What If I Disagree with My Pastor?
1) Direct answer
Stay with the Word, keep your spirit right, and handle it in God’s order. Pray, search the Scriptures, speak to your pastor privately with an open Bible, and seek peace. If it’s only preference, submit and keep unity. If it is clear doctrine or practice against the Bible and he will not receive the Word, obey God rather than men and step away quietly without causing strife.
2) Scriptural explanation
- Test everything by Scripture: The Bereans “searched the Scriptures daily” (Acts 17:11). “Try the spirits” (1 John 4:1). If any preach another gospel, “let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8–9).
- Respect the office and approach rightly: “Obey them that have the rule over you” as they watch for your souls (Hebrews 13:17). “Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father” (1 Timothy 5:1). Don’t receive accusations lightly—“before two or three witnesses” (1 Timothy 5:19).
- Handle it in order: Go to him “between thee and him alone” first (Matthew 18:15). If needed, take witnesses, then the church (Matthew 18:16–17). “Let all things be done decently and in order” (1 Corinthians 14:40).
- Keep unity when it’s not sin or false doctrine: “Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3).
- Separate if the Word is rejected: “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). “Mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine…and avoid them” (Romans 16:17). “A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition reject” (Titus 3:10). “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” (Amos 3:3).
3) Simple clarifying logic
- God sets pastors to feed the flock, but the Bible is the absolute. A true shepherd points you to the Word, not away from it.
- If your disagreement is about taste, timing, or non-essential procedure, lay down your preference and keep peace.
- If the issue is clear Scripture—who will you follow, a man or the Word? If a leader asks you to do or believe what the Bible denies, your loyalty belongs to Christ.
- Don’t gossip, don’t rally people, don’t split the church. Speak face to face, with Scripture, in meekness. If there’s no agreement around the Word, step aside quietly and keep your heart clean.
4) Short reinforcing statement
Stay humble, stay Scriptural, and keep the sweetness of Christ. God defends His Word and guides the sincere who put the Bible first.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
Questions and Answers
61-0112 §189
For instance, if they caught Brother Neville, or Brother Junior, or Brother... some brother here, one of the deacons or trustees, or something another, doing something wrong, I believe the thing to do is for the church to get together and pray for this brother. If he still don't straighten up, then let a couple go with him, go to the brother to be reconciled. And then if he don't receive it, then tell it before the church. Then if they don't receive it then, that's the time for the whole church then, see, that's fo...
The unpardonable sin
54-1024 §15
...urches, the things they do, they block off the blessings of God, by their theology, that God cannot break through to bless His people. They get their church so formal, so stiff and so starchy till the Holy Spirit can't come into the church. And then when the devil seen he had that made, and some was going to break through anyhow, then he let them open other channels that wasn't the Gospel, and run them off into fanaticism. That's right, see. They either get to be a bunch of fanatics or a bunch of starches. But in t...
Why are we not a denomination?
58-0927 §9
Bless the pastor here, the deacons, the trustees, and all the laity, the people who come to this church. Since my days here, Lord, there's many, many that I don't even know their names or where they come from; but I'm sure that You know all about them. And we're here for that one purpose tonight, Lord, to fellowship around the written Word. And give us the Holy Spirit in our lives, that we can sit peacefully and soberly and in the fear of God, and examine our lives by His Word. Grant it, Lord. And in this building...
The Seal of God
54-0514 §3
...Gospel; not a bit of renewing or polishing up---just the same Gospel. Out in the services, being interdenominational, on the basis of being based in auditoriums, and many different denominations of people come together, you kind of hold yourself from doctrine, all but divine healing, and of course, accepting of the Lord Jesus. But when you're in your home, like the home church here, you just feel like that you just take off your collar, and just simply preach just what you think is right, and that's it. And many t...
Trying to do God a service without it being His will
65-0718M §64
...rilled into them: "Why, these bishops said this, and this said this; this said this." You show them right here in the Word of God where it's "thus saith the Lord." "But our pastor..." I don't care what your pastor says. I don't care what I say, or anybody else says. If it's contrary to God's vindicated Word, the hour, the time, the message, and so forth, forget it! Stay away from it. And I've got to stand before every one of you in the day of judgment, and you know that. And little would I say that, knowing I'm an...