Dennis Muses: When You Pastor in a Church of God and You Have Had Enough...

 

The Clergy Project:  Losing Faith in Faith

(Or your faith based community)

 

The Clergy Project is a confidential online community for active and former clergy who do not hold supernatural beliefs. The Clergy Project launched on March 21st, 2011.

 

Currently, the community's 500 plus members use it to network and discuss what it's like being an unbelieving leader in a religious community. The Clergy Project’s goal is to support members as they move beyond faith. Members freely discuss issues related to their transition from believer to unbeliever including:

• Wrestling with intellectual, ethical, philosophical and theological issues
• Coping with cognitive dissonance
• Addressing feelings of being stuck and fearing the future
• Looking for new careers
• Telling their families
• Sharing useful resources
• Living as a nonbeliever with religious spouses and family
• Using humor to soften the pain
• Finding a way out of the ministry
• Adjusting to life after the ministry

 

I have to say, or maybe I don't have to but I choose to, this chart cuts to the bone. I hate it.  I realize it is a bit of an exaggeration and not the norm, but the generic "minister" in the middle cuts like the proverbial knife. I was one. I was one in WCG and it was a choice.  I had to be there.  There was a time where you would have been of Satan to try and knock me out of it.  Then there is now.  Perhaps I am violating my own rule found in "The Four Agreements" of never taking anything personally.  It is about them, not you.  I once asked someone close to me if I was "one of them?"   They told me, "you were never one of them," and it helped. 

 

 

I wish I had never heard of the Worldwide Church of God but that was not in the plan evidently.  Someone once told me we write our scripts before we "incarnate" in this life.  I told them "then next time I am going to make a no drinking rule while we think this stuff up!" 

 

 

 I suppose...

 

 

 

 

Nonetheless, ministry and doing it in the right setting, with the right beliefs in the right way, before I outgrew this concept of ever being possible, was the goal of my youthful self in my desire to be a church pastor.  After all, what could be more important than knowing the answers to all of life's most important questions about today and after death, then what?  I don't believe I have to repeat my youthful ideas and such about going to Ambassador believing it was a seminary in the traditional sense or my personal church experiences.  The first human I ever anointed for healing as per James 5:14 after being ordained an elder when very young  (that's a bit of humor there) was my blind, deaf and dumb brother.  He's still blind, deaf and dumb but the "what the hell are you doing" look on his face is a great memory!

 

To the point.  I know the conflict a man or woman can have as they get older in ministry. It is probably one of the most unreasonable "callings" there could ever be. My lesson in , among many, was that the pastor was the sacrificial goat for being and doing what most members never ever intended to be or do.  When they screw up, there were 10,000 forgiveness scriptures flying around.  When the pastor screwed up, they were thrown into hell.  This is true across all denominational lines. 

 

I used to make couples promise, upon pain of eternal something or other , when getting married to never change from that moment on.  I failed to tell them that once out the door, everything would change around them.  I can play the day of my own wedding in my head very clearly and as time went on, I could not do it.  People change.  Circumstances change.  Regrets about ideas believed when younger begin to creep in when older.  Any pastor worth his academic salt could not possibly just believe in later years what he was taught when young.  "They never taught me that" becomes obvious to those who seek.  Organizations, by nature MUST fence you in with your growing in grace in knowledge.  It has to be their kind of grace  and their knowledge.  They all work that way. 

 

I can totally imagine the conflict the average minister in the average or the wacky Church of God , depending on which they got stuck in, is going through.  One can be conflicted and not show it.  One can go through the motions and quietly doubt and wonder what the hell to do or think about it all.  You can be too far down a road to turn around without chaos and it's pretty damn scary.  Sometimes people crack off in a comment or two what the minister should do in such cases, but in my experience, they probably would not be so simplistic or demanding in their solutions for others if it was happening to them.  Transitions are messy and they can take a long time when spiritual matters seem to be at stake.  Ministers balance off the doubts that will always come along with the perceived good they are doing for and with others in their position.  I have had any number of minister types both in WCG and other denominations admit to the conflict between what they had been taught and used to believe and what more or less belief had come as their lives unfolded.  It's a normal process in ministry. No one prepares you for it.  It is painful and can destroy the man and the family.  I have personal ministerial friends who have ended their lives quickly in suicide or slowly in alcohol or just the broken heartedness that can come from reckless theological change .   I asked my nephew what he thought took his WCG minister father's life so young and he said,  "a broken heart."  The Hodgkins Lymphoma was the outward manifestation of the inner pain, IMHO.


 I will always credit the Tkaches with reckless theological change no matter who was more correct biblically or theologically.  I have come to feel, for now, that no one gets it right and all religion is a mixed bag of possibilities and improbabilities.   People don't change like that.  The Tkaches brought rapid change pretending they weren't in months that real denominations would bring in decades or more.  They were fools to think so unless they had the intended chaos and outcome in mind to begin with.  Joe's collection of Rolex Watches and getting paid for being head of nothing doesn't make me feel so great but that's his story and this is mine I suppose.

