Even princes sit and speak against me, but I will meditate on your decrees. (Psalm 119:22-24)I was just having a conversation with a man I haven’t seen in several years. Now, at the time of this conversation, I was in the shower. And I haven’t seen the man for four or five years. But I was still having the conversation.
In the conversation, I was defending myself. He did me wrong and hurt the church in the doing, but it didn’t matter. He felt totally in the right and felt he could do pretty much whatever he needed to do to accomplish what he felt he wanted.
He was a superintendent of the area in which I was and had an agenda for the church that I didn’t. But because he was superintendent, he felt his agenda trumped any other.
What was sad was that he did not have the slightest idea of how to deal with a church like the one I pastored. He was great with large churches, affluent churches, city churches. But he knew nothing of country churches and small churches. He knew nothing of their dynamic, of their mindset. He thought he did, but he didn’t.
He went behind my back and hurt my ministry. I finally left and as a result, he destroyed the church. And all the time, he probably figured that he was doing good, even after he closed the church.
I came into another soon like it. The leaders of the area church felt they knew better than I what to do with the local church. They went behind my back and again destroyed my church.
And all this time later, I still defend myself from them, even though they are long gone from my life. I do it in the shower, late at night, when driving by myself, other times when I am alone. They hurt me, they hurt my family and they killed my church. And the bad part was they didn’t even realize it. But I do. And I cannot figure out how to quit telling them about it and defending myself, all these years later.
They figured they were doing “God’s work” and ran roughshod over the church. They knew all about (I suppose) large urban churches, but knew nothing about the churches they were supposed to be overseeing.
It was a while before I recovered. When I decided to come back to pastoral work, I came into my old denomination. It had its faults, but the good thing is that there is no one except God above the local work to tell me what to do. I am responsible to my church and not to some organization.
Organizations kill if they are not careful. They over-organize, micro-manage. I came into the organizations thinking that they would care for me and for what I was doing. They ordained me and within months turned their backs on me because I did not share their particular vision for the churches they set me over. My anointing and mandate from God did not matter. What mattered was what they thought.
I suppose there may have been more to it than just that, but that was the gist of it. What seemed like freedom quickly became corporate bondage. And I will do it no more. I am independent and I was foolish to forget that.
That is one thing that has always been my problem. I am independent. I do not like organizations, no matter how well-meaning they may be.
No one controls me except God. I answer to no one but my church. Yet preaching the Good News is not something I can boast about. I am compelled by God to do it. How terrible for me if I didn’t preach the Good News! (1 Corinthians 9:16).
I do what I do because God tells me, not because some earthly organization, no matter how well meaning, tells me I can. God alone empowers me to preach and God alone ordains me. And I am glad.
