Far be it from me to criticize...

I know that I will appear hypocritical by stating that someone is wrong for criticizing another person on their blog by stating this, but it's just bothering me. In short, we were involved in a church in Cartersville a few years ago now. We became a bit disillusioned with the pastor there, and I saw another reason why his leadership style is flawed (btw, I don't want to appear that I am criticizing his leadership of his church, he is more than free to do as he sees fit, how his congregation allows him to lead, and how their elders allow him to).

Recently, there was a scandal at a church in Canton, GA. In short, the pastor had an affair, was forced to resign, and has now announced that he is going to start another church without having accomplished what many people feel that he should have done before coming back to the ministry, much less as the leader of another church. I do agree with the pastor of the church we had attended in that he has not done what he said he was going to, and is going to further split the church the first church even more. However, I do have a problem of a preacher criticizing another pastor publicly in another church without the person being able to defend themselves. I personally feel that this is a bit of back-stabbing, even if the motives of the pastor are innocent. There is no reason to share with a church body that is not directly affected by what is happening in another church in another association and to be critical of what he is doing. Again, while I believe the pastor who had the affair shouldn't be doing what he is doing right now, it's not appropriate say things such as "If you think you're called to start a church & you don't meet the qualifications of Titus 1, you're being "called" by someone besides God" in your church service.

As I stated before, I know this will appear to be hypocritical of me to write something publicly about a church leader that I do not attend his church anymore, but I hope that you see the difference is that I am not criticizing him as a leader of a church to the congregation. I hope that I will be able to, if the situation ever arises, more efficiently and without malice to help the pastor who is in the wrong become a man without question. I hope that I will be able to accomplish this by not doing this in public either.

Thanks for letting me rant. The next post won't be so heavy...:) More later!