When Pastors Implode by Joseph Chavady

[b]When Pastors Implode[/b]
[i]by Joseph Chavady[/i]

Last month I went to preach in a church in Romania. The first question the church leaders asked me was when I had repented and made Christ the Lord of my life. They were more interested in my walk with the Lord than how famous I am, and I think we all can learn from this attitude. When was the last time you asked your pastor about his personal testimony and walk with God?

A few years in a Bible College simply qualifies another pastor to lead God's people.

In India some people become Hindu priests because their fathers were priests. It is not a calling but something familiar they grew up with. Here in North America it is not that different. A few years in a Bible College simply qualifies another pastor to lead God's people.

What do we make of the painful experience of watching Ted Haggard downfall? His church finally admitted that their pastor purchased methamphetamines and the services of a male prostitute.

A few years ago, I was sharing a room with a pastor during a national conference. Late that night during my sleep, I heard a strange muffled sound. My room mate was watching pornography on TV all night. The next morning he left to preach his "spirit-filled" sermon. How can this be?

And how often does this kind of thing actually happen? I have known Christian leaders with lustful eyes, and others with insatiable hunger for wealth, power and success. They are always looking for something bigger and better. The healthy lifestyles that satisfy most people seem to have become inadequate for them.

More than once we've seen the truth of such a person's life exposed; not always at once, but in a series of embarrassing disclosures. No amount of accountability seems to be adequate to contain a person living with such inner conflict. The church has been too lax in setting standards for its leaders. The time has come to repent and discern, watch and pray, rather than letting Christ's name be slandered again.

Most Pastors mostly implode because they are Pastors, at least of the modern Professional and Priest class that is prevalent in our modern form of protestantism.

The Priest class always assumes that it has the sole privilege of SUPPORT by means of their position, be it direct...[ salaried] or itinerant..[ offerings]. They ARE the Ministry class, who by virtue of their position, then cut off the true ministry, which is always channeled through a many membered body...by means of the local church.

Jesus said, "The hireling flees because he is a hireling!"...A father could not abandon his children, but cut off the cash, and your average so called Pastor, or minister is history. The other likewise powerful magnet to the hireling is POWER....being at the top...the defacto head of the church, the authority. this is very, very powerful...as we see in 3 John, with Diotrephes, who; " loves the preeminence among them.."

3 John 1:9
[ Diotrephes and Demetrius ] "I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to have the preeminence among them, does not receive us."

We see that the love of adoration and authority is also a major factor in One Pastor system. This is why the bible always has a plurality of equal shepherds...as a safeguard against the ambitious professional. every New testament pastoral letter was written to THE ELDERS.

In Acts 20, we read: 28 "Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you OVERSEERS....[ PLURAL ], to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. 29 For I know this, that after my departure SAVAGE WOLVES will come in among you, not sparing the flock. 30 Also from among YOURSELVES men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples AFTER THEMSELVES! 31 Therefore watch, and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears."

Power, and prestige, makes the professional who seeks a living on the back of the church. Be it the "Evangelist, or the Pastor... it separates the body into a LAY class, and the Priest class, and has been the driving force of division in the holy and authentic remnant since the beginning.

Because the "ministry class" is separate, they cut themselves off from the graces that are only provided via brotherhood, where the least of the brethren are honored, and do minister, and the only place the Jesus and His graces really dwell.

A man who has usurped this position in this unscriptural path, does pile divisions and prides upon his own head, and eventually must become an actor, to some degree or another, to perform his expected duties. He sees himself as a minister, and the body as the "people", and eventually implodes because of a profound loss of grace.