Are you an Evangelical?

[EnglandinSummer]

Are there any who attend evangelical churches here? who is your pastor accountable to?

I go to an evangelical church. The pastor is accountable to the deacons, the church members, the congregation and most importantly to God.

Why do you ask?

I feel pentecostal/evangelical churches in particular (i've attended both) tend to lack accountability at the top, almost like after the pastor there is no one else more senior that they report to.
So if there is an incident for instance involving the pastor, who do you complain to? i found most of the deacons and in 'awe' of the pastor, or quite quite young, so where does it go?

I don't recognise what you're describing. I've been a member of two evangelical churches and neither have had the issues you have had.

My current church has three pastors so a complaint would go to either if the other two. The deacons and elders are strong and independent minded. I guess if we had a real issue we could go to FIEC.

Have you had a problem with your pastor?

You haven't really explained who your pastor is accountable apart from the deacons and church members and God . In practice how does that work?

If there is abuse of power for instance and a deacons is involved or the pastor him/herself how does this get resolved without bias or if the outcome is unsatisfactory?
Traditional churches like CofE of Methodists etc have (i think) central bodies that ca effectively deal with issues in some cases remove the offending leader.

The evangelical/pentecostal churches that I know are led by the founder. So to whom do the complaints go in your church if it has a similar structure.

who are the FIEC by the way?

What's the for?

My old church was a Church of England evangelical church. The FIEC is a federation of many evangelical churches and if there was an issue at a particular church I'm sure they'd get involved.

We haven't had problems at our church but the members would be able to vote to remove an inappropriate pastor.

I am evangelical Anglican. Vicar's boss is the bishop (also evangelical).

I would hope that all churches are ultimately accountable to God.

If your church is a CofE church then my question probably doesn't apply as you already have a structure in place which is very different to the structure i'm talking about. I'm pleased to hear your members can actually vote to remove a pastor.

I think my question would apply more to founder churches.

I get exactly what you mean England and its a bugbear of mine. I have found deacons to be totally in pastors pocket so there is no where to go. Its not like l want to be making massive complaints but l like to know some ones there. I like the presbyterian set up although l dont belong to one. They have elders and there is a lot of accountability as far as l can see.

junebirth -Exactly! you've nailed it on the head. The deacons ARE all in the pastors pocket, they can't do anything. I don't have any complaints in particular, but always wonder of did, what would happen?

In ours each pastor is accountable to the rest of the leadership team (which in our case is 5 people, not all are pastors) the leadership team are then accountable to the oversight team. The oversight is made up of about 8 people who all have no family connection to anyone employed by the church.

We as a church are also part of A nationwide Pentecostal organisation (there are several of these) and as such are accountable to them as well. Anything that was a serious safeguarding issue for instance would likely have their involvement.

Hi I'm a member of an evangelical Baptist Church and the Pastor is accountable to the Baptist Union, who have regional officers e.g. Eastern Baptist Association

Im in a charismatic evangelical church and we are part of a network so our pastor would be overseen by the leaders in that network and also kind of accountable to other pastors of the other churches in the network as well as to the elders of our own church. A lot of charismatic evangelical churches are part of different networks in the same way.

Your local Catholic Church will be headed by a priest who has a vast hierarchy above them. That hasn't exactly proved well though has it.

There will be a head office and management above the pastor. Which denomination?

England there have been incidents in this county of charismatic leaders (in both senses) founding churches and having no accountability, so I know what you mean.
One started in a little local church and became a denomination of its own (although they always denied this) with about five churches that I know of, including one in Europe.
They had their own way of doing things, including being able to go in and out of each other's houses, whether the owners were there or not, and worse, pointing out each other's faults to enable the person to 'grow' spiritually. They prized marriage and the leader and his wife were held up as perfect examples of Christian marriage. What the leader 'taught' was passed to all the churches. And then the leader fell, in a big way, by having an affair with a younger woman.
Because of the cult-like way they operated the fallout was massive. The leaders were so used to following the latest teaching from the founder they weren't equipped to deal with the aftermath.
This was probably 30 years ago and we still meet people locally who were in the church. Some lost their faith altogether. Some had a break from church for years. Some joined other churches they had previously regarded as second-best.
I understand your concern. I would avoid a church which centred round one man, or woman, for that reason.
Some charismatic churches choose to join groups of other churches so they do have accountability, but they don't all.

FIEC is Federation of Independent Evangelical Churches I think.