It is past time to take a serious look at the abuse of the sheep of the Lord at the hands of those charged with their care...

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So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. - 1Peter 5: 1-4 (ESV)

http://www.piratechristian.com/fightingforthefaith/2015/11/interview-with-kerri-ferguson

I just spent this morning weeping over the above linked interview. I am often asked why I bother with discernment ministry work. Nothing is ever going to change. The power that is spoken to is oblivious to the damage it wreaks in the lives of people. Even worse, many people prefer to defend evil leadership and blame the sheep willing to sit under it, than admit that maybe one of their television favorites is not really doing the work of the Lord. I do not say evil lightly beloved but the Bible compels honesty in such matters:

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! - Isaiah 5: 20 (ESV)

I will not rehash the interview details in much detail because my hope is that you listen to it if you can sit through it. These are mega churches built on the American exported CEO-Church theology. The purpose driven heresy of Rick Warren and the seeker friendly church growth model that is employed by the vast amount of churches in this country today. Hillsong and C3 churches are the two largest enterprises in their area and have international tentacles. The "pastors" mentioned here are not small names. Brian Houston, Phil Pringle and Gary Dench will answer for what they did and did not do in these matters and in that I stake a small measure of sober solace realizing we all will answer one day:

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. - Hebrews 4: 12-13 (ESV)

So the interview will speak for itself. The tales of spousal battery over years and when the wife seeks the help of the church she is told she would not be beaten if she was a submissive wife. Then she is made to wallpaper the pastor's house as some form of therapy in obedience. Abusive tithing messages where promises of breakthrough never come to pass. False feel good prophecies directly over the abuser, while the victims stand right there. Molestation offenses disbelieved and then when admitted to in court the church leadership shows up at sentencing to stand with the rapist and not the child. Decreeing and declaring an end to the abuse and never following up pretending it would show a "lack of faith." These are all just a portion of what you will hear in this interview conducted by Pastor Chris Rosebrough, from Fighting for the Faith Radio.

Beloved these are the dead bodies Mark Driscoll so gleefully preached about several years ago. Not from his church of course but this is the mindset. The purpose driven teachings for pastors turns the role of shepherd into that of a vision casting CEO. The fundamental change therein is that the leader is no longer concerned mightily with the growth of the sheep he has been entrusted to but rather to the overall size of the church he is trying to grow. In Rick Warren's book, The Purpose Driven Church, this is a taught principle to up and coming pastors:

"Be willing to let people leave the church. And I told you earlier the fact that people are gonna leave the church no matter what you do. But when you define the vision, you're choosing who leaves. You say, "But Rick, yes, they're the pillars of the church." Now, you know what pillars are. Pillars are people who hold things up " And in your church, you may have to have some blessed subtractions before you have any real additions" -- The Purpose Driven Church

If you do not think this resonates with the new breed of young gun pastors you are sorely mistaken. In fact, go back and listen to the clip from Driscoll's infamous sermon where he refers to the people who disagree with him as "a pile of dead bodies behind the Mars Hill bus" and you will hear him introduce the subject by admitting that he is "all about blessed subtraction." The exact term taught by his mentor, Warren.

One of the more interesting angles in this interview is when Ms. Ferguson correctly points out that these churches have brands to protect. Hillsong is an internationally prosperous brand. The main church in Australia alone raked in one million dollars from its congregants last year and increased its overall brand by 10 million dollars in 2015. That is an enterprise that must be protected at all costs. So when a story comes out that threatens its image, you immediately get the spin coverage. The same goes for C3 church and Phil Pringle. He was recently adamant in his support for convicted pastor Kong Hee in Singapore who was found guilty of misappropriating 50 million dollars to create a pop music career for his wife. So when little Kerri Ferguson comes along with her abusive husband and raped children, you gotta protect the brand at all costs.

