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response by Pastor Russ Sharrock:

First, I believe the people have a right to expect their pastor to preach biblical truth. If there are theological differences, then the pastor and the congregation must sit down together, pray, and in love and understanding look to God's word for the reason for the differences. As long as God's word is the "authority" for the pastor's sermons then he should not be afraid to speak. If there can be no reconciliation over theological differences, then maybe it's time for the pastor to move on.



Pastor Russ Sharrock

2 Tim. 4:2

"Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage-- with great patience and careful instruction."

ncc99760@yahoo.com

Thank you for your interest conserning my own opinion to this subjet. A pastor in a church is the one who guide the whole community ; herefore, he is assisted by many other people among them olders, diaconese, etc... So he is the leader who let the church to god, it also depend of the way of leading the church : it may be a common staff with others pastors or individual staff, these positions gives to the pastor some autority and respect in the church, you know, no one can not lead without any autority, not only in the church. It easy to leave with a herd from maybe the state of New-York to Texas without a very problem, but with human being, it is very very difficult. so the autority must be use by the pastor with a lot of wisdom of god, if not, there will be many confusion in the church. In any case, the pastor is not a military chief but a father, a conseller, a shepherd who loves, support, always ready to help everyone, to understand those who are not agree with him, a person who gether not scatter, a person who pray even for those who are not with him...

Mr ferti oiunl
songuejcn@yahoo.fr

First of all the question presumes that we have been truly called to be God's undershepherd, some have and some have not and that leads to problems.

Assuming that we are truly abiding in our divinely appointed calling, I will say what I have often said to believers that I knew, who I would hear quote the scripture to, "touch not my anointed and do my prophets no harm", that many of God's prophets and anointed ones were persecuted and slain after all, including Jesus (who allowed himself to be slain). I cautioned them not to feel that they were untouchable as some seemd to imply.

I suspect that many of the challenges to pastoral authority that pastors are experiencing today, are as a result of the makeup of our congregations and the construction of our churches for there are too many carnal churches and pastors that may not have been divinely appointed, and that are not being led by the Spirit! I was a part of a Pastoral Conference held in Hunt Valley Maryland several years ago where this discussion came up.

The scriptures teach us that sheep know the Shepherd's voice, and that they will follow that voice. I have never had any problems with 'the sheep', in any of my congregations, and we did not always agree on everything.

However, strictly speaking and in a spiritual sense, goats and wolves that surreptitiously entered the flock (posing as sheep or Pastors) were a different story. We have been warned about the goats, and the wolves that will seek to enter into the flocks.

I say some things at times that shock people, some have even asked if what I say is true, I assure you that the things that what I say are true. The Lord actually warned me, to my dismay, about a member of my congregation that seemed to be very faithful, i.e., that she was a "deadly cockatrice". I had to go and look up the word cockatrice to know that this smiling face in the congregation was a deadly serpent, et al.

In time, the Word from the Lord was manifested. If we are being challenged by the goats and the wolves, even serpents mixed in with our flocks, we should not be surprised. Frankly, in the United States, we are living in a time when all authority and authority figures are being challenged whether in the church, home or workplace; this problem is not unique to pastors.

But honestly, some of us are going to have to be honest about the positions that we accept as pastors and ask ourselves, am I following God's spirit, and is this where God has placed me? For example, I was asked to shepherd a flock that had gone through about 12 pastors in 5 years. I prayerfully declined the invitation but not without explaining why. Except the Lord build the house, I said, my labor would be in vain.

I pointed out that I doubted seriously that any church that was following the leading of God could go through that many pastors in such a short period of time. We have to ask ourselves, is the church God's, that we are contemplating pastoring, or is this something that a Pastor or group of people got together and incorporated themselves.

Several years ago I was a member of an interdenominational alliance of pastors in a mid-western state. The President and Vice President of the alliance both confided to me, in private, that they were not permitted, by their Boards, to preach certain scriptures that are in the Bible.

I asked, well what did you do? The reply, I did not preach those scriptures. I asked why not, assuming that the Spirit had given them those scriptures to preach? They said that they would loose their jobs. Oops, the goats and the wolves won! And one could argue that these pastors were simply hirelings, assuming that God wanted them to preach those scriptures.

If we are sent to a flock, we should simply follow the example of Jesus who had to initially work with a group of unwieldy and disparate Apostles (not to mention his once most infamously rebellious member of his flock in heaven, Lucifer! We should shepherd with grace and Godly authority, or as the scripture says in another context, not by power nor by might, but with God's spirit.

And we should convene this work along with the prophets, evangelists and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints...till we all come into the unity of the faith...unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.
And like Jesus, and the martyr Stephen (who I believe provided one of the most profound new testament sermons and was killed), at times we will have to offer ourselves up to simply be slain.

Peace & Grace!
Rev. C. Solomon