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DON’T LET THE CHURCH DESTROY YOUR FAITH
by Chuck DeVane, Pastor Lake Hamilton Baptist Church Hot Springs, Arkansas ____________ CHAPTER EIGHT THE ISLE OF PATMOS Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord! — Psalm 27:14 A pastor at fifty should be at the peak of his usefulness. But as I passed this milestone in my life, I felt utterly useless. My father’s forlorn prophecy had nearly been fulfilled, for the church had played a leading role in destroying my faith and my family. The first time Dad warned me about the church, I was only thirteen. Life largely consisted of school and sports, and I gave them my best effort. I worked hard, played by the rules, and helped others along the way. Rewards were reaped in the form of good grades, scholarships, and numerous awards. The second time he prophesied to me, I had just become a Christian. My main goals outside of following Christ were to finish college and get a good job. I worked hard, played by the rules, and helped others along the way. The results included a degree, an entry level position with a large company, and a couple of key promotions within the first few years. Marriage, children, and a brand new house were part of the picture, too. The third and final time he warned me that the church could destroy my faith, I was entering seminary and embarking on a calling and career as a vocational pastor. Once I began, I tackled the ministry as I had everything else in life. I worked hard, kept the word of God, and helped others along the way. My wife and I expected a rewarding experience with God and God’s people. What did I get from the church for just over twenty years of faithful service? I got multiple attacks from both liberals and conservatives for simply telling the truth and trying to help. I got fired, twice, in spite of the fact that I did not do anything morally, ethically, or doctrinally worthy of rebuke, much less termination. Each church I served grew in number, financial strength, and ministry output. Still, they managed to either antagonize me or scheme to get rid of me. At the end of my most recent pastorate, my wife left us for another life. I was expelled from the church parsonage and then the church. My daughter and I had no home, almost no money, and no place to go until a great friend took us in. By the way, she was thirteen, the same age I was when my father first said, “Don’t let the church destroy your faith.” I was unemployed and unemployable, to old to start a new career and too young to be finished as a pastor. I clung to a torn and tattered faith, the love of my four wonderful daughters, and the support of several faithful friends who had stuck with me through my trials. I felt like the Apostle John, severely wounded and exiled on account of the gospel and the word of God. I was on Patmos, awaiting a revelation from the Lord to tell me what to do. Unmistakably, definitively, and personally, a word from God came. It had been written three thousand years before. It was not exactly the word I wanted to hear. God said, “Wait.” On my isle of Patmos, Psalm 27 became my book of revelation. It served as a light to guide me during the darkest period of my life, and beyond. What do you do when you don’t know what to do? You “wait for the Lord.” A quarter of a century ago I had put my hands to that gospel plow. I could not turn back. But, I could not imagine who would want to call a twice fired, once divorced pastor. Spurgeon told his students that if you can do anything else besides being a pastor, do it! I looked at other fields of employment but could not conceive of doing anything other that what the Lord had called me to do, preach the word and pastor His church. So I prayed, “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple” (Psalm 27:4). Waiting does not imply inactivity. I prayed and prayed. I was willing to consider any church of any tradition that could value my gifts and experience. Four faithful friends wrote letters and sent resumes on my behalf. I endured some scorn from churches and pastors, even old friends, for trying to continue on in pastoral ministry after being divorced. I faced countless closed doors and cold rejection letters. I prayed some more. Out of approximately two hundred contacts, I received two phone calls. One of those didn’t call twice. To slightly modify the wisdom of Robert Frost and Yogi Berra, when you come to a fork in the road, and one of them is blocked, take the other one. I waited on the Lord for a fresh start to serve Him. I was willing to go anywhere He wanted me to go. After months of darkness and doubt in the cabin in the woods, one church lit up to invite me to be their new pastor. It turned out to be the first unanimous call I had ever received from a church, thirteen to zero. Sure, it was a small situation for a pastor with two graduate degrees and twenty years of experience, but it was God’s perfect place for me and my daughters. Most pastors dream of starting a church from scratch and doing it right, and this was a chance to start one over again. The location was inside a hundred miles of my oldest daughter, son-in-law, and grandson. My second daughter, also divorced, and granddaughter moved with us. My third daughter was traveling all over the country on business, but kept in close touch. And, the place where we moved put my youngest daughter in one of the finest schools in the country. The Lord blessed us and allowed us to be in close proximity as life and ministry began again. God met our spiritual needs through answered prayers. God met our emotional needs by keeping us close together and giving us time to heal. God met our financial needs through the new church, a part-time gig at a local Bible college (something I had always wanted to do, too), and my retirement savings. I took the latter as a sign the Lord doesn’t want me to retire, anyway. The Psalmist said to seek the Lord and He will not forsake you, even when others do. We did, and He did. When you don’t know what to do, God does, so “wait for the Lord.” What do you do when you do know what to do? You “wait for the Lord.” Had the Lord not knit our hearts together, the church I came to serve could have otherwise closed the doors and I might be out sweeping floors. I had literally looked into a church janitor position about the time this church called. Another good friend and faithful pastor I know had been forced out of a church and served as a janitor for a season, even though he had been a medical doctor before seminary and pastoral work. The Lord spared me from the mop and broom, and now that I had been provided with a place to serve and a people to serve with, I knew exactly what to do. But the Lord continued to speak, especially through Psalm 27, telling me to “wait.” God’s word, good mentors, positive experiences (even in the midst of dysfunctional churches), and even my own mistakes had taught me how to lead people in worship and discipleship and