Pray for us, brethren, that the Lord’s message may spread rapidly and be honored…and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men, for not all have faith. (II Thessalonians 3:1-2)

Don’t read this article without the preceding one. That one led to this one.

What happened was this.

I put on Facebook this question: “What are 10 things you wish pastors would stop doing?”

I was unprepared for the answers. They poured in. Within a few minutes, we had 35 or 40 comments. Most were helpful, but a few showed real pain or even anger.

By the time we had racked up 75 or 80 comments, several pastors who read the contributions sent up white flags, calling for help. One said, “Joe, this really hurts.”

When someone suggested we turn the question around and ask, “How do church members fail their pastors,” the comments multiplied just as quickly.

As several noted, there seems to be a lot of pain out there in the pastor/member relationship. It would be great if we could do something, however small, toward healing that breach and lessening the anger.

Here, then, are my Top 10 Ways Church Members Fail Their Pastors. It’s sent forth not to add kindling to a raging fire, but balm to some sore places.

1. Church members fail their ministers when they do not pray for them.

Often in Scripture, leaders asked churches to pray for them. (See I Thessalonians 5:25; II Thessalonians 3:1; Hebrews 13:18)

This is strictly faith work. The believer who lifts his/her pastor to the Father in prayer will not know the difference that intercession made. They will not be in the study when the preacher senses the Spirit opening a passage or enlightening his mind with a great idea or directing him to a supplementary text. They have no way of knowing the way their prayers kept him safe on the highway, blessed him in a witnessing or counseling conversation, or gave him extra energy for the day.

All they will see is the minister when he walks out on Sunday and leads a worship service and brings the sermon. They will have to believe by faith that their prayers were heard of God and answered by Him.

Nothing tells the tale on our faith like whether we pray.

2. Church members fail their pastors when they pray for them, then reject what God sends.

I said those very words to my congregation on one occasion when a few members were criticizing practically everything I did. I told the church it was a puzzle to me how sincere Christians could pray for their pastor–as these individuals professed to me–and then reject and condemn the very sermons which God gave the pastor to deliver to them. What kind of faith is that? What does it say about their belief, their obedience?

The old three-pointer from Philippians 4:6 is a good one: Worry about nothing, Pray about everything, Thank God for anything. That last segment–thanking God for anything–means once we pray for the minister, we should believe that God heard us and that what the man is preaching is what God has sent.

Even if you don’t like it. Even if it offends you. Even if your mind wants to tell you the man is resisting the Lord and that nothing about that sermon is in answer to your prayer. Give thanks to the Lord for that message. Believe that God is at work. After all, He does not finish His reconstruction of a man’s preaching in one fell swoop. It takes time.

3. Church members fail their pastors when they apply standards of perfection to them.

I moderated a church business meeting once when members of the congregation rose to tell how the pastor had failed them on occasions. “Mama was in the hospital and he never came.” “I needed counseling and he wasn’t available.” “He didn’t speak to me in the hallway.”

Listening to that sad litany, it occurred to me how marriage is so similar to the relationship of a pastor and church. After a few years, each one has grounds for divorce. If you were trying to convince a judge to grant a divorce decree, each husband or wife could probably present enough slights and putdowns, selfish acts and harsh words, to make their case.

So with church.

And yet, I’ve known church members who expected–no, demanded–that the pastor never ever fail them whenever they called. They were leaders of the church, they were longtime tithers, they had given gifts to the preacher, and now he owed them.

Young ministers should be cautioned repeatedly that just because someone is a member of the church and just because they were elected to high office in the congregation, does not mean they are mature or godly. Some can be high-handed, gossips, and self-centered.

The pastor who finds himself surrounded by a corps of leaders who are Christlike and mature should count his blessings and tell them repeatedly how much he blesses God for them.

4. Church members fail their ministers by sitting in judgment on how well they do their ministries.

The earlier article makes this point from the other standpoint, so we will not belabor it except to point out that somehow or other, we have raised a generation of church members who actually believe that if they can compliment the sermon when they leave church, they have fulfilled their duty as a Christian.

Reading the New Testament, there is not a single word–not one–to lead us to believe the preacher should care a whit whether the congregation likes the sermon or not.

Jesus did not care, I’ll tell you that. Nor did Paul. He did say in II Corinthians that some took issue with his preaching, pointing out he could write powerful letters but his pulpit presence was lacking (II Cor. 10:10), but there is no evidence he took a remedial course in the rabbinical school to correct this deficiency.

We have raised a generation of preaching critics. Some want their ministers to look as sharp as Joel Osteen, be as personable as David Jeremiah, shell the corn like Charles Stanley, and condemn sin like John Hagee.

5. Church members fail their ministers when they are quick to believe the worst about them.

Well, you know what they say: “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

Oh? They say that?

I know a pastor who was falsely accused of molesting children in the church’s day care program. His arrest made the evening news in a metropolitan area. Church members abandoned him, quickly believing the worst without bothering to check. In the trial that followed, it was brought out that the pastor never ever ventured into the area of the church where the children were, and that the misleading techniques of so-called experts who questioned the children fed the rumors and fueled the charges. The charges were dismissed and the pastor was exonerated. But he had lost his ministry, and to many people, he was forever damaged goods.

He wrote a book on his experience, the title of which sums up so much, Guilty Until Proven Innocent.

