Ask a Counselor: Blind Sided By My Church Leadership

easter-egg-hunt-gone-bad For the past twenty years I have volunteered my time serving as the Senior Pastor’s Administrative Assistant. My husband and I have a long time personal relationship with the Senior Pastor, his wife and daughter, often times vacations or attending conferences together.

One of my main responsibility is to oversee and coordinate all church events. This past Easter holiday the church hosted a large Easter Egg Hunt that drew a crowd of approximately 350 people. Several church department were involved and months of meetings had gone into planning the event. Postcards were printed and mailed throughout the community inviting them to bring their children to hunt for candy filled eggs and prize eggs. The Sunday School Department Director, who is the Senior Pastor’s wife, was responsible was purchasing and hiding the eggs.

At some point she made the decision not to fill the eggs with candy and instead placed out empty eggs. The eggs were purchased weeks in advance of the event but the fact that the eggs were empty was never shared with anyone else on the planning committee including her husband, the Senior Pastor. She also chose not to be present at the event.

Please try and picture what a mess I had to deal with. Children were crying, parents were angry, and church members and staff members were mortified and angry. Hours later, after receiving numerous demands from church members for an explanation I was able to speak with the Senior Pastor and asked for a meeting with him to discuss the matter I was told “no, there will be no meeting, the matter is over and done with.”

Was it unreasonable of me to ask for an explanation? Am I wrong to feel anger that I was blindsided then dismissed when I asked for an explanation? I do not my desire to create conflict in the church but I wish to resign my position. My husband, who is a church trustee, says that my resignation would be to visible and I should support the Pastor because he apparently is having troubles at home and will need support to deal with his wife’s action.

-Sandi

Dear Sandi,

Thanks for writing and sharing your dilemma with us. I continue to be amazed at how horribly people in the church treat each other and behave! You have every right to be upset and the pastor and his wife should be embarrassed that they have acted so unloving not only to the church members but also to the community at large who will obviously use this situation to add to their reasons why they will never be a Christian… Truly shocking!

Then there’s this whole issue of secrecy and not facing up to and admitting mistakes.. Like because someone is a pastor he doesn’t have to answer to anyone or explain himself… I have seen situations like this played out time and again in my years involved with the church and I just can’t stomach that stuff any longer.

That is not what God intended the church to be and people are being wounded daily by these institutions that would care more about issues of power and authority than the hearts of those that attend and the community the church serves…

My advice is to not support this behavior in anyway. There is no excuse that is justifiable for the damage that has been done to the name of Christ and what He stands for. Believers such as yourself need to stand up to this kind of behavior. This will be a tough road and you no doubt will make people angry by standing up, but if we ever want the church to be what God intended it to be then people will have to take a stand and put a stop to these pastors that become delusional with a position of power…

In saying that, however, you must walk the path of love in handling this. Concentrate on the facts and refrain from personal attacks of any kind even if they begin to personally attack you. You can set an example of how to lovingly resolve conflict. Please note, however that this situation my not be able to be resolved as people can be very close minded and stubborn at times especially certain pastors it seem.

In any event this is a tough situation, but I think you’re doing the right thing by wanting to take a stand against this bad behavior…I’m sure the Rotary club would be more appreciative of all your years of service…this is sad.

Kindest regards,

Ted

Filed Under: Ask a Counselor, Church

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