As a matter of curiosity, I checked out the website of a church in my community the other day and was amazed to discover that since its inception sixty-six years ago it has had twenty-three pastors. That averages out at one pastor every 2.86 years! Four pastors look to have been there for four years, one for five years, two for six years and one for seven years. That averages the other fifteen pastors out at staying for 1.7 years! I spent the next few minutes checking the history of other churches to see if they had a list of former pastors but couldn’t find any. It’s probably just as well. In fact, if I was pastor of that church I would remove that historical list, believing it nothing to be proud about!
In my thinking, that’s a church that speaks volumes about religious people, but very little about Jesus Christ. When I first became a Christian I was taught that the church that expresses Jesus Christ will have spiritual growth and the community will know about it; the church that expresses man will not have spiritual growth and nobody will know about it. That’s how it appears to be with this church, nobody knows about it except the few who belong to it. How could it possibly be otherwise with such a high rotation of pastors? On the other hand, I know of a church overseas whose pastor has been with them for over forty years and their spiritual growth is all he cares about. As a result it is a church with a membership in the thousands.
That pastor is not heading up a junkyard prosperity gospel or purpose driven church either. He is an expositional preacher and teacher who, from the Bible, feeds his people verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book. Holiness, godliness and righteousness is evident in him as it is in many of his people. Were that the case with the people in the church who’ve had twenty-three pastors, the community would have known about it at some point in sixty-six years, but to my knowledge it hasn’t. So the question to be asked is, how come a church can go through twenty-three pastors in sixty-six years? One answer to consider perhaps, some of them were not called by God. They either called themselves or the church called them.
What do I mean by, “the church called them”? Any man who’s been to Bible college or seminary knows more about God, Jesus and the Bible than the average church person knows, so all he has to do is talk in like manner, concentrating on looking the part as he talks, and they’ll believe he is the part. Being in urgent need of a pastor, they’ll hire him. It can be quite a task interviewing prospective pastors, so most people will not want to string it out any longer than they have to. They won’t stop to consider that after twelve months or so he’ll run out of things to say. So they’ll be shocked when one Sunday morning he informs the church that, “God has called me” to another church or another ministry, or overseas missionary work.
They’ll be less shocked the next time it happens though … and the next … and the next. However, instead of seeing these men as hirelings and others as spiritual frauds, they’ll embrace the lie from each one who tells them, “God has called me to……..” Granted, from time to time God might call the odd one or two to an interim ministry, but everybody knows about it upfront. When his time is up he doesn’t drop it on them suddenly one morning and leave a trail of spiritual anemia and instability behind him as he walks out the door. Am I saying that’s what been happening in that church? No, I’m not. But it happens in churches in every generation all over the world. There has to be a reason for spiritually lifeless churches and a high rotation of pastors is a good reason.
Another answer to consider: the church refuses to go spiritually where the pastor wants to take it. In other words, he wants to take it beyond the first principles of the gospel – repentance, faith in Jesus for salvation and baptism by full immersion Hebrews 5:12-14. He knows that if that’s where the people stop, they’ll remain spiritually immature, stunted babies in Christ. So he begins to preach and teach on the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the need not just for forgiveness for sins but for deliverance from sin. In other words he tells them the Holy Spirit is going after the root of sin more so than the fruit of sin. If He can cut it off at the root, the fruit will die. The church doesn’t want to hear that; it wants to hear about the power of the Holy Spirit.
In what sense they mean by the power they’re not sure, but they’re very sure they don’t mean in the sense of sin deliverance! “When I turned to Christ, all my sins were forgiven!” they’ll say. That’s true, they are forgiven, but for spiritual maturity’s sake, the Holy Spirit much prefers a series of deliverances from sin than He does a series of forgiveness’s for sins. They don’t understand the distinctions between the two and they don’t want to understand either because it cuts too close to the bone! They want physical healing, they want revival, they want to “feel” the presence of God among them, they want anointed preaching, they want anointed singing, but they don’t want the Spirit of God coming any closer to them than they want!
