I don’t often do blog re-posts, but this is one I have to pass on. Below are the first six signs as related by Jose Bosque in the article of the title “12 Signs of a Controlling Church Pastor”:

1. First, he acts like he is the Source and the Owner of the Vision.
2. He travels but you don’t. It all about you helping him achieve “his Ministry”. He travels because he loves the worship given to Americans in third world countries.
3. He is not a Gatekeeper; he is more like a Prison warden. No one has permission to go anywhere except where he says, when he says.
4. He refuses to release the people to God’s call in their life. He talks a good talk, but reality is there is a human junkyard of those he has blacklisted.
5. He is always training you for ministry but you never graduate because you never quite measure up. The truth is he is only interested in spectators for His next Wow-teaching. It’s a power trip! He “needs” to be heard.
6. The only legitimate ministry is that which is hyper-linked to him and to the name of his ministry. It’s about a name rather than about Jesus.

If you would like to read the remainder of the article to view the remaining six signs, please click on this link: 12 Signs of a Controlling Church Pastor.

My advice to anyone who is under the leadership of such a pastor is to run and do not look back. You may not become a pillar of salt if you look back, but looking back may cause you to be trapped into thinking that parts of this pastor’s behavior are normal and/or admirable. While they might be considered normal due to the frequency of occurrence, they are  not normal when viewed as to how God wants church leaders to operate. Read 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 and see if you think that this type of church leadership is acceptable.

It isn’t.