There are some folks you meet at church who really should have traffic cones set up around them as a warning.
Or at least the sign, “Speed bump ahead”. Or perhaps even “Slow Children at Play”.
One of the “teachable moments” church provides us is learning to love unlovable people. Church is really the only place bitter, angry people can still feel significant. If you’re a grumpy contrarian whose wife stopped listening to him around 1997, church is about the only place left you can show your backside and people are still supposed to love you.
If you’re a gossip, why spend hours on the phone when you can go to a Bible study class and hold court with several folks at a time? And if you’re frustrated at your job, you can still throw your weight around and boss people at church without being shown the door like any other establishment would.
For pastors and staff, the temptation is to call out those folks for the chaos they create. Two problems: first, it’s hard to call out gossipers when some (if not all) of the gossip’s about you, and second, your pastoral heart hopes against hope that you can somehow change them. The hard part is knowing when they’ve become a whirlpool that will drag other innocent people down the drain with them.
In every church you’ll see some of the same “disease carriers” if you look long enough. Satan sends some folks to a church with the specific intention of ripping it apart, but those people are often unaware they are being used. Yet it’s so easy for them to bring destruction, because in eradicating their “virus”, you don’t want to accidentally kill its “host” as well.
Here’s just a few of the communicable diseases I’ve seen infecting a church:
The “I’m-Going-To-Change-Your-Theology” Virus
When I planted new churches we got people from all over the map, both geographically and theologically. It seemed that some folks expected us conforming to their theology instead of learning what theology our church already had. And the smaller the church, the easier the infection spreads.
I remember one guy who told me point blank, “Dave, I’m just praying for the day you get up in the pulpit and start speaking in tongues!” I responded, “Bill, I’m a baptist. We only kiss in tongues, we don’t speak in them!” After the shock wore off, he understood my point.
While new people can add ministries and depth to a church, t’s simply arrogant for a new member to expect to change a church’s theology. It shows no respect for the people already worshipping there, the church’s spiritual heritage, or the authority of the pastor leading it. That’s a spirit of rebellion. You need to go to a church that is already in line with your theology.
The “Bottomless-Black-Hole-Of-Need” Plague
This lady comes to your church because her last church didn’t care enough to meet her spiritual needs (she says). That church was “too big”, or the pastor didn’t care about “the little people” – something along those lines. But she senses your church “really cares”.
When someone tells me they’ve been hurt by their former church, the pastor part of me wants to show them we’re different. The problem is often that her personal pity party and unreasonable expectations are why people in her last church avoided her like the plague. Her last pastor soon realized he didn’t have enough time or energy to ever make her happy.
Unfortunately, Jesus Himself probably couldn’t make her happy either.
Every request for help from her is really a never-ending test where the bar is raised ever higher and higher. Eventually, the pastor becomes her very own “Concierge Pastor”, jumping every time she calls. When you miss enough of her calls, that’s when she goes to the NEXT church and tells them about how the LAST CHURCH was too big and didn’t care about her, and the pastor was too inaccessible…you know, all the things she told you about her previous church.
The “We’re-Looking-for-a-Platform” Pandemic
This smiling, friendly couple usually shows up telling you they are experienced teachers of the WORD (pronounced, “WUUUURRRRRRDuh”). They say they’re your “humble servants” and would just love to “come along side you” and help minister to people through their vast experience.
At first, you’re excited because churches are always looking for leaders. So in most churches, you immediately give them a class or small group to lead, unfortunately without vetting them or ever hearing about the carnage left at their last church.
Months later, you realize what they really wanted is not to support you (the pastor) but to use your congregation to gather their own followers. Instead of drawing new people into your church, they draw attention to themselves and attract folks away from other ministries and into their ministry or small group. Since they’re too smart to come directly against the pastor, they’ll instead cast troubled glances downward when someone points out his failings to them. These folks know how to look humble, speak fluent Christianeze, and say just enough for other less restrained folks to fill in the rest.
However, when people start feeling uncomfortable around them and scatter from their class, or when they don’t get enough public recognition for their deep spiritual maturity, or when they find another church after they’ve worn out their welcome at your church, they’ll quietly slip out the back door and play the same scene all over again.
These are just a few of the folks we wish we could put caution tape around to warn church members, but can’t. The sad part is they all have gifts that could truly be useful for good, but their motives are too polluted. Pastors often have to look on knowing there is nothing they can do to stop them other than pray God changes them, or they leave.
The people around them rarely know they are carriers of a disease until it’s too late. But if they could see with truly spiritual eyes, there would be the chalk outlines of body after body left in the wake of the spiritual diseases they carry from church to church.
The only vaccine to guard against it is wisdom. And that’s one shot few people have got!
