Problems at Church

At our last church home, Mission Hills, an issue arose between our pastor and the elder board over administrative functions and who had the final say re hirings and firings. Those issues plus personality clashes led to an undercurrent of gossip and the creation of various 'camps' within the church. Letters detailing complaints flowed through back channels. Even with the CBA coming in to mediate, the result was that our pastor publicly repented of his failings, but was effectively forced out a short time later and the dissidents held strongly to their positions which left many, including us, uncomfortable about remaining in that body. So we left and started attending Pacific Coast Church about 14 months ago.

We have really enjoyed the teaching of Pastor Mike, and he began a series of four sermons six weeks ago on the true gospel and how to ascertain it through Bible study. And, then after three sermons, he did not preach the next Sunday and we had a report on a recent missions trip to Cuba which seemed to be hastily put together. Then last Wednesday at our applications group, our leader asked us to especially pray for our church leadership. Something was definitely wrong between Pastor Mike and the elder board!

Sunday we were in Lake Arrowhead in the morning so we missed the service, but we came home to an e-mail that said 'leadership issues' would be discussed at the evening communion service. We had barely any time to put our bags down before we raced to San Clemente to find the parking lot and adjacent street packed with cars. We ended up sitting in the lobby watching a monitor and others ended up on the patio.

PCC is a reasonably large church, but it turns out we have only five elders, three of whom are staff members and pastors. There was an attempt to silence rumors without giving much detail as the CBA has again been called in to help mediate and it might not be helpful to lay out all the issues in detail right now. But the obvious problem is between our senior pastor and an associate pastor who he wished to terminate (I think). The elder board disagreed. Our building program has been put on hold to a degree. Our senior pastor has requested a 'sabbatical' of at least 30 days and perhaps longer.

Our hearts hurt right now as these issues are so disruptive and divisive and it feels like deja vu all over again. I'm not trying to gossip, just to inform and to ask for your prayers for the church. And perhaps a caution on picking godly, non-staff elders, and the importance of prayer and faith and unity as decisions are made about both administration and growth.