I discovered this video over at The Christian Monist. It shows what happens when you tell your pastor you are switching churches.
Clearly… if you are switching churches it can only mean that you are a backslider, have fallen away from the faith, are living in sin, and have become carnal.
Switching Churches Video
After you watch it, use the share buttons above to invite your friends to watch it also!
Jeremy, this made me laugh so hard! It was also oddly encouraging – the dialogue could have been lifted from our last few meetings with our pastors a few years ago. It’s always comforting to know you are not alone!!
Yes, how many countless conversations have been just like this?
Can these be subtitled? I’m deaf and couldn’t follow.
Jeremy,
I was able to avoid telling the pastor I was leaving because I was the pastor. I guess that was a benefit for me. Thanks for posting this!
Ha! But I bet you had to explain some things to the people in your church, or have done so since…. and you probably got some responses similar to what the pastor says in this video…
This is sadly brutal and much too true.
Yes, much too true.
Genevieve Thul, Glad you liked it. Yes, my wife laughed and laughed too. You are not alone! There are many of us who have had these sorts of bizarre conversations with religious leaders, family, and friends.
Yuri Wijting, I am sorry, but I don’t know how to do that…. I wish it was so you could read it.
I like “The Christian Monist”! You may follow lots of blogs. I follow only a handful.
The fictional video is funny & sad. In real life, I’ve been the best friend of many pastors. Yes, there
are spiritually abusive ones, like the fictional one in the video. Most of the pastors I have known pastored small to medium size churches, and were mostly trying to do what the people who had the power to fire them (board, elder, deacons or whatever) or get them fired, wanted. With possibly one exception, they were all scared to death they would get fired if they didn’t do what those in power wanted.
I would not be able to do their job. I know pastors are often portrayed as abusive and controlling, but often it is really those who control the pastors who are abusive and controlling. I would not allow that to happen, so I’d get fired.
I wish Michael Jones wrote more… I do like his thinking and his writing. He wrote a book which I like… Maybe he would let me publish it….
And you are right that often pastors live in fear of the people in their congregation. I know I did. If I went back into the pastorate as a full-time job, I know I still would. This is one reason I cannot go back (yet).
It’s a bit to much, I hope this is not ever true for any pastor. If the pastor would talk over ever objection this person has then he is very blind.
Yes, the reason it is funny is that it goes over the top, and puts together many such conversations into one long conversation.
I wonder if this is only true for evangelicals. You probably would have almost no issues transferring between Catholic parishes. There might be some issues with Methodists, Lutherans, or Episcopalians but what you’ve described seems to me largely an evangelical problem. Why is that?
Hmm. Probably so. I never considered it, but I bet you are right. Good input!
When you change churches, it may not be you at fault. If you joined for the wrong reason, the church does not believe as you do or they except things that go against Gods word. Why sit under things that are wrong just to say that you belong to a church? I would for someone to show me in the word where Jesus showed favoritism to one group of people in the church over another. Rich or poor, black or white, we are all of his people. Jesus gave us discernment and if the word is being taken out of contexed than it is time to go .