To Whom does the Church belong?

I’m talking about the little “c” church, not the big “C” Church.   The universal Church is the big “C” Church.  It’s what we could call the idea of Church.  It’s the Church laid out in the New Testament by Jesus, Paul, Peter, John, Matthew, and many others.  That Church is much easier to see, talk about, understand, and agree upon.  The Christian New Testament is pretty clear about that Church.

It’s the little “c” church that I’m talking about, when I ask the question, “to whom does the Church belong.”  It’s the church you go to every Sunday.  The church you invest your life in.  The church where you form friendships.  The church where you give your ten percent tithe.  It’s the church that makes you feel connected to that bigger, more universal Church. 

We all know who the big “C” Church belongs to. It belongs to Christ.  But the little “c” church, does that also belong to Christ?

Does Christ walk the halls of your church? Does Jesus sit on the elder board, or the financial board?  Does Jesus preach sermons at your church, or at least hold council with those who do?  Does Jesus have veto rights on your church doctrines and missions statements?  We’d like to think so, but in practical terms, he does not.  It’s a set of church leaders that do all of those things.  The question is, does the church belong to those leaders, or does it belong to every single member of the church?

To whom does the little “c” church belong?

For me that question is personal.   I’ve been involved in church for forty-one years.  I’ve been involved at many levels in many different kinds of local churches over those forty-one years.

I preached my first sermon in a small Indiana church at the age of eighteen.  A year later, I graduated from high school and went to bible college to study music ministry.  I didn’t end up graduating, but I did go on to serve in many local churches over those forty-one years.  I’ve led small groups, served communion, preached, given testimonies, and played on worship teams.  I’ve been a part of pastoral teams, and even helped plant a new church location with the last church I attended.  It’s that church I want to focus on in order to answer the question, “to whom does the Church belong.”

The last church I attended was a Vineyard church.  The reason I want to focus on that church, in answering this question, is because it was the best church I’ve ever attended, with the best pastor I’ve ever sat under. 

When I first started attending this Vineyard church, it felt like the church I’d been waiting for my whole life.  It encapsulated a lot of what I believe the church should be, being doing, and be about.

Vineyard Churches believe in something called the “Radical Middle,” a healthy balance between the focus on Biblical principles and the leading of the Holy Spirit.  Normally, most churches lean one way or the other.  The other thing I liked about the Vineyard Church as a whole was one of its founding philosophies, what John Wimber called “doing the stuff.”  It was a call to action.  A call to do more than just attend Church every Sunday, listen to good sermons, then go live the rest of the week however you wanted.

I’ve always been involved in church.  I liked this new Vineyard church I was attending.  I wanted to be involved here too.  This is the story of how I got involved, and how that involvement was taken away.

The first three years at this Vineyard church were the best three years I’ve ever had at any church.  I was getting involved and getting to know the pastor.  I was asked to play drums on the worship team.  I was asked to give words when I felt the Spirit speaking to me.  I was asked to be on the pastoral team.  I was asking to meet with the pastor, and, on occasion he obliged.  My reasons for meeting with the pastor were simple; I wanted to get more involved in this church.  I wanted to help lead, disciple, and even plant new churches.  Early on, it was made clear to me that this pastor wanted to plant new churches, and that he saw me as someone who could help.  He told me once, “you’re the kind of person I look for in a church leader.”  I also made it clear to him that I wanted to help lead a new church plant.

The motto of this Vineyard church in the first few years I attended was “one church, three locations.”  The model of this Vineyard church was to plant churches, instead of growing one big mega-church.  The pastor was actively empowering church members to grow to the point of being able to go out and plant new church locations, with his church as the main hub supporting them.  This was everything I thought church should be, and everything I wanted from a church, in order to help me finally realize my own calling to help lead a church.  But it didn’t turn out that way.

After three years at this Vineyard church, things began to change.

The first major change was the pastor being appointed to the Vineyard National Board.  This was a group that helped make decisions for the Vineyard Church Association as a whole.  This not only took the pastor away from his church at times, it also vaulted him into a different arena of influence.  The second major change was one of my close Christian brothers being kicking out of one of the other church locations.  It wasn’t just the way he was handled, but the way the pastor approached me after he was gone.

The pastor asked to meet with me one Sunday evening.  In that meeting he warned me about my friend.  He cautioned me to be careful.  I knew my friend.  I knew his struggles.  So, I also cautioned the pastor.  I told him that if he thought our brother was in such a bad place, he should come along side to help him.  When I said that I saw the pastor’s face change.  I could tell that he didn’t like my advice.  But I didn’t understand why at the time.  Later I did.

There were two problems created out of that conversation with my pastor.  The first was that I had disagreed with my pastor’s course of action.  The second was that I wasn’t cutting ties with a brother he was cutting ties with.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was the beginning of everything I’d built and invested in with this church being taken away.

Before that, I had led two different small groups.  After that, I was never asked to lead a small group again.  Before that I was involved with the praise and worship team.  Not long after that I was no longer being scheduled to play.  Before that I was meeting with the pastor regularly.  After that, he didn’t seem to have time.  Before that, I thought I was on track to help plant other church locations.  After that, the whole idea of planting other churches faded away.