the other purposes of the church. But it had taken me this long to learn that every church is different, every field is unique, and every purpose of the Lord should be fulfilled by waiting upon the Lord for a sure sense of direction. The new church, like our family, had been torn apart by past strife. Previous pastors had stayed an average of three years, about the national average in our denomination, which seems to be indicative of a major problem. Deacons had run the church, unbiblically and ineffectually, and run off more than a few pastors. In the most recent conflict, however, they retreated and handed the reins to the immediate past pastor who proceeded to run the church, straight into the ground. Even the facilities looked as if they had battled a hurricane and lost. To top it all off, a trusted member had embezzled what little money the church had. Like me, they hit bottom. Surely there was no way to go but up! Up we have come, but this is a chapter that remains to be written. Our membership has increased four-fold, but four times thirteen is still only fifty-two. We have money in the bank, but it is taking all our members can give to sustain our small budget and repair our buildings and grounds. We have established biblical parameters for membership and leadership. We worship in spirit and truth, and our Lord’s Day service is God-centered and infused with the gospel and the word of God. There is still much to plan and do, and I know a lot of ways to do it, but we are waiting on the Lord to show us just when and how He wants us to make His name great and reach people for Jesus Christ. I used to wait on the Lord in desperation. Now, I do it in deliberation. What the church has done to destroy my faith has actually caused my faith to grow. I have learned not to fight, for it is the Lord who fights for me. I am learning to trust people that the Lord has put in my path, and tactfully ignore those who come from some other origin. I am learning that time belongs to God and is only borrowed by man, and God is not in a hurry. I am learning to wait upon the Lord, and trusting that good things do come to those who wait. The revelation I received on my isle of Patmos is brought to a conclusion with this optimistic promise: “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” (Psalm 27:13-14). At the beginning of this chapter, I could see nothing good that had come out of a life of service in the church. I was divorced, unemployed, homeless, and hurting beyond imagination. But the Lord loved, the Lord spoke, and I waited. What God has given me is beyond good, and it got me off the isle of Patmos. God gave me a richer, more rewarding relationship with the four beautiful young women I am proud to call my daughters. God gave me a new church, small in number but large in its desire to do the right things the right ways at the right time. God gave me the opportunity to take all He has taught me and teach to young Christians on a college campus. And, after my heart had time to heal from divorce, God gave me perhaps the greatest gift other than my salvation that He has ever given to me. I must tell you about her in the next chapter, for our lives comprise a story that needs to be told to the church that so often hurts, but needs to help. The church can destroy your faith and your family, if you are not careful, so we must learn how the church can make both, church life and family life, all that God wants it to be. Copyright © 2016 Lake Hamilton Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Check out the weekly happenings at Lake Hamilton Baptist Church in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
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DON’T LET THE CHURCH DESTROY YOUR FAITH by Chuck DeVane, Pastor Lake Hamilton Baptist Church Hot Springs, Arkansas ____________ CHAPTER SEVEN THE BEST OF TIMES, THE WORST OF TIMES But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed. — 2 Corinthians 4:7-9 After fighting in two world wars, spiritually speaking, the Lord relocated me to a people and place as close to home as I’ve ever been. A small town First Baptist Church within a hundred miles of where I grew up provided good soil to plant my life, family, and pastoral ministry. It was a culture I could relate to, a proximity close enough to keep an eye on ailing parents, and a church that seemed hungry and ripe for biblical polity and practice. At just over forty years of age, I perceived this would be a long term, perhaps a last term, pastorate. I wound up spending almost a decade there. Like Dickens’ novel contrasting aristocratic England with revolutionary France, it was the best of times and the worst of times. The first years were fruitful and exhilarating. The middle years required revisiting some old battles. Just as peace settled in those last years, all hell broke loose. I rode in on a white horse and had to be carried off on a stretcher. Conflicts in the former pastorates had been exclusively caused by the church. As for me and my house, we were sincerely trying to serve the Lord. Yet it was the Lord’s people, the church, who made life difficult. After every contentious deacons meeting or church business meeting, however, I could find solace and support from five beautiful girls, my wife and four daughters. Family life made church life bearable. But what do you do when your family is falling apart? The church should be the source of solace and support. After all, the body of Christ should be a family and friend that sticks closer than any other brother. As a pastor, I had always made aggressive attempts to strengthen families, provide marital enrichment, and offer counseling. By the grace of God, I had a good track record of seeing weddings waft into solid marriages, broken marriages repaired, and families stick together. Sadly and shockingly, I woke up one morning to discover that my own family was falling apart. For the first time in a long time, maybe the only time, I really depended on the church. I told them the facts as much as I could, coveted their prayers and advice, and received from them some comfort and assurance. But when push came to shove, they pushed and shoved me out the door with no place to go but down. It was a long, dark, and painful fall. My faith almost went with it. What made this the worst was the beginning which seemed to be the best. The town itself could have been an old southern postcard. A majestic courthouse stood in the middle of the square, flanked by beautiful First Baptist, First Methodist, and other churches. Everyone loved Jesus, fried chicken, and high school football, although not necessary in that order. In many ways it was like crawling into an old black-and-white television and being transported to Mayberry. I poured myself into community life, regularly visited the town cafes and barber shop, and got involved with as many people and organizations as possible to share with them the love of God and gospel of Jesus Christ. I chaired the