CREssay#4

Controlling Behaviors in church Leadership – Part 1

by Christopher Wells 3/2025

Most people would probably not describe their pastor as a control freak. After all, Christ was a humble, kind, loving person who recognized people’s free will and didn’t try to control or manipulate people, and pastors are supposed to follow Christ’s example, right? The qualities of our Lord and Savior, such as humility, meekness, patience, and lovingkindness, are highly valued Christian characteristics, so you would think that controlling behavior in church leadership would be extremely rare. However, as we will discuss later in this essay, a closer look will reveal that the use of controlling behaviors by church leadership is far more common than you would think at first blush. In fact, control is literally baked into many church organizations and even the worship service itself. In this essay, I will discuss how this un-Biblical emphasis on control—intended or not—is sapping the church’s vitality and sabotaging its effectiveness in carrying out the great commission.

Controlling behavior in churches rarely occurs in a vacuum. There are often many good, Biblical things happening in such churches that seem to justify, if not mitigate, the occasionally perceived off-center bullying/controlling behavior. Worse, yet, is when the controlling behavior comes to be seen as a normal part of church life that goes hand in hand with good things. The strong, dynamic leader who is one of the people (maybe the main person) God appears to be using to help drive the church’s numerical and/or spiritual growth can often become the chief bully when others oppose what they feel ‘called’ to do in the name of God.

Most churches pick one leader, put them at the top, and expect them to run the show. Many pastors expect this type of arrangement while giving lip service to the appearance of accountability by weak boards or elders whom they often come to control or heavily influence their viewpoints in short order. These groups often become nothing more than rubber-stamp committees, endorsing whatever the head pastor wants to do and defending him from all accusations of wrong without seriously investigating claims of misconduct or holding him to Biblical standards of leadership. Yet, this is simply not the Biblical pattern and results in spiritual abuse and anemic, underperforming believers who are falling far short of their God-designed potential. At worst, such environments can enable leaders to excuse personal sin and carry out heinous acts of abuse and manipulation against others in the name of God. We will look at some examples of this later.

If you create a highly controlled system where one person has disproportionate control over that system, that person is granted the power of the bully. Whether or not they actively seek to use that power, their every expression of desire or action carries that power and disproportionately affects everyone downstream in that organization to bend to their wishes. It is only by taking steps to create a balance of power that the oppressive and bullying effects of monarchial-type leadership can be mitigated. This is why the Bible advocates for having multiple qualified elders lead the local church, not a single powerful head pastor.

Below are some behaviors and characteristics often present in churches that have toxic, controlling environments. How many of these characteristics and behaviors are present in the church you attend?

A lone head pastor is in charge, and all other ministers/pastors report to him.
The centerpiece of the main weekly service is usually a message delivered by the head pastor.
There is no widely publicized method to bring a serious allegation against a church leader that provides anonymity to the person who reported the allegation during an investigation.
There is no procedure in place whereby allegations of serious misconduct by church staff or attendees are investigated by an independent outside body, with the results of the investigation made public.
No public forum exists for congregants to ask questions about and/or challenge church teachings and practices being implemented that they may find unbiblical or disagree with.
No regular, significantly attended meetings occur where members of the congregation are encouraged to participate by sharing what God is putting on their hearts with the other attendees without having what they intend to share filtered through one of the ministerial staff.
Alternative interpretations of pet doctrines (i.e., beliefs that are not central tenants of the faith) concerning viewpoints of things like the role of women in family and church, tithing, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, et cetera, are not allowed to be taught or significantly debated in public meetings. Those who attempt to do so are often treated as problem members and are discouraged from sharing their concerns or viewpoints and are often treated as second-class Christians or accused of being divisive and subjected to church discipline.
Membership, wherein members pledge to obey the local spiritual authority (i.e., the head pastor of the church organization and their subordinate leaders), is highly encouraged and seen as the stepping stone to any serious consideration for leadership, teaching, or speaking opportunities.

I can imagine that many of the items on the above list seem perfectly normal, even expected, by many of the people reading this essay. So let’s dive in a bit deeper and examine why each item in the above list is important.

The concept of the lone head pastor has been a standard practice in most Christian churches in the Western world for hundreds of years in both the Catholic and Protestant traditions. But the truth of the matter is that the Bible describes a very different pattern of church life where multiple elders share the teaching/preaching/leadership role in the local body. I have covered the Biblical design for local church leadership in a previous article, but to summarize the point, Paul teaches that multiple elders should be appointed in each local body of believers (Titus 1:5 et al.). I encourage you to read the article Leadership in the church – What is Wrong and Why it Matters – Part 1 for more detail. However, there are other practical observations that can be made as to why the lone head pastor model of leadership is detrimental to the local church. Many of them have to do with accountability, transparency, and the function of the five-fold ministry.

Let’s begin with accountability and transparency.

Everyone likes to think that their pastor is above reproach. After all, their job description includes the commitment to pursue Christ-likeness and love others as Christ would love them, right? But what happens if the pastor is seduced into sin? It doesn’t take more than a minute searching the internet for cases of fallen pastors to find an overwhelming number of legitimate instances where lead pastors have been caught in a variety of sins—sexual, financial, and otherwise—sin that had gone on for years before the story was finally broken on the internet. One such high-profile example is the case of Mike Bickle, founder of the International House of Prayer-Kansas City, who was determined to have committed sexual sin with over a dozen different women over the span of decades—all while leading what many would consider a hugely successful church. You can read one account of these events here.

