Restoring Prophets (6) Big Man Problem

A big problem in the current situation is that many of the prophets who go the election wrong are pastor-leaders of big churches. They are at the top of a hierarchy, so there is often no one close enough to challenge them. The people in their church will be committed to their message and style. These sheep who look up to them as their pastor will quickly forgive them.

If the pastor-leader does change direction, or admits that they were wrong, they will get a very negative reaction from the people who have followed them. They don't want the person that they have trusted with their lives to admit they are wrong, because that would undermine the foundation of their life. Not surprisingly, when a few of the big name prophets have admitted they were wrong, they have received a very hostile reaction. In this context, a restoration will be impossible to manage.

The church needs these leaders to keep on leading and preaching so that programs will keep going, and the money will keep on flowing. Asking one of them to step down for a season would be hugely disruptive. It is hard to see how an effective restoration process could take place. For example, three days after I received an email with a link to Kris Vallotton’s video of his apology, I received another email promoting his latest book called “Spiritual Intelligence”. I was struck by the huge disconnect, and wondered if a chapter about being wrong was missing from the book, but I also understand that his publisher would be putting on pressure to ensure that sales of the book do not flag.

I have always been uneasy about prophets becoming the pastor-leader of a church, or a pastor leader relying on his wife to be the main prophet to his church. In these situations, it is almost for the prophet to take time out to participate in a process of restoration if they make serious mistakes.

Prophetic ministries working in isolation are dangerous. If these prophetic leaders are restored, they should be restored in a safer leadership structure. The New Testament model is elders who are pastors, evangelists and prophets submitting to each other and leading together in unity. There is safety in the prophetic elder submitting to the others. The same applies to pastors and evangelists.

When prophets who have made a mistake, they should be restored to a leadership model that is based on balanced ministries submitting to each other. We need a radical change in the leadership model adopted by the church. That is a much bigger problem for the church, and is outside the scope of this article. However, I have described a leadership model that can better support the prophetic ministry in Being Church Where Live.