“Don’t trust your church leader” is a command that one might never hear taught in Bible study or preached in church! As with my previous post–Christians Leaders Can Be Told They Are Wrong–this title is intended to be provocative. Yet it is a sound biblical command and teaching. Even Jesus would not trust people who seem to be very good, people who enthusiastically and excitedly came to him (Jn 2:23-25).
Why should you not trust your church leader? I’ve been studying and preaching on Isaiah the past six months (Isaiah sermons from West Loop). A repeated theme is Isaiah’s harsh, scathing and pointed rebuke to the leaders of Judah (southern Israel), including the religious leaders and Bible teachers (Isa 1:23, 27; 2:11-12, 17, 22; 3:14-15; 5:21; 9:15; 17:10; 22:11; 28:9-14; etc). Isaiah primarily blamed and accused them for the eventual demise, downfall and destruction of their nation. Though the people at large were also at fault, but to Isaiah, the failure of God’s people was primarily a failure of leadership.
What is their problem? It is pride. Invariably pride results in self-sufficiency and trusting in their human wisdom and alliances and politics rather than simply trusting in God (Isa 22:8-11).
Thus, Isaiah says bluntly, “Stop trusting in mere humans, who have but a breath in their nostrils. Why hold them in esteem?” (Isa 2:22; 51:12-13) Jeremiah 17:5 says the same thing, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Cursed in the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord.’”
It is unfortunate that people trusted in their leaders who were proud and arrogant. They enjoyed their power and authority. They oppressed others and benefited themselves (Isa 3:12; 22:16). They blindly presumed that they were God’s own special and chosen people who could do what they wanted. When Isaiah encouraged them to trust God instead of trusting their own power, plans and politics (Isa 2:6-7), they scoffed and mocked and ridiculed him (Isa 28:9-10, 14, 22).
A short and contrasting illustrative story of leadership is that of Shebna, an obviously bad honor-seeking leader (Isa 22:15-19) and Eliakim, a good leader whom God blessed and firmly established as a solid peg (Isa 22:20-24). But interestingly, even a good faithful leader like Eliakim did not have a good ending, as “the peg driven into the firm place will give way; it will be sheared off and will fall, and the load hanging on it will be cut down” (Isa 22:25).
Even though Eliakim was a good leader, a dependable and responsible man whom God blessed, yet the end result was not good. Why? How could a good leader end up with a bad result? Perhaps, people depended on him, rather than on God. Perhaps, he expected people to depend on him and so he took on more than was warranted, rather than entrusting matters to God’s hand.
How does one apply this teaching of not trusting in man to life in the church?
My sentiment as a pastor is that I would love for others to trust me, as I’m sure other pastors would. Yet I know that I am a frail, flawed, fallible and fallen person. Sometimes when some people trust me (too much perhaps?) they might place on my shoulders what only God can do for them. To those who look to me to solve their life problems an eventual outcome may be varying degrees of disappointment and disillusionment, because I could not live up to their expectations of me. I learned that sometimes I need to intentionally “cut the cord,” so that unhealthy human dependency does not develop, and that a genuine friendship rooted in God may be established.
Yet I see the temptation within me that prompts me to take on others’ expectations of me because I want to be a “good shepherd” for others. Once I tried to help two people to “marry by faith.” Their unspoken hope was in me to make it happen. So I did. But after several years the marriage ended. I was heart-broken. I knew that I allowed my pride and vanity to think that I could bless them and establish their marriage. I thought I was trusting God. But in essence I was trusting my own experiences and assessment more. It was a moment of painful self-reflection for me.
Do you rely too much on people, including your shepherd, to help you?
Does your shepherd or church leader expect you to simply trust him without question as though he or she represents God to you?
Do you just obey the command to “Stop trusting in mere humans” (Isa 2:22)?
Ben, I’m going to lodge a minor disagreement.
Your basic point is that churches would be better off if members didn’t trust their leaders so much. You suggest that less trust leads to healthier church. But I think the opposite is true.
If an infant is well cared for in a safe, loving environment, he/she quickly develops a basic attitude of openness and trust toward other human beings. That trust is the foundation of all healthy relationship. Without trust there is no love. If that trust never develops or is undermined (because, for example, the child is neglected or abused) then the child is likely to experience serious emotional and psychological problems throughout his or her life.
The problems we have experienced in unhealthy church environments don’t stem from members trusting too much. Members ought to be able to trust their leaders, because that’s what well formed, healthy humans do.
The problems you describe stem from broken leaders who trust too little.
Leaders who don’t trust their fellow Christians enough to show their weaknesses. So they hide their true selves behind a mask of false holiness and bravado.