The pastor understands that spiritual maturity in the manner that he’s preaching and teaching it, is not the desire of most Christians in his church, but he’s encouraged by the odd man and woman in whom he sees change with enthusiasm. But it is only the odd man and woman. The rest begin to murmur and complain, speaking behind his back. Some withhold their financial giving, they stop coming to the monthly prayer meeting, some cease holding weekly Bible studies in the home, others don’t attend the Sunday services as regularly as they used to. As for the odd man and woman, they’ve been cut out of the circle too. Whilst that grieves the odd man and woman, they’re blessed by the Holy Spirit who’s revealed to them they should expect nothing less.
Holiness, godliness and righteousness comes at a price, but they’ll pay it; they’ve waited years to learn more about the attributes and ministry of the Holy Spirit and how He seeks to reign freely in His people releasing them from sin and all forms of man-centered religious slavery 2 Corinthians 3:17. They always knew God had something far superior for them in the church than simply participating in football tips, working bees, church rosters, pot-luck dinners, car park fund-raising events, overseas missions projects, building fund projects and “evangelistic” events at Christmas and Easter time. Now they’re beginning to understand why that stuff never really turned them on like it does the rest of the church.
Sadly however, after a few years of prayer before God in relation to the spiritual battle he’s engaging in with regards the people’s carnality, the pastor responds to the Holy Spirit who tells him to move on. It is always the Holy Spirit’s desire not to fight self-willed people – especially self-willed religious people! Just as they didn’t want truth when Jesus was on the earth, neither do they want the Holy Spirit in that church, the only One who can lead them into all truth John 16:13. To be led into all truth is not the reason they joined the church in the first place. To be led into truth that’s pleasant to the ear and carnal understanding is the reason they joined. Yes, Jesus is important to them, but so are the football tips – equally so!
And so the Holy Spirit-led servant of God leaves that church, another man comes in and the cycle begins all over again. The hireling comes, he goes; the spiritual fraud comes, he goes; the Spirit-led servant comes; he goes. The only people who don’t go are the church crowd; that is, until they die and get replaced by someone else exactly like them! Yet if you sit and talk with a long-standing member of such an institution, they’ll tell you the “proud history” of the place, which families donated money for the stained glass windows, the Lord’s Table and other “sacred” furniture. They will tell you about the Community Who’s Who that once attended the children’s Sunday school classes. The fact they now live as heathens doesn’t bother the one giving the low-down!
The long-standing member is proud to tell you of his or her son, daughter, grandson, granddaughter – the lawyer, the judge, the professor, the doctor, the heart specialist, the business leader, the community leader, the media personality etc. The fact that this one and that one now thinks the Bible is an antiquated old book of myths and legends, that Jesus Christ is a fool, that the gospel message is ridiculous in this day and age doesn’t bother him or her either. Should you ask that member if they’re praying for the salvation of the loved one they’ve spent the last five minutes boasting to you about, they’ll be embarrassed, offended and change the subject or walk away from you. That’s an indication their own soul is in jeopardy.
Churches that have a high rotation of pastors are painfully ignorant of Bible prophecy, especially as it refers to the return of Jesus Christ. They know next to nothing about ‘the Rapture of the church’ ‘the Bema seat judgment of Christ’ ‘the Marriage Supper of the Lamb’ ‘the rule of Antichrist and the False Prophet’ ‘the Great Tribulation’ ‘the return and Kingly reign of the Church with Jesus Christ during the Millennial Age’ ‘Israel as the Head of Nations during that Age’ ‘the Great White Throne Judgment at the end of that Age’ ‘the new heaven and the new earth’ – all of it the Christian’s glorious hope and they’re unable or unwilling to talk about it. They’d rather talk about something else – anything else!
The odd man and woman long to know more about those things, so what do they do? They prostrate themselves before God and tell Him so. What does God do? He’s overjoyed with them; He sees them as a man and woman after His own heart. Because they delight themselves in the Lord, He gives them the desires of their heart just like Psalm 37:4 says He does. God places in their hands reputable books and studies on Bible prophecy written by holy, godly and righteous men whose works have stood the test of time. There is no hint of spiritual pride or arrogance in the works, but rather, all of it God-honoring, all of it Christ-honoring. The odd man and woman are astounded at what the Holy Spirit is revealing to them. “Be diligent to present yourself to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” 2 Timothy 2:15.