Ever been around somebody who says they love you, but every action they take, everything they actually *do,* fairly screams “I hate you!”? Well, I mean, I guess that’s what marriage is actually all about, but I’m talking about a church pastor. A guy who finds fault with everything I do, takes issue with every opinion I have, blocks every initiative I make, and generally goes out of his way—I mean, to great lengths—to make me look incompetent and stupid every chance he gets. Then says, “I love you, brother.”
This is where I’ve been.
After a year of trying with this guy, a year of prayer and soul-searching, I finally decided it was time to go. There was just no talking to him. He’s one of those guys where you sit down and say, umm, a sentence or two, and then he jumps in and talks for half an hour, his mouth going dry and eyes glazing over as he rambles through any number of rehearsed speeches, not realizing he hasn’t allowed you a word in edgewise in the past twenty minutes. Trying to talk to this pastor about anything was simply excruciating. He is, hands down, the most stubborn individual I’ve ever met. Every time I left his office, I felt like a moron. Hint: if you feel like a moron every time you leave your pastor’s office, you’re in the wrong church. The pastor’s job is not to make you feel like a moron.
After sharing my struggles with him for a year, after trying and trying and trying again to find some formula to make that marriage work, God finally released me from that ministry, and I left about six weeks ago. Since that time, this pastor has mounted an unprecedented, cheap smear campaign, accusing me of theft, of lying, of unprofessional and immoral behavior, and demanding that I return every dollar of the salary the church paid me over the previous 54 weeks. Which misses the point that the church didn’t pay me a salary. They gave the ministers a small housing allowance. Not nearly enough to actually provide housing, and it certainly wasn’t a salary, but I digress.
The crux of the issue is the church’s website, which I designed and built before I was installed as co-pastor there. The senior pastor now says the housing allowance was pay—apparently some kind of installment plan—for the website. Which is news to me, since none of this was ever discussed. Also, as the church’s musician, I played for the service and rehearsed the praise teams and other groups for 51 weeks, so I’m wondering how that figure breaks down or why he suddenly thinks web design was all I did around there. He maintains that any creative design work I did while I was “employed” there is their property by default. Which, again, was never, ever, not once discussed. It is a rule this guy made up about three weeks after I left. It’s Bob’s Thursday Rule.
Bob’s Thursday Rule goes something like this:
Thursdays, there shall be no green M&M’s in the dish!
Makes this rule up on Friday, blames you for not being clairvoyant.
Rescinds it on Saturday, chastises you for still following the Thursday Rule.
On Sunday, he creates Bob’s Friday Rule, makes it retroactive to the previous Tuesday, docks your pay for having broken it.
This is what I’ve had to deal with for the past year.
The pastor’s rules and regulations notwithstanding, he missed the point that the website was a gift. I obviously wanted the church to have it—that’s why I built the thing. But the church didn’t pay for it, the church didn’t own it, the church wasn’t entitled to it. The pastor sent letters of demand and threatened legal action. The other co-pastors sent rude and dismissive emails attacking my character and church members have hung up on me and rebuked me for “taking down their website.”
Which misses the point that, when I left, I offered the website to the pastor. I said, “Hey, you can have it.” I offered, actually, to swap out the website—three web sites, actually, as there were three completely separate sites built for various divisions of the church, along with the church’s email system—in exchange for an old, beat-up power amp I’d been using with my keyboard rig. The pastor rejected my offer, called me a thief and demanded his amp back, then threatened legal action if I didn’t hand over the web site.
Which I have no intention of doing. It’s a gift. If anyone at that church—even a child—had simply asked for the thing, instead of calling me names and demanding it, I’d have been happy to give it to them. But, instead, I was called a thief. And a liar. And accused of simply ridiculous things this pastor knows—knows—I am simply not capable of. It wasn’t a request, it was a mugging.
And all because I decided to stop going to this church.
All of which misses the point that, as Christians, we’re supposed to exemplify God’s love. This pastor could have—and was obligated to—lead with God’s love and by the example of God’s grace. He could have—and should have—told the people that God had simply reassigned me elsewhere, but that I was still part of the family. I can’t say what he actually did, but the proof of his failure to have done so is that not one person from that church—not one—has inquired about me, has embraced me in any way, has given me even the smallest comfort or benefit of the doubt. Overnight, I went from being a loved and respected leader in that community to being this shunned reprobate, which suggests the pastor’s leadership in this area has been far less than gracious.