Ministerial Alliance, frequently helped out at the schools, aided the Chamber of Commerce, and became president of the Rotary Club. Small town life in the First Baptist Church seemed to suit my family well, too. I mentioned in an earlier chapter that my wife had lost interest in the church due to past strife, and this is true. But she got along well with members of the church and community while going back to college to complete her degree. It took years but she did it, and afterward got a job in the local school system. Our oldest daughter had grown up and married off in our past church and remained out of state. Our second married a local farmer and seemed happy to settle down close to us. Our third was a jewel of a student and cheerleader captain, then graduated and went off to our old hometown college. Our youngest became the school beauty queen, dancing queen, and overall queen of Sheba. Family life was good. Church life, as in most Baptist bodies, was good, bad, ugly, and everything in between. The staff and core leadership were simply the best. Two associate pastors were the most excellent leaders in their fields I had ever worked with. Two secretaries were sharp and professional, and the pastor’s secretary was the best assistant pastor I ever had, and she and her husband were faithful friends, too. Two custodians provided excellent service to our stately buildings and grounds, the later of which was a key but quiet African-American community leader. I had the privilege of helping him help others, then holding his hand as he bravely fought cancer. The members of the original search committee and other key leaders were mostly good and godly folks. They joined me in a commitment to reform the church into a loving, biblical, God-centered body. We got off to a good start with great worship and immediate growth. I must add a word about our fine worship leader, who had already served at the church for years before my arrival. He was a good and godly husband, father, and pastor. He was a most excellent choir director and led worship with dignity and quality. Our philosophies of worship were almost identical, but our theology differed. Though it did not matter to me, it mattered enough for him to leave after only a couple of years together. He had been on the other side of the denominational wars and went to a church with more moderate to liberal leanings. Liberals enjoy a reputation of being kinder than conservatives, but this church took this fine man and chewed him up and spit him out in short time. His conflict with a powerful deacon and choir leader led to his abrupt firing, an ensuing mental breakdown, and a harmless threat against them that they turned into his incarceration. His story is yet another of a good minister attacked and destroyed by, of all people, the church. The beginning challenges in the church were to stem years of decline and address matters of disunity. The low attendance was mainly due to the immediate past pastor, a nice man by all accounts, who simply could not preach his way out of a paper bag. The simple infusion of biblical preaching combined with a balanced emphasis on the purposes of the church resulted in substantial growth the first year or two. Then, it was time to address unsettled conflicts caused by matters of church polity. The people by and large felt like the deacons of the church exerted too much control. Since this was a typical Baptist church, they were right. Once again, I had inherited a church with some mimeographed constitution which called for a board of twenty-four popularly elected deacons. I hope whoever wrote this version of a church constitution is suffering in Purgatory. Men got elected in this church on the basis of friendly and familial ties, without any deference to their regeneracy, spirituality, or basic knowledge of God’s word. We were all in essential agreement this had to change. I waited two years to take it on. Then, I reassembled a constitutional committee and began teaching them and the whole church body of the biblical and historical practice of having a plurality of elders and a servant body of deacons. That’s when some of the old artillery began to fly. Some members lobbed accusations of Fundamentalism (not true), Calvinism (very true, and they knew it up front), and called me that drinking and dancing preacher (guilty on both counts, in the biblical sense, thus proving the first charge false, of course), all in an effort to confuse the situation, cause disunity, and run me off as the pastor. The next three years became a Mexican standoff. Disillusioned staff left and had to be replaced. Deacons meetings and church conferences became acrimonious. Attendance plateaued. My wife became more aloof from church matters, my daughters hung in there as best they could, and the community around us began to change. I survived as pastor since the opposition was a minority, their leaders were unspiritual and unintelligent (one of them infamously stood up in a business meeting, made a motion, and then spoke against the motion he had made), and the heart of the church stood with their pastor, literally, in one particular scene. It was the most support I had ever experienced. They majority knew that, although I was not sinlessly perfect like my mother said, I led the church with love for all people, fidelity to the Scriptures and historic Baptist principles, and a genuine desire for a unified church for the glory of God. Most of the minority moved to another church, even though as much compromise as possible was made for their sake. Then, the bulk of us embarked on the next few years of ministry together. By the end of my time there we had called another two excellent assistant pastors for worship and student ministry. My wonderful pastoral assistant had retired and the other secretary left for greener pastures. The custodian began his valiant fight with cancer. A new committee was formed to assess and address the demographic changes in our small town. Most of our young people were going off to college and not coming back, newcomers were not moving in, and in spite of a great effort spearheaded by a generous benefactor, the town was not headed for growth and economic prosperity. Even still, I aspired for us to become a church great in strength if not size, reaching out in every local and technological way possible, to worship God and communicate the word of God. I wanted to stay for the long haul and lead the effort. That’s when the hurricane hit. We started having marital difficulties during my last year as pastor of this church. My wife had seemed distant, to me and to church matters, for some time. While living in this town, she had put all her energy and efforts into college. I thought things would return to normal when she attained her degree. But, they only got worse. Years of counseling others clued me in to what she was doing with mysterious phone calls, unaccounted disappearances, and explanations that did not ring true. We went to counseling