I said, "You folks have lost your way."

"Say what?"

"You have forgotten the church is not a social club. This is not a popularity contest. The pastor and his wife were not sent by God to be the congregation's mascots or the favorite guests at the civic clubs.

"The pastor was sent to shepherd the Lord's flock. He was sent to represent God, to preach His word, and to train the people for being salt and light in the community.

"The church is not a human enterprise and we are not running a business. The church was never intended as a democracy where the majority calls the shots. The church is Christ's body. He is its Head and we are individual cells in it. We are to obey Him. The way to do that is to read His Word and then follow it.

"I grant you a preacher should use proper English. It's distracting when he's preaching and he says 'John and me were visiting the other day.' But that's all it is--distracting. If he's opening the Word and telling what God has said, if he is a man of prayer and is sincerely working to lead the Lord's people, then cut him a little slack, for Pete's sake."

He didn't say anything.

"It's not just you or your church, it's like an epidemic in our land. People on the pastor's back because they don't like his sermons, they don't find his wife friendly, his children are unruly sometimes, the pastor doesn't give enough respect to the older members, he is introducing too much change into the church, he uses too much humor or tells too many stories or doesn't wear a tie. It's enough to drive a man crazy.

"None of this has the first thing to do with anything," I said.

"The Lord did not send the pastor to make the church happy. He sent the pastor to make the church healthy and Himself happy. I can't put it any stronger than that."

I finished, "Sorry for the outburst. You can see I feel pretty strongly about this."

He said, "I still want to talk with you about our church situation sometime. I grant you that it would be wrong to run the pastor off, but maybe you could help him do a better job of relating to the older people."

I said, "If I can, I'll be happy to. Especially since I happen to be in that age group myself.

"Before you leave, could I give you something? This is a verse of scripture I'd like you to read and think about over the next few days. Acts 20:28 may be one of the most important texts in the Bible for what your church is going through right now.

"Paul is talking to the pastors or elders of Ephesus. He tells them, 'Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among whom the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood."

He agreed to read that scripture several times and think about it.

If he does, I'm confident he will be in for a realignment of his attitude about the pastor's role in the church. Scripture has a way of doing that to all of us.

Almost every one of the five points we talked about are found in that one verse. The Lord owns the church. The pastor's job is to obey the Lord by shepherding the flock. God chooses the pastor. How the flock feels about the man God sends at any particular time is irrelevant.

I called him a week later and we met at McDonald's for coffee. I said, "Now, let's talk about whatever it was that brought you to my office the other day..."

Dr. Joe McKeever is a Preacher, Cartoonist, and the Director of Missions for the Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans. Visit him at joemckeever.com/mt. Used with permission.