Far from being a rare exception, both current and past church history is littered with examples of such sins by church leadership (see the Roys Report for many such stories). One of the chief characteristics of many of these examples of failure is the consistent evidence of lack of accountability and lack of transparency by the head pastor and their subordinates. Frequently in such cases—as is the case with Mike Bickle—credible accusations are made to one or more insiders at the church who subsequently conspire with the top leader to coerce and manipulate the victim and/or the victim’s loved ones in an effort to placate and/or silence them without any competent examination of the charges. Often, in such cases, any inside pseudo-investigation by the church organization ultimately requires no real act of repentance from the perpetrator or completely exonerates the accused despite credible evidence to the contrary. Many of these pastors and their allies in the church lead campaigns of slander against the victims instead of bringing the truth to light and accepting responsibility for their own sins. Efforts to hide the head pastor’s sin and avoid any efforts to hold him accountable are a pattern in many of these cases.

The Biblical pattern of church leadership, where there are multiple co-equal elders who lead a local body of believers, helps guard against this type of ongoing abuse by providing a balance of power among several leaders instead of concentrating it at the top. If one of a group of truly co-equal elders in a body of believers is seduced into sin, the victim has multiple other elders to which they can report such an accusation. The likelihood that all of the co-equal elders of the local church would join ranks to cover up a legitimate claim of abuse by one of their members is far less than if there is only truly one head-elder / senior pastor who wields great authority, control, and influence over all of the other subordinate ministers.

To really understand this concept, we need to differentiate between what many churches call ‘elders’ and what a Biblical elder is. A Biblical elder is a pastor, and there is no concept of a ‘head’ pastor of a local church taught in the Bible. If a person came to faith under a pastor’s ministry and then the head pastor appoints them as an ‘elder’ or the head pastor hires someone as an associate pastor/elder (and has the ability to fire them), then expecting such a person to not be heavily influenced in the head pastor’s favor is foolish. Such arrangements are not in keeping with the Biblical qualifications and responsibility of elders to guard the Body of Christ from harm.

Another reason the church should avoid the lone head-pastor model is revealed by examining the purpose of the five-fold ministry, which is stated in Ephesians 4:11-12 (NASB95):

11 And He gave some [as] apostles, and some [as] prophets, and some [as] evangelists, and some [as] pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;

Take a closer look at verse twelve, which states the function of the five-fold ministries: “. . . for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.” Imagine for a moment that you are given the task of organizing a new community college for your region for the purpose of training young high school graduates to enter the work force. Wouldn’t you seek out the best teachers you could find? Wouldn’t you gather teachers skilled in English, Math, Science, History, possibly some skilled trades, and appoint them to teach the classes? And wouldn’t the students attend a variety of classes in different subjects so that they would be well-rounded and gain the benefit of the expertise of many different teachers?

Well, in the church, our leader, Jesus, has appointed some as apostles, some as prophets, some as pastors (i.e., elders), and teachers to accomplish much the same thing in the body of Christ. And he designed it so that multiple elders should co-lead the local churches (see Titus 1:5 et al). Yet, for some reason, we’ve bungled it up. Somehow, we’ve decided that we know better than God. We’ve decided that only one elder should be the chief leader in a local body and that elder should do most of the preaching/teaching/vision-casting and leading and have the final say on all spiritual matters in the local church. How would your new college fare if the English teacher taught the bulk of the classes? The students may speak and write very well, just hope they never need to do any math!

Who do we think we are to chuck God’s design into the trash bin and create our own plan for how to organize and lead the church? Are we now smarter than God?

The simple truth is that none of us Jesus incarnate. None of us—including that pastor you love and appreciate and who is doing his best—is without weaknesses and shortcomings. Doesn’t it make sense that a variety of spiritual leaders teaching and preaching and guiding the local church would result in more well-rounded and complete believers and better decisions (remember that scripture where there is victory in a multitude of counselors—Proverbs 24:6)? And if the goal is to equip the saints, wouldn’t this be a better approach?

When a lone head pastor is the main preacher/teacher/leader in a local church, they sow not only their strengths but also their weaknesses into the local body of believers. Do they have a blind spot that opens them up to a particular sin or doctrinal error? They’re human, aren’t they? Then they need others around them with the ability to call into question their decisions/teachings/character when needed, who don’t need to fear their reprisals should their correction not be welcomed. In my experience, the lone head pastor model almost always results in the top leader rarely being questioned, and when they are, they can often brush off legitimate correction without a second thought, blinded by their own hubris and convinced that they see clearly when they don’t. Jesus recognized this need for accountability when He sent out His disciples two by two on their ministry journeys (Mark 6:7). Church leaders would do well to head the warning in Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 (NASB95):

9 Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. 10 For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up.

In closing, I’ve addressed the fact that many local churches have numerous control mechanisms in place that serve to unnecessarily restrain the local body of believers from functioning as God designed it. These controlling mechanisms harm the proper development of the local body of believers and are contrary to God’s design for the church as revealed in the Bible. We discussed the head pastor model of leadership and described how it is un-Biblical and isn’t the best model to accomplish the goal of equipping the saints for works of service, as well as how it creates a dangerous situation that can easily lead to abuse and error. In the next essay, we will continue our examination of unhealthy control in the church by taking a look at how many churches handle allegations of misconduct in their ranks.

Bibliography:

NASB95 – New American Standard Bible. Retrieved from https://www.blueletterbible.org