This one is difficult to write. The issue is not as widespread as some I have written of lately, but for some it is the most intense. Without further suspense, I speak of adult children, often times parents themselves, of parents in the Independent Baptist world. Again, this is not unique to us as if springs from a temptation for every parent–not letting go.

There is the more visible manifestation of this problem in one of the smaller segments of the Independent Baptist world. You will see a family that lives in a way similar to the Amish or Mennonites. They will often dress that way and live cloistered from the world. I am not criticizing them for that lifestyle because if they feel they should live that way to honor the Lord, it isn’t my place to say it is wrong even if I feel that the Lord is not asking that of me. I know some of them love the Lord as much as I do.

What is an issue is how at times the family is handled. The man is rigidly in charge and makes every decision to the smallest detail. I have seen some of the mothers in this environment who seem to often be looking downcast and unhappy, but that is a discussion for another day. Then there are the children. Becoming a legal adult changes nothing. I have seen several men and women in their mid-20s who couldn’t go even to town without parental permission. To decide on a life course or whom to marry is out of the question. The parents will decide, require long courtships, and have endless hoops for their grown children to jump through. My first thought is that if your child is incapable to make good decisions on their own by 25, you should make a public confession that you have already failed. By then, you have missed your chance. If these young folks ever get the courage to go their own way, the greatest pressure is often brought to bear. It kind of reminds the of Amish and their shunning. The parents are the patriarch and matriarch and naturally are the spiritual gurus for the whole family. Perhaps you shake your head and say this is ridiculous.

Much more surprising, and not as obvious, is another segment that in no way look like the Amish but demand a role in their adult children’s lives that robs them of standing on their own in life and before the Lord. Often times they are the ones with the higher standards and feel those standards are some of the most critical things of the Christian life. I have no criticism of anyone’s standards as long as they realize that it is not their place to impose them on everyone else.

A real problem arises when those adult children go through a process that all believers must go through–feeling a necessity to know what the Lord wants for themselves and then making that the way they live their lives. All too often that may mean a few differences in detail than what their parents followed. Of course I would like my children to reach my same conclusion on everything, but I am not naive enough to think it will happen. For that matter, I really, when my head is on straight, want them to follow Christ instead of me anyway!

Then comes the crisis. There is the parents who they love on the one hand, and the Lord they love even more on the other. The parents feel rejected, dishonored, and unloved if they follow the Lord, or there is the guilt of not giving the Lord the first place if they follow the parents to keep the peace. It is pretty much a rotten ordeal either way, though there is really only one option to a Christian. Some withdraw from their children and practically break fellowship with them!

In addition to knowing several people personally in different families going through this situation, we have several more write either my wife or I since we have been blogging telling us of going through this problem. The names are different, the issues may be different (dress standards, church of choice, or some other standard), but the pain is the same. Relations are strained, holidays are awkward, and a rift grows. And it simply should not be.

Points For These Parents Of Adult Children To Consider:

1. Does the Lord deal with us in this way?
2. Even if you are sure your adult children are making a mistake, did the Prodical’s Father treat the Prodical Son in that way?
3. Where is your Scriptural permission to act in such a way?
4. Is it worth losing your grandchildren too?
5. Are your motives 100% pure? Is part of the your disappointment that you have made a big point out of the standard in question and it embarrasses you when others see that one of your adult children is not following what you have made a key point of your life? (A few of the cases I know about personally had one of the parents say to their adult child, “you are damaging my ministry by your change”).
6. Is it working? Are your methods yielding the results you want?

I appeal to you to let go. Your time to mold them is over. You only have influence now and you surely don’t want to throw it away because you can’t have a control you have no right to anyway.

Points For Adult Children Who Have These Issues With Their Parents:

1. Remember you are not alone.
2. You may not be able to take the unpleasantness away.
3. Love your parents.
4. But follow Christ. As you well know, He is worthy of first place. This point is non-negotiable.
5. Remember that in a few short years you will face the same problem with your children.
6. Raise your children where your control decreases and their personal decision making increases so that when they reach the steps of adulthood they can go on making their own way as we all must. You have about 18 or so years per child to get the job done. May our Lord help us as we go bumbling along the road of parenthood.
7. Don’t repeat the mistake later that causes you pain now.

