A battle recently unfolded in Colorado over HB 25-1312—a bill that would have defined a parent’s refusal to affirm their child’s transgender identity as “child abuse.” In its original form, the bill allows the state to remove children from homes where their parents didn’t support gender transitions.
Pastor Chase Davis responded with prophetic courage. He spoke directly and forcibly to lawmakers, calling them to repent and withdraw their support for the bill. “This is wickedness,” he said plainly, without softening his words to make them more acceptable. But he didn’t stop there. He further urged other pastors to take a stand, rallying Christians across the state to oppose the legislation. Together, their efforts worked. The bill was significantly amended, and its most dangerous provisions were removed.
During this crucial battle, Jeff Baxter, the Next Gen Pastor at Mission Hills Church, took a drastically different approach. While Davis confronted the legislation head-on, Baxter reserved his compassion for those advancing the bill. He spoke in gentle, understanding tones about the lawmakers promoting this devastating policy. He discouraged believers from vigorously opposing the legislation, writing (in a since deleted tweet): “Those laws you oppose are written by the lost.” His harshest warnings were directed not at those directly threatening parental rights but at Christians who dared to speak out against the threat. The implication was clear: opposing this bill might hurt our witness with unbelievers who support it.
Two pastors. Two very different responses to the same threat. One raised his voice in prophetic opposition to a dangerous policy. The other cautioned quiet from Christians to avoid creating any obstacles to the gospel. This contrast is not merely about tactical disagreement, but reveals something more fundamental about how pastors understand their calling.
A Voice to Gather and a Voice to Drive Away
To make sense of this divide, we need to revisit the biblical model of pastoral ministry that John Calvin clearly articulated centuries ago. Calvin recognized that faithful shepherds need two distinct voices to care for God’s people effectively. “The pastor,” he wrote, “needs one voice for gathering the sheep; and another for warding off and driving away wolves and thieves.”[1] Calvin wasn’t just drawing from personal experience. In scripture, Paul tells Titus that an elder must “hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it” (Titus 1:9).
1. John Calvin, 1, 2 Timothy and Titus, Crossway Classic Commentaries (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1998), 184.
The gathering voice draws believers toward biblical truth, nourishing them with sound doctrine and pastoral care. It’s gentle, patient, and nurturing—designed to feed the flock and strengthen their faith. This voice teaches the whole counsel of God, builds up the congregation in spiritual maturity, and welcomes sinners to repentance and reconciliation with God. Without this voice, a congregation starves spiritually, lacking the nourishment needed for growth in Christ.
The warning voice serves a different but equally vital function. It sounds the alarm against false teaching, identifies dangers to the flock, and stands prophetically against cultural evils that threaten God’s people. This voice isn’t harsh for harshness’ sake, but clear and courageous when clarity and courage are needed. Paul demonstrated this voice when confronting error in the churches, as did the prophets when calling out injustice and idolatry. Without this voice, wolves enter the fold unchallenged, and the congregation has no protection against harmful influences.
Both voices are essential. Both flow from love for God, for truth, and for the people entrusted to the shepherd’s care. A pastor who only gathers without warning leaves his flock defenseless. A pastor who only warns without gathering creates a harsh, graceless environment. Biblical shepherding requires both.
When the Wolves Are Welcomed and the Sheep Are Constrained
But across the evangelical landscape today, we’re witnessing a fatal inversion of these crucial pastoral voices. The gathering voice, meant to draw listeners to understand and apply biblical truth to their lives, is now deployed to welcome those who undermine that truth. Meanwhile, the warning voice, designed to protect the congregation from harmful teaching and sound the prophetic alarm against cultural evils, gets turned against faithful Christians who question this arrangement.
At the heart of this inversion lies an idol that has captured much of evangelical ministry: the idol of evangelism. When reaching the lost becomes not just a priority but the ultimate purpose that supersedes all other biblical mandates, pastors begin filtering every decision through the lens of perceived evangelistic effectiveness. Suddenly, clear biblical teaching that might offend the culture becomes an “obstacle to evangelism,” while accommodating unbiblical ideas becomes “building bridges for the gospel.”
The second Colorado pastor’s response reveals the problem. Baxter didn’t use his warning voice to confront policies that threaten Christian families. Instead, he turned it on fellow believers sounding the alarm. He softened his tone for those pushing harmful legislation but ironically showed no such grace to the parents trying to protect their kids. His gathering voice was aimed at those promoting the wicked legislation, while his rebuke fell on those resisting it.
Just days before discouraging opposition to HB 25-1312, Baxter tweeted, “The purpose of the church is evangelism.” That belief helps explain his posture. If evangelism overrides every other aspect of ministry, anything that causes friction with the culture, including resisting dangerous legislation, gets treated as a threat to the mission. Those promoting the bill aren’t seen as advancing evil, but simply as “the lost” to be won over through winsome softness and accommodation.
The consequences of this inversion are severe. Christians receive no guidance for navigating genuine threats to their families and faith. Pastors refuse to address dangers, or worse, discourage opposition to them, leaving their people defenseless when they need leadership most. Believers never taught to count the cost of discipleship crumble when faithfulness carries real consequences.
The great irony is that by making evangelism the church’s ultimate purpose, we end up sacrificing our witness. Our desperate efforts to remain credible to the culture lead us to silence the very truths that make Christianity distinct and compelling. The world isn’t drawn to a Christianity that merely echoes its own values. It’s drawn to the distinctiveness of a church that speaks truth with clarity and compassion and stands firm on biblical convictions even when culturally unpopular.
Conclusion
Charles Spurgeon observed, “The more the Church is distinct from the world in her acts and in her maxims, the more true is her testimony for Christ, and the more potent is her witness against sin.”[2] But when pastors invert their voices, they blur that distinctiveness. The result is a church that no longer sounds like a prophetic witness, but an anxious echo. Churches that center everything around evangelism often end up unhitching the Old Testament, whispering about sexual sin, and shaping their message to avoid offense. They produce Christians who are spiritually malnourished—too weak to withstand cultural pressure, too unsure to stand apart. Over time, these believers come to resemble the world more than Christ.
2. Charles Spurgeon, “Separating the Precious from the Vile” (sermon, Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, Sermon no. 305, March 25, 1860).
This is precisely why Calvin’s vision of two pastoral voices remains vital. Pastors today would do well to examine their ministry in light of these two voices. Have they cultivated both the gathering voice that nurtures the flock and the warning voice that protects them from harm? Are they using these voices as God intended—comfort for the broken, challenge for the complacent, welcome for the repentant, and warning for those who would lead the flock astray or advance wickedness in the culture? The health of their congregations depends on it.
When pastors commit to the correct use of these two voices, the church will be both salt and light in our post-Christian culture. Shepherds who speak with clarity and conviction, who nurture without compromise and warn without fear, serve as God’s instruments for protecting the flock and transforming the world around them. In our moment of cultural crisis, the church urgently needs pastors who will use both voices faithfully, refusing to twist the role God has entrusted to them.
