Harmful Pastor, here's how to change

My husband Patrick cautioned me recently. He said I can’t just write about the church being harmful, I have to offer solutions as well. I agree. And I’m grateful for the correction.

So here’s what I’d write to a particular pastor to give him practical, actionable tools for change. I doubt he’ll read it, but I hope he does.

Dear Harmful Pastor,

Thank you for reading this letter.

My desire in writing it is not to impugn, but to invite. To beckon you back toward the New Testament church where everyone played a role, and empire was not something you built, but pushed against. Where the first were last and the last were first. Where selfless service trumped jockeying for positions of power, the Savior’s towel replacing Rome’s scepter.

The church has never been up to one person, one leader, one CEO. Church is about mutuality, a body working in harmony together. God didn’t call corporations; he called people.

So how do you backpedal after so much heartache? How do you change the way you’ve been doing things? How do you find right standing with people you’ve harmed? How do you train your heart to gravitate not toward the wealthy but toward the broken, the outcast, the people who can give nothing in return?

By repentance.

And that’s not just a flippant, “I’m sorry you misunderstood me.” Repentance means to turn from how you did things in the past toward new actions that represent the humble heart of Christ.

You can say apology words, but the actions you take next are what people will grasp as change. They are the true fruit of your ministry.

Here are some ways to repent:

• Apologize for forced NDAs and no longer require them for those leaving employment (or tying it to severance).

• Go to the leaders or congregants you have publicly maligned (and sometimes lied about) and make amends. Be willing to do this publicly, as the accusations were made out in the world too.

• By faith, flatten your leadership structure so there is more mutuality, less hierarchy. Give more people power, even if that feels a bit out of control. In short, trust your leaders to do right.

• Trust the lay leaders of your church to restart the ministries that have been taken away from them or disbanded without explanation other than ROI.

• Publicly apologize for plagiarizing your sermons.

• Go to seminary and learn how to write a sermon from scratch, keeping the needs of your local congregation in mind as you do so. A sermon is not a performance of another pastor’s words. A sermon is your heart revealed toward your specific congregation, coupled with robust biblical scholarship and lots of prayer.

• Apologize for treating wealthy members with high preference. Have lunch with “nobodies.”

• Give up your online platform. Completely. Dismantle the podcast, the social media, the hot takes.

• Stop mixing politics with Christianity, particularly on Sunday morning and on socials.

• Apologize for enabling abusive husbands from the pulpit through man-centric rhetoric. Become wise in the ways of domestic violence and preach about marriage from a safe, mutual perspective.

• Spend a week alone at a silent retreat, hearing the voice of God without screens, accolades, fanfare.

• Work in children’s ministry for a month.

• Visit those who are suffering—in hospitals, care homes, psych wards. (This is what the word PASTOR means, to shepherd people, to care for them in their time of need). Reacquaint yourself with human suffering. Weep with those who weep.

• Find something to praise a political opponent for. Then praise them.

• Curate a group of ten critics and invite them to freely share their constructive criticism of you. Thank them for every piece of advice they give. Take each word to heart and write down what they see as your blind spots.

• Go to counseling with a licensed psychologist. Do the hard work of healing from your past. Identify why you’ve needed to create an empire around yourself.

• Create a new elder board, not of wealthy yes-people, but of the most spiritually mature people in your congregation. Listen to them. Heed their advice. Be humble enough to be one among equals. Your vote or voice cannot override theirs.

• Forgive those who have wronged you.

• Seek to bless your critics. Pray for them.

• Meet with all key leaders and ask for their feedback without any hint of punishment for being honest.

• Stop monitoring your leaders through surveillance.

• Stop micromanaging tithes and tying tithing to being able to serve.

• Instead of performative acts seen on socials, strive to do unseen acts of kindness with joy with no posting about them afterward.

• Abandon any big capital campaign. Manage what you have now with transparent integrity. Any excess? Pay off debt. Give to the poor, needy, broken, or toward missionary endeavors.

• Get off other stages. Stay planted in your own congregation.

• Take a pay cut in order to pay entry level workers a living wage.

• Be willing to let each satellite campus become its own body.

• Reinstate Group study curriculum. Apologize for centering a podcast as a substitute for theological education. Instead, have astute congregants with theological training write curriculum for groups. (Or locate good, solid curriculum—there’s plenty out there).

• Apologize to women for your rhetoric that makes fun of them, puts them in “their place,” and treats them like objects.

• Let anyone sit wherever they want in the auditorium. No more elite no-kid HYPE sections of people who are “encouraged” to be wildly enthusiastic about the worship and sermon for the sake of the online cameras. And no double standard when pastor’s kids can sit there.

• Reevaluate your mentoring relationships. Who is speaking into your life? Do they all sound like you? Do they encourage you to not listen to people who have feedback? Do they stroke your ego? Do they only align with your pet views? If they are all like you, you don’t have a robust friend group. Diversify. Befriend and listen to and read people with differing perspectives.

I know this is a lot. But there has been a lot of harm done to the church and our community. My husband and I (and many others) have had to pick up the pieces of people’s broken lives after their time under your regime. And your reign of pain has to stop.

The mandate for those who teach and lead in the church is high. And it is a holy calling, not to be taken lightly. Take some time looking into the mirror, then meditating on the vast beauty and greatness of God. He is holy, holy, holy, and his judgments are true. He does not take kindly to wolves who feed off the flock for financial and empiric gain. Consider your actions, then consider that God sees them all. Ask yourself, “What is my fruit?” (Not “how many people have prayed this prayer or attended this service?”) If your fruit is people being run over by the bus of your ambitions, be warned.

Jesus said, “Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves. You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions” (Matthew 7:15-20).

Repent before you’re chopped down.

Sincerely,

Mary DeMuth