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Tag: John Sytsma

My Response to Tim Conway, Pastor of Grace Community Church in San Antonio, Texas

liar liar pants on fire

Almost thirty years ago, I resigned from a church I had been pastoring in Mt. Perry, Ohio for eleven years, and accepted the co-pastor role at Community Baptist Church in Elemendorf, Texas. A man named Pat Horner — a former Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) who started the church — would be my fellow pastor.

I first “met” Pat in late 1992. He was receiving a newsletter I published, The Sovereign Grace Reporter. He had also listened to tapes of my sermons that Somerset Baptist Church made available through the mail via the CHARIS Tape Library. In early 1993, Pat extended an invitation to me to preach at Community’s annual Bible conference. I accepted, and in March 1993, Polly (who was seven months pregnant) and I, along with our five children, piled in a rented Chrysler automobile and drove 1,400 miles to Elmendorf, Texas. I preached several times during the conference, and all in all, we had a delightful time.

Jose Maldonado Bruce Gerencser Pat Horner 1994
Jose Maldonado. Bruce Gerencser, Pat Horner, Somerset Baptist Church

In the fall of 1993, Pat Horner and his family and Jose Maldonado — the pastor of Hillburn Drive Grace Baptist Church in San Antonio — and his family drove to Ohio to speak at our Bible conference. Again, we had a delightful time. Weeks later, Horner called me and asked if I would be interested in moving to Elmendorf to become Community’s co-pastor. He was looking for someone to jumpstart the church’s evangelism efforts and start a grades K-12 Christian school. I was well suited for both tasks. I told Horner I would pray on the matter and get back to him. A week or so later, I called Horner and turned down his offer, saying God still had work for me to do in Mt. Perry. Keep in mind, Horner had already talked to the church about me becoming their pastor.

A week or so after that, after a deeply emotional experience in my study that I attributed to the Holy Spirit, I called Horner and asked if he was still interested in me becoming Community’s co-pastor. He said yes.

In early 1994, Polly — who recently had a baby — and our three youngest children, traveled once again to San Antonio to preach and meet with the congregation on two successive nights at John Sytsma’s home. Sytsma was one of the church’s elders. Once again, we had a delightful time. I answered lots of questions, ate lots of Mexican food, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Polly would say the same, if asked.

Horner later called me and said the church voted unanimously to call me as their co-pastor. I accepted their call, and in late February of 1994, we packed up our meager belongings and moved to Elmendorf — a small non-descript rural community outside of San Antonio.

I looked forward to becoming the church’s co-pastor. The church bought us a brand-new mobile home to live in and paid me a living wage. No benefits, no insurance, but roughly $26,000 a year — twice as much as the church in Mt. Perry was paying me.

I hit the ground running. During the seven months I was co-pastor of the church, I started a street preaching ministry, a nursing home ministry, a visitation ministry, started a Christian school with fifty-five students, and started two churches, one in Stockdale and another in Floresville. While I certainly had help, I was the primary engine that drove these ministries. The fact that many of them ceased to exist after I left speaks volumes about who was the prime mover behind them.

tim conway
Tim Conway, preaching at nursing home. Conway is now pastor of Grace Community Church in San Antonio.

One young man in the church was a man named Tim Conway. Conway had recently moved to San Antonio from Michigan. He married a woman in the church named Ruby. Conway later left Community Baptist and started Grace Community Church in San Antonio. Conway, who has no formal theological training, is a hardcore Fundamentalist; a Calvinist through and through.

I had numerous conversations with Conway. He would often join group discussions I had with the men in the back of the church after Sunday evening services. I typically preached on Sunday nights, so these discussions were an opportunity for me to interact with the men about the content of my sermons and any other theological question they might have. Horner was not interested in interacting with congregants as I was, rarely joining such discussions. In fact, Horner rarely interacted with anyone outside of the services. I visited church members in their homes, hoping to get to know them better. I had always done this in every church I pastored. I also stopped by local hospitals to pray with members before having surgery and visited with them afterward as they recovered. Again, this was my custom, as a winsome, friendly, down-to-earth preacher — a people person. Horner was none of these things. He and I had very different personalities. I made a grave mistake when I either ignored these differences or wrote them off as “different strokes, for different folks.”

