December 26, 2011
Dear Andy,
I really appreciate your taking the time to talk with me yesterday after church. I have so many questions. I am still trying to wrap my head around everything, and there are tons of things that just don’t make sense. You said that if I had any questions, to let you know. Here goes:
The only thing I’ve heard with any consistency whatsoever is that this has been going on for many months. From speaking with you yesterday, things came to a big ugly head on Tuesday night. I asked why, if things had been brewing for so long, that David and Amy were so shocked by his termination. The answers I have received from the elders on this matter were: “He was shocked because he is arrogant.” “He shouldn’t have been; he must be in denial.” “David knew it was coming, but evidently doesn’t communicate with his wife. That’s why Amy was shocked.” Basically, the Board has said that David wasn’t shocked, but that he has been feigning his surprise. Are you telling us that in addition to everything else he’s been accused of, he has been lying to the congregation and to his wife? That’s what it sounds like you’re saying. Is that what you are saying, Andy? That his shock is fake, and he knows it?
From an extensive management background, I do understand that when an employee, particularly one in a management position, is going to be terminated, it is best not to inform every other employee. Not only is that good management, more importantly, it is the way we, as Christians, should handle these things. On the other hand, whether it is a small church office or corporate America, other employees are usually not blind, deaf and dumb. They usually have a pretty good idea when something is going on, or when something needs to be done. I understood from you that David had caused numerous problems with various members of the church staff, and that this was a recurring problem. What I don’t understand is why Lujean and some other members of the church staff were shocked. Were the serious problems David caused with staff members so encapsulated that no one person knew that anyone besides themselves had a problem with David? (Wow! That would be impressive!) Or are these people just completely out of touch with reality? If they are so far out of touch that they can’t see what’s going on in the environment they are in every single day, do we really want them in their important positions? Or could it be that these problems are not nearly as bad as you may have perceived them to be?
I am truly saying this in a spirit of love and an attempt at trying to understand. It has been my experience that the way we as human beings perceive things becomes our reality. In other words, if we are looking for problems, we will find them because we expect them to exist. I understand, too, that once a nerve is exposed it is raw and any minor little thing can irritate it. Is there even the most remote possibility that some of this may have occurred on either side? Maybe a better question would be, “Is there even a remote possibility that this didn’t happen on both sides?” I feel that, to some extent, it probably did happen on both sides, whether those involved knew it or not.
You told me that about ten different people came to you about the way David preaches on Sunday mornings, and told you that if the Board didn’t do something, they would leave the congregation. I don’t understand this at all. It is not that I doubt that those people did come to you with those threats; I’m sure they did. I understand that you have to listen to them, to really hear them and their hearts. I appreciate that. What I do not understand is why ten people can so sway the Board. Has who our preacher is become a popularity contest? Why is David being judged in the court of public opinion, and then the Board acting on that? Why were those people offended? David was too loud? Do they have super sensitive hearing? Was it that their ears were physically assaulted by the actual decibels? Did they perceive that they were personally being yelled at? I’ve been in David’s “yelling” sermons. I’ve even been convicted in some of his sermons, but I’ve never felt “yelled at.” Perhaps these people are feeling conviction. Perhaps they are being overly politically correct.
Ten people, Andy? TEN people? What about the scores of people that will leave because David is gone? Does the opinion of those ten outweigh the opinions of the others? I don’t understand why. Why, Andy? Please, tell me why? (Don’t look now, but you’ve already lost more than ten people since you got rid of David. This episode drama from the Board has already cost Hope church much more than membership and lost revenue. Among other things, we are losing at least one prayer warrior that I know of so far. God told her to “disengage” because of all this mess. From my padded stadium seat, it appears that this dissention is accomplishing what Sam could not: the death of Hope Church. I can just hear Satan laughing in delight, and it makes me sick to my stomach. We are facing spiritual warfare on multiple fronts, and we’re fighting amongst ourselves.)
This goes a step further in crushing my spirit, too. Sam all but killed this church. (I won’t go into his transgressions against me here, but will tell you about them if you ask.) It absolutely floors me to realize that all I had to do was gossip and murmur and round up a bunch of friends, preferably with money, to complain to the Board, threaten to leave and take our purses with us, and we could have given him the boot long ago. I didn’t consider it my place. I didn’t feel that I was one to sit in judgment or stir the pot. I, like so very many others, suffered in silence. We lost a lot of people because of Sam, Andy… a lot… a whole lot… MORE THAN TEN! (I take this blame squarely on my own shoulders. IF I decide to stay at Hope, from now on, you had better believe that the members of the Board will be hearing from me on everything I don’t like, and some of what I do. I had no idea that I should have had them on speed dial. It was my fault entirely, but rest assured, it shall not happen again!)
