A Reflection on Twelve Years of Ministry
I debated whether it would be beneficial to write an account or testimony of my experiences in ministry thus far. Part of my hesitancy to write something like this has to do with the fact that I still serve in the general location of a church in which I had both tremendously good and negative experiences in; and that church (along with its former leader) still have influence on how people in the area view me. Nevertheless, I felt compelled to write an account of essentially what has molded me into the pastor that I am today—for the privacy of others, I will not name names of people or churches.
My First Ministry
What Happened
In 2010, I had just graduated from high school and had determined to go into ministry. This decision compelled me to move from Central Pennsylvania to South Carolina to start college at a Christian university. At the time, that particular Christian university still had some cultural rules that didn’t quite sit well with me. As a teenager, I had developed quite a bit of independence and had even spent some years living on my own while finishing high school; and to go from significant independence to a very regimented, very strict Christian school environment caused me to reconsider whether I wanted to be there at the university—and in my immaturity, I opted for not staying.
I returned to Central Pennsylvania after almost a year in South Carolina and I had a brief amount of time in which I wasn’t connected with any local church until a young lady (who later became my wife) suggested that I attend her home church—so, I did. In 2011, I started attending a small, Baptist church in rural Pennsylvania and I jumped in.
Starting my second week at the church, I was asked to help with the youth ministry of the church. I was still young (having just graduated high school a year before) and yet, I was tasked with preaching/teaching the youth group weekly and leading in conjunction with other leaders. Essentially, I had become a youth pastor despite my youthfulness, lack of experience, and no formal education. As I continued serving at that church, I started teaching a Sunday School class, hosted a Thursday evening Bible Study and Dinner, worked with the contemporary worship team, and preached on occasion. Within a year, I was asked to join the deacon team, which in that particular church meant that I was part of the leadership team charged with spiritually leading the church—again, I was young, spiritually and mentally immature; and yet, I was tasked with leading a church. Over the next five years, I served faithfully in the capacities that I was able to serve—I led the youth group, I preached, I taught Sunday School, and I served on the deacon team.
Approximately four years into serving at that church, I started picking up on several red flags concerning the senior pastor:
It started when after completing a year-long unpaid internship with the church, the senior pastor refused to uphold our agreement that after the internship, the church would vote to hire me as an assistant pastor. Despite having signed documentation, the senior pastor claimed that he didn’t remember that being part of the internship agreement and he refused to work towards that goal. This started opening my eyes to everything actually happening.
When my eyes were opened, I started listening to his sermons more critically—up to this point, I pretty much just accepted everything that he preached, but when I started to actually hear his sermons, I recognized some significant problems. The senior pastor rarely (if ever) preached against sin, he rarely mentioned the need of repentance, and he didn’t speak about the realities of hell. In addition, he almost exclusively preached on unity in the church and the need to love one another. Essentially, he wasn’t preaching the Gospel nor was he preaching the whole counsel of God; and I wasn’t the only person to notice this issue. Church members started pointing this issue out and other members of the deacon board started noticing the very same issue.
In addition, I started looking at him more critically. It didn’t take much to realize that there was a significant amount of manipulation occurring by him in the church; nor did it take much to realize that when people disagreed with him, he would lambast them and accuse them of being in sin (oddly, the only time he ever really spoke about sin). I also started hearing concerning accounts from women of how he would corner them privately (including my wife), randomly show up at the houses of women in the community, and concerning statements that he would make both in private and behind the pulpit (including a sermon that included the use of nuts and bolts).
For me, this was enough, and it warranted confronting him. There were multiple confrontations—concerned church members along with deacons, families, and the deacon board all confronted him multiple times, but he refused to listen to anyone, and he refused to repent from any wrongdoing. Instead, he accused multiple people within the groups (myself and other deacons included) of living in sin. And unfortunately, he had enough influence in the church that no one was willing to actually remove him from the church; so, my wife and I chose to leave.
We made the decision to resign from every role that we had in the church and then decide where to go. I still felt that God had called me into the ministry, but one of the continuous accusations that I received at the church was that I didn’t have the formal education needed to pastor a church (i.e., people within the church accused me of not knowing what I was talking about because I never went to Bible college or seminary). So, we made the decision to move to South Carolina, return to the school I originally left, and I pushed to work through school as quickly as possible.