The strange and difficult part of my continuing isolation was that it was never out in the open, or obvious.  There was never any attempt made by leaders to correct or converse with me about my place in this church, how I was doing in serving, and what I could do different, or better.  The only thing that did happened was that slowly, over time, my role was more and more diminished.  It was a subtle and hard to name form of attrition, like slowing starving a man to death.  So slow, that even the starving man doesn’t realize it, until it’s too late.  My pastor was slowing backing away from me, hoping I wouldn’t notice.  And for a long time, I didn’t.

It’s not just that the church I had invested so much time and heart into was slowly being removed from me.  It’s also that I was never given the opportunity to know or address it.  I was left to continue believing I was on a path to the kind of involvement I had waited for my whole life, while the pastor had decided to move in an entirely different direction, away from me and away from the kind of church he had sold me on in the beginning.

Over time, the vision of this Vineyard church changed from the opposite of the Mega-Church model to exactly that.  What was once “one church, three locations” with a focus on planting more, became one church growing bigger and bigger with no obvious intention of planting more.  During the last year I attended, it was decided to buy a new building so this Vineyard church could continue growing bigger.

So, who does the church belong to?

Who did this Vineyard church belong to?  Was it right for the pastor to change the vision for this church?  Was it right for the pastor to move away from me if he thought I wasn’t the right fit for this church?  Most people, I think, would say “yes.”  Why, because most people accept the idea that the church belongs to the Pastor, even if they don’t think of it in those exact terms.

The pastor is the one in charge of the church.  In many cases, it’s the pastor who has planted the church, and who has worked and labored to found and fuel the continuing growth of the church.  It’s the pastor who has sacrificed his time, who has likely spent his own money to go to bible college in order to even be prepared to found and lead a church.  In most cases, it is the pastor who is most invested in the success and outcome of the church he pastors.  For most pastors, it’s also their sole source of income.  In every way, the pastor is more invested in the success or failure of his local church than anyone else.  This is the way the local church is.  But is it the way it should be?

Should a pastor have more invested in his local church than anyone else?  Should a pastor have more control in a local church?  Should a pastor be able to decide who stays and who goes.  Should a pastor’s understanding of scripture and church leadership trump everyone else?

It took me a while to realize what was going on at this Vineyard church.  It took me a while to realize that the pastor was moving away from me, and moving away from the original church model he had sold me on.  I was continuing on the course that had been set out before me, while my pastor and my church were moving in a new one.  I was continuing to talk with him, mostly via email and text, about my heart and desire to help this church grow.  I was very open about what I wanted throughout the whole process.  This pastor was not.  In one of those emails some of my frustration with the way my church was backing away from me came through, though I still didn’t fully realize what was going on at the time.

In that email I wrote to the pastor and said, “I’m stepping away but not out from the church.”  I told him that “God has called me to a broader sense of church mission,” which I described to him as being “a Spiritual Director and Teacher of Contemplation.”  I also told him, “I would love to continue teaching about these things at church, whenever and wherever you see the need.  Just call on me.”  I also shared with him my podcast, and told him he could take a listen when he wanted, if he wanted to vet what I was teaching.  I ended with “I would like to still look to you for support and direction.”  I sent that email on July 19th, 2020. 

His response back was best encapsulated by this statement, “sounds a bit like saying, ‘I’m going to chop off this thumb, so it can be a better thumb.’”  He felt I was choosing to cut myself off from church in order to do ministry.  I wasn’t.  He was the one cutting me off so that I had no other option except to do ministry outside of my church.  And then, he was accusing me of the one doing the cutting.  It was a double smack in the face.  But still, even at that point, I didn’t fully realize why my options at my church were drying up.

It became more obvious to me after another email I sent to this pastor on August 6th, 2021.  In that email I wrote, “from the time I set foot in this church, I’ve felt that God had a great purpose for me here.”  That purpose, as I spelled it out in the email, was to bring healing from “Anxiety, depression, and emptiness” for others, just as God had brought that for me.  After two days of no response from the pastor, a new and growing sense of dread began develop in me.  I was beginning to realize just how isolated I had become in this church.

Out of that growing feeling I wrote this letter to the pastor and dropped in his box at church.  In that letter I told the pastor this about the church.  “I’ve seen a church once reaching for greater intimacy draw back instead.  I’ve seen programs and calculated roles increase.  The heart of a church and a pastor, is to pastor others into Christ.  You are a great teacher and leader.  You are a pastor, but your pastoring is also drawing back.”  I sent that email on August 8th, 2021.

After two days passed with no response, I sent the pastor two separate texts urging him to read my letter and respond.  On August 10th, 2021, he responded to me via text.  He said he found my letter “confusing.”  He also said he had plenty of “trusted godly spiritual mentors” in his life to show him when something was wrong.  I pressed him further, and told him they weren’t able to see what God was showing me.   He told me I wasn’t hearing from God.  He told me that I was spiritually immature.  He told me I was prideful.  After all that, he said he would still hear what I had to say, and take it up with his trusted spiritual advisors. 

