Three Ways I Failed Miserably as a Pastor

Three Ways I Failed Miserably as a Pastor

This is a New Testament Church…Oh Really…?

Most evangelical churches will boldly proclaim that they’re a “New Testament church.” I’ve made that same claim myself. But I’ll be blunt—I’m humbled and ashamed that it took me nearly forty years of ministry to finally stop and ask the hard question: Was that actually true?

I always thought I was standing my ground. Even within my own denomination I was the oddball, simply because I dared to teach the things most others stuffed into the broom closet, or worse, tore apart from the pulpit. Things such as Biblical gender roles in the church as well as the home. Terrifying subjects that most preachers were too scared to even touch. I demanded worship songs that actually directed praise to the Lord instead of pouring accolades on self. I preached the cross, called sin what it was, and hammered repentance, sanctification, and sacrifice—truths that sound like foreign languages in many of today’s churches.

But here’s the harsh reality: in all that, I still feel I missed the boat. Nay, I totally bombed. I minimized critical pieces that the early church treated as massive non-negotiables. Truths that we’ve reduced to little more than afterthoughts—or worse, avoided altogether. We’ve traded apostolic priorities for coffee bars, smoke machines and feel-good support groups. What mattered most to the apostles is now shoved somewhere between tax collection and mattress inspection on the church’s priority list.

So here I am, having to swallow the bitter pill of hindsight, saying the words every man hates: If I had it to do over again.

But if I could somehow hit replay, here’s what I would drive home with every ounce of strength God gave me.

1. The Urgency of Baptism unto Repentance

Neither the apostles or the early church checked a calendar, organized a special event or even wasted a second of time when it came to water baptism. The moment confession/repentance was made with the mouth, they instantly started looking for water. When Peter preached at Pentecost, he didn’t say, “Raise your hand, repeat after me, and we’ll schedule your baptism for sometime in the spring when the water warms up.” Far from it. What he really said was, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.” (Acts 2:38).

·      What? Repent and be baptized.

·      Who? Every one of you.

·      Why? For the remission of sin.

Repentance and baptism weren’t two separate, disconnected ideas—they were welded together like two pillars of the same foundation.

But somewhere along the line the church has lost sight of the unnegotiable urgency of this step in the redemptive process. Today it’s treated like a sentimental ritual, a box to check once you’ve decided you’re “serious,” or a photo-op for family and friends. Worse yet, many times baptism is presented as a recommended but optional step. But hey, if you just got your hair done or if you don’t like getting up in front of people, don’t worry, God knows your heart.

That’s not how Scripture presents it at all. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. In those days baptism was immediate and an absolute imperative. Not only that but the new convert never had to be coerced or talked into it. They were literally looking for water as if it was the compulsion of their soul.

Let’s be blunt: the modern altar-call prayer has replaced baptism in most evangelical circles. But the apostles never told anyone to “pray the sinner’s prayer” or “repeat after me”. They preached repentance, faith, and baptism. New converts confessed Christ, repented from their sin, and then went straight into the pool. No time to waste. It literally resembled a man who was just rescued from the dessert, desperately sprinting toward water.

If I were pastoring today, I wouldn’t let a person sit for months, weeks, or even hours after repentance before baptism. The very day he turned to Christ, we’d be getting wet. Baptism isn’t a casual ceremony—it’s the God-ordained response of faith and regeneration. It’s the line in the sand that declares the old man dead, buried, and gone. And a new man is risen in Christ.

Now, I understand that the influence of Calvinism—direct or indirect—makes Christians recoil at anything that even smells of “works.” It’s practically heresy in some circles to suggest that any human action whatsoever could be tied to salvation. And yes, I know Ephesians 2:8 as well as anyone: “By grace you have been saved through faith… not of works, lest any man should boast.” And I not only accept it—I glory in it. Salvation is a gift of grace, not earned by man. But let’s be wise and think clearly here: there’s a vast difference between something being required for salvation and something being an element of salvation.

Here’s what I mean: You can dunk every person in your church or your whole town in water, and not a single one of them will be saved by that act alone. If going under water is all they did, then they went down dry sinners and came up wet sinners. But here’s where modern evangelicals stumble—Scripture intrinsically links repentance and baptism. Sorry if that makes you flinch, but it’s undeniable. In fact, you can argue biblically that one cannot rightly exist without the other.

