I must clarify that the article is not aimed at anyone. I just want to express my personal views.
I have read the passage "Don’t Let Pastors Leave." The passage tells us the story of a pastor in Henan Province. The pastor has parents and children to feed. However, he only relies on the salary of fifteen thousand yuan per month. Ultimately, he sold the equipment in the church, dissipated believers and then, ran away. Of course, his behavior brought about great harm to the church and believers. However, I have to say that the pastor is not fit to serve the church due to his poor family conditions. He kept serving in the church for so many years with such a low salary.
Where is his sense of responsibility for his family?
The lack of pastors is a tragedy. However, if pastors hold this kind of false spiritual opinion and neglect their responsibility in the family, it will also be a tragedy!
I also read an article named "When God and Bible Become Tools of Attacking Others". According to the article, some pastors would be intimidated by believers when they try to stop full-time service. I wonder who those shepherds who have such terrifying believers. It is a pity that the believers are so aggressive and selfish. It is funny that the pastors are so timid. I think that the author is just grumbling for the attacked pastors with wrong spiritual opinions.
The author keeps complaining about the church in the passage. I just want to ask the author who is responsible for the weakness of the church. Is it the responsibility of pastors? What’s more, I don’t want to listen to the evangelism of pastors who are easily frightened by attackers. Those pastors are not qualified to preach the gospel since they are so superstitious and timid.
The article "Thoughts After Rehearsal of theological classmates” reminded me of my theological education experience. I used to learn Bible in a theological school and was determined to serve the church. I have the same feeling with the author regarding to some contents of the article. The text said: "Perhaps every student can endure the difficulties of full-time service in the church. However, when they think of their families, their faith begins to collapse. It is cruel to sacrifice their family members’ hope and quality of life.” Why are you willing to sacrifice everything for serving the church? Where is your family responsibility? Why do you put the place of service higher than your family?
The morbid spiritual opinions are not in accordance with the truth. The classmates in this passage are misled by such false spiritual opinions.
First of all, please correct your spiritual ideas. Sometimes the church and pastors will deceive you. They could even lie to themselves, but God won’t. God and truth will never be wrong. There is another article about the death of a brother named Ding. I express my condolences here. However, I think this article is misleading readers. They may think the church has hurt the brother after reading the passage. But, I don’t think the brother was miserable. Although I respect him, I have to say that the church is not directly responsible for his death. As an adult, Ding should be responsible for his health, family and service. He has the common problem with some pastors. We don’t have to be a full-time servant to prove our loyalty. And what kind of hope does Ding want to see in the church?
The author of the article entitled "Blooding Service" has really described himself as a magnificent pastor. The church doesn’t ask you to sacrifice your family or life. The pastor in the article just neglects his family to pursue his psychological comfort. He is no different with other workaholics in the world. Pastors like him are not qualified to serve the church. As a pastor, he just pitied himself as if he was a victim. The church shepherding you won’t hurt you. You should reflect whether you are able to shepherd believers. If you hold this kind of morbid spiritual opinion, you won’t have any power to spread the gospel or fight with evil. If those pastors and believers get out of their morbid spiritual opinions and self-pity mentality, I think they will be in a better situation.
I suggest them to pay more attention to the pursuit of truth and gospel. The low wage of the church is just a current situation, which can be changed through our efforts. If we can’t change it for the time being, we don’t have to stay in the church all the time. The actual situation I have witnessed is that some young people have served in the church for several years. They are separated from the secular world. However, when they get out of the church, they have lost the basic abilities to survive in the world.
It is the false and morbid spiritual opinions that have made them so pathetic. It is time for all pastors and believers to wake up. Believers shouldn’t just blindly follow pastors’ words. When pastors and believers hold such morbid spiritual opinions, the church will fall into a vicious circle. Pastors and believers are shaped by each other.
I believe when they are devoted to the truth and gospel instead of morbid spiritual opinions, they will all be blessed and the church will have a brighter future!
Translated by Emma Ma
