If I have done something wrong, or am doing something wrong, I am prepared to face the music. Its difficult to face the music when it always stops when you enter the room. Whisperings drive me over the edge. I prefer people with the integrity to come and tell you the deal, or at least tell the leadership.
Part of the attraction of reading and posting here is that nobody whispers!

Someone posted Brian Houston’s sermon in another thread recently about just turning up, and not answering people who accuse you of wrong-doing. He compares himself and the accusations the the newspapers are publishing, with Jesus and the false accusations levelled at Him. I have no doubt that Brian feels like the victim here, and he probably also feels that he is not answering the accusations - even though he is giving his version to an auditorium of 2000 people, publishing rebuttals on web-sites and printing stickers with slogans of rebuttal. At the same time he is sending a message to the congregation to just keep turning up and not worry about what people are saying.

BY ALL accounts, Dallas Terlich had led an exemplary life. Clergyman, youth worker, philanthropist, councillor and, in recent times, Deputy Mayor of Greater Shepparton — the list of his virtuous enterprises was long.

So it must have been quite a shock to colleagues, constituents and parishioners at the Apostolic Church where he is a minister when Cr Terlich found himself standing before a local magistrate this week charged with a crime of the times — stealing water — and facing pressure to stand down as deputy mayor.

It was in January this year when Cr Terlich, amid the worst drought on record, gave in to temptation and used irrigation water he wasn’t entitled to in order to save a field of dying plum trees on his property near Shepparton.

Cr Terlich, 40, a father of three, has admitted using a stick to stop a dethridge wheel, which acts as a meter measuring water use, and allowing water to flow.

He said he used the water to irrigate about 600 plum trees he had planted to harvest and sell, with proceeds to go towards an orphanage in Burma.

“When I was doing it I knew it was wrong, but I had no idea of the level that it would be viewed” he told The Age yesterday.

He made the comments after pleading guilty in Shepparton Magistrates Court this week to one count of unlawfully taking water and one count of interfering with works or property.

Magistrate Reg Marron ordered Cr Terlich to donate $500 to charity and pay $903.30 in water and administration costs to Goulburn-Murray Water. After being placed on a good behaviour bond for one year with no conviction, Cr Terlich said he expected locals to react angrily to his actions. He hoped they understood the temptation he felt after watching the trees dying.

Cr Terlich said he was not considering stepping down. “I don’t think I was elected because I’m infallible, I was elected because I’m somebody people believe would try and do the best that I can for the community,” he said.

“Obviously in this case I haven’t and I deeply regret that and I wish I hadn’t done it, but unfortunately I have and the best I can do now is to own up to it and say it was a stupid thing.”

Cr Terlich was one of 45 people nabbed stealing water during night and early morning patrols, according to Goulburn-Murray Water chief executive Russell Cooper. “It’s a small percentage of people who do this, but we have to have a zero tolerance approach to it, and we need to be very vigilant and do everything to prosecute in every case,” Mr Cooper said.

Municipal Association of Victoria president Dick Gross said under current laws, Cr Terlich was not barred from continuing in his role but this and other recent cases raised questions of councillor conduct.

Cr Gross called for an independent tribunal to be established to hear such matters.

Greater Shepparton Mayor Jenny Houlihan is standing by her deputy. “There is no doubt that he has made a serious mistake… that he regrets, but as far as I’m concerned as the mayor, he is certainly valued as a councillor and I support him to continue,” she said.

Power can exist in any gathering of people, even in a groovy bunch of post modernist ec’ers.

Courage and tenacity can be redemptive… they can make one stick at something until unhealthy power dynamics are dealt with… or diabolical… they can make one dig in and entrench power for utterly selfish ends.

Within Baptist and Church of Christ and Bretheren contexts, the lay leadership hold “employer power” over the minister… I imagine these would be quite stressful contexts for ministers to work in. In the Anglican and Uniting and Salvation Army contexts, head office has “employer power”… head office can move ministers as they see fit (within reason.) The Pentecostal churches are interesting… they don’t seem to have either hierachical control from head office nor employer power by a board of deacons or elders (happy to be corrected on that by anyone)… there seems to be greater deference to the leadership of the pastor. Each of these situations would have quite different dynamics I think.

I could fill a book with stories of crooked pastors, don’t think I’ve somehow got it in for ‘the other side’. I’ve had to arrive on the scene of two battlefields and try and make sense of what happend and what needs to happen. Thankfully, the majority are always keen to move on towards healing and restoration. The minority want to stay and take down as many with them. It these people I have learend to outwit, outlast and outplay.

Here’s an experience zulu might like to analyse. Different pastor, different church, different denomination. Pastor was accused of “inappropriately counselling” women over a number of years. I cant say for sure whether it was true, but most of the congregation believed it, it had contributed to marriages breaking up etc. etc.

Pastor used Survivor tactics and denied everything, outlasted and outwitted. Denomination supports Pastor. Matthew 18 dosent seem to be sufficient in these cases, some evidence has to be collected in private - what do you do when he still wont listen?

In the end the whole church self-destructed but very,very slowly. Denomination funds Pastor to start a new church down the road. Not that the basic problem touched me, but it was like arriving on an emotional battlefield, seeing all the casualties and trying to work out who fired the shots.

That said, I think I will stick to what I had said earlier and leave the discussion to others.

I’d be interested to hear more warren… I get the feeling there’s more to your story.

There’s a fair few people who’ve left churches on Signposts… it’s a pretty safe place to have a therapeutic whinge!