I'm not so sure you handled this in the best way. Why didn't you go to the associate personally before you sent a (anonymous?) letter to the pastor and tattled on his associate? Children tattle on people; adults take it up personally and face-to-face.
As for publicly challenging a pastor (or anyone else, for that matter): Confronting a pastor openly and rudely in a public meeting with an audience in an attempt to correct (or embarrass) him is a malicious act of cowardice. While you may lack good manners and proper breeding, he and the audience probably do not and will most like quietly take the abuse for the sake of trying to obey 1 Cor. 14.40. You may not recognize it as rudeness, but the congregation will, and any future influence you may have had among them will be negated. They will rightly see it for what it really isa spineless act of cowardism of the worst sort.
Writing a letter or sending an email is the next nasty cowardly act. When you hit the send button on your Outlook Express you can hide behind your keyboard like some do in public online forums) or like a person who stands up in a congregation, hiding behind the good manners of an audience, mistakenly thinking the crowd admires his bullying tactics. This is what terrorists and snipers do.
The honorable and adult thing to do, if you have a difference of opinion with someone, even (if not especially) a doctrinal one with your pastor, is to take up your differences in private. But in this sort of one-on-one confrontation you are most likely to get your butt kicked. It takes real courage to confront someone privately in an office or over coffee because any pastor worth his calling can probably defend himself quite handily in a private meeting
and what gutless bully wants to pick on someone who can defend himself? \ Its a lot easier to catch him off guard in a public gathering or snipe at him from the bushes with a letter. In those instances he is less likely to show you up for the terrorist you are.
~Jim
Mercy triumphs over judgment. ~James 2.13