When I was ten years old, my friend Steve invited me to spend a Friday night at his house. It was an experience I’ve never forgotten.
We flipped baseball cards … slept in the living room in separate sleeping bags … and ate toast with an egg in the middle for breakfast.
I had never flipped cards before … slept somewhere in total darkness … or had anything other than pancakes for breakfast on a Saturday.
For the first time I could recall, I realized that the way someone’s family did things was vastly different than mine.
Families not only have systems … families are systems … and family systems theory teaches that every group or organization operates like a family.
Let me make several observations about family systems:
First, the way our family of origin operated seems normal to us.
I grew up without color TV. To me, watching a black-and-white television was normal.
But when I watched television at someone else’s house, they invariably did have a color set.
In fact, it’s only when we visit the homes of friends that we discover that everyone is not like us … but it’s not easy to shake family culture.
Remember the old TV show The Munsters? Whenever Marilyn Munster brought home a guy to meet her family, he’d scream and run away.
The Munsters assumed that they were normal and that Marilyn’s boyfriend was the weird one.
And yet to those outside the family … including TV viewers … Marilyn was the only normal member of the family. It was the rest of the Munsters who were weird.
This same dynamic happens in our churches as well.
After a while, we become so accustomed to the way things are done that we just accept things rather than try and change things.
My wife and I recently visited a church where the music was really bad. It was obvious to us … but not to church leaders.
They accepted it because it had gone on for so long that it became normal … and yet the music was killing their attendance.
What they needed was for someone from the outside to help them see the problem … if they had the courage to solicit help. However:
Second, families search for scapegoats when things go wrong.
My wife and I once lived in a place that shared a wall with a family. We got along fine with them, but on occasion, we could hear blood-curdling screams coming through the wall.
The screams came from a female teenager who had seemed to have some serious life issues that disrupted her family’s tranquility.
Several times, this girl’s parents sent her away for various forms of rehabilitation. Each time, she thrived in her new surroundings, and was deemed well enough to return home.
But each time she came back, she slipped into her former behavior.
The simplest way to deal with this situation was for the other family members to blame the girl entirely for the way she was disrupting their family. After all, the screaming stopped when she wasn’t around.
In fact, this is the way that many families handle matters when one family member’s behavior seems intractable: the others blame every family issue on the one who’s acting out.
In our quick-fix culture, organizations … which all operate like families … have a tendency to blame problems on just one person.
*If a sports team isn’t winning, the general manager fires the coach … but some teams fire coach after coach and never improve.
*If a company’s profits are down, the board cans the CEO … but sometimes the entire organization is 20 years behind the curve.
*If donations are down, some churches remove the pastor … only to find giving continuing to slide under the next pastor.
Sometimes in our anxiety, even Christians forget that Jesus was crucified, not because He had done anything wrong … but because the system of His day demanded a scapegoat. And yet:
Finally, it’s far more productive to treat the whole family system when things get unhealthy.
When the girl in the above story was away from her family, she did well … but when she was with her family, she regressed.
Most likely, the problems in that family weren’t due entirely to her … they were due to her family system.
So instead of sending just her to counseling, the entire family needed to go … but first, they needed to become convinced that they were part of the problem … and pride makes that a tough sell.
In the language of family systems theory, this girl had become the identified patient, or the family scapegoat.
By blaming her for the family’s problems, the others didn’t have to think about making changes in the family system … or in their own lives.
Many churches do the same thing. They hire a pastor … and then fire him. They hire another … and soon afterward let him go … time after time.
Most pastors can readily tell that a church suffers from a serious pathology. But every time he attempts to point out problems and resolve issues, he becomes a threat to the current system … so he has to go.
The church at Corinth was like that … as was the church in Galatia.
So when Paul wrote his letters to those churches, he didn’t address the pastor or lay leaders … he intended that his epistles be read to the entire congregation.
Let me be blunt: there are many churches in this world where the problem isn’t the pastor … it’s several individuals or a group that doesn’t want the church to change.
Because as long as the church maintains the status quo, they maintain their level of power.
But if the church did change, these powerbrokers would be forced to reflect on their own lives, confess their sins, and get right with God … and quit blaming all their church’s problems on their pastor.
When Israel continually rebelled against Moses in the wilderness, the people demanded new leadership on multiple occasions.
But God didn’t immediately fire Moses and replace him with Joshua.
