As Pastors: Can We Be “down” on Christians?
Bob Hyatt
Jun 24, 2011

By Adam Gustine

Recently, I have seen a slew of blog posts and twitter updates from pastors, both high and low profile, who have said something like, “I’m down on Christians who ____” , or “I can’t stand Christians who ______. ”

This isn’t the, oftentimes, intense online dialogue between church leaders who hold differing views. Passionate critique and dialogue between ministry leaders can be helpful (although we cross a lot of lines here too).

These are pastors taking aim at ordinary Christians. Presumably, people in their community. I don’t know if you have noticed this trend or not, but it seems to be jumping out at me more and more. Sometimes it is explicit condemnation, other times it is a harsh, angry tone that seems to betray the same inner feeling.

This trend of pastors criticizing ordinary Christians raises questions about the role of leadership within the Christian community. Should leaders be focused on calling out the faults of their congregants, or should they be striving to serve and uplift them? Many Christian leaders are turning to the concept of servant leadership, which emphasizes humility, empathy, and a commitment to serving the needs of others. Resources that are available at https://kurtuhlir.com/definitive-guide-to-servant-leadership/ are becoming increasingly popular among Christian leaders who want to model a more compassionate and servant-hearted approach to leadership. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues and if more Christian leaders adopt a servant leadership approach in their ministry.

From what I can tell, the Christians these leaders are ‘down on’ are the ones who simply ‘don’t get it.’ The ones who have embraced legalism instead of grace, the ones who value tradition rather than the Spirit of God at work today, the ones whose character does not reflect the fruit of the Spirit.

But I have a few questions: What does it say about our character when we are willing to publicly insult or condemn someone, particularly someone who is part of the community of faith? How does this give evidence to the fruit of the Spirit in our lives? What is it doing to our souls as pastors when we publish the fact that we are ‘down’ on fellow believers?

Now, I am the first to admit that frustration seems to be part of the pastoral vocation. People who don’t see things the way you do, or have the same vision for the church, or who aren’t open to new or fresh approaches to being the church can create a lot of disappointment.

But it seems to me that if every Christian ‘got it’ there wouldn’t be much need for pastors. If we didn’t struggle with sinful self-centeredness, there wouldn’t be much need for grace either. So should the fact that people struggle to live faithfully surprise us?

The longer I reflect on this trend, and, quite frankly, my own heart, I find myself challenged by two insights that we should always keep in front of us as pastors.

  1. Community is not an ideal.

It seems to me that at the root of many of these public attacks (that is what they are, after all, subtle as they may, or may not, be) is disappointment in the unrealized ideal of Christian community. A particular pastor is passionate to see the community he/she is a leader within become more faithful, to see more people come to a deeper understanding of grace and love. This is honorable.

However, the fruit of such a passion oftentimes is not. To this end, I am reminded of the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer from Life Together.

He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter , even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial. God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious . The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren .

I think this is an accurate diagnosis of the root problem. As pastors we tend to gravitate toward, and think highly of Christians who ‘get it’ like we do. Those who don’t get it, well it would be better if they weren’t around. Those are the Christians in the crosshairs of our venom. Bonhoeffer points out, that even our judgmental pretension can come from decent intentions. But at the core it is fatally flawed.

This leads me to the second insight; this time from Eugene Peterson.

  1. Our job as pastors isn’t to fix people, its to lead them to worship God.

Eugene Peterson reflects on his own experience in pastoral ministry, and the constant struggle pastors have in this regard.

I suddenly realized that I was gradually becoming more interested in dealing with my congregation…as problems to be fixed rather than as members of the household of God to be led in the worship and service of God….I was slipping into the habit of identifying and dealing with my congregation as problems, reducing them to problems that I might be able to do something about.

By reducing them to problems to be fixed, I omitted the biggest thing of all in their lives, God and their souls, and the biggest thing in my life, my vocation as pastor.

When we take to public criticism of our congregation, I think that we have reduced the people of God to problems for the fixing. Maybe the frustration that spills out into the blogsphere stems from our anger that we haven’t, as of yet, figured out how to find the solution to the ‘problem’ people in our community. Perhaps, we find the rant to be therapeutic for our fragile egos that so often feel as though we ought to be able to have an answer for everything; we ought to be able to solve every problem, and we have decided that problem is a person(s).