Our personalities crashed from the get-go. Horner could be temperamental, and, at times, a bully. I could be temperamental too. At first, I ignored or quietly suffered his ill-behavior, but over time, I began to push back. It was not long before I came home and told Polly that we had made a huge mistake coming to Texas.

I decided that my best option was to leave Community and pastor one of the churches I started. At this point, I didn’t want to move back to Ohio. Instead, the proverbial shit hit the fan. Horner and I met with fellow elder John Sytsma to try to hash out our difference, without success. That meeting ended with me throwing Horner out of my office.

The next day, Horner held a secret meeting at John Sytsma’s home to discuss what he was going to do with me. I found out about the meeting and crashed it. Things quickly turned ugly. Horner told me that I was no longer qualified to be a pastor; that I had to return to Community and sit. Voices were raised, accusations were made, and I finally decided I was done. I said to Horner and other men, “I resign.” Horner replied, “you can’t resign.” My last words to him were “watch me.” And with that, I left the meeting, returned to our mobile home, and told Polly that we were moving back to Ohio. Two days later, as we drove out the church drive for the last time, Horner had called a meeting to deal with the “Bruce Gerencser problem.” The church excommunicated me.

I did not attend the meeting because there was no need to do so. I had already resigned, and I had no interest in butting heads one more time with Horner. After we left, Horner did his best to smear my name, even going so far as to say that congregants in the next church I pastored were all unsaved. His gossip made its way to me through other preachers, much like an angry ex-wife’s words about her former husband.

In 2010, Tim Conway preached a sermon titled, Wolves and a Snake. This sermon was published on June 3, 2023 on YouTube.

Video link

Conway mentioned me two times in his sermon, first at the 14:11 mark, and then at the 42:19 mark.

Here’s what he had to say:

This is exactly the kind of situation that happened down at Community Baptist Church. When Craig and I were down there, a man came in from outside the church — and way too fast. He was made a co-pastor in the church. Made a co-pastor, it was back in the mid-90s. And you know what? He would do and say basically what Absolom said. If he found one of the brethren with a grievance against the pastor of the church, he would say, “you are good and right.” Just like Absolom. Kinda like, “Oh that I were a judge in the land, I’d take care of this thing. You’re right to find fault. You are right, there’s an issue.” He would basically take people’s gripes and people’s grievances against the other pastor, and he would give ear to it. Not only would he give ear to it, he’d fan the fire. Folks, I’ll tell you what eventually happened. God’s man rose up eventually and said, “these charges that are being leveled against me out there in secret,” — and that’s where the wolf operates. In secret. Now sometimes when they get enough of a following, they will come public because they believe, like Absolom did — did he not? Once he had a big enough following, what does he do? He comes public and he drives David out. But typically, they start out in kind of subtle fashion. As soon as Pat called this guy to the floor, “if you got charges against me level them publicly,” the man didn’t even come to the meeting, and he left the church. And that’s basically the conduct of a wolf.

….

Listen, you know what this tells you? And I can remember this when this man came into Community Baptist Church. I’ll tell you this. Pat Horner was God’s man. But Pat has some rough edges. And what happens is, the smooth guy comes in and he hits those rough edges. and what happens is, when the guy, the true God-called man, with his rough edges, comes to confront Mr. Gentleman, guess what it looks like to people. He’s just being a hard guy. He’s beating up on Mr. Nice Guy. And you see that can even go to swelling that following. Let me tell you this, when the wolf comes, and you have to confront him, you are generally going to get bit when you do it. Because you’re going to come across as the bad guy. Because this person has got a following. They’re nice, they’re smooth, they pull people after them. Brethren, be aware, be aware. Watch out for them Learn to spot them. How do you spot them? Well, folks, they divide. How are they divisive? Typically, when you are alone with them, there in your house, you are in their house, you are somewhere off, walking with them, you’re wherever. Even out in the parking lot. They are like Absolom. They question things. They don’t outright attack many times. But they will question things.

Let me be clear, Conway is a liar. There’s not one ounce of truth to his claims, outside of him saying I was Mr. Gentleman and Mr. Nice Guy. I will even cop to being a smooth guy. I took my job seriously. If my sermons came off as well-crafted and smooth, that was on purpose. Is it my fault that some members were more attracted to me and my sermons? I suspect Horner was jealous over the favor I had with some members, especially younger congregants. I did nothing to court this other than be myself.

