Why churches won’t hire me

Dear Mr. Farah,

May I offer a heart felt and robust “AMEN” to your article “America’s wishy-washy pastors.”

I am a pastor educated at Bob Jones University. A man who stands for the truth of the Bible today will find himself out of work – a lot. For the past 20 years I have spent most of my time candidating in churches that will not tolerate the truth. Churches, and I am speaking of Baptist churches, are run for the most part by deacons, who are in turn run by their wives. The general thoughts of a deacon board is that we were here before the new pastor got here, and we will be here long after we have run him off. The office of deacon is today a new “Bossism” that has taken over our churches. Most deacons do not meet the biblical standard of the office even on a superficial level.

Sound doctrine terrifies the average Baptist today. Church is merely a part of their social structure. If it were not for Easter egg hunts in the cemetery, Halloween parties in the fellowship hall and Valentine’s Day parties, there would not be much to do in church, unless you include the skating parties, mixed swimming and the billiard tables. Exchanging Christmas cards and gifts while eagerly promoting Santa Claus takes up a lot of time as well. Wouldn’t you just hate to be called suddenly to judgment only to show up with a big old Easter egg in your hand that you had just plucked off the altar of God in the sanctuary or from the gravestone of some dear and long departed saint?

Most Baptist churches today want a pastor who will visit them when they are sick, marry their kids, bury their dead, and outside of that leave them alone. Evangelism is almost dead. I have a list as long as your arm of things NOT to preach, lest you lose your job. I specialize in preaching on these very things, so I am usually out of work.

Most Baptists today cannot quote two verses of Scripture correctly nor can they find the book of Obadiah without referring to the index. Many shout long and loud about the 1611 KJV, though they have never seen one and could not read it if they found one lying in the street. Some are so vehement that they don’t think anybody was saved prior to 1611, and they think King James was a Baptist.

Thanks a million for your article. As for Rick Warren, I have warned people for the last 10-plus years about him and his strong bent toward compromise. He is a big part of the problem, as are all the “seeker friendly” churches. Seeker friendly churches are hot beds of compromise and are called friendly because you can have whatever you want there and will get none to almost none of what you need. It is the very kind of church that Jesus said made him want to vomit (Laodicea, Revelation 3).

I am neither a tyrant nor an unkind pastor. I am merely a truthful one, and no matter how sweetly that truth is delivered it will be rejected in most cases – and there are tens of thousands of pastors out there who will be glad to tell people anything they want to hear for a paycheck.

Brown M. Sims