ourselves and clung to the bottom line that divorce was not an option. My parents divorced when I was a child, as did my wife’s parents during her adolescence. It was the early 70’s, after all, when so-called no-fault divorce became the law of the land. Over the years, most of our siblings experienced divorce and remarriage, as had many friends. Through twenty-nine years of marriage and twenty years of pastoral ministry, we had placed a great deal of emphasis on marriage and family ministry. Our churches has experienced a very low rate of divorce and my counseling had resulted in a great majority of reconciliations rather than divorce. We never thought, I never thought, divorce could happen to us. She served the papers on me without any warning. A patrolman pulled up in the driveway early one Friday evening, handed me the divorce decree, and gave me an hour to pack up and get out of the church parsonage where we lived. I went into some kind of shock. I gathered up some clothes and went to stay at a house in the woods across from a faithful friend and fellow church member. It was the first of many dark nights of the soul. As I contemplated our lives together and what would become of them apart, I truly believe the church destroyed her faith. Being a pastor’s wife during church conflict can be more difficult that being the pastor, and she had endured many years and multiple campaigns of ecclesiastical warfare. With her degree in hand, she no longer needed her husband, her kids, or her church, and she left all three. At this point in my life, I needed the church more than ever. I had confided in church leaders about our marital problems. They were aware of some of the facts, and the fact that we were seeking counseling. A prominent pastor in our denomination had recently been divorced against his wishes, was strongly supported by his church, and he and his people moved forward together in fruitful ministry. My leaders assured me that if the worse happened, if my wife sued me for divorce against my wishes, that they would stand by my in the same manor. When it all hit the fan, however, they blew me off. The very leaders who gave me special encouragement called me a failure, would not listen to the facts, and asked me to resign effective immediately. Even though I thought they spoke for the minority, even though I knew that as the facts came out it would be known that I was a faithful husband who by no means wanted a divorce, and even though I had no vocational or financial assistance awaiting, I resigned in bitter tears. With the love of my daughters and custody of the youngest, we holed up in our cabin in the woods until the storm passed by. As the rain fell, with my faith getting soaked, I learned more than ten seminaries and twenty churches can teach. As I examined the autopsy of our marriage, I was forced to admit that PTSD, pastoral traumatic stress disorder, strikes not only pastors but the members of the family, too. It causes spouses to walk away. It causes children to rebel and many never return to the church. It creates vocational obstacles and financial hardships that Christians in other lines of work never have to face. When my wife walked away and served me with divorce papers, the name on the plaintiff line could have just as easily have been the church. The church quit shooting their wounded and do much, much more to help pastors and their families in a crisis. This tragic chapter confirmed something else I had already believed for a long time, that the church’s handling of divorce and treatment of divorced people is double-minded and deplorable. My home church pastor proudly declared he would perform no weddings for anyone who had previously been divorced, without even looking into the circumstances. Churches like this regularly ordain pastors and deacons who are charlatans, liars, thieves, and adulterers, just as long as they’ve never been divorced. I never read in the Bible where divorce is the unpardonable sin. Therefore, throughout my life and ministry, I have married previously divorced people, ordained church officers even though they were divorced, even brought people onto the church staff who were denied other church employment because of divorce. Each person was handled on a case by case basis, and treated with love, fairness, and biblical truth. But when my day of judgment came, the facts did not matter, only how fast I could clean out my office. Most of all, I learned to lean on the Lord like never before. He is trustworthy and His word is true. Though it was affliction like I’d never known, I was not completely crushed. I was perplexed beyond words, but did not go down to despair. Persecution this time came not only from within the church, but within my own family, but God had not forsaken me. I was struck down, indeed, but not destroyed. Child of God, when you are in the worst situation of your life and your are tempted to let go of God and His church, know that the former will never let you go, and you must somehow hang on to the latter. When God is calling you into the ministry or mission field, know that it can indeed cost you all that you have, just as the Lord promised. And know, please, if you are divorced, whether your are the perpetrator or pariah, God loves, forgives, accepts, and can still use you for His glory and the good of other people. Copyright © 2016 Lake Hamilton Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Check out the weekly happenings at Lake Hamilton Baptist Church in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
DON’T LET THE CHURCH DESTROY YOUR FAITH by Chuck DeVane, Pastor Lake Hamilton Baptist Church Hot Springs, Arkansas ____________ CHAPTER SIX WORLD WAR II For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. — Ephesians 2:8-10 My first fifteen years in the church confirmed my father’s warning. I spent the first five years listening to mixed signals regarding the gospel and legalism, though at the end there was an unmistakable call from God to go into vocational ministry. I pursued this over the next ten years through two seminaries and two churches, where the good came hard and the bad was easy to find. I was holding onto my faith by a thread. But, it was a strong, threefold cord that could not be cut, not even by sharply dysfunctional Christians and churches. Then, the sun came up, or so it seemed. World War I, the battle for the Bible, was over in our denomination and church. Had the conservatives been kinder, I could have settled down where I was, but God soothed my unsettled spirit with a call to another church. I had no idea at the time that I was re-enlisting as a soldier being sent into World War II, the battle for the gospel. The first four years in this church were idyllic. I had learned from my own mistakes and become a much more positive, teamwork oriented pastor. I worked with the existing church leadership to upgrade the staff, mobilize the members for evangelism and ministry, and emphasize missions with extensive