Conway voted to call me as co-pastor, as did every other member. Why didn’t any of them, including Horner and John Sytsma, discern that I was, as Conway says later in his sermon a dog, false Christ, false apostle, false prophet, false teacher, deceiver and antichrist, enemy of the cross, demonic, a man who led people to hell and destruction, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, driven by my lust? Sure must of been a bunch of weak, shallow-minded, carnal people if they couldn’t discern that Satan was in their midst. Either that or Conway is lying.

Conway accuses me of trying to get people to follow me. Again, this is absolutely untrue. My goal was to extricate myself from a very bad situation, akin to being married to the wrong person and trying to divorce him. I wasn’t interested in causing harm to the church, nor Horner, for that matter. I just wanted to get the hell out of Dodge.

tim and ruby conway
Ruby and Tim Conway, Stockdale Baptist Church

Conway conveniently forgets that I met with him and his wife at their apartment two days before we moved back to Ohio. I made it clear to Conway that I had no interest in splitting the church (which I could have easily done); that I had never been part of a church split, and that I didn’t plan to do so now. Conway asked me to reconsider leaving, saying that if I stayed and started a new church in San Antonio, he would go with me. So much for me trying to draw people away.

Conway owes me a public apology. Of course, none will be forthcoming. Conway’s metaphorical car doesn’t have reverse gear. He is a hardcore Fundamentalist, a Calvinistic version of a garden-variety IFB preacher. Why he has a pathological need to periodically mention me in his sermons I do not know.

In November 2015, Conway preached a sermon titled The Futility of the Mind. In the sermon, Conway said:

Futile, vain, empty, pointless, to no avail. And right here in Ephesians chapter 4, futility of mind is the characterization of the Gentiles. That’s how you are no longer to be. Christian, we are to put away futility. No longer. You must no longer. Futility of mind is a picture of people using their mind in ways that are just a waste of time. They are a waste of effort. You want some examples? Brethren, I know this about all of us. We all want to be happy. That is what mankind is striving after. Mankind wants to feel good, and mankind strives after that. You want an example of futility of mind? Futility of mind is man who is forever and always trying to figure out how to be happy while he is an enemy of God. That, folks, is futility. That is vain. That is worthless.

….

Or how about this: The futility that people walking around just spending their time; I was thinking about, some of you know about Bruce Gerencser, who was one of the co-elders down at Community Baptist Church when Ruby and I were down there, who apostatized and basically became an Atheist. What futility to spend your life trying to convince yourself there is no God. You see, these are the futile ways or futility that comes to nothing. Nothing at all.

In the same year that Conway first preached his Wolves and a Snake sermon, his buddy Jose Maldonado preached a four-part sermon series about me.

Here’s a short audio clip from one of the sermons:

If you have the stomach for it, you can listen to the Apostasy and Its Awful Consequences! (also titled “Why Bruce Gerencser Was NEVER, EVER a Christian!) series on Sermon Audio.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

If you would like to read the sermons and not listen to them, here are PDF transcriptions of the sermons.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Please see Gone but Not Forgotten: Years Later San Antonio Calvinists Still Preaching Against Bruce Gerencser

I have written extensively about my tenure as co-pastor of Community Baptist Church. If you want a complete explanation of what happened in Elemendorf, please read the following series, I am a Publican and a Heathen:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

To Tim Conway I say, I may be a [hot] dog, false Christ, false apostle, false prophet, false teacher, deceiver and antichrist, an enemy of the cross, demonic, leading people to hell and destruction, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, driven by my lust, but one thing I am not: a liar. I will await your retraction, and if not received, I will conclude that you are not a true Christian. Just remember, Tim, all liars shall have their part in the Lake of Fire. You can disagree with my atheism all you want, but you don’t get to smear my good name and attack my character without being called into account.

Do better, Tim, do better. And for the love of Loki, find some sermon illustrations that aren’t thirty years old. 🙂

Postscript:

I left a comment on Conway’s video, providing a link to this post. It was immediately deleted. 🙂 Makes one wonder what they are trying to hide. Maybe you will have better luck leaving a comment.

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

The “Futility” of Bruce Gerencser’s Mind

tim conway

Tim Conway is the pastor of Grace Community Church in San Antonio, Texas. In 1994, I became the co-pastor of Community Baptist Church in Elmendorf, Texas. Tim, along with two current elders at Grace Community, Craig Mussulman and John Sytsma, were members of Community Baptist while I was there. (Please see I Am a Publican and Heathen — Part One.) I spent countless hours with these men as their pastor and friend.

