Cutting Leaders Off At The Knees

I came across an interesting post this week. It’s also timely, considering Mother’s Day is coming up.

If you attend church, you may have noticed a trend. On Mother’s Day, the sermon is usually centered around Mary or Samuel’s mother Hannah. It praises all the hard working single mothers, and all the mothers and the wonders and joys they bring to life. And there’s nothing wrong with that, at least on the surface.

Come Father’s Day, there are only two outcomes I’ve observed in 10 years as a Christian. I’ve attended 3 churches, and subscribed the the podcasts of quite a few others, including John MacArthur, John Piper, Rick Warren, Pastor Bob, Chuck Smith, and many others. I’ve also along the way unsubscribed from most of these when I felt like I got all I could from them and had to choose from my inputs.

The two outcomes on Father’s Day are:

1) The best possible outcome: nobody notices. The sermon and service continue as if it’s any other day besides Christmas, Mother’s Day, Easter, or corporate budget day. I personally prefer the pastor forgets it’s Father’s Day

because

2) The sermon goes on for 25-50 minutes railing against deadbeat dads, fathers who have to be absent for work but are characterized as chasing other things, and otherwise telling the men present that they’re failures and screwups and are doing nothing right and have to try harder.

Personally, I’m sick of it and look for reasons not to attend church on either Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. But I also notice a lot of sermons on other days about how the men aren’t loving their wives and taking care of their children. I sometimes want to hit the pastor with a hymnal. I also wonder why we never hear a sermon critical of the wives and mothers. Surely, they’re not perfect and sinless, are they?

The post I linked was timely. It explored that issue.

What makes the practice of only correcting men all the more craven is how this goes against all principles of leadership.  Whether you are in business or the military, only the very worst leaders reprimand a subordinate leader in front of his own subordinates unless they are going to immediately take them out of their leadership role.  Even then, doing so has the risk of undermining the position itself.  If generals make a habit of criticizing lieutenants (even just those who are performing poorly) in front of enlisted men, even good lieutenants will find it very difficult to lead.  This is an awful practice in cases where there is generally good discipline, and the very worst thing a leader can do in cases where the authority of leadership is already in question.

 

In the case of the Church pastors are repeatedly criticizing husbands and fathers in front of their wives and children, and they are doing this with full knowledge that the wives are already in open revolt.  This is after all why they won’t ever speak on topics the wives disapprove of.

 

Then they walk away and expect the father to act in the role of head of the household.

According to the post, criticizing the men while never being critical of the women at all (and directly in front of the women) is akin to a general criticizing his lieutenants in from of the enlisted men, then expecting those junior officers to continue to lead the enlisted men, who are in open rebellion. If my wife and I both sit through a sermon that does little more than tell the men how screwed up they are, how can I then leave church and expect to have any respect in her eyes?

However, it also mentions that pastors who criticize the women in their congregations, however minor, usually end up getting fired.

I have no plans to EVER be a pastor. I’m not convinced I’d last more than a week.