On Sunday November 6th, 2016 a member of the board of Elders announced essentially that they have voted to dismiss our church pastor because of differences in views.
This is the history of the situation from my understanding: 5 years ago the church voted to select our current pastor (a Discipling pastor) after the previous pastor died (he was a Shepherding pastor). The vote to dismiss our pastor was a 5 to 2 decision by the current board of elders that was selected only a few months ago through a drawing of lots (this felt like a really weird way to do it to me personally). Apparently the discussion of dismissing him started around 2 years into him being a pastor, most likely due to them not being successful in trying to turn him into the previous pastor.
The decision caused a few people to cry and a lot of us to just be angry at our board of Elders and church politics. This came as a shock to all of us because it said that though the church chose him as a pastor we don't have any say in if he gets to stay and the rift between the elders and our pastor was not evident at all. It was even more insulting that the announcement was made right before the US presidential election (a church member said that now it is evident that our vote apparently does not matter in two decisions).
National politics aside, the members of the church want to know if something can be done to say we reject the elders decision besides writing emails to the elders?
Also, do they even have the right to do this in the first place?
The decision was made without even the pastor knowing that they would be voting on it and to a lot of us it feels like it was based more on the personal views of the elders rather than thinking about what is best for the church.
