This is part three of a series of posts I’ve written sharing some leadership experiences we have had over the past 12 years. Here are links to part 1 and part 2. I have also written a short post about why I am sharing this now.

This has been the most challenging part of this series to write for a few reasons. A good deal of what happened in Dublin was shared in the previous post. This whole thing was happening on multiple fronts. If I had to use one word to describe this process, it would be surreal.

Another reason it was difficult was that so much that happened here was just freaking bizarre. If I share all of it, it might seem like I am simply trying to make stuff up. So, I’ll point you to [one example that I wrote about a decade ago]. You can take a look and then make up your own mind. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

So, instead of focusing on the day-to-day craziness of the experience, I will focus on how it ended.

A Strange Question

During one of our conversations, the pastor asked me, “Do you consider us peers.”

I replied, in some ways, we are. We have both planted churches and led them for an extended period. So in that regard, yes. However, here you are, the lead pastor. I don’t have any position and simply want to serve. So at this church, we are not.

I was later told that the fact I considered us peers caused him to be unable to sleep that night. He also reported this to the guy in Belfast.

This will come up again.

Summer of 2013

Despite all that was going on, I had been asked to train all of the church’s leaders here about a new small group system that churches in the US had been using.

I had previously coached pastors in New York and New England.

It was also agreed that Liz and I would start a new small group in Clontarf. I created an online signup system for the church to manage its groups.

Things were still hard, but there seemed to be the possibility of things getting better.

So, small groups were announced on Sunday, October 5th, and people were encouraged to sign up for the group of their choice. Since I had access to the signups, I noticed that one of the families who signed up for our group was involved in the church’s leadership. We were the closest group to where they lived, and they had been very encouraging and liked us.

The next day I received a call to meet with the pastor at the Insomnia by Stephen’s Green. I was informed that I would not be training the small group leaders. Also, Liz and I would not be leading a small group.

Submit To Me

He told me that if I ever wanted to plant a church in Dublin, “you need to submit to me”. I needed to put aside having any ministry experience and recognise that we are not peers.

Eventually, he would let me start a small group. And after I grew it, he would then decide whether or not he would allow us to plant a church.

So I asked, say a couple of years down the road, we have gathered 25 people in the Clontarf area, would you let us plant?

He said it would depend on whether he felt the church could afford it. He did not clarify how he would determine whether they could afford it.

Here is something I believe. If a church leader tells you that you must submit to them…you should run away…and fast. That is simply abusive and not what Jesus modelled for the church.

(For those wondering about that passage that says to submit to those in authority over you…I’ll get to that in one of the next few posts. In the meantime, try to think of an early church leader who commanded others to submit to them).

Even if I didn’t believe that my experience at this church over the past 14 months meant there was no way I could “submit” to someone like this. (In this process, we learned of others who told were no longer welcome at his church because they moved to an area, he told them not to.)

I believe mutual submission is something God desires in the church…I’ll write more on that soon. But for a church leader to demand submission is insane…and abusive.

At this point, we stopped attending this church and requested a meeting with the guy in Belfast.

Three Meetings

A church leader who had signed up for our small group met and inquired about what was happening. I told him. It was the first time we had shared what had taken place with anyone in the church.

We did have a chat with the guy in Belfast (I wrote about that here), so I won’t go into all of the details again.

We asked at this meeting if we would be allowed to attend another church in the denomination. We would be willing to travel to Belfast (2 hours each way) or join a church plant on the west side of Dublin. We were told those were not options.

Still, we left that meeting feeling there was a chance. We agreed that we wanted to try and work things out, and he agreed to try and facilitate this.

He arranged a meeting with the church pastors and us to work things out.

When Liz and I arrived at this meeting a couple of weeks later. Clearly, there had been a pre-meeting that we were not part of.

The guy from Belfast asked who wanted to start, and the church pastor said, “I don’t want to work with them, and I don’t want them in my church.”

That was pretty much the end. 

We were told by the guy from Belfast that if the guy here would not work with us, we no longer had a place in our denomination.

Relief

Strangely the most significant emotion we felt that day was relief. We had been living under all of that for 15 months. But it was finally over. That isn’t to say there have not been difficult periods since. There have been. But we were thankful it was over, and we could begin figuring out the next move.

A bit of irony to close

In the first post in this series, I shared about a current leader in the US falsely telling crowds of people that I did not want any other churches in my city. And reportedly adding that that is why I left the denomination.

While here, a church started over 30 years ago has been able to remain the only established church in its denomination while inhabiting a metro region of over one million people. And ensuring that not only could we not plant in his city, but we also could not remain in the denomination if we remained in his city.

Thank you to everyone who has followed along this week…especially those of you who were part of our lives when this happened. Your friendship and encouragement mean so much to us.

Photo by Crawford Jolly on Unsplash