Now many may read this and think that it is so far removed from them. That these are the biggest churches with the biggest names and "not my church." The cold hard reality is that it is many of your churches too. If the pastor does not have mega-church status (2000 attendees per week) you can bet he wants it. He strives for it. He plans for it. Now, it will all be Jesus-couched for sure. It will always be discussed as needing to expand the kingdom or "reach as many for Jesus as possible" but the truth is that the pastor is not responsible for the horizontal growth of the church body but rather the vertical growth of the sheep God has entrusted to him. Don't believe me? Let us go back to the only authority, Scripture:

And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awecame upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. - Acts 2: 42-47 (ESV)

What is it here in the early church that the church itself focused on? The Word of God. Breaking of bread. Fellowshipping. As a result, God worked through the leadership to show Himself mighty with signs and wonders. I do not mean the nonsense we see today with clairvoyance, gold dust, gemstones, and fake glory clouds. Those are demonic signs and wonders. I am talking about real healing, deliverance, and prisoners from sin being set free. All the people cared more about each other than they did themselves. They met collectively and also in their homes. This is not a design for cell groups either, another Rick Warren heresy that seeks to transfer the pastoral responsibilities to the sheep themselves. It means that they had everything in common - their faith! Why wouldn't they be spending time with each other and building each other up? Yet what do we see is the role of God in this? What is the final line of this chapter? The Lord added to their number day by day, those who were being saved. Who is responsible for the horizontal growth of the church? The Lord is!

The abuses we see on the grand stage are also happening all around us of we are willing to be honest and admit it. We all know people who have been hurt badly in church and by people who were supposed to shepherd them. I have even heard on this level the defense of the leader over the sheep. "They should have known better." "It's their own fault." These are the sheep beloved! Often times, we do not know better! That is why Jesus used the terminology of shepherding! Sheep need to be led. They need to be nurtured. They need to be protected. Seeker friendly mega church guru, Andy Stanley is on record as saying that the term shepherd should not even be used anymore because it has no cultural relevance. Dear Lord! It does not need to have cultural relevance Andy; it has Biblical relevance! But this is the end result of decades of Warren theology on church growth. The leaders no longer fancy themselves in the sheepherding business. They cast the vision, run the daily business operations, and hone their speech craft so as to draw more and more people to fill the seats of those being blessedly subtracted. They point to financial statements and pie graphs to prove that their model is working or even worse that God is somehow behind it. Joel Osteen does not pack 50,000 people a week into his building because God approves. He packs them in because the world approves.

I have watched friends be eviscerated by church leadership. I have counseled them as to the love of Christ in all situations, especially when man fails us. I have watched local leadership force members into unbiblical covenant agreements to try and coerce tithing. Others have had their memberships stolen, willfully and in some cases based upon fabrications, so as to bully and intimidate the sheep to wander off. Just leave the pen door open and count it as a blessed subtraction. I have watched leaders steal ministries from people or lord the ministries over them by demanding admission of guilt on matters where there was no culpability. Then these charlatans go to the pulpit on Sunday and raise their hands to a God they may not want to be meeting anytime soon.

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. - James 3: 1 (ESV)

Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all,for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. - Acts 20: 26-27 (ESV)

Leadership in the church will be judged with greater strictness because the blood of those who listen to them is upon their heads. The Bible differentiates between hirelings who will not care about the flock and shepherds who will. The sad truth is the purpose driven, seeker friendly approach has created a generation of hirelings. We talk about matters such as church abuse so often from this detached, aloof perspective. I can think of dear friends of mine though who sit apart from the church today because of the direct abuse of men who were charged with tending to them. People who may never come back. People who may be taken from us before they can. A physical injury can heal and be seen healing but a spiritual wound often gets buried. It is often marginalized by other Christians. We place a scripture band-aid here or there but it needs a biblical tourniquet. So we come to our key verses today from the Apostle Peter. These are instructions from God to those who would dare to take up the mantle of leadership in His church. Let us not forget that it is His church and people like Kerri Ferguson are His sheep. The first charge may disappoint Mr. Stanley but leaders are to shepherd the flock of God. That is the primary function. Not horizontal growth schemes and piles of disagreeing dead bodies but shepherding. To draw a circle for this, Jesus reminds them in the same set of verses that He is the Chief Shepherd! The leaders are the under-shepherds who have been entrusted with His sheep!