Leaders who don’t trust that God is present to all people and working powerfully in all people regardless of age, sex, societal rank, education or level of experience. They can’t believe that God would work in someone without consulting them first. And they don’t realize the poorest and least advantaged among them may in fact have the richest experience of God. Henri Nouwen left his teaching post at Harvard to live among people with severe disabilities and never looked back because it brought him into deep communion with God. If church leaders could stop being so puffed up, so full of their own ideas and obsessed with their own plans, if they would stop thinking it was their job to bring God to other people, and instead gave their full attention to pursuing God for themselves, then they might find God in unlikely places and among unlikely people. They might close their mouths for a while, stop trying to teach that which they do not know, and awaken to see what they never before saw.
Leaders who cannot trust are deeply broken. I won’t follow their advice, because they are not reliable guides. They don’t really know themselves, and they don’t really know God.
The bottom line: For healthy relationships, you need more trust, not less. But the trust needs to flow in all directions.
Thanks, Joe. Agreed. As mentioned I was being provocative and cheeky. Without trust, say between a husband and wife, the marriage dies. Similarly in the church when trust is lacking.
But I say, don’t trust your church leader, in the context of bad leadership in Israel, which I equate with an unhealthy church with unhealthy leaders.
But even if a leader is good and healthy, like Eliakim in my post, blindly trusting him may not necessarily end well.
Perhaps I should post this to conclude my article:
To members of a church, you don’t have to blindly accept and unconditionally trust your leader’s directive and counsel, for your leader, even if good and well intentioned, may be wrong.
To leaders of a church, you should not impose your directives on your members and guilt trip them for disagreeing with you. Instead, you should humbly learn to hear and listen to them, for they are not you and they don’t think like you.
Ben, I agree with your advice. But depending on where you are positioned in the unhealthy organization, doing what you say (stop trusting the leaders) can put you in the doghouse and eventually get you pushed out. These days, they won’t actually expel you, but they will make the situation so uncomfortable that for the sake of your own health and sanity you’ll have to leave.
Hi Joe, I don’t necessarily disagree with you. But I’m sure that the “powers that be” will basically categorically deny this: “These days, they won’t actually expel you, but they will make the situation so uncomfortable that for the sake of your own health and sanity you’ll have to leave.”
There are several reasons why they deny this:
1) they refuse to seriously think about what they are doing.
2) they have no clue and no idea that they are doing so.
3) they think that they are just doing what they have been already doing for decades and counting.
Yes, Ben, they are in denial and clueless about how badly they treat people. They wouldn’t be so clueless if they trusted people enough to actually *listen* when legitimate questions are raised. I tried my best to reason with them. Now, with a clear conscience, in godly wrath, I give them over to their own desires to do as they wish (Ro 1:24, 26, 28).
“They” don’t think they treat people badly. They just treat people as subordinates. They think doing so is “normal”.” You are the one who has a problem because you treat them as a peer. To some of them that is pretty rude and disrespectful.
Yes, the egalitarian nature of Kingdom relationships will offend the sensibilities of those who are accustomed to always getting their way. If they cannot accept others as their peers, they shall remain peerless.
I am learning through this post the importance of having a healthy skepticism toward church leaders, after all they are only human and are susceptible to the same flaws of all of mankind. I have been so accustomed through the culture of church I’ve learned in UBF as an ex member to not question the authority of church leaders. This included not questioning the authority of Missionary Isaac Choi when he was my bible teacher. This included not questioning the teachings or biblical validity of what Pastor Ron spoke of on Sundays. I am liberating myself from this fear of church leaders’ authority. After all it is heresy in my opinion to the one God on high for church leaders to create a culture in which they systematically create a godlike authority for themselves that they mechanically employ to silence the voices of the oppressed in the church system. No longer will I be silent in the public discourse of what is wrong with UBF as an institution. No longer will I allow my voice to be silenced when there is so much of emotional and spiritual value to be gained from sharing my experience about being systematically oppressed as a gay Christian in UBF. So, Ben, thanks for sharing and making known that Jesus himself doubted church leaders and essentially questioned their authenticity. I believe it is important for church leaders to balance their power(s) and to relegate their own will over to God when it comes to managing a church or congregation.
