As someone who has spent years trying to reform and re-build evangelical Christianity from the inside (and whose graduate research and life experience have centered on diagnosing, explaining, and presenting solutions for evangelical dysfunction),
I am convinced that Evangelicalism is so dysfunctional that I cannot both be part of an evangelical church and be myself, let alone carry out the role and calling that I believe that God has given me for and in the church.

Bluntly, I can no longer attend evangelical churches on their terms.

At the moment, then, I have withdrawn from the evangelical church.  When I do attempt to re-enter an evangelical church I will not do so, however, as a simple parishioner with the general intention of “attending.”

I will instead re-enter by presenting myself as a teacher—which is what I am—who has specific intentions within the church and requirements of it.  My aim then is to be fully transparent with the minister or pastor (and eventually with the church board or deacons) about: 1. what I teach and why, 2. my education and credentials for teaching, 3. my experience with other Christian churches and organizations that have informed my teaching, 4. my aims and intentions relative to this church.

This transparency includes explaining that my specialist training and background means I understand my role in any church to include offering critique about how the church functions and how the prevailing functioning of many evangelical churches is dysfunctional, including dysfunction in the roles and relationships between pastors and parishioners (such as my podcast on “Why Evangelicalism Fails“).

My intention with this direct and purposeful “first contact” is i) to bring awareness about who I am and what my goals and intentions are relative to this church and, as a result, ii) to force a discussion—and eventually a choice—by the minister or pastor as to whether s/he will accept my participation in the church on the terms that I present.

Now to be clear, these terms are not a manipulative demand that I teach or be “on staff” or be viewed as superior to others: this is not the point.

Rather, their purpose is a) to create understanding about my specialist training and background and b) to ensure acceptance, at least in principle, that my role in the church includes offering critique about how the church functions and to evaluate and respond to potential dysfunction within it.  These terms also aim c) to establish open and effective communication with both the church body and church leadership (on the one hand in communicating my role to the church body; on the other hand in developing protocols for communication between me and church leadership concerning my role and the results that it produces for the church).

In truth, to the best of my knowledge this sort of role does not exist in the evangelical church.  More to the point, I am hard pressed to imagine that many (or indeed, any) evangelical pastors would be willing to have someone in their congregation who has the designated role of offering feedback to the church and who specializes in identifying and remedying dysfunction: most pastors would simply feel too threatened by this arrangement.

The irony is that in the business world, my role would be “consultant” and I would be viewed as a tremendously valuable to the organization (and paid commensurately), whereas in the church the term for my role has often been “trouble maker” and the response of many has been to view me as problematic (and dismiss me accordingly).

The greater irony, of course, is that unlike the business world the church has (or rather, healthy and functional churches are supposed to have) checks and balances that help to identify dysfunction, and so allow them to be open to the very types of critiques that I offer.

In other words, what is to say that when churches pray for “help to serve God better” that the Holy Spirit is not using my feedback and critiques to empower them to do so?  Sadly, none of the churches that I have worked with to this point seem to have considered that…