We, many people in the congregation as well as me, were so relieved when Sam left. We hadn’t shared our feelings or apprehensions even with each other because none of us wanted to presume we were so high and mighty that we had the right to stir up trouble. It was only after he left that we realized that so very many of us had shared the same feelings, and had done nothing. After all, if Sam wasn’t the man that God wanted as our preacher, our trusted Board of Elders would certainly do something about it… but they didn’t. The Board was wrong by not doing more than they did. How do we know they aren’t wrong now?
Now, let’s address the other alleged reasons David was terminated.
1. Refusing to submit to the authority of the Board of Elders, and being disrespectful on frequent occasions. He acted in anger.
2. Yelling AT people from the pulpit.
3. Not using enough scripture “Is it a history lesson or a Bible lesson?”
4. Not using enough outside sources with his scripture.
5. Taking too long to get to the verse(s) referenced
6. Saying “God” and “Holy Spirit”, but not saying “Jesus Christ” enough.
7. Saying “Satan” too much.
8. Talking about Amy, and using examples from his own life too much because it makes people feel sorry for Amy.
9. Not smiling enough.
10. Taking a dig at Scooter for his education. David doesn’t have a degree in theology.
11. The Board does not think he is anointed by God as our pastor. They never did; they were wrong to have hired him. David is the one who has proclaimed himself to be anointed, and if he really were, he wouldn’t have to say it.
12. Having NONE of the fruits of the spirit.
13. Preaching too long, resulting in a child in the nursery getting bitten.
Refusing to submit to the authority of the Board is a serious offense. I wasn’t there to witness it. I don’t know what happened. Perhaps there was righteous indignation. Perhaps emotions ran high. David is a passionate and expressive personality. Perhaps he meant no disrespect. What exactly happened when he blatantly refused to submit to the authority of the Board? Did he say, “I refuse to submit to the authority of the Board!”? Could something have been misinterpreted somehow? Was he acting in anger, or expressing a view point passionately?
He has been accused of having put his hand in your face, Andy. I’m not saying he didn’t; I don’t believe you would lie to me. I question David’s motive behind such an act. I must wonder what the intent was. Did he realize how he was being perceived? I have no way of knowing; I wasn’t there. What is important here is that you perceived disrespect and anger. Certainly this needs to be addressed, following the guidelines of church discipline. I know that it has been, to some extent, as we discussed yesterday. This may require mediation. I don’t know what to say. There will always be personality differences; we must work thru them in a spirit of love.
Yelling AT people from the pulpit. I’ve seen him in the pulpit; I’ve heard him yell. I have never heard him yell AT anybody from the pulpit. He never called anyone out by name, or even by any sort of description. This one just doesn’t carry water for me. The folks that thought they were personally being yelled at were probably being convicted by the Holy Spirit. Good for David. Go God! If people aren’t being convicted, then we probably do need to find another pastor. If they don’t like it because he yells, Brian Collier sits on a stool and speaks in a conversational tone of voice. The services at the Orchard start at 10:30 a.m. every Sunday. (They’ll probably see some of the folks we lost because of Sam. They’ll get out early enough to beat us to Barnhill’s; maybe they can go together.)
Ok, is he not using enough scripture or is he not using enough other stuff? Larry said that it was not enough scripture. Larry asked me, “Was the sermon a history lesson or a Bible lesson?” Melanie Jasper said David was yelling at the Board when he was asked to use other references besides scripture. (Of course he was yelling. He should have been yelling. Andy, you said this never happened, so I don’t know what to think. I supposed Melanie was mistaken & you need to get her to hush.) You can’t have it both ways. Why not just ask for a sermon outline to put in the bulletin? I love having those fill-in-the-blank notes with references in my bulletin.
I realize that if something is to be improved, it has to be measured so that you have a baseline and can see improvement, but counting how many minutes it takes to get to the passage of scripture? Who does this study? The complaint was made by a female, obviously not a member of the Board. If these “studies” are going to be done, then they should be done by someone sanctioned in advance by the Board, and who can do it and keep their big mouth shut. It needs to be done from the recorded sermon, and NOT during
the live presentation. Other things to consider are whether or not the person needs to have attended the live presentation, or whether you need to hire a “mystery shopper” or get someone from outside to review the recorded message. Non-solicited counting of minutes, or how many times David said or did not say something is just stirring the pot! That person needs to focus more on her own issues, which must be numerous. You might also recommend that she find a hobby.
