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.
Why?
61-0128 §26
In the Old Testament, they had just about two ways to test the Word of God. If a prophet prophesied, or a dreamer dreamed a dream, they took him down to the Urim Thummim. That was a breastplate. And as he told his dream, or prophesied, and it did not register on the Urim Thummim, then the conglomeration of lights, all supernatural, then they didn't receive it. But if it did, they received it. Now, the Old Testament packed the Urim Thummim. But the New Testament still has the Urim Thummim. That's the Bible. That's r...
Questions and Answers
61-0112 §191
Said, "Well, then, what if some of the brothers agree," he said, "and some of them don't want to fellowship with him anymore? Bring him in, like it's a pastor, you see, that's beginning to be a lady's man among the... You know what I mean, and things like that, and some of the pastors won't have him in their churches. What do you all do? Throw him out of your organization?" "No." Said, "We just let him alone and pray for him." Said, "We never lost one yet. They always come back, somehow." He said, "Well," said, "no...
Presuming
62-0610M §57
...e any time that God sent a message, and they organized it. It died right then, and never raised again. It's a cursed thing. So, just look back in your history, and find out if that's right. But they make up their creeds and join it. People think that's right. Women. You know, I love you, my sister. You know that. I don't stand to hurt you; I love you. But what am I going to do there at that day, when I know the Bible teaches what the women to do? And then, I know it to be the truth. And then, if the watchman sits o...
Church Order
63-1226 §4
Now, I'm not trying to usurp authority or something like that, but, you see, a man or anything with two heads to it, it doesn't know how to go. God never did have two heads to His church, He never did, it's one head. He always dealt in every generation as we've studied through the Scriptures, there's always one individual that He deals with. Because you get two men, you got two opinions. It's got to come to one final absolute, and my absolute is the Word, the Bible. And as a pastor here of the church, my absolute i...
Why are we not a denomination?
58-0927 §135
All right, went and got one of the deacons and went down to his house. Said, "Wesley, I want to talk to you." Said, "Are you going to straighten this thing up with the church?" And he give him a short two-answer like that. Said, "Remember, Wesley, I'm the pastor of that church. I'm your daddy, but I'm going to do what God says do! I'm giving you thirty days to make that right with that church, or we'll excommunicate you from the presence of God. You're my own son; that's my Saviour." Said, "I love you. And you know...