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Archive for the ‘Church Conflict’ Category

Anatomy of a Church Staff Betrayal

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Staff, Jim's Ten Favorite Articles, tagged , , , , , on June 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »

There is a problem in Christian churches that I keep hearing about.  It’s not an issue that most of us think about very often, if at all, but it’s one that demands attention if the kingdom of God is to advance in our day.

How loyal should staff members be to the senior/lead pastor?

Throughout my more than three decades in church ministry, I’ve viewed this issue from both sides.

As a staff member, I did not always agree with the senior pastor, and I served under five of them.  Sometimes I didn’t like what he said from the pulpit.  Other times I disagreed with his private assessment of the direction the church needed to go.  One pastor I worked with worked way too hard.  Another hardly worked at all.

Being the Number Two Man in each of these churches placed me in a position of trust.  I saw and heard things that few other people knew about.

But that was the whole point.  I was hired for those positions because the lead pastor felt he could trust me, and I always believed it was my job to reciprocate that trust.

This was especially a problem when someone from the church tried to “triangle” me into a problem that they had with the pastor.

In one church, a man approached me and made a threat against the pastor.  I was uncertain if he wanted me to join his cause or pass the message on to the pastor himself.  When our conversation was finished, he knew that I would not join his cause.

How could I ever do that?  In all five churches, the pastor chose me to serve alongside him, and I chose to serve with him as well.  In my mind, we were a team – as long as I kept doing my job.

In each situation, I worked for the pastor, and the pastor worked for the board.  I did not work for the board, and the pastor did not work for me.

While I privately had reservations about some of the things my pastors did and said, I kept those to myself.  He needed to know that if everyone in the church turned on him, he’d have at least one person standing by his side.

So when I became a pastor myself, I was able to see the pastor-staff relationship from both sides.  But the staff members – none of whom had ever been a pastor themselves – were only able to see the relationship from their side.

And some of them made choices that eventually demonstrated their disloyalty.

Let me give you an example of the kind of problems that pastors are having today with staff members – especially associate pastors.

Jack has been the pastor of a church for three years.  At first, he was able to juggle all the leadership, administrative, teaching, counseling, and pastoral duties, but the church gradually grew to the point he couldn’t handle things anymore.  Both Jack and the governing board agreed that they should hire an associate pastor as soon as possible.

So the board appointed a search team, and since there weren’t any suitable prospects inside the church, the team eventually recommended several candidates from the outside to Jack, who settled on one in particular.  Since the top choice had some concerns about coming to the church, Jack engaged in a sales job that proved successful.

While still in sales mode, Jack welcomed the associate to the church and spoke glowingly of the church’s future and the way the associate could make a difference with his gifts.  And at first, that’s exactly what happened.

But just a couple months after the associate’s arrival, Jack began to notice some things that bothered him.  For starters, the associate had a habit of showing up late on Sundays – and then he’d leave as soon as the last service was done.  Jack believed it was important for all staff members to mingle with the congregation on Sundays, but the associate just wasn’t doing it.

So Jack spoke to him about it.  The associate promised to change, but a couple weeks later, he was doing the same thing.

In addition, the associate left a mess everywhere he went.  If he used a room for a meeting, the next person to use the room would complain that they had to spend 15 minutes cleaning up before they could arrange the room the way they wanted.

Once again, Jack spoke to the associate directly and swiftly, and the associate promised he would change, but a few weeks later, he reverted to his previous behavior.

Now every staff member has their flaws.  Some are messy with rooms but incredibly effective with people.  Others hang out at the church all day but never get anything done.

The wise pastor – conscious of his own failings – has to decide which issues he’s going to press and which he’s going to let go.  He has to both model and set the boundaries.

And he has to treat all staff members with fairness.  If he requires all staff members to show up at 8:15 am on Sundays, then the associate needs to show up at 8:15 as well – because if he shows up at 8:50 instead, the pastor will hear about it from the other staff members – guaranteed.

As the months went by, the pastor spent a lot of time with the associate pastor, discussing the church’s future and trying to plug holes in the ministry.  It appeared as if the two of them had negotiated their differences and were working well together.

But after the pastor returned from a vacation, he discovered that the associate had allowed people to do things that the senior pastor expressly forbade.  So the senior pastor sat down with the associate to discuss what happened.  During their time together, the associate demonstrated insubordination and defiantly said that his decisions were correct and should not have been questioned.

