An abuse of authority????
 

A Pastor notices unholy activity happening on someones fb page. While the individual is NOT a memeber of their church, the person is WELL aquainted with many people that are connected to the Pastor and neighboring churches.

After a moment, the Pastor updates their status message and warns the saints NOT to behave in the manner they saw displayed on the individuals page. In turn, the individual goes off on a tangent, and says that the Pastor is abusing his authority and not being Christ like. They resort to cursing and even publically bashing the Pastor, His ministry, and those that support him so that everyone who is connected with the both of them can clearly see the post. The individual even uses the Pastors entire name and encourages everyone on their page to say whatever they would like about the "abuse" that took place.

Who's right? Did the Pastor abuse their authority? Scriptures would help. :)

Re: An abuse of authority????
 

Pastor has no authority over the individual who doesn't submit to him.

His mistake was mentioning a person publicly who he had no control over.

The problem is that so many pastors think that we are highly likely to start sinning or going off the deep end into sin. A true christian hates sin and doesn't want to be a part of it.

My question would be, why is it that pastors have this need to force people who don't want to line up line up to their way of thinking?

Re: An abuse of authority????
 

So are you indicating that if a Christian leaders sees another Christian behaving in a manner that is not Christlike, yet they consider one another "close enough" to be friends, the leader does not have the right to even loosely mention it in their status as to warn other believers? No names were ever mentioned, until the individual became angry at the Pastor's status. The Pastor never mentioned any names until it became obvious. There was no control issue.

Re: An abuse of authority????
 

Not an abuse of authority but a dumb thing to do publically to a non-member

Re: An abuse of authority????
 

What exactly did the Pastor do TO the "non-memeber." There was no mention of a name or anything. The Pastor simply commented that Christians should watch their witness and that participating in ___ behavior is not becoming to the saints.

Now, the individual who was obviously offended is KNOWN to participate in ____ behavior, but no names were mentioned by the Pastor.

How is it dumb for a leader to warn other Christians that God is not pleased with such behavior?

Re: An abuse of authority????
 

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Forgive my feeble thinking, but its hard to advise this situation without knowing what happened... (I know you are being considerate of the situation..)

From what I know--- I would say, in this day we are living.. Pastors must use wisdom before they get involved in peoples business...


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Re: An abuse of authority????
 

It's dumb if it's obvious who he was talking about even if no names are mentioned.

I've heard many a preacher preach against something when it's obvious he's targeting a specific person or incident. Just not using names is not showing wisdom.

Re: An abuse of authority????
 

Publically humiliated that person..oh wait, now you introduce a new fact. IF there was no name mentioned how did this person know? See you were not that specific the first time good grief lol

Here it seems you indicate the Pastor names this individual by referring TO this individual

So this is the pastor of the kids that went to school with the lesbian girl who posted her personal life on fb. Nice.

Re: An abuse of authority????
 

I started off trying to be VERY general. However, here are the details as specific as I can be without disclosing the individuals mentioned above. For the sake of clarity, I'll use Pastor and Christian when referring to the two individuas this discussion centers around.


Days ago the Pastor notices the Christian's status messages. They are full of profanity, and references smoking, going to the club, and other ungoldy behavior.

At first, the Pastor says nothing to the Christian or anyone, but later in the week, the Pastor's status message says something like (indirect quote): Saints, we must be mindful of our witness. We can not expect babes in Christ to get a good impression of us as Christians if we purposely post behavior in our status messages that does not reflect Christ. Advertising smoking, going to the club and other behavior is your choice, but please do not misrepresent Christ on facebook when you claim to serve him.

Of course, this can fit anyone, but the Christian in question goes on a complete tangent as a response, calling the Pastor's name out, their ministry, and even uses profanity...attempting to "correct" the behavior of the Pastor saying that he abused his authority.

_____tried to be clear_____________