It is indeed a tragic situation that Mark Driscoll, the former pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle Washington, had to recently resign from the church that he co-founded in 1996 which as of March 2014 had grown to 14,000 members in five states and fifteen locations. He also founded The Resurgence, a theological cooperative, and co-founded several other church organizations: Churches Helping Churches, Acts 29, which is a church planting initiative, and The Gospel Coalition. Although I am not familiar with his ministry, from reports that I have read, he is obviously a man with extraordinary gifts and talents with the added charisma and public persona to coincide with it. The overseeing executive board of Mars Hill Church conducted an investigation based on accusations from staff and church members that accused Pastor Driscoll of “extreme arrogance, responding to conflict with a quick temper and harsh speech, and leading the staff and elders in a domineering manner”.At this point and time Pastor Driscoll desperately needs prayer, not only for himself, but for his family and former congregation as well. He should be applauded for his tireless work in attempting to spread the gospel abroad and attempting to impart wisdom into individuals and families. While others may be now taking the time to bash Pastor Driscoll, here are some additional things that we can learn from this escapade besides the ten that are already listed: 1). Gifts Versus Character. It is no doubt that Pastor Driscoll is a very gifted man. However, the overwhelming complaints against him regarding his sometimes abrasive and abusive leadership style indicates that he needs prayer in terms of developing certain spiritual fruit in his life. His gifts took him very far, but his character flaws and apparent lack of development of spiritual fruit proved to be detrimental to him at the end. If he takes self- inventory of himself and learns from the feedback and criticism of the way he interacts with others, he will no doubt rebound from this situation. God does not give church leaders special authority to talk to their members and staff anyway they desire. Everyone deserves respect. It is understood that Pastor Driscoll has been apologetic regarding his behavior. 2). Autocratic Leadership Styles. Autocratic or domineering types of leadership styles have overstayed their welcome, or in 70’s terms have “played out”. This is the type of leadership where the “top person” in the organization makes all of the decisions and basically there can be no forward movement or major decisions made without this person’s stamp of approval. Leaders need to be empowered to where they can actually help the pastor carry out the mission of the church. Whenever the church leadership does not empower and give the leadership the authority to act in such a way, they will find themselves overworked and overwhelmed, and the leadership will not reach its potential. In large or megachurch circles, this style of leadership will eventually prove to be detrimental to the long-term growth of the church because the leaders of the church will never be allowed to become empowered to carry out the mission and vision of the church nor will they be able to completely fulfill their personal callings within that type of structure. Among long-time leaders in these types of ministries, they will eventually leave (sometimes in masse) because they will feel that their spiritual gifts and talents have been suppressed just to satisfy the personal and oftentimes selfish needs of the leader. What do I mean by personal and selfish needs of the leader? • Financial Reasons. Sad to say, this happens far too much. It is In some instances, certain leaders may be called to remain at their prospective ministry on a permanent basis. For others, it is not so. It can actually be a good thing for perhaps a long-time leader to leave a church to establish another work for many reasons. For one, with the support of his former church, it gives the new pastor the much needed moral, spiritual, and sometimes financial support to succeed in ministry. In return, the new pastor can give back to his old ministry and help his former leader to be stronger in other ways. Secondly, it encourages other up and coming leaders to go forward with their spiritual callings. It gives them confidence in the ability of God being able to use them too. Finally, the new pastor’s former church will be strengthened because the departed members will always remained aligned with their former church. During the last several years in Chicago, 90% of church leaders in the five-fold ministry that I have met were trained, imparted into, commissioned, and released from a certain prominent leader whom I will not name. Although these people have established their own ministries, they are very obviously still connected to their spiritual leader’s network. This in effect strengthens this leader’s ministry. I have to say, it’s incredible how connected they are to their mentor. They even continue to attend regular Bible studies and other events on a regular basis. I hate to say this but, in many churches, the leaders will never, ever, release people from their ministries because they are looking at the fact that money for the church and support for their personal living standards may be reduced or lost. I hate to say this as well, but over the past several years, I have been reading about the “financial raping” of churches that is not only occurring in the United States but overseas that God is not pleased with. Mark my words, you will hear more abut this in the upcoming future. Too many churches are being financially exploited all over the world. A good friend of mine recently told me that a very prominent minister saw the anointing and power of God operate during a fellow minister’s church service and later approached him and said, “We should team up together and go on the road because we can make a lot of money”. When I heard this, I felt nauseated for days. The same friend told me a fellow minister whom he just met, offered to ordain him for a “discounted” fee of $500.00! People of God, the House of God has been turned into a meat market! How about when guest ministers agree to speak at a church, but have a written contract that states that they must receive half of the offering that they will help raise, and in many cases, will stipulate that an officer of their church must be present when the money is counted! However, many churches will actually bring in these types of manipulative speakers into their church because they are gifted in the area of raising large offerings. So sad, but true. It is definitely not wrong for the church to take care of the pastor