I sincerely pray that many families can turn the corner on this perplexing issue.

Find all articles in the series here:

Do you ever get the sense that something is missing? Do you ever in the Independent Baptist world amidst the claims of our being the closest thing to New Testament Christianity feel that something is off kilter? Do you read the Gospels and think something about what Jesus did in sharing the Gospel with others is lacking in our efforts? Could it be that while many elements are present we have one major lacking component?

Love. We at times see the depths of the problem by the intensity of the cringing when we mention the need of love. Some are instantly offended when the word love is offered up as important. Sometimes the charge of “O no, you are one of those love-love-love people” starts flying. Well, that is a strange criticism to get. All in all, I don’t think I would be too devastated to be labeled as a Christian who is infected with love. Following a God Who Himself said He is love might make that criticism a badge of honor!

Still, some of our fellow Independent Baptists would be horrified to have the love label attached to them. Love, a theme that finds its way from the beginning pages of the Bible, intensifies in the New Testament, and finds its highest expression on the lips of Jesus in the Gospels, is thought by some to be a sure sign of weakness. Some feel it weakens the body of truth that is Christianity while, strangely enough, the Bible says it defines it and undergirds the whole.

I think they have the explaining to do. Love, for them, is really an umbrella term for a set of words and even some Scriptures that will put you on the suspicious list. Grace–that word that is a love springing forth raises some eyebrows. An appeal to love enough to not judge is a real blood-pressure raiser. To even quote Matthew 7:1 (“Judge not, that ye be not judged.”) is a sure-fire way to make them think you don’t even believe the Bible even though you just quoted it. Liberty, or the freedom purchased by love, is another no-no. “Love your neighbor” may be in the Bible, but surely neighbor is an extinct species. You get the point. The things criticized here make up a grand portion of the New Testament and it is, therefore, absurd to criticize where the Bible commends for one claiming to follow that Word.

This gets even uglier. We give token acknowledgment to love and then revel in a harsh, militant view of the truth. How could we have truth without love if love is part of that truth? We are hard where Jesus was kind. We say we love, but no one believes us. We scream and get angry and lament that no one listens. Would you listen?

Love is never proved by words, only action. The test is simple: do others feel it? Before you trash the test remember the ones who met Jesus in the Gospels would have answered yes.

To have Christianity without love is like having chocolate chip cookies without chocolate! If you make those cookies and realize you left out the chocolate you know you bombed! Go back to the kitchen and put in the chocolate or you will never have chocolate chip cookies. Without love you will never have Bible Christianity either! This ingredient is missing, but it isn’t lost. We know where it is. In fact, the cupboard is full of love for one who knows Jesus Christ. I suggest we go to that cupboard, get it, and put it back in.

Find all articles in the series here.

They suffer silently. They have to because speaking up is labeled treasonous. Even if they are treated treacherously, they are held to a standard of grin and bear it. They can be held to account and then some, but their tormentors must not be. Who am I speaking of? Some assistant pastors and other staff members in the Independent Baptist world. While there are some wonderfully happy staffs out there where pastor and staff love each other, there is a must more widespread problem than many would want to admit.

Over the last 15 years I have heard the story time and again. A pastor rides roughshod over assistants. He belittles, abuses, criticizes, over works, and treats as second-class servants the very ones the Lord has sent as a gift to help Him. The story goes that they are told they are incompetent and have everything they do over analyzed, second guessed, and often redone. Though there can be poor assistants, of course, I know men that are some of the most faithful, dedicated men I have ever known and have proved it in later ministries, and they suffered immensely in this very scenario. In some cases the wounds linger a long time and a loss of confidence must be worked through. Besides hearing this from many, and even being requested to write on this in this series, three men I know very well shared with me in great detail their horror stories. Each of them were of such character that they have never tried to retaliate by lashing out or going on a crusade against their abusers. Still, it was unjust that they should have suffered so at the hands of a pastor.

