Ed Stetzer‘s been blogging about boundaries lately. I thought the fourth in the series was especially useful. He describes how he encouraged an “issue Christian” to move along and find a different church that better met his passions and beliefs.
The principle at stake for the pastor is this:
Your church is not a public square for people to debate and opine. It’s a place that you are to guard and shepherd. You create boundaries—both personally and congregationally.
A pastor is, literally, a shepherd. Doing that job means keeping out the weird religious people.
What’s “weird?” Here’s some advice from Stetzer:
Creating a healthy boundary for your church means knowing who you are as a church, where you are, where you’re going, and what that means for people who are outside of that. Your church is not the place for issue Christians who want to dominate your time to be given the freedom to do so. Save that time for counseling the hurting, not arguing with the agenda-driven.
One of the reasons why it’s important to have a clear mission and vision is so you can have healthy boundaries for your congregation.