Monday, November 27, 2006

The Power in the Church

Interesting article in yesterday's Tennessean on Bellevue Community Church and their former pastor, David Foster.

What do you all think of one person having the power and influence over a congregation that Foster seems to have had at BCC? To me, that seems incredibly dangerous, especially if the man is as charismatic as Dr. Foster seems to have been. It's a situation that makes me incredibly glad to be in a church that has elders in authority, rather than one man (or person). I understand of course that if you get a group of elders that are out for their own power rather than the good of the church, you could potentially get into trouble there too.

Any thoughts from you all?

6 comments:

judy thomas said...

Yes, that article was interesting. Foster did not seem to have a clue about his behavior that hurt others. Power does corrupt.

Anonymous said...

savingbellevue.com looks a little like another website I've seen by "concerned members" ... scary.

Jeff said...

That article was actually the only thing I got to read in yesterday's paper. I thought the most telling comment was in mentioning his seminary dissertation on the pastor as "growth agent." He obviously saw his role as a marketing person (any thoughts related to your recent post on Lee's class?) and not on preaching, teaching, helping the poor, etc.

Tony Arnold said...

The thing that bothered me most about the article is I did not hear any of the church leaders on either side mention anything about serving or healing of people.

It was all about meeting the "worship" or "entertainment" needs of the members.

I was really bothered by Mr. Foster's passion for creating a large, suburban church that caters to the convenience of the community without any mention of serving them.

Or maybe I just mis-read the article.

Tony

Phil said...

Judy and Tony, I had the exact same thoughts as you two. And in recent days, I've become less willing to make judgments on people without knowing them specifically, but if the quotes from Doctor Foster and the congregation's representatives are the truth, then it seems like there was a greater focus on numbers for the sake of numbers and not on forming disciples.

And that's a major problem that leads into Jeff's comments about marketing the church which to me is one of the deadliest things a congregation can do. Because then my above statement becomes even more true and it becomes really easy to compromise whether on doctrine or practice in order to keep the numbers.

Anonymous said...

I was an early member at BCC, and sadly events started making me question the bedrock of Pastor David's walk with Christ. That's still happening with the article Sunday.

This man is driven to pursue fame and money over actually ministering to people. Jesus doesn't need any more blowhard talking heads that we pass the plate for. He needs people who live by example and actually pursue HIM.

David had an opportunity to back away and pursue God's heart and records show that he was filing for an LLC before even being fired at BCC. He was also trying to leverage a move to a Church in Austin, TX.

Hmm. Austin, TX ? Green Hills Mall ?

The man needs to be repentant and leave the ministry to people who actually DO live in the real world.

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