The senior pastor was shaken.  While the associate deserved to be fired, the pastor realized that he’d need board support to take that action.  If the board backed him up, the senior pastor knew that some people would leave the church and that momentum would grind to a halt – at least for a few months.  But if the board didn’t back up the pastor, wouldn’t that just empower the associate all the more?

So for the time being, the lead pastor did nothing but pray and seek counsel from colleagues outside the church.

But while the senior pastor waited for divine wisdom, the associate went on the offensive.

Knowing that the senior pastor would have to go to the board to dismiss him, the associate contacted several board members that he sensed were on his side and told them he was having trouble with the lead pastor.  He told these men that he couldn’t sleep, that his wife was barely functioning, that his kids were feeling the stress, and that he was thinking about leaving the church because of the senior pastor.

This is the point at which the entire future of the church is at stake.

If the board members take the side of the associate pastor, the senior pastor’s future in that church is in serious jeopardy.

If the board members take the side of the senior pastor, the associate pastor’s fate is probably sealed as well.

The best decision for the church is for the board members to support the senior pastor.  If they do, the associate won’t have many options left.  He can either apologize to the senior pastor and vow to fully support him or make plans to leave the church.

The worst decision for the church is for the board members to support the associate pastor.  If they do, then they have betrayed their senior pastor and their decision will eventually manifest itself.  If the senior pastor comes to a board meeting to discuss his problems with the associate, the board members who met with the associate will either fail to support their pastor or veto any recommendation for dismissal.

Protestant churches are designed for the lead pastor to work closely with the church’s governing board.  In most cases, staff members – including the associate pastor – work directly for the senior pastor and do not attend board meetings.

The senior pastor is the key to everything.  He must get along with both the board and the staff.

But if staff members form covert alliances with other staff or board members against the senior pastor – that church, and its entire leadership structure – is in serious trouble, and ripe for a satanic invasion.

I do not pretend to offer easy answers for these situations.  Sometimes if the key players pull back and look at matters more objectively, they can work things out.

But these situations are usually about one thing, and one thing only: who is in charge of the church?

I’ll write more about this issue in my next article.

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Why So Few Teachers?

Posted in Church Conflict, Current Church Issues on June 22, 2011| 2 Comments »

Many years ago, I saw an ad in a Christian publication promoting a product I found offensive.  A certain televangelist was inviting churches to buy satellite equipment so they could beam the messages from his church into their worship services.  The idea behind the ad was that if a church really wanted to grow, then its people needed to listen to this single gifted man.

The ad outraged me.  This televangelist came from the South, while our church was in the West.  He came from a charismatic church, while ours was non-charismatic.  He often used a condemning tone, while I tried to speak with grace.  He did not know our people, but I did.  And he was not a biblical expositor, while that’s what I loved doing most.

How dare he presume that every church in America needed to hear him preach every week rather than their own pastor!

I hope that few churches signed up for this offer.  Not long after that ad came out, that televangelist engaged in some extracurricular activities that resulted in the satellite dishes being turned off – for good.

While that was an extreme case, the Christian world seems to be increasingly listening to fewer and fewer biblical teachers.

Many churches now have only one teacher in the entire congregation: the pastor.  Since most churches don’t offer adult classes or Sunday evening services or midweek worship anymore, the pastor becomes the lone communicator of biblical truth by default – or design.

Even if a church has small groups, leaders are usually instructed to facilitate discussion rather than teach in any meaningful way.  And increasingly, that discussion is about the pastor’s message from the week before.  So even gifted teachers who lead such groups aren’t supposed to teach anything but let everyone talk.

There are pros and cons to this new approach.

For starters, it helps some preachers lead a more balanced life.  I once knew the pastor of a megachurch who told me he studied 50 hours every week.  (You read that right.)  He studied 15 hours for the Sunday morning service, 15 hours for the Sunday evening service, and 20 hours for the Wednesday night prayer meeting.

Why so long for the Wednesday night service?  Because he never knew who might show up to hear him, and he wanted to be accurate in his teaching.  (John MacArthur showed up a few times unannounced.)

Forgive me, but that’s insane, if not self-destructive.  In fact, that pastor died less than two years after he shared that information with me.  Since studying is a sedentary habit, the lack of bodily movement may have done him in.

So that’s one extreme: the pastor is the primary teacher in the church and teaches all the time except when he’s on vacation.

We now have another extreme which I believe is much more healthy: the pastor shares the teaching role with several other gifted communicators.  Each teacher may teach for an entire series and then take the next one or two off, or each teacher might be assigned a different Sunday during the same series.