giving and going campaigns. When folks came in for Sunday services, children and old ladies hugged me, students gave me high fives, and men shook my hand and patted me on the back. Our family was complete with four daughters and completely happy in our home, church, schools, and community. Life in the church for us was good, for the first time. Life was good for the members of the church, too, for the first time in a long time. Years of decline had been stemmed and baptisms had become a weekly occurrence. Attendance nearly doubled, a second Sunday School had to be started, while ministries and mission trips proliferated. We built a church in another country and we bought forty acres for ourselves for a future mission church or relocation project. On Easter Sunday that fourth year we were aided in worship by a big city symphony orchestra and chairs were put out for the overflow of worshipers in our eleven-hundred seat sanctuary. Three months later, to top all of this off, they fired me. I had never come close to being fired before, and true to my father’s warning, it was the church who did it to me. They strategized, campaigned, organized, and voted me out of the church even though I had not preached unsound doctrine, not been immoral with other women, not stolen a penny from the church, not been dishonest in personal or pastoral dealings, not even kicked anyone’s dog. I lived and led among them with biblical fidelity and godly character. I thought they loved me, finally a church that loves me, but they ruthlessly kicked me and my family to the curb. After a season of light I was tossed back into ecclesiastical darkness. The fall was precipitous for every member of my family. I sank into a depression so deep it required medication to resolve. My wife became embittered and disinterested in the church. One daughter required hospitalization for depression, too. Another ran off into a season of rebellion against God, and still another had to endure the changing of schools in the midst of her high school years. Only the youngest daughter was unscathed at the time, too young to understand the fallout of war, although the aftershocks would affect her life even more than the others. How could such a thing happen? It was a perfect storm. Denominational politics, patent dishonesty, and pure ignorance all played a part. Of all the shocking and hurtful things that had been inflicted upon me and my family over the years by the church, this was by far the worst. True to my father’s words, faith, at least in part of the family, was destroyed. About the time I arrived at this church, a secret meeting of ultra-conservative leaders was taking place. A friend of mine who pastored a large church was invited and gave me a report. During the gathering, a well-known megachurch pastor stood up and said, “Now that we’ve gotten rid of all the liberals, how are we going to get rid of the Calvinists?” A smear campaign ensued and within four years it had ripped our church and our lives apart, not to mention the damage done in many other churches as well. To start the bombing, one popular megachurch pastor within range of our church had sermon tapes disseminated among our congregation. The message was an uninformed and historically inaccurate sermon accusing Calvinism of killing missions and evangelism, sent to a church that had enjoyed record levels of both under her Calvinistic pastor. A church member called a state denominational leader and asked what to do about the trouble in the church. He was told, “If you have a Calvinist pastor, you have to do whatever it takes to get rid of him.” After my firing, a member of that megachurch pastor’s staff became the pastor of my former church. If the church can’t destroy your faith, maybe the denomination will help. Our church had been growing in tremendous ways, but truth be told not everyone was happy. Disgruntled members were set into motion by a few egotistical people who were jealous of our four-year run. Among the unhappy were disenfranchised deacons who had turned over leadership to the plurality of pastors and consigned to elderly ministry. They grabbed hold of a clause in our constitution and bylaws that allowed the deacons to make a motion to dismiss the pastor, for any or no reason. Armed with ammunition from denominational leaders and a host of misinformation from the internet (it’s got to be true if it’s on the internet, right?), they put their campaign in motion. They used letters, phone calls, and private talks to get out their well-organized, slanderous pitch: Pastor Chuck is a Calvinist, Calvinists kill churches, then added the kicker, “If you only knew what I knew about him, you’d want to fire him.” That last talking point was spouted verbatim hundreds of times to cast doubt on my character and cause confusion in the church. God as my witness, there was nothing to it but empty slander and false accusation. But, it worked. One of the members of the search committee who called me to the church wrote a nine-page diatribe about me being a part of a secret Calvinist conspiracy to take over our denomination. Ironically, someone in my first church experience had spread the rumor that I was part of a vast right wing conspiracy to take over the denomination and even the American government. Conspiracy theories are the cover of cowards, for I was never a part of any such nonsense. A women claimed she had been to my previous pastorate and discovered that I had been fired there for misconduct, then sued the church and won a large financial settlement. This was a total figment of her perverted imagination, yet people believed it. Most of the leaders of the ouster just stuck with the “if you only knew” innuendo. Children who used to run up to me on Sundays crossed the halls to avoid me. Hugs and handshakes became few and far between. Four months of WWII bombing had destroyed four years of hard and honest work. As the fire spread through the church from Easter until my summer dismissal, I tried desperately to make peace. I finally agreed to ask the Lord to move me to another church, and the Personnel Committee agreed to a process that would likely take about six months. However, only a month later, the committee and the deacons organized a special meeting to call for my firing, which succeeded by a two-to-one margin. Their attack had been swift and deadly. The church split three ways, with half remaining, a quarter scattering to the wind, and a quarter splitting off and starting a new church. I went with the latter group, since all of my prospects of moving on to another church were dashed by the firing. Of course, the old church falsely accused me of orchestrating the entire thing in order to start this new church, but that, too, was a lie. I may be a Calvinist, but I’m not a masochist. Dazed, confused, and depressed, I stayed on in the community as one of the pastors of the new church for three years. All at the while I would have preferred to move on to another field, but it