“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (II Peter 3:18).
The pastor was excited about the new assignment God was giving him. In a parting comment to a friend, he assessed the spirituality of the church he was leaving behind:
“There is enough ignorance in this county to ignorantize the whole country.”
We could wish such churches were rare. Unfortunately, they’re not.
What happens when a pastor gets called to a church like that? What’s the new pastor to do when the congregation does not know the Word of God and have no idea of how things should be done or why it matters.
Such a church often exists only to condemn sin and sinners, knows only slivers of Scripture, sees pastors as slaves of the whims of the congregation, and is ready to reject any minister who believes the church should feed the hungry, take a stand for justice, and/or invite in the minority neighbors.
Veteran preachers have stories of those churches, tales of run-ins with those leaders, and scars from the battles they have waged to set matters right.
–One pastor told the group of ministers meeting in his fellowship hall, “This building is actually owned by a member of the KKK. We rent it from him.” The rest of us naively thought the Ku Klux Klan had died out ages ago. Here they were living among us in our own southern town.
–One lady visible in church leadership told her pastor (me!), “I don’t know what the Bible says but I know what I believe.”