We believe the events that occurred at Prays Mills Baptist Church are a microcosm of what is increasingly happening in the evangelical church in America. We know that there are great churches out there. I (Dee) has been blessed to be a member of several great churches. But, both of us have been recently hurt by the action of some arrogant pastors.
It boils down to this. Many church pastors have traded their roles as loving servant leaders for tyrannical self-indulgence as the grand poobahs in charge of the church going masses. The pastors are the ones who matter. The church exists merely to show the world just how good they are. When you are a “well known mega church leader”, you get book deals, speaking engagements on cruises and get to be best buddies with the current “cool” guys such as Al Mohler and C J Mahaney (well, cool within the correct, reformed circles-a rather limited group).
Americans have substituted following Jesus for a cult like worship of individuals such as John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Joel Osteen and Rick Warren because they get results. You know, the huge, fancy churches, book deals, thousand of followers, and appearances on Larry King Live. They get called “America’s Pastor” and this means that their church members are now “cool.” If your church doesn’t have thousands of attendees with several satellites, your church is no longer relevant. What is even more tragic, few folks know the difference in the theological beliefs between any of the aforementioned names.
Unfortunately, the average churchgoer has now bought into the lie that, in order to save souls, you need to have a big-wig pastor and that pastor needs to be paid lots of money. To make matters worse, the pastors encourage this notion as well. Salaries for pastors have skyrocketed. For example, the average annual salary for residents in the area of Prays Mills Baptist is approximately $45,000. It is alleged that Mike Everson made many times that amount for a church with around 450 members. We are currently investigating pastoral salaries at First Baptist Jacksonville and Bellevue Baptist. We have been told that a number of pastors are now making around $500,000/year. Yet, the Son of Man had no place to lay His head. Perhaps He should have written a book called The Purpose Driven Savior or This Savior Invented Sex.
Some of these pastors even get church members to donate land and building services to construct their personal homes that are worth well above the average houses in that area. This controversy has touched both Mike Everson and Mac Brunson. Yet, these pastors seem to have little discomfort that they live high above the means of their church members. We have provided a link to Mac Brunson defending his “fancy” house in front of his congregation. He appears to have no shame!
http://fbcjaxwatchdog.multiply.com/video (Scroll to the bottom and click on house video)
I was in the church of Ed Young Jr. a number of years ago. One Sunday, he complained about his old car that kept breaking down on the way to church. His purpose was painfully obvious. The very next week, someone had donated a brand new Mitsubishi Diamante to the pastor. His father, Ed Young, pastor of the gazillion member Second Baptist Church, Houston, had a house that was featured in an article of the nicest houses of Houston when I lived in Dallas.
One of the more questionable, current practices is hiring family members to work in the church. It is very difficult to objectively supervise a family member. For example, Prays Mills employed Mike Everson’s son, Jarrod. When pornography was allegedly found on Jarrod’s computer, Mike Everson purportedly did not deal with the situation in a forthright manner. This lack of action began a chain of events that deeply and irrevocably wounded many members of that church.
The servant leader pastor is a slowly dying breed. Instead we have the rise of the Pastor Tyrant who has books to write, conferences to attend, and speeches to give on “How to Become a Great Leader Like Me and Still Be the Foremost Example of Humility.” They change bylaws to give them power, they stress their authority, and “discipline” those who do not march goose step. Recently, a former pastor told me that he sets the direction of the church and the elders “serve” him. They have only disagreed with him twice in 28 years! This is either a lie or brainwashing and is not something to be boasted about.
When a couple at that church complained that the head elder admitted to spreading vicious lies about them, another elder said, “Well, I guess you are going to have to deal with that”! Wow, such passion for truth and compassion for the members. Atta way to show your love and concern for the Priesthood of the Believers, boys. Oh, I forgot. You exist to “love” your pastor. The members are supposed to love you and the pastor and “shut up.”
We have documented reports of pastors having elderly widows arrested, misusing law enforcement to “out” a blogging dissenter, and hiding the knowledge of former pedophiles and ongoing rapists on staff. And, in each and every one of these cases, fellow pastors back them up. J D Greear, a rising star in the SBC. flew into boost up poor, abused Mac Brunson. We will be dealing with the specifics in the coming weeks and hope to get a comment from JD.
Then, all these guys get together to listen to the “Head Apostle” teach them how to reign in their churches because, after all, the are “the Authorities.” They then circle the wagons when one of them is criticized. A former pastor said that C J Mahaney is a good friend and John Piper called him a “beautiful” example of someone who didn’t need more than a high school education to be a theologian. Huh???? Did any of these boys ever ask him to intervene in innumerable reports of abuse in Sovereign Grace Churches? Real pastors don’t let friends abuse their church members.
Only in the church can people get away with such bad behavior by calling it “God ordained.” Pastors manipulate the Scripture to claim that questioning their salaries is “gossip.” They misinterpret the Bible so people actually believe that it is unbiblical to read a critique of a church or a pastor. A Sovereign Grace church even convinced people that, if they learned that their pastor had done something wrong during a negative conversation, then it is unbiblical to talk about it because it was not obtained in the “spirit of love.” One thing you gotta give these guys, they sure get creative with Scripture.
Well, this blog is going to look carefully at these situations. We will tell the entire story of Prays Mills Baptist Church next week. This story will provide an excellent view into the underbelly of church life and will focus on pastoral sin and congregational pain, along with unwarranted denominational interference. We believe that it clearly delineates spiritual abuse in its most basic form. In fairness to the other side of the Prays Mills situation, I have spoken with Mike Everson and will include his comments in next week's posts.
In closing, we find it interesting that the SBC cannot implement a sexual predator database because of the independence of SBC churches but they have no difficulty at all implementing an anti blogging resolution when one of their “anointed” is being challenged. Is there a bit of hypocrisy here?