is very difficult to find work in the church when you’ve been fired by the church, even if it was for no legitimate cause. The members of this church were wonderful, serious, and joyful Christians bent on doing things right. I loved them and could have stayed with them for a lifetime, but the old church kept on the attack and made it virtually impossible for me to lead the new church in reaching out to our community for Christ. Deep in depression, I resigned with no place to go. Dad could have said “I told you so,” but he had died of a sudden heart attack before I was fired. I did not want to be a pastor anymore. I did not want to remain in the church at all. Some days, I did not even want to live. But the Lord compelled me to do all three. So, I waited, hoped, prayed, and learned. I learned that honesty and integrity are not necessarily the keys to success in this life, especially in the church. In the company I worked for before I became a pastor, I was promoted several times for honest and hard work. In the church, I got persecuted for the same. The Bible and church history are filled with pages of prophets and preachers who did what was right but got treated in ways that were wrong. I had just been fired, but so many of them were killed. I had told the church’s pastor search committee in our second meeting that I am an evangelical, five-point Calvinist. Aware of the rumblings which were the birth pains of World War II in our denomination, I told them that if my Calvinism would be a problem in the church, to drop me and pursue another candidate. They unanimously recommended me to the church, then four years latertarred and feathered me. I preached the exact same sermon on my last Sunday before they voted me out that I had offered on my first Sunday when they voted me in, without calling special attention to that fact. The first time they heard it they called it the gospel and welcomed me in, the second time they called it Calvinism and kicked me out. I have not developed a messiah complex about this, but the fact is that in many churches, the more you act like Jesus, the more you get treated like Jesus. I learned the truth of what the great Baptist pastor Charles Spurgeon said, “Calvinism is the gospel.” Just like my belief in the Bible was attacked yet confirmed during WWI in my first church, my understanding of sovereign grace was tested and proved true during WWII. Faith and doctrine which cannot be tested cannot be trusted, and God and His grace were the only things that became sweeter during this ordeal. I was told to recant my Calvinism and keep my job. I was told to drop the doctrines of grace and I’d become the pastor of a real big church. But I never met Calvin and was not preaching Calvinism, I was preaching the gospel and the word of God. From those days until now, the more I read and preach the Bible, the bigger God gets and the smaller man gets, but O how He loves you and me. I learned to be gracious to those who disagree with Spurgeon, and on a lesser level me, over the doctrines of grace and almost everything else. I understand how people growing up in a democratic, pro-choice environment find it difficult to understand the complete sovereignty and providence of God. In the Bible, election means one God chose for Himself the people to be His subjects. In modern democracies, like our own which I love, the subjects elect one person to serve as President. As pastor of the church who fired me, I never insisted that others view election and predestination the way I did, but I honestly taught and preached the doctrines of grace. We filled six pastoral staff positions while I was there, only one of whom could be considered a Calvinist. I pledged to love and work with all people and did, they pledged the same and did not. I did not become sectarian and seek to work with only reformed people, but forged and open heart and held out open hands to all Bible-believing, Christ-following pastors and church members. One of the last sermons I preached before they fired me was from Ephesians 2:8-10. I expounded upon grace as the undeserved, unmerited gift of God. I pointed out how the faith that connects us to God comes from God, not from any physical or mental energy we can exert. When God’s grace grants faith it really works, changing us into living, loving children of God, willing and able to work for the cause of Christ. I pledged to them my continued love and willingness to work together for the glory of God, to build upon the gains we had made as a church, and to do so with people who saw sovereign grace in Scripture or who colored in the lines with a little more free will. I could not have been more sincere. They could hardly have been more sinister. I guess I was on the winning side, if there was one, of World War I. World War II, however, nearly killed me. I am glad my father did not have to witness it. The church had defeated, although not destroyed, my faith. But, I would live to fight another day, and lose again. Copyright © 2016 Lake Hamilton Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Check out the weekly happenings at Lake Hamilton Baptist Church in Hot Springs, Arkansas. DON’T LET THE CHURCH DESTROY YOUR FAITH
by Chuck DeVane, Pastor Lake Hamilton Baptist Church Hot Springs, Arkansas ____________ CHAPTER FIVE WORLD WAR I All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. — 2 Timothy 3:16-17 While my first years in the church uncovered the kind of spiritual malpractice that can destroy a person’s faith, my faith actually grew stronger as the word of God gave me an ever increasing appreciation of the sovereignty of God. Inadequacies abounded in my home church, first seminary, and first pastoral experience, but though it all there was enough love and truth to enable spiritual growth. Even though my faith got flattened by some of the things I endured, it was never overtly attacked, not until I finished my internship and returned to my home state to become the pastor of the first church in a small, county seat town. You’ve probably figured out by now that I am a Baptist, a Southern Baptist to boot. When you asked my home church pastor what he would be if he were not a Baptist, he said he’d be ashamed. If you ask me, I’ve often been ashamed of being a Baptist, and at certain turns in my life tried to leave. But like Al Pacino in The Godfather saga, every time I tried to get out, they pulled me back in. Baptists do a pretty good job of getting out the gospel, pot luck dinners, and fighting with one another. I did not begin following Jesus to be a fighter, especially with other professing Christians. I signed up to be a pastor to lead the fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil, and I fully expect those entities to fight back. Little did I know that almost all of the punches would be thrown from inside the ring of the church. This was particularly true when I arrived at my first pastorate back in my home state. It was World War I: The Battle for the Bible. I was