It wasn’t until recently (eight years after leaving this church) that I had learned that the former senior pastor of that church continued to slander us in the church (and still slanders us), to other pastors, and in the community. He has accused us of being involved with each other sexually prior to our marriage, of stirring up strife within his church, acting contentiously towards him, and lying. Recently, I was told that he still talks negatively about us to just about anyone who will listen to him; and people still listen to what he has to say (despite his being defrocked from his congregation and his willingness to be ecumenical regardless of what Scripture actually teaches).
What I Learned
While I experienced great hurt through what happened in this church, I did learn a lot. Probably the three biggest lessons that I learned were:
No church should ever be led by one person. Despite having deacons, at this church, the senior pastor had all the authority and an ability to essentially do whatever he wanted just as long as the congregation approved. Churches like this breed pastors who manipulate to, lie about, and attack others. Accountability and shared leadership are essential for a healthy church and churches in which there is no accountability for their pastor and the leadership isn’t actually shared are dangerous and unhealthy (included in this are churches that claim to have a plurality of elders/leaders, but one pastor still has all the authority, power, and decision-making capabilities). People ought to run from these types of churches.
Leadership is done best when pastors realize that they’re part of the congregation. The senior pastor of this church proved by his actions that he thought of himself as better than or more spiritual than everyone else (in fact, I remember having an argument with him about how he assumed that he was the only one who was “hearing from God”). He did not lead the church; he pushed the church. Likewise, as a young man charged with leading a congregation, I did the same. My understanding of leadership at the time was that I knew where the church ought to be and I had to push the people in that direction—I learned this from the senior pastor (he was just more subtle with his ability to push people in his direction than I was). Pastors are not in a different class or caste from the congregation—they are simply the part of the congregation tasked with teaching/preaching and leading the congregation.
Congregations are just as responsible when a church veers in the wrong direction. After leaving the church, I had heard from members of the pulpit committee that called him there that they knew he wasn’t a good preacher/teacher, but he seemed to genuinely care about the congregation. Or, in other words, they overlooked the biblical requirement of a pastor being apt to teach and so, the senior pastor began a multi-decade “ministry” in which the preaching/teaching ministry of the church was deficient. The congregation became more biblically illiterate generation after generation, which opened the church to having a pastor that didn’t preach the Gospel nor taught the whole counsel of God. Knowing that he was not apt to teach, they should never have called him to lead. Once they recognized that he wasn’t preaching the Gospel nor teaching the whole counsel of God, they should have removed him immediately. After hearing allegation after allegation of impropriety concerning his relationships with women in the church, he should’ve been disciplined out. The congregation was just as responsible as those who had a modicum of authority in the church and refused to do something about him.
Essentially, I learned while serving in my first ministry how churches shouldn’t be led. I learned the need for a plurality of elders and actual accountability for church leadership. It was made abundantly clear to me just how important right preaching and teaching is within the local church. I also learned how much it hurts that another local church in the area that I currently pastor in chose to believe the lies and slander of a false teacher rather than ask what actually happened. I still love that congregation despite all that has happened, and I still hope that their former pastor repents of all the sins that he committed against me, others, and ultimately God.
An Interlude
What Happened
My wife and I moved to South Carolina in 2015 with the intent of finishing my bachelor’s degree as quickly as possible and returning to Central Pennsylvania. Because of everything that happened in Pennsylvania, we decided that jumping straight into ministry again would be unwise—we needed time to rest and recover. I happened to be connected with a local pastor who had planted a church near our city, so we decided to attend and then join that church. It was a tremendous blessing for a number of reasons:
The church was tremendously healthy. They had a plurality of biblically qualified elders who made decisions together. They emphasized expositional preaching and teaching, and they realized the need of discipleship. So much so, that I was able to join a group of men in the church who all felt called into ministry and the church’s pastors were training us on what it meant to be a pastor.
We were able to actually rest and recover. The church didn’t need us to step up and serve in a number of ways, we could simply soak in the Word preached and be amongst believers. Because of this, I was able to guest preach at a few different churches in North Carolina and Pennsylvania and I was able to focus more on school.
Because our desire was for me to finish school as soon as possible, I took a full-time load while working full-time. For two years, I took about 18 credits every semester while working overnight full-time.
