Editor’s note: On rare occasions, BNG will publish an opinion piece without revealing the name of the author. This is one of those cases for what will appear to the reader as obvious reasons. The editor knows the identity of the author and the veracity of the author’s claims.
After reading the recent news article and then analysis piece, both by BNG Editor Mark Wingfield, regarding the unfortunate dismissal of Ben Boswell from Myers Park Baptist Church in North Carolina, I thought to tell a tale of three churches from which I was ejected, in one way or another. One represented a bad time, another manifested a worse time, and yet another evinced the worst time. Pardon me, Charles Dickens.
Church No. 1 — a bad time
In the first church, I, in fact, never even got to serve. The search committee placed my name before the congregation for a vote and I prevailed. Shortly afterward, the chair of the committee died, and the committee went rogue.
There were some family members on the committee who considered me unsuitable. I suppose this is what happens to some people who are called as pastor to the church of their youth, wherein some members of the search committee either have ideas that they are better than others or simply cannot get past the idea that “little Johnny” will always be “little” and cannot be their pastor.
“I later realized the secretary was intercepting the letters and replying on his own family’s behalf.”
What followed was months of chicanery, wherein I was writing to the church membership via the church secretary, inquiring about the rest of the process toward beginning service as pastor. I later realized the secretary, also secretary of the search committee and a member of that family who supposed themselves a class or two above my own, was intercepting the letters and replying on his own family’s behalf. The church never received, saw or considered my letters.
Sometime later, while still awaiting communication from the church about the assumption of service and duties, I learned a call had been issued to another person, who was not a candidate when the call was issued to me. The committee was clearly dazzled by the academic letters of this person, and he assumed duties. The committee never even gave me the courtesy of a letter rescinding the call to me — which, although contrary to Baptist congregational polity, would have been better than nothing.
I shall tell you the end of that story later.
Church No. 2 — a worse time
In the second church, I followed four predecessors, none of whom exceeded 12 to 18 months of service before they were terminated. Each time the “deacon board” fired a pastor, the congregation shrank. I went in with my eyes wide open, after serving them as visiting preacher for almost a year. My tenure as called pastor did not exceed eight months!
As one example of the dysfunction, I never received keys to the pastor’s office because “there were too many sensitive documents in the pastor’s office” — that, stated by the chair of the “deacon board.” I was fired a few days after I dared to welcome five new members to the church, bypassing the approval of the said “deacon board,” who failed to approve the group when there were 15 candidates.
“I never received keys to the pastor’s office because ‘there were too many sensitive documents in the pastor’s office.’”
After four months of their dereliction of duty to interview the 15, during which time 10 went elsewhere, and upon a rereading of the bylaws (which I had previously misread), I discovered I was clear to proceed without the diaconate and so advised them.
In the service where those remaining five were being welcomed, the deacons loudly protested and came at me menacingly. It was only the intervention of one of our denominational leaders whom I invited (for I anticipated some mischief) who prevented the confrontation from becoming an assault.
Someone told me one of the deacon’s sons hurled the F-bomb at me. That deacon himself told me I was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Five days later, a lawyer’s letter instructed me to return all keys to the church, and to vacate the parsonage, and warned that stepping onto the property would be trespassing. I was fired.
I shall tell you the end of that story later.
Church No. 3 — the worst of times
In the third church, I returned from a sabbatical leave and ran afoul of a worship leader who became mad with me for making changes to the order of worship. Her exact words were, “I enjoyed my ministry while you were away, because I got to do what I wanted!”
A close relative of hers was the chair of elders. The next week, I was meeting with the elders the first time after my return. I began the meeting by asking about how they fared with their undertakings during my leave, since we considered it a time for pastor, leaders and congregation to engage in reflection. The chair declared they hadn’t done any of what they were to do; and for the next 45 minutes, each of the five men rambled about this and that with nebulous comments — with an equally unclear theme that was encapsulated in “Pastor, it’s not working!”
“I enjoyed my ministry while you were away, because I got to do what I wanted!”
Finally, I raised the question, “Gentlemen, am I hearing you saying I should resign?”
One by one, each said yes. I told them there and then: “OK. I shall inform my denominational leader tonight that I am resigning.” And I did exactly that.
The leaders behaved dishonorably. They poisoned the membership’s minds. Those who got news of my departure before the elders’ version received it with great sadness; but those who heard the elders’ version first treated me and my wife despicably. I cannot imagine the treatment being worse had I pilfered the church’s funds, molested a child, or slept with one of the members. The separation was woefully mismanaged by denominational operatives. Then the church called its next pastor.
Three endings
There is an ending to that story, but let me first tell you the ending of the first two.
The pastor church No. 1 called came in and behaved as though he got a prize. I am sad to say his educational letters oversold his true abilities. I am sadder to say he fell into egregious moral failure that ended his marriage and his reputation. I am saddest to say that thriving church, with a solid 130 in attendance at that time, has been, for much more than two decades, limping along with sometimes five, sometimes 10 people attending. They never recovered from the search committee’s mischief.
Church No. 2 has not fared any differently. The 15 people who might have been received into membership would have created a 100% increase in that church’s membership at that time. This church, too, for two decades has struggled with no settled pastor, no growth and no resurgence. The church consistently attracts no more than eight to 10 people in worship each week. The denominational leader who was present that Sunday had warned them, “This is your last chance to change and grow; don’t blow it by firing this pastor.”
And what of church No. 3? Although there was some member attrition during my service, I had returned from sabbatical leave with new energy, new ideas and had even begun a course of studies that was transforming my life and would have transformed the congregation also. But the leaders did not see me in their future; instead, they called someone after me in whom they thought they saw their future. I am sorry to say the church experienced so great a decline under his leadership, that it is now closed. That church exists no more.
The moral of the stories
In each of these tales, the common thread is leader mischief, leader misjudgment, leader meanness, and what I’ll call leader mirage — where leaders think their church is a current desert under present leadership, and dash after (new) water (pastors) they think they see, but which simply isn’t there.
Although Myers Park already has let Ben Boswell go, I warn them and others like them with these three stories. I bet there are more than just these three.
Go carefully, church. Go carefully, board, council or congregation, whoever you are. In this prophet-needful age in which we live, the American church must decide if we shall be a prophetic community (of John the Baptist, and maybe even “Ben the Boswell” vintage); or if we would rather be a pretentious community instead, who only desire pampering.
That sounds like the lukewarm Laodicean church, so tasteless Jesus projectile-vomited it out of his mouth. I grieve for those American congregations who say they aren’t in Trumpland, yet chase away their prophets.