Helicopter Pastors

Have you ever heard of a helicopter parent? The phrase is meant to evoke images of a helicopter "hovering". The phenomenon is so wide-spread that the term was actually added to the dictionary a few years ago. It is described as "a parent who takes an overprotective or excessive interest in the life of their child or children." These are the parents who keep training wheels on the bikes until a kid is in middle school and still want their children in arm floats at their sweet sixteen pool parties. They are also known to take an "overly active" role in their children's education, to the extent of doing their homework for them to keep them from experiencing failure.

While it may seem relatively harmless, the issue has an impacted college campuses, where young adults don't know how to take care of themselves or get their work done. Then, never having experienced failure and suddenly without a safety net, they aren't resilient enough to handle defeat.

What does this have to do with the church?

It occurs to me that in keeping with the times, too many pastors have adopted this "hovering" mentality. They keep their congregations spiritually immature, under the guise that it is in the individual member's best interest. They say that they have to stay in the "milk" of the Word because the congregation can't handle the "meat" as the bible says it. The truth is, they don't want to move on to the meat because they don't want their spiritual children to grow up and not need them anymore.

It reminds me of mothers who nurse their children for an inordinate amount of time. In the beginning, they do so because it is undeniably in the best interest of the child, but at some point it ceases to be about the child's health and becomes an issue of control for the mom.

That's what I see in too many churches. The pastor keeps his parishioners on milk because he worries that once they can feed themselves, he won't be needed. The truth is, you are asking for nothing but trouble when you have a church in which the pews could easily be replaced with high chairs. Like an unchecked preschool room, the natives will at some point become restless and turn on not only each other, but you as well.

Not only that, those who somehow push forward and mature on their own, the ones who would be great leaders, will grow tired of being unchallenged and leave you anyway.

I once attended a church that had milk on the menu every Sunday. I admittedly never attended for the sermons anyway, I went because I like the relationships I had built within the church. The pastor didn't really preach as much as he offered opinions and life lessons and stories about all his connections. When scripture was used, we never got past the very basics of the bible.

From the outside, I'm sure his method looked very successful. It was a decently sized church, but as I looked around, I realized that while the attendance was growing, the growth of the attenders was stagnant. I watched as sin went not only unchecked, but was downright defended. I listened as members ferociously attacked anyone who dared to suggest that things weren't being handled biblically.

Soon, the services took a more concerning turn. "Messages and interpretations", in which we were told the Holy Spirit was speaking to the church became a near weekly occurrence. The problem was that they only ever came from 2 people in the church and they started to be slanted towards moving church business through. When this would happen, a quick explanation would be given to the church, telling them that God had spoken and the way it was done was in order.

While I believe the Holy Spirit definitely still speaks in this way, I also believe in discernment. In all the talk of "God speaking to us", there was never a teaching on how to judge the words against the Word. It became clear to me, the congregation wasn't taught discernment because if they knew better, they would know something wasn't right.

It was at this point that I decided to leave the church. After I left, I heard that many others moved on as well. You see in an effort to keep people in the spiritual dark, those who craved the light couldn't stay.   At some point, helicopter pastors go beyond "overprotective" and cross into dangerous territory.

Don't let your pride or need to be needed override the call to press forward into the deeper mysteries of God. Leaving your congregation in a state of arrested development is selfish and counterintuitive to your movement. Pray to the Lord for wisdom to know when to move your church forward and pray for the courage to allow your spiritual children to grow up.