π What is Bully Pulpit Syndrome? π
Have you ever sat in church on a Sunday morning listening to the preacher and was vilely offended by what the preacher just said?
All these years I've attended church and did not realize that I was a victim of Bully Pulpit Syndrome (BPS). I finally just stopped going to church without really knowing the reason why.
Many times I left church depressed because of the sermon. I felt viciously attacked and it hurt deeply. I was not growing nor being edified by the word, but actually quite the opposite. There was a lot of resentment built up toward pastors in general, especially their sermons.
A syndrome is a set of specific symptoms that occur together, and may or may not have a known cause. For example, you may tend to have anxiety when the pastor steps up to the podium but not know why you always feel that.
One Sunday morning I was sitting in church. As the preacher was wrapping up his sermon, he said, "I feel a heaviness in the room." I knew he was sensing my heavy heart as I sat there trying to console what I felt was a personal attack on me while he was preaching.
I have Bully Pulpit Syndrome. This is a term I came up with to define victims that have endured trauma from pastoral sermons. If you've ever left church with a heavy heart due to the sermon you just heard, you might also have BPS. Now, I need the Lord to deliver me and take it all away so I can once again thrive in a church environment.
The Lord said, "I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the places where I have driven you, and I will bring you to the place from which I caused you to be carried away captive" (Jeremiah 29:14).
I have a propensity to sit and hear a sermon and then be offended with the preacher because he said something I disagreed with. This is the result of the Bully Pulpit Syndrome that's crept in because of past experiences. I've built up a well-defended fortress as a result of the personal attacks I endured from the bully pulpit. This fortress is my effort to protect myself from those attacks.
I have struggled to joyfully attend church because of this. I have enclosed myself safely inside this fortress to keep others from bullying me. When I hear something I don't agree with, a heaviness falls on me and I retreat to the fortress.
π The Pastor's Role π
Church leaders are watchmen or guardians of the community of faith, who are charged to communicate God’s word of nurture, instruction, and warning to God’s people.
Clearly, the job of the shepherds of God’s people is to provide them with the pure milk of the Word of God so they can move on to the meat and solid food in spiritual maturity (Hebrews 5:12-14).
Christians should not leave church traumatized due to pulpit bullies. The podium should never be a place to settle personal grievances — and when the preacher stands wielding it as a weapon, they are perverting ministry and grieving the heart of God. That is not how real shepherds tend their sheep.
I'm reminded of David that took care of his father's sheep. He protected them from predators like that lion and bear, and killed them for attacking his father's sheep.
Jeremiah 3:15 (KJV) And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.
π Deep Animosity π
The bitterness of these pulpit attacks caused me to build a fortress around myself to protect me from mean-spirited preachers who attack the congregation from the pulpit.
Pastor John Markum says, "If you've ever been bitten you may have a tendency to see wolves in sheep's clothing, where they don't exist." Not all pastors attack in their sermons. There are times when I don't agree with what they've said and resentment towards them may rise up... seeing what does not exist. I need the Lord to transform this behavior because there has to be times of correction, and I need to receive it with a heart of repentance.
I need the Lord to heal me of the trauma of the past so I can joyfully attend church once again. I don't have unforgiveness in my heart, only a lot of ambivalence toward Sunday morning sermons. To sit in church on Sunday morning and hear a sermon is often a challenge for me. The environment itself brings up old hurts that's still lingering in my heart. When I'm engaging in a pastoral sermon, certain feelings or emotions may tend to crop up.
Proverbs 18:19 (NKJV) A brother offended is harder to win than a strong city, and contentions are like the bars of a castle.
Here, Solomon sounds an alarm about the enhanced nature of conflict between "spiritual brethren." Solomon poetically compares these rifts to well-defended cities or barred fortresses. By virtue of their walls, ancient cities are difficult to conquer compared to open terrain. The only two options were a prolonged siege or suffering the losses of a direct assault. Likewise, a citadel or castle often includes bars meant to block entry. "Quarrels" that come between friends and family can be especially difficult to overcome... or insults and attacks from the pastor in his Sunday morning sermon can build distrust in other pastors preaching their sermons. These attacks are hard to overcome making it difficult to move forward.
Deep animosity is the fruit of my bully pulpit experience, and is likened in its intensity to the rigid resistance of the city gates against all intrusion. The bursting of these bars was almost impossible, because of the greatness of their strength. A believer entrenched behind the bars of their wounds, unwilling to view the matter from a Godly perspective, is equally impregnable (unable to be broken into because of the fortified walls they've built up).
Offense from those close to us — including pastors — tend to cut deeper and cause more pain than the same insults coming from total strangers.
In the church we grew up in, preachers used the word of God like a sledge hammer, to beat down God's people with it. We were given a lot of tradition that we were expected to adhere to, such as not wearing pants, and many other traditions that we assumed were sinful and ungodly. Many days these traditions were delivered through sermons from the pulpit, and in my opinion trended the Bully Pulpit Syndrome, because a lot of days we left church feeling bushwhacked.
If the sermon happens to come across the pulpit as God attacking you week after week, turn to the Father and seek Him about it.
Transformation is a process of the Holy Spirit where He inwardly renews the believer moving circumstances from one degree of glory to another until that person has undergone a complete transformation. When the transformation is complete, the believer will begin to see sermons with a whole new perspective.
π Arise and Return π
Now, by no means do I carry a shepherd's staff, but I would like to encourage a renewal in your relationship with the heavenly Father. If you know that you've left your first love or become sluggish in your enthusiasm for the faith, wrack your brain and find out what happened that turned you away, and get with the Lord about it. Pray for restoration and renewal.
Psalm 51:12 (NKJV) Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit.
π Closing Prayer π
Lord, please deliver me from this Bully Pulpit Syndrome. Renew a right spirit within me. Give me a pastor according to Your heart that shall feed me with knowledge and understanding. Give me a heart to receive Your word like seeds falling into good soil and yielding a hundredfold crop. Let me not be offended by Your word nor by the one sermonizing it, even if I don't agree with what's being preached. Let my response be loving and peaceful with no outrage toward the offender.
Let the pain of the bully pulpit decrease and completely diminish. Then elevate a new process that becomes natural when I hear something come across the pulpit that feels like it was said as an attack on me.
Transform my way of handling sermons so I come away uplifted and edified, not with my head hung down feeling forlorned.
Psalm 122:1 (NKJV) I was glad when they said to me, "Let us go into the house of the LORD."
To God be the glory.Dee Richardson, Voice of the Dove †
