I always love the space pic. Today’s feature is currently my desktop wallpaper at work.

“Thom Rainer Appears to Overlook Pastoral Transgressions as a Reason Why a Group of People Leave the Church”

Why would he want to do that?! Pastors and pastor-wannabes are the folks who buy his books! It would be best for “us” (the pulpit) to point the finger at “them” (the pew) for that which ails the institutional church. But at the heart of the problem is a spiritual leadership crisis in the American church.

Rainer’s article is another misuse of the Scripture “They went out from us, but they were not of us.” His assessment that “The church is better off without them” does not spring from a pastor’s heart. The New Calvinist movement – Rainer is a part of that – is all about control, manipulation, and intimidation.

@ dee:
Lutheranism will be around, surviving and thriving, long after Rainer’s brand has gone as extinct as the T-Rex.

Question: Church “revitalization”, the neocal pastor refuses to leave the church, even after the deacons tell him he’s fired?

Rainer claims that the pastor casts his biblical vision and within 2-4 years, people are upset because the pastor did not fulfill their hopes and dreams.

I have been in a church which was thriving and growing, people were blooming and serving with joy, only to have the pastor reject it all, because it wasn’t “his vision.” In other words, he was not the least interested in what God was doing or serving in the place God had placed him. He had played make-believe and decided who he was going to be and what kind of people he was going to lead, and he offended everyone in the church and drove them away, eventually losing the pastorate.

In spite of the bogus “biblical” label, this whole idea of “casting a vision” is foreign to the Bible. It is the antithesis of “Lord, send me.” It is presumption, entitlement, and ego run amok.

Rainer does not provide one statistic to prove his point that people leave because they don’t like the pastor’s vision casting.

Of course he doesn’t because he is not examining the situation and seeking truth or a solution. He is creating a narrative; a bit of propaganda.

He appears concerned that hurt people turn to social media and do not follow Matthew 18.

We followed Matthew 18. What a mistake! I would never do it again. I would slip out the back door and never return. I would, indeed, turn to social media and find like minded people.

When you go to the leadership of a church with your Matthew 18 complaint, be aware that they have known from the beginning that people would have that complaint and their response was chosen and set in stone before you ever came along; you won’t be saying anything they haven’t already anticipated and prepared for. You will be betrayed, silenced, and cast as the bad guy, the “Jezebel”.

Often those who have remained are considered the *good guys.* They are then used by the pastors as bludgeoning rods, perhaps encouraged to vote for retroactive church discipline. They are told to shun those who have left. Tales are told of the departing former members.

These are the people and the purpose he is crafting the narrative for.

Churches are a lot like families. Some are healthy and some are dysfunctional. In the dysfunctional ones you will run into control issues, dishonesty, gaslighting, backstabbing, scapegoating, shunning, and similar deeds of the flesh.

Dee, I am glad you found a healthy church. You almost persuade me to try again. Maybe someday.

Root 66: The Holy Spirit is the only One in the church Who should be doing ANY vision casting, NOT the pastor!

Yes. This. I’m reminded of “Experiencing God” by Henry Blackaby. God never asks us to dream up what we want to do for Him. Instead, He tells us what He wants us to do for Him.

“Jesus was the Son of God. Yet He never took the initiative to dream a dream or launch a new ministry. He lived His life in absolute dependence upon His Father.”
― Henry T. Blackaby, Experiencing God

The Father, the Son, and the Pastor—not necessarily in that order.

Jeffrey Chalmers:
So, I just recently had a discussion with a colleague of mine who came from another country…

The engineering school is next to the business school where I teach, in fact, I walk through the engineering building to the parking lot. If your school’s like mine, I’d say that describes a fair number of your colleagues! : )

Law Prof,

Im going to steal that quote! Perfect!

Brian:
Question: Church “revitalization”, the neocal pastor refuses to leave the church, even after the deacons tell him he’s fired?

That’s exactly what happens. Except usually as soon as the pastor is able, he dumps the deacons, writes a retroactive covenant that he claims binds everyone who is already a member, and picks a group of “elders” from the men he thinks will say yes to everything he does.

The fastest way to a cult is to remove all methods of member input, like deacon boards.

Oh, and let’s not forget the ever-popular claim in Episcopal-land that the former member in question was a “domestic terrorist.”