This is not the same thing as a pastor taking “the oversight thereof”, or providing leadership or vision, even if the abusers loudly want to couch the issue in those terms. As one who holds the office of pastor in the highest possible regard, I will label it for you in one word –hireling. It is one who is called to be a shepherd and give himself for the sheep using others for his own ends. He is taking when he should be giving. It was supposed to be about them and it ends up only being about self. It divests the word “pastor” of its true meaning.

Why does this happen? If you listen really closely, you will find traces of jealousy. Remember King Saul with David? It is as if these pastors must be the center of the universe, so much so than any other staff is not allowed to be loved or respected. This, of course, sets them up for failure as when they reach that grotesque of a prideful level it becomes hard to get real love or respect. Then comes the lowly assistant and everyone can’t help rooting for him. The pastor then gets more paranoid and amps up his preposterous treatment. In some cases, though the assistant has moved many miles to come their way, these pastors fire them like the most secular of companies and nothing like a church. To be sure, that becomes a source of shame to the cause of Christ.

Things Every Pastor Must Never Forget In Regards To Staff:

1. You have a shepherding responsibility to every staff member.

You are as much the pastor of every assistant and staff member as anyone in the church. What evidence could you produce to categorize them any other way? You will give an account for their souls too.

2. You pastor a church, not run a business.

A church can’t be run in the same cold fashion some businesses are. If some staff member doesn’t “produce” enough, you can’t just throw them under the bus. The reality some are missing is that a real Christian approach is the best way to run a business, not the other way around. The very best companies figured this out and make a happy, secure workforce a key component of heir business plan.

3. The church you pastor is all about Christ, and nothing about you.

You are a servant of Jesus Christ. He receives glory when local churches are what they should be, and he has placed you there to facilitate that goal. The moment you seek the glory for yourself you nullify your point of existence. What could be a greater failure?

4. Assistants are co-laborers, not inferior beings.

You just have different assignments. You work together in a great cause. They are as loved of God as you.

5. Staff members can be a place of great ministry.

What an opportunity to advance the ministry you have if you invest in them. You will never increase your influence by elevating yourself at the expense of those around you. In fact, that will render it valueless. On the other hand, the joy of old preachers is the others they have helped along the way. Mentoring, if heartfelt, is a powerful thing.

God bless the pastors who do it right. Let’s all join their number!

All other articles in this series here.

Do your eyes work correctly? Eyes, when working as God intricately designed them, are amazing. They naturally put their greatest effort into seeing vividly what is right in front of them. They prioritize carefully. That is not to say that they don’t take the longer look or look on the edges. There is, in fact, peripheral vision to catch a problem on the sides. Peripheral vision complements normal vision, but can never supersede it.

To test our theory, you could run down a trail forcing your eyes to focus on your peripheral vision. What would happen? In short order, you would trip over something and fall flat on your face. I don’t imagine you would get up, brush yourself off, and proclaim focusing on peripheral vision is the most important thing of all.

It would be nice if we could carry the obvious over into our spiritual lives. Peripheral vision is a help, but it had better not be our main focus. Yet we see it so often in our Independent Baptist world. The peripheral is given the preeminence. The main vision falls on the edges.

We see, for example, standards being given the main focus. We have some churches where two weeks can’t even pass by without some strong statements being made about standards. As you might imagine, when you stare too long at what you should only be glancing at, you will become obsessed. In that environment standards grow beyond general guidelines on the edge to a main focus that ever grows to infiltrate the most minute details of life. Dress, entertainment, and on to every facet of life we go. But our eyes are not on the trail right in front of us. We live on the margins when the trail is so nice.

This peripheral vision that goes so beyond its intended scope shows up in other dramatic ways. It becomes such a habit that now it infects our preaching. We come to a passage in God’s Word that in its proper context has something so profound, so vital, to say to our Christian life and we read with our peripheral vision. We miss Christ, or some essential truth to living the Christian life, and see something on the edges that is in no way the main point. The side point becomes the main point and we fall on our faces yet again.

