How do you handle anonymous letter in your church?

Just wondering what your church does when an anonymous letter to the pastor pops up?

What kind of letter is it? If it is a letter of complaint or it contains accusations against certain persons, then the Bible says that a matter is established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

An anonymous letter is no witness, and has no merit. Dispense with it accordingly.

On the other hand, if it is a prayer request or a general complaint or suggestion, it's at least worth considering.

 

This I do agree!

 

That should be very familiar for you after all you do it on this site often enough.

Kind of like questioning peoples salvation because they listen to certain types of music.

 

Personal attacks are not welcome nor is taking post out of context and are against BB rules.

you have now been reported

 

You know I wasn't the only one who questioned this person.

 

here is my quote it says "you guys" Mike never said whether the guys he plays with are christians in fact he indicated they were not

I wrote...

so stone me

 

I received an anonymous letter about 3 months ago. As far as I can recall, it was my first in over 30 years. The letter was an assault upon my leadership and a threat to leave the church. I think I know who wrote it, judging by the style of penmanship. At first I was angry, but my anger subsided. I told no one about the letter...not even my wife. I also thought about mentioning it from the pulpit, but I decided that I did not want to give the person who wrote it the pleasure of an acknowledgment. I would say that I lost 20 or 30 minutes sleep over this incident.

 

dh1948;
Good for you, and you are to be commended for the action you took. I also have received letters that I never told the church about but handled it myself.

 

Who is it???? I won't tell a soul.

 

piaairline,

Truly a difficult situation. But we all must follow the Scripture. Read 1 Timothy 5:19-20---There is no way to deal with the situation you stated above based on an anonymous letter. There must be witnesses, not inuendo. How would church leadership be able to deal with a pastor or minister in this situation based on a letter that is anonymous? This kind of thing could destroy a man, his family and the church. A court of law would not receive such a letter as evidence and neither should the church. The Bible is our standard it tells how we deal with a sinning elder (pastor).

Bro Tony

 

See Ransom's reply, page 6.

 

Hi Everyone
I don't want to post much, I really more enjoy reading the posts but I wanted to say I just wrote an anonymous letter a few days ago. It was concerning a lady, new to the area, who had just attended my inhome bible study. She has a wonderful perosnality, so I was really blindsided when she started acting crazy...She took over the study, we never got past the first paragraph, then sent multiple emails to my home the following day over her concern about what another participant shared about herself. It wasn't much to begin with but an obsessive personality became apparent. She told me she didn't participate for herself, but to "help" me. I replied with I couldn't give out other's personal information, and I wished she would focus on doing the study for herself, but I appreciate that she cares. She flipped. She emailed me with harrassing notes saying she would come to my home against my will while I was at work, calling me controlling etc...She sent me an apology yesterday, I replied with an apology back so I think it's fine.
I did sent a short anonymous note to her church, because my conscience kept bothering me. I would have likely sent an anonymous note even if I attended the same church with her.

I wanted to sign my name, but for my safety, I decided against it. I doubt she is dangerous but you never know for sure. I thought I would mention this as a reason why someone might want to send an anonymous note. Blessings to all

 

Just like i said the main reason someone would send one would be OUT OF FEAR of being labeled and finger pointing!

If people didn't have blinders on and didn't show partiality towards others there would be no need to sign an anonymous letter. but life isn't fair and people are falible. So to get things delt with sometimes one has to make sure it is the message that is focus on and not the messenger so God's work can be accomplished.

Here is an example i know of. a couple was living in sin in a church and the pastor knew about it. but because of a relational click with the women they didn't care (IFBC by the way). when the sinning couple was talked to by another couple about the sitiuation and their sin the guy said basically why buy the cow when the milk was free. so knowing that the pastor was ok with it and the couple was not going to obey God, they sent an anonymous letter to the pastor approaching it from a sound Godly biblical procedure hoping God's word would be enough to convict the pastor to take action. well because of PRIDE and his CONTROLLING ways.he went before the whole congregation and called the Anonymous letter person a pharesee and all kinds of names putting that person down in public. just think how embarassing that would have been if had mentioned their name. He already was known for pointing people out if they weren't singing or sleeping in church.

If pastors and laymen will not follow Matt 18 then i can see where this is done and done appropiately. And before anyone attacks me I have never have had the need to send a letter not signed. so no that wasn't me it was someone i had counseled.

 

I've never been in a church where the pastor got more upset over people not singing or falling asleep in the service than he did about people cohabitating.

But if this did happen, why point out that it is an IFBC? Does that make it worse than if it were a SBC or any other Baptist denomination?

It shouldn't be happening in ANY Baptist church!

 

Sorry didn't mean to say all IFBC are like this but i sure do deal with people who come from these kind of churches that have similar problems. Yes this pastor had some real control issues and he didn't like anyone disrespecting him by sleeping during service or not singing. comment was that he would point out that a person wasn't godly if they did that. I bet it just hurt his feelings and ego.

 

I'm not saying this pastor doesn't do this, but when you said, "comment was that...", it sounds to me like gossip and unproven facts.

If that is the case, maybe the part about him condoning cohabitation was gossip also.

I do not believe anything that I have not seen with my own eyes and THAT doesn't even give me the right to repeat it.

True or false, a pastor is being smeared here with no way to defend himself. That's not the Christian way to do things.

 

What is wrong with you? You can't smear someone if their name isn't mentioned. please make some sense on this. How can it be gossip if i am counseling someone, now who is picking a fight?

 

I am most certainly not picking a fight but, as a counselor, are you supposed to be posting what your clients tell you all over the Internet?

In my opinion, it would behoove us to clean the mote out of our own eye...