because is in indeed biblical to do so. However, this whole concept cannot go overboard because the whole church can possibly financially collapse. This is also true in other non-profit arenas and in the corporate industry as well. The top leader of an organization cannot greedily take 50% of the organizational or company finances as “salary” for him or herself because they feel that they “deserve it” or otherwise, the organization will struggle and probably collapse. Remember some years ago when ComEd was complaining that they needed to raise our rates or they might go bankrupt? Well, the Sun-Times produced a report to indicate that the top level executives were making exorbitant salaries particularly one divisional vice-president who was making 17 million per year! He wasn’t even the VP of the company, but over a division! Or the former Walmart CEO, whose employees were apparently making below minimum wage, but he was making 38 million dollars per year! That looked real bad folks. In the church world, let’s say if the annual income of the ministry is $500,000, but the pastor’s salary is $250.000, then that church will suffer. The ministry will be void of necessary repairs, and the lights, gas, and the water will probably get shut off, etc. The servant is indeed worthy of his hire, but not at the expense of God’s house lying in waste. I love the fact that church leaders such as Bishop T.D. Jakes and Joel Osteen have created their own streams of wealth to the point that they do not need to accept a salary from the church. This way, people cannot accuse them of stealing from the church. • Because of the oftentimes tough, fearless, bold type of exterior that many autocratic leaders display, people around them are afraid of them. This was probably why Pastor Driscoll got away with talking to people in such a rude manner for so many years. Much to the contrary, autocratic leaders are usually extremely insecure individuals who usually experienced episodes of traumatic childhoods, etc. The positive side of this is that God uses these types of personalities to accomplish goals in the kingdom and usually are pretty successful in doing so. This is how Pastor Driscoll was remarkably successful in accomplishing so much in such a short period of time. He was undoubtedly a relentless, tireless worker. In one interview, he described himself as extremely “competitive”. The competitive aspect of his personality contained some good traits, but also indicated that his ego and some pride were probably involved. The negative side of this type of personality is that if they are not well balanced or have someone to help balance them, everything becomes totally all about them. These are called personality driven churches, where the church is basically built around the pastor’s personality. The problem is that everything will center on the leader. You can readily identify these types of ministries because whenever you ask someone what church they attend, they will never tell you the name of the church, but the name of the pastor. The praise team will perform songs based upon what songs they feel the “pastor likes”. Even if Jesus Himself was visible to the eye and standing in the pulpit, the intercessory team will immediately stop praying because the pastor just walked in which is considered not to be disrespectful to the Holy Spirit because that is considered to be the pastor’s spiritual protocol. In many churches, promising young ministers will not be given opportunities to be promoted or advanced because the senior leaders are oftentimes afraid of the potential of these people of excelling them. A friend of mine told me of a story of a friend of his that approached his pastor and told him that he believed that God was directing him to leave his present ministry and establish his own ministry. The pastor of the church responded by saying to him, “Go sit down!” Another long-time minister of a church approached his pastor and told him the same thing and his pastor’s response was, “You’re not ready”. Although the minister was a little surprised at his pastor’s response considering that he had been in high church leadership for over 20 years, he wanted to know what he needed to do to “be ready”, but his pastor never could give him a logical explanation for his response. Sometimes, these types of leaders take it all too personal when members leave their congregation. So what usually occurs is that the pastor will usually get in the pulpit and bash their former leaders as if they have been betrayed. When the pastor really doesn’t want to let you go, you will never get a clear response. According to him or her, you will never be ready. You will forever remain in a constant state of training to remind you that you aren’t ready and that there is too much suffering and pain in branching out to start your own ministry. “Why would you want to do this?” You must be crazy?” The question is, “Why wouldn’t you, if God placed this on your heart”. 3). Spiritual Elevation of Man/Lack of Accountability. Although it is apparent that Pastor Driscoll had some issues regarding his social skills, but these personality and character defects could not have developed to the point in which they did unless people around him allowed it. In autocratic churches, the “ultimate” leader or leaders are usually not accountable to anyone. Part of this arises out the notion that the pastor is basically untouchable because he/she hears from God, and to obey God’s “touch not God’s anointed” scripture, which is often used out of context to support the notion that no one can correct the leader but God. I am in no way shape or form condoning members to correct their church leaders. However, I am saying that church leaders should be accountable to someone or an executive board that is not a board staffed with people who are controlled by the leader, but can hold the leader responsible for his/her behavior, and be accountable to God for the fiscal shape of the church. It is wrong for church members to lift the pastor up as if he or she were God, but when any type of character flaw is revealed in the leader everyone wants to suddenly treat them like they are Satan. Hence, I believe that Pastor Driscoll will recover from his recent setback. This should be an example to all of us that no matter how successful we become or whatever great accomplishments we attain, that they do not serve as confirmation of our spirituality or fruit. It is not how we start, but how we finish. Let’s stop lifting up spiritual leaders like they are God and realize that they human with human flaws. Shalom.
Posted on: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 19:17:43 +0000
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