This was originally publish at Joel Rainey’s blog “Themelios.” I appreciate his willingness to share it with us.
About 13 years ago, Pastor Trey Rhodes was sitting in a meeting of other pastors who were considering the sponsorship of a new church. The local Baptist Association had called this meeting to discuss “concerns” that several of the pastors had relative to this new church proposal. Church planting wasn’t nearly as “cool” back then as it is now, and in fact was held in high suspicion in several segments of my denomination. In particular, these guys were concerned about the theology, evangelistic philosophy, and church growth methods this young church planter under their inspection wanted to employ.
Before long, the meeting turned caustic, with accusations of heresy and being “unBaptistic” being leveled at a young guy who wasn’t in the room to defend himself.
That young guy was me.
After hearing several very negative comments about me, Pastor Trey obtained my phone number and called me directly. Over the next several months as we got to know each other and he came to understand who I really was and what I wanted to see accomplished through planting new churches, he became a fan, and later on, a very dear friend. Two years after this, our new church had the opportunity to play a small role in helping Trey launch out himself to start a new church.
Such was the Kingdom advance that resulted from the decision to make a single phone call, and actually get to know someone. It’s a shame that doesn’t happen more often.
As a guy who spends most of his time working with pastors and seeking to bring the churches they lead to greater missional cooperation, I’ve spent more time than I want trying to de-fuse misconceptions and get past misunderstandings, and toward the commonalities I know are present for us to be on mission together. To be sure, I’m convinced I serve with some of the finest pastors in the country. I’m thankful that in the northeast, we don’t have the luxury of so easily dividing over silly issues and gross mischaracterizations of each other. When you represent less than .01% of the total population, you simply cannot afford to divide on too many things! Nevertheless, even in an area like ours the propensity exists to hold fellow pastors in suspicion, merely on the word from a third party, and without talking to them directly.
We who dare to pastor churches should know better! We preach from a Bible that clearly instructs us to refrain from making judgements on fallacious grounds, and we serve a Lord who was crucified precisely because of the same kind of rumor-mongering, slander, and character assassination that, regrettably, some in pastoral leadership sometimes commit without thinking.
This scenario happens every time we say of one of our fellow pastors “I heard he is a Calvinist! He must not believe in sharing Jesus,” or “with the way his church is growing, he MUST be compromising something!” or “I’m not so sure he is ‘one of us’.”
It continues with assignment of motive without any basis in reality. If he employs a church growth tactic we don’t agree with we assume he is “all about the numbers.” If he hosts a Super Bowl party on a Sunday night we assume he is “bowing to the idol of professional football.” If he engages a segment of his culture in a way we think goes too far, we declare that he has “sold out.”
When such claims are thoughtlessly made without so much as a shred of evidence, or without actually trying to get to know someone, those actions say more about us than those we are accusing. To be sure, putting someone else down often makes us appear better, more holy, and closer to God in our own minds, but it does nothing to help the reputation of our Lord Jesus or the advance of His Kingdom.
Making matters worse, too many pastors don’t go right to the source, but instead rely on so-called “discernment ministries,” organizations who make it their life’s work to destroy the ministry of anyone they deem heretical. Funny thing is that many of these so-called ministries are themselves guilty of malpractice, since the overwhelming majority are not directly accountable to any local church, and that should tell you pretty much everything you need to know. Pastors have the intelligence and ability to seek out accurate answers about a fellow pastor simply by reading original source material. When it comes to the “big name” guys, make sure you have read their books before you say anything publicly so that whatever you say you can say with accuracy.
Oh, and when it comes to the pastor across town, the solution is easier still. Don’t say a word about him from your pulpit until you have sat down with him personally.
Am I suggesting that pastors should not warn their people when they believe false teaching is present? Not at all! Paul warned us that wolves abound who look like sheep, and part of our role includes the protection of our flocks. But I am suggesting that our current practice of third-party sources and hearsay means we “cry wolf” way too often, and lose the respect and attention of our people in the process, thereby opening them up to REAL attacks from REAL false prophets.
We are not politicians in competition with one another for the “party nomination.” We are a band of brothers on the same side of the battlefield, and who need to ensure that, in the midst of all the casualties that already result from the degree of spiritual battle in which we are involved, “friendly fire” isn’t the cause of those casualties.
We rightly lament the rampant gossip, backbiting, slander, and character assassination that so often takes place in our churches. We wonder to ourselves how on earth people who are supposed to know and walk with Jesus can act in such ways.
Gentlemen, the sad truth is that many times, they act in such ways because they are following our example! We need to set a better one!
The pastorate needs more good men like Pastor Trey Rhodes. And the evangelical church needs its present leadership to commit to better discernment that is guided by actually getting to know other people. Stopping this kind of ungodly behavior in our churches begins with us.