In the most difficult pastorate of my six–the one that lasted only 3 years–as I was in the process of leaving, we learned that a rumor had circulated for one year that I was divorced, that Margaret was my second wife. I approached someone I thought of as a friend and said, “Did you hear this?” He sheepishly admitted he had. I said, “What did you think?” He said, “I didn’t know what to think.” I said, “Did it ever occur to you to ask me?” He said, “I was afraid of what I would find out.”

What he would have found out was that Margaret was 19 and I was 22 when we married. That doesn’t leave a lot of room for divorce. Next April will be our 50th anniversary.

6. Church members fail the pastors when they abandon him to deal with the baddies in the congregation.

In an earlier article on this website, we recommended the book “The Devil in Pew Number Seven,” which chronicles the hellish activity of a man deadset on driving a pastor from his church. Eventually, he had the pastor’s wife killed and drove the man of God insane. The author, the preacher’s daughter, does not fault the congregation in any way, but I do. Over and over she tells how members took the family in, how they brought food, how they prayed. At no point does she describe men from the congregation confronting the monster. He was left to the preacher and the law, and the results were devastating.

At every opportunity, I tell deacons and other leaders of churches that they are sent to obey Ephesians 4:3, keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace. They should be the first to notice threats to the unity of the church and quick to confront troublemakers. If they leave it to the pastor, he is placed in an awkward spot since despots usually direct their diabolical activities toward him. For him to have to oppose them makes him look defensive and self-serving.

Let the lay leadership of the congregation rise up to those causing trouble and hold them accountable.

7. Church members fail the pastor when they major on minor issues.

The pastor preaches magnificent sermons, knows everyone by name, and is always there when families need his ministry. However, church members get upset because he is trying to get the congregation to buy a piece of property which some do not think they need or can afford, he’s wanting to send a mission team to Guatemala, he’s wanting to add a staff member to pastor a mission at the trailer park.

People leave churches over just such foolishness. When asked, they will tell you they love the preacher and that he was there when “mama needed him” or “when our family went through that tragedy.” However, “he’s a dictator,” because they did not agree with the project he was pushing and they did not get their way.

Submitting to one another in the fear of Christ (Ephesians 5:21).

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls…. (Hebrews 13:17).

8. Church members fail their leaders when they murmur.

“Murmur” is not a word we use a lot today, but it sure does show up often in the wonderful old King James Bible. When Moses was leading Israel from Egypt to Canaan, murmuring was the pastime of choice of the Israelites. It means, of course, simply to gripe, to complain, to criticize.

The word murmur came about from the sound a group of people make when they stand around grumbling. “Mumble, mumble, gripe, complain, grumble.”

Just after Israel crossed the Red Sea, having experienced one of the greatest miracles ever recorded, we read: They came to Marah but could not drink the water because it was bitter. So the people grumbled (murmured) to Moses (Exodus 15:23-24).

Next chapter, The entire community grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. (16:2)

Moses said to the people on that occasion, “The Lord has heard your complaints about Him.” (16:7) I can just hear the people saying, “Oh no. We aren’t complaining about God. This is just between us and you, preacher.” But no, it doesn’t work that way.

Moses said, “Your complaints are not against us but against the Lord” (16:8).

Now, I’ve been down this road a few times. Nothing so infuriates some self-important church leaders as to suggest that their criticism of the preacher is actually rebellion against God. I’ve heard it all. “Who does he think he is? He’s not Moses lately arrived from Sinai with golden plates!” No, he isn’t. And I’ll tell you something else.

The godlier he is, the less he plays this trump card.

The more worldly he is, the more likely he is to do his Moses imitation and assert that he is God’s man and you are standing in the way of the Almighty.

But this is about you, church member. You will stand before the Lord some day. Better to be safe and to have been faithful and supportive of those sent by the Lord as your shepherds and overseers (see Acts 20:28), than to have made their lives miserable by your incessant carping.

9. Church members fail their pastors when they do not deal with their anger toward some minister.

Not all pastors are worthy of the name. Some are bums who need to be ridden out of town immediately after the tar-and-feather ceremony.

And, just in case you the reader of this were victimized by such a charlatan who called himself a pastor and you are carrying what you conceive of as anger-with-good-reason, may I suggest you deal with it and move forward.

Do not park by your anger, friend. Ill will and resentment will eat your insides out and destroy you, no matter how justified you were in harboring such feelings.

I pastored one church that was still in a delayed recovery from a split. Members with ill feelings toward others who had mistreated them during the church fight were constant sources of pain and dissension in the congregation. Their resentment was like a toxic poison in the soul which seeped up and contaminated everything they touched. These people could turn a love fest into a free-for-all. In business meetings, their contributions to discussion were barbed and acidic. Their countenance reflected the poison they were nursing.

Nothing about that was fun. Only those who repented and gave the anger up to the Lord were healed. The others went to their graves clutching their anger like a treasured heirloom which they refused to give up.

10. Church members fail their ministers when they are not faithful to the Lord.

Nothing blesses a pastor like church members who love the Lord Jesus and find great pleasure in obeying and worshiping Him.

This person does not need a second and third reminder to love those about him, to pray for his leaders, to serve and submit and give and forgive. The Spirit of Christ within a faithful disciple automatically surges in those directions.

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (II Peter 3:18). That is the best recipe on the planet for church harmony and health.

Footnote: In his comments on Facebook, Pastor James Cook mentioned another way church members sometimes fail their ministers which we’ve not dealt with here. He said, “The members know I like fried chicken and they bring the baked instead. Then, they hassle me when I go back for an extra helping of banana pudding.”

We all have our troubles, Brother James. You’ll just have to learn to cope.