Why do the good people leave?

Amen

 

Boy, ain't this the truth. It is all about power and when the old guard is threatened, they dig in their heels. At this point, you have to outlast them ... keep preaching the word and and confronting them with Scripture. Unfortunately, I know this from experience.

 

If you do leave, I hope you will visit them often and always bring good tidings to them. I also hope they will let you visit.

Donuts and/or flowers are a good thing to bring folks also.

Do whatever it takes to keep all the brethren in very high esteem. It is a very gracious and faithful thing to do.

The power of unfailing Love and/or Charity can be a mysterious and underestimated power.

With regard,

Dave

 

Remember, He gave good advice: Matthew 5:39
"But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also."

 

It is always a tough decision, whether to stay and endure a bad situation, hoping that your position will be vindicated, or when to "cut bait" so to speak.

My wife and I went through this same decision last year. We had hung on for over a year, because several people encouraged us that things were going to be dealt with, but one new issue after another made it clear to us, that the overall direction of the leadership was tangent to our own philosophy, and our commitment to Biblical principles.

It was not a doctrinal issue, or even one of major practice, but it was something that we agonized over for a long time, and several things that we felt were unwise and rather emotionally driven, rather than by principle. To make it more difficult, we had family in the church as well, who are still there.

We eventually chose to leave, since I felt that I was going to do more harm to the church by staying since I could not in good conscience continue to wait and see, and keep my mouth shut. We are still on very good terms with everyone at the church, including the pastor, and while he was sad to see us go, he appreciated the fact that we were choosing to not create a huge problem. I had spoken to many in leadership, and even those who agreed with my position were not going to make an issue out of it. We visited 20-30 churches in our area, and have joined a church 5 minutes from our house. We are much more aligned with the leadership, and really there are many more opportunities for us to minister and for our kids as well. We are working with an Adult Bible Fellowship, and my wife has started a Ministry for young mothers. We agonized over leaving for a long time, but eventually recognized that God was leading us into something else, and it has been proven to be the right decision in our lives.

I don't know what the opportunities there in Buffalo are, since we have a church on every corner just about, but you do have to consider whether you could be more effective in ministry somewhere else, and if God is actually working in your life and church to compel you to find something else.

We prayed about this for a year, and had many many very long talks about it, and I would never encourage anyone to leave a church, in fact, we did not even encourage any of our close friends to leave, or even tell them our reasons specifically for doing so, unless they asked and made it clear that they already felt the way we did. The pastor was worried that we would cause several of our young married friends to want to leave, but they are all still there. We are still very close to several families from the church, including our relatives! Your situation may be different, but really, once you decide its time to go, the key is to leave with your own principles and dignity intact, and in a way that causes the least amount of damage or impact to the church. We really wished no evil on the church, and went out of our way to make the transition one that did not cause a major problem. We transitioned out of our ministries gradually, and made sure we had spoken to the leadership, the pastor first, so that they weren't the last to know, and we have never regretted leaving, or the way we left.

We will pray that you make the right decision, and that your ministry will contiunue to be effective, either in that church, or in another. I hear there's a great interim pastor at an E-free church in Casper! Might be a little commute though

 

The last church I pastored, one of the trustees came up to me the day the church voted to call me as their pastor.
With a smile, he told me:
"I'm really glad you're going to be our pastor and I'll do anything I can to help you."

From that day on, he fought me every step of the way - grumpy, belligerant, opposed to anything I wanted to do, including repainting the auditorium.

On the day I resigned that church, he came up to me, shook my hand, smiled and said:
"Preacher, we sure hate to see you go. I just feel like we didn't treat you right."

Let's face it, in most churches there are folks who want to run the church but they don't want to be the one standing in the pulpit preaching against sin.

They like to run things from behind the scenes. That kind of attitude can be a real drag on the pastor who works his heart out studying, preaching and teaching, doing visitation, winning souls and ministering to hurting folks while struggling with the folks in the church who are manuevering to get rid of him.

Sometimes a guy is better off leaving a "ministry" like that and starting a church from scratch.

And as a previous poster so sagely pointed out, there is much more to ministry than pastoring a church.

Many men I've known in the ministry felt that if God called them to preach, that automatically meant they were to become pastor of a church.

I don't believe that for a minute. Might be time to re-examine exactly what God intends you to do in the ministry.

In many of these situations, a humble attitude and a soft answer will turn away wrath.

Nothing is gained by venting your anger on folks who've wronged you although sometimes it takes an iron will to keep from doing that.

Jesus chose 12 disciples and one of them was a devil (Jn 6:70). I guess we're blessed if we only have one 'devil' to deal with in a church.