When you thing of the word “pastor”, you get the picture of men and on occasions women who preach, run churches with a nice smiles and friendly nature and of good Christian character who love the people God has placed under them more than themselves. They inspire, encourage, and challenge you to be a better person.
Right now…wake up!
From my own experience and the experience of others this is far, far, far from the truth. Don’t get me wrong, there are selfless men and women who give their lives for the benefit of others. However; the reality is, just like the workplace…with power there will come the eventual corruption and misuse of such “authority”. When you give your tithe to “God” do you honestly think that money goes to God? Almighty God? The almighty himself? What the hell does he need with money?…He’s the Almighty!!! If he is so almighty, he does not need your money to reach the lost, he does not need your money for the next project to do some bullshit programme to change the world…If he is almighty God he can do it…end of discussion!
All this bullshit of him choosing to work through a church is just garbage and he can’t do anything with our prayers and giving…Clever twisting of scripture to feed to the sheep who won’t even challenge it. It pays your pastor, his wife and their children, finances their home or homes depending on how big the church is and line up some bullshit ministry/business scheme for their children or family members to “keep it in the family business”, it is the over the top “love gift” to the visiting preacher that is here to impress all and the five star hotel he or she is put up in and food in his or her fat belly. They play the classic line, “If you don’t trust us, you can see the books” or “If they don’t trust us with the money then we will take our anointing somewhere else”, when they are challenged by the flock on the use of church money, I know this because I have heard these remarks myself. They know full well that that kind of reverse psychology always ends up with the suspicious minds taking a step back and also have them feeling ashamed of themselves for even questioning “God’s anointed”. They wear the best clothes as it reflects the “excellence” of the kingdom and drive the best cars and have the best of everything, because they work “so hard” to bring you the “anointing” and to “guard you from the wolves out there”.
They use petty little scriptures to get away with amazing abuses of power in the church. They take on spiritual “apprentices”, fooling them into carrying their suitcases and taking their children to school and cleaning shit-stained toilets and they call it “being spiritual”. They tell you tales of how they had to do all this lowly jobs to get to where they were but let’s be honest here, most of them came out of bible colleges and the concept of getting their hands dirty is beyond them. If they saw a shitting toilet seat they would faint.
I have fallen foul of this “road to nowhere” apprenticeship bollocks twice in both my second and fouth church. I had the function but not the title, as the reason for not formally being ordained an elder or assistant pastor was that my home life was too unstable, which is quite unbelievable looking back now at the behind the scenes character and antics of the pastors of these churches.
Pastors look at you in the same way that a sleazy film director looks at a “budding, hopeful” actor/actress, desperate to succeed. They see only the potential for you to be their bitch and a bitch on a tight leash. In a spiritual sense they tell you “Well if you suck my spiritual cock, you will go a long way in the kingdom”. There is one in every church. The men and women with “the potential” who only end up getting exploited until the church runs it course or someone better comes in. I have seen people and couples come into church and replace others who have faithfully filled that position, only to be discarded and fed the bullshit line as it was only for a short time that “God was going to use them in this capacity”. Then they leave and never recover from the pain of being used and abused like that.
I have put up with so many things working for these people. Some will say “You did it in the wrong spirit” or “You did it for the wrong motivations” or even “What an idiot” but I really believed that I was serving God by serving my pastors and yes, a bit of promotion and exposure does not do anyone any bad, so it was a case that for it to happen twice, I was unlucky or just plain stupid. Looking back I think it was a mix of both with the latter being the more likely. The subject of “serving you leader” was what taught, a principle of leadership training. I used to be a major proponent on the very subject and used pull my hair out when people did not see it or do it. They were not that stupid looking back. It was me who was the fool.
The dynamic between the leaders and the people is an interesting. An example of the power a pastor can have over the flock was seen the night of mother and father’s 40th wedding anniversary. I could not help but notice that every member of the first church I was a secret deacon in (long story!), who was present was not drinking anything remotely alcoholic. I knew that a lot of them were very partial to a tipple or two but not tonight. Did they fear that God was watching them? No, not at all otherwise they would never drink, even at home as according to their belief system, God watches them all the time (and that’s another story!) so who were they afraid of being seen by? Yes, you guessed it…the pastor. His opinion and feeling on the matter really did matter more to them. He was a bit of a control freak to say the least.
