and family? Very few ask about his prayer life. Too often they want to know what about what the wife can do for the church rather than what kind of a wife she is to her husband and a mother to her children.

Too many churches value a good preacher rather than a man of God. A man of God spends time alone with God not always at every town event. He spends time with God before time with people. Jesus is his lord not nickels and noses.

 

Frankly you sound just a wee bit on the bitter and burned side. My experience has taught me that most churches initially want someone who believes the Bible and is nice, really that is all. It is amazing how many pastor's don't actually like people!

Eventually they will let you pastor them, but only after you have earned the right, titles rarely mean much to folks in the beginning. Sit with at the hospital, visit them at home, go to the ball game together, earn the right to be heard FIRST. Coming in all gun-ho and spitting fire will only get you fired!

You think there isn't a lot of discipleship going on now, just try discipleship without people!

 

You are right about some pastors not liking people. Some have learned to be that way. Some are
struggling with staying in it. When I was in the SBC a speaker once said that about 65% of the pastors if they could do something else would. That is a sad statistic.

Who cares about getting fired. That’s the problem with too many in ministry today. Jesus is Lord not a paycheck. I have had many pastors tell me that they wished they could preach what I did. The question I always came back with is “Why not?” We are not here to entice them to a church but to win them to Christ.

Jesus was fired. Paul was persecuted for his faith. Paul also had troubles in the church.

I know a man who pastored a church which grew from about 75 to almost 600 in six years and the deacons asked him to leave. He was fired. Most of those new people came from a Mormon background. He is no longer pastoring but doing evangelism. He got tired of the antagonists. That church is just as dead today as it was when he first started pastoring. That church is described in Rev. 2 & 3 Frankly I believe a lot of churches need to die and be replaced by vibrant people who want to walk with God. I truly believe at this time God is about that very thing. If Jesus is not my Lord then who is He in my life and how effective can I be in this world?

About 26 years ago my mother-in-law did not like it that he daughter was marrying a Christian and I often heard about it. Today she is my biggest supporter. She became a Christian 11 years ago. It was shortly before that I had the privilege of answering her questions.

If we stand for nothing, think about what we are passionate about.

Take a look at the command in scripture where Jesus said, “Come follow Me . . “ When Jesus said “Come follow Me . . . “ that was not an option but a command to come follow Him and live a life of persecution making Jesus their Lord not just fun and games. There is joy in knowing that other are following Christ and leading others.

My life is too short to spend it on people who do not want to grow and are unwilling to pay the price. It is not about how long I have but how little time there is. When we realize the shortness of time we have we will soon become passionate about the urgency of the situation.

When I was in high school I had one friend whose dad was a Baptist pastor and another friend who later I found out was a Christian. A few years after I became a Christian I saw them and they were surprised to find out I was a Christian. One of them told me, “I never knew you were interested in those things.” The fact is that I was at the time. Shortly after I entered college a fellow students led me to Christ. I did not come from a Christian home and neither did my wife. Today almost everyone of my relatives and family are Christians. Christmas each year is very different than what it once was. There was a time when they thought I was foolish and being a Christian was just a fad.

A few years ago I preached in a youth conference that drew from about 700 churches but still the greatest joy I have is knowing that those I have helped to grow spiritually are still walking with God.

A few years ago in the last church I pastored there was a man who had a family with two small children. He and his wife started showing up to a Bible study I was leading. Within a few months he came to me and wanted to talk about what we had been studying. He gave his life to Christ. From that point on we started doing ministry together each week. Each week we visited people in their homes. Later I started asking to go with me to visit people in the hospital. That man had played his keyboard for the singing group in one of the Super Bowl games. Eventually he asked me about helping with the music in the church. By that time he had only been a Christian a few months. When he became a part of the music team most of the people enjoyed his enthusiasm and ability to play well. During that time some of the deacons complained about him, noting that he was not a mature Christian and that he should be removed. He had the permission of the person leading music as well as myself. Eventually the message got back to him. He mentioned to me once at how he noticed that some people did not want to do much to do a great job in music. What he noticed was an unwillingness to pay the price to do a good job and be excellent in what they were doing. That man went with me each week and was always at the Bible study. Each week he memorized one to two verses each week. He started sharing his faith. Shortly after I left he was called by a pastor in a neighboring town to lead the music at the church. After being there about two years he was also asked to train them how to share their faith and make disciples. One day he called me up to ask me about what to do. During our conversation he made a comment about a time when I exhibited some boldness and how he was struggling with that.

Shortly before I quit pastoring in 2000 I took a very serious look back and realized a few things. By the time I had left college I had a team of about 65 men who were in Bible study. Once a week we met for Bible study and to pray for people. Each week they probably spent about three hours in preparation for the Bible study. Within six months after pastoring we moved out of state and I started meeting with 20 people in three different Bible studies. Not one of those people were doing any ministry in a church. However they were weekly attenders in church. Two years later everyone of them were sharing their faith and helping in churches. Some of them eventually became leaders in various ministries. When I pastored I regularly had to put out fires and deal with complainers and antagonists.

Making disciples is not about preaching and talking in front of groups of people but rather teaching people to do as Jesus commanded in Mt. 28:19,20. It is about walking the road with them with the purpose of helping them to grow.

Thom Rainer wrote a book a few years ago about people who joined a church. He basically mentioned that a number who when they first started going to church felt that they had more faith than the preacher. So they went onto another church where the preacher had passion and faith. They eventually joined a church where the preacher had passion and faith.

"Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on earth." - John Wesley

If Henry Ford were alive today would he be happiest with one good running Ford or a thousand in the junk yard? Isn’t that what God’s work is all about?

John said in 3 John 4, “I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth.”

 

"My life is too short to spend it on people who do not want to grow and are unwilling to pay the price. It is not about how long I have but how little time there is. When we realize the shortness of time we have we will soon become passionate about the urgency of the situation."


There is something about that statment that rings hollow and selfish. Jesus spent many hours with folks unwilling to "pay the price".

 

I should have written "those who claim to be Christians" instead of "people".

Is it selfish to spend time with my family first and make them my priority? It is biblical. If a pastor's home is not in order then he has no other business than to put it in order first.

Jesus had 12 he invested his life in who later spread the gospel and invested their lives in others.

Jesus did not spend time with the Pharisees but rather condemned them. They were the only people Jesus condemned.

When Jesus called he said, "Come follow Me. . . " It was not an option but a command.