Pastors, while themselves a gift from God for the shepherding of the souls in their respective churches, are human. And as humans, they err frequently, occasionally even saying mind-numbingly dumb things from their pulpits. Indeed it is even possible, on rare occasions, that you may think you have heard your pastor, in his public platform, say something that breaches all standards of common sense and social propriety, or something so deeply offensive that no one could ever hear the words of God mediated through his lips without the pollutant of his personal positions poisoning them to his hearers. Now for this case, I here propose a solution for dealing with this pesky problem. I order the process in terms of how out of hand you think the situation has gotten.
This is literally the first time.
Do absolutely nothing!
I know! Shocking idea. But I think it makes sense. After all, assuming you go to a church that believes the Bible, your church has affirmed that your pastor is a man above reproach (1 Tim 3:2). This does not mean that he is perfect or that he never sins or that he never says stupid stuff, but that as a general rule his character is actually quite good and quite godly. Perhaps if you were to remove the log from your own eye there might even be something you could learn from him! As painful as it is when your pastor completely butchers an explanation of quantum physics, he is the one appointed by God to watch over your soul (Hebrews 13:17). They are accountable to God for you and for what they say. That’s a lot of pressure! Perhaps you can let a howler slide this time.
If it makes you feel any better, while you were letting your pastor get away with this howler, some first year seminary student just emailed him explaining how the third P in his four P sermon outline could actually be made better if he picked a different word.
I think I may have heard him make a similar mistake a couple times before.
Still do nothing!
I know. It’s beginning to get hard. I too am upset your pastor seems to think agape is a deeper love than phileo even though this was lexically debunked decades ago. But remember the points we brought up about pastors before? And how substantively different is this than the first time? We haven’t established a pattern yet.
But if it makes you feel any better, while you were learning to be slow to speak and quick to listen, some old ladies got into an argument with that pastor about whether children should be allowed to run in the worship center, the elder board proposed budget cuts that involve staff salaries, and a new family from another country asked your pastor if grape juice really counts as communion wine.
I think this may be a bit of a pattern.
Pray.
Now I do agree at some point you are going to talk to your pastor and speak truth to power or whatever. Your observations at this point are likely valid. But prayer is a good first step. Your temptation is probably to pray for wisdom about how to handle the stupid think your pastor said about poiem in Ephesians 2:10 meaning masterpiece or poem (it really doesn’t mean either of those). But the Bible also says you should pray for your spiritual leaders. And you were doing that this whole time, right? Take the opportunity to believe the best about your pastor and pray for his spiritual growth.
Now if it makes you feel any better, while you were praying, your pastor learned about a sexting issue in your church’s high school group (with all its legal ramifications) and the sound guy put in a request for $10,000 of desperately needed audiovisual equipment.
My friends have started noticing something.
Show them this blog post!
Jokes aside, it’s likely you and your friends are on to something. The question is how serious it is. It’s great you have friends agreeing with you! You can now have conversations about biblically how serious this stupidity really is. I know you’re bugged that your pastor is denying science and discounting your chosen college major, but in the grand scheme of salvation history this might be something you can just bear with for the good of the gospel with your friends. The camaraderie helps.
And while you and your friends joined together in forbearance and prayer, three families aired some grievance about insufficient accommodations in the youth group and left the church for the local megachurch down the block.
My friends are posting criticism on social media.
Flame them in the comments! Block! Report!
Honestly, social media is really bad for discussing specific instances of these things, and obviously blogging is the transcendent medium for posting humorous takes on general principles for dealing with these things. Especially if the disagreements have to do with social issues, social media almost never resolves things and only makes people mad at each other.
By the way, while the flame war raged your pastor was counseling a marriage on the rocks.
We’re past the above steps now.
You can talk to your pastor, you know.
In fact, you could have brought it up earlier, I just saved this for the end to test your patience. The key to talking to your pastor is being kind and gracious but clear and direct. Likely many other situations are weighing heavily on them right now. 1 Timothy 5:1 reminds us to rebuke older men as fathers, which applies even though your pastor is definitely a vibrant young man and not yet middle aged. Additionally, if we’re really just calling out something stupid, rebuke probably isn’t the right term, since sin may not be the root issue.
When done terribly, your comments will sound like another complaining voice in your church. But when done well, your comments should be welcomed by your pastor as he thanks you for watching for him as he watches out for you. And if it makes you feel any better, there’s a chance that’s the most productive conversation he’s had with a church member all week.
But I go to a megachurch and don’t know my pastor!
Well, you can talk to *a* pastor.
Just because you don’t know the senior pastor of your megachurch doesn’t mean you can’t voice your concern or grievance to leadership. I know you might not think this is going to change anything or that this just gives shelter for gas-lighting or whatever, but again, I think it’s safe in the majority of cases to trust your pastors who know their job is to shepherd your soul and present you complete in Christ. Just because voicing this concern to a different pastor doesn’t necessarily change the pattern of the senior pastor’s suspiciously senseless sayings doesn’t mean that it’s pointless. Perhaps he might have some perspective that helps you see these flaws in a bigger picture. Perhaps he even agrees that you’re on to something! There’s great potential comfort in hearing a pastor empathize with your pain that the preaching pastor seems to think that Christians shouldn’t watch movies rated PG-13.
Now if there’s a real biblical problem with your senior pastor, voicing the concern to another pastor is all the more important. If you can have the mature conversation with him, he can start collecting data to see if there’s a real problem. And if there’s not a real problem, he can help you see things in a bigger picture and learn to cope with your crippling personal pet peeves.
But if it makes you feel any better, while you were talking to this other pastor, the family selling essential oils and offering enneagram coaching from his Sunday School invited themselves to your senior pastor’s home for lunch after church. Afterward he’s called a special elder’s meeting to discuss whether the church has liability insurance to cover people dying of diseases caught at church or building insurance that covers civil unrest. Honestly, you probably have it pretty good.
Citizens & Sons 