No, God stuck with Moses. In fact, it wasn’t Moses whose heart needed to change … it was the heart of the people. God had to kill off an entire generation before he could let Israel into the Promised Land.
Let me summarize this post by posing three sets of questions:
*How healthy is your family of origin? Your church?
*How often do people at home or at church blame others for problems rather than look at themselves?
*What might be the best way to help your family or your congregation become healthier?
There is a saying in the counseling field that is proven to be true in most cases where there is an unhealthy system. “The person who points out there is a problem often becomes the problem”. Shoot the messenger if the messenger is exposing issues and pointing out the need for change. The system might not want to change or the system might not want to make the wrong people unhappy by addressing change or maybe the system wants to control what the changes will be. Whether it be a family system or a church system this is the all too typical response. Just one strategy the enemy uses to keep everybody stuck.
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Shelli,
I apologize for not replying to your comment sooner. We’ve been moving and it’s been quite a job!
Several years ago, I heard either Andy Stanley or Craig Groschel say that nobody in a church should be allowed to stand in the way of that church fulfilling the Great Commission. Yet 85% of all churches are either stagnant or declining. While there are undoubtedly many reasons why a church struggles to advance the kingdom, one of the main issues is that some of God’s own people choose to stand in the way of the church going forward. Yet few Christian publishers or leaders will address this topic. In too many churches these days, we’re just talking to ourselves and playing church.
Jim
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Jim, I have been referring your site to lots of people and this morning met an enthusiastic young man who was so excited to share the gospel in a church and lead the people with his passionate calling. Wasn’t long before they have voted him out the door. He has a wife, 3 daughters and a new little down-syndrome son that they just adopted. Although he is trying to be cheerful and trusting God with his future, there are bills to be paid and a house to sell. Down the road in another town a pastor and wife that we have gotten to know has been pushed out of their church by leadership as well. The pastors wife works at a bank for the very elder who ousted her husband! She has hung on to this job because they need the money only to find out last week that the elder has decided it is ‘in the best interests of the bank’ for her to move on to another job! All this to say, pastors families are hurting, churches are hurting and there is such a need for your site and your book! Thank you for being a voice for these weary servants who wanted nothing more than to advance the work of the gospel. Looking forward to your book! To many of us you have become our counselor because otherwise we would think we were losing our minds and living in the Twilight Zone! If there is anything more I can do to encourage them I want to because God seems to keep bringing them my way and I keep giving them your site! Thanks again! Shelli
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Thanks for the encouragement, Shelli. The first batch of my books should be arriving on my doorstep sometime this next week. It will take a little while to figure out how to sell the books online, but we’ll get it done!
Just so you know, I’ve seen this “clergy killer phenomenon” my whole life. My father was forced out of a church when I was 11 and he died 20 months later. Like your friend, one of my pastors was voted out of office in an ugly public meeting. One of my friends – who is a sweetheart – was pushed out of THREE churches as pastor. I could go on and on. These situations are so resolvable, but laymen – many of whom are bottom-line businessmen – ignore Scripture, conflict-resolution principles, and even common decency and choose to target their pastor for destruction.
With God’s help, we can expose the devil’s template and turn this thing around. That’s my prayer, and why I wrote a book.
Jim
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Yes, as many of our friends as well. Our situation wasn’t necessarily mean and brutal. I think some of them sincerely meant well. Some maybe not so much. They would point out too that my husband resigned of his own accord even though they didn’t want him to. However, in every issue that I have known of regarding friends in ministry and friends of friends in ministry, when they have felt that their leadership is undermined it has not once been due to false teaching, heresy, adultery, embezzling funds, etc. That would most definitely be valid reasons to have to sadly deal with a pastor. It is due to complaints and grumblings that few of us would entertain from our own children. We do not know our enemy, we do not know how he works. It is a ‘concerned’ conversation here a ‘check’ in one’s spirit there and before you know it, a storms-a-brewin. As my husband is now doing a temporary interim here for one week gone for 3 and I am working part time in a computer store, I dream of someday having a place where weary warriors can get away and retreat and we just love up on them and listen. I know there are some places similar to what I have in mind, but with one of my gifts being exhortation, it would so float my boat to be able to minister in that way. We will see what God does, meanwhile we love and serve and stay in the battle, the one we serve has paid the price fully, we can do no less.
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