The Lord Jesus Christ provides his church with the tools necessary to expose abusive ministers and protect young ministers. For example, he provides a roadmap for godly confrontation in Matthew 18. Most importantly, as the Good Shepherd, he models what it is to effectively shepherd the flock of God (John 10). Instead of preying upon the sheep as many of the Old Testament shepherds did, he laid down his life for the sheep.

Tom was a young pastor on a large pastoral staff. There were decisions being made by the senior pastor that he found concerning. When he spoke up, he was maligned. Ruling elders would harangue him. He was occasionally pulled from preaching duties even though his name was in the bulletin. He sought out help from other ministers in his Presbytery but was left to fend on his own.
Darrell, another young pastor, made the mistake of crossing swords with his senior pastor. He had slight theological differences with the pastor—still within the bounds of Scripture and the confessions—and this led to endless critique and disparagement. The pastor would even critique Darrell after he preached in front of the whole congregation and would openly attack him from the pulpit.
Mike arrived at a new church, ready to partner with the senior pastor and session in a fruitful and vibrant life of ministry. Soon after arriving, however, he realized that the pastor and elders were more likely to talk about him than to him and would often leave him out of the decision-making process. Without his realizing it, Mike’s position was being undermined from the beginning. By the time he was able to engage these elders in the light of day, he had already become a caricature and was subject to an ongoing stream of abuse.
All of these young pastors were driven from the churches where they served—dispirited, despondent, and wounded. No seminary class prepared them for dysfunctional and toxic ministerial relationships. The mechanisms for outside intervention were either undermined or thwarted. All of them were sustained by friends and mentors outside of the church who regularly prayed for them and encouraged them with precious truths from God’s Word.
Over the past several years, a good deal of attention has been paid to ministry killers like burnout and moral failure, but there is a silent killer that has ended many a fledgling ministry: A lack of care and often—proactive harm—of young ministers by dysfunctional ministry cultures. This problem is far more pervasive than we’d like to believe, but by God’s grace, there are many tools at our disposal to address this problem.
The Vulnerability of Young Ministers
Young ministers are exceptionally vulnerable when they first enter the pastoral ministry. They often think they know far more than they do and can be particularly strident and polemical in tone. Many have not yet been chastened by suffering and the pains and pleasures of the ministry. As with marriage and parenting, patience and gentleness develop through ongoing sanctification.
They also don’t know what they don’t know. Churches are reflective of the culture around them, and there are often decades of accumulated wisdom and customs that are outside the reach of a young minister. He doesn’t know that the flower arrangement in front of the sanctuary was picked out in honor of a beloved member who passed away and that suggesting something new might prompt conflict that could’ve otherwise been avoided.
Finally, young ministers come into the church with baggage like everyone else. They have their own unique sin struggles that could undermine their ministry to others. They also may have suffered at the hands of those in authority—whether at home or in the church—in childhood. As a result, a young minister might be particularly sensitive to the critiques of those in authority or need affirmation.
These are just some of the factors that make young ministers particularly vulnerable. Thus, they can be easy prey for others—particularly those in leadership roles—if they are not careful or have reliable guides to help them. This problem grows exponentially if they unwittingly enter a dysfunctional ministry culture.
Dysfunctional Ministry Cultures
As a young minister, how do you recognize the warning signs of a dysfunctional ministry—especially when a church, like the minister, is trying to put their best foot forward? Paul David Tripp describes pastoral ministry as a “dangerous calling” because it is so easy for a minister to find his identity in ministry rather than in Christ. This false identity then corrupts all the fruits of an otherwise faithful ministry. Most perniciously, it can lead pastors and elders to feed upon the flock rather than feeding them.
As Michael Kruger explains in his book, Bully Pulpit, a culture develops around an abusive shepherd that both defends and perpetuates the abuse. Such shepherds resist accountability and are often defended on the pragmatic grounds of a visibly fruitful ministry.
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After tides ebb, they flow. Low tides are followed by high tides. This is the central metaphor in Justin Brierley’s new book, The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God. “In this book I will make a bold proposition—that Matthew Arnold’s long, withdrawing Sea of Faith is beginning to reach its farthest limit and that we may yet see the tide of faith come rushing back in again within our lifetime.”