What I Learned
Our time during this ministry interlude taught me a significant number of things pertaining to local church leadership, philosophy of ministry, and the importance of biblical preaching and teaching. Witnessing (as an adult and not as a child) how a church was actually supposed to function bolstered my desire to lead a healthy church. Seeing a philosophy of ministry that was focused on the Great Commission helped me to understand what exactly a church is supposed to do. And being under biblical preaching and teaching developed within me desire for more biblical preaching and teaching within my own ministry—my own preaching and teaching has been shaped by the preaching and teaching that I experienced at that church.
My Second Ministry
What Happened
About three quarters of the way through my degree program (roughly two years after leaving Pennsylvania) I had worked overnight on a Saturday into Sunday. I didn’t get home until about 4am and I didn’t think I would be awake enough to go to church; so, my wife went to church without me. On her way home, she called me to tell me about a guest pastor who had preached that morning. This pastor was the pastor of a revitalizing church near downtown Greenville, and he came to our church asking for help. She suggested that we visit during an evening service and see if we could offer help. We decided to make our first visit that evening.
My wife and I made the decision to transfer our memberships to that church after our first visit and a group from our original church decided to do the same. As a group of almost twenty, we all decided to leave our already healthy church to missionally help a church that was unhealthy and struggling (and we all left our previous church with their blessing, they saw the need and they regularly prayed for us). Almost a month into our time there, the deacons asked me to serve as their assistant pastor, which I accepted after a week of prayer.
Our time at this church was mostly positive. The other pastor and I shared the responsibilities of leading the church, preaching/teaching, and other pastoral duties. We were like-minded though we had different focuses and emphases—he tended towards evangelism, and I leaned towards discipleship. The combination of both our gifts, our preaching/teaching, and leadership worked well to provide significant growth within the church—we were blessed.
In 2018 another church had reached out for some aid. They were also in need of revitalizing, and they had heard how our church had been in the process of revitalization and so, I started helping their church by filling pulpit. It wasn’t long until they asked that I consider being their intentional interim pastor while trying to make meaningful change that would aid in their revitalization; and with the blessing of our revitalized church, I went. Unfortunately, within three months it became clear that their idea of revitalization wasn’t the same as ours—they assumed that bringing in a new pastor would automatically revitalize their church and my push to reach the local neighborhood fell on deaf ears. So, we parted ways mutually and I returned to our previously revitalized church, but things had started to change for us.
I was about to finish my bachelor’s degree and start my master’s; and we had started noticing a lack of effectiveness concerning our own ministry and that lack of effectiveness caused us to reflect. Since before our wedding, my wife and I had always based our decision-making on where we could best serve God. We made the realization that while we could definitely serve God in South Carolina, we could do more good in our previous area of Central Pennsylvania and so, we moved back.
What I Learned
There are two things that I think helped shape my understanding of church ministry from our time in South Carolina (mind you, I learned significantly more than this, but everything seems to have derived from these points):
Preaching the Gospel requires teaching the whole counsel of God. And when the Gospel is properly understood, it influences every aspect of a person’s life. Good preaching and teaching is all about the Gospel and touches all of Scripture, not just some of it.
It is good to revitalize dying churches, but not every church should be revitalized. When churches lose focus of the Gospel and choose to preach and teach something other than the whole counsel of God, they shouldn’t stay open. If the local church chooses to remain insular rather than reach their community, they shouldn’t stay open.
My Current Ministry
What Happened/What’s Happening
My wife and I moved back to rural Central Pennsylvania just before the COVID Pandemic started. Our original plan was to start helping some of the rural churches before deciding as to where we would stay long-term. The church that I had previously served at had finally decided to do something about their pastor and he was removed shortly before we moved back to the area (technically they allowed him to resign). I was hoping that we could help them, but I had underestimated the amount of lies and slander that was perpetrated against us in our absence. Despite my offer to help (not only as a potential applicant, but also just to aid in their desire to update their doctrinal statement and church constitution), they continuously refused to reach out to me. Instead, I helped for a time at another local church while they were also searching for a new pastor (I couldn’t apply there due to doctrinal differences) while my wife and I prayed for direction.
My wife reminded me that at one time during our relationship, I had a tremendous desire to plant a church. And so, we revisited that idea. We live near State College, which is home to Pennsylvania State University, and we started exploring the idea of planting a church to help in reaching that city. State College alone has a population over 60,000 and when school is in session, the city swells to over 120,000 residents. Our thinking was that even with the number of churches already in the city, there was still a significant lack of churches (i.e., there weren’t enough churches to reach that many residents). We also recognized that there simply wasn’t a way for us to be able to plant a church without help, so we reached out to the North American Mission Board (NAMB) of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).