In November 2015, Conway preached a sermon titled The Futility of the Mind.

Conway stated:

Futile, vain, empty, pointless, to no avail. And right here in Ephesians chapter 4, futility of mind is the characterization of the Gentiles. That’s how you are no longer to be. Christian, we are to put away futility. No longer. You must no longer. Futility of mind is a picture of people using their mind in ways that are just a waste of time. They are a waste of effort. You want some examples? Brethren, I know this about all of us. We all want to be happy. That is what mankind is striving after. Mankind wants to feel good, and mankind strives after that. You want an example of futility of mind? Futility of mind is man who is forever and always trying to figure out how to be happy while he is an enemy of God. That, folks, is futility. That is vain. That is worthless.

….

Or how about this: The futility that people walking around just spending their time; I was thinking about, some of you know about Bruce Gerencser, who was one of the co-elders down at Community Baptist Church when Ruby and I were down there, who apostatized and basically became an Atheist. What futility to spend your life trying to convince yourself there is no God. You see, these are the futile ways or futility that comes to nothing. Nothing at all.

Twenty years after I left church and six years after I deconverted, I was still on Conway’s mind. Talk about futility. 🙂

Video Link

The relevant video starts at 25:39.

Whatever the reasons, my story remains a burr in the saddle of Conway and others who once considered me their colleague, pastor, or friend. Numerous prayers have been uttered on my behalf, yet God has not seen fit to save or kill me. I remain a red-flashing-light reminder of the fact that pastors — men who once preached the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ — can and do apostatize. And if men of God can lose their faith, well, anyone can.

(Please see Gone but Not Forgotten: Years Later San Antonio Calvinists Still Preaching Against Bruce Gerencser.)

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Connect with me on social media:

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

I am a Publican and a Heathen — Part Three

Jose Maldonado Bruce Gerencser Pat Horner
Pastors Joe Maldonado, Bruce Gerencser, and Pat Horner, Somerset Baptist Church, Fall of 1993

Pat Horner and I had a common theology: Calvinism. Sovereign Grace Baptist Calvinism, to be exact. Outside of that, we were very different from one another. From the way we preached to how we interacted with parishioners, we were as different as night and day. I thought it was important for me to get to know each family in the church, so I did a lot of in-home visiting. When someone was in the hospital, I would visit them. When someone had a family member die, I would attend the funeral. Pat did none of these things. He was much more standoffish than I was. This is not a criticism of him as much as it is an example of how different our personalities were.

This difference began to be a problem when parishioners started to favor me over Pat. After services, I would talk theology with the men of the church, and they found me easy to talk to. It wasn’t long before Pat began to criticize me for being too familiar with parishioners. He told me that it was important to maintain a space between pastor and parishioner. I was told the same thing in college: the pastor can’t be friends with anyone in the church because it will hinder his ability to minister.

Both Pat and I preached expositionally — preaching verse-by-verse, in context — but our styles were very different. I tended to be more human, earthy, and at times humorous in my preaching. Pat tended to be more dogmatic and rarely used illustrations. To him, it was all about doctrine. While I thought doctrine was important, I knew that it was also imperative for me to make a human connection with parishioners. More than once, Pat criticized my preaching for being too light or not doctrinal enough. Again, I suspect this had to do with the fact that, personality-wise, we were very different from one another. I am trying to be charitable to Pat, though I doubt he would grant me the same.

bruce preaching at stockdale
Bruce Gerencser, preaching at Community Baptist Church, Stockdale, Texas, 1994

After a few months, I gathered up a few willing church members and we started new Sovereign Grace Baptist churches in Floresville and Stockdale. Every Sunday morning, we would hold a service at Floresville and then drive 20 miles to Stockdale and hold another service. We would then eat lunch together, then hold an evening service at the Floresville church. During the week, I would take groups from Community down to Floresville and Stockdale, knock on doors, evangelize, and invite people to church. While we worked hard to get the churches established, neither church did well attendance-wise.

If you have been reading this series you can likely intuit that starting these churches and spending Sundays away from Community allowed me to distance myself from Horner.

