Posted on 03/17/2008 2:26:42 PM PDT by Alex Murphy
You’re a pastor, and you’ve just left your latest church. It is blown up, and in shreds – but who can blame you for that? You tried, but the people just weren’t holy enough. Now you’ve gone to another town, and joined a local church. You’re temporarily out of the ministry. Your work is ahead of you.
You’ve got to be careful at this point. Discernment is needed. In your new church there are bound to be some areas of sin and looseness that you can exploit. The task before you is to be judicious in selecting just which issues to make noise about. And you have to do it fast, else when you leave you will not have credibility.
Maybe some of the people, even leaders, of this new church smoke, Of course, maybe you smoked back in your old church, so a frontal attack on smoking would not be a good tactic to use. You might wind up embarrassed. You have to discern quickly whether it will or won’t be credible to say that “the people here smoke too much.” Of course, who knows how much “too much” is? That’s the beauty of vague, generalized discontent.
Let’s look at some things you might select to express “grief’ over, shortly after you first arrive. Do people go to see “too many” movies? Do they have “too many” parties and get-togethers? Or, equally juicy, do they “not have enough” fellowship? Do the elders visit the people “enough”? Is there “too light” or “too serious” an attitude among the people? Are they “too loose” or “too intolerant” on the sabbath? (This is an especially good one, for every church on earth is either too loose or too intolerant on the sabbath. You can have a grand time exploiting this one.)
Other issues you might notice are: Are the elders high enough grade? (Remember, to lead a successful split, you have to outshine at least some of them. ) Is there “too loose” an attitude about popular music, or about Roman Catholicism? Either of these is good to exploit. Are some of the people a bit weird, off into strange political movements like survivalist? You can make hay with this, if you are careful.
Another great issue for you is this one: church discipline. Every church on earth is either too harsh, unloving, and intolerant, or else too loose and tolerant of sin. You can make any church out to be wrong one way or another. You have to decide, however, and decide fast, which course to pursue in your new church. Maybe you can go with both approaches at once (though the novice church splitter might not try this until he has had a bit of experience): too loose on movies or tobacco, and too strict on adultery, This works well with solid, Reformed churches.
Finally, you can always win by saying that you sometimes feel a little like maybe the elders are lording it over the people just a wee bit. That’s all you need to say. And in every church, there are people who want to believe just this very thing, since their Pure sensibilities in the areas of Piey and true holiness are grieved by the leadership.
Now you’ve arrived, and you are already beginning to sense some of the items you might select to make trouble over. You will find that if you judiciously leak out some of your dissatisfactions, some people will come to you and express theirs to you. After all, you are cutting a “most holy” image. Where the church is “extreme ,“ you counsel “moderation. ” Where the church is “compromised,“ you advocate “faithfulness .“ Where the church is “harsh, ” you advocate a “loving spirit .“ Where the church is “too tolerant and longsuffering,” you advocate a “firmer hand.“ You will find people who want to hear just this kind of talk. Keep them in mind for the future.
Chances are the rulers of your new church are not used to people like you. If they have had experience with church splitters before, they may set up some roadblocks. We’ll deal with them soon. First, let’s deal with the simple scenario – the one you are most likely to encounter.
In either scenario (simple or tough), you need to make a practice of spending some time with the church’s rulers. Give them advice. Try to find areas of “looseness” or “harshness” where the rulers already have strong opinions, and advise them to change their ways. They won’t heed you, and this is fodder for the future, You can then honestly say that you tried to work things out, but it was just impossible.
Another benefit of spending time advising the elders is that it makes you look like one of the boys. You look like a leader in the eyes of the people, and soon you will have a group for which you can be spokesman.
In time (about a year to eighteen months), you should be in a position to make a move (this is simple scenario). You simply bring your malcontent group with you, and tell the rulers that these people and you don’t think that the church is doing right, and that they want to start a new church, and they have, surprisingly, chosen you as the leader. If the elders are wise, they may just let you go. They don’t want malcontents in their midst either. If the elders are less experienced (which we assume here), they may be very angry, They’ll accuse you of “sheep stealing” and other bad things. You need to be able to say with a “clear conscience” that you never sought this honor; rather, these poor unloved people sought you out.
Now, the elders will realize and be angry that you have sprung this on them overnight. You need to be able to say “I warned you about such and such a problem .“ That’s why you need to spend time with the elders beforehand, “warning” them about the problems that you have perceived (and are stimulating) in their nice, warm, cozy church.
No church splits without hostility, because people feel betrayed, and because a church covenant is kind of like a marriage covenant. All the same, now is the time for you to put on the mature act, and admonish everyone to “separate in peace .“ That may be a ~arce, but you want it to look as if you were the peaceloving one.
Now let’s go to the tougher scenario. In this church the elders have had experience with guys like you before. As you chafe against them, they may admonish you. Be sure to come right back with a counter-admonition. This will be your list of all the “unrighteous” things in the church, Hopefully this confrontation will not come until you have been there for a year or so.
As you can see, Providence mayjorce you to leave the church and start your own. At the same time, it is important to have an appearance of legitimacy about what you do. If you can, contact another denomination and get them to come in and sponsor you.