From the viewpoint of the uninformed flock member, the pastor is portrayed as an extension of God. The teachings on “submission to authority” that all leaders are not only appointed but “anointed” by God, psychologically places these leaders on a “divine pedestal”. Such high ranking archetypes need minions to do his…oh sorry…God’s will. So he appoints a team of minions….oh sorry Elders and Deacons to fulfill roles in the church. The only way that any member of the church will aspire to anything is if he or she “serves” the pastor on the vision. It just happens to be that “the vision” tends to go beyond the boundaries of the church work and extends into secular tasks. From my experience, helping them moving home, doing administration tasks, doing their gardens, taking their children to and from private schools, carrying their briefcases into church, taking them here and there, painting their homes and church buildings and defending them when they are clearly out of order…the list goes on.
After all the promises of glory working in the church of God the best I managed was a “secret” Deacon in my first church and an Assistant Pastor in my second and forth church where I was never officially ordained. I just functioned as an assistant pastor but never officially became one. The reason for this or their excuse was, as mentioned before that my “home life” was a mess. Maybe they could have tried to cope with what I had to cope with and maybe they could say something.
The problem is that these men and women know they have this power over the flock and there have been some bad cases of misuse of so called “spiritual authority” not only against me and others but also by myself on others. I have been in meetings with “leaders” to talk about flock members like they are “sheep” or “children”, some of them mocked a member of the church because of something they did that was wrong or something they said. I have witnessed people publically rebuked for some wrong doing. I remember I young, black African member of our church got the opportunity to preach one Sunday morning. He turned up in his Sunday best and delivered a sermon that was noted for the ill advised use of the word “pissed” but the content was not up to the female pastor of my fouth church's standards, who, in front of the entire congregation, tore him to shreds. He was never seen in that church again. But of course it was done in “love” or “tough love” the call it when they castrate one of their followers. Still, these acts of “love” are the very things that cripple many people in the church and many of them leaven and never return.
In many cases the lifestyle of the leadership far exceeds that of the flock. They tend to live in nice homes away from the area they are assigned to “reach the lost”, they dress well, drive nice cars and their children tend to have an arrogance that sometimes angers the flock members as it is clear that preferential treatment is given to them. The children when grown up are most likely to take a position of leadership in the church as opposed to being under someone. The pastor claims that, according to the scripture (aka twisting) of, that they are your “spiritual covering” against the forces of darkness and if you break away, aka leave the church, you are open to “spiritual attack” by these dark forces and you will lose your salvation and end up in hell. I have heard this preached and taught in many churches and I myself also used to teach this garbage which in essence only ensnares the flock into a make believe “protection racket” where the pastor and his or her team are your protection from harm; however the reality is that it is the pastors who are the only ones who benefit from you being there and you are keeping them in a job and lining their pockets. Without the flock, the pastors would have to get a real job, like the rest of us.
Of course they will try and justify this beneficial relationship. “Do not muzzle the ox…” is one of the lines they use from one of Paul’s letters to justify the fact that it is the flock’s responsibility to pay for the pastor and in return the power of God flows from him or her to the flock and everyone is happy and well protected. Well that is about as far from the truth as you can get as in every church I was involved with, a good majority of the people were struggling with money, depression, illness, addictions plus other negative issues. Yet the pastor spins the “Everyone is growing in the grace of God. He is changing everyone into the likeness of his son Jesus and we are going from glory to glory” bullshit and everyone gets a temporary buzz and then they return to their own little slice of hell.
I know that many pastors will be outraged at my comments. “I work hard doing what I do and for next to nothing” being their response and I would to an extent agree with them. However; the Pastoral couples of my second and fourth church have a very similar story:
1) Both of them came from churches that taught the prosperity doctrine
2) Both of them lived a lavish lifestyle
3) Both claimed to be instructed by God to plant churches in the area
4) Both experienced “culture shocks” when they attempted to set up a church
5) Both we convinced that their church was a “warfare” church
6) Both churches they set up majored on “intimate” praise and worship
7) Both churches had people with intense emotional problems
8) Both of them majored in the teaching of tithing and giving offerings
9) Both of them experienced people coming and going from the church
10) Both of them were accused of offending members of the church
11) Both churches had the flock very critical of the methods used to run the church on a number of occasions
12) Both of them closed the church suddenly with virtually no notice to the flock and eventually moved on to “greener pastures”
To be fair to these two couples both of the men took up jobs to “keep afloat” but the questions is could they not hack it without the lavish lifestyle long term? Was it below them? Did they expect to be financed by the church members? Well when it came to the pastors of my second church I think that they did expect us to pay for their “anointing”. In the early days we got a visit one home group by the “Big Boss” himself to rebuke us for not tithing and giving to financially support the pastor and his wife and that this was the reason we were struggling as a church and in our personal finances. The Pastors of my second church pushed and pushed this agenda until he gave up and took a full time job and that opened the door for me to “assist” the pastor. Not long after that, they were gone. I did not have the know how to deal with the rebellion that swept through the church and this was cited as the “main” reason the Pastors of my second church took the decision to dissolve the church. I know that there were others as well as the rebellion and the money and this brings us to another subject of the egos of these leaders.
