The Dangers of Trustee-Led, Deacon-Led Baptist Assemblies!

Here's a big quote from Pastor Kent Jesalva writing about the dangers of Baptist churches that are deviating from pastor-led to deacon-led and trustee led governance. He writes this meaningful phrase, "All this time, Bible Baptist churches have been burdened with the contentious issue of governance. There are Baptist churches today that seem to have lost sight or interpret God's command in Jeremiah 3:15 in a different way, In this verse God says, 'and I will give you pastors according to mine own heart which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.' This pastor is the man of God because God has declared that He will not be speaking with anybody EXCEPT His chosen shepherd." Apparently other pastors like John Macarthur and Paul Washer are also very supportive of pastor led churches. Problem is Charles Spurgeon's fear of clowns entertaining wolves are happening not only with pastors but also because of the deacon-led Baptist churches. So whats' going on? To be honest, I really thought of it that Paul Washer in his blasting false prophets may also need to emphasize that some of them are actually paid pastors. When Atty. Zigfred M. Diaz became Pastor Attorney Zigfred M. Diaz, the Master's Community Fellowship was pastor led NOT elder led. I doubt it that John Macarthur and Paul Washer to name a few are ever paid pastors because their preaching of the Gospel is very offensive to the lost sinner as it should be preached.

I just remembered John Piper's book entitled "Brothers, We Are NOT Professionals." This does not mean pastors can behave unprofessionally but rather, pastors that are paid to preach is against Christian doctrine and that pastors SHOULD NOT be paid to be preach. This is pretty disturbing as I was thinking that instead of the pastor being the head of the flock, he is now dictated by the deacons who are supposedly under his authority. Peter was the prince of the apostles, not paid by the apostles! Peter was a pastor, the rest were deacons. It becomes a horrible perversion of the apostolic practices of Christianity when they turn their pastors the spiritual successors of Peter into paid pastors and when they turn the deacons who are the spiritual successors of Peter's deacons. When Jesus told Peter in Matthew 16:18 that He will build His Church upon that rock, he was appointing Peter to pastor. Peter was told FEED THE SHEEP in John 21, to him one of the many shepherds. But today, some churches have turned Peter's successors into paid professionals thus allowing fraudulent successors of Peter to sit down. In fact, here's what I have observed is happening.

In one of my experiences with some Baptist churches that are elder led rather than pastor led, Pastor Kent Jesalva describes them as, "In this vortex of distortion and divergence, deacon and elder-led churches are finding themselves 'wandering in the wilderness' with ministries that are unresponsive with the immediate challenges of a sinful world. Leadership based on deacons and elders resembles closely with bureaucratic leadership of the world. As a consequence, the management and stewardship of tithes and offerings as well as overall church management are compromised because there are too many layers by which church finances and other decisions of the church are done. Transparency is not a concept of the world. It is a Scriptural concept first that the world is trying to adopt. many churches are keeping finance and administration styles a closed book. They are afraid to let their members know how their church is being run from within. Pastor-led churches are transparent about finances and operations because the pastor is assured that everything he is doing is God-directed." Please note that I DO NOT consider corrupt ministers to be true pastors but are FALSE PASTORS. Pastoring should NEVER be a job that's paid at a salary by trustees. He is the one assigned to run his assembly, manage its finances, distribute the money for the work of God. If pastors who take the tithes and offerings for themselves are bad, then so are paid pastors!

What happens is that the church becomes from a not intended for profit business to become a money hungry business. Churches do earn profits yes but the problem becomes how profits are earned. In the elder-led Baptist assembly, it does become a problem. I had observed at least two Baptist parishes in the Philippines that are suffering because of elder-led governance. One Baptist parish I've known to be heavily commercialized- nice church, nice sound systems, fully airconditioned but the real issue was that many of the attendants are rich. It was very elder-led and to the point it becomes a "feel good church" to assemble, no soulwinning, just attending church on Sundays and most of the members I've known are not the type of people I want to fellowship with. In fact, it was later discovered that the pastor preaches according to his salary- should be preach like Charles Spurgeon he might even get fired because the trustees hold him and support him rather than the members. What was worse was that their academic section doesn't do good either considering that it's not a God-fearing pastor that runs it but rather the money hungry trustees. Another Baptist parish I've known also suffered from that condition and just got worse. How in the world can they be a Baptist parish and THEN owning a prostitution house?! That's crookery at its best. If the pastor should talk bad about pornography, disco and prostitution he gets fired. In fact, some God-fearing pastors really even had to confront the trustees about their owning such a sinful place like, "How in the world can you even say you have the grace of God when you are all living sinfully with no chastising and you are not remorseful about it?" In fact others would even give in to compromise like pastors paid by the trustees to perform trial marriages, assist in divorces and whatever crookery can come in.

Another consequence can be on the part of the pastor who may most likely be a false pastor himself. Why can I say that? Such pastors are just puppets of men, not God's spokespersons. Peter spoke boldly about sin in his sermons, but no not this pastor. This pastor really lives according to the payment schemes of corrupt trustees. What becomes a huge problem can even range from basing decisions on profitability over morality. True a church needs funds to run like they should encourage their members to give reasonably so they can operate, have fund raising programs but the issue becomes if they only think about money. Then they can pay the pastors to do the heresies mentioned in 2 Timothy 4:3-4 saying, "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine but after their own lusts they heap to themselves teachers, having ITCHING ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables." In fact, while they are mostly NIV teaching churches (and as a KJV-onlyist I really suggest pastors to use only the King James) however even the NIV version says of this to those corrupt pastors, "The time will come when people won't put up with true teaching. Instead, they will try to satisfy their own longings. They will gather a large number of teachers around them. The teachers will say what the PEOPLE WANT TO HEAR. The people will turn their ears AWAY FROM THE TRUTH. They will turn to stories that aren't completely true."

It is also a fulfillment of Jeremiah 5:30-31 says, "A wonderful and horrible thing thing is committed to the land. The prophets PROPHESY FALSELY and the priests bear rule BY THEIR MEANS and my people LOVE TO HAVE IT SO: and what will ye do in the end thereof?" Which in fact, these pastors want to keep their job then tickle their ears. Then we get the problems that lead to inevitable apostasy like joining with the cults or these churches are actually in league with the Vatican because it's very profitable for them materially. Sadly their only view of prosperity is material not spiritual. Christians can be successful but not necessarily rich in finances. A poor Christian can be a successful soulwinner, he may get out of poverty but he is not necessarily going to be the next Bill Gates or whatever... but he's successful in the Christian life nonetheless while he's a failure to the rest of the doomed world.