In doing so, we have utterly missed the point. God is wooing people to himself, we are driving them away. Unfortunate indeed.

I am struck by how often these pastor’s public statements invoke Jesus public statements against stale religion and legalistic ritual. It seems we use Jesus condemnation of the Pharisees, and pharisaical religiosity, to go after people in our church.

But, while it is true that Jesus was not a fan of ritual religiosity, isn’t it accurate to say that his public condemnation was for the religious leaders themselves; who used their expertise, authority and power to oppress the ordinary person; the leaders who had a very narrow definition of what true belief looked like in practice and used that narrow definition to control people and get them to submit to their religious agenda?

When we make public pronouncements about ordinary people and their faith and criticize them for their failures and create division by defining the people who get it and applauding them over against the people who don’t; aren’t we doing the same thing? Who is the Pharisee in this equation? I’ve come to think Jesus might have stronger words for us than for the people we are so fixated on.

There is a difference between calling people to faithfulness through the proclamation of God’s Kingdom from within a particular community…and taking potshots in the blogosphere.

I don’t speak as one who has conquered this in my own heart. The trends I’m seeing are at work in my life, the same way I’m sure that they are lurking just around the corner for most pastors. I’m sure I’ve transgressed in this area, and I’m sure I will again. In fact, the longer I have reflected on this, the more I see my need for repentance.

In times like this, I’m thankful for the reminders from men like Bonhoeffer and Peterson. I’m thankful that they saw/see it better than I do, that there are more charitable and grace-filled voices that call us into our true vocation as shepherds within the community of God.

And I’m REALLY thankful God doesn’t log every way in which I fail to ‘get it’ and write blog posts about it…

Adam Gustine is senior pastor at First EFC in Brooklyn, N.Y. You can follow Adam on Twitter here.

How It Is Now Is Not How It Will Always Be

By Bob Hyatt • 20 Mar, 2024
One of the main tricks in life, I believe, is not to extrapolate current conditions and circumstances off into the future. However, that’s exactly the tendency we have as humans, and especially, I’ve discovered, as ministry leaders. We look at things now and think they will always be that way. We long to see landmarks in the road, mileposts that tell us either we have now reached the pinnacle, the place we always dreamed of being (even if that place is only “stability”), or conversely, the bottom has fallen out and now is the time to bail out. But the mileposts are merely markers on the journey, telling us where we are now, promising nothing of the journey ahead. And so, when things are good, we see nothing but success and good times stretching out in front of us. In the depths of despair, during the most challenging times of life and ministry we feel as though the darkness has become the new normal. The reality is much more complex: there are always better times ahead, and worse ones as well. During those dark times, when ministry becomes more of a weight than a joy, I tell myself, “whatever is happening now will not keep happening forever.” Those words have kept me through relational breaks in our staff that seemed unfixable, through budget woes when we didn’t think we were going to meet payroll, even a time when our community lost a third of its members because we had let a beloved pastor go. In this way I have found hope. In the same way, during the successful times when we were growing, budget was bigger than ever, and when new people were engaging with the church seemingly every week I continued to tell myself, “what is happening now will not keep happening forever.” In this way I have found a measure of humility. There’s another way to read this mantra as well, one that encourages us not to miss what is happening right now as we overly focus on where we’d like to be or what we’d like to see happen. The challenge of ministry, like the challenge of life in general, is to be present to what’s happening now . Too many single people miss the joys of singleness longing to be married. Too many young married couples miss the joys of the early years without children because they long to be parents. Too many parents of young children miss the joys of the infant years, longing for the days when their children are more independent, less dependent on them for everything. And on it goes. In the same way we in ministry can miss the joys of a small, close community by looking at larger communities and wishing we had their resources and influence. We can miss the inherent learning and even joy of being shoulder to shoulder in community with others through challenging times because the difficulties and pain we are experiencing mask the ways in which we are being brought together, the ways in which we are being formed and the invaluable things we are learning. In life, and in ministry, remember: How it is now is not how it will always be. Learn to appreciate how things are now, but also take comfort in the fact that if things are difficult, there are better days ahead. Stay humble because no success is forever. Stay hopeful because, in Christ, no failure is permanent.

