Quote
It seems unlikely that UPCI pastors, who essentially function like dictators over their congregations with no meaningful accountability to lay church members, would be willing to give up their power....Most of the complaints I receive are not about the legalism of the UPCI regading such things as hair and dress, but rather about the abuse of power by controlling pastors who lack any meaningful accountability.
You hit the nail on the head. I finally got out of the UPC two years ago after 27 years and that was the driving reason I left. It didn't matter where we went or who we knew, there was always constant turmoil and 99.9% was caused by the pastors of these churches. That is the number one problem in the UPC and I have serious doubts they can ever change. Power is addicting, absolute power even more so, and they will not give that up. I came to the conclusion that their structure of ministry is non-biblical and that is why it repeats its pattern of abuse almost every time and is destined to fail. I never saw a true church board, all were handpicked yes men nominated by the pastor and then ratified by the saints. Of course, it would have been spiritual rebellion to vote against anyone he nominated.
Shortly after I left, I wrote the following:
Imagine if you will, you have just gotten a new job. You may have had absolutely no experience in this field, perhaps not even a college education; yet you are under no real supervision. Remarkably, you start at the top--you’re the boss! The people who work for you almost never require you to pay them. On the contrary, they pay you out of their own back pocket! You are not given a set salary but you are able to claim 10% of your employees finances as your own. This money is yours completely and you don’t have to put it back into your business if you choose not to. While this may be difficult when starting out, if you grow to have only 40 workers at your company making $30,000 that’s $120,000 a year. You can also request that aside from this 10% you will receive a housing allowance to make your house payment. Expenses for your office building like heat, mortgage, and electricity are not paid from your 10%--these are extra costs paid for by your workers.
Despite your inexperience, you are rarely if ever questioned about your decisions. If a worker does have concerns about your job performance or how he’s being treated, you can cast doubts about his attitude or character or simply ask him to leave (of course you will give a negative report to his next employer that they have a problem with authority). If they want to complain to someone else about your job performance, they have that right. They can bring their complaint to a group of your close and often time passive friends whom you carefully handpicked as your board.
Sound farfetched? This may seem like a fantasy but this is how many UPC churches operate. Imagine how seductive a setup like this would be even for a very moral and humble person. It would be difficult for anyone to continually resist the temptation of setting up his own personal kingdom and then rule as king in a situation such as this. Throw into the mix a philosophy that encourages its leaders to think of themselves as having a special ability to hear from God (more than the average layman) and you have a recipe ripe for abuse. Who in their right mind would put someone in this position?
I belonged to the United Pentecostal Church for many years. It provided me with a lot of good things and helped me find direction in my life. Sadly, I have come to the realization that there is something thriving within the organization that has easily damaged more churches and lives than anything I have ever witnessed or heard preached against. If it were drugs or alcohol it would be easy to recognize and consequently deal with. I believe that without repentance from this area, the church will face serious complications in the future.
For years I had been around this problem, watched as people suffered from its actions and consequences, yet never totally recognized what it was because it hid behind “religion” so well. It is only recently that I was able to see it clearly for what it was and then understand why this repeated pattern of abuse of the laity repeats itself so often in so many UPC churches. Most of the turmoil and strife I witnessed emerges from a severe lack of accountability within the ministry. This atmosphere causes men to be tempted to attain complete control and power over others and many times ending up dominating and bullying congregations. They begin to substitute or add on to God’s word in order to control others as they imagine God would. It is fertile soil for abuse. What conditions produce such an atmosphere, turning what I believe are originally good intentioned and sincere people entering the ministry into ones that must control everything, many times at all costs?
The structure that the UPC organization is built on is seriously flawed. New Testament scripture shows that a person in the ministry should take on the approach and disposition of a servant. Jesus was the prime example of this.
If you are a current UPC member you might say that your pastor would never surrender to the temptation of creating a church based around them. That may be true, there are ministers capable of not succumbing to this attitude. But it also may be that you have never openly disagreed with him. I know an individual who attended a church where they boasted that their pastor didn’t have this “power trip” problem. Things went smoothly for a few years until the minister finally made a decision that some in the church couldn’t go along with. For the first time they gently explained to him of their disagreement and how they couldn't support it. He seemed to take it all right at first. But as weeks went by, he began to simmer about it. Soon he began referring to it over the pulpit, and eventually he openly started preaching that those who had disagreed with him had gone against God. It got so ugly that those who had disagreed with him had to leave this church.
The UPC ministry in its current form is unaccountable, unbiblical and many times destructive. It is a potentially dangerous place for Christians and I can no longer recommend it as an acceptable place for those who are searching for Christ to attend.