Post by philiprosenthal on Jun 30, 2006 7:11:06 GMT
Hype, broken promises, false hopes
One practice which I feel has done enormous damage to the faith of many people is that of a lot of EveryNation pastors who feel it is justified to say anything they like to manipulate people to do what they want - without regard for truth or consequenses. Talk is cheap and doesn't need to relate to reality. This affects many areas of ministry. Sometimes it is explicit. Sometimes implicit.
For example:
PROJECTS
People are encouraged to invest massive amounts of time money and energy in projects, without much realistic thought about the vision or sustainability of the project. The project is just hyped up. Then things don't turn out as hoped and the investor is left disillusioned and burned. There is no discussion or apology or any damper on future hype for the next project.
WORSHIP
A church is not in a good spiritual state, because there is sin in the church, but instead of dealing with it and repenting - they just hype up the congregation with a loud noise and try to give the impression there is a revival underway. Its a similar noise to the real revival that happened before, but its phoney.
MEETINGS TO DEAL WITH PROBLEMS
The pastors don't want to meet to discuss a problem with someone who is challenging them on ethics, so they don't refuse a meeting - but neither do they give one. They just keep promising to give a meeting, but it never happens. They are always too busy, but they has time for lots of other stuff.
In one instance a pastor promised me a meeting about 10 times, then when I finally demanded he actually give it - he just responds 'You are not a leader - we are not accountable to you'. In other words, in his mind if you are an EveryNation pastor, then it is okay to lie to a congregation member.
MISSIONS REPORTING
A mission or project runs into difficulties, but when the report back happens to the church, they aren't told about this. It is made to sound like everything was just one miracle after another. This proves God is with us. To give a negative report, the leaders say would be to be like the 10 spies who discouraged the people from going into the promised land. But this is a misinterpretation of scripture. Joshua and Caleb told the truth, they just had faith that God could overcome the problems.
RESOURCE ALLOCATION
A junior leader asks for some resources from the church. A senior leader promises them to him, and he plans accordingly. But the senior leader doesn't first check to see whether his promise can be fulfilled. He hasn't secured any promise to guarantee the resources from the organisation - and he doesn't tell this to the person he makes the promises to. Then when he can't get the resources, the junior leader doesn't get his promised resources.
JOBS
I have seen it happen more than once that someone is offered a job in another church somewhere else - better than the one they have now. So they resign their secure job and move to the new city. When they get there, they are told that there isn't actually a job for them. Sorry, they will have to either work for free on their own savings or get another job and work for free in their spare time for the church or just wait and see if in a few months time the church has a job for them. The financial consequences of someone moving city and selling their house and losing several months pay can be devastating. But no apology from those who asked them to move. No effort to try help them.
REVIVAL AND REFORMATION
Another big false promise is that 'Revival and reformation' is just around the corner if you keep doing everything we tell you. Now this would be maybe true if they were encouraging people to really seek God and build the kingdom - but they aren't. They want you to give more time, money to their projects and build their personality cult empires. So God doesn't bless that and since many leaders are in blatant disobedience to God, he will never bless them with revival. So they waste everyones time that could be better spent on other things.
With all of the above, the EveryNation cultists are usually very careful never to put any promises in writing so that they can't be held accountable to keep them.
* Any more stories on the same track?
* How do we discourage this kind of behaviour?
Now what I found enormously refreshing after I left, was that in two years I have not seen any examples of any of the above trash in my new denomination. You don't have to accept it as normal ministry behaviour. Its sin. Its part of the breaking of the commandment 'You shall not lie.'
INTRODUCING LEADERS
Leaders are introduced in a ridiculously grandiose manner.
* Local church worship leader introduced as 'The greatest worship leader in the city'
* A man who has planted one church and overseen a few others as 'The church planting apostle from Africa'.
* A pastor who has planted a lot of home groups, but no churches as 'The greatest church planter in the city.'
All of the above encourages hero-worship, arroagance, elitism etc. It is dangerously destructive.
Even some good leaders get sucked into the above destructive practices - and are usually oblivious to the destruction they cause to others. A number of former His People staff and leaders I know are no longer attending church at all because of such dishonesty that broke their confidence not just in the individual minister but in all church ministers. It can be devastating for a fragile Christian.
My constructive suggestions to try reduce this problem are:
1. Don't hype or exaggurate achievements or prospects of success beyond what is realistic.
2. If other people try to do so, correct them and if they do it ridiculously then rebuke them.
3. Don't make promises which will be hard to keep.
4. If someone asks you for a promise then explain the limitations of your ability to commit to it. For example, it is depended on you getting support from someone else.
5. If the situation changes and you won't be able to deliver- let people know as soon as possible rather than letting them wait to find out on their own.
6. Try to keep commitments, but if you can't then explain to the person why and apologise and try to secure some sort of mitigation as compensation that they are happy with. Don't just brush them off.
7. Be honest about past failures as well as successes. Help people deal with this by explaining why you think the failures happened and how they can be avoided in future. Ask for their input.
8. Allow open discussion on problems so that they are not all covered up with hype.
9. If an EveryNation leader makes a promise on which you base your future plans - get it in writing - otherwise don't make plans on it.
If the above suggestions are followed, I think a lot less people will get hurt this way.
