If I know that Scripture calls leaders to sober accountability and careful shepherding, then I cannot ignore it when leadership becomes vague where clarity is needed. If I know that Scripture commands me to rightly divide the Word of truth, then I cannot excuse my own passivity by saying, “I was only following the pastor.” That explanation may sound easy now, but it will not finally relieve the conscience of a Christian who has neglected his own duty before God.

There are moments in church life that do more than disappoint us. They expose us.

I have watched my church voluntarily withdraw from the Southern Baptist Convention, and what has grieved me most is not only the decision itself, but the absence of clear explanation, transparency, and accountability surrounding it. As a church member, I am left with sadness deeper than disagreement. It is the sadness of seeing how easily leadership decisions can affect a congregation without the kind of open biblical shepherding church members should be able to expect.

That is not a small matter.

When leaders make significant decisions without clearly explaining them to the people they shepherd, the damage is not merely organizational. It is spiritual. This is one place where blindness begins to form. And it forms not only in the lives of members, but often in a more serious way in the life of the pastor, because his influence over the people is greater and his responsibility before God is weightier.

A pastor who leads without clear biblical accountability may not only make a leadership misstep, he may also begin to model a pattern that teaches the congregation the wrong lessons about authority. He may teach, even unintentionally, that confidence can replace clarity; that position can replace explanation, and that members are simply expected to follow where they have not been carefully shepherded. That is not the pattern of healthy spiritual leadership. It risks producing passivity where discernment should be growing.

And yet, as painful as it is to say, I cannot write this as though the burden belongs only to the pulpit.

That would be incomplete.

The member is not let off the hook.

I am not let off the hook.

Scripture does not permit me to hide behind disappointment in church leadership as though that alone clears me before God. I also have a responsibility. I also have been instructed to “study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15, KJV). That means if I am sitting under preaching, under decisions, and under leadership that shapes the life of the church, I am responsible to measure what I hear and what I see by the Word of God.

If I do not, then I too participate in the blindness.

That is one of the harder truths many in the church do not want to face. We are often quick to point to the failures of leadership, and sometimes rightly so, because leaders will give an account for how they shepherd the flock of God. But hearers and members are not passive recipients with no responsibility of their own. A member who never tests, never examines, never searches the Scriptures, and never weighs what is being done by the standard of God’s Word cannot assume that he bears no responsibility simply because leadership failed to lead well.

Spiritual blindness in a church often grows in two directions at once.

It grows in the leader who begins to trust his own judgment too heavily and becomes less transparent than he ought to be. And it grows in the member who becomes content to follow without careful discernment.

This is why the issue is bigger than one church decision. It is bigger than one Convention withdrawal. It reveals a deeper concern in the church: many of us have not been trained, or have not wanted, to live under the searching authority of Scripture. We have learned how to attend, support, defend, and remain loyal. But many have not learned how to examine.

And that is dangerous.

A church member must ask: Was this decision explained with biblical seriousness? Was it handled with the transparency and care worthy of Christ’s church? Were the people carefully shepherded through it, or simply informed of it? Was this a matter of conviction clearly rooted in Scripture, or did it feel more like a leadership determination delivered to the congregation? These are not rebellious questions. They are responsible questions. In fact, the refusal to ask such questions may itself be a sign that spiritual complacency has already set in.

The hearer must also ask difficult questions of himself.

Why am I so willing to accept what is unclear? Why do I sometimes confuse loyalty to leadership with loyalty to Christ? Why do I expect accountability in the world around me, but hesitate to expect it in the church? Why do I confess Christ as Lord, yet fail to examine whether the direction of my church is truly governed by His Word? Why do I not search the Scriptures more carefully for myself?

These questions are uncomfortable because they touch the conscience at precisely the point where it may have grown quiet.

This is where Luke 6:46 presses with real force: “Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” Jesus does not leave room for a Christianity that is strong in profession but weak in submission. That warning does not belong only to pastors. It belongs to members as well. It belongs to every hearer who claims Christ while neglecting the very Word that is meant to govern his life.

If I know that Scripture calls leaders to sober accountability and careful shepherding, then I cannot ignore it when leadership becomes vague where clarity is needed. If I know that Scripture commands me to rightly divide the Word of truth, then I cannot excuse my own passivity by saying, “I was only following the pastor.” That explanation may sound easy now, but it will not finally relieve the conscience of a Christian who has neglected his own duty before God.

That is why this sadness is not only personal disappointment. It is a spiritual concern.

When a church becomes accustomed to leadership without transparency, members without discernment, and decisions without clear accountability, blindness does not remain confined to one moment. It spreads. It shapes the spiritual atmosphere of the church. It teaches people to accept being led without learning how to discern whether they are being led well. It normalizes silence where biblical clarity should be present. And over time, many may no longer recognize the difference.

That may be one of the more sobering conditions a church can face — not immediate open error, but a slow comfort with unexamined direction.

Pastors should take that seriously. Members should too.

The burden of leadership is great because a shepherd’s influence is great. When a pastor lacks clarity or transparency, he does not affect himself alone; his decisions touch the consciences of many. But the burden of membership is also real. Sheep are not called to be cynical, but they are called to know the Shepherd’s voice. They are called to grow in discernment. They are called to test what they hear against the Word of God.

So, I write this not merely as a criticism of church leadership, but as a confession of grief and a call to wakefulness.

I am grieved when church leadership withholds the kind of transparency and accountability that should characterize Christian shepherding. I am grieved that members can be led in the wrong direction not always by open falsehood, but sometimes by limited explanation, spiritual pressure, or the quiet assumption that people should simply accept what they are told. But I am equally confronted by the truth that I, as a member, must not remain passive, careless, or biblically inattentive. I cannot claim to honor Christ while neglecting the responsibility to know His Word well enough to recognize when something is wrong.

That is where this reflection must finally land.

Not in disappointment alone. Not in criticism alone. But in a sober appeal to both shepherd and sheep.

To the pastor: your influence is not your own. The church is not yours to move according to private judgment alone. You are accountable to Christ, and the people you lead are not simply an audience for your decisions. They are souls entrusted to your care.

To the member: your responsibility before God does not end with attendance. You are commanded to study, to discern, to test, and to rightly divide the Word of truth. You cannot surrender that duty to any pastor, no matter how respected or persuasive he may be.

Spiritual blindness forms wherever leadership escapes biblical scrutiny and members abandon discernment.

Unless both are brought again under the authority of Scripture, the church will continue to suffer from silence, confusion, and unexamined direction.

That should sober us.

And it should drive us back to the Word of God.

Steven Thomas is a Christian writer living in Conyers, GA.