Listen to the Word:

·       Acts 2:38 – “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins…”

·       Acts 22:16 – “And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.”

·       1 Peter 3:21 – “Baptism now saves you—not by removing dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience…”

·       John 3:5 – “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

·       Mark 16:16 – “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.”

·       Matthew 28:19 – “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them…”

·       Acts 2:41 – “Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.”

·       Romans 6:4 – “We have therefore been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that… we too might walk in newness of life.”

·       Galatians 3:27 – “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”

Now tell me honestly: do those passages sound like baptism was treated as an optional, lackadaisical, que sera, sera afterthought in the early church? Not a chance. I can’t find a single verse where the apostles delayed baptism one second longer than necessary.

Take Acts 8. Philip encounters the Ethiopian eunuch—a high-ranking official rolling down the road in his chariot. In one of Scripture’s most entertaining moments, the Spirit tells Philip to catch up with the chariot. Now take a second to create that picture in your mind. A chariot charging down the road with some lone dude huffing and puffing beside it. If that doesn’t bring a smile to your face, I don’t know what will. So, as Philip is matching speed with a team of horses, he was somehow (by the Spirit) able to also hear what the Eunuch was reading and seizes the moment: “Do you…” gasp, “understand…” pant pant, “what you’re reading?” The eunuch admits he doesn’t and finally gives Philip a reprieve by inviting him into the chariot.

From there Philip concisely and faithfully presents the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now notice what happens. The eunuch doesn’t say, “Great message. I’ll schedule my baptism when I can get my whole family together and I don’t have any official functions to attend. Let’s make a picnic out of it.” No! As soon as they come upon water, he blurts out: “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?” (Acts 8:36). Now, I want to ask you two questions:

·      How did the Eunuch know that baptism was immensely important unless Philip told him?

·      Why would Philip express it with such urgency, if it wasn’t of the upmost importance?

So, once the Eunuch declares his desire for immediate baptism, what did Philip say? He takes the Eunuch right back to faith: “If you believe with all your heart, you may.”

In other words, you can’t do that unless you do this. Why? Because faith and baptism are intrinsically linked.

The eunuch confesses, they stop the chariot, and both men go down into the water. Philip baptizes him on the spot. That’s the pattern everywhere in Scripture—faith, repentance, and baptism, bound together as one response to the gospel.

So here’s the bottom line: You aren’t saved by baptism—you’re saved by grace through faith. But faith without obedience isn’t faith at all. You can’t tear them apart without butchering the Word. Or to put it plainly: you can’t have true faith without baptism, and you can’t have true baptism without faith.

And that’s where the modern church has lost its way and where I admittedly and ashamedly failed. We’ve reduced baptism to a photo-op with family with a potluck afterward. We’ve turned what was once the first act of obedience into a scheduling convenience.

“It’s January and the river is freezing” or “we’ve only got one to baptize, let’s wait till we have more signed up.” I know the excuses. I used them myself and it nauseates me to admit it.

No wonder the church is weak—because we’ve stripped the urgency out of obedience and gutted the fire out of repentance.

Pastors, elders, Christian men, let me be direct: baptism isn’t a box to check when you “feel ready.” It’s not a tradition to observe when it fits your calendar. The best example I can come up with is breath. You aren’t alive because of breath but you must have breath to be alive. You can hook up a recently deceased body to a ventilator and put breath into the body, but that breath does not make the body alive. But in order for a body to be alive, there must be breath. Similarly, you can baptize the dead but it won’t make them alive, but you can’t be made alive without baptism.

And how urgent is it? I’ll ask you this; when a baby is born, what’s the very first concern of the doctor? Answer: getting breath into that child. When a person is born again, what should be the very first concern of the elder? Answer: baptizing the convert.

It’s time to stop treating baptism as optional. It’s time to recover the raw urgency of the New Testament church, where repentance and baptism walked hand in hand and where obedience wasn’t postponed until it was convenient.

You say you believe? Then get in the water. No excuses. No delays. No half-measures. Let the old man die and rise up as a new man in Christ—and do it today!

2. Dedicated, Segregated Teaching on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

If you were to judge based solely on sermons or so-called “Christian” books today, you’d walk away thinking the Bible is fuzzy on men’s and women’s roles. Ambiguous. Open to interpretation. Up for debate. Let me set the record straight: nothing could be further from the truth. Few doctrines are more plainly spelled out in scripture than God’s design for men and women.

