Most of my Christian life I’ve had a love hate relationship with the church. Easy to love when Jesus slipped the engagement ring on my finger and I believed the church, his body on earth, would love me in every way my human family failed to love me. As the innocence of spiritual infancy faded into reality, my prayer time turned into complain time. “Jesus, Why are your pastors so hateful?”

There are reasons I found hateful ministers in the church. According to the Bible some are weeds planted by the devil destined to be uprooted by God himself. Most can be attributed to the spiritually immature with legitimate callings to ministry operating by their clock instead of God’s. Spiritual growth is slow. The Bible warns us about the consequences of putting novices in places of authority.

For a long time, my zeal for God convinced me “they” had flaws…