Odd Thoughts

Public Service Announcement

Many times in the real world and the blog world, we find ourselves complaining, or hearing others complain about their elders and pastors. Sometimes it's a discipline issue and sometimes it's a doctrinal issue. I'd like to make a few comments about both cases.

In discipline issues, it is very important that we as church members remember that the elders in almost all cases have information about situations that we do not. Many times, they have an overwhelming amount of information that they cannot give out to the general public because doing so would be a violation of pastoral confidence. What this means is that we need to be extremely careful when it comes to criticizing their decisions in disciplinary matters, since they are making such decisions with more information than we have. Perhaps if we had all the information they do, we would come to the same conclusions. But we don't, and we won't, and we shouldn't. The elders are men chosen by God to deal with these situations and make these decisions, and we are not. The Church is not a democratic institution. This is not to say that elders and pastors are infallable, it is simply that we should be extremely careful to make judgements about them and their actions when we do not have the whole story.

In doctrinal matters, we as members of congregations feel that the church should be a democracy. That is, the congregation should take a vote on how we do things, like the worship service, what elements are to be included and excluded, and when to stand and when to sit. We also do not like for those issues to be "dictated" to us by our pastors and elders. We prefer instead to grumble about their decisions. Many times we act as though we intend to study whatever issue is at hand and find an answer for the teaching of the elders, or we make a cop-out argument, like "I don't have the time or the ability to study this issue, and then argue with a smart guy like him." Well, my advice is, stop it. Of course you don't have the time or the ability, that's why you're not the pastor. That doesn't mean that a pastor can never be questioned, but we as members of the church must be teachable and have confidence that the pastor, the man we're paying to study these matters and lead in the direction we should go, will be biblically faithful and academically astute. We do not have the right to sit in church and choose not to participate in the worship service based on our whims or personal feelings, under the guise of "searching for the answer." We as church members have submitted ourselves to pastors, teachers, and rulers who are ordained by God to lead us, and we are to submit to their authority and hear their teaching unless they ask us to sin or do anything contrary to the scriptures. In cases where we disagree or have questions, at the very least, we should ask honest questions to our pastors and elders with humilty, seeking understanding, not division.