I also started a street preaching ministry and a nursing home ministry. Being a workaholic, I was busy, and I loved it. Later in the summer of 1994, I helped the church start a Christian school. There were fifty children in the school the first year. Many of the church families homeschooled before the school was started.  Several teachers were hired, along with a school principal. Once the school was up and running, I had little to do with it.

community baptist church new building
Community Baptist Church, Elmendorf, Texas, 1994

During this time, Community built a new 10,000-square-foot building. Horner had a construction background, so he was well suited for overseeing the project. A group of Calvinistic Southern Baptist church builders from Louisiana came in and helped frame, roof, and side the building. A group of undocumented immigrants poured the concrete slab, and various men in the church took care of the plumbing, electric, and HVAC.

The busy-ness of planting churches, starting a school, and building a new building helped me distance myself from the increasing conflict between Horner and me. It seemed like every time we got together there was conflict, and we bickered like two old married people. Neither of us was a shining example of temperance, deference, or respect. In the fall of 1994, I realized that things were not going to work out for me at Community, so I talked to Horner and the elders about it. Things quickly went south — like Mexico-City-south — and it became evident to me that Horner and I were headed for a messy divorce.

I told Horner that we needed to sit down and talk. I asked John Sytsma, one of the elders, to join the meeting. John did his best to bring peace, but it was not to be. We got into an angry shouting match, and I finally told Pat to leave my office. The next day, Pat gathered the elders together at John Sytsma’s home and had a secret meeting where I was the topic of discussion. I found out about the meeting and decided to show up. I was still co-pastor of the church, and I should have been included in the meeting.

During the meeting, Horner and I exchanged angry words and he told me that I had to stop pastoring the churches in Floresville and Stockdale and come and sit in the services at Community for a while. He told me that I was not fit to be a pastor. I suggested that I was willing to leave the church and pastor one of the new churches I had started, but Horner would have none of it. Finally, when it became apparent Horner had his mind made up, I said, Fine, I resign. Horner replied, You can’t resign without our permission. My last words to him were this:  Really? Watch me. A few days later, Polly and I packed everything up in a U-Haul truck and we moved back to Ohio. As we were driving down the lane from our home, the church was holding a special meeting to deal with the “Bruce Gerencser problem.”  Of course, Horner was the moderator of the meeting.

Several church families begged us to stay. Tim Conway had me come over to his home to talk about the matter. Conway suggested that I stay and start a new church; that several families would be willing to leave Community with me and start a new work. While I was flattered by Conway’s offer, I told him that I could not be part of anything that caused a church split.

Shortly before I left, John Sytsma came to me and suggested that perhaps Horner should be the one to go. But, again, I didn’t want to do anything that caused further harm to the church. Weeks later, all those that were in my corner when we moved went over to Horner’s side. Imagine what would have happened to my family and me had we stayed. I knew that nothing I said or did would make a difference. As the old gambler said, You’ve got to know when to hold em, and know when to fold em. It was definitely time for me to fold my hand.

I am often asked, What happened? I think what happened was that two strong-willed men with very different personalities wanted to own the same piece of real estate. Since we both were quick-tempered, conflict came easily. I regret the conflict, but my time as co-pastor of Community Baptist Church taught me a lot about myself, and I left Texas a very different man. For the first time, I saw what I had become, and I didn’t like what I saw. It was at this point that my Fundamentalism began to die. It was a slow death, but this was the moment when I began to see what Fundamentalism had done to me, and I knew that I needed to change. Unfortunately, Horner is still a Fundamentalist Calvinistic Baptist. In 1998, Horner left Community, started several churches, and last I heard he was working a secular job and doing mission work in (Nepal?) India. Speaking of Horner (and John Sytsma), Lynn Tagawa, editor of A Stone of Remembrance: The 35th Anniversary of Community Baptist Church (2018), states:

During this time [2003-2008] the church experienced the great loss of Pat Horner and John Sytsma from its membership, along with the long time responsibility of overseeing their missionary endeavors.

Why they left is not mentioned. Sytsma is currently an elder at Tim Conway’s church — Grace Community Church in San Antonio.

In my next post in this series, I want to write about how the church dealt with the “Bruce Gerencser problem.”  I also want to write about the vicious discipline the church (Pat Horner) used to manipulate and control parishioners.

