Mac's Son Trey Tweets: "Church Planted by Bitter Pastor Will Lead People to Bitterness"

Like father, like son.

Yesterday we saw how Mac Brunson tweeted a bible verse to insinuate that Jim Smyrl has betrayed Brunson in leaving FBC Jax, that Smyrl has "raised his heel" against Brunson to start a church plant in Jacksonville.

Now we see that on the same day, Brunson's son, Trey Brunson, who is the Director of Special Projects (or something like that), took a few cheap shots at Smyrl via Twitter:


Yep, Smyrl is bitter. And Trey gives a warning to those of you who dare to follow Smyrl to his new church, you'll become bitter as well.

How ironic. Who is the bitter one? Is it Smyrl, who has decided to move on and start a new church plant, or Smyrl's old boss and his son who are posting on social media attacking the motives and the heart of a guy starting a new church plant in Jacksonville?

I don't see Smyrl posting tweets about Mac or Trey or John Blount or anything First Baptist Church. He is moving on. But the Brunsons have to get their shots in at Smyrl and warn those who follow him that they, like Smyrl, will become bitter.

Then Trey posted this one, invoking the name of our Florida Baptist Convention Executive Director, Dr. John Sullivan:


Yes, as the son of Mac Brunson, you get very connected, you get to speak to Dr. John Sullivan and learn valuable ministry lessons. Then, you can tweet about them to call a fellow minister "bitter", "jealous", and even "lazy".

Again, it is painfully obvious who the bitter ones are. Based on Mac's and Trey's tweets, it is the Brunsons, not Jim Smyrl.

We're still waiting for A.C. Soud to chime in, perhaps to call Smyrl a "coward". That is what they do at FBC Jax to those who cross the hot shots at FBC Jax: publicly call them bitter, jealous, angry. And lazy. Perhaps John Blount will call for a deacon's meeting and propose a resolution condemning those who do what Smyrl did. Then they can get the church to stand and vote on it after Soud reads it from the image screens. But the Wed crowds are so small they could hardly have a quorum.

Trey did delete the above tweets from his Twitter account, but as anybody knows, once you tweet something it is viewable forever to those who follow Twitter accounts via Google Reader.

So why do I bother posting these? I want Christians who follow these so called mega church "men of God" and their families to realize they can be as mean and ugly and spiteful - or more so - as anybody else in the church. They are not priests, prophets, or "men of God". They are men who guard their turf and their wealth and who are not afraid to use their power to unleash it and bring harm on those that cross them. Brunson did it to me in the newspaper calling me terrible names. He did it to Dr. Sheri Klouda mischaracterizing her deposition testimony in her lawsuit against Paige Patterson. And now against Smyrl. He has done it to FBC Jax as a whole, saying he never got a honeymoon when he came to FBC Jax.

And now we see even family members of the "men of God" will take cheap shots. My wife and I saw it right in our faces during Deb Brunson's deposition in the JSO lawsuit - the hatred and vitriol she had toward me was unlike anything I had ever experienced. Too bad, Smyrl's kids have to read that their former pastor and his son are using social media to take cheap shots at their dad. Surely Blount won't go to the JSO and accuse Smyrl's wife of church misconduct to get a trespass warning, will he?

And I'm sure Smyrl knows: if they're saying this on Twitter, you can only imagine what they are whispering in the ears of the deacons and their wives.

And lastly, I have to say that Trey inferring in his Tweet that Dr. Jim Smyrl is "lazy" is just plain laughable. Smyrl is a graduate of Clemson [correction, not a graduate of Clemson], and has a Ph.D. from an accredited seminary. Smyrl has started a ministry developing bible curriculum to teach lay people to teach the bible, and has preached all over the world, and now has the audacity to start a church plant. Trey? A Bachelor's degree from a small bible college who for five years has ridden his dad's coattails as the Director of Special Projects at his dad's church.

I'm sorry Trey, but you can't carry Smyrl's proverbial jockstrap.

Will those who go to Smyrl's new church be bitter as Trey says? No, perhaps they'll be better.

And using Trey's logic, those still following Brunson and Family at FBC Jax might become the bitter ones.