Restoring Kingdom Builders

A gunslinger is someone in a church who wants to “gun down” the head pastor.  Using terminology from the Old West, he’s gunnin’ for the preacher.  The gunslinger can be someone from the congregation, or a staff member, but most often is a member of the governing board.

For at least a year before revealing his true motives, the gunslinger mounts a stealth campaign against the pastor.  He tells others in private: “The pastor isn’t a good leader.  His preaching isn’t connecting.  He’s losing the young people.”  This is just his opinion, of course, but he’ll share it whether the church is prospering or not.

What amazes me is that the gunslinger is able to convince at least two members of the governing board (the proverbial Gang of Three) that he’s right: the pastor does need to leave.  How is he able to pull this off?  How can a gunslinger turn normally rational people into unthinking bobbleheads?

Let me offer five possiblities:

First, the gunslinger “works on” these board members for at least twelve months.  He is relentless with his campaign because he can’t “fire” the pastor by himself.  During this time period, if the pastor slips up once or twice in his leadership or preaching – and he probably will – the gunslinger is there to fire a warning shot and say to the others, “What did I tell you?  He’s not the right man for the job.”  Pretty soon, the board members stop seeing the pastor through their own eyes but through the eyes of the gunslinger.

There are three primary ways to stop the gunslinger at this point: tell him “I disagree with your assessment and don’t want to hear from you anymore on this issue”; break off all contact with him; or expose him to others in the church.  But if you do break off all contact, you won’t know what he’s up to next and he’ll just find another set of ears.  (Of course, if you expose him, he will simply deny everything.)

Second, the gunslinger possesses a forceful personality.  He’s full of confidence.  He seems to know what he’s talking about.  He’ll talk about his experiences in other churches. (“We should have gotten rid of that pastor sooner.  He took the church down with him.”)  He’ll talk about what’s happening at other churches.  (“They got rid of their pastor and now they’re growing like crazy.”)  He sounds like a church growth consultant, right there on the church board!

The problem is that he really doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  Most likely, he hasn’t been to seminary.  He’s not a “church professional.”  He hasn’t read any church growth literature.  At best, he’s an opinionated amateur.  Hold a full-fledged verbal duel between him and the minister and the pastor would mop the floor with him – but the gunslinger never wants to have that debate.  It would jeopardize his power.

Third, the gunslinger makes his followers feel powerful.  In the great majority of cases, a gunslinger wants to destroy a pastor not because the pastor is doing anything wrong, but because the gunslinger wants the power to make decisions.  He will never admit it, claiming that he only wants to serve God and help the fellowship, but he really wants to run the church.  And there is only one person standing in his way: the pastor.  As the gunslinger’s minions gather around him, they too feel powerful.  When the pastor leaves, they will sit at his right and left hands.

But what the bobbleheads fail to realize is that the gunslinger has seduced them into putting their group’s needs ahead of their church’s needs.  When the gunslinger and two of his followers meet and plan and plot, they feel a sense of exhiliration!  They alone know what’s best for the church – but they haven’t consulted with the other 95%+ of the church that loves the pastor and does follow his leadership.  The gunslinger and his boys convince themselves that they are representing the entire church when they are really only representing themselves.

Fourth, the gunslinger befriends his followers.  They may never end up being good friends with the pastor but they can be close with this charming and intelligent person.  The opportunity to be granted power is intoxicating.  Even Christians have been known to sell their souls to acquire a promotion at work.  The gunslinger talks about the way that “we” will plan the future together when the pastor is gone and his followers eat it up.  Being friends with the gunslinger places his followers into his inner circle, a place they don’t ever want to leave.

If the gunslinger’s followers could discuss this situation with someone objective like a counselor or a spouse or even the pastor, they would discover that the gunslinger is trying to manipulate them for his ends.  But:

Finally, the gunslinger insists on strict confidentiality which adds to the allure.  In other words, The Plan is also The Secret.  No one else in the church is allowed to know what’s going on – not one’s spouse, or other leaders, or even anyone outside the church.  Why not?  For starters, the gunslinger and his followers don’t want anyone rebuking them or trying to talk them out of their nefarious scheme.  They also don’t want anyone to spill the beans to the pastor or his supporters.  For this reason, the gunslinger and his twosome agree that they will not tell a soul about The Plan.

Of course, in biblical terms, they are operating in the dark, not in the light.  There is a biblical process for dealing with a pastor who incessantly sins (found in 1 Timothy 5:19-21, an application of Matthew 18:15-20), but they don’t want to use that process.  Takes too long.  Too cumbersome to apply.  Requires a Bible.  And besides, the process is unpredictable.  What if the pastor actually changes?  What if he leaves but the gunslinger and his boys aren’t left in charge?  The gunslinger can’t take that chance, so all meetings and deliberations are strictly hush hush – until the gunslinger calls for the pastor to meet him and his boys for a private meeting at Dry Gulch.

Does the New Testament ever mention a gunslinger?  Glad you asked.  In 3 John 9-10, John, the apostle of love, writes:

“I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will have nothing to do with us.  So if I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, gossiping maliciously about us.  Not satisfied with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers.  He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church.”

John doesn’t indicate that Diotrephes is attacking a pastor but an apostle!  Even though John had apostolic authority over the church in Ephesus, Diotrephes refused to submit to John’s authority and verbally criticized John to others in the church.  What makes Diotrephes a gunslinger?  John says that he “loves to be first.”

If the church’s official leaders all left, would they have appointed Diotrephes to be their leader?  Hardly.  Would the people of the church have chosen him?  Probably not.  According to John, Diotrephes lacked official authority inside the church but used his intimidating personality to get what he wanted – and no one seemed to be able to stop him.  It took John, an outside authority, to try and rein in Diotrephes.  A congregation should be able to handle these people.

There is now a growing body of literature on gunslingers (or “clergy killers”) and these people follow a pattern that’s been documented since Judas flipped on Jesus twenty centuries ago.  While some pastors know the template (it’s right there in the Gospels), most lay people do not.  My prayer is to empower thousands of lay believers all over this country to stop the gunslingers and the Gang of Three and prevent their pastor from being carried to Boot Hill in a pine box.

Will you be one of those people?