Why Do Pastors Do This?

When you do things that are intended to get people to leave your church, such as what happened to us at the last Calvinist church we attended, should it be surprising if someone says something?

Now I am stuck. For a very brief period of time I felt that I should say something to people about why we had left our church. I had a "savior complex." I guess that is the best way to describe it. I wanted to save people from a church I knew was dying. But now I look at it differently. My contention with the church might cause some people to lose faith. Now that we seem to have made the decision to leave the church we were visiting we face this same problem. Fortunately not as many people will call us and ask why, but the few who do I don't think I can say. I suppose I will just say that "it's complicated."

I really look forward to the day when this will all be over. I just want to get on with my life not sit around wondering why people bother to go into the ministry when it's obvious they cannot love all the people of God.

"Those who love saints, as such, love all saints, how weak in grace, how mean (poor) in the world, how fretful and peevish soever, some of them may be." Matthew Henry, Commentary on Eph 1:15

So We Took our Problem to the Church Leadership

This is a post inspired by the movie Courageous. I saw the movie 2 or 3 times in the theater but watching it last night on DVD I related to something in the middle of it in a way I hadn't before.  In the middle of the movie, the main character goes to his pastor for counsel in the middle of a very difficult personal situation. (Trying not to post any spoilers here.) We've done that.  In fact, we've done that at each Reformed church we attended (by Reformed I mean any Calvinist church never mind the denominational affiliation). Obviously, throughout nearly 2 decades we've had our share of trials. In each trial we have turned to the church. In each trial were were either pushed aside or given very little biblical counsel. Ultimately this led to our final decision to leave the Reformed church and not attempt to find yet another.

We were told at the first church we attended that the pastor is too busy for the many problems of the congregation. Instead we are supposed to take it up with the elders, or for more serious problems they will direct us to a psychologist. This is problematic on many levels that we've experienced. 1) Elders are not trained. And by "not trained" I mean just that. Zero teaching of the elders on how to handle situations. They seem to do everything flying by the seat of their pants, or using their "experience" as a guide. There are churches who train their elders, I know. But we've not attended one and yet this is the viewpoint of the pastors. 2) Find a Calvinistic psychologist. Go ahead, I'll wait.  Who am I kidding? I don't have an eternity to wait until you get back to me. So we are sent to a psychologist who tells us that the real problem is generational curses. Awesome. :D

Flash over to the Baptist church we attend now. It is, membership wise, 100x larger than any Reformed church we have ever attended, yet, somehow, the pastors have time to attend to the needs of the congregation. They also train lay people to help others. They have classes to help marriage, help kids whose parents are divorced, help, period. They make available resources that will help you. They seem to be centered on helping their parishioners follow and love the Lord, then to turn around and help others do the same. They work hard to build up families through various means. Yet they definitely seem selective in what they present.

On any Sunday I can go to the pastor and tell him what ails me and can expect that he and the leadership will not just pray for us but will do everything in their power to help us. It is sad that we never found that at any of the Reformed churches we attended.