Part OnePart TwoPart ThreePart FourPart Five

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Connect with me on social media:

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

I am a Publican and a Heathen — Part Two

Jose Maldonado Bruce Gerencser Pat Horner
Pastors Joe Maldonado, Bruce Gerencser, and Pat Horner, Somerset Baptist Church, Fall of 1993

Our family arrived in Elmendorf, Texas the first week of March, 1994. I had resigned from Somerset Baptist Church in Mt. Perry, Ohio, and after closing down the church and Christian school, I packed up my family and moved us to Elmendorf so I could become co-pastor of Community Baptist Church.

Community Baptist Church was a Sovereign Grace (Calvinistic) Independent Baptist church started in the 1980s by Pat Horner. The church worshiped at a ramshackle former Southern Baptist church building on Labus Road outside of Elmendorf. The church property included several acres of land that housed a double-wide mobile home in which Pat Horner and his family lived, an old mobile home where Joe Buitron, the groundskeeper/handyman, and his family lived, and a brand-new 14×70 mobile home the church purchased for my family.

This enclave of mobile homes was called The Compound. Each mobile home was close enough to the other two that the occupants could easily see what was going on at each mobile home. When we moved to Texas, we did not watch TV. I remember how judgmental I felt when I saw the glare of a TV in the bedroom window of Pat Horner’s home, late on almost every Saturday night. I thought then, why is he watching TV? Shouldn’t he be praying and preparing for the Lord’s Day as I am?

tim conway
Tim Conway, preaching at a nursing home. Conway is now pastor of Grace Community Church in San Antonio.

The church was quite welcoming, and we were excited to be there. Community Baptist was a vibrant congregation, filled with young adults and their children. There was an air of excitement in the church, a hunger for the preaching and teaching of God’s Word. I spent many a Sunday evening after service talking theology with the men of the church. They had questions, and I was delighted to dispense to them what knowledge I had about the Calvinistic interpretation of the Bible.

There was quite a bit of movement in and out of the church membership. Not long before I became co-pastor of the church, two men from Kalamazoo, Michigan moved to Elmendorf so they could be part of the church. Their names were Craig Mussulman and Tim Conway. Conway is now the Calvinistic Fundamentalist pastor of Grace Community Church in San Antonio, Texas. Mussulman is an elder at Grace Community.

larry linda johnson
Larry and Linda Johnson, a couple from Ohio that moved to Texas when we did. They still live there.

When we moved to Elmendorf, a family from Ohio moved with us. Larry and Linda Johnson were members of Somerset Baptist Church, and when we decided to move, they packed up their belongings and moved to Elmendorf a week or so later. Larry and Linda had three children and Larry was a heating and air conditioning contractor.

The Gerencsers’ first act as co-pastor and family was to officially join the Community Baptist Church. Community had strict membership requirements. The church’s Covenant had this to say about church membership:

. . . In recognizing the church’s authority to receive me into, and dismiss me from, its membership, I purpose when seeking to remove myself from her membership to seek the counsel, the approval, and the blessing of the church in seeking to join myself to another church of like faith and practice . . .

. . . If, however, the church does not agree with my reasons for leaving, I recognize that the church may release me from its membership disagreeing with me and expressing their displeasure of my actions but, at the same time, allowing me the liberty of conscience to leave . . .

. . . Finally, in the event of sin on my part with regard to any biblical matter, I recognize the church’s biblical right to take disciplinary action toward me, which seeks my restoration . . .

As I would later learn, church members were routinely disciplined for violating membership requirements.

One requirement stood out above all others. Since people had to have the church’s permission to join the church, according to Horner and church elders, they also had to have the church’s permission to leave. Members could not just leave and go somewhere else. If they did not ask for the church’s permission to leave, Horner would call a meeting and discipline the errant church member. I would suffer this same fate when I resigned and moved back to Ohio.

A week or so after we joined the church, the Johnson family arrived in Elmendorf, and as we did, they joined the church. However, before the Johnsons joined the church, Horner and I had our first conflict. Before potential members could join the church, they had to meet with Horner so he could grill them about their salvation experience and what they believed. Larry Johnson met with Horner, and afterward Horner came to me and said he doubted Larry was a “real” Christian. The reason? Larry talked too much about God and not enough about Jesus.

I was able to convince Horner that Larry was a “real” Christian and he permitted the Johnsons to join the church. I was quite sad when the Johnson family, convinced by Horner that I was a bad man filled with pride, later turned against me.

