Have you ever gone driving with somebody where they are in the passenger seat? As you are moving along you notice them frantically pushing the brakes hoping that you will stop when they think you should. They check the mirror and look out the window to make sure that you are in the clear to move to another lane or make a turn. I am always amazed at how that constant nagging and sporadic freakouts from the passenger make my driving even worse. Then I turn to them and say:
“It’s my car! I am the one driving..not you. You are along for the ride” The least they could do is encourage me or support me, but instead they want to passive aggressively prove that they could do it better, that they know the way better, and that you are doing it wrong.
This also happens in the church all the time. I like to call people like this, backseat pastors. These are the people who constantly say they could do it better. They frantically pull the imaginary emergency break to put a halt to the forward motion of the leadership. They are always checking to make sure that any sharp turns we make are “safe”.
These people are usually not people who are invested into the vision. I have always believed that if you are not invested and are not serving the vision then you don’t get a say in what is being done.
This is crucial. God gave the vision to the church leadership. It is their job to preach the vision, maintain the vision and own the vision. That is not the congregations job. The congregations job is to serve the vision. The backseat pastors create an atmosphere where the leadership is on edge and they are not able to do their job as affectively.
Let me say this. Have you ever met a back seat pastor? Was that disruptive or helpful.
There is a difference between discernment and sabotage. You could have discernment and go to the leadership and say “I don’t think this is what God wants us to be doing” and it is the Holy spirit at work in you. On the flip side, you could be sabotaging the great ministry your church has just because you don’t agree with the leadership.
If you are a Backseat pastor: STOP THAT!
Is the vision going against the word? If it is not and you just don’t like it, be prepared to either support the vision and hold your pastors’ arms up when he can’t or leave the church and go to one you can jump in head first. The third option is you can stay as a backseat pastor and tear apart from the inside out the vision that God has given that church.
Which do you think is the best option? stay and support, leave for a church you are in line with, or stay and boycott? thoughts?
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