Thank you, Joel Rainey, for a most helpful and inspiring blog. I would like to respond to the matter of hearing, “he is a calvinist! He must not believe in sharing Jesus.” I have a son (both spiritually and physically) in the ministry, who seems to be doing very well at sharing Jesus with his theology of Sovereign Grace. In fact, he is not only doing well at it, he is crossing racial lines (so-called). On the 5th of Feb., Black History Month, he had a fellow join his church, a Black man, married to a White wife, who had already joined some time ago. I think it is ironic to consider that my project for the Doctor of Ministry at SEBTS was on the subject, Christian Love & Race Relations, and the liberal professor who was director said to me in ’75, “You ought to have known better than to have selected a controversial topic like this. If that church fires you, I will be right there behind them, supporting them.” Well, I didn’t get fired, and later the prof. started nit-picking my project to death..until the week before graduation, I blew up and called the President. I guess they thought that like the joke went back in the days of integration, they thought they had one, too. By that I mean a black couple went into an appliance store to purchase a washing machine. The salesman showed them what the store had, a long line of white washing machines. The wife asked, “Is white the only color you have?” The salesman aware of the problem and ready for it flipped up a lid and said, “Don’t worry, Ma’am! There is a Black Agitator in every one of them!” I guest the seminary thought they had a black agitator in my white skin, for in two days my project was approved and I graduated. As to soul winning, I have longed to see multitudes of souls won to Christ.
After working my way through a lot of eschatology, I came to realize that there could be a thousand generations (allow 20 years per generation and that is about 20,000 years) of the elect and of every would being won to Christ during those generations (I Chrons.16:15). That was a great help to my praying for a third Great Awakening as was the question by the wisest man I ever met: “Have you ever thought of the fact that at anyone time every last soul upon the earth could be the elect of God?” I answered, “No! I had not thought of it.” How could I? My eschatology would not allow for it. Then I found out that Jonah blew my eschatology all to pieces, and I learned to think outside the box someone had created for me back in the early 1800s and late 1700s. Think only with that box was what someone else desired that I do, but John Robinson, the founding pastor of the Pilgrims, helped me to appreciate the depths of God’s written word with this question: “Who knows what new light is getting ready to break forth from God’s word?” Well, the doctrine of justification by faith alone broke forth with Luther, and the doctrine of religious liberty broke forth with the Baptists of England and America, General and Particular, and the latter put it into law and practice and the rest, as they say, is history.
God give us souls. Let the power of Heaven fall upon your ministers, even the sorriest ones (I count my self in this number). God let our words, our actions, our very beings remind people of you; let your presence upon us and in us be so great that others will feel it and discern it and know it and respond accordingly. Let our words to win them be so wonderful, the truths, rather, that we present, gleam so wonderfully that no one can resist them. Let each doctrine of TULIP be the most soul winning truths,…along with Predestination and Reprobation, yes, the very means of conversion, the means, the instrument to draw forth the new life desiring the mild of the word. And souls. God give me souls, multitudinous numbers of souls, lest I perish with nothing to show for my life in your service. Let me hear the efforts of other of your servants, even if their views, are wanting in many respects. Perfection is not possible in this world, and you can strike a straight blow with a crooked stick, and you certainly do so with this crooked stick, myself, I pray and trust.
People used to say, “The Christian army is the only one that shoots its wounded.” It goes beyond that.
The Christian army is the only one that intentionally fires on its own ranks.
Great stuff, Joel.
“We are a band of brothers on the same side of the battlefield, and who need to ensure that, in the midst of all the casualties that already result from the degree of spiritual battle in which we are involved, “friendly fire” isn’t the cause of those casualties.”
Excellent. Words we all need to hear.
Great post, Joel.
Very needed.
My experience is nothing like this. From my pov as a pastor who occasionally has had occasion to listen to planters, I don’t recall any that were viewed with suspicion. The last few, however, did toss out a church planting/launching/rocketing budget that was substantially above the average annual budget for churches they were looking to for financial support.
Superbowl parties are perfectly fine around here except for with Dour Dave Miller and a few others.
It’s funny how we are impacted at the right place at the right time. I was a strong believer in church planting before it was cool. When Joel came into our meeting, I was very excited to hear what he had to say. I was also very disappointed in the response of my fellow pastors. Joel was truly instrumental in so many ways in getting our church planting gears turning. I now know, it was was divine Providence that brought us together. God bless you, Joel, for being God’s man at God’s time in my life. I’m so glad that you shared your vision that caught fire in my life. My challenge is to be all about the kingdom of God as we work together to reach our world for our wonderful Savior, Jesus Christ.
Let’s stop shooting our wounded and those who fail to keep lock step and get on with our business of spreading the gospel to the best of our understanding of it. Allowing, that there are areas that we do not fully comprehend. Just wait until you folks who believe in Sovereign Grace run into some of those Reformed foks who think slavery is okay and bat you over the head due to your not submitting to the teaching of Scripture!!! You know what is funny. No one ever told me I was going to Hell, when I was atheist. But, as soon as I was converted, within 3-5 mos, I was told by folks from three or four groups that I was on my road to a Devil’s Hell, because I did not agree with their particular understanding of Scripture. E.g., I didn’t keep the sabbath, I didn’t believe baptism saves, etc.(I forgot the ecteras). It was funny though. I believe we are nearing the time of another great awakening, a Third Great Awakening. The depths of Scripture is going to provide us with more light, light that will help us to reach the stars with the Gospel and continue for a 1000 generations and a million worlds. I often mull over the Narrow way and few there be that find it and the number in Heaven which no one can number. It does give one pause for thought. Thank you, Bro. Rainey, for your sufferings in behalf of new church planting and you, Trey Rhodes, for hanging in there for a fellow sufferer.
AMEN AND AMEN! It is amazing to me how many of our denomination feel it is more important to protect boundries than accompish God’s mission for us. I beleive some state and association people beleive that there is a figurative barbed wire fence protecting thier territories and thier primary responsibility is to protect that line, even if it means squashing the ability of resources being used more appropriately. God Bless