It was the late winter of 1992; we had come back from a very successful “Flames of Revival” conference. The excitement was tangible as we were seeing “God” bringing fourteen churches together under a single banner, a single purpose…to save not only Wales Wales Chester
If memory serves me right, in the late spring of 93’, we were assembled for what we thought was the meeting that would confirm the merger only to find that not only did it not happen but nothing was formerly said by the Big Boss “Apostle” Man. Trent
In the days after my second church fell apart, in my very few meetings with my ex senior pastor , the subject has come up and he was very reluctant to talk about the events that lead up to this total breakdown in relations with this other church’s leadership.
It must be a very difficult thing to be humble when you are in a position of power. I mean all those people who can get to do what you want, you can if you are successful pay yourself the salary you want, you get to hang with all the other leaders and make big and wonderful plans, then pick the team to do the task for you and you end up…no matter how much you try to shy away from it…getting the credit for it. For example look at conferences or special one off church meetings. No-one is going to give Jack Shit about you unless you have done stuff, unless you have a huge flock that you have successfully utilized to do those “mighty works”. Any pastor who has a flock of 500 or less need not apply. It is just like the way the world works. Success attracts success and that also applies to the Pentecostal movement. Take the big names for example, you know the white suited, big smiling, big talking, signs and wonders following big shots. They are treated like celebrities and live like celebrities too. These are the parasites of the Pentecostal movement and I dislike these individuals with one hell of a passion.
“Why, woody…you are such a peace loving man?”
That may be so, but let’s all be honest here. They have successfully swindled millions upon millions from ordinary, desperate and well meaning people and that must make up a good percentage of the Pentecostal movement. It is a movement that attracts the absolutely desperate. I have yet to hear a testimony that said, “I was successful, rich, socially on the ball, healthy, slept well every night, totally fulfilled in every area of my life, but I needed Jesus”. Why because they know full well how to get you, how to pull you desperate little soul in and once inside the bleeding process can begin. All that bollocks that salvation is free…Don’t make me laugh! They will make you pay:
1) With your time
2) With your energy
3) With your Money
If we are honest enough to admit that Pentecostalism is a business then this is half the battle. There are good pastors out there and you will know that I am not out to get you with my remarks, but in my experience they are few and far between. The ego driven need to be successful, the insecurities they often show when a “golden boy or girl” enters the flock or the fear tactics they use to keep flock from doing a runner and the overwhelming urge to abuse their power in some form or another makes the pastor a little like the shady character in the story of Pinocchio, the puppet master Lorenzini. In fact the word “Puppet Master” seem appropriate word when it comes to these big name pastors and their relationship to their “puppets”. Enough about that.
So just to finish this section let’s have a closer look at the three of the pastors (and their co-workers aka wives).
My first senior Pastor was on the surface a very nice man. Balanced his high ranking position in the NHS with his pastoral role and probably loved every minute of it. Being in charge seemed to agree with this man and it was remarked by other pastors that he always did things “His way” as He would not accept any help from the Assemblies of God. Anyone hoping to get a gig preaching in his church stood no chance. Unless you had several letter after your name from various Bible Colleges and had a theology that was a safe as an ugly girl’s chastity, stood no chance. My relationship with this man was always kept at a distance, a mutual thing as I was always under the impression that he was trying to “hold me back” and he must have got the impression that I wanted his job. When I got involved with the exorcism/deliverance ministry he real character came out. He was aggressively against what I had got involved in and did his very best to find me as much to do in the church to get me away from my “true calling”. He was a very insecure dude who did not like the fact that I was running a pretty successful “sports outreach ministry” so he insisted I brought it “under the banner of the church”, with promises of funding for sports equipment and events. I took the bait and he went back on his word.