When David talks about Amy and how she has to hold him accountable and tighten him up, it makes him real. I love hearing those stories and examples. Sorry that JJ has a problem with it, or that David “refused to submit” when JJ told him to cut back on them and to smile more.
Larry asked me if a preacher should ever look down on a man’s occupation or his pursuit of higher education in his chosen career, and address that from the pulpit. He went on to tell me that David had done just this with a comment he made about Scooter and his graduate degree, and that we have a lot of people in the church with Ph.D.s and much higher education than what David has. I heard the comment. I didn’t find it offensive. I realized that David was speaking in jest, and may actually secretly wish he had such a degree. It didn’t occur to me that Scooter may have been offended. After Scooter shared his life story, I would have thought that his skin was much thicker than this. My question to Larry should have been, “Oh, no. What did David say when Scooter told him he had been offended?” That is my question to you and the Board. Was Scooter offended? Did he go to David and let him know, or did he come straight to the Board? What did David say? Is it possible that this is an offense that has been assumed by someone that it doesn’t concern?
Was pointing out that there are many Ph.D.s with theological education far beyond David’s not a dig towards David? When you were interviewing him, did you not check out his education? Did you miss that he had no degree in theology? I think not. You knew his educational background when you hired him. If you didn’t, wouldn’t you agree that there is serious cause for alarm in the competency of the Board?
I am nothing when it comes to those more theologically educated and spiritually more mature, but it has occurred to me that although Scooter is awesome, we don’t want a whole bunch of Scooters, or a whole bunch of Andys, or Larrys, or Jims, or Cathis. The body isn’t made up of just hearts or just livers. Not everybody can be a brain, or a hand, or a big toe. There is room at Hope for David and for Scooter, and for a whole bunch of whoever God wants there to be here. (That includes me, and right now, after this letter, I’m pretty sure you probably consider me to be the rectal sphincter in the body of Christ. It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it!)
You don’t see or feel his anointing. I don’t get this at all. There are many of us that do. I haven’t noticed David proclaiming that he is the anointed one to lead us, but I wouldn’t have noticed, because I do believe that he has been anointed to be our pastor. I have heard him say that he didn’t want to leave his comfortable career as a coach to become a pastor, but it is what God led him to do. I have heard him say he was called. I have seen him hurt for the congregation, the people who just aren’t getting it. I have seen him feel as though he has failed us. That looks like humility to me. I have heard him humble himself, and want to just be an empty vessel. Is that wrong? To want to be an empty vessel for the Lord to use? Have we been deceived? What’s the big deal if he isn’t anointed? Is the big deal the fact that he may not be anointed, or that he allegedly declared that he was? Isn’t being called to be our pastor enough?
The pastor search committee, all of whom are much, much more spiritually mature than I, believed that he was the man that God had for us. Were they wrong? Were they deceived? They were appointed by the Board of Elders. Was the Board wrong forming a pastor search committee or did it just chose the wrong people? If the board was wrong in the selection or hiring of David, how do I know they aren’t wrong now? How many times can this Board be wrong and still expect to have any credibility at all?
Jim Spencer, who I love and respect, quoted me Galatians and told me that he has seen none of the fruits of the spirit in David. None. Not the whole time David had been here. NONE. Not any. Seems as though that even a blind pig finds an acorn every now and then. Even if David were lost as a goose, in almost a year, he would have accidently committed one act that would have demonstrated one little fruit somewhere. I don’t run around counting folks fruit, and I haven’t been around David nearly as much as y’all, but I have see love, joy, peace, kindness and faithfulness. What did David say when Jim told him that he saw no fruit?
Despite your email to the contrary, Hannah was told by an elder that the clock on the wall did have something to do with his termination. It was mentioned previously that a child in nursery had been bitten when the sermon went too long. Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? A room full of toddlers keeping an eye on the clock. It hits noon, little Johnny, too young to attend the big service and wiggle in his seat so that David knows when to shut up, hauls off and takes a plug out of another child. “There! That’ll teach Pastor David to wrap it up on time!” the youngster thinks smugly to himself as the other child bawls loudly. You have got to be kidding!
To top it all off, do you even remember whose child it was that got bitten. Hannah’s. Deuce, her son, was the one bitten. She didn’t blame David, so why assume an offense? There were 2 children bitten in nursery yesterday. Was it Buster’s fault? Couldn’t have been because he ran long!
