How Should I Balance Avoiding Legalism While Holding Church Leaders Accountable?
Q: As a sinner, how should I balance avoiding legalism while still holding church leaders accountable? Is it hypocritical to call out leaders when the church is in chaos?
A: First of all, I'm so sorry that your church is in chaos. Every church goes through some rough seasons, even the best churches. I hope this is just a rough season for your church and that God will bring things out of this.
If there is genuine corruption in your church leadership, we need to understand that corruption isn't just something you disagree with or a single bad decision they've made. Everybody makes bad decisions. If you're going to leave your church because the pastor made a bad decision, I think you never really had much of a commitment to that church anyway. Every organization is going to make some bad decisions.
Corruption is generally understood as serious moral, doctrinal, or ethical error. If that is serious and entrenched or repeated in a church, it is appropriate for the people of the church to address it. How you do it is important. I'm not asking you to do it in a way that the church leaders will like; nobody likes being confronted. But you need to do it in a way that makes your conscience clear before God. This isn't easy. It takes some rigor. You need to come with a broken heart but with a stiff spine and say, 'This is where I think the moral, doctrinal, or ethical error is.'
Once you've brought that to their attention, you have to give it some time. A lot of people imagine that they will speak a word of correction, and the leader will think about it for 30 seconds and say, 'Wow, you're absolutely right on all points. We'll change everything just according to how you thought we should change it.' That's just not realistic. Give some time for changes to be made.
If the issues persist, you need to evaluate whether or not that's a church you can continue to support and be a part of, depending on the severity of the moral, doctrinal, or ethical error. I can't give you any firm line here, but depending on the severity, it might be appropriate to make it public, which we are generally loathed to do. However, there are times and places where that's the right thing to do. Just remember, when you confront leadership, don't expect them to like it, and don't get sore at them for not liking it. They're human beings, just like you. We don't like to be confronted. What you would hope for is that, over time, God would take what you said and other influences upon them to convict them of sin and bring them to the right place.