 

The Clergy Project is a very private and discrete organization founded by Dan Barker , author of Losing Faith in Faith and others who exist to help men and women in clergy who find themselves, for whatever reasons, torn in their calling and coming to doubt the truth they so wanted to be true when younger.  While it is about going from faith to losing faith, the problems and concerns that a torn Church of God minister might have can also be helped by caring and listening former pastors.  It is private and there is no way those over you can access or see your correspondence with The Clergy Project. 

 

"Welcome to the Clergy Project. It is hard to think of any other profession which it is so near to impossible to leave. If a farmer tires of the outdoor life and wants to become an accountant or a teacher or a shopkeeper, he faces difficulties, to be sure. He must learn new skills, raise money, move to another area perhaps. But he doesn't risk losing all his friends, being cast out by his family, being ostracized by his whole community. Clergy who lose their faith suffer double jeopardy. It's as though they lose their job and their marriage and their children on the same day. It is an aspect of the vicious intolerance of religion that a mere change of mind can redound so cruelly on those honest enough to acknowledge it.

The Clergy Project exists to provide a safe haven, a forum where clergy who have lost their faith can meet each other, exchange views, swap problems, counsel each other – for, whatever they may have lost, clergy know how to counsel and comfort. Here you will find confidentiality, sympathy, and a friendly place where you can take your time before deciding how to extricate yourself and when you will feel yourself ready to stand up and face the cool, refreshing wind of truth."

- Richard Dawkins

http://clergyproject.org/

I am not addressing this from the cold transition from believer to generic unbeliever.  I am not suggesting one must be agnostic or atheist.  I am suggesting any Church of God Lurker Minister or Elder who is struggling with all the ridiculous experience with WCG, GCI, RCG, PCG, LCG and it taking it's toll can find private help to talk it through.  I belong to the Clergy Project as well but have been more active here on Banned for now.  It helped just to read the stories, concerns and realities of men and women in theological change with consequences.  There is not much consequence for the average member to simply walk away.  They go to work on Monday and not much changes in reality.  I know it can be traumatic but they only have themselves to be concerned about.  There are exceptions of course but I believe you all understand what I mean.  I stayed with my local congregation way longer than my mind stayed with anyone "over" me.  I did care about my local congregation.  But you can't win. Stuck between the Devil and the deep blue sea, you lose it all.  I can count on one hand my ongoing friends in ministry with fingers left over.  It takes two hands to cover the members of my own congregations who have stayed friends no matter. 

If there is any pastor or elder in the COG experience who is struggling and needs to chat, I promise you complete confidentiality as if it never happened.  If you need to see the experience is not unique in all of ministerial experiences in Christianity, please read the stories at the Clergy Project.  If you are the type of person who has all inclusive scorn for every Church of God minister, who are not all Ministurds in fact and who started out with the same hopes and desires to be and do and teach the right things, stop by the Clergy Project and read how pastoring really works in the real world.  I don't excuse any in ministry but I know that side of the fence and pressure and confusion  churches and religion  cause were and are common in all Churches and Denominations. 

 

Finally, it is no secret that the WCG ministry and thus all those who went on to make fools of themselves all claiming to represent the One True Church and culminate in the foolishness of a Dave Pack, were not well trained in theology or ministry.  I was not.  To study the Gospels and the "Harmony" of them was simply to read them and know the stories.  Rod Meredith would not know a controversial questions or contradiction in the Gospels if it bit him in the bum.  Epistles of Paul classes were reading them classes and generic commenting and know the content.  Old Testament Survey was reading it from Genesis to Malachi and hanging out in the stories that fit whatever one wanted to make them fit .Knowing that half of Paul's Epistles were not written by him was not part of the mix.  Knowing the language they were written in was not required .  The Psychology of ministry or the care and feeding of a congregation was never covered.  I graduated with a 3.97 in what they had to offer and what they had to offer was precious little in reality.  I was an elder at 23 and a Preaching Elder at 24.  Wow...awesome!  Want to know all about the Bible, the mind of God and where the True Church is on earth?  Just ask.  Sigh...

 

 

I have attended Episcopal Church the last two weeks for a couple of personal reasons.  I find myself still very torn.  Stuck between a view of life that is real and accurate and stories and myths that, depending on the education, most clergy recognize as well and keep to themselves.   It's a weird profession.  The price has been very high in every way.  I have followed the antics of Dave Pack with both a fascination and a contempt for a man who claims great things for himself and has no training  of any actual worth in theology.  He is an excellent speaker and communicator.  He speaks lies and communicates fairy tales.  He is a weaver of tales and analogies he mistakes for truth at the expense of probably sincere folk who are being conned into what the Bible may say but does not mean.  It is common in all churches.  Dave practices a particularly repulsive form of it to me.