Every year, in March, Community Baptist Church held a week-long Bible conference. I preached several times during the 1993 conference and I was scheduled to preach several times during the 1994 conference.

The conferences were housed in a large tent that held several hundred people. Calvinistic Baptist pastors from around the state of Texas would come to the Bible conference, and pastors from as far away as Ohio and Louisiana would preach. The women of the church would provide meals each day for everyone in attendance. The food, music, and preaching were outstanding.

The 1994 conference took place a week or so after we moved to Elmendorf. After we settled into our new mobile home, I began helping with conference preparations. Along with John Sytsma, a wealthy owner of a nearby ostrich farm, I set up the sound system for the conference. Our “work” would fuel the second conflict I had with Pat Horner.

On the first morning of the conference, the sound kept cutting in and out. John and I could not figure out why this was happening. During lunch, Horner angrily lit into me about the sound problem, and he let me know that I better get it fixed. I had never seen the angry side of Horner before, but I would see a lot more of it before I left the church. Horner must have realized that his angry display was inappropriate because he came to me later in the day and apologized. This would be the first and last time Horner apologized to me for anything. John Sytsma later left the church and is now an elder at Tim Conway’s congregation, Grace Community Church in San Antonio.

Over the next seven months, Pat Horner and I would have skirmishes that became increasingly combative and angry. I do not blame Horner for this. Each of us was temperamental and we both had aggressive type-A personalities. We were both in charge of the same real estate, and this led to frequent conflict. Sometimes, I would win these battles, but most of the time Horner was the victor.

We argued about everything from my dog getting under the church and chewing the phone line to whether or not it was okay to shoot the neighbor’s feral pig. Horner threatened to shoot my dog if it ever did any like that again, and he wanted to shoot the pig, but I was able to convince him that it was wrong to do so.

We argued over the church budget and the church bulletin. I was of the opinion that the church needed to know everything about its finances. Horner took the position, How much do they need to know? I won this battle, and the congregation was provided with a complete statement of income and expenses every month. This exposed the slush fund Horner had used for years to give money to preachers and families in the church. I am in no way suggesting he was dishonest. Our disagreement was over whether the church should know about the fund.

Since I was quite proficient when it came to computers and desktop publishing, I took on the responsibility of the church bulletin. Horner was a micro-manager, and he refused to let me print the bulletin until he reviewed it first. Every week, I would get the bulletin back with things circled he felt needed to be corrected. His micromanaging quickly got under my skin, even though, in retrospect, some of his corrections were justified,

Our conflict over the bulletin turned into open warfare, and it took an English major in the church to settle it. Horner was a Texan and I hailed from the rural Midwest. Our speech and writing patterns were very different from each other. Let me give you an example: I would say “the barn needs to be painted.” Horner would object and say, no, “the barn needs painting.” We frequently butted heads over things such as this. Finally, Rhonda Galaviz, wife of Mexican missionary Andres Galaviz, told Horner and me that my usage was technically correct and it was considered a colloquialism from the Midwest. While this settled the proper English debate, Horner would continue to have a problem with the way I did the bulletin. Not long after that incident, I gave the bulletin job to someone else.

joe buitron
Joe Buitron

Joe Buitron and his family lived on The Compound directly across the gravel road from our mobile home. Joe took care of the grounds and fixed whatever needed fixing. He was a jack-of-all-trades. There was nothing Joe couldn’t fix or repair. Joe worked long hours, especially when we began building a new church facility. The church paid him $200 a week and allowed him and his family to live in a small mobile home on church property. Joe was grossly underpaid, and making ends meet was a constant struggle. I finally brought his financial struggles to Horner and the elders, and after a bit of shaming, they gave Joe a pay raise.

The Buitrons were in need of a washer (and maybe a dryer). This need was brought before the church so they could “pray” about it. The praying went on for weeks, yet God had not yet directed the church to buy this hardworking family of six a washer. Finally, I had enough of all the praying, and I bought a washer for the Buitrons. I never understood the whole praying thing when it was in my power or the church’s power to take care of a need. To this day, I wonder if some church members thought I played “God.”

In my next post in this series, I will discuss how my conflicts with Horner came to a head, and why left Community Baptist Church.

Part OnePart TwoPart ThreePart FourPart Five

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Bruce Gerencser