The issue isn’t that God’s Word is unclear. The issue is that His Word collides head-on with modern Western culture—and unfortunately, in most churches, culture wins every time.

A Neutered Church

Sadly, the church has buckled under cultural pressure instead of declaring God’s design with courage, pulpits quake with fear of offending. We’ve blurred lines, softened edges, and neutered the message until it no longer resembles Scripture. But make no mistake: men and women are different by God’s design, not by accident—and the church must declare that difference unapologetically.

The early church had no hesitation. Men were charged to lead, protect, provide, guide, and sacrifice like Christ. Women were charged to nurture, build the home, submit, help, and embrace God-given femininity in quietness, meekness and strength. Those weren’t cultural suggestions. They were divine mandates. And they applied in the home and in the church. Certain roles belong only to men. Certain roles belong only to women. That’s not negotiable.

A Radical Proposal

If I pastored today, I wouldn’t tuck this teaching away in some optional small group. No, I’d put it front and center in the main service. At least twice a month, men and women would be taught separately—men sharpening men, women strengthening women.

• Men would be trained to rise from weakness, pornography, passivity, narcissism, and cowardice—to become disciplined, courageous leaders in their homes and churches.
• Women would be taught the beauty of motherhood, submission, modesty, purity, and peace, elevating their calling instead of belittling it.

If you showed up on Sunday, you’d get trained in your biblical role. Like it or not.

A Case Study in Failure

I once read an article by a man defending women preachers. His whole argument rested on one story: he and his wife had invited their Baptist pastor to dinner. She asked him point-blank where Scripture forbids female pastors. Supposedly, the pastor froze. No answer. She “won” the debate, and the husband dutifully followed his wife into a lifetime of egalitarian error.

Now most likely the story is embellished but let’s say it happened exactly that way. Three things stand out:

1. The pastor was unqualified. If you can’t defend one of Scripture’s clearest teachings, you have no business in the pulpit.
2. The husband was unequipped. He had never been trained to lead, protect, or confront rebellion in his wife. Instead of guiding his wife into the truth of God’s Word, he caved to her sin.
3. The wife was untaught. She had never been discipled by older women as scripture mandates. She was never trained to obey her husband, to walk in quietness and reverence or to embrace biblical submission and gender roles. (Titus 2, 1 Corinthians 14).

That’s not simply the failure of the couple—it’s the failure of the church that was supposed to train them.

Why It Matters

This is no side issue. The modern church has trashed God’s order, and the wreckage is everywhere. Weak, spineless men. Discontent, domineering women. Homes in collapse. Children growing up confused.

When men are forged into godly men and women are built up as godly women, the church is unshakable. But when we flatten roles into some bland, genderless mush, the church becomes exactly what we see today: weak, compromised, and easy prey for the world.

3. Active, Firm, Yet Compassionate Accountability

This one ties in well with the last. The reality is, the modern church “community” is soft, shallow, and sentimental. We do coffee, donuts, fellowship and programs but what we don’t have that all the early New Testament churches did have, is accountability. Honestly, when is the last time you saw any form of church discipline practiced? Can you even recall an instant when a member caught in sin was placed under church discipline?

Men easily hide their sin because nobody’s asking the hard questions, and women drown under cultural influence because nobody’s calling them back to truth. Far too many churches are filled with effeminate “men” who swipe earrings from their wife’s jewelry box while pulling their hair into cute boy buns that are the envy of every woman in the place. They hide behind their phone or computer screen and hope no one walks in at the wrong time. Sorry sir, this is not manhood, it’s capitulation and it’s satanic.

When church time arrives, they retrieve the shorts and T-shirt they wore to the barbeque the day before and throw on some flip flops, ready to give their best to the Lord. Wait, let me grab one more drag from my cigarette or vape before going in the building. And let’s be honest, most wouldn’t even be there if not for the fear of the nagging rebuttal from the wife. They are masters at putting on the Christian cloak for an hour on Sunday morning, but that guy looks nothing like the man that wakes up Monday morning.

While the modern Evangelical church makes every excuse for sin, or outright ignores it, the early church didn’t play games—they confronted sin head-on. Ananias and Sapphira tried to lie to God and were struck dead on the spot. That’s how seriously God views hypocrisy.