Which leaves me where I am: incredibly hurt, incredibly disappointed by people I love dearly. Which, I suppose, is what life is all about. I am most especially disappointed by the pastor, whose unethical made-up legalisms and personal attacks on someone who has sacrificed so much for that church, are, ultimately, the proof of his ministry. This is a guy who, much like our president, would much rather win than be right. A guy who can accept absolutely no criticism about himself and can absolutely never bend. He must always be right. And he can’t see that, for 54 weeks, he exhausted himself shadowing my every move around there. “Here’s a pack of gum, let me show you how to chew it.” Now that I’ve gone, he has to protect himself. I have to be the bad guy, the wrong guy, or he’ll be destroyed. So he demonizes me and assassinates my character. Way to go, pastor.
As you can imagine, this has been part of the ongoing distraction, as has been this novel I’ve been working on. But, things are quieting down now, so I’m trying to get back here more often.
17 Comments
"Which leaves me where I am: incredibly hurt, incredibly disappointed by people I love dearly. Which, I suppose, is what life is all about."
Priest, this is most definitely NOT what life is about. I have experienced enough love to know that behavior like this pastor's in not the norm.
That said, my wife had a similar experience with her supervisor once, while working at a publishing company. She was considered a valuable employee. However, when she decided to resign her position to work as a freelancer with me, her supervisor reacted extremely angrily. He accused her of betrayal and acted insulted and (although she had resigned) had her escorted from the building as though she had been fired. In short, he seemed to think her departure made him look very bad, and reacted much the way your pastor has.
My WIFE was shocked by this display of his character (he had thrown a bridal shower for her at his house when we got married), but ultimately decided that his reaction could not hurt her. She knew that anything he could say about her was untrue, and that by revealing his own fears and insecurities the way he did had hurt him more than his lies could hurt her.
I know you are going through a great challenge right now. Try to remember that this man's false witness will harm him, but only test you.
Best,
ERIC
scrawled by Eric | September 18, 2007 12:11 PM
Hard to say…
I’m a pretty religious guy but I have beliefs that don’t quite fit into any given religion so I have never really been a church person. But I have gone to a lot of churches, synagogues, etc… because I do like to talk about religious issues and the various religious figures are usually more than willing to oblige.
That said, while I have respect for Christianity as a religion I don’t have a whole ton of respect for the average Christian in general. The story you told seems all too likely given my observations of most congregations. Honestly, I'm not even sure the Pastor should get most of the blame.
At this point in my life, I’ve honestly come to see Church as God’s way of taking vicious people and funneling their energies into some kind of greater good. That sounds harsh but let me give you an example.
Most women I’ve met in the church are the types who will be perfectly nice to your face but then turn around and spread the worst kind of gossip about you the second you walk away. Now, if not for the fact that they had been indoctrinated into the Church they would probably be sitting out on their porch gossiping about their neighbors and not doing much good for anybody.
But they’ve gone to Church on Sunday their entire life and that is where their social structure is built so they continue to go and, as a result, they gossip over packaging food for the homeless and the world gets some good out of them.
I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong and I certainly don’t know everyone who was at your Church I’m just telling you my impressions. There are without a doubt some Church goers who are devout and who actually take their religion to heart so I guess writing them off as a whole isn’t the right tact to take. But I think the assumption that everyone who is nice at Church is also a good person or even a decent person is an incorrect and flat out dangerous assumption to make.
I guess that is my bias here in that I’ve been burned by that before. There was a time in my life when I assumed someone was a good person and would be trustworthy because they went to Church and that blew up in my face several times. Sadly, after that conceit was taken from me I came to the point where I felt Church goers were less trustworthy than your average Joe on the street.
scrawled by Tom | September 18, 2007 12:25 PM
Tom wrote:
"At this point in my life, I've honestly come to see Church as God's way of taking vicious people and funneling their energies into some kind of greater good. "
I think that's the basic story the Bible tells. But I also think most pastors I've met have extremely strong egos, which is both good and bad. It makes them dynamic leaders because they don't doubt the rightness of their motives and actions. But it also creates blind spots, like this pastor's simple inability to simply *ask* for the website instead f demanding it as a right.
I tend to not dismiss (or accept) any group of people as w hole. Not all Muslims are bin Laden, either.
On behalf of, well, myself, I'm very sorry to hear of your experience. I don't want anyone taking this post as an excuse to be anti-Christian or to in any way diminish anyone's faith. My faith is certainly not diminished, and I pray for this pastor every day. But this is what happens sometimes, and, as Eric points out, these things can be an emotional over-reaction to simple hurt feelings, and strong egos that are actually a lot more fragile than they seem.
Bottom line: I did not defend myself. I did not show up to answer his charges. Far as I'm concerned, Jesus answered enough charges for all of us. I did send my letter of farewell to the church, but the pastor refused to allow it to be circulated.
Thanks Eric--
Yeah, I figure that's what's going on, that the pastor is wounded and is now defending himself (by attacking me and assigning ridiculous motives to my departure). Also, it doesn't help that I'm the second pastor to resign in the past seven months.