The advantages are enormous.  The congregation gets to hear from several gifted teachers.  The pastors have plenty of time to prepare their messages.  And messages can be divided up by specialties.  It can be difficult listening to the same voice all the time, but if you hear two or more voices, it’s much easier to take.

The downside, of course, is that most churches can only afford one gifted teacher, not three or four.  And the more gifted someone is, the more often they want to speak.

Now a few megachurches are planting satellite churches in outlying areas and sending a live feed of the message from the mother church into those venues.  The church we’ve been attending for the past year plans to do this all over the Phoenix area and has already started a satellite campus in the area where we used to live.

When they did this, they absorbed another megachurch.  The pastor from the megachurch now teaches periodically at the mother megachurch.  While he now speaks to more people, he also speaks less often.

It seems to me that technology is leading to a social Darwinism in the Christian community.  For example, what would happen in your church if Rick Warren or Mark Driscoll decided to open up a satellite campus in your area?  Would people from your church flock to the satellite campus and desert your church and pastor?  (By the way, I know an area where both Warren and Driscoll are planning on opening satellite campuses.)

Is this about reaching more people, trying to amass the most followers, increasing revenue streams, or all of the above?

Sometimes it feels like there are only going to be ten preachers left in the entire US: Warren, Hybels, Driscoll, Lucado, Osteen, both Stanleys, Piper, Beth Moore, and a few others.  There will be Warren churches, Lucado churches, and Piper churches.  The music will be different in each locale, but instead of being known by denominational labels or movements, a church will be known by the name of the teacher it beams in on satellite.

Isn’t there a biblical prophecy about this phenomenon somewhere?  Does Harold Camping have any insight about this?

I have five concerns about this particular trend:

First, what happens when a popular teacher veers off course theologically?  If thousands of people have to choose between the teachings of Paul the apostle or their favorite Christian communicator, who will they choose?  There is a Gen X preacher who is clearly off the rails theologically, and I know someone who thinks he’s great.  How much effort should I expend in trying to convince him otherwise?

Second, what happens if a famous teacher falls morally?  Twenty years ago, some of America’s best-known Christian leaders were involved in sexual scandals.  It was a hard time to be the pastor of any church.  I remember one woman (who did not attend our church) who kept calling and implying that all these guys were crooks.  Although there have been fewer scandals in recent years (thank God!), when we farm out our teaching to a chosen few, those teachers seem to represent all of Christianity to many people.  And if a few of them go down, it impacts all of us.

Third, what happens to smaller and medium-sized churches?  Back in the 1990s, Christian pollster George Barna predicted that the days were coming when most churches in America would be either small or large and that medium-sized churches would soon become extinct.  I’m not worried about the satellite churches winning lost people to Christ.  There are enough unbelievers out there for everybody.  Instead, I’m concerned about believers in smaller churches who have struggled for years to make their church go and finally leave it to join a satellite church.  While the jury is out on this approach, I hope we’ll see the results of surveys on this trend soon and be able to adjust accordingly.

Fourth, why are we letting a few people do all our thinking for us?  I once heard a new pastor in Silicon Valley tell a group of pastors that whenever he started preparing for a message, he first read all the commentators and then added his own thoughts.  My immediate response was, “Why aren’t you letting God speak directly to you first?”  Like many pastors, whenever I selected a passage to preach on, I first did all my own work and then consulted with the commentators to check my conclusions.

I didn’t want to preach a message that God gave to Chuck Swindoll or Bill Hybels: I wanted to bring a message to our people that God had given me.  Since many of these satellite churches hire pastors to be on premises while the megachurch pastor is speaking on satellite, how do they feel about having their teaching gifts shelved?

We need tens of thousands of pastors all over the world who don’t buy sermons from Rick Warren but who let God’s Spirit speak directly to them through His written Word.

Finally, what happens to rookie preachers?  I preached my first sermon at 19 years of age in a Sunday night service at my home church.  While it wasn’t very good, my church let me teach many more times because I told them I had been called by God to preach.  There were a lot of venues back then for someone who was learning to preach: Sunday School classes, the Sunday evening service, the midweek service, as well as the local rescue mission.

But where does a preacher learn to teach today?

I have always believed that if someone is called by God to preach, they should preach first in front of their home church.  But the larger your home church is, the less likely that is to happen.

Before I became a pastor at age 27, I had preached in a church setting about 50 times.  There were a lot of things I had to learn – and a few I had to unlearn.

But with increasingly fewer opportunities, where can a young preacher learn to develop their gift?

