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Criticism in the Church: Democracy, Dissent, and Authority

by James Barringer  
6/23/2011 / Church Life

If you're a normal human being, you've probably experienced a time when you weren't happy with something that was going on in your church. Depending on your personality, you did one of a few different things: kept it bottled up inside and silently ground your teeth; shared your displeasure with those around you; took your concerns to the people who could make the situation better; or left the church entirely, perhaps after doing one of the previous three things. I can tell you from personal experience that the first, second, and fourth outcomes are the ones people seem to choose most frequently.

Pastors are in a similarly tough pickle as they try to lead their congregations, because everyone knows the old proverb, "You can't please everybody," but there is that bit in the Bible where Paul says, "I become all things to all people, so that by all possible means, I might save some." And from a purely practical point of view, the pastor doesn't want to upset his flock, because then they start picking from that list of four outcomes in the previous paragraph, and at least three of the four are unpleasant. So how does the pastor walk this tightrope? And what does he do when people in the congregation begin to have issues with his leadership?

I believe it's time to explore the Biblical role of the pastor (bishop, apostle, overseer whatever word you're comfortable with), and the Bible's ruling on how the congregation is supposed to relate to him. Now would be a terrific time to mention that I am not the pastor of a church and I have no ambition of ever filling that role, so keep that in mind as you read.

First, and perhaps most controversially, I want to assert that the church is not a democracy. I mean you no offense if your church practices congregational polity, but here's my rationale. I say this because the office of pastor is instituted by God, and men are appointed to the office of pastor by God (see 1 Corinthians 12:28). No one should ever attempt to be pastor unless he is positive, beyond any shadow of any doubt, that the specific calling of God is on his life appointing him as a preacher and teacher. (This is why I said I have no ambition to be a pastor. I'm fairly sure I don't have this calling on my life, at least not right now, and the idea of taking a mission like pastoring onto myself without God's special appointment and blessing terrifies me, as it should any rational person, beyond what words can describe.) So we see that the source of authority in the church is, and must always be, the pastor, because he is the only one in the church with the specific calling of God to be where he is doing what he is.

Consider also the advice from Proverbs 29:18: "Where there is no prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint." Depending on your translation, the word "prophetic" may or may not be there, but that's the connotation of the word "vision." Now, a prophetic vision means a vision from God. In context, of course, Proverbs is giving advice to a king, the legitimate ruling authority over God's people, and you may be tempted to object that we don't have kings and so the verse doesn't apply. But haven't I just demonstrated that a pastor is the legitimate ruling authority over God's people in the church today, by virtue of being appointed by God? So then, we see that the pastor is given not only a calling by God, but a prophetic vision from God by which to lead his people. Any pastor who doesn't have a prophetic vision for his church - and I don't mean something generic like "Worshiping God and Serving Our Neighbors," I mean a specific vision for what God wants the church to be and do - might have started the work without God's appointment or approval, and that's a warning sign.

So, then, we reach the crux of my argument that the church is not meant to be a democracy, because God took it upon himself to appoint a person to be a preacher and teacher, and he gave this pastor a prophetic vision for what he wanted this church to look like. The congregation as a whole does not have a specific calling on their lives to lead a church. The congregation on the whole has not been given a prophetic vision from God of how to lead the church. Why, then, should anyone elevate the congregation's whims over the pastor's God-given vision? Why should church decisions be made by anybody other than the person to whom God has given a prophetic vision of leadership?

I realize that we in America are extremely distrustful of that kind of authority (and often with good reason). We have been brought up under a system that idolizes democracy: everybody's opinion is equally valid, one-man-one-vote, free and fair elections, checks and balances. I guess we sort of assume that God functions the same way. But there is no reason to think this. The whole history of God's interaction with humanity involves his people submitting to a legitimate authority who he has installed: Moses in the desert, Israel's kings, and so on. Even in the home he expects wives to submit to their husbands, and he expects husbands to submit unconditionally to him as the source of their leadership. God has never practiced democracy. He's the King of the Universe, after all; nobody elected him to that position.