By the way, Buster’s message yesterday was the best I’ve ever heard him do. Was that because it was the same message that David had posted earlier that he was going to deliver? God must have really wanted us to get that specific message, starting with John 1:1. Pretty much of a coincidence, huh? He does work in mysterious ways.
I look over all of this, and it just seems like a bunch of hooey. It still just makes no sense whatsoever. Do you think that there could be some way that you and the rest of the board would sit down with David and several mediators? It seems to me that that would be the right thing to do.
Also, back to the issue of a new pastor. As I said in an email, when I told Larry Easterling that I just didn’t think I could go thru another round of itinerate preachers while we looked for someone new, he told me that the Board wasn’t leaning that way. I had no idea what he meant. I called JJ, who didn’t return my call as requested, but did return Hannah’s call. He told her that they were planning on hiring from within. That could only mean Scooter, with his education and all. Then it came to light that out of the church staff, only Scooter was privy to what was going on with David. That made Scooter, thru no fault of his own, appear to be in collusion with some members of the Board, despite having said time and again that he didn’t feel called to be the head pastor. When I spoke with you yesterday, you said that the Board had not discussed hiring from within. Perhaps the entire Board didn’t, and maybe just a few did. I don’t know, and obviously, neither does anybody else –you included. My point is that all of these conflicting things coming from different elders appear to show division and indecisiveness on the part of the Board. It also makes it appear that one or the other has somehow practiced deception or just out right lied.
This mis- or disinformation is contributing to the pain and anguish that the church is feeling right now. It makes us overly vigilant when other things happen. For example, there was supposed to have been an announcement made by the Board of Elders in church yesterday. Services closed, and we were dismissed with no announcement. It was perceived to be another lie, and almost caused a riot! (You’ve really hit the wall when other respected church leaders, both men and women, who have cornucopias of fruits of the spirit, perceive it to be a lie, and call it such.)
There is not going to be an easy way to handle this. Answering questions on a one-to-one basis will just result in more he-said, she-said, not to mention wearing the entire Board to a frazzle. Having the Board face those of us with questions is going to be very difficult, but it is going to have to be done. An email is great, but only about 30% of the church has email, and there needs to be more interaction. People need to be able to ask questions and speak their hearts. Issuing an email will be perceived as hiding or evading the issue, I’m afraid. Not only that, but it will appear to give you all a chance to get your stories straight with each other. (There is already a feeling that the “unanimous vote” was something like, “Ok. We’ve voted to make this unanimous by a vote of 3:2 with one abstaining.”) We need to see the honesty and emotions that only a face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball meeting can afford us.
Andy, I agree that the church has got to be an elder-led body. There is no dispute that that is scriptural. Before, I was questioning the first part of “elder-led”, now I am questioning the last part. “Led.”
There are lots of different types of leading and governing. There is a gentle leading, like leading beside the still water. There is leading like marching into battle. There is leading from behind, like sending troops in to get killed while staying at home and working on your golf swing. There is leading that has people blindly following in a goosestep. There is leading that has people moving to Guiana and drinking Kool-Aid, or barricading themselves in a bunker in Waco, or covering their loins with purple triangles when they commit suicide to join the mother ship.
The secrecy resulting in major changes that affect my life, and the lives of my family and friends, feels like Obama-style leadership to me. We woke up one day, and Obama-care was rammed down our throats. We woke up another day, and David, whom we dearly love, was ripped away from us by a decision we had no say in making, a decision we didn’t even know was being made for us. It was done for reasons not disclosed. (If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck….)
Our pastor search committee and the entire congregation looked and prayed for a pastor for months and years before God gave us David. He started out good. He must have started out that way, or certainly the Board of Elders would not have hired him to shepherd our flock. So, he started out good. BUT now he is bad… bad enough to be fired. He is bad enough to warrant his removal, resulting in all the heartache and turmoil in the church. Are you telling me that David Ball is our Saul? They prayed for a king, and God finally got tired of their nagging and gave them Saul. He started out kind of okay, and then went bad. Is that what happened here? We nagged and nagged and got David, and we thought he was good, but we were wrong? Was the pastor search committee wrong? Was the Board of Elders wrong? If the Board was wrong, how can we trust it to be right this time?
Help me, Andy. Help all of us. We only want to understand. We only want God’s will. We only want to reconcile and be a healed body of believers. Please, help us. I am asking in a spirit of love and humility.
Your sister in Christ,
Cathi Clements
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