All kidding aside, spiritual abuse seems much more common than people realize. While I don’t have hard numbers, I published a piece on Episcopal Cafe on informal shunning in church, only to get numerous comments from people saying they’d experienced it. Indeed it was one of the most commented-on articles, so I suspect many more people leave churches due to pastoral misconduct than we realize.

Besides, most clergy I know have have only one vision: Keep things going just long enough to retire.

Tom Rainer is a sell-out and wants to make a buck. Most of his resources try to point you towards buying other things. However, most of the stuff he says, including this article, has been true in my context.

We didn’t have any vision casting, I don’t really know what that means. We just wanted to serve the community and be evangelistic where we were. But within a year, people started rising up against us. I have no doubt that if you asked any of them they would tell a much different tale, about how my husband was a “false prophet,” how we never did anything with their families and never reached out, how we’re arrogant, and how we didn’t help them grow spiritually. These are all things that were said to other people. Only three times did they ever confront us – once because my husband was going to keep our daughter for a couple days instead of letting the elder’s wife watch her (apparently this made her very upset and they confronted us at our house?!), the second time because their son’s name was accidentally left off a brochure as a ministry leader and that showed we were trying to destroy their family, the third time because they said a lot of people had been offended by us and we needed to apologize. When we agreed to apologize and talk to the people to see what we did wrong, they refused to tell us who was mad. They had secret meetings, phone calls, and probably embezzlement. We have emails and texts of us trying to get together and meet to discuss what was wrong (we still don’t know why they disliked us so much), but they refused and then told others we never contacted them. And yeah, since they left there has been minimal conflict – and we don’t agree with everybody by any means.

Anybody can be a bully, can be entitled, and can act in very unChristian ways.

Tom Rainer is speaking to a largely evangelical-type audience. We personally aren’t evangelicals, but Churches of Christ can look really similar and are also autonomous low churches. There is no denominational support and individual church members have the potential for a lot of power. I’ve heard a lot of horror stories of congregations and elderships treating their ministers shamefully. Dee, correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t Lutheran Pastors assigned in some way? I imagine that could make a difference in church dynamics.

This crowd makes way too big a deal out of Matthew 18.

Matthew 18 is a good model to settle a dispute between yourself and a believing neighbor. First, talk to him privately. If you get nowhere, take one or two with you, as per Deuteronomy. If that fails (and this assumes that all are believing Christians), you take the grievance to the church.

NOTE TO THE FAITHFUL: elders are not mentioned in Matthew 18, and this may disappoint Thom Rainer and his followers. Certainly elders should be included in any discussion that involves the church body, and certainly they may facilitate if asked. But this is not to be an exercise in “discipline” by and about the elders.

Further, Matthew 18 is never to be considered the only “biblical” model to settle grievances (and “biblical” counts for a lot with this crowd, however they interpret it). For example, other biblical models include Galatians 2, where Paul “opposed Peter (Cephas) to his face because he stood condemned” for legalism and hypocrisy. And in Acts 15, Paul and Barnabas split up over irreconcilable differences concerning John Mark’s ministry. These too are biblical.

Our former pastor (of the church I now rarely attend) also had a “vision,” modeled largely around 9Marks, and CBMW, and the new-calvinist movement; and yes, we did read Thom Rainer’s books (I Am A Church Member; and Autopsy of a Deceased Church). The pastor and a few others firmly and systematically tried to make First Baptist (an ABC church here in Maine) into the image and likeness of a 9Marks SBC church. The plan failed; the by-laws did not pass a 2/3 majority after three years of indoctrination and careful sermon series.

Long story short, immediately after the negative vote the deacon most ardent for the change pulled his family and left for a church already 9Marks (and there are not many of those in Maine). His brother-in-law’s family too left shortly afterward, and these included a lot of our youth and young adults. I stuck around for about a year, but it was a Pyrrhic victory, and involves me in a new-found appreciation for those with PTSD. The pastor “retired” last year at 62, to be closer to grandchildren.

Net result of that experiment: Three of us out of five fill-in preachers left, plus the pastor, who may have been on the way out anyway; and loss of significant tithing and several youth.

Thank you, Thom Rainer: you have contributed much to this movement, may it die a slow and well-documented death. I view this new-calvin, elder-led, male-authority baptist movement as the current equivalent to the pre-millennial dispensationalist movement of the 20th century. It will certainly be written up, but too many church members aren’t even aware of it yet. And too many inherently approve, seeking authority and legalism and accepting it all as “biblical.”