What are you seeing?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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Whatever Happened to Satan?

Posted in Church Conflict, Current Church Issues, Fighting Evil, Please Comment! on June 15, 2011| 3 Comments »

Have you been hearing anything recently from major Christian leaders about Satan?

It recently struck me that ever since my wife and I moved to Arizona, I can’t recall any mention of the enemy in any message that I’ve heard, much less any message about the devil.

He has suddenly become as unpopular as hell.

Maybe there’s a good reason for that.

Years ago, I learned that whenever I planned to present a message about Satan – and it wasn’t a regular occurence – a bunch of weird stuff would happen right before the service.  The microphone wouldn’t work, or the sound would go out, or a key participant in the service would suddenly fall ill.  It was inevitable.  I’d still give the message, but it felt like I was running uphill.

And that’s how I felt last Monday when I tried to make my last point on the blog about Satan.  Suddenly, the formatting went haywire.  I wrote the entire point, quoting both the Apostle Paul and Martin Luther, but things became so messed up that I couldn’t present it to you.  It became so frustrating that I resolved to wait until today to finish.

Satan is real.  We shouldn’t spend too much time thinking about him – as C.S. Lewis said, that would please him greatly – but we shouldn’t ignore him, either.  There’s a lot of stuff going on in this world that can only be explained if there is a devil.

If you haven’t done any reading about Satan, but you’re willing to work up your courage and do so, I recommend Michael Green’s classic book I Believe in Satan’s Downfall.  Green is both a scholar and an evangelist – a truly rare combination – and he writes both eloquently and passionately about the one who forments mischief and evil behind the scenes in both our communities and our churches.

Twenty years ago, I was involved in launching a new church in Silicon Valley.  Our core group settled on a warehouse at a key intersection.  But we ran into all kinds of problems, especially with the city planning commission.  They refused to issue us a conditional use permit to meet there, even after we signed a lease.

So we appealed to the City Council and called for a special day of prayer and fasting.  John, our outreach director, created a one-page flyer on a Macintosh computer encouraging everyone in the church to pray for “our building, God’s will, God’s power, and unity.”  When John looked at the flyer on the computer screen, all the words were right side up.

When he printed the flyer to hand out to our people, the word “Pray” was upside down while all the other words were right side up.

No matter what John did, he could not get the word “Pray” to print right side up.

We eventually handed them out that way, and some of our people freaked out because they had never seen any supernatural mischief before.  But to me, this was an indication that what the devil didn’t want us to do was to pray.  In other words, he had laid out a plan of victory for us.

During this time, Ephesians 6:13 became my go to verse:

“Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”

We did try and do “everything.”  Along with several of our board members, I talked to other pastors, Christian leaders, attorneys, planning commissioners, and City Council members in our city, along with the Mayor.  One of the Christian leaders, who is well-known in the Bay Area, told his attorney to distance himself from our situation because he predicted we were going to lose.

But when our appeal came before the Council, we won an incredible 7-0 vote and received our conditional use permit – the first church in our city to ever go into the light industrial area.

I didn’t know it at the time, but we had situated ourselves smack in the middle of the devil’s territory.  No wonder he fought us so hard the entire time we were there.

Years later, I learned that the intersection where our church was located was a haven for drug dealers.  And across the road was a massage parlor that, like the House of the Rising Sun, ruined many a poor boy.  (As our church was getting ready to relocate from that intersection, a man called to ask me to do whatever I could to close down that massage parlor because, he said, it had ruined his life.)

During our whole time together, the church stayed united against outside forces that tried to assail us – and they were continually trying to do so.  I have never been in a church that was so effective at winning lost people to Christ – or a church that endured so much external suffering.

We were successful in defeating the devil time and time again, but he was relentless, and in the end, he and his minions wore us down.  When our church was forced to relocate five miles away, I knew I was going to need a long break away from church ministry.

After years of putting it off, I finally did a series on controversial social issues, including homosexuality.  The night before I planned to give that message, all hell broke loose in my home and in our church.  In fact, it was so bad that I typed out a resignation letter because I felt too weak to deal with the assaults anymore.  (However, I never gave it to the board.)

The next day, I did give the message I had planned to give, but only after making peace at home.  I have never, ever sensed spiritual warfare like I felt the 24 hours before I gave that message.

And the truth is, I never want to feel that way again.

But when we invade the enemy’s territory, we never know what’s going to happen to us.

