Prophets and Pastors, True or False

New website design and layout, I hope you like it.  Also, I've not updated the blog here for a while as I have been sorting though my own thoughts and feelings a bit.  

I recently came across an article by Kris Vallotton where he repeats and doubles down on the broken narrative of blaming the prophets in the earth for not submitting to the modern church when biblically prophets don't ever submit to a church, they instead submit to one another. The church then is supposed to be correctable by that verified prophetic input.

This is where I tend to go a different direction with most modern Pastors and leaders is this flawed idea of "Pastoral Infallibility". I do not believe that because you have been in put in a place of authority by God that the bible no longer applies and that you are now somehow immune to the rules and guidelines of holy scripture. Said a different way, I believe that even though you have a position of authority, that does not automatically guarantee that you will never misjudge a person or a situation. You can absolutely be wrong from time to time, even when you have that positional authority.

This is clear in scripture as Jesus stands before Pilot. The Roman Governor screams at Jesus "Don't you know i have the power to have you crucified?!?!" Jesus looks back and corrects him with "you have no power over me that wasn't given to you from above so the one who delivered me to you is guilty of an even greater sin." (John 19:11)  

In this verse we have a picture of the modern church and people like Kris and other influential leaders in the body as they "call out" any prophet or prophetess that isn't operating on their yet juvenile level of personal revelation and maturity by claiming them to be out of order or not in submission.

I recently had a situation arise where someone went to a Pastor to slander me. This was done under the cover or "warning them" about my wife and I. By the time this made it's way back to me, I identified it for what it was, personal slander and gossip. I asked why they didn't send this person to me directly to fulfill Matthew 18. The Pastor's reply was "Oh, that person is a Prophet that we trust with direct input into our lives so it's not really slander or gossip".  See, they were trying to say that because the person's intentions were noble and because of their positional authority as leaders that they were magically exempt from being held accountable to the instruction of Jesus in Matthew 18. Again, an example of Pastoral Infallibility. 

In this specific situation, because the beautiful protection of Matthew 18 was not followed and slander was allowed to take root, it ended up tainting an entire relationship before it really had a chance to begin and it put Lori and I in a very difficult situation and set in motion a series of events where we had to make some very hard decisions to protect our overall ministry and ourselves personally.

Some historical background...

The Catholic Church embraces something called Papal Infallibility which just means that they believe it is impossible for the Pope to ever be wrong. They feel the Pope has a special pipeline to God and this is why they refer to him as "the Holy Father". This is not a biblical doctrine in any way, but it is solid Catholicism. The Christian church since roughly 350 AD has flirted with this doctrine in various forms but while we point fingers of accusations at the Catholics for using their priests and praying to dead saints, we take our Pastors and leaders and try to elevate them into the same "untouchable" or "infallible" place just like Catholics do. This is especially true in Charismatic, spirit filled or non-denominational churches.

The idea that God could walk a total stranger into your church and bless you with a powerful prophetic declaration is completely foreign to most modern Pastors. They would reject you and not even give you the house microphone in the name of "we don't even know you and we only minister with those we know"... of course, if you wanted to write a large check to their church, suddenly you get the Queen Esther treatment where you are now in the Kingdom for such a time as this. :)

Over my many years of ministry I have seen Prophets and Pastors both do some absolutely wonderful things and I have seen both do some very destructive and abusive things. This is why everyone with giftings and callings have to be subject to the Bible because Jesus being the Chief Apostle "outranks" all of the rest of us, regardless of what position we feel we occupy.

I also want to mention here that there is something called False Burden Bearing. This is when a person feels that it is their God given responsibility to carry something on behalf of someone else when they are in fact under no such obligation. While it is true that love covers a multitude of sins, that is not code for "never blow the whistle when major errors are taking place."

I bring this up in my blog today because often insecure leaders will try to get you to emotionally buy into false burden bearing as a way to protect themselves.  This is usually couched in things like "Love covers things so don't tell anyone else about our conversation"... or "if you disclose that we have talked here today that would be gossip". These are nothing more than twisted scripture and attempted manipulation.

Leaders of ALL stripes.. Pastors, Prophets, Apostles, Teachers, whatever... should be HONEST and embrace the morality of the bible. There is only one middle man between God and us today and his name is not Priest or Pastor. It's not Prophet either. His name is Jesus... and while His Spirit cannot be contained by any mere book, the Bible is given to protect OUR thinking and understanding from OURSELVES. When we get away from holy scripture into Pastoral Infallibility, we have become self deceived.

One more note about Kris' article. I would guesstimate that only 5% or so of all of the prophets or prophetesses in the earth today are actively involved in any given church. if that is true, 95% of all prophetically gifted people are "false prophets" using Kris'ideoligy. 

Oh, for church leaders to get more secure in who they are and be able to walk without fear around real prophets again like they did in the New Testament. Yes we are rough around the edges... that is on purpose as God sends us to help mold and shape you. Yes we paint vivid word pictures as that is how we communicate what we perceive from Heaven to Earth. But relax because no, we have no desire to take over your church. of the prophets that I know personally, not a single one cares to so much as step foot in a local church because they are not given the ability to flow freely. Instead they opt to travel and minister one on one or when they do go to a church, it is for a single date or a weekend so as to avoid the Pastoral Infallibility.

I have never met Kris Vallotton personally so my blog should in no way be taken as a slam against him on a personal level. He may well be an outstanding man of God in every measurable way and I would have no problem grabbing lunch with him at some point. I just know that his recent opinions are a pile on from many others who advance the broken narrative that labels prophets as "false" if they are not on great terms with the local church...and since the local church often can't even discern who or what a prophet is to begin with, let alone understand how to receive one, I wanted to provide some much needed counter balance.

Mark

---