I'm very sorry to hear about your wife's experience.
scrawled by priest | September 18, 2007 12:51 PM
Priest,
Thank you for your kind words.
Also, I think you touched on something interesting: my wife (in her similar position) was the second person to resign from her department in 9 months. I think her supervisor was wounded by the departures and thought that these resignations reflected badly on him as a leader. A feeling that probably came more from his own insecurities than from the judgment of others (although perhaps not entirely).
Best,
ERIC
scrawled by Eric | September 18, 2007 2:24 PM
I have to think that, given enough defections, management *has* to start wondering if there isn't a problem somewhere. Churches are a bit diffeent in that pastors inspire (and some demand) the unwavering loyalty of their followers. Church folk are not likely to question a pastor's methods unless and until the guy pistol whips and urinates on them in an alley. And, for some, not even then.
It's a shameful and sad form of hero worship, where grown folks can't seem to know when they're being lied to.
scrawled by priest | September 18, 2007 2:44 PM
I have a problem in dealing with people on a spiritual level even those who are suppose to see things they way I do. The question you have to ask yourself at this point is "what did I learn from this?" everything that The Most High let's a person endure is a lesson and we have to take into account what we learned.
Halfway through blog I thought of this
http://youtube.com/watch?v=BmbYlVtV91o
I hope it doesn't offend you and I hope I'm not breaking any of your rule.
speaking of rules that anology of Bob's Thursday rule was clever and understandable.
scrawled by mdwaire | September 19, 2007 1:53 AM
Priest, that sounds awful, and the fact that you're being so humble and understanding with the whole thing really says a lot about your character.
Luckily, from the sounds of it, all their talking of lawsuits and such sound like they're empty threats. If what you say is true, then they'll have no paperwork to back up their claims. It might get sticky if the pastor encourages other people to back up his lies, but hopefully this is as Eric implies and just him lashing out against your departure rather then an attempt to genuinely rob you of your work.
scrawled by JasonD | September 19, 2007 9:51 AM
I'm not so sure how humble I am, after all I'm blogging about it here. This is something I'd usually get into over on the PraiseNet, but it's an ongoing thing so I'm on uncertain ground in terms of my feelings about it all.
There is no paperwork. I signed no contracts. I never sign contracts with churches because the purpose of a contract is to enforce a commitment by the means of the force of law. The bible teaches us to not take fellow Christians to court. A church has no biblical foundation for ever suing one of its members. I can't help what they do or don’t do, but there was no agreement, written or oral, no language *anywhere* at any time that said I would build them a website for money. I know this because I would never have signed any such agreement. I have never charged my own church a dime to do anything, ever. And never would.
I didn’t ask for a housing allowance. The church voted that for all ministers, but that had nothing to do with me. There was absolutely no quid pro quo connection between the very small housing allowance they chose to bless me with, and the many many things I did for the church. The web thing was only the smallest part of what I did there: the pastor is making it sound like it was all I did, and that they own it because any creative thing I did while I was employed there belongs to the church-- a Thursday rule he thought of roughly two weeks after I left.
There was never even a discussion of ownership of these things. And it's all quite moot because, as I said, I created these things in July and August. I was installed as co-pastor in October. There is no legal case here. No ethical or moral one, either, considering I offered all of these things to the church and this pastor said no.
Actually, he said, essentially, "No, and you're a thief. And you're ugly and stupid and your mother dresses you funny."
Now I'm being accused of stealing things the church never owned but I offered to give to them and they said "no."
There's got to be a comic book plot in here somewhere...
md-- thanks for the kind words. No worries.
What have I learned? Well, let's stop talking about a church and let's talk about girlfriends instead. When it looks like things are going south: bail. I mean it. It's like that little voice in your head when you're at the movies. At some point, that voice starts saying, "get out. Leave now." The movie is bad and not going to get any better. But you paid your nine bucks, so you stay. And you hope, every second of the way, that this awful plot will turn around somehow.
But it doesn't.
I knew this was a bad fit. But I wanted to make it work. And I adjusted and compromised and stepped back and back and back until I had nowhere left to step but out. When I should have called it quits months ago. I mean, after while, you recognize the type. The cut-you-off-so-you-can-never-get-a-word-in-edgewise type. The you-can-do-absolutely-nothing-right type.
But I just stayed through the movie.
We all have to learn to, somehow, trust our own judgment. To trust God, certainly (for those of us who do), but to listen to our common sense and stop letting people urinate on us and call it rain. People with extremely strong personalities and egos tend to do that--push their reality on you and make you feel inferior and beholden to them. That's not, in any way, the role of a pastor.