Dee, here’s the update on TMS:

https://proclaimerscv.com/2019/03/18/the-masters-university-remains-on-probation-lays-off-faculty/

Law Prof, I completely agree. “Vision casting” is just wrong for a church. Cripes, a church is a BODY. Bodies have their own patterns already embedded – I can “vision” myself 6’ tall, but I’ll never be taller than my 5’ something DNA dictates. A pastor should be DISCERNING the pattern of that body, to work with what God has already placed there, not being upset with it and performing plastic surgery or leg-lengthening or . . or . .

GreekEpigraph:
Law Prof, I completely agree.“Vision casting” is just wrong for a church.Cripes, a church is a BODY.Bodies have their own patterns already embedded – I can “vision” myself 6’ tall, but I’ll never be taller than my 5’ something DNA dictates.A pastor should be DISCERNING the pattern of that body, to work with what God has already placed there, not being upset with it and performing plastic surgery or leg-lengthening or . . or . .

I believe a little differently than you on vision casting. When a pastor “casts a vision” for the church, he is turning the tables. Instead of the pastor serving the church, he his making the church members his servants. I think vision casting is just a way to make the pastor king of the hill …… and it is wrong.

Noevangelical,

This article casts “vision casting” out of the window.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/karl-vaters/2016/december/5-problems-top-down-vision-casting-new-testament-alternativ.html?paging=off

Noevangelical,

Hard to fathom a world in which a Missouri Synod Lutheran would be considered a lost heretic. I’m a former Lutheran who lived in Lutheran country (Minnesota) for the better part of a decade. You Missouri Synod types are considered the staunch conservatives of Lutheranism, the stand on Jesus at all costs Lutherans, the old-fashioned sola scriptura, Jesus types.

Maybe that Jesus thing is why your former church friends now consider you a heretic. Too much emphasis on Jesus, you’ve fallen away from all the major Christian celebs and now rely on Jesus.

Nick Bulbeck: I don’t know much about Mr Rainer, but it seems that he at least knows how to howl like a wolf.

When he was at Southern Seminary, prior to his position at LifeWay, Al Mohler taught him everything he knows.

Law Prof: Max:
Rainer’s article is another misuse of the Scripture “They went out from us, but they were not of us.”

If Thom Rainer said that of me, I’d take it as a compliment.

You got that right, Brother LP! Many of us left the Christian Industrial Complex in our rearview mirror – we put our behinds in our past – because we were not of them. The “Done” tribe is perhaps the largest growing Christian group in America because of stuff like this.

Eric Bonetti,

Abby Johnson, writer of the pro-life book Unplanned, was welcomed by the Episcopal church while she was pro-abortion but no longer welcome when she became pro-life.

elastigirl,

Campus Crusade/CRU, NAMB are heavily into it. Mr Greear of the SBC lists it as one of his favourite pastimes

I’d been confused as to what ‘vision casting’ was for years. To me, it always sounded like some sort of a magic spell in a video game or a psychic Pokemon attack.

Apparently, it’s the hipster pastor way of saying “My way or the highway.”

Yup, glad I left my old spiritually abusive church that crammed ‘vision casting’ down our throats.

AnonInNC: I’d been confused as to what ‘vision casting’ was for years…, Apparently, it’s the hipster pastor way of saying “My way or the highway.”

Oh my stars, same here, confused, except thought that “vision casting” maybe had something to do with fishing?

Disgusting Calvinists are doing great harm with the misuse, corruption, and perversion of scripture to ‘Christ’s body’ today. They have made their mambo jumbo Theology the ipso-facto gospel of Jesus Christ, and it is identifiably unmistakably NOT. This cr@p trap has been going on for over 500 years. Chances are you will never convince them of that. DON’T TRY Calvinism is a Blatant Lie —>RUN. Their god is a monster—>condemning souls to hell before conception (before the world was even made, they say…) for ‘this their God’s ’ pleasure and glory. I kid you not. Look it up!

Flat Top: Episcopal prayer mazes

Are you referring to replicas of the medieval prayer labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral? That is a venerable device for assisting people with meditation, like a confined pilgrimage walk. It has been around since the 12th century, and many different denominations have used it in recent decades.

John,

I read some of the back posts regarding this and how TMU handled the rape of Jane. All my books by John MacArthur were put in the trash. My hope is for TMU to get it’s accreditation pulled.