Twice in Ephesians 6:13, Paul encourages believers to stand.  By contrast, the devil wants us to run and hide (like Jesus’ disciples did the night before He died), or to deny Him (like Peter did), or to hang (like Judas did).

But Jesus wants us to stand.

The only way we can stand against Satan is to do it together.  The strongest pastor in the world cannot fight the enemy by himself.  Even Paul ended this passage by telling the Ephesians, “Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains.  Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should” (Ephesians 6:19-20).

Let me make four quick points about Satan:

First, he is real.  He tried to take Jesus’ life as an infant through King Herod the Great.  He battled Jesus in the wilderness, infiltrated His disciples through Judas, and was behind most of the events in the final 24 hours of Jesus’ life.  Jesus said that Satan exists, and that should be good enough for us.

For an interesting take on Satan, read the lyrics to Bob Dylan’s song Man of Peace.  They ring true.

Second, he hates God.  Most of the hatred directed against God in our country doesn’t come from the ACLU or a certain political party or candidate or from godless late-night comedians.  The hatred originates with Satan.  He influences people to hate God and even injects thoughts into their brains, but as many Christians have pointed out, godless humans are not the real enemy, but victims of the enemy.

Third, he hates God’s people.  So he deceives and destroys – often among Christians – so that he can divide us and negate our united front to the world.  I have noticed recently that many younger evangelicals view older Christians as their enemies, embracing the culture while condemning other churches.  When any of us succumb to this hatred, we are doing the devil’s work for him – and we are all susceptible to it.

Finally, he has been defeated.  We all know this – we just need to be reminded.  He cannot overthrow God, or undermine Jesus, or take out the Spirit – so he focuses on frail humans like us.  But I love the way the writer to the Hebrews puts it:

“Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil – and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Hebrews 2:14-15).

Jesus’ death defeated Satan.

Let’s let Martin Luther have the last word in A Mighty Fortress:

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;

Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing;

Dost ask who that may be?  Christ Jesus, it is He;

Lord Sabaoth, His name, from age to age the same,

And He must win the battle.

Amen?

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Spineless or Strong?

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Antagonists, Fighting Evil on June 13, 2011| 2 Comments »

It’s my sophomore year in high school.  I’m in “sex education” class.  The class is being held in a quonset hut.  There are about 25 guys and girls in the class.  And yes, I remember the teacher’s name.

She asked the class this question: “If you fell in love with someone, and you wanted to marry them, but you found out they had already had sex, would you still marry them?”

I didn’t like the question.  And I liked it even less when the teacher started going around the room and began soliciting answers from students.  24 of 25 students answered the exact same way: “Of course I would marry them, especially if I loved them.”

I was last.

Now you have to understand, I was raised in the home of a Baptist pastor, and I was taught to stand alone if necessary.  I was also taught, both at home and at church, about the importance of maintaining sexual purity before marriage and of seeking someone to marry who lived that way as well.  Over time, I had learned that when I stood alone, I usually ended up alone – and I was like any other kid my age.  I wanted to be liked and have friends – and I didn’t want to be singled out as a Christian.

But some things just can’t be helped.  Both my family and my church had taught me to live by and express my convictions, and one of my convictions was that I was going to remain a virgin and only marry a virgin as well.

So even though I never talked in class, I felt the pressure mount as the teacher went around the room.  When my turn came around to answer her question … she never asked me.  I don’t remember if the bell rang, or if God made me invisible, or if she lost her train of thought – but I never had to answer her question.

But if I had, I would have been the only person in the class to offer a differing viewpoint.  Some would have laughed at me.  Others would have ridiculed me.  Maybe a few would have respected me, I don’t know.

But I do know this: now more than ever, Jesus needs strong Christians to stand up for their faith and to stand against evil.  But too many Christians are spineless instead.

Let me contrast spineless and strong Christians in four areas:

First, strong Christians stick to revealed truth.  Unlike John Lennon, I believe in both heaven and hell.  I believe in those places not only because they’re explicitly taught in Scripture, but because Jesus taught their reality, and He is my Lord.  Both destinations are implicit in John 3:16 (“shall not perish … have eternal life”) and Matthew 7:13-14, where Jesus contrasts the broad road that leads to destruction with the narrow road that leads to life.  Then along comes Rob Bell …

Who are you going to believe: Jesus or Bell?

If you want to be cool, and go along with some of your peers, then maybe you’ll opt for Mr. Bell’s view of the afterlife.  But the classic Christian view of the afterlife hasn’t changed in 2,000 years … and while I fully believe that the words of Paul and Peter and John are inspired, Jesus’ teaching on the subject clinches it.

