by Rev. Joda Collins
I spent almost 25-years as pastor of several Southern Baptist Churches. For the first 10-years I tried hard to be a good democratic leader of a democratic church just like the Southern Baptist Denominational literature told me to be.
However, my success was limited and in some ways I was a total failure as a Pastor. After 10-years as a Pastor I came to realize that the church as part of the Kingdom of God is supposed to be ruled by the King and not by the majority vote of the citizens of the kingdom.
A king appoints representatives on his behalf to rule in accord with the king's desires and does not tolerate the citizens appointing representatives to rule in accord with the democratic vote of the citizens.
It dawned on me that if we did on Earth in the Kingdom of God as God does in his heavenly kingdom there would be no democratic votes.
I examined every verse in the Bible that the Southern Baptist Convention (and almost everyone else) said was proof of God's will that the church should be ruled by the democratic vote of the membership and the pastor was no more than the democratically-elected leader of the church to help the church carry out their will for themselves. I discovered there is not one single place in the Bible that supports the democratic rule of the church over themselves. This article does not allow enough space to discuss all of those verses; however, I wrote a one-million plus word book on this very subject. You can find it in paperback or hardback at:
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The primary reason so many churches have so much internal trouble is because God will not bless a church that functions outside of his format for church government. Most churches that are effective and blessed are those where the pastor has been there 10-years or more and has manipulated the democratic process enough to get people who support his wishes in positions of influence in the church. The democratic format is just a farce. The Pastor is ruling the church.
Would to God those pastors would stand up and announce the democratic process is now considered null and void rather than leave, die or retire and leave the church open to the attacks of democracy that will most likely come when the power void is created by the pastor's absence. If a pastor would do that, he would be a great leader because he would foster the format of a Kingdom-based church for all to see and copy. That pastor would leave behind a worthy legacy.
The Southern Baptist Convention is wrong. Pastors are not representatives of the congregation called to carry out the democratic vote of the church. Pastors are representatives of the King commanded to carry out the orders of the King. Pastors that have destroyed the power of the democratic process by manipulation of that process need to be honest about it and help other churches come out of that darkness.
I was a member of a church that was ruled by the Pastor yet it held business meetings asking for democratic input of church members. In a business meeting, I was suddenly stricken by a biblical principle and in that moment aware that the church was about to vote on a matter and in a manner that violated scripture. I spoke out in that facade of a so-called democratic meeting against something that I later found out my Pastor was strongly for. From that moment on I was treated like a dog with rabies. That is when I learned that the democratic format at that church was a lie. I loved that church and my pastors there -- still do. I really wish they had not lied to me about the church being a democracy and explained to me what a Kingdom-based church was. I would probably still be in that church had they not ruined my witness, ministry and influence there because I believed their lie. I am hurt and sad that my life was severely damaged by the lie. I have not recovered even though the event is many decades removed. I does not appear to me I will recover; the wounds are too deep and the damage that redirected my life was and is too severe. I have had life-long negative effects because it changed, to my detriment, the direction of my life. I ache inside when I think of the long-term (life-long) damage that lie does to so many pastors, congregations and individuals every single day. It is constant sorrow for me because I have a pastor's heart.
"The church is supposed to be a democracy" is a lie.
Rev. Joda Collins
I make no claim that anyone else agrees with me.
www.lulu.com/jodacollins
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