drafted into this war by a pastor search committee who showed up unannounced one Sunday in my internship pastorate. As I stated in the previous chapter, this little church consisted of folks who claimed to love the Bible, but they really did not care much for expository preaching or theological truth. Feelings trumped facts, and my feelings got hurt and my faith trampled. The search committee from the East was a ray of sunshine bursting through the darkness. We hit it off immediately. They represented a declining church whose pastors for the past few years did not inspire confidence in the Bible as the word of God. They did not preach biblical sermons, were weak on strong doctrines, openly denied the authority of Scripture, and supported issues like abortion on demand. The active membership, however, were mostly Bible-believing, conservative Christians. They were seeking a pastor of good character and qualifications who would preach the Bible, love everybody, and help them to grow by reaching people for Christ. You would have thought that I fit the bill. It was my home state where I graduated from high school and a state university, an all-star football and baseball player. I had real world work experience with a Fortune 500 company and some solid church experience, too. I graduated wth honors from seminary. I loved the Lord, the Bible, and the church, but I was soon to find out once again how much the church did not love me. At the time I arrived, the church had about a hundred active members in regular attendance. Ninety-three voted for me to become their new pastor. That’s good, right? But, ninety-one voted against me! A small group of mean-spirited members had engaged in a phone campaign to smear my character and qualifications. They convinced members who had not attended in years to show up and vote negatively, and even gave rides to homebound members on the condition they would come and vote no. What should have been a joyful time in our lives turned into a mess. I was faced with a choice between frustration and humiliation. Fortunately, God gives grace to the humble. Convinced by the committee that the affirmative vote came from the active, attending, giving members, while the negative votes were mostly trumped up, I accepted the call to become their pastor. My first sermon was from Acts 2:44 on the unity of the church. I assured them of my love for every member. I extended my hand to all of the people, even those who had stirred up the vote against me. They bit it, hard. For about a year these people continued to harass and slander this young pastor in his first real pastorate. They made prank and insulting phone calls to our home. They broke into the house while we were away to snoop around for information. They recorded our televised church services for the purpose of putting together a tape to pass around to demonstrate my ignorance and otherwise lacking qualifications. By the grace of God their insults were met with kindness, they found no evidence of evil or wrongdoing in our home, and the recording of all of my supposed gaffs never materialized. The smear campaign against me was led by a few ladies from the church WMU. In our denomination at the time, the letters stood for Women’s Missionary Union. In our particular church, it stood for Women who were Mean and Ugly. They were merciless at first. They accused me of every crime under the sun, and said the Apostle Paul and I were misogynistic. At least I was in good company. But as the father of four daughters, I am actually a mild complimentarian with egalitarian leanings. But they didn’t care. They weren’t getting their way in the church so they decided to trash anyone who was in their way, especially the young pastor. What sweet spirits they were! After about a year, when this group could not get control of the church in business meetings, they stormed out the door never to return. Unfortunately, some good Christian people were swept along with them. They started a new church let by a well-known man in our denomination who was infamous for denying the authority of Scripture and the deity of Christ. But, we had peace, even a semblance of revival, for a while, until some of the more crass conservatives figured out it was their turn to be in charge. The church was a microcosm of the larger battle taking place all across our denomination at the time, World War I, the battle over the Bible. Shame on the liberals for denying and denigrating the historic Christian and Baptist view of Holy Scripture. Shame on the conservatives for using the Bible as a wedge to divide, conquer, and grab for power. Shame on us all, for acting like a bunch of Sadducees and Pharisees. I really loved this church and community and would have stayed a long time. People in the liberal group actually started being nice to me and my family after they formed their own church. But throughout my nearly six year tenure, it was the so-called conservatives who were a constant thorn in the flesh. The twenty-four deacons I had to deal with on a regular basis were the source of constant friction. Half of them did not know Jesus from Jezebel, and seldom walked through the doors of the church except to attend a deacons meeting. Of the other half I think were true believers, most of them were bent on maintaining the status quo, using the office of deacon to sit as small town lords over some city council, ruling the church on their whims instead of the word of God. Only a remnant understood that Christ is the Head of His church, mediating His Lordship through the Holy Spirit and the Holy Scriptures, congregational but led by a plurality of elders and served by a multiplicity of deacons. Trying to lead this church was like fighting WWI, as soon as the Ottomans were defeated the Germans became entrenched. One of the more conservative deacons, who I truly believe was a good and godly man, proudly proclaimed in a deacons meeting that the deacons were in charge of the church, and no pastor would lead it as long as he lived. He died shortly thereafter. Others remained to take his place and position. A couple of the older ladies in the church began verbally attacking me because, in their words, the church was getting too big, I was getting too much credit, and they were there to take me down a notch or too. The gossip and slander they deployed was far worse than anything the liberals had tried to do to me. The church had voted to fund my further education, since I had returned to seminary for a few weeks each year to work on my doctorate. When I did not do things the way the deacons and old ladies wanted me to do them, they cut off the funds, leaving me a large debt when I finished my degree. Don’t you just love Bible-believing people? By the time I left, fortunately on my own accord with a call to another church, I was physically, mentally, and spiritual exhausted. I came to realize that as a fully devoted follower of Christ and determined biblical leader in my denomination, I was too