As stated here before, I was formerly a denominational executive that worked with churches/ministers/families, and yes, MANY members departed churches because of their pastors. Top five pastoral transgressions that chased away members:
1. Lazy pastoral staff – lack of interest in visitation, pastoral care, etc. Ministers who felt their job was not to take care of people. My special favorite was the church that fired a pastor because he said it was not his job to perform funerals . . .
2. Personality deficits – some in ministry, though they may have gotten a 4.0 in their M.Div. work, do not have personalities that allowed them to be able to relate to others in an empathic and authentic fashion.
3. Worship wars – changes in worship styles, music, etc.
4. Authoritarian leadership styles – “My way or the highway” and many members chose the highway.
5. Moral indiscretions – issues with illicit sex, pornography, poor boundaries, lack of care with church funds, etc.

Noevangelical: IMO, in order to accept the concept of vision casting you have to accept the concept of extra-biblical revelation.

This is exactly the concern I had with the “vision” promoted and taught by the pastor of the next-to-last church I attended. I don’t know how widespread this phenomenon is, but in my case, I think that the pastor really did believe that he had a personal revelation from God (one that he had “received” decades before and that may have shaped the entire course of his career). So, it seems to me, while his job description was “pastor”, his self-conception was closer to “apostle” and he seems to have felt conscience-bound to use his congregation as the means to fulfill his God-given vision (perhaps a bit like Paul twisting the arms of the Corinthians to fill up the inter-church mercy gift he was carrying to Jerusalem). And the “vision” itself was not a bad or self-exalting thing; it was mainstream “center of the road” “ministry multiplication”.

What went wrong in this case was that the pastor sought to portray the “from God vision” he was pursuing as “the will of God for the congregation.” Classic Reformed call this “binding of the conscience” and reckon that one should never do that with regard to matters that are not plainly taught in Scripture. The proposed plan was not plainly commanded in Scripture — it was more of a “wisdom agenda” that should have been examined carefully from every angle but instead a lengthy period of time was invested in using the teaching office to essentially “groom” the congregation to make the decision the pastor wanted the congregation to make. Along the way “sight considerations” (aka “wisdom considerations”) were deprecated in favor of “faith in what we know of God” and the congregation was given the impression that the leadership knew more than they were letting on, in the sense that large gifts were anticipated if the congregation embraced the proposal. It looked a bit manipulative to me, but it was hard to find ways of objecting that did not run afoul of the public definitions of “unbelief” that the pastor had laid out as part of the teaching agenda.

I don’t think that the pastor was a bad person or even a bad pastor; I think he was ensnared by a bad idea that was widely embraced by his peers.

In the end, at a surprisingly docile congregational meeting, the proposal was adopted with an inadequate “counting of the cost”. It was late 2007 and the economy was tipping into recession, the “global financial crisis” less than a year away. Needless to say, the “vision” did not work out as envisioned. I think it badly damaged the pastor’s career, and perhaps even his mental health.

The idea that pastors can use their office and “authority” to command the laity to do things that are not explicitly commanded in Scripture is a trap that leaders fall into at their peril.

Sòpwith: Explain the “Done(s)” Thom.

I’m sure he would say something Biblical like ““They went out from us, but they were not of us.”

To which I would shout “You got that right, Thom!” I’m “not of us” when the pulpit manipulates, intimidates, and dominates the pew. I’m “not of us” when false prophets twist Scripture to make if fit a theological box. I’m “not of us” when the Main Thing is not the main thing in the institutional church. I’m “not of us” when the precious Name of Jesus is less important than the names of Christian celebrities. Yep Thom, I’m so “not of us” that I’m Done … done with the likes of you, but not done with Jesus.

Max: the pulpit in many corners of Christendom is so toxic that it’s poisoning attempts by the Body of Christ to worship.

We discuss some horrible clergy on TWW, but this thread is not the only one to raise the topic of horrible members. Do you think that the pulpit is reflecting changes in what we accept? Are there more egomaniacs everywhere now than when you were younger?

I am blessed to attend a church where humility and service to others are still quietly practiced by clergy and members. (Obligatory comment that the place is far from perfect.) It is a lot easier to see and hear evidence of Jesus when there are actual Christians helping one another.

Some years ago I called our church offices in a moment of despair, and asked to speak with a particular clergy member. Well, he was out of town. But, you know what? The person who answered the phone (someone I knew, but not terribly well) consoled me and gently drew me out. She also matched me up with a newly hired clergy member who had the right background to help me.

People seek the church during transitions and crises. Jesus set a fine example we can still follow.