Spineless Christians change their beliefs depending upon the latest book they’re reading or the current Bible study they’re attending or the prevelant view in the culture.  They are still infants who are “tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming” (Ephesians 4:13-14).  Such Christians should not be permitted to be in church leadership or to lead a group study!

But strong Christians know what they believe and why they believe it.  They read Scripture and learn theology and attend solid churches and amass libraries featuring only the best Christian scholars.  And when heresy rears its ugly head – as it’s been doing more and more – they discern error and stand up for the truth!

Second, strong Christians are proud of Jesus Christ.  I’ve never been one for advertising on bumper stickers and  t-shirts, but a lot of believers like to proclaim their faith this way, and I don’t see anything wrong with the practice.  Most of the time, they are publicly identifying themselves with Jesus, and that’s fantastic!

But other Christians seem ashamed of their faith – like the Jewish leaders in John 12:42-43.  The apostle tells us that “many even among the leaders believed in him.”  That’s great.  But … “because of the Pharisees, they would not confess their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue …”  In other words, if they admitted they followed Jesus as Jews, they could be banished from their house of worship.  The synagogue was not only the center of religious life, but social life as well.  To stand up for Jesus meant that a person would be ostracized.  So most of these Jews secretly believed in Jesus but refused to publicly acknowledge Him.

Why not?

John tells us at the end of verse 43: “for they loved praise from men more than praise from God.”

Mormons stand up for their faith, as do Muslims and Jehovah’s Witnesses and even cult members.  Shouldn’t we stand up for our faith in an even greater way than those groups do?

Delirious? has long been my favorite Christian band.  I love their anthem I’m Not Ashamed.  They sing with passion and conviction:

I’m not ashamed of the gospel

I’m not ashamed of the One I love

I’m not ashamed of the gospel

I’m not ashamed of the One I love

Are you?

Strong Christians are not ashamed of the One who died and rose again for them.

Third, strong Christians stand up to church antagonists.  Instead of making this point myself, I invite you to read the following article from Dr. Lloyd Rediger.  Dr. Rediger is a pioneer in identifying and protecting pastors from individuals he calls “clergy killers.”  In fact, that’s the title of his classic 1997 book.  He wrote this article four years earlier but it’s still relevant today:

Fourth, strong Christians defeat Satan in the Lord’s power.  I finished this last point – and the entire blog – a few minutes ago, but when I did, this entire final point became completely reformatted.  In the process of trying to fix it, I lost the entire point, even though I had saved a draft already.  (Guess who is responsible?)  So I will endeavor to finish this point next time!

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Antidote for a Common Virus

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Antagonists on June 6, 2011| Leave a Comment »

My wife and I just returned from a weekend trip to Southern California for a family wedding.  Because we drove 375 miles each way, I was concerned before the trip even started about traffic jams.

I hate traffic jams.

And I hate feeling trapped.

Evidently a lot of people agree with me because, whenever traffic backs up, people start doing weird things, like driving on the shoulder, or changing lanes incessantly, or getting off at the nearest off ramp (even when it doesn’t help at all).

Fortunately, we didn’t encounter one traffic jam while driving: not leaving Phoenix at rush hour, not on Highway 60 near Riverside (always a pain), and not on Highway 91 (thank God for toll roads!).

Because traffic jams make me anxious.

Anxiety occurs everywhere you find people: in medical waiting rooms, before school exams, and yes, even in churches.

Some events that cause anxiety in a church tend to bring everyone together, like the death of a prominent leader, a national catastophe (like 9/11), or a local natural disaster.  Since we cannot prevent or manage these events, we turn to each other for comfort and support.

But other events that happen in a church raise the anxiety level, like the introduction of an unpopular change, a steady decline in attendance, or the resignation of a popular leader.  Since many churchgoers believe these events could have been avoided, they react in the following way:

They complain.

And the ones who complain the most are the ones who can handle anxiety the least.

Meet Marie.  She’s been attending your church longer than anybody can remember.  Nearly everybody views her as a sweetheart.

But life hasn’t gone well for Marie in recent years.  She’s had problems with her relationships, jobs, finances, and body.  In fact, she’s suffered a lot – and doesn’t feel she’s deserved most of her maladies.

So she lives with a high level of anxiety.  Everywhere she goes, she hopes to find peace and understanding, but it usually eludes her.

But there is one place where she usually finds comfort and rest: at church.  When she experiences the loving acceