Do Church of God pastors have meaningful accountability?
Date: July 27, 2007 03:10AM
If it helps, I believe The Church of God is set up very similar to the UPCI as far as church structure.
There are pastors who have (what's in the UPC called a Presbyter(sp?)) a person over them for spiritual accountability... then those guys all answer to a district official. However, none of it includes financial accountability. A church who is incorporated can report a pastor to the presbyter... and eventually the pastor's license can be revoked by the UPC. ...but realistically most members in most of the churches don't realize they have this recourse. Additionally accountability CAN be built in to individual church bylaws... but it WIDELY varies depending on who set the church up.
Many times the call of God is seen as sufficient accountability in individual churches... which leads to individual ministers falling into a variety of ethical and financial traps due to the lack of accountability required of them and that called of God or not... they're human beings like the rest of us at the end of the day.
So in my opinion this wouldn't count as meaningful accountability requirements as an organization. ...but perhaps you could find meaningful accountability at the individual church level depending on how the pastor set it up.