The next day, on August 11th, 2021, I sent him a nine-minute audio message explaining all my concerns with our church.  I never heard anything back.  At that point, I felt like my time at this church was done.  I had done all I could to draw attention to the things I was concerned about with this church.  But God had a different plan.

Though I wanted to leave, God compelled me to stay.  So, I did.  Six months after my failed attempt to draw attention to the problems in my church, I had a small epiphany.  I always wanted to share with the pastor the things stirred in me from his messages.  I craved that kind of open-hearted dialog.  I had his phone number, so I just started sending him audio messages whenever I felt lead to.  This began on January 17th, 2022, and continued until October 8th 2022.  In that time I sent the pastor over 20 of these audio messages.  He rarely if ever responded.  During that time, I was invited to start playing with the worship band again.  For a moment, it felt like things were getting better for me at this church.  But God had other plans.

In processing my trauma and isolation, I decided to write about my seven years’ experience at this church.  The end result was a 64 page book with around 20 pages of documentation.  When I was done, I felt God’s leading share it with the pastor.  My hope was that he would better understand my experience, and issues I had tried to address in this church.  I sent all this in a printed document via mail on December 21st of 2022.  I had already been in contact with the individual above the pastor at the regional level, informing him what I was doing, so that I could involve him if my pastor wasn’t responsive.  I had determined that if I didn’t hear back from the pastor within a week, I would send the document to his overseer.  After one week with no response, I sent the document to the overseer.

At first, the overseer seemed concerned and willing to hear my side.  After sending the document to his overseer, my pastor reached out, angry that I had gone above his head.  He informed me that he was having his trusted spiritual advisors look at what I’d written, and that he would get back to me.  Instead of hearing from my pastor, it was his overseer that emailed me concerning the final conclusion.  The overseer told me that this pastor was a “humble/Godly leader,” and that he was “clean of wrong doing.”  The overseer also said, “it sounds as if this church isn’t a good fit nor will it be a place that you will be able to use your gifts as you would like.”  I was disappointed, but not surprised. 

During this process, no one ever attempted to sit down with me and hear my side.  Not the pastor nor his overseer.  Everything was taken on the word of this pastor concerning the situation. It was a text-book case of circling the wagons and the leadership protecting their own.  There was no apparent consideration for my concerns, nor how I had been treated.   At this point, I knew my time at this Vineyard Church was finally done. 

After everything was over, the pastor reached out to me and said he would meet with me if I wanted, and listen to what I had to say, which was confusing, since I’d already written him a 64 page book with 20 pages of documentation.  Still, I wanted to leave on good terms with the pastor.  We got together.  I listened to him defend his actions, but said nothing further about my own treatment or concerns.  His final statement on everything was this, “I’m a good pastor,” and “I did nothing wrong.”  And that was it.  In his mind, I was the problem, and he was fine.

To whom does the church belong.  In most people’s minds, it belongs to everyone in the church.  But that’s only true until you disagree with church leadership.  Then you find out, the church belongs to the pastor.

Why does the church belong to the pastor?  Why is it that others can invest so much time and money into a church, but when they disagree with the pastor, they can lose everything?  How does that kind of power dynamic fuel the tendency for pastors to control the church and congregates to be afraid of challenging their pastors?  The answers aren’t always clear, but the problems created are.

No one person, or small group of people, should be more invested in the Church, or have more control over it than others.  This is not a problem of church doctrine or theology, but the way local churches are organized.  As long as the few have more power than the many, it will never be the kind of communal body that Jesus and Paul lay out in scripture.  The solution to this problem is clear.

Give the church back to everyone.

Empower every member of a local body to have equal control and investment in it.  Not that local churches shouldn’t have leaders, but that it should have leaders that are not more invested in it, and who are profiting from it, any more than anyone else.  Until this inequality in church is addressed, individuals will continue to have the same kinds of experiences I have had.  As long as this inequality continues, people will continue leaving the church, or deciding not to go at all, and the Church will continue to shrink and fall apart.

I believe the Vineyard Church is in a better position than most to enact this kind of change.  It is the youngest and fastest growing denomination in the world.  It doesn’t have the traditional baggage of most churches.  But it has gotten mired in the same kind of authoritarian control as other churches, the kind of control I experienced in one of its local congregations.  An authoritarian control which Jesus expressly forbids.

I write this open letter to encourage the Vineyard Church to address this abuse of power at every level.  To encourage the Vineyard Church to give the church back to the people who have invested in it the most, the people who give to it without recognition or pay.  People like me.

But I also hope this letter will encourage others churches to see the same kind of abuse and make these same kinds of changes.

There is only Head of the Church, and that is Christ.  Every member is equal under Christ, empowered by the Spirit to add their part so that the whole Body can be heathy and whole.  No part of any church should try to rise up and take control of it for their own benefit and power.  If the current Western Church does not rectify this abuse of power, Christ Himself will have much to say against us when He returns.

I pray we wake up before then and prove ourselves faithful to Him, and His Church, more than a local church and its pastor.

Amen!