![]() ![]() In order for a church or spiritual movement to be healthy, a diversity of opinions is required. Abuse Warning Sign #3: Loyalty Is Prized Over Diversity Instead of being able to provide guardrails for the roaring ambition of the bad pastor, they are sidelined and slandered. The sad reality is that those labeled “critics” often start as close confidants of the pastor, but once they begin to push back, they are cut off. The pastor guilty of spiritual abuse wants his followers to have nothing to do with critics and seeks to discredit them as ungodly sinners who are holding back God’s plans. After all, the leader can’t afford to have critics talking behind his back.Īnd so they do everything they can to isolate and discredit critics, smearing their character, accusing them of lacking faith, saying their understanding of the Bible is wrong, and even spreading lies about them. Not only are critics cut out of the spiritual abuser’s inner circle, they are also isolated. This is closely tied to the previous point. The inner circle – those closest – will support every decision the pastor makes, no matter how destructive or ludicrous. Those who challenge the pastor and the vision only slow things down, making it really difficult to pick up speed and achieve the “big things”.Īnd so spiritually abusive leaders and pastors surround themselves with people who always say, “Yes.” Those guilty of spiritual abuse are quick to speak and slow to listen, and they need people who will always back them up. To generate momentum, everyone has to be on board, eager to make the pastor’s vision a reality. The problem with this (apart from the obvious pride and glory stealing), is that creating massive movements requires massive amounts of momentum. In reality, it’s more about creating something that will shine the white-hot spotlight on them instead of God (even though they might not recognize it as such). They say they want to gather thousands of people and create massive movements and do giant things “for God”. What often starts as good and godly ambitions can curdle into spoiled, selfish ambitions, which then leads to spiritual abuse. Unfortunately, what often happens is that pastors and spiritual leaders conflate God’s plans with their own plans. It’s a wonderful thing when a leader desires to see people going full-throttle for God.Īs Richard Blackaby puts it in his book Spiritual Leadership: Godly spiritual leadership is about helping people move from where they are to where God wants them to be. Spiritual Abuse Warning Sign #1: A Bad Pastor Surrounds Himself With “Yes” People Here are six bright red warning signs of spiritual abuse. The progress can be impressive until character collapses. That guy is a decaying tie rod waiting to break. There are few things more dangerous to a church than a pastor who is extraordinarily endowed on the gifting side and extraordinarily deficient on the character side. Few things do more to sully the name of Jesus more than abusive spiritual leaders. More and more, it’s critically important to be able to identify spiritually abusive, dangerous, destructive pastors BEFORE everything falls apart.įew things cause Christians to become disillusioned more than being ripped to pieces by spiritual abuse in the church. ![]() In other words, the same things that caused Jimmy Bakker to implode also led to the downfall of Elizabeth Holmes and her company “Theranos” (once valued at $1 billion).Īnd Tiger Woods, though not necessarily a “leader” in the same sense as a pastor or CEO, imploded for many of the same reasons. What struck me as I read these books was that in both the “secular” world and the church, destructive leadership tends to look the same. I’ve also witnessed the profoundly destructive power of bad pastors and spiritual abuse first hand. ![]() I’ve read sobering stories of bad pastors who inflicted spiritual abuse ( Jimmy Bakker), deceitful startup founders ( Elizabeth Holmes), and obsessive athletes ( Tiger Woods). Over the last year, I’ve read a number of books about incredible, powerful, visionary people who achieved incredible things, only to have everything fall apart due to their own self-destruction. Rather, he’s only interested in how people can further his plans and agenda. Spiritual abuse is when a spiritual leader, such as a pastor, uses their power and influence to manipulate and control people. A spiritual abuser is not concerned with promoting the well-being of those he serves. Spiritual abuse is a scary subject that we have to talk about. ![]()
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