Exciting Announcement- Ecclesia is Joining Ascent!

By Chris Backert • 19 Feb, 2024
I’m writing to share some exciting and important news with you that we believe will be significant for Ecclesia in the days ahead! For the last few years, I have been engaged with other church and network leaders across the US and Canada about forming a new “connection” for the church in North America. The heart of the effort is around unifying, amplifying, and multiplying the kind of Christian witness that Ecclesia represents, for the sake of the gospel, over the next few decades. This new effort is called The Ascent Movement, and within the last 12 months, its momentum has picked up increasing speed. A few months ago, I was asked by the council of Ascent if I would help spearhead the development of the network in its next phase. I agreed to accept that task. One of the core goals of Ascent is to connect, coordinate, and collaborate with groups like Ecclesia so that we can do more together than we could in isolation. In many ways, it will function as a “network of networks” like Ecclesia functions as a “network of churches”. In addition to ministries like Ecclesia, there are also seminaries, mission agencies, and other ministry support organizations that are joining Ascent in these early days. For the last several months the Ecclesia board has been discerning whether or not Ecclesia would officially enter into a partnership affiliation with Ascent. We unanimously affirmed that decision at our recent board meeting. Since Ascent is in its early phases of formation, more information on the benefits and opportunities of this new partnership will be ongoing. However, we are happy to share some of the aspects of this new affiliation that we find compelling and will not only bless Ecclesia, but also all of the churches within Ecclesia. First, given the size of Ecclesia, there have always been areas of ministry that we believe are important, but toward which we have not had the scale to accomplish or contribute. Among these are concrete efforts around - increasing the witness of the Hispanic church in North America - supporting mission expansion to less-resourced parts of North America - increasing opportunities for disaster relief and response - and mobilizing prayer networks. Further, there are also specific and tangible benefits that are made possible through this partnership for any Ecclesia Churches. Some of these include things like - discounted tuition costs to Truett Seminary for any Ecclesia leader or member serving an Ecclesia Church. - discounted rate in utilizing the services of Chemistry Staffing for future hiring - access to a church-based missionary sending ministry for those Ecclesia Churches engaged globally, and more! Lastly, there is a specific aspect to this partnership affiliation that is particularly helpful to Ecclesia. Ascent has agreed to partner with Ecclesia over the next year to expand our church planting and multiplication reach in a way that benefits both Ecclesia and Ascent. Practically, this looks like Ascent investing a little over $1,000/month into Ecclesia over this next year and together working toward a set of mutually beneficial goals. As I think about this opportunity within the current moment of our network, it seems right for multiple reasons beyond the purely practical. At our Ecclesia board meeting in late 2022, we established a path for individual affiliation within Ecclesia to make concrete space for leaders who are outside ministry contexts that allow for our core congregational affiliation. The heart of this decision was a desire to increase the kinds of relationships that Ecclesia has within our scope of ministry. The decision to affiliate with Ascent is similar. Also, as I shared at our Ecclesia Gathering in January, this decision fits within the Core DNA of Ecclesia. When I look back at the founding of our network, three aspects were central then and have carried forward. First, our desire to extend the gospel to increasingly post-Christian, or more challenging, settings and groups of people. Second, a desire to exemplify a Christian witness aligned with the theological and missiological direction of affirmations like the Capetown Commitment. Third, our desire to provide a relationally rich journey of friendship for the churches and leaders who are part of our family. When I consider the affiliation with Ascent, we share in common those first two Core DNA. As for the 3rd foundational aspect of our network, I believe the time has come where Ecclesia itself needs “friends for the journey” in the same way that Ecclesia has provided a context of friendship for those within our community. On the other side of COVID, it’s clear that ministry in the days ahead is more exciting, while also more challenging and complex. We believe we need a greater community to be the most faithful to the gospel that we can. You can go to www.ascentmovement.org to get a quick glimpse of its vision. The current website is a placeholder for a more thorough site coming later this Spring. Ecclesia, of course, will have a seat at the table in its formation. We have also provided a one-page overview of Ascent on the attached document. We will keep you updated on this exciting development. Please feel free to reach out with any questions. - Chris
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