They’ll be only too happy to do so, since the heart and soul of conservative American evangelicalism is the art of backstabbing. Get this all arranged before taking the sheep out of your church. If it comes suddenly, there will be nothing the elders can do. After all, they don’t want to fight with the other denomination.
Once you are out, and have your own church going again, you can always split from the denomination that sponsored you. While it looks better to be in fellowship with other churches, you know that you will personally brook no interference with your ministry. Thus, if it looks as if you need to get free, I suggest you simply begin teaching something or doing something you know that the new denomination will not tolerate. In time, they’ll cut you off, you get to be a martyr for “the truth.”
Now, it is important, once you have your own church going, that you “extend the right hand of fellowship” and offer “fraternal relations” to the church you just shafted. If they refuse, it makes them look bad; if they accept, you don’t lose anything. If they refuse close relations with you, then it proves what you said all along, that they are “unloving.”
One other scenario, and the most complex, is this. Suppose the elders of the church are really onto you. You know you won’t win against them, because they already know your tricks. You can still force them to checkmate, however. First, after you’ve been there for a year or so, and you’ve had a confrontation with the elders, just leave the church and transfer peacefully to another church in town. This is, of course, a temporary move. It is totally lawful, and makes you look good. And, you might get some sheep from this new church also.
Keep in close, personal touch with known malcontents in the church you just left. Never offer to start a new church. Try to work it around so that one of them suggests it. Remember, when it finally happens, it will be “the leading of the Lord.” At that point, get with the denomination you have already contacted, and get your church underway.
When soliciting sheep from the old church, never come right out blatantly and invite them to go with you. Instead, just give them a lot of pious brother-talk: “I just phoned to let you know, brother, that some of us are starting a new work, brother, and I just wanted you to hear it from me rather than from someone else, brother.” This kind of indirect solicitation works best, and nobody can complain against it. Who dares accuse you of stealing sheep!
The reason for going through all the legalities is that you want your “transition” to be “peaceful .“ You could just go out and start a new church, and ignore an excommunication from the old one. That puts you under a cloud, however. Make it peaceful, and legal, even if it takes a little longer.
Now you have gotten all the really holy people out of the false church. These are the real seekers after truth, the truly inflexible people of God. Now the fun begins, because at last you have a real, godly church.
Or do you?
At any rate, it is really fun being a wolf.
9. The prosecutor, witnesses, and several presbyters failed to comprehend basic literary genre in arguing for Charge Four (schism) when they declared a satirical “smoking gun” essay to be advocating church splits, when it does just the opposite.At a key turning point in the trial, the prosecutor turned witness and declared that Shade followed a James Jordan essay, “The Effective Church Splitters Guide,” in destroying the EPC. This is a satirical essay written against jobless pastors seeking to divide a church and gain new employment. The prosecutor/witness declared his misreading openly: “it is hard to see the marks of satire. And in reading it you’ll see that this is the agenda and the game plan that was used to try and take out Randy Moore and end up splitting the congregation of EPC” (T31A-B). Kesler and Moore were convinced of this reading, as are several presbyters.
The misreading of this essay is so sophomoric that not only do the accusers fail to see the essay mocking church splitters and jobless pastors on the prowl (Shade was not seeking a church but already served in theirs), but they also fail to see that, at several key points, the essay would indict them. Most ironically, the essay suggests that the would-be church splitter should complain about the church being inclined to Roman Catholicism and that the view of eldership was too tyrannical. These are in fact the two doctrinal charges that the accusers bring against Shade. According to their reading of the essay, they could fit the church splitter portrait well. And yet, this essay (though not listed as supporting evidence under the received charges) is allowed to capture the imagination of the presbyters in such a way that Shade is found guilty on Charge Four. Wisdom demands meditation and careful judgment; Proverbs warns us: “How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?” (Prov. 1:22).
Pharisee 101?
It's a little too soon in the thread to be invoking Irving's Law, isn't it?
Oh brother is right.
Here is the condensed version:
DON’T MENTION GOD OR FOLLOW JESUS AND YOUR CHURCH WILL GO DOWN IN FLAMES.
The End.
I like James Jordan and what he wrote about "common grace."
If you think "common grace" restrains this sadism to any significant degree, you are really, really, really, really, really ignorant about the real world. It is really amazing how Christians living in the comforts of the USA dispense this "common grace" idiocy to the rest of the world. Go there and live under their governments, and then tell us all about the wonders of "common grace"! God does restrain men, but it does not amount to much. Ah, the wonders of common grace!! Let's see. Millions of wives forced to immolate themselves on the funereal pyres of their husbands. Millions of babies put in baskets to be eaten alive by ants as an act of worship. Child prostitution as national industries. You gotta love it! Why would anyone want Biblical law when you can have common grace?" -- James B. Jordan"It is impossible for any human being or institution to be "neutral" as regards moral issues. The civil magistrate will either call good evil and evil good, or he will call good good and evil evil, and he will act in terms of these standards. Now, man hates God more than he hates anything else, and thus men hate other men because other men are images of God -- and people hate themselves because when they look in the mirror they see the image of God. Accordingly, all civil government is simply organized sadomasochism, until changed by the gospel.
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