The part that really annoys me? I knew all of that. And I stayed anyway. So, that's what I learned.
scrawled by priest | September 19, 2007 12:24 PM
Well I can honestly say I know what you mean. I think the only thing worse is the your-to-blind-to-know-the-type issue. When you want something to work so nad you go blind and when you see that it doesn't fit you force it. I had come out of a relationship that was very deep to me and I found someone that consumed all of my time so I could act as if the pain was gone and more over I did not chose to see the flaws of the woman I was in bed with, even when she told me that it wouldn't work, from fear of being alone I convinced her otherwise. The result was a child-her physically assaulting me (she was 5'7 150lbs I am 6'2 265lbs ha it's true) us breaking up (of course after she attacked me) me getting custody of my child and the rest I'll leave for another time. What I learned is to open my eyes, and mind before my heart. Oh and my story isn't a metaphor. But the lesson was well learned I am sorry that you had to go through such pain for the lesson. and Thanks for blogging again it let's those of us who love you through your work know that you are alright. Also if you have anything that is coming out or current please let us know maybe you shold have a shameless plug tab on your start page
may The Most High bless you and your every endeavor
scrawled by mdwaire | September 20, 2007 1:59 AM
Hi, Priest. Glad you're OK.
"...Gift.."
Gift? Sounds more like a huge FAVOR if you ask me. You designed it? You built it? You were hosting it? And maintaining it? And no pay or contract??
There's always 2 sides to every story, but sounds to me like he is gonna have to compensate you somehow for the site. Fair is fair.
scrawled by Ty | September 21, 2007 3:29 AM
Priest, the reason I used the word humble is because while you are complaining about it on a blog, you're still being very polite about the whole thing. You sound disappointed more then angry, which I have a feeling is how I would to react to the situation. Perhaps you were angry, but it didn't come across in your blog. So yeah, I think that says a lot of good things about you.
scrawled by JasonD | September 21, 2007 7:40 AM
Ungrateful people are soooooo annoying. And to think that this guy took up your very valuable time when you could have been doing...well, since you do so much, pretty much anything.
Buisness dealings with a church or a charity should be the same as business dealings with family...which is, the same as business dealings with anyone else. In fact, things need to be MORE spelled out because of the personal and spiritual connection.
scrawled by Reginald Hudlin | September 21, 2007 9:38 AM
God bless you and help you to forgive and find a new family. Turn the other website, let him strike that too, and go in peace.
scrawled by greg zywicki | September 21, 2007 1:15 PM
Ty:
Yes, I built it, hosted it, paid for everything out of my pocket, the project begun two and half months *before* I was installed as co-pastor.
No compensation was necessary. I built it because I wanted them to have it. Upon leaving the church, I offered it to them, the pastor said no and you're a thief and gimme that web site. *scratches head* I dunno.
Jason:
I *am* disappointed. I'm also very, very hurt. Not about the website-- I mean, who cares. But by the viciousness of the distortions this pastor used to, essentially, protect himself at my expense. It was a total character assassination. I'm also disappointed by the membership, not a single one of them having reached out to me to see if I was ok or to ask what my side of things might be.
No rational person would assume that, after 54 weeks, a pastor would have a sudden personality shift and start stealing things and attempting to split the church (both charges made by this pastor). Most any grown-up I know would say, "Hey, waitasec--there's GOT to be more to this story." The fact no one apparently did frightens me a great deal.
Religion gets awfully scary when folks start sipping the kool-aid.
Greg: hey, thanks, buddy.
Posts like that make me almost forgive you for being a Republican.
scrawled by priest | September 24, 2007 1:06 PM
Oh, in case anybody's curious about the website, this ain't it, but this website is built on the same template I designed for my church:
http://newcovenantcogic.org
My church's website was, umm, about twice the size of this one, and just as graphics intensive.
scrawled by priest | September 24, 2007 1:08 PM
Heck, if you really knew me you see what a fluffy bunny I am.
I really do hope you can find a new Church Family. You have a great deal to offer any congregation.
Ever consider a majority white church? United Methodist or Episcopal, for example? Not long term (your heart is for the Black church community, no doubt there) but perhaps taking a sabbatical in another congregation would be healing, and it certainly would be good for the church. White churches can be tone-deaf in their overtures across culture lines. You could tune them up a bit.
scrawled by greg zywicki | September 27, 2007 7:20 AM
Greg: "White churches can be tone-deaf in their overtures across culture lines. You could tune them up a bit."
Only if they want to be tuned up, of course. Within the last year, here in Jersey, one of my Black Christian friends actually got lectured to, harshly, by the White Priest at his longtime church. All because my friend got engaged to a Filipino woman, another member at the church. He told my friend that race-mixing was a sin and not allowable in that church.
Needless to say, all of the non-white members and families of the church, except one family, left the church within the next few weeks.
None of the White Families or members left the church to my friend's knowledge.
scrawled by Ty | September 27, 2007 1:24 PM