Secondly, the pastor must be surrounded with a leadership team of elders. In the previous few paragraphs, it sure sounds like I'm advocating a lone-wolf approach to pastoring, which would be very popular with the kind of power-hungry dictator-types who are most prone to abuse the power of their position. However, the Bible is also very clear that elders, plural, must be alongside the pastor to help him carry out his work and to hold him accountable to the congregation and to the Bible. So why didn't I mention them prior to now?

It's very simple, actually: the elders aren't appointed by God, and since they're not appointed by God as the legitimate ruling authorities over his people, they aren't usually given a prophetic vision of leadership. Thus, their position of authority is inferior to the pastor's. They, like the rest of the congregation, are in the church because they buy in to the pastor's prophetic vision, not because they have been given one of their own.

Let's talk about the first part of that: elders are not appointed by God. 1 Timothy 3:1 says, "If anyone aspires to the office of elder (or overseer, or whatever word you're comfortable with), he desires a noble thing." Note the key words: the person aspires, the person desires. Eldership is something that he wants for himself, not something that God appoints him to. After the person expresses a desire, he's chosen for the position (or not) by the pastor, who compares his personality attributes to those in 1 Timothy 3:2-7, which specify that he can't be a new believer, can't be a drunk, can't be quarrelsome, and must be thought of well by unbelievers, among other things. Titus 1 gives a nearly identical list, and includes Paul's command to Titus: "Appoint elders in every town as I commanded you" (1:5). See? Pastors are appointed by God. Elders are appointed by the pastors. I'd also like to observe that the commandment, "Appoint elders," is binding on the pastor. There's no reason a pastor should ever be the only member of the church's leadership.

Finally, to the congregation (lay people, etc), which will probably be most of the people who read this, God gives a handful of instructions: to go be a part of a local church (Hebrews 10), to practice unity in the body (Ephesians 4), and others. The first of those is significant because God appointed the pastor, the pastor appointed the elders, and then God tells his people, "Make sure you go assemble together." It's God's stamp of approval on this whole enterprise. Secondly, he tells his people to remember the ties that bind them together, and to strive for perfect unity. In Jesus' high priestly prayer (John 17), he actually prayed that his church would be as united with each other as he is with the Father...that's a pretty high bar.

Now, the astute reader will notice that I haven't even begun to engage the question with which I led off this essay, the question of what to do when the congregation has issues with the pastor's leadership. It was necessary, though, to preface my answer with that in-depth study on the origin of the pastor's authority and the role of the prophetic vision, so that the reader would know why I say the things I say. The answer will be broken into two parts, one for the pastor or other church leadership, and one for the layperson.

To the pastor, how do you handle criticism and dissent in your body? If you don't have any, then good for you, but your congregation is probably one person large. If it's bigger, then how do you balance being faithful to your prophetic vision with the input you're receiving from your people? How do you know whether you're being faithful to the vision or merely prideful? First, I would remind you that this is why you're supposed to have elders you can trust to shoot straight with you - not merely yes-men, not merely no-men, but mature men of God whose opinions you trust. Ask them what they think of the criticism and if they think there is wisdom in it. Second, I would instruct you to examine the criticism itself. Is it procedural or substantive? Does the person's complaint cut to the heart of the vision you received from God, or is it something you could do while staying true to the vision? Is it an issue with real weight ("I don't think you teach from the Bible enough,") or an issue of personal preference ("The music is too loud / too quiet / too new / too old," "Can you let out early so I can be home in time for the Cowboys game")? Does it attack the core of the church's identity, or is it merely a different way of doing things? Use your discernment to examine the criticism itself, seek the counsel of your elders, and that will let you know whether you should receive or dismiss the criticism. On the one hand, you don't want to alienate your people. On the other hand, not every idea that your people serve up is truly from the Spirit, and you don't want to sacrifice your God-given appointment or vision for the sake of pleasing people. But you also don't want to be prideful and reject any new idea simply because it's not yours. Consider also the person responsible, whether they're usually a fountain of good ideas, or if they're simply a critical spirit.