Let us be clear here–the Lord calls us to a single focus. As Matthew 6:22 says,

The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

We need a single vision. Christ wants no rivals. Not even things about Him can have any of His place. Rules to live a way He likes can not supersede a personal fellowship with Him. When I say such peripheral vision will trip you up, I mean it. Though many Independent Baptists bristle when you mention the Pharisees, the story of peripheral vision is their biography. They went deeper and deeper into it until after a few centuries they did not even know the Son of God when they looked Him in the face! As the above Scripture says, keep a single vision and you will be full of light. Need I remind you Who is the Light of the world? Don’t ditch your peripheral vision as it occasionally will be of great help, but ever keep your eyes straight ahead.

Find all posts in the series here.

We should learn from our mistakes. We can make a big deal about something today that absolutely doesn’t rate a little blimp on the issue scale later. In fact, many Christians have done this very thing.

Take, for example, Christmas. There was once a time some years ago that several felt that celebrating Christmas was wrong. There were sermons and writings that preached against Christ-mass. It was labeled a Catholic perversion and claimed to be satanic. It was widespread enough that Dr. John R. Rice, prominent Independent Baptist and prolific writer (I use an Independent Baptist example because of my background, but many parts of Christianity have had such episodes), felt compelled to write a book entitled I Love Christmas where he argued that Christmas was acceptable for Christians and that Christmas was wonderful on many levels. I imagine that 98% or better of current Independent Baptists would agree with every word he said. It was not, however, the case then.

There was a higher and vocal percentage the other way in that day. Some didn’t go all the way. Some said that Christmas was acceptable, but Christmas trees were heathen idols. They cited a verse in Jeremiah that they felt corresponded to a Christmas tree. It was about bowing before idol trees in that day. How they got a Christmas tree from the context or even the words of the verse is beyond me! But they did.

Fast forward to today. In the last 10 years I have only met three people personally that felt Christmas was totally wrong. I met two or three more that personally felt only the tree was wrong. There are more that think even the slightest mention of Santa is an attack of Christ. In my travels or on my Facebook newsfeed where I have friends all over the country and world I see Christmas everywhere, even among groups where it was once not acceptable. You would have never guessed that anyone ever really wrestled with that issue. It still exists (I had a dear lady write in conjunction with another of these posts that her family ostracized her over her celebrating Christmas), but it is as rare as a tax-cutting liberal.

Doesn’t it seem silly? I mean no disrespect to anyone who held or holds that position. It is your right and I support your right to hold it. Still, it seems odd to me. Just a guess, but I imagine a great majority of those reading this blogpost agree with me. Do you suppose that some who held it years ago, or were forced to hold it, feel silly about it now? Again, no disrespect, but anytime you have to back away from what you now find an unsupportable position, it makes you feel a little awkward. Take it from this Smoky Mountain guy whose grandmother talked him into sitting on a chicken roost when he had chickenpox as a boy!

I imagine there have been more than a few pamphlets and sermon notes trashed from those days on the subject of Christmas. Good riddance, but do you see the point? It doesn’t pay to get on a hobbyhorse not clearly mentioned in Scripture and ride it into the ground. Words pushed that hard taste bitter later.

Christmas is far from the only such hobbyhorse. In the 1970s there was a major push to not own a TV. Many smashed them in the yard or burned them. I know of many, and I mean many, who once held a position of no TV and have one today. They probably have watched a Hallmark Christmas movie in the last two weeks! They have guidelines for what they watch and rightly so, but the fact remains that a TV graces their living room where once it did not. Once it was preached against, but now it is not.

There is still a small group that still refuses to own a TV, but their numbers are too small to even be heard anymore. I respect them taking that position if they feel they should, but most of us simply don’t feel the Lord asks that of us.

The point is neither Christmas nor TVs. It is jumping on a hot button opinion where no Scripture in context can be cited. Make it a focus of your ministry today and you may look a little foolish tomorrow. It will be like some of those high school yearbook pictures you hope never see the light of day!

