I've been catching some grief for writing about Jerry Johnston. He's a very popular preacher on television and radio who's been under some scrutiny this last month by the local newspaper. Nothing earth shattering or even necessarily illegal, but largely just a lack of being above board and transparent with his congregation.
My bottom line is that he's probably a sincere and well-intentioned minister (I've never met him) but obviously he is caught up in a way of doing church, where the preacher is essentially his own boss, that lends itself to problems. Even members of his church who defend him vigorously "wish some things were handled differently." To me, this is mostly a matter of wisdom vs. culture/pragmatism.
I wrote about this topic before I really knew anything about Johnston (to me he was just another mega-church pastor whose name would pop up from time to time). If you're upset with me, please go back and read this original post; it accurately conveys how I feel on the subject of personality-centric ministries.
I'd also encourage you to read what I wrote after I discovered that Johnston had been indicted in these newspaper hit pieces over the very issue I had written about that same day. It spells out my desire to see ministers act out of humility, even if it's less effective pragmatically.
Lastly, some think it's inappropriate to criticize fellow church leaders in public. I understand the valid and noteworthy concern there. But the need to keep church leaders publicly accountable for how they conduct themselves is a Biblical principle (Gal 2; Ezek 34; Jer 23 - a sampling of rebukes of leadership that get written down for posterity). If we Christians don't show that we're most concerned with integrity and trustworthiness, then what will the unsaved world think? Cover-up? Scandal? Why feed their paranoia?
As I wrote above, this is matter of wisdom vs. culture and pragmatism. It works to have the preacher be the CEO and benevolent dictator and people like it! But no matter how benevolent he is, he's still human. If the preacher isn't accountable, it's only a matter of time before he abuses his position. We ought to recognize this and change things to protect our church leaders from these pitfalls. Carrying their water and excusing their excesses because they're "gifted" and "successful," is what led to embarrassing episodes with Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Oral Roberts, Peter Popoff, Robert Tilton, Benny Hinn, Jim Whittington, etc. etc.
These men don't need to be protected from scrutiny, they need to be protected from temptation. Are we doing that with the way we run the Lord's Church?
1 comment:
I have been following this little drama with some interest, as I have friends that are former members of Jerry's flock. They left for a host of reasons, among them the financial transparency issues documented in the KC Star article.
Following the plethora of message board postings and blogs, there appear to be a large number of former members and staff that have left for a host of reasons other than financial transparency.
Since the Star articles, the leadership at FFC has chosen to remove most of their archived sermon videos, further restrict access to the church leadership and restrict access to the live web-streaming to registered individuals only. The weekend before Easter, the passed out a small booklet of 'financial disclosure' that was a very inept attempt to explain how things are managed at FFC. Still, if a member asks to see the budget, they are denied.
The most obvious solution for Jerry is to simply open the books to an honest and independent audit and make those results known to his congregation. He has chosen, instead, to 'circle the wagons', to use the words of a current FFC member.
I am not sure where all of this is heading. There have been suggestions of criminal investigations and the like. At this point, however, I think is it important that we keep the congregation at First Family in our prayers.
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