 



 

Just when you think the man has crashed in flames, here he comes again for another run on landing safely.  I don't wish him well and I doubt he makes it to the hanger.  But to those of you who actually meant well and feel stuck and lost in all the confusion this and other men can cause you, try the Clergy Project if for nothing else than seeing there is nothing new under the sun when it comes to religious awakening no matter the source and no matter where it takes you.  It will be rough.  Family will suffer, marriages will fail, tensions will rise and the temptation to cover the pain inappropriately will be enormous.  Reality is our friend in the long run and the sooner you get started the sooner you can stop wasting your time, resources and life energy on the insane  ideas others think you need to follow them over the cliff for.

 

 

 

I will encourage you one more time to and as long as you're having the experience anway to...

 

 

Thomas Henry Huxley

 

 

“Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing”

 



 

 

 

 

 

David C Pack Announces That He Will Have Two or Three More Messages Where He Will Make Excuses For His Abysmal Prophetic Failure And Demand More Money

ht: Painful Truth

Dave has been humiliated beyond his exceptions by the fall out of his abysmal prophetic failure.  The public flailing he has received on countless blogs and on Facebook have made him the laughing stock of the Churches of God.  Now he has to swing into damage control.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Upcoming Announcements

Mr. Pack will be posting two or three more “Friday Announcements” in the coming weeks. These will explain in detail additional expansive elements of the Haggai/Zechariah prophecy. They will open your eyes to things that God has long intended to do in His end-time Work that no one ever understood before, and you will see that His Word is plain!

The first will be this Friday, and will cover interesting points and scriptures everyone should keep in mind now. The next one or two will bring clarity to certain questions about “dates,” and how brethren should now view the “when” of the prophecy’s fulfillment.

Davey spent twenty some weeks making plain the message he received from his god.  Apparently his god pulled a big cosmic joke on Davey and now he has to cover his ass with a list of excuses for the next three weeks.

Samuel Kitchen: I am sick of the lies and slander about HWA. He Was An Apostle and you are under GOVERNMENT, so STOP Criticizing Him!

Three hours of mindless blabbering.

Various Facebook groups have had a lot of issues lately with a certain COG member who goes into apoplectic fits anytime someone says something negative about Herbert Armstrong, It is  a father and son team who flood various Facebook pages and other blogs with their endless rants about people criticizing HWA and the church.  They are adept at copying and pasting endless scriptures to support their silliness that no one reads any more.  The main whiner though is Samuel Kitchen.

To them, the great implosion of the Worldwide Church of God was an issue of government and the Jesuits.  The evil Jesuits are out to destroy Armstrongism.   I don't think anyone needs to blame the Jesuits for destroying the COG, the hundreds of splinter group leaders are doing a fine job all on their own!


His Facebook and LinkedIn pages are one big slobberfest of all things HWA and Gerald Waterhouse.

I only posted on that thread because people was trying to figure the author of the book out at looking at his behavior. I posted about the Jesuits. And then I posted about Co-Intel Pro. Then you came on posting comments such as above.

You came on there attacking "people like me", saying a bunch of unchristian things in a way to try to discredit whatever I posted. And so it seems you think you have some kind of "duty" to comment and "jump in" attacking anyone who defends and magnifies the apostle, even this is found in this thread! And "Connie" was on the other thread as well. Which is interesting. If you are not sent by the "Jesuits" who did send you? You admitted you was sent by someone, just not the Jesuits. Who do you work for?

Co-Intel pro is a GOVERNMENTAL form of infiltrators.

The Jesuits are at the heart of all this.

Let me explain a little to the un informed.

After WW2 the Nazi's(doctors, rocket scientists, gestapo's etc) were all smuggled through the Catholic Ratlines(Jesuit system)into allied countries such as America, and with them they created the CIA, NASA, New medical universities etc. This happened through "Operation Paperclip".

CO-INTEL PRO is a CIA initiative, and program.

So the Beast Power (Hitler Mussolini Axis) went underground after WW2 into America, South America, Britain, Russia etc. Actually most went into America and Russia, but watching this system take shape within our country and others is interesting. We have already been taken over by the Beast system, we gave up our sovereignty with the "Lisbon Treaty" of 2009, which gave over our land to the United Nations. But continuing...

I only posted about the Jesuits on the previous thread. You came attacking my character, placing anyone who believes the same in the category of "Terrorists". You came onto this post attacking my character again. That is your history and pattern.

Why is it everytime someone post about HWA, you come on and attack them? You spend your time labeling anyone who would agree with HWA, with "keywords" such as "Terrorists" and "Zealots". And so it's not hard to find what you are about, all we have to do is look at your fruits.

What many do not know, is that I don't like these long dragged out fights. But what I believe is that God placed Mr.Armstrong in the spiritual rank and office of Apostle. And I see the slander and lies that are being told about him as a high level of dishonor and disrespect to the office that God gave to him. It's like Miriam and Aaron speaking against Moses. God said "WHY DID YOU NOT FEAR TO SPEAK AGAINST MY SERVANT MOSES?"