Through multiple conversations (and a significant amount of prayer), they redirected us from State College to Philipsburg, Pennsylvania—a small town about 25 minutes from State College. NAMB had already scouted Philipsburg and they had concluded that even though there are about 100 churches within 15 miles of Philipsburg, the majority of them were dying and had no plans for outreach and evangelism. And so, we planted our church in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic.
For just over three years, I have preached the Gospel while teaching the whole counsel of God. We moved from smaller locations to the location that we’re in today; and I have endeavored to lead the church to be hyper-fixated on the Gospel, to stay mission-minded, and to reach the communities surrounding us. Unfortunately, due to the surrounding culture, our church hasn’t experienced the type of growth that we have hoped for; and yet, we’re still preaching the Gospel and we’re still teaching the whole counsel of God.
In the past three years, we have baptized four people, provided a place for those who had been ostracized by other churches to worship, and we’ve worked to develop a body of believers who aren’t focused on themselves, but rather the communities around us. We did stumble as we attempted to merge our congregation with another church. After a few months, it was clear to our original team that their church wasn’t like-minded theologically or philosophically and that their pastor didn’t keep his end of our agreement; so, we decided to part ways and replant our original church (albeit it, with a new name), which is where we are at in this moment—a small Reformed Baptist church plant affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention through the Baptist Resource Network of about a dozen people hoping to reach the surrounding communities with the Gospel.
What I Learned/What I’m Learning
Small town ministry is notoriously difficult and Central Pennsylvania has a reputation for being spiritually hardened. I’ve experienced both issues—the difficulty of small-town ministry and the spiritually hardened people in Central Pennsylvania. Our church has struggled and continues to struggle to attract visitors and grow numerically, but for those who have chosen to join our church, we’ve seen tremendous spiritual growth that far exceeds our expectations. What I have been learning is this (note that this isn’t comprehensive):
One of the biggest problems in rural towns is that the people will continue to support unbiblical churches even when they know the church is unbiblical. Likewise, they continue to support false teachers and disqualified leaders despite the evidence saying they shouldn’t. These people, who knowingly support unbiblical churches, false teachers, and disqualified leaders will be held accountable—what they’re doing is wrong. (I can’t tell you how many times I hear something like, “I know my church doesn’t preach the Gospel, but I’m not going to leave because I grew up there.”)
Support from likeminded churches is vital during church planting. We originally planted our church independently and I found that planting alone is notoriously difficult and lonely. Likewise, church planting without a team is foolish. It was recommended that we try to start our church as a small Bible study without a team. So, we did, and we learned rather quickly that without a team, church planting is beyond difficult—near impossible.
Most people looking for a church don’t want to be a part of a church plant. In our consumeristic worldview, most people want a church that’s already fully established—one in which there is already a children’s ministry, youth group, etc. The moment that a person realizes that a church plant doesn’t already have those ministries and resources, they move on to another church that’s already established.
Depression and discouragement are very real issues for pastors in struggling churches. No one plants a church or starts pastoring a church and plans for the church to struggle. Every pastor who starts pastoring a church hopes that the church will grow. When the church doesn’t grow or struggles to grow, pastors tend to take it personally (I know this from personal experience).
Lastly, you can do everything exactly how you think God has called you to as a church and not experience any numerical growth.
Conclusion
Ministry is hard—I can say this and mean it despite only being in ministry a short while and yet, it is worth doing if God has genuinely called you into ministry. I have experienced significant ministry difficulty, I have been slandered and lied about, and I have questioned whether I ought to continue. And, with my current ministry (despite a lack of growth), I still firmly believe that this area of Pennsylvania needs a church that simply proclaims the Gospel through the whole counsel of God—Central Pennsylvania needs more biblical churches because the majority in this area simply aren’t biblical.
My hope and my prayer are that more people in our Central Pennsylvanian region recognize this and join us—not because I want to see my own personal “kingdom” grow, but because people need Jesus. And making disciples is far more important than attending your family’s church and it is worth struggling and suffering for—it is worth being slandered and falsely accused. God has been and continues to be good.