Despite being a bit of a control freak, popularity was a key thing for him as I was called into the very tiny vestry one Sunday morning to be told that I was now a “Deacon” but not to tell anyone in case it caused any “waves” amongst some of the longer serving people of the church. When I left the church in 1990, he was not exactly crying in his soup. Still being a person who did not learn his lesson I returned in 1995-96 for a short stay only to find that he once again went back on his word with my ex wife’s youth ministry and we were not going to remain under a man without honour, so we left quietly this time. Once again, we were not missed. He had come up with the idea of moving to the now defunked pub which was just across the road. A crazy idea, seeing that he could not even fill the church he had never mind fill this place, Still he wanted a monument to himself to leave behind and sadly on the day of his “retirement” he suffered a stroke. I did not get on greatly with this man, but firstly no-one deserves that. Also looking back, this was the safest place to be in Pentecostal world. You were not bullied into parting with your money and despite me being involved in a lot of things there, not a great deal was expected from me. I think that deep down, he cared, but way too many insecurities.
Pastors 2 were a team. That was their philosophy. After leaving Emmanuel, we advised by the Big Boss Apostle to help them out and so we trotted off the Connah’s Quay. First impressions were very impressive. They came from a successful church in Canada
In early 1992 I had lost my job and the pressure was seriously put on me to find work as soon as possible as according to him to not work was sinful and not pleasing to God. I made the decision to go to on to the Employment training Scheme to first get a qualification and hopefully land a job whilst on it. When I told him, he was angry and told me to pray harder and get a real job. I decided to disobey him and funny enough, I did not get any opportunities to preach during the time I spent on that scheme. Still when I got a job out of it he never apologized for being wrong or out of order, still why should he?, he was the big man of the hour.
In the same year my now ex wife had become pregnant again. The response from the two tier pastoral team was unanimous “Have you not heard of contraception?”. If that was not bad enough insult was indeed piled onto injury for me when she miscarried. Jini felt at the time. maybe a reaction to the grief of a mother losing a child coupled with our intense involvement in “spiritual warfare” that the unborn child was attacked and destroyed by evil spirits. I took this on board big time and a well meaning church member paid me a pastoral visit (something our pastors should of done) to see if we, especially my wife at the time was alright. I made the big mistake of mentioning what my wife at the time had said and being down in the dumps made a remark about the place being the “devil’s territory”. What I did not bank on is he going back to the pastors with what I had said. It must have been approx 10pm in the evening when I got a phone call from the pastors to come to their house. I went only to notice the mother in laws’ car parked outside. She had become part of their “Ministry Team” and so I entered and told in no uncertain terms not to teach negative doctrine to other members of the church and all things go through the “Ministry Team”. There was no mention of anything sympathetic about the recent miscarriage which was fresh in our minds. I should of realized just how cold this regime was and we were that close to leaving but never did.
I had finally been able to buy this digital drum kit which I wanted to play in the church. On the Wednesday before my debut on the Sunday morning we met up for a practice where he did nothing but call the drum kit a “toy” and was not sure if I was good enough to play on the Sunday but I convinced him to give it a go. It was a boiling hot summer Sunday morning. I had my hair cut and I wore a colourful tee shirt and some Bermuda shorts as I knew just how hot you can get playing drums in this heat. I walked into church with a mixture of excitement and trepidation inside only to be confronted by my pastor in his “Sunday best”. “You are not going up from and playing drums dressed like that! This is the ministry and not a rock concert. if you want to stay dressed like that you can sit down, otherwise go home and put a shirt and tie on” and then he walked off to the shock and horror of my wife at the time. She wanted to leave the church that instant, she was furious with him, but good little Woody took it up the tail pipe, went home and got changed into my “Sunday Best”. This was not the first or the last time that the authority of a pastor came before her, but I was a soldier who was being trained to carry out orders in the “Lord’s Army”. I got back with just enough time to plug the kit into the sound system but I was determined not to give the bastard the pleasure of criticizing my drumming, so that morning I drummed up a fucking storm! “You played real good Woody” he told me with a pat on the back as I left quietly after putting all the equipment away. A few days later he turned up, not to say sorry but to lecture the both of us how much British people are rebellious and won’t be told what to do. I should have listened to my wife at the time and left then.