Friend: Jesus set a fine example we can still follow.

Yes. I think there is a kind of “Gresham’s dynamic” (“bad drives out good”) at work in and among religious institutions as much as in other spheres of life. It’s there but one does not have to go along with it.

To put it another way, the polarization between “winners” and “losers” (the “winner takes all” dynamic) that is not hard to see in the economy is also happening in the churches — this is my interpretation of the rise of the megachurch movement. I think that one could argue that there’s an analogy between the way Walmart has crushed local retail and the megas have crushed the small “corner” churches. Scale has its attractions and its economies, but there are also drawbacks and costs, and the concentration of congregational leadership into the hands of fewer and fewer leaders of larger and larger groups might also have unanticipated consequences of attracting into “ministry” people who want the kind of power, prestige and prosperity that being in charge of a large group provides.

I think that the traditional smaller church model is a lot better than what has arisen in recent decades. But I also think that the traditional model might tend toward what has arisen. It takes a lot of self-denial to say “so large and no larger; we ‘bud’ a daughter congregation if we exceed our target (small) size”. My private sense is that non-institutional forms of ministry with avocational “one-another” servants, some of whom will specialize into the kinds of functions described by Paul, may be the least bad option.

Samuel Conner: traditional smaller church model is a lot better than what has arisen in recent decades. […] It takes a lot of self-denial to say “so large and no larger; we ‘bud’ a daughter congregation if we exceed our target (small) size”.

Maybe this is why the SBC is going through so much pain. Caveat: I only know of the SBC what I read on TWW and hope this is not wildly inaccurate… but it seems like the tiny church on the corner could be designated as the next mega. That’s not how growth would work in many traditions. Likewise, other traditions have a different structure of property ownership, control of ordination, clergy oversight, congregational power, etc.

Every structure can harbor abuse. Sudden explosive growth, though, seems to be a problem in itself.

Justice today:

https://twitter.com/ThouArtTheMan/status/1126235822624141312

“Tom Chantry trial update – Guilty on all 4 charges.”

Friend: Every structure can harbor abuse. Sudden explosive growth, though, seems to be a problem in itself.

I think that there is a kind of “Darwinian selection” going on in terms of “how to do church.” Whatever is most attractive in a specific locality will grow more rapidly than everything else and come to be dominant, either as a dominant congregation or as a dominant “way of being church” in that region. The “ways of being church” that end up becoming dominant may do so for reasons that have nothing to do with the Scriptures, but the fact of the growth will be interpreted to be God’s “blessing” on the “way of being church.”

It’s a kind of genetic algorithm, but the resulting forms of christianity are likely to be highly mutated.

Luckyforward,

Serious question, did they ever tell you why they entered the ministry in the first place? There seems to be a lack of the Spirit in the men in your examples.

Samuel Conner: I think that there is a kind of “Darwinian selection” going on in terms of “how to do church.”

Funny you should mention that. I was thinking just the other day about Doug Wilson’s describing criticism of Marq Driskle as “revenge of the beta males”, and the more general push to be “alpha males” among leading pulpit narcissists, with a grasping of territory – there is hard evidence of elders leaving Mars Hill actually having to sign non-compete agreements to prevent them preaching the gospel locally. This was buttressed by Driskle publicly appealing to smaller church groups to submit themselves to Mars Hill in order to be part of something bigger.

It’s ironic that the males who are among the most influential and noisy opponents of the theory of evolution… are living evidence in support of the notion that humans and apes do indeed share a common ancestor. And a recent ancestor at that.

TS00: Seems to me ‘church growth’ and ‘spiritual growth’ are mostly mutually exclusive.

It has been noted before at TWW that the “church growth” movement resembles the “prosperity gospel” movement in the shared assumptions that “more is better” and “more is evidence of God’s favor.”

I think these assumptions fall under what Luther called “theologies of glory”, which he contrasted to the “theology of the Cross.” I won’t elaborate here; there are adequate summaries online and, if you can find it, von Loewenich’s “Luther’s Theology of the Cross” is a worthy read, though a bit hard to wade through, IMO, at the beginning.

I think that Luther would reckon that the contemporary church growth movement, while perhaps at heart rooted in a good motive (‘saving souls’), in practice can become a kind of denial of the Cross.

Headless Unicorn Guy,

Nietzsche. The über denomination.

Flat Top,

What are Episcapal prayer mazes?

SiteSeer,

Thank you.