For the congregation, how do you react when you're unhappy with what your pastor is doing? First, you should know that the pastor was appointed by God to be doing what he's doing, and he was given a prophetic vision from God on how to carry it out. You weren't. If your criticism is something that could help the church better succeed in its vision, then go directly to the leadership and share it with them. Don't talk with your friends about how unhappy you are with the way it's currently done; that is called gossip. Criticism is only constructive if you share it with the people who can make use of it. I hope that any pastor worthy of the title would have no problem with his people coming to him and sharing their thoughts on how to make the machine run better. If you've noticed a problem in the body that the pastor hasn't noticed yet, go to him and tell him not just the problem, but a suggested solution as well.

And you can tell a lot about yourself by what happens if your idea is not accepted. If the pastor says no, and explains to you the carefully-thought-out reason why it's done a different way, how do you react? Anger and indignation are a good indicator that the criticism itself comes from pride, from a desire to see one's own ideas succeed, not from a true desire to see the church succeed. A situation like this can say a whole lot about the true state of a person's heart.

At the end of the day, we keep butting up against the fact - and it is a Biblical fact - that the pastor was appointed to his job by God and given a prophetic vision for how to carry it out. If the church is seeing people get saved and baptized, if lives are being changed and God is being glorified, the best course of action is simply for the critic to submit to the pastor's God-approved authority. To paraphrase 1 John 4:20, if you can't submit to the pastor who you do see, there's no way you can ever submit to a God you can't see. American conventional wisdom tells you that if you're not happy with a church, leave it and find one where you can fit in. We always say that Christianity is counter-cultural, but that doesn't stop us from falling right in line with American consumer culture whenever our church displeases us. If you train yourself to cut and run whenever you encounter difficulty, you're never going to develop the moral character that allows you to survive and thrive in difficult situations. If you know that your pastor is for real, and the issue is something you can live with, you really have a moral obligation to God and his church to keep your unhappiness to yourself rather than gossiping it out to all your friends, and to submit to the person who God has installed as the legitimate governing authority over his people in the 21st century. If you're too immature to handle that advice, and you feel like you just can't stand it, then simply leave. Preserve the unity: don't blab to everyone about why you're leaving, and resist the temptation to issue a "parting shot" by ripping the pastor privately or to his face. Ephesians 4 still applies to you. Sometimes the situation is serious and departure is the only solution, such as if the pastor is doctrinally off, if the youth pastor is a little too touchy-feely with the girls, and so on, and in those situations taking off in a hurry is wise. But in my experience, there's one person who leaves for a heavy reason for every two or three hundred who leave because of personal preference, and that's a direct slap in the face to the unity that Jesus himself prayed for. I don't enjoy the thought of getting to the judgment throne and being told that I and people like me are the reason Jesus' prayer wasn't answered.

And that thought leads us to the one reality that underpins all of this, which is that one day we will stand before God's throne and answer for every careless word we've ever spoken (Matthew 12:36), and for every action we choose to carry out (1 Corinthians 3:13-15). Our salvation will not be in jeopardy, because the blood of Christ has already paid for every sin we'll ever commit, but we will stand there before the throne as God reads off the list of all the sins we would have had to die for. He will bring up all the times you, and I, criticized our church, and sat around with our friends taking potshots at the man God appointed to lead us, the man who spent his time and sweat and tears caring for us. God will bring up all the things you ever did to undercut your pastor's authority. He will mention the people whose walks of faith were bruised because of our words, how perhaps our careless criticism did lasting damage in their lives. We have a serious responsibility to govern our words and attitudes in light of the fact that we will be judged for all of it. If nothing else in this entire essay sticks with you, perhaps the simple, potent, and true reminder that "God is watching" will suffice.

Jim Barringer is a 38-year-old writer, musician, and teacher. More of his work can be found at facebook.com/jmbarringer. This work may be reprinted for any purpose so long as this bio and statement of copyright is included.

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