Part 2: Second Elder to leave and the carrot

When that Elder and his wife stepped down there was a big business meeting where the Pastor’s wife cried in front of everyone claiming she’d been victimized by the other Elder’s wife, claiming she had written a document where she had accused the Pastor’s wife of 6 sins. Both the Pastor and his wife stood in front of the congregation vilifying this Elder and his wife, claiming they were too harsh on sin and not enough grace and emphasis on building relationship. Sin, they claimed, should only be exposed within the confines of close relationship.

At that time, Geoff and I had been hearing consistently all the gossip from the Pastor and his wife about the other Elder and his Worship Director wife that had left 3-4 months before. The common thread was that both the Elders and their wives had been in sin themselves and falsely accused godly men and women of sin.

Initially, we felt bad as we watched her cry in front of the congregation. Then one bold couple defended the Elder and his wife and then another. Geoff and I sat in silence and tucked it away. We both knew that something wasn’t right. We glanced at each other and gave each other the “look”. The look, with the raised eyebrows and big wide eyes that only takes a second to pass between a couple that says, “we will talk about this later because this crap is seriously messed up!”. Every couple has this look that speaks volumes without a word passing between them.

It was just prior to that whole debacle, about six weeks prior, when the Pastor was seriously talking to Geoff about bringing him in on staff and giving him a housing allowance. The conversation was a constant from the pastor but always there was something in the conversation putting Geoff off. Prior to the other Elder leaving, the Pastor gave Geoff the book about biblical Eldership and talked to Geoff about coming on as an Elder first, then staff member.

We think it was just a hook to keep us in line and keep us serving in our positions as Men’s ministry leader and Worship Leader as we later found out during a conversation with the disgraced Elder and his wife (the ones that were discussed wrongly in the business meeting) that the Pastor had openly discussed in Elder meetings that he had no intention of bringing Geoff on as an Elder, nor as staff. The plan was always to bring on the Elder who was serving in Afghanistan as staff when he returned from deployment. None of that was ever mentioned to Geoff or myself.

Despite the duplicity, and hardships placed on us both ministries were growing. Geoff had only 8 men the first week he took over the men’s ministry. By the time we left in May, it was 40 or so. For myself, the church was growing and despite being prohibited by not having official team members and my team being so small, I borrowed those who weren’t officially on anyone’s team and made it work every week that I led.

Every time I led worship, there was always some type of issue with the Director. Songs that I’d previously used, under the other Director’s leadership were no longer permissible and had to go through an oversight process. Even my own worship songs that I had written had to go through this approval process. There was a process and rule for everything. I even had to seek permission to use a binder system to keep my teams music in so that if ever we needed extra music/songs we had them on hand since memorizing songs were so hard for myself and some teens. I never did get that permission, but utilized it anyway. It was silly to have to get permission for something that was so common sense.

So every three weeks, whenever it came to my rotation for worship, there would be an email, or a discussion from the Director that I’d done something not to his liking. I never once received an encouraging word and every request I made was disregarded.

Side note: We spoke to that Elder and his wife and the story and evidence that they presented was completely different than what was presented publicly to the congregation. The Pastor and his Wife flat out lied and misrepresented facts!