The next instruction is they are to exercise oversight. Just in case some terrific human wisdom sounding, seeker friendly philosophies would try and come along and muddy the waters; Jesus makes sure we understand what a shepherd does. He exercises oversight of the sheep. He watches over them! He cares about them and for them! Then we are given a short list of how this is to be carried out:

1) Willingly; not under compulsion - this is a calling not a job! The Phil Pringles and Brian Houstons of the world are performing a job. So are many of the local leaders I see. When Kerri Ferguson approached "Pastor" Dench he saw her as a threat to his work instead of a sheep under his care. Same thing when Brian Houston agreed to meet with her and then showed up with his legal counsel. Protect the brand, not the sheep.

2) As God would have you - this may seem easy and logical but the truth is that most who lead by these schemes follow the teachings of man and not the Bible itself. To lead as God would have you lead means simply to follow the Biblical instruction laid out for us by God, including but not limited to these key verses. If you can find Jesus or the Bible in the linked interview than you are better than me because His counsel was not followed.

3) Not for shameful gain, but eagerly - it is interesting that God puts these two together. Our eagerness to lead the sheep of the Lord cannot come from a desire to gain from it. The Apostle Paul once declared "woe is me if I do not preach this Gospel!" While he taught that there is nothing wrong with making a living from preaching, the issue here is one of motivation. We should eagerly want to do it because God has trusted us with it and there is nothing more important than the eternal destination of the souls of men. When you look at the leadership I speak to however, we are talking about ulterior motives. These motives are for shameful gain and that does not just mean money beloved. It could be fame and notoriety. It could be power and prestige. It could be a desire to look better than one knows thyself to be. If we choose to lead the sheep of the Lord for any other reason than Him, that is the definition of shameful gain.

4) Not domineering over the sheep - the amount of bullying and intimidation I have seen locally alone is what this is speaking to. Then you get into the larger cases of Ms. Ferguson and you realize God knew full well that problems we would see. To blame abuse on the victim, partial blame for the molestation on the child, and never own up to any of it, is exactly what God means here. The victims are very real beloved. Decades removed from church because of the hurts of men who were supposed to love them, not be domineering over them.

5) Be examples to the flock - what do the sheep learn from the shepherd? Kelli Ferguson's kids are apart from God to this day and who can blame them really? What did they learn? I have friends separated from the church who learned nothing but hypocrisy from the very people who were supposed to show them the opposite. When you are more worried about your brand than your sheep what example are you setting? What value are you saying the sheep have? When you think nothing of referring to them as a pile of dead bodies or being blessedly subtracted, what value are you saying the sheep have? When you show up at a sentencing hearing to testify for the abuser, what example are you setting. When you openly mock those who might simply disagree in your church, what example are you setting? The truth is when you operate within the CEO mentality, it doesn't matter to you. People are replaceable. People are expendable. The art of leadership becomes more important than actually leading people.

I watch every year as people who clearly could not care less about the actual sheep go to great lengths to craft, form or attend leadership conference after leadership conference. It is the new normal in the evangelical church. The new obsession. But in the end it is comical because the end game is not actually becoming a better leader but how to better grow your building. The result is not in how to improve the lives of those entrusted to you or how to better evangelize the lost but rather how to go from 2000-4000 in weekly attendance. As if that matters. Heaven does not rejoice when another 2000 goats go to a steepled building on Sunday but when one of them actually repents!

Lastly from the key verses is the promise God has for those who would strive to lead correctly. There is an unfading crown of glory awaiting them. One of the few places in the Bible that goes into any detail about the levels of rewards in heaven. That is how serious this matter is to God. The problem is that many who follow the purpose driven mantras have already traded in their unfading crown of glory for an earthly crown of dust. A crown of worldly pleasures and successes. A crown of carnal greed and avarice. A secular crown of shameful gain and power. Beloved, our charge today is to realize that the victims of abuse are real. Whether they be Kerri Ferguson a world away or our friend who we know should have been treated better locally. Our charge is to support them, love them and give them the hope that may have been stolen from them. As to those who leave the pen door open and boast about blessed subtraction? To those who would support evil over good? Those who have tossed aside the promise of an unfading crown of glory for the trinkets of this world? I will keep pointing them out because the Kelli Ferguson's of the world deserve better from the church of Jesus Christ. We all do.

Reverend Anthony Wade - November 14, 2015

Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.