Leading a Church through Spiritual Opposition
When I think about the topic of “Leading the church through spiritual opposition” my mind goes directly to so many of the struggles that I have faced here at Calvary. And that I know so many other pastors have faced the same struggles at their churches as they bring them out of an unhealthy system. I (we) am called to be an under-shepherd of a local church. Inside of that calling comes with it the demand for leadership and action. What I have found in that demand for leadership and action away from unhealthy systems is that there is a lot of bitterness and heartache throughout the process.
But even with that we know because of what the Bible says in Ephesians 6:12 that the fights we are being forced to fight are not against people,but rather, against principalities, powers, rulers of darkness, and spiritual wickedness. In other words, it is not people that we fight but spiritual opposition that we must contend with. If we are called to move and do things by God, then anything standing against that is spiritual opposition. It looks different for each of us as God calls us to change or continue in different things, but I can speak as to what it looked/looks like for me and what I have learned in those struggles.
When I came to my church it was all but dead so there was not a lot of people to fight against me. However, as we grew...the opposition came mostly from outside of Calvary. Other pastors, other Christians, and other people caused us problems more from without than from within. But as Nehemiah was called to rebuild the way and went through so much, I was reminded of something that happened in Nehemiah 6:1-14. We all know what happened as Nehemiah was almost finished with his task. The “impossible wall” was done but a few finishing things needed to be finished and the enemies of Israel first tried to get him to compromise with them, slandered him, and finally, they tried to discredit him by getting him to act cowardly and disobey God.
Throughout the book of Nehemiah, we see attack after attack, but I wanted to point out these 3 for a reason. Spiritual opposition from without usually looks like this: they want you to do it their way not God’s way and to compromise with them, so they look important. When that doesn’t work, as we all know, the name-calling begins and the attempts to slander us to hurt what God is doing through us begins. And finally, if they can’t hurt our testimonies the enemy will always attempt to provoke us into hurting our testimonies personally. Sadly, these attacks can be devastating to many, but even if you can withstand the proverbial storm, they always are heartbreaking.
Now all that to tell you this -- what these attacks have taught me is that if God has called me to something, of course, the devil is going to attack and if he is not attacking perhaps God didn’t call you to it. But even more important than that is that if we are leading our churches/ministries the way God has called us to lead them we will get the spiritual help from God when we ask for it, just as Nehemiah did. Some of us are rebuilding those walls and changing the course of the ship, so to speak, and some of us are doing maintenance on the walls and facing down those problems, but with every great work of God that he calls His people too we can rest in Him and rely on Him for direction and safety.
I pray that this is a help to you and if you have any questions, please reach out to me at iamcalvarypastor@gmail.com. I appreciate you brothers immensely.
Matt Roberts
Calvary Baptist Church | Milford, OH