Once Upon a Time in a Church

 

Once upon a time, there was a church, and this was a happy church. But as the years went by, this church was overwhelmed by the way the pastor treated those who attended. Now, this is a fairy tale based on fact but does not have a happy ending. This church grew into existence from a small Bible study group. In the early years, the small group never realized that one day God's plan would be for them to be the ground floor of a local church.

As the Bible study group grew in size, God began to steer it in the direction of a church start up and the excitement began to grow. It would become an affiliate of a large church movement which had been trying for years to start a church in the small town where the group met. The Bible study leader and teacher was leading this group in the study of God's word and what the group needed to know concerning a church startup or as some refer to as a church plant.

The Lord was leading the way and there was support from a parent type church. Leaders and pastors from this parent church supported this group with counseling and advice and materials in the effort to get off the ground and open the doors for the first time for this church. As the day approached and everything seemed to be in place for the first Sunday morning service, everyone was involved in the preparation. You could feel the excitement in the air as the last minute preparations were completed that Saturday before the first Sunday service. 

When the dust had settled on that Saturday, there were three leaders, or elders, in place. The senior pastor was Doug and the other two elders were Ron and Liam. All three were sincerely committed to do the work which God had prepared them for. There was a music worship team in place, teachers for all the children's Sunday School classes and a format which the elders had all agreed on.

The first month was a true blessing; people were being saved following every Sunday morning message. It was so obvious that the Lord was directly in the center of this ministry. The elders got to the point they were expecting people to get saved following every service forever. But the numbers began to fall off and that was to be expected. The church was vibrant and spiritually healthy. This church continued to maintain its spiritual growth and growth in numbers. But after a period of about two years, red flags began to pop up.

The church had obtained a property which was more than adequate in size for their use. The first red flag appeared on a Sunday evening when Liam arrived for evening service and was told that Ron and his wife had left the church. There had been a dispute over something but no one except Doug and his wife knew what it was. The church had a policy which did not allow any new comer to be involved in ministry until they had attended at least six months and then were interviewed by an elder.  But Doug repeatedly broke this policy and his poor judge of character resulted in damage of some sort. There was a keyboard player who walked across the street from his house to the church and announced he could play the keyboard and wanted to know if he could play with the band. Doug was thrilled to have a key board player and without knowing the man for more than a few minutes, invited him to join in. Two weeks later the man was nowhere to be seen and when Liam asked about him, one of the members of the worship team told him the man was in jail for his second DUI.

Many years later, another major mistake in character judgement would cause the loss of a long time church leader who was always committed to God's work in the church. Doug, once again, allowed a couple, who was unknown to anyone in the small church, to come in and begin to take over leadership of ministries within the church. They began accusing a church leader/elder of terrible things which led to him having to leave the church. When he was approached by Doug and his wife, he denied the accusations. Doug's wife immediately placed a binder on the table in which she had recorded every false accusation against the elder. Doug even accused the elder of trying to steal his church away from him which was another false accusation. It was later discovered the couple had been doing this in many churches in the area and it had all been lies.

But this is getting far ahead of the story. Following seven years as an elder and Bible teacher as well as one who maintained the property and did so many other things and ministries, Liam terminated his position as elder. It was like God told him one Sunday morning when he got up to write a letter of resignation and he did. He handed it to Doug following Sunday morning service. Two years later he was gone from the church and starting his own ministry plans as directed by the Lord.

As the years went on, there would be many others ran off and mistreated by Doug and his wife. People were scolded and yelled at in front of others in the church. It was always over something silly and not even worthy of mention. Members of the music worship team were read the riot act over silly things like where they stood on the platform or they were simply standing where Doug wanted to stand (actually, he had no business being a part of the worship team).Some of these people left the church right then during practice. Doug would even berate people from the pulpit during his teachings. He would yell and scream at them like a madman. 

It soon became evident that Doug had to be involved in many of the ministries within the church. He even insisted on being a teacher at the Women's Retreats. This is not wrong if it is a one time thing and he is asked to do that but his wife was the women's leader and together they insisted on being the ruling factor in this once vibrant and healthy church. Doug's wife was also a major distraction in any service. Many times she would stand at the rear of the sanctuary and as Doug was preparing to start his teaching, she would interrupt just to say something which had no importance at all. When they were approached by an elder concerning these disruptions and her heavy influence in the pulpit ministry, they denied there was any problem with this.   

Many times, people worked hard at establishing ministries in this church only to have them taken away and given to one of Doug's family members. Of course, this was done after the ministry was in place and the work was finished. People were accused of doing things which they never had done; youth were accused of things such as doing drugs on the property or causing trouble in classes which they were not guilty of. Parents were beside themselves over these false accusations. Young women and even those who were mothers were read the riot act over the way they were dressed on a Sunday morning. There was never anything wrong with the way they were dressed unless the dress code said they had to dress like the Amish. And, there was no dress code, at least not a written one.

Early on, Doug insisted he would not marry a couple until they had successfully completed a very long counseling agenda set by him and his wife. One young couple endured the entire counseling agenda and when they were finished, Doug refused to marry them. But in recent years, he has married couples who had been living together and with barely no counseling at all. He also married an 18 year old women to an 81 year old man. Without saying, there is something extremely wrong there!

As I said earlier, there is no happy ending to this very dismal fairy tale. This once vibrant and spiritual healthy church had an attendance on Sunday mornings of about 150 people. Recently it was reported the attendance now is approximately 25 people. The truth is Doug ran off more people than the sanctuary can hold. In other words, if you counted all the people he has ran off over the years this church has existed, the sanctuary would not be able to hold them all. Doug is now in his advanced senior years and probably should not be in any pulpit or be serving in any type of Christian ministry. And actually, he probably should have never been a pastor. He has never shown any Christ like compassion to most he has pastored but his biggest problem has always been his huge ego and his temper.

Now, I'm sure you know by now this is not really a fairy tale; it is a horror story and especially for those who had to live through it. For those who were smart enough to know this is not the way to pastor or conduct God's ministry work and left, they saved themselves a lot of misery and heartache. For those who believed God had them there for a reason and stayed as long as they could, have learned some very important lessons. Why would God allow this to go on for so many years? The answer is unknown to us at this time. But early on, there were people brought to Jesus by this ministry and we have to remember that. But we must also remember that the egos of men and their self centeredness, will always tear down the good work which the Lord has put in place.

There are so many other things which should never be done in ministry concerning this church but it would consume volumes. And the question still remains, "Why would the Lord allow this to go on for so many years and why do good Christians tolerate it?" Maybe these people have never received proper Biblical teaching and simply don't know any better. The answer to these questions remain unanswered. But prayer is a mighty tool and this church needs a ton of it.

So, the fairy tale over time became a horror story for many and the good work of God was destroyed by a man who placed himself on the throne and placed God at his side as a relic. 

--Bill Petite