Joseph Knowles
Puritan Board Freshman
Hello all, this will be my first post here. I've already searched the forums for threads on this topic and found several that were helpful, but I'm hoping (for anyone who slogs through the wall of text below) that there's still helpful advice to be had.
I currently attend and serve as a deacon at a fairly typical, medium-sized Southern Baptist church. It was under the preaching of our previous senior pastor (who left a little over three years ago) that I came to understand and accept the doctrines of grace. He is a Calvinist (though not totally reformed in his theology), but never made a big, public issue out of it (although I came to realize later that that was exactly what he had been preaching for years without calling it by that name). Despite that clear and consistent teaching, I can probably still fit all of the Calvinist/reformed-leaning folks at my church around my dining room table (I suspect the vast majority of members don't give the issue much thought one way or the other).
Until the last couple of months (despite my distinct theological minority status), I have never felt more than an inkling that I might be called to leave my current church. I've been serving and teaching there for ten years and it's where the Lord has helped me grow tremendously. After a long vacancy, the church received a new senior pastor (actually, the only full-time, paid staff pastor, where we once had five). From the outset he has made it clear that he is "not a Calvinist" (and he said exactly those words at a Q&A session prior to the church's vote). I more or less expected that, given some of the people who formed the search team (not that I think they did anything wrong). He also made clear that he is a committed Dispensationalist, naming Clarence Larkin's Dispensational Truth as one of the books that most influenced him.
It's not that I think theological disagreements like that are cause to cut and run next week. After all, we had a Calvinist pastor (more than one, in fact) in a majority non-Calvinist church for years, and there was no mass exodus of people when the shoe was on the other foot. The new pastor is preaching the true Gospel; if I thought otherwise I wouldn't have made this thread because it would already be settled. Still, I worry (sometimes sinfully, I'm sure) that it will one day come to the point where disagreements on theology (and secondary issues like alcohol, translations of the Bible, etc.) come to a head.
Now that I type it all out, I realize that I very well may be getting ahead of myself with all of this. If he never insists I agree with him on a particular issue as a condition of my continued service in teaching or leadership positions or if his sermons are never such that I have to spend time carefully re-teaching my children at home, then I've been worrying about nothing.
So I guess where I'm struggling is what to do about that in the mean time. Pray, of course, and I have been (and asked one or two other trusted brothers to do the same). But what (if anything) should I talk to the new pastor about before it becomes an issue? He's been pastoring since I was in elementary school, so the prospect of changing his mind seems extremely remote. Would it even be wise to approach him with anything like this so soon after he's started at a new church? On some issues, given his background and hints from sermons, I think I have a fairly good idea of where he stands, but it doesn't seem fair to approach him with anything based on merely my own assumptions. For instance, for whatever reason, the thought of asking him to lay out his position on Christian liberty and the consumption of alcohol before he's had the chance to address it from the pulpit (he alluded to doing so recently) make me uncomfortable.
I know I've probably rambled a bit, but I think part of that is just confusion on my part about what it is exactly that I'm facing and how I should view the whole situation. I don't want to cause division in my church. I hesitate to even post this thread because I don't want to just be complaining rather than seeking counsel from fellow believers.
Can you all help me think and pray through this? Has anyone been through anything similar?
SDG
I currently attend and serve as a deacon at a fairly typical, medium-sized Southern Baptist church. It was under the preaching of our previous senior pastor (who left a little over three years ago) that I came to understand and accept the doctrines of grace. He is a Calvinist (though not totally reformed in his theology), but never made a big, public issue out of it (although I came to realize later that that was exactly what he had been preaching for years without calling it by that name). Despite that clear and consistent teaching, I can probably still fit all of the Calvinist/reformed-leaning folks at my church around my dining room table (I suspect the vast majority of members don't give the issue much thought one way or the other).
Until the last couple of months (despite my distinct theological minority status), I have never felt more than an inkling that I might be called to leave my current church. I've been serving and teaching there for ten years and it's where the Lord has helped me grow tremendously. After a long vacancy, the church received a new senior pastor (actually, the only full-time, paid staff pastor, where we once had five). From the outset he has made it clear that he is "not a Calvinist" (and he said exactly those words at a Q&A session prior to the church's vote). I more or less expected that, given some of the people who formed the search team (not that I think they did anything wrong). He also made clear that he is a committed Dispensationalist, naming Clarence Larkin's Dispensational Truth as one of the books that most influenced him.
It's not that I think theological disagreements like that are cause to cut and run next week. After all, we had a Calvinist pastor (more than one, in fact) in a majority non-Calvinist church for years, and there was no mass exodus of people when the shoe was on the other foot. The new pastor is preaching the true Gospel; if I thought otherwise I wouldn't have made this thread because it would already be settled. Still, I worry (sometimes sinfully, I'm sure) that it will one day come to the point where disagreements on theology (and secondary issues like alcohol, translations of the Bible, etc.) come to a head.
Now that I type it all out, I realize that I very well may be getting ahead of myself with all of this. If he never insists I agree with him on a particular issue as a condition of my continued service in teaching or leadership positions or if his sermons are never such that I have to spend time carefully re-teaching my children at home, then I've been worrying about nothing.
So I guess where I'm struggling is what to do about that in the mean time. Pray, of course, and I have been (and asked one or two other trusted brothers to do the same). But what (if anything) should I talk to the new pastor about before it becomes an issue? He's been pastoring since I was in elementary school, so the prospect of changing his mind seems extremely remote. Would it even be wise to approach him with anything like this so soon after he's started at a new church? On some issues, given his background and hints from sermons, I think I have a fairly good idea of where he stands, but it doesn't seem fair to approach him with anything based on merely my own assumptions. For instance, for whatever reason, the thought of asking him to lay out his position on Christian liberty and the consumption of alcohol before he's had the chance to address it from the pulpit (he alluded to doing so recently) make me uncomfortable.
I know I've probably rambled a bit, but I think part of that is just confusion on my part about what it is exactly that I'm facing and how I should view the whole situation. I don't want to cause division in my church. I hesitate to even post this thread because I don't want to just be complaining rather than seeking counsel from fellow believers.
Can you all help me think and pray through this? Has anyone been through anything similar?
SDG
