First Baptist Church Decatur, Ga

[James]

Dr. Pennington-Russell has resigned as senior pastor and Dr. Atchley, associate pastor at FBC Decatur, is preaching a candidate sermon subject to a call to senior pastor of another church. I was a member of first Decatur during my four years at Emory and have some fond and not so fond memories of the church. My connection to the church was through the Emory BSU. The church supported us in many ways.

Dr. John Claypool was the associate pastor there during my freshman year. Dr. Hall preached in the morning. Dr. Claypool preached in the evening on Sundays. The Sunday Night congregation was as large as the Sunday morning congregation. During that year, the church voted to require a unanimous vote to receive a new member. This was a passed by a narrow margin. This was widely understood to be a way of preventing blacks from joining the church. Dr. Claypool resigned shortly thereafter.

When my wife heard about the current news, she said, "I thought all the bigots would have died by now."

Among the current issues are a budget restructuring which led to a downsizing of the staff and the election of an openly gay man to the deacon board.

If any of you have any additional info on what's going on in the church, I would appreciate hearing it.

[Jon Estes]

I do not keep up with the CB stuff anymore unless it comes across my desk somehow and I feel it is worth the read or if I need to check something out.

Anytime a church divides negatively (which a quick google search shows such there over the years - even now it seems) it leaves a sad testimony in the community.

I am not speaking of theological issues, though some may talk about that but to the lost world, we shout again, we can't love our fellow Christians.

Shame on us.

If only when problems do arise, couldn't people leave with grace instead of hatred. I think most here know where I stand on women pastors but I will say Dr. Pennington-Russell was gracious in her resignation, as it has been reported.

[Tim Bonney]

Churches in the free church tradition do not have all that great a means for pastors to leave without it being divisive. When you get to a new church people pretend that you will be there forever. But then when the timing comes that maybe some (or even many) members of the congregation want you to leave and the pastor is trying to discern if it is the right time to leave or not it can get very frustrating for both parties.

If the pastor doesn't seem to be leaving fast enough then some churches have a habit of sowing division to "encourage" the pastor to leave. I honestly think this exists, in part, because there isn't a good way for the local church to say to a pastor "we think you need to move on" without it escalating into a fight. Many churches don't even have much of a process in their bylaws for such things to happen. So it gets very divisive.

All that is to say that I think churches with a congregational polity would be served by each creating a good and positive exist for pastors as well as a good and positive entry for the new pastor.

[KeithE]

[Dave Roberts]

I read Julie's letter and have some contact with her on FB. She seems, in her letter, to be saying that she is leaving in her own best interest and hopefully also that of the church. I wonder how much the burnout factor enters. Old city congregations are struggling these days to have a vision and mission for their future. My contact there has been that Dr. Peter Rhea Jones, one of my profs in seminary, went there in the 1970's to serve that church. Histories of churches are checkered with many stories.

[Tim Bonney]

[William Thornton]

Timothy is right about there not being a good way to exit, absent the pastor being able to read the tea leaves and make a decision before things get ugly. It's tough.

[Dave Roberts]

In Baptist circles, whether moderate, conservative, or fundamental, denominational folks follow the money so they take up for churches rather than for ministers. In our system, ministers are dispensable and not in any way protected. That's true in the SBC, CBF, Alliance, and even ABC.

[Jon Estes]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

Let me add that I know some Baptist pastors who have had nothing but good experiences with the call system. I'm just not one of them. And I know quite a few other folks that have felt burned at some point because of how a pastorate ended and how a local church did or didn't deal with it.

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Jon Estes]

[Dave Roberts]

I'm sorry that I had not followed up on my comment.

Across the years in two different states, I have not seen denominational employees take up for pastors in conflict with their churches. Rather, they simply help the ministers get out of Dodge so that they do not upset the funding stream from the church to the state and national bodies. Indeed, they leave toxic churches to destroy another minister rather than requiring them to do anything before giving names for the next minister. Pastors can be shuffled on a sinking ship like deck chairs, but it does not deal with the toxicity of some congregations who have long histories of repeated bad endings with their ministers.

[William Thornton]

Dave's experience over the years in regard to denominational employees who are asked to assist in situations where there is church/pastor conflict corresponds with mine. Not once have I ever observed nor heard of the denominational rep (often with title of 'church minister denominational relations' or some such) addressing church dysfunction or toxicity. After the beleaguered pastor is gone, the CMDR may recommend an interim (another expression of denom folk's gaining and maintaining power and influence with churches). Many CMDRs have given talks to groups of ministers on church conflict where they share war stories that usually end with, "I got the church to give the brother 30 days severance if he resigned. It was the best result I could broker."

We sbc/cbf pastors are on our own. I've found CMDR staff to be personally encouraging and caring and I appreciate that.

The Methodist system is much more attractive to me than it was 30 years ago, and I've never been in a hard church nor forced to resign.

[KeithE]

Some comments:

The Methodist system has worked well for my son and daughter-in-law. They have both been reassigned to better opportunities in ways that would have been awkward if they had to announce they were quitting their present position. In total they have doubled their salary, have a parsonage (which they didn’t have before), have better insurance coverage, and both are senior pastors. Son will be at a church with 250 average attendance but has been dwindling in membership/attendance mainly due to the popularity of FUMC-Huntsville (a few years back said to be the fastest growing church in America- don’t know if I believe that). Daughter-in-law is going to a small town FUMC (60 average attendance) near Huntsville which is desires of doing a “capital crusade” to build a new church (some really class people in that church like 2 UAH professors and the once program manager of the Hubble Telescope). With adjustment made of allowing a pastor/church combination that is working well to continue, my opinion (FWIW) is that Methodist pastor selection process is a good one.

At our church there remains about 4 families (perhaps more unspoken ones) who are not leaving (yet) but are feeling betrayed over our minister’s support of SSM (even though he has said there will be no near term SSM performed in our church). To try to “heal” these feelings we have hired an UCC ex-minister (now runs a counseling center and attends worship at our church) to facilitate discussions aimed at living together in harmony even though differences opinion exist. Can’t say that will work (it has not started) but it seems more healthy than either 1) minister fleeing controversy or 2) voting to see which side is the majority on this subject (sure to increase alienation on the losing side) or 3) voting the minister out.

One question: Does someone know more particulars about the ill-winds at FBC-Decatur (GA)? Is it due to the openly gay deacon? or perhaps troubles stirred over the urbanization of this old traditional, fairly high class, one-time suburban city? Those are only my guesses.

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]