Dear church leadership,
I guess I should start with a "thank you". The email we received from church leadership to let us know that one of the church pastors has been terminated "effective immediately", was certainly the most transparent church communique I have received in quite some time, or, ever.
I can only imagine how difficult it must be for a senior pastor of a church to put together an email explaining to his congregation that a longtime member of the pastoral staff has been fired. I'm sure there are HR issues to consider, etc, etc.
However. What I will not appreciate is the half hearted apology from the disgraced pastor and his wife that was attached to the church email. The message spanned an entire page, and yet it said almost nothing. At this point, all I can ascertain is that they are only sorry that they were caught.
Here's my response:
Dear disgraced worship leader and spouse,
For eight years you have proudly stood in front of the congregation each week as the worship leaders. I'll admit, the fact that you are Liberty graduates already set my teeth on edge. I know your type. I know the false humility that seems to ooze from anyone who came up through the LU worship programming. I spent enough years watching the adulation that was poured over The Sounds of Liberty (hold on, ok, I'm ok, thought I was going to be sick typing that out) to be able to sniff out a protege at any distance.
Leafing through your social media posts, remembering your feigned stance as the perfect model of a worship leader during what often felt like an (insert worship leader's name) concert, recalling the way you treated my daughter when she tried to be on the worship team ... yep. I'm going to need a little bit more than that half hearted apology message.
You apologize. For what? If you want to hold a position as a leader in a well known local church, you have, ostensibly, accepted that you are living in the public eye. You've been willing to accept the lack of privacy when it comes to the benefits of being a church leader. Now, it's time to face the music when you've done something egregious enough to warrant an emergency session meeting and subsequent firing.
So, yeah, I'll be ready to forgive you, as Christ has instructed me to do, but it would be great to see a little bit of honesty from you as to WHAT we are forgiving you for. Oh, and a little bit of humility rather than your continued Facebook posts aimed at managing your image.
Sincerely,
Every former church member who has left the church because we are sick of church leadership hiding behind the curtain and refusing to face honest rebuke when your hypocrisy comes to light.
