Posted November 24th, 2011 at 09:14 AM by Lois
The talk, lies and abuse also happens to some ministers.
When I was involved in my former group, there was a neighboring pastor from the same organization that my pastor would talk about negatively. He would accuse him of being lax on standards (thus his church was substandard), proclaim that rebels went there (our church had years before split and some who left attended there), and he put him down for attending a tent revival run by someone outside the group. These weren't private one on one comments, which would be bad enough, but comments openly made to the entire congregation. He even later complained in a sermon, when the other pastor received his ordination in the district, that the District Superintendent called him up front to pray for him.
Also, I knew a minister who pastored another church in the organization who was about two hours north of us. When that church went through the established process of leaving the organization, various things were said of him. One was that he "stole" the church! He personally shared with me that when he resigned his license, he received a letter from the long-time General Superintendent, cautioning him against leaving & I believe basically saying that those who do don't end up well.
So anyone involved in an unhealthy church can be hurt like this, even those in the ministry. When you leave, your name sometimes becomes mud.
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