Can you imagine Jesus mandating his disciples sign a non-disclosure agreement? Or the Apostle Paul preaching in Antioch with a smoke machine and concert-style lighting?
In his talk at Restore 2025, author, pastor, and church planter, Lance Ford, uses satire and humor to expose how ridiculous some common church practices have become. Then, using the standard of Scripture, Lance begins to expose false doctrines Christian leaders are using to manipulate and control God’s people.
For example, Lance reveals how leaders have appropriated “honor culture” to mandate blind obedience from believers. Then, he shows how Jesus and Paul called for mutual honor in the church, not a corporate-style hierarchy.
Similarly, the doctrine of “covering” emphasizes the need for a pastor or other spiritual believer to control a believer’s life. Yet, Lance opens the New Testament to reveal the priesthood of all believers, with each of us accountable to God.
Lance also tackles one of the most abused passages in all of Scripture when it comes to reporting abuse or corruption among leaders. Often, pastors tell whistleblowers and victims to follow a Matthew 18 process. This means victims have to report to their abuser one-on-one. Similarly, vulnerable staff and church members are told to confront a corrupt pastor, who then retaliates against the person reporting.
As Lance explains, these church leaders are misapplying Matthew 18, which applies to personal offenses. And they’re conveniently ignoring 1 Timothy 5, which tell us to “publicly rebuke” sinning leaders.
Support Christian Journalism
Your tax-deductible gift helps our journalists report the truth and hold Christian leaders and organizations accountable. Donate $50 or more to The Roys Report this month, and you can elect to receive "The Scandal of Leadership: Unmasking the Powers of Domination in the Church" by JR Woodward.
We are unable to ship books internationally.
Lance Ford
Lance Ford is an author, church planter, coach, and consultant who has designed unique training systems currently being used by networks, seminaries, and leaders throughout the world. He has written several books including The Atlas Factor, UnLeader, The Missional Quest, and The Starfish and the Spirit. Lance holds a master’s degree in Global Leadership from Fuller Theological Seminary. Learn more at LanceFordBooks.com.
Coming soon
English 
Spanish 
3 Responses
A hierarchy within the church is clearly laid out in the New Testament, so railing against the “hierarchy” is simply a way of saying we should eliminate leadership and abandon the New Testament prototype for The Church. That is a big Wrong Answer, no matter who is advocating it. The problem is not having leadership in the Church. The problem is administering that leadership in wrong, self-serving and harmful ways. Any time you have someone even hinting that we need to eliminate a leadership structure you have someone who actually does not want to eliminate it. They want to replace it with their own version of what they think it should be. There is absolutely no organization on this earth, either spiritual or secular that operates without some type of leadership structure. There is no organization that functions without some kind of authority structure. Lance Ford says “abandon those structures.” That isn’t the problem. The problem is accountability. No one actually wants it along biblical guidelines. Not the leaders, and not the parishioners. We are not just accountable to Jesus. We are accountable to each other.
When you work the crowd to get the response you want, you are telling them they are not smart enough to realize how great you are. Which is working directly against your assertion that there should not be a hierarchy. Lance Ford never actually delineates a solution to the problem that he says exists in the Church. And he is pretty much correct in those problems. But he fails to give an actual solution to the problem.
I appreciate the way Mr. Ford always comes back to the words of Jesus, “It shall not be so among you.”
“The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority felt, but it shall not be so among you.” That’s such a simple “filter” to apply to relationships, especially in a church. If someone is acting like a “lord,” if someone is causing servile fear among the people, if someone is taking a gangster attitude, “Nice Hispanic community you got there … be a shame if something happened to it” … then that “leader” is acting contrary to the mind and heart of Jesus.
Nico-Laitan: Yahshua yet condemns with utmost hatred (Revelation 2:15) this “clergy over laity” concept of the pagans, heathens; as He washed the feet of His 12 disciples, including the feet of the one who would then betray Him with a kiss hours later, and then He dried each foot with a towel that He had girded about His waist. He commands us also as His follows to wash the feet of one another as we gather together, whether it be 2 or 3 gathered in His Name. He is in the midst as our Leader. There, in such Echad, Unity, He commands the Blessing: Psalm 133:3 — We must follow only Him, Who has no agenda of self-service.
A profound quote heard this week, author unknown: “When you are waiting on YHWH for something, do what waiters do: Serve!”