Keep your mouth shut!

 

Our church is in the middle of a sermon series called Friend Request. It’s been really good! A few weeks back Pastor Bill preached particularly challenging message on gossip. It also reminded me of one of the most difficult things to do in ministry:  Keep your mouth shut. 

Does anyone else struggle with staying silent? If you’re anything like me that’s a genuine struggle. I want to immediately defend myself and make sure and save my good name. Here’s the deal though, slander isn’t anything new. The Bible actually has a lot to say about this matter:

(a few from the Old Testament)

• Psalm 50:20 ESV “You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother’s son.”
• Proverbs 26:28 ESV “A lying tongue hates its victims, and a flattering mouth works ruin.”
• Proverbs 16:28 ESV “A dishonest man spreads strife, and a whisperer separates close friends.”

The manual for dealing with this in your life is found in 1 Peter 3 (I’ll cherry pick the key verses, but seriously go re-read 1 Peter 3 if you’re currently struggling with this):

• 1 Peter 3:9“Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.”
• 1 Peter 3:16 ESV “Having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.”

The Bible teaches the best way to clear your name is to keep your mouth shut. If you’re going to open it, it’s because you’re going to bless that person. I realize this is easier said than done, but I want to share a personal story with you that may encourage you when it’s hard to keep your mouth shut.

(the following is a true story)

It was my first year in a new town at a new church. I was a 25-year-old student pastor on my own, desperate to make a difference in the world. I walked into a somewhat volatile situation with my student worship leader. He was a very talented kid, but he was not using his platform to lead spiritually. We had a couple honest conversations, and basically he wasn’t following Jesus at the time. Luckily, I had an incredibly talented summer intern, so I told my student leader to take the summer off. The idea was that the break from leading would allow him the time to reconnect with God so he could come back strong in the Fall.

Like all of us I would do so many things differently if I could go back in time, but at the time my decision was to periodically follow-up with him on how his walk was going – as a way of assessment…It wasn’t going well. I appreciated his honesty, but I kept reminding him “your personal relationship with Jesus is more important to me than you playing on stage.” That never seemed to sink in. I think in his teenage brain he really thought we couldn’t go on without him. We made no more progress over the summer, and it all came to a head when some youth drama hit the fan. Long story short, while his girlfriend was on vacation cupid’s arrow stuck him and a staff pastor’s daughter. That juicy morsel of gossip spread like a forest fire. His diminishing credibility had totally flatlined. I knew I had to have the conversation with him that ended with me telling him “i need you to step down as worship leader.”

Like most church conflicts, he took the news without much incident. He said he understood, and then I offered to continue to use him as a musician in the band. He declined, we parted ways and I wasn’t sure when I’d see him next. The next day I promoted my number two worship leader. The second kid was only a Junior, and quite frankly was much less talented. However, he was by far more spiritually mature. He did a fine job of getting better musically, but the real difference maker was the tone it set during worship. However, just as things were going well – the uneventful termination of original worship leader took center stage to sideways energy land.

I had a meeting with his mom and my boss where she protested. He said all kinds of things that were so far from the truth. Lying about promises that I made him etc. etc. It was bad. I was the new guy

(Note: I was from Atlanta, this was the country in East Texas, so they were already a little hesitant with me…some even called me “city boy”)

who had fired their beloved worship leader. He was trashing me up and down, and causing a real problem in our student ministry. To make matters worse, a local student pastor caught wind of his free agency, and actually ended up hiring this kid to lead worship for his student ministry! It was so frustrating, because everything I was trying to teach this kid was being under minded by another pastor. To add insult to injury he was dating one of the senior cheerleaders in my student ministry who had loads of influence over all the other seniors. I was already the new guy who came in their senior year, and now I had fired their good friend. After a couple tense meetings with them where they had challenged every decision I had made since arriving, they all left one by one. The handful that stayed because their parents made them totally checked out of the ministry.

I was devastated. I had preached my guts out every week only to be told “you’re boring, you preach too long, we think you’ve made poor leadership decisions, our student ministry feels like it’s for 12 year olds etc. etc.”Geez, I get it, you hate me”…To tell you the truth, I wasn’t very found of any of them either 😉 Most of the seniors left, my name was being soiled, and I hadn’t done anything wrong. I had stood on principle, I had stood up for this kid’s soul. I knew if I had to stand before God I hadn’t done anything wrong. I wanted so bad to tell people about all the lies. I wanted to defend myself and let everyone know that I wasn’t the bad guy. However, I knew that in order to clear my name, that I had to tell the truth about this kid. That truth would hurt him. I knew I had to do something incredibly hard; keep my mouth shut.

So I did. I should mention that this church ran about 1200 in worship, and I was only running between 20-30 during our mid-week service. I had run off the seniors, everyone hated me (even some of the leaders I inherited) and I was swimming in water way over my head. I kept my mouth shut. I prayed a lot. I preached Jesus. I preached Jesus. I preached Jesus, and then I preached Jesus some more. Then, something really cool started to happen. Kids started getting saved…like, every week. The few faithful attenders started bringing friends. Our poultry 20-30 was now looking more like 50-60. I continued to stay on mission (with my mouth shut) and kept preaching Jesus. More kids got saved, more kids kept coming. We were now running 70-80. This trend kept repeating and repeating until we started breaking the 100 barrier on Wednesday’s. By the end of my first year I had the opportunity to lead over 60 kids to faith in Christ, and baptize 46 of them. There were nights when with adults in the room we were standing room only. It was awesome. It was the closest thing I had ever seen to what the book of Acts describes in the early days.

Had I been more concerned with clearing my name would I have ever gotten the chance to witness such a thing? Would God have blessed the ministry the same way? Or was that his way of simply saying “Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.”

I tend to think God took us through such an awesome season of growth to show how big he is, and how much he can do, when I’m willing to simply shut my mouth, and let him speak.

Thank you for taking the time to click on this link! I hope you’ve been encouraged to shut your mouth, stay on mission, and let God protect you.

On mission,

Matt Beers