In the latter half of the 19th century, the poet Matthew Arnold, on his honeymoon, was walking with his bride along the rocky shoreline of the English Channel as the tide was going out. The sound made him think of “the Sea of Faith,” which was once at high tide, “at the full” around the world. “But now,” he wrote in the poem “Dover Beach,” “I only hear / Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar.”
But after tides ebb, they flow. Low tides are followed by high tides. This is the central metaphor in Justin Brierley’s new book, The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God. “In this book I will make a bold proposition—that Matthew Arnold’s long, withdrawing Sea of Faith is beginning to reach its farthest limit and that we may yet see the tide of faith come rushing back in again within our lifetime.”
In a time when church attendance and affiliation in the United States are plummeting, a phenomenon called, as in the title of a book on the subject, “the great dechurching,” that is a bold proposition indeed. Nevertheless, Brierley sees the tide turning in the failure of the New Atheists and in a new openness to faith that he sees emerging in contemporary thought.
Brierley is a British broadcaster with an extensive apologetics ministry and a presence on radio, YouTube, podcasts, the blogosphere, and, with his previous book Unbelievable?, in print. His modus operandi is to hold conversations about faith with prominent scholars, authors, and public intellectuals. He also hosts debates and discussions between atheists and believers.
This has given him a firsthand look at the rise and fall of the “New Atheists.” In the first decade of the 2000s, four authors came out with bestselling books that energized skeptics and brought atheists out of the closet. These so-called Four Horsemen were neuroscientist Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith (2004); philosopher Daniel Dennett, author of Breaking the Spell (2006); journalist Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great (2007); and biologist Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion (2011).
These were “new” atheists because they did not just deny God’s existence in a philosophical way. They were forceful and aggressive. They argued that God, the people who believe in Him, and religion in general are evil. As Hitchens put it in the subtitle of his book, “Religion poisons everything.”
Atheists rejoiced that their convictions were being aired in the public square. It appeared that atheism had become socially acceptable. With the help of the internet, conferences, and even “atheist churches,” they began to think of themselves as the “atheist community.” And this great awakening for atheists was accompanied by a new zeal for evangelism.
In 2012, atheists organized a march on Washington, D.C., called the Reason Rally. In this “Woodstock for Atheists,” some 20,000 to 30,000 demonstrators heard from authors, bloggers, and celebrities, and listened to bands like Bad Religion. Richard Dawkins called on the crowd to confront religious people: “Mock them! Ridicule them! In public!”
Meanwhile, it occurred to the community that they needed a better word for themselves, since “atheist” had a negative connotation, so they searched for something that conveyed their positive identity as the devotees of science and reason. So, with the approval of Dawkins and Dennett, many started calling themselves “Brights.”
Thus, the New Atheists became, in the language of social media, cringe. The arrogance, smugness, and condescension of the Brights turned off the general public, the supposedly “not bright.” And mockery and ridicule, which became the dominant rhetorical tactic of the movement, is not an effective way to persuade people, much less create converts.
The old atheists—the serious scholars and professional philosophers—disassociated themselves from the New Atheists. One of them chastised the Four Horsemen for engaging with unsophisticated fundamentalist preachers while being unwilling to interact with serious Christian thinkers like William Lane Craig.
Then, in 2011, at the World Atheist Convention, came “Elevatorgate.” One of the relatively small number of women in the movement gave a presentation on the inappropriate sexualization of women in the online atheist community. Afterward, as she was going to her room, one of the participants hopped on her elevator and sexually propositioned her! When she complained about the incident on social media, a large number of the Brights—including the most prominent of the Horsemen, Richard Dawkins—responded to her with characteristic mockery and ridicule.
Others came to her defense. Soon there was a cascade of sexual harassment revelations about other prominent atheists.
Elevatorgate led to a split in the atheist movement. One faction identified itself as “Atheism+”—that is, atheism plus social justice, feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, and other tenets of progressivism. Or, as Brierley calls it, an “atheism-with-moral-requirements.” Other atheists, standing on the principle of free thought, decried this woke agenda with its cancel culture, anti-scientific moralism, and suppression of individual liberty.
Atheists began spending all their time—and their extreme vitriol—in attacking each other rather than religion.
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Be energized by the concept that your church could become the most loving church in the world. I find this compelling. There will be many things your church may not be. It may not be the most educated church or the most innovative church, or the most evangelistic church,  but it can be the most loving church. There is nothing to stop that from happening except your lack of determination and/or the will of the people. Love, after all, is the sign of maturity as a church. Now, if you are seeing this, you will find ways to encourage love.

Some time ago I drove to several small towns in rural Arkansas with my 89 year old father and my siblings, tracking the steps of the ministry of both my dad and his father. The experience was memorable. We visited small towns that even Arkansans might not recognize today: Cotter, Caledonia, Hagersville, Greenwood, LaVaca—twelve in all. These were the places where my father, and his father, labored for Christ eighty and ninety years ago.
Much has changed in the landscape of rural America in those eighty plus years. For one thing, most farms have been eaten up by large conglomerates, dramatically reducing population. The size of families has dropped and the area Walmart has made ghost towns of the typical downtown areas. Families long ago moved out of these rural places for the big cities in order to find work, and what young people you may find will almost certainly not stay where there is no action. With these demographic alterations, the country church has been reduced to only a shadow of what it once was.
But this does not mean the country church is not there. There are yellow brick buildings with mud stains around their base that still exist as the gathering place for those few faithful (and often reserved) older citizens and, in several cases, a family or two or even more containing younger people.
The “county seat” town churches are doing better, but even they feel the changes. Some have become regional churches for the surrounding areas. In fact, there are some notable exceptions to the general rule that rural churches are failing. In one Arkansas town that you have likely never heard of, there were 900 attending the largest church on Sunday mornings. The more remote rural churches have yielded their younger families over to these active centers which often carry on vibrant ministries. Regionalization is definitely a trend. We could call it the “Walmartization” of the rural church.
I’ve been there in my own ministry, pastoring in historic Washington, Arkansas as my first assignment. Thirty-five years ago, this town consisted of about 400 occupants, half black and half white. It has now lost much of that population and has turned into a state park (it was the old Civil War capitol of Arkansas). I never knew what quiet was until I pastored in that town. I used a “privy” behind the café and I waited out the lonely nights in a “Jim Walter” home provided by the church. It grew up to about 60 in attendance while I was there, but stayed mostly around 40. The grade school moved to Hope just after I was there, and things went down further. There is not as much going on now as far as church life is concerned, since the town has become a state park site. We said, even at that time, that the church was “just past Hope.” In more recent days, I’ve been back to that town and have reminisced about the good days of early ministry there, learning from kind people.
In addition to that, I’ve preached in so many rural churches that I could not even begin to recount them all. My ministry of 40 years of preaching has landed me in both city and rural churches, some huge, others in towns so sleepy that the grass grows unmolested on the two-lane highway—and deacons wear overalls. Though I’ve loved all of the experiences I’ve been privileged to have, I have to admit that it is often easier to visit than to stay in such a church. And I’ve scratched my head with the pastor wondering how the church could find vitality.
What happens when the young seminarian or college ministerial student takes his first churches in these areas?
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