When the Church Still Had Standards

I’m old enough to remember when churches actually had standards. Back then, the Christian world was strict—yes, often too strict—on dress, behavior, and conduct. Much of it centered on your personal testimony and how you represented the Lord.

Now, don’t get me wrong—I have zero desire to go back to hammering women with “no makeup, no jewelry, no pants” legalism. (At least in those days it was only the women arguing about whether wearing earrings was acceptable, but I digress.) And no, salvation never hinged on whether you sipped a soda pop or chewed gum. That was nonsense.

But here’s the thing: in our rush to escape legalism, we threw out something vital. For all their faults, those people had one thing we now lack—a standard.

The Stark Contrast

I’ll never forget years ago, when we were visiting churches. After one Sunday service, we drove past a Mormon church just as they were letting out. Dozens of people stood outside, moving toward the parking lot. What struck me was this: every woman and girl wore a modest dress. Every man and boy wore slacks and a button-up shirt. Most had ties.

I immediately drew a contrast to the service I had just left. Fewer than 20% of the women or girls had on dresses. Not a button-up shirt or tie in sight. Instead—shredded jeans, flip-flops, graphic tees, and baseball caps. The difference was jarring.

Now, am I saying outward appearance is all that matters? No. But it’s not nothing either. The deeper issue is that the modern church has abandoned standards altogether. The prevailing mindset is: I’ll come as I am, and God will just have to accept me as I am.

Funny, I recall another man in Scripture with that mindset. His name was Cain. He decided he would worship God his way and expected the Almighty to be fine with it. That didn’t end well. God set the standard, Cain rejected it, and judgment followed.

Outward Always Shows Inward

This isn’t about clothing. It’s about the heart. But clothing is certainly a window into the heart. If someone treats worship like a casual trip to the beach, it usually reveals how little weight they give the Lord.

And let’s be honest—back when churches had standards for how you approached worship, they also didn’t have folks puffing cigarettes on the church steps after service.

So yes, some will accuse me of harping on appearance. But those accusations tend to come from people who don’t actually have personal standards.

What Changed

Scripturally, Christians are supposed to walk different, talk different, dress different, act different (Romans 12:2). That was normal once. But now? We’ve traded overbearing rules no one could keep for an “anything goes” mentality where the top priority is making church so much like the world that the unsaved feel right at home.

Between those two extremes—legalism or lawlessness—if I had to choose, I think I’d take the former. At least they understood the concept of holiness.

And as you can imagine, when standards were buried, accountability went with them. But in the church of the Living God, accountability isn’t optional—it’s expected. The early believers weren’t lone wolves; they lived in tight fellowship where sin was exposed, confessed, and dealt with. They carried one another’s burdens, but they also refused to tolerate wrongdoing. Truth and grace walked hand in hand.

If I were pastoring today, accountability would be built into the very structure of church life. Men would lock arms with other men and ask the tough questions: How’s your thought life? Are you loving your wife? Are you leading your family well? Are you in the Word and in prayer? Are you rising up as a biblical man of God? Are you the same man when no one is looking?

Women would hold one another to the standard of Scripture rather than the standard of Instagram—modesty, purity, self-control, subjection, meekness and a quiet strength.

Accountability doesn’t mean bullying or shaming. It means loving one another enough to confront sin and push each other toward holiness. It’s firm, direct, and sometimes uncomfortable—but it’s also compassionate, restorative, and freeing. It’s the difference between a church that plays dress-up and a church that actually walks in holiness.

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any sin, you who are spiritual [that is, you who are responsive to the guidance of the Spirit] are to restore such a person in a spirit of gentleness [not with a sense of superiority or self-righteousness], keeping a watchful eye on yourself, so that you are not tempted as well. ² Carry one another’s burdens and in this way you will fulfill the requirements of the law of Christ [that is, the law of Christian love]. Gal. 6:1-2

These three aren’t add-ons. They’re the marrow of the New Testament church. Baptism tied to repentance. Bold, unapologetic teaching on manhood and womanhood. Real accountability that actually holds people to the Word.

Strip those out and all you’ve got left is a religious social club with a few Bible verses taped on the walls. Put them back in, and the church becomes a furnace—hot, refining, and capable of forging true disciples.

I’ll be the first to admit, I failed miserably in these areas during my years in ministry. But my prayer now is simple: that I can help other pastors stand firm where I stumbled, and succeed where I fell short.