I think this harsh, scathing, and pointed rebuke you speak of is needed for certain spiritual leaders to have a reality check of the responsibility they hold for a congregation. A spiritual leader is choosing to be in a place of authority and with that position and title come more than just power but the responsibility to use that power correctly for God’s glory as opposed to an institution’s glory (such as the faulty glory of UBF). In relation to the story of Isaiah I believe that a spiritual leaders or cohort of spiritual leaders is/are responsible for the demise, downfall, and destruction of any individual from a church. This spiritual destruction can be precipitated by a lack of proper leadership in a church of God. I personally do believe that UBF is accountable for the demise, downfall, and destruction of my faith in the past because had I been nurtured in a more loving relationship with God by the UBF leadership then I would not have fallen away from God to begin with. My relationship with God became a carbon copy of my relationship with UBF due to the cultlike mentality of the church. I therefore do find this cult and its faulty leadership to be responsible too for the demise of the faiths of all the individuals improperly taken on as “sheep” in UBF. The Isaiah chapter 1 verses referenced make me think about the concept of justice and how true justice will be brought upon UBF leadership when individuals take responsibility through repentance of their wrongs in promoting incorrect principles for developing a relationship with God. I believe that the haughty looks of UBF leaders will be brought low by the power of my God. That power of UBF leadership which is so corruptly lifted up will be brought down by my God whose love transcends time and space above all other powers in this day and age. The day when UBF leaders truly humble themselves and put their self-interests aside for the sake of the glory of God in this ever evolving cultural revolution we live in will be when God is truly exalted. This means putting aside the self-interest to preserve this myth of procreation and instead promote healthy sexuality as God intends through a real relationship with him (and this is obviously inclusive of all LGBTQIA individuals). No matter which degrees or accomplishments of this world or the spiritual realm any individual in UBF has, these are all still derived from the original breath of God in Genesis and should be acknowledged as so in UBF leadership. My God’s wrath will hold accountable the terrible UBF leadership style that crushes and grinds the faces of poor sexual minorities into a spiritual abyss in the church. I believe God will equally if not more crush and grind these UBF leaders into place to teach them a lesson if they do not stop putting their own interests regarding sexuality before God’s desire to create a spiritually inclusive system of communities in Christ. Perhaps UBF leaders take myself to be too wise in their own sight and need to repent before God to obtain divine wisdom rather than humanly constructed conceptions of what it means to be an organic sexual being in God’s view. I believe that the prophets who teach lies against homosexuality at UBF are the very tail of Satan that we must destroy in Christianity in order to be a spiritually connected community. UBF leaders must remember the Rock of their own refuge from eternal damnation and accept that the same love of Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sins rewrote theological misinterpretations long ago and that the same blood of Christ redeems LGBTQIA for their sins (of which homosexuality itself is NO sin). The scoffers of UBF leadership must take responsibility for twisting God’s word (whether they do it intentionally or not) as they are keeping many souls from the salvation of a Heavenly Father who is far more inclusive than UBF has ever allowed sexually minoritized individuals like myself as a gay man to believe.
I am turning toward a more critical understanding of theological systems at this point in my life and I recognize through this post the danger in simply trusting in human wisdom, which is so susceptible to human error. No longer will I allow myself to be oppressed by the ideologies of UBF for their own twisted gain to have me back as some sort of shepherd living a lie that I am able to be a heterosexual and preach a false gospel exclusive to heterosexuality.
I think it is so important to acknowledge that as humans we are all frail, flawed, fallible, and fallen (UBF leaders inherently included). I believe where UBF leaders struggle to acknowledge this is by their inability to cut the cord in their relationships with sheep at the appropriate time to allow God to continue to guide the spiritual relationship. For example, instead of deeply constructing a conception for what it means to live a healthy sexual life before God in a generalized systematic sense, UBF could cut the cord of sexual life advice at the point where people can healthily & individually learn for themselves what God communicates to His followers about sexuality at the appropriate time in their own lives. This way UBF leadership can stop disappointing and disillusioning followers of Christ from the true love God wants us all to experience as His people (LGBTQIA individuals included which I feel like I must continually qualify in my dialogue about UBF).
I can understand that there is some good intent in taking on other’s expectations of a good shepherd or Bible teacher to bring others into a deeper relationship with God, however this is taking the power away from God to organically cultivate these relationships mostly on His own with minimal human intervention.
To answer the concluding questions: yes I rely too much on people to help me because I am afraid (partially through UBF leadership conditioning) to trust more in God rather than a human to convey divine knowledge. My current church leader Pastor Brittany Isaac with the Urban Village community does not expect me to simply trust her without question and does not act as though she represents God to me. That is why I am able to develop a deeper relationship with God at Urban VIllage because I have the space I need to critically create a firm foundation of my own faith in God. I now accept the command to “Stop trusting in mere humans” from Isaiah because I believe that it is vital for one’s own spiritual development and experience to create this loving, trusting relationship with God instead. I hope to live this principle out in my own life and continually trust in God first and then in spiritual directors of faith who can responsibly juggle the powers God relegates to them for bringing a community of believers into a more intimate relationship with Christ.