I was working full time, had a very young and boisterous son to look after, we paid our tithes and a bit more to the church but to some people that just is not good enough. In the spring of 92’ the renovation had begun on the cellar part of the church building we were renting and I was in a job where I left at 8am and got home for 6pm then try to get some rest in between helping out with baby Ben. I used to organize five a side matches for the men in the church and had got one sorted for the mid week. I walked into the church where both of the Pastors were at the front. “We thought that you had got lost” was his response to our call of “Good morning!” and he asked me to go into down into the cellar area with him. “Do you really love the Lord?” he asked. “Ermm yes” I responded, more or less in a state of shock at the anger that was being projected at me. “If you did you would be here helping Flock Member F out. He has been here every day this week and he nearly collapsed with tiredness, so where were you?” I did not speak. I was just in shock. I had been busy trying to mix church with family life but once again not good enough. “This is where the rubber meets the road, Woody…” he bleated out at me, “If you can’t do the little things like this you will never do the big things like preach and teach. You are supposed to be an example setter and you should have been here helping.” I don’t know if it was the shock of this but I broke down and cried in front of him. Looking back it was a huge mistake to have done that as psychologically he just gain more and more ground in breaking me down. If I could go back in time and re-live that moment again, the healing ministry would have been very busy that day. Still I dusted myself off and delivered a decent five minute “Mini-sermon” along with a few other flock members on the “name of Jesus”. Once again I was not going to give him the satisfaction. We again thought about leaving but never did.
There was a joint meeting with the two churches in the area (that were to merge but never did). All was going well, I was for some reason not playing the drums I was in with the flock and the atmosphere was buzzing, a perfect Pentecostal atmosphere. I remember the a Member of this church, who had recently joined the controversial Jesus Army along with a few other flock members and during the praise and worship made the big mistake of going to the front of the church and dancing with another church member. The aftermath of this “loose cannon” activity was to firstly have dancing the front of the church banned and then they were banned from wearing the Jesus army jackets, so they all left and rightfully so looking back. I then, later on in the meeting go on to make a similar mistake as they did. There was a time of ministry and quite a few went forward for their “buzz” or “recharge” or whatever the hell you call it. My defence for this outrageous move was that I was on a bit of a spiritual high. I had somehow lead myself to believe that I was part of the “Ministry Team” so what I was about to do was ok. I got lost in the moment and during the ministry time went up and joined in with the pastors and their pastor friend from Canada
These are a few examples of life with the Pastors of my second church (1990-94).
You are thinking “Why the hell did you stay there?” The answer is simple…FEAR.
After our little time in the wilderness, trying out a few churches only to find them either “dead” or just “crazy” we settled, even if only for a short time at my third church. This was run by four elders, all from different church background, which made it interesting. What makes the dynamics for this pastor relationship is not what they did to me…but what I did to them.
We arrived there in the late summer of 1997, from Flint
Despite the fact that in my mind it was taking four men to run a church, they were not stupid, they could see through me. I was arrogant, wild, pretentious, hard but most of all I was hurt and very angry. They made the big mistake of allowing us to take a Sunday night meeting where I managed to offend just about everyone by more or less calling them a piece of shit.
I had rediscovered alcohol for the first time in years and once or twice came into this church stinking of beer. They did not say anything, they just let me be. They very graciously had me up there playing the drum for a children’s outreach when I was clearly hung over. Yes, like a lot of Pentecostals, I loved to talk it but could not walk it and in 2000, we left, after a short and ill advised stay in the area and at the time I felt justified in leaving a church which I described as “Car with four steering wheels with four drivers who don’t have a clue”. They must have thought “good riddance” and they were right. It is kind of ironic that my time with these first two pastors, who were in a spiritual sense, responsible for my spiritual upbringing, had created a monster.
When I hit the fourth church in late 2000, any thoughts of leading or even being involved were out of my mind. Meeting the pastors of my fourth church was an interesting experience. Before I knew it I was playing drums again and then six months later I was back preaching and teaching again. These two pastors were an interesting mix. The pastor, a reserved theologian who bite was much worse than his bark and his wife who word could tear you apart and often she did. They spun the same old yarn of revivals and how special we are and eventually closed the church in March 2007 giving three days notice and citing lack of money as the reason for the closing of the church. There were things that went on there that finally drove the last remaining nails into the coffin of my faith in this Pentecostal God. The double standards were shocking and the pressure was terrible. The time when, just before my wife at the time, after our separation and demotion from assistant pastorship, left for Canada
Being a pastor I believe begins with all the good intentions in the world, but you know what they say about good intentions?
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