CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — When Rivercreek Church introduced their newly hired executive pastor last Sunday, the congregation surprised him with a chorus of boos.
"I was startled, but given the economic climate I understand," says executive pastor Bill Evans, a longtime businessman who recently took the job.
Many executive pastors around the country are facing resistance, rumor and outright hostility from laypeople who see the hand of Wall Street reaching into their once-tranquil churches.
"I heard our new executive pastor worked for a Forbes 500 company in his previous career," says one man at a church in Ft. Worth, Texas. "We don’t need a golden parachuter around here."
At Rivercreek, rumors have circulated that Evans ran several companies into the ground, collected huge bonuses and went into church work because no one else would hire him. In fact, Evans left a successful company because he felt called to the ministry.
But many aren’t buying it.
"My first thought was, ‘If they’re hiring more pastors, we must be tithing too much,’" says Tom Rayburn, a member who had never heard the term "executive pastor" and doesn’t like "the Wall Street ring of it."
"If what I’m hearing about his sweet private sector retirement package is correct then he should be paying the church rather than the church paying him," Rayburn says. "I’d like to see our contract with him."
Others suggest that the church only hired an executive pastor because the senior pastor had been overspending and the board was reining him in.
"Why else would they bring in a controller?" says one woman. "We’re all asking ourselves, what did the pastor do wrong?"
One woman at a California church tried to find executive pastors in the Bible. The best she could come up with: Judas Iscariot.
"He handled Jesus’ finances," she says conspiratorially. "What are we to make of that?"
Back at Rivercreek some believe the senior pastor just wants to make himself feel important by "gathering a posse" around himself.
"He was never above balancing the church checkbook and hiring the janitors in the past," says Doris Rogers. "Why pay someone else to do it now except for pride?"
One thing unites them all: a fierce opposition to Wall Street shenanigans.
"I’ve had people come up to me in the foyer and say, ‘Don’t try any of that bailout stuff here, Mr. Executive Pastor,’" says Evans, who plans to lay low for a while. "It’s just not a great time to be an executive pastor."
Source: LarkNews
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Some question whether the feud is real or a publicity stunt meant to gin up sales for their new albums, both released this summer. Others fear Christian bands may follow the trend and start full-blown feuds.