Do you think maybe we have a few candidates today to be the Christmas or TV of tomorrow? Will not having a projection screen later seem as silly as preaching against a microphone today? Will some other modern technology criticized today seem as odd in 15 years as preaching against central heat and air today? Some preferences today will be as off the radar in 20 years as Christmas and TVs are today. Some sermons preached now will be embarrassing then.

So we might ought to shore up the list of items we make a really big deal of. We should ask: does the Bible actually say this or am I in a fad that won’t stand the test of time? It’s a worthy question, wouldn’t you say?

So as you enjoy this Christmas–and I sincerely pray you have most blessed Christmas– you might want to ponder Christmas as a case study to decide where you really want to be.

May God bless you one and all as we stand victorious in the Christ of Christmas!

 

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This was originally part of IBTR series–you can find all articles in the series here.

It is a strange phenomenon. With free access to the Bible still available to us, you wonder how it could be. Perhaps you have seen it yourself in some places within our Independent Baptist world. I speak of the peculiar feature of a pastor having the full reign for every decision we make. Then there is the stranger feature of people giving them that right. God’s people were not created to look to another man for all of life’s decisions, nor were His pastors created to make them all for everyone else. The weight of omniscience is more than any man can bear.

Since I have the call of pastor on my life, I am pro-pastor all the way. When the Lord discussed giving gifts to men in Ephesians 4:11-16, He listed pastors (I believe “pastors and teachers” refer to one office). Specifically, He gave pastors,
“For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:” (Ephesians 4:12). That is pretty heady stuff. He even gave them an authority in church matters (1 Peter 5:2-3). But let’s not get carried away!

The Lord didn’t leave us to wonder about other aspects of pastors either. Most telling is what He said in 2 Corinthians 4:7,
“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” Did you get that? A pastor carries the treasure because he handles the Word of God, but he is not the treasure. That is a key distinction that we must never fail to make.

He has a gift to teach and preach the Word of God, but with his feet of clay he is just like everyone else too. He sins, he fails, he makes stupid decisions, he argues with his wife, and he is bewildered by parenting at times. He sometimes doesn’t know what to do and has to pray and seek the Lord like you, he has no more access to God than you, and even with his gift and best efforts he sometimes misinterprets the Bible. Hopefully, he can guide you to the right Scripture for your issue, and perhaps can give some decent counsel, but what biblical evidence is there that he can better determine God’s will for your life than you?

Let me be more blunt–he has no special insight into what career you should pursue, whether you should be in the ministry or not, or where you should live. He especially has no idea whom you should marry or what car you should buy. He might point out a Scripture if you are pursuing a sinful choice, but out of the non-sinful options he is far behind you in the ability to decide that for you. You have a much more vested interest in your future than he does. You probably thought and prayed about it more than him too. If he has a real pastor’s heart, he will be serious about praying for you, but he doesn’t have special knowledge beyond the Word you too possess.

If he is honest, he will tell you there are many categories in life he knows less about than you. He wouldn’t dare pass himself off as an expert on every subject. If you ask him who to marry, besides biblical prohibitions, he will say you figure it out yourself since you will be the one that has to live with them. If he lives up to his calling, he will as his greatest work equip you to seek the Lord and not be dependent on him or any man. He is a failure if you can’t go right on with the Lord if something happens to him.

Watch out for the so-called pastor who wants you to be dependent on him. In light of the Scripture cited above, if he tries to convince you that you must run all decisions by him and let him decide them for you, he is a dishonest user. Whether he is lying to himself or to you only God knows, but he is lying none the less. He is not a shepherd, but a wolf; he is not a pastor, but a hireling. John 10 tells you mess you will be in if you follow a hireling. Just when you need him, he will not be there! If you have such a pastor I have one word for you: run!

Can I give a word to that sincere pastor who has been inundated with this teaching and feels a failure? Your feelings are telling you the truth–you can’t do this! The good news is that you were never asked to. Your marching orders are “feed the flock of God.” You can do this. So move to the real work of a pastor because you will never bear up under the weight of omniscience.

All posts in this series here.