conservative for the liberals and too liberal for the conservatives. True to my father’s warning, the church was chewing me up but it had yet to spit me out. That time would come, however, and will be described in the next chapter. I must admit that God did some very good things in those years. The chairman of that original pulpit committee and I became great friends and fellow workers. We ate a lot of fried chicken together. A florist who had quit attending church and never went out to lunch became a good friend, active church worshiper, and lunch partner. Another new pastor, starting in the same community at the same time, snuck into my office during a denominational meeting to spy out my books to prove that I was another liberal. When he found a library reflecting a high view of Scripture, we soon became best friends for life. His church, by the way, kicked him to the curb after ten years of biblically faithful service. The deacons were tired of being a Scripture-led church and wanted a little more excitement on Sundays. Unlike Pacino and me, he got out and stayed out. He now owns his own bookstore and is a blessed and happy Presbyterian elder. Through all of the conflict and departures, the church grew in biblical fidelity and, in spite of the many departures and deaths, in number, too. Many wonderful worship services were held and many happy weddings took place uniting some of the fine young people who began to take their place in the church and seek to do things in a more biblical fashion. There were a lot of funerals laying a number of good people to rest, one of whom we buried the day after Christmas. His dear widow had wrapped his present, a sweater, and gave it to me after the funeral. I still wear it every year at our Christmas Eve service. Out of darkness, God gives light. Out of chaos, God brings blessing. During World War I, the battle for the Bible, God taught me a lot of things about the Bible and the church. Most church people would rather fight over the Bible, misuse it as a license or weapon, than simply read it and obey it. I’ll share with you some insights that perhaps you can appreciate. The Bible is not a trampoline. The people in my experience prior to WWI had used the Bible in this way. They would jump into the Scriptures until they found a word or supposed promise to name and claim some blessing from God. They would throw context and theological parameters out of the window and try to jump from one exciting experience to another. The person who uses the Bible in this way invariably wears out, gets hurt, and usually both. The Bible is not a fairy tale. You don’t figure out which stories you like and ignore the rest. Those who do not really believe in the full inspiration of the Bible hide behind the Reformed and Baptist doctrine of the priesthood of the believer. This wonderful truth, reclaimed by Martin Luther and considered bedrock by Baptists, has been perverted in modern times by nominal and hypocritical Christians. They set themselves up as judges over the Bible, choosing which parts they think are worth following or are not. They reinterpret texts to give license to their sinful choices. In the name of Christ, they make Christianity unrecognizable and promote other gospels. They accuse conservatives of playing politics with Scripture, but since they don’t really believe Scripture, politics is the only game they know how to play. The only purpose they serve in the church is to confuse and destroy people’s faith. The Bible is not a blunt instrument. It is the sword of the Spirit, used by God to bring about conviction, repentance, and forgiveness. But, it is not to be wielded like a club to seize power in the church. Fundamentalists claim to hold the Bible as the authoritative word of God, but they put more authority in themselves and their extra-biblical rules and regulations. Deacon boards, altar calls, strict dress codes, prohibition, and banning all divorced people from leadership are not defensible biblical positions. But, they are often used as ammunition to falsely accuse, grasp power, politicize the church, confuse the gospel, and drive people out. Some saved people get swept up into this mindset, while others simply use this form of religion as a means of ungodly gain. The Bible is the word of God. Church members who simply believe this are the good soil described by Jesus. They are the people who take John 3:16 and 2 Timothy 3:16 to heart. They truly believe in the gospel and the word of God. They order their personal lives around Bible intake and obedience, and they desire their church to be a biblical church, whether it is Baptist or not. I love all the people of the church, but I love being surrounded by these kind of church members. They won’t destroy your faith, but rather embrace it, share it, live by it, and make it stronger. We live in a world today which has little regard for God and almost none for his word, the Bible. The inspiration and authority of Scripture has long been under attack from the government, the educational establishment, and most sadly, the church. I hate war, but this is a battle worth fighting. Do not let those who cast doubts upon the veracity of Scripture defeat your faith. Cling to the gospel and cardinal doctrines found in the word of God. Do not let those who add to the Bible and put traditions over truth dissuade you from a pure and gracious way of following Christ. Put yourself under the authority of God and His word, insist upon your church being organized and administrated by the Bible, and the truth will set you free. There was good and bad soil in that church where I honed my chops as a pastor. Those attacks have worn off, good memories and relationships remain, and I didn’t lose my faith, only my mind. I finished my second seminary degree, one much better and broader than the first one I received, and I sought the Lord to deliver me from the dogfights that continued in the church and the denomination after the Pharisees took over from the Sadducees. Finally, that call did come, I thought. Little did I know at the time I was jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Twenty-three years passed between the time the United States finished our engagement in World War I and entered into World War II. For this pastor still clinging to his faith, the time between two wars was much shorter. Copyright © 2016 Lake Hamilton Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Check out the weekly happenings at Lake Hamilton Baptist Church in Hot Springs, Arkansas. |
AuthorDr. Charles F. "Chuck" DeVane, Jr., is the Pastor of Lake Hamilton Baptist Church in Hot Springs, Arkansas. His weekly sermon article, "The Gospel Truth," has been published in newspapers in Arkansas and Georgia. Dr. DeVane is a graduate of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and has served in the pastorate for over 20 years. Contact Pastor Chuck at PastorChuck@lakehamiltonbaptistchurch.org
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