I feel like a voice crying in the wilderness. No, I do not think of myself as John The Baptist. I say it as a Church Leader who has found himself in an impossible situation.
The Senior Pastor at my Church abused people and his wife exacerbated the damage done to them. A group of victims found their voice and I was the one they trusted to listen. I brought accountability to the extent I was able. It was decided by the Elders (the ones not related to the Senior Pastor) to ask for their resignation. We rightly found them to be scripturally disqualified. I asked for their resignation. They refused. So, I got the ball rolling to bring in external people to investigate and hand down a decision. They investigated. It took seven months. They too found the Senior Pastor to be scripturally disqualified. He was rightly asked to resign and offered a two-year package to go. It included a commitment by qualified people to salvage the Church and its businesses if possible. The Senior Pastor and his wife declined. “It’s their Church.”
So, He is still the Senior Pastor, and CEO. Being scripturally disqualified, he chose to survive by a flawed constitution - a real cut-and-paste job he created a decade earlier. I was criticised for not following it to the letter at the start. Recently, two specialist lawyers admitted, even they couldn’t make sense of it. Regardless, between the Senior Pastor’s family and supporters and the constitution, he remains in control like a python choking the life out of its victim.
I am the Executive Pastor, Elder, and Board Member who had the burden of hearing the stories of abuse and bringing the initial accountability. More has come out since this all began a year ago. It is disgusting.
Being a whistleblower has cost me my reputation. I have been defamed by the Senior Pastor and his family and supporters. Having heard much of what has been circulated about me, I’ve had no opportunity to fix the damage to my reputation. Friends have spread these narratives without asking if they are true. Talking to me would have been divisive in their minds, but parroting these things to others was somehow okay.
Over the last year, I have seen great beauty, miracles of healing begun, silence broken and victims handed the keys to their cells. It was all worth it. I would do it again. I will never regret listening. I will never regret doing something when no one would do anything. Those who have talked trash about me can take a flying leap. It hurts, but I can move on and leave them behind. I know how to grieve well. My future does not require their presence.
Being a whistleblower has cost me my job. Today, I confirmed with the office that I have been banned from attending onsite at the building where the Senior Pastor still clutches his idol. I have no idea what I will do. I know God is entirely trustworthy though.
Why do I feel like a voice crying in the wilderness?
Our modern concept of the Church is so flawed. I speak from the perspective of an Evangelical/Pentecostal experience. One tragic flaw is reflected among Pastors as a peer group.
If Christ himself cannot save the unrepentant, then what makes Pastors, as a group think they can restore a fellow Pastor who does not repent? Is it arrogance? Perhaps wishful thinking? I believe Pastors find it almost impossible to chastise another Pastor because they see themselves in the eyes of the other. There is an elevated compassion for their peers. By comparison, their compassion for victims can be lower than for their peers.
Looking back at the last year and the outcome for myself and the injured, I see an almost irrational desire to care for and restore our Senior Pastor. I do not say this as a criticism of those who have come to my Church to investigate and deliver their findings. I am so very grateful for them. I am not criticising. I am however making an important observation about the problem with Pastors as a peer group. Allow me to offer one clear example.
The Australasian Leader of Ministers Fellowship International (MFI) is a Pastor. Our Church is independent. Our Senior Pastor and his wife are members of MFI. By association, our Church is connected to MFI. It is not a denomination. I called MFI at the beginning of all this. It should have been the equivalent of a 000 or 911 call for me. This MFI Leader’s first act however was to reseat our Senior Pastor in his seat of authority. He showed outright disdain for victims and for me. He undermined all trust among the victims in MFI.
I now realise that MFI is only capable of being a fraternal organisation for Pastors. Ironically, their slogan is, “Healthy Pastors Leading Healthy Churches”. But what if the Pastor isn’t healthy? They have no capabilities, policies, processes or legal instruments to hold one of their Pastors accountable. They don’t provide ordination. Therefore, they cannot remove or suspend the ordination of one of their members.
I met for over two hours with this top MFI guy. He trivialised the stories of abuse the victims brought forward. I got so frustrated with his cold indifference that I asked him what he had to say to the victims. I kid you not, he opened his bible to the page he already had marked. He read, “If you don’t forgive, then neither will God forgive you.” Then he closed it and cocked his head to the side and stared at me. That was it. Victims have to forgive their abusive Pastor, or else.
The next day he walked the Senior Pastor and his wife back into the Sunday Service. I had warned him not to because of damage to victims. He refused to listen once again and victims have never set foot in the Church again. On Monday, he marched the Senior Pastor and his wife into the auditorium and required all office staff to come in and sit through a group grilling. Who had spoken? Who had listened? There were staff in that group who had spoken in confidence to me. The wife of the Australasian Leader was concerned later that day that one staff member who had a panic attack might sue, so she thought she should be given a couple of days off.
This Pastor came to our Church to help his Pastor. Simple. That is all he was capable of. He has proven himself to be a useful friend to our Senior Pastor. He will forever be remembered as a disaster for victims. Later in the year, I confronted the Australasian Leader of MFI, about his early involvement and the damage he did. He was unrepentant. I believe, he thought I was beneath him. Who was I to confront him? I pressed him to apologise to the victims, he said he didn’t need to. I pressed harder and he said, “I suppose, you could let them know, that if they are upset, I’m sorry they’re upset.” Of course, this is not an apology, it is a slimy way to say you are upset. I refused to convey a non-apology on his behalf.
At a point during the last year, those who investigated thought it would be a good idea to get victims and the Senior Pastor, his wife, their family and supporters all together for a night of reconciliation. The Senior Pastor read an apology to the victims. There were several sitting in the room. He could have spoken directly to them by name, but he just read the words on the page in a pathetic wooden manner. After ten years of working with him, I instinctively knew they were not his words. A few days after the event, we ran his written apology through three separate AI-Checkers. It turns out, he had an AI write his apology. That’s why the words didn’t sound like him. The most important speech he would ever give and he let AI write it for him. Pathetic.
He is still unrepentant to this day. He has tried to delay the establishment of a Trust fund dedicated to assisting his victims by paying for counselling and psychological treatment.
Our modern ideas of what a Pastor is are misaligned with scripture. The title is much bigger than it should be. Good Pastors burn out under the burden of it. The wrong people take on the title for the wrong reasons. Some bestow the title upon themselves. Narcissists exist in many of our pulpits. They are the wolves Christ and Paul were concerned about.
We have a problem and it must be fixed quickly. We need a miracle. It is not only a problem with the individual Pastor. The problem is what we have allowed Pastors to become. They have become something they were never meant to be - idols, a privileged class, first among equals, someone above question, someone with veto power when they are on trial.
This post is the beginning of my crying out. I am finished with the best efforts of mere men to redeem an unrepentant man who clings to the title of pastor. He is no Pastor at all. He is evil.
I am laying down all these titles that were given to me. I intend to relearn what a Pastor is according to scripture.
😢 you have sacrificed everything. All for the victims. All for the church. The real church. The people. Keep writing. Keep shouting the truth. We need your voice ❤️🩹
I totally feel your words and am SO very sorry you are enduring this. You are definitely right and those who can't or won't see it have a lot to answer for, especially the perpetrators and those tolerating them.
Serving people is from the bottom up, not from the top down. Where is the humility from these people??
Please know how much people are loving on and praying for you. Every single moment. ❤️🩹🙏