Restoring Kingdom Builders

Let me introduce you to Zane.  He’s been a member of the governing board at the 225-member First Baptist Church in a medium-sized Midwestern city for 42 years.

During that time, Zane has watched 10 pastors come and go … and most of the time, Zane has led the charge for the pastor’s removal.

I recently asked Zane if I could interview him about the way he wields power in his church.  I had just one stipulation: he had to tell the unvarnished truth.  Zane agreed.

Zane, the average tenure of a pastor in your church is less than 5 years.  Why is this?

For the first year or two that a pastor is with us, he is still feeling his way around.  He’s trying to get settled, matching names with faces, and learning about our culture.  During this time, I still wield the power in the church.  But if new people start visiting, and the church starts to grow, then I gather my board buddies together and we start sabotaging the pastor’s ministry.

Why would you do that?  Don’t you want your church to grow?

Not really.  If the church grows too much, then the balance of power will tilt toward the pastor, and we will have to work even harder to dislodge him in the future.  While it would be nice to have more people and funds, we can never let the church get larger than our ability to control things.

But don’t you want to fulfill Christ’s Great Commission and make disciples?

I almost never think about people outside this church.  My goal is to satisfy the desires of the people I know inside this church.

How does that work out in practice?

For example, I meet with my buddies at a restaurant before every board meeting.  We review the agenda and make decisions among ourselves.  Then when we attend the meeting, we control everything, and the pastor ends up having little influence.  On those rare occasions when the pastor persuades the board to do something his way, I contact the board members afterward and bring them back into line.

So you don’t want your pastor to be a leader?

That’s right.  The pastor doesn’t know the community or the church’s history or its people like I do.  We hire him primarily to preach, counsel, do visitation, and conduct weddings and funerals.  We don’t need or want a leader.

When you finally decide that a pastor needs to go, how do you accomplish that?

The best way to get rid of a pastor is to wear him down so he’s no longer effective.  There are several ways we do this.

First, we oppose his plans for outreach.  We can’t afford to have people join the church that we can’t control.  Newcomers are almost always loyal to the pastor, so we have to limit their number.  We usually do this by controlling the money.

Second, we always make sure to attack the pastor’s wife.  We’ll criticize her for working outside the home (meaning she’s not very involved at church).  Or we’ll criticize her for not working outside the home (indicating that she’s lazy).  If she’s not outgoing, we’ll say she’s unfriendly.  If she’s too outgoing, we’ll claim she wants the spotlight.  It doesn’t take long for the pastor’s wife to sense that we don’t like her – and she’ll pass on her feelings to her husband.  When she starts missing meetings, or stays home from church completely, then we’ll claim the pastor doesn’t manage his family well.

If attacking the pastor’s wife isn’t successful, we start in on their kids, and we always find something to nail them on.  As we start spreading our opinions about the pastor’s family around the church, they practically have their bags packed.

When we attack his family, the pastor begins to wear down physically.  He becomes discouraged and depressed.  He starts isolating himself from others.  Then we claim that he isn’t fit to lead us.  This usually works.

And if that doesn’t work?

Then we start spreading half-truths.  We’ll claim that the pastor has been padding his expense account.  We’ll claim that his wife is seeing someone else.  We’ll say that one of their kids is getting poor grades.

If we’re consistent and adamant about our claims, most people in the church will believe us.  Very few people ever ask the pastor if the claims are true.  You wouldn’t believe how naïve most Christians are.  They believe the first thing anybody tells them especially if it comes from an official church leader.  My wife and the wives of my board buddies have become experts at calling churchgoers to run down the pastor.

But that’s lying!  How can you justify what you’re doing?

I’m not really lying … just stretching the truth a little bit.  In all honesty, I don’t care about the pastor – I care about the church.  And I really don’t care about the congregation as a whole – only about my friends and family.  As long as I’m in charge, they’ll keep coming because they know I represent their interests.

But isn’t what you’re doing in direct contradiction to Scripture?

Well, I asked Jesus into my life when I was 9 years old, so I know I’m going to heaven.  But I’ve learned more about subverting a leader from following politics than from the Bible.

What about church bylaws?

We either ignore them or rationalize that they don’t apply in our situation, and nobody has ever called us on it.

If a pastor became wise to your tactics, is there a way for him to stop the attacks?

I suppose there is theoretically, although no pastor has ever tried.  To stop us, the pastor would have to expose our behind-the-scenes machinations to those outside our network.  Since I’m in control of my network, almost nothing the pastor could say would sway them, but if he could document our tricks, he might convince some people to stand against us.  However, in that case, we’d just claim that the pastor was being divisive.

Just in case, we make sure to build strong alliances before we launch our attacks.  I contact the district minister of our denomination and detail the pastor’s deficiencies, so if the pastor ever contacts him, the district minister recommends that the pastor leave the church to keep the peace.  I also contact the associate pastor and office manager and coax them into spying on the pastor.  One is always a willing accomplice.

If by some strange occurrence the pastor survives my campaign against him, I have one more ace to play: my buddies and I threaten to leave the church.  We’ve only had to do this twice, and it worked both times.  If you just say, “It’s either us or the pastor,” it’s amazing how quickly people turn against the pastor because people assume that we know things they don’t know.

If the pastor resigns, what happens to his supporters?

Most of them eventually leave the church, so it affects our attendance and giving temporarily.  But we usually hire a new pastor within a few months.  When we advertise the position, we’ll get 200-300 resumes – and I always make sure to stack the search team with my people so I have the final say.

What happens to the pastors that you force out?

I don’t really care.  I’d say less than half go back into church ministry.  Right after the pastor leaves, I make sure to spread a few additional rumors about him to discourage people from contacting him in the future.  When a pastor is at our church, I try and discredit him.  After he leaves, I try to destroy him.  That way, if he tries to tell anyone from the church why he really left, he’ll be shunned rather than taken seriously.

What’s your worst nightmare?

A pastor with experience who is a strong leader.  If the church starts growing rapidly, and donations pour in, I might have to sell my soul to the devil to stop him.

I’m also afraid of a pastor who is adamant that he gets to face his accusers.  My whole strategy is based on secrecy and back-hallway maneuvering.

I’m also afraid of a pastor who comes to this church and teaches the congregation how to prevent and resolve conflicts biblically.  My success at chasing out pastors is based on my ability to manipulate a faction to carry out my wishes.  If a pastor taught the church how to handle disagreements in a biblical way, my time as a leader might be nearing an end.  Fortunately, most pastors avoid preaching on conflict, so right now, I’m safe.

One more thing: I’m fearful of a principled board member that I can’t manipulate, as well as a strong lay person who insists that we follow the Bible in our dealings with the pastor.

The latest statistics indicate that 23 million Christians in America no longer attend church.  What kind of role does bullying a pastor play in those numbers?

How would anyone know that their pastor was being bullied?  I do my work in secret, and few pastors or Christian leaders are willing to discuss the issue.

Any final words for our readers?

You’re not actually going to publish this interview, are you?  You never told me that!

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I hope by now you’ve figured out that this is a purely fictional interview.  It’s a composite made up of church bullies that I’ve known, read about, or heard about from other pastors.

A friend of mine is writing a book about church bullies, so if you have any stories you’d like to share that he can use, please send them to me and I’ll pass them along.  Thanks!

Check out our website at www.restoringkingdombuilders.org  You’ll find Jim’s story, recommended resources on conflict, and a forum where you can ask questions about conflict situations in your church.