Friday, May 21, 2010

What to Do When You Disagree with Your Pastor


So you find yourself in disagreement with church leadership, what can you do? What are your options?

  1. You can stay in the church, keep your mouth shut and continue to disagree. This might work... for a while. Over time it could however, become an issue of personal character and integrity, depending on the nature of the disagreement.
  2. You can stay and try to influence change as trust is earned and favor is granted. Maybe you're there to intercede?
  3. You can stay and change your opinion so that you agree with church leadership.
  4. You can choose to submit - even in disagreement, trusting God and the leader.
  5. You can stay and make trouble via gossip, complaining and innuendo. This is rebellion and lawlessness, I strongly encourage you to reject this option.
  6. You can leave and make trouble as you go, maybe create division by taking a group of people with you. This too is rebellion and lawlessness. I strongly encourage against this option as well.
  7. You can wait until God releases you and then leave well, with a blessing..If you feel you must leave, this is the best option for you. 
Bottom line is this... with a pure heart ask God what he wants you to do and then go and do that very thing with with humility and in love.

A couple of parting thoughts...

  1. Even if we do not respect the leadership God has placed over us (Rom.13:1), we can still treat them with honor. And we should.
  2. I heard someone say once that even though we may have a bad father we can still choose to be good sons.
I hope this helps some of the struggling sheep out there. Please leave a comment and let me know if this was helpful, Also, if you see any additional option that I may have overlooked please let me know what they are, I'll consider adding them to my list, thanks.

(C) Tom Zawacki, 2010

6 comments:

  1. Appreciate the way you have addressed an important issue. One thing for sure we need not take The Bait of Satan, the subject on which John Bevere wrote his wonderful book.

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  2. Hi Tom, thanks for the question and your views as to the answers. This is an important issue and one the church struggles with often. actually, been there, done that.
    ;0} hope to not have to do that agin any time soon.

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  3. Tom, What a a great topic to bring up. It's so important. It seems to me that people are afraid to even talk about this subject but it's important to the health of the beautiful bride.

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  4. Hey Tom:
    This subject matter is one of the pink elephants of leadership. I am moved by the fact that you are willing to begin the discussion. I also am very much looking forward to seeing you and hearing you this week @ BOLD in NYC on Tuesday. God bless. Anthony DiMaio

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  5. You're a protestant yeah? Well maybe you should do a bit more reading on your own religion before you go disagreeing with him/her, because the fact that you're asking this makes me a little concerned about your ability to intelligently disagree with someone who's been to seminary and studies the Bible regularly. Luther and the other founders of protestantism encouraged every man and woman to come up with their own interpretation of the bible and Gods will, but not to give ill informed opinions. You need to read The Bible and other religious thinkers thoughts on it before you go disagreeing with someone who is so well informed. Individualism is encouraged in protestantism, but not ignorance. If you don't have the time or the will to inform yourself, you should probably just take his word for it, since its what he does for a living. You wouldn't disagree with a doctor if you didn't know anything about medicine. Read read read.

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  6. Hi Tate,

    I'm the pastor. I've been one for 27 years and from time to time I've had people disagree with me. I thought this blog post would prove helpful to those who, on occasion, find themselves at odds with church leadership.

    Tom

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