Remember, if this culture of hype and unrealistic promises is not dealt with, then you might be the next victim of it.
One practice which I feel has done enormous damage to the faith of many people is that of a lot of EveryNation pastors who feel it is justified to say anything they like to manipulate people to do what they want - without regard for truth or consequenses. Talk is cheap and doesn't need to relate to reality. This affects many areas of ministry. Sometimes it is explicit. Sometimes implicit.
For example:
PROJECTS
People are encouraged to invest massive amounts of time money and energy in projects, without much realistic thought about the vision or sustainability of the project. The project is just hyped up. Then things don't turn out as hoped and the investor is left disillusioned and burned. There is no discussion or apology or any damper on future hype for the next project.
WORSHIP
A church is not in a good spiritual state, because there is sin in the church, but instead of dealing with it and repenting - they just hype up the congregation with a loud noise and try to give the impression there is a revival underway. Its a similar noise to the real revival that happened before, but its phoney.
MEETINGS TO DEAL WITH PROBLEMS
The pastors don't want to meet to discuss a problem with someone who is challenging them on ethics, so they don't refuse a meeting - but neither do they give one. They just keep promising to give a meeting, but it never happens. They are always too busy, but they has time for lots of other stuff.
In one instance a pastor promised me a meeting about 10 times, then when I finally demanded he actually give it - he just responds 'You are not a leader - we are not accountable to you'. In other words, in his mind if you are an EveryNation pastor, then it is okay to lie to a congregation member.
MISSIONS REPORTING
A mission or project runs into difficulties, but when the report back happens to the church, they aren't told about this. It is made to sound like everything was just one miracle after another. This proves God is with us. To give a negative report, the leaders say would be to be like the 10 spies who discouraged the people from going into the promised land. But this is a misinterpretation of scripture. Joshua and Caleb told the truth, they just had faith that God could overcome the problems.
RESOURCE ALLOCATION
A junior leader asks for some resources from the church. A senior leader promises them to him, and he plans accordingly. But the senior leader doesn't first check to see whether his promise can be fulfilled. He hasn't secured any promise to guarantee the resources from the organisation - and he doesn't tell this to the person he makes the promises to. Then when he can't get the resources, the junior leader doesn't get his promised resources.
JOBS
I have seen it happen more than once that someone is offered a job in another church somewhere else - better than the one they have now. So they resign their secure job and move to the new city. When they get there, they are told that there isn't actually a job for them. Sorry, they will have to either work for free on their own savings or get another job and work for free in their spare time for the church or just wait and see if in a few months time the church has a job for them. The financial consequences of someone moving city and selling their house and losing several months pay can be devastating. But no apology from those who asked them to move. No effort to try help them.
REVIVAL AND REFORMATION
Another big false promise is that 'Revival and reformation' is just around the corner if you keep doing everything we tell you. Now this would be maybe true if they were encouraging people to really seek God and build the kingdom - but they aren't. They want you to give more time, money to their projects and build their personality cult empires. So God doesn't bless that and since many leaders are in blatant disobedience to God, he will never bless them with revival. So they waste everyones time that could be better spent on other things.
With all of the above, the EveryNation cultists are usually very careful never to put any promises in writing so that they can't be held accountable to keep them.
* Any more stories on the same track?
* How do we discourage this kind of behaviour?
Now what I found enormously refreshing after I left, was that in two years I have not seen any examples of any of the above trash in my new denomination. You don't have to accept it as normal ministry behaviour. Its sin. Its part of the breaking of the commandment 'You shall not lie.'
INTRODUCING LEADERS
Leaders are introduced in a ridiculously grandiose manner.
* Local church worship leader introduced as 'The greatest worship leader in the city'
* A man who has planted one church and overseen a few others as 'The church planting apostle from Africa'.
* A pastor who has planted a lot of home groups, but no churches as 'The greatest church planter in the city.'
All of the above encourages hero-worship, arroagance, elitism etc. It is dangerously destructive.
Even some good leaders get sucked into the above destructive practices - and are usually oblivious to the destruction they cause to others. A number of former His People staff and leaders I know are no longer attending church at all because of such dishonesty that broke their confidence not just in the individual minister but in all church ministers. It can be devastating for a fragile Christian.
My constructive suggestions to try reduce this problem are:
1. Don't hype or exaggurate achievements or prospects of success beyond what is realistic.
2. If other people try to do so, correct them and if they do it ridiculously then rebuke them.
3. Don't make promises which will be hard to keep.
4. If someone asks you for a promise then explain the limitations of your ability to commit to it. For example, it is depended on you getting support from someone else.
5. If the situation changes and you won't be able to deliver- let people know as soon as possible rather than letting them wait to find out on their own.
6. Try to keep commitments, but if you can't then explain to the person why and apologise and try to secure some sort of mitigation as compensation that they are happy with. Don't just brush them off.
7. Be honest about past failures as well as successes. Help people deal with this by explaining why you think the failures happened and how they can be avoided in future. Ask for their input.
8. Allow open discussion on problems so that they are not all covered up with hype.
9. If an EveryNation leader makes a promise on which you base your future plans - get it in writing - otherwise don't make plans on it.
If the above suggestions are followed, I think a lot less people will get hurt this way.
Remember, if this culture of hype and unrealistic promises is not dealt with, then you might be the next victim of it.