The Subtle Art of Sabotaging a Pastor

by Jared Wilson

Written in the vein of "The Screwtape Letters," by C.S. Lewis, Jared Wilson offers insight into the subtle ways leaders might be led astray.

Strike up with your fellow workers to send in to his office, voicemail, and e-mail inbox parishioner after parishioner with demands, requests, and philosophical banners to wave. Through them, propose hill after hill to die on, all save Golgotha.

Keep his head spinning. Even so-called “innocent” concerns can be proper distractions from Who your patient is ultimately beholden to if they offer plausible substitutes for the “first importance” of the Bad News. The slip into people-pleasing mode can be masked as subtly as a serpent slithering in the tall grass (no offense intended to his Majesty).

Help your patient to see all that he lacks. Stroke his discontent. The less satisfied your patient is with what the Enemy has done for him and all the Enemy has given him, the more alluring the validation, approval, and praise of others will be. Empty him of his confidence by highlighting his failures so that, therefore, his head will be far more easily swelled with adulations and self-confidences. Then pop those like a pin to a balloon and start again. It is easy for a pastor to move to pride—it is his default setting—so this should not be too difficult for you.

Turning your patient into a man-pleaser may require employment of what we have come to call the “rope-a-dope” technique, outlined as follows: First, make things very comfortable in the church for your patient. When he is very much pleased with himself and neither sober nor watchful, but drunk on ease and set to pastoral autopilot, then it is time to strike.

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Jared is a husband, a father of two, a writer of books, and the pastor of a great church. Most importantly, He is a follower of Jesus. His passion is to spread the gospel wakefulness in the evangelical church. His book "Your Jesus is Too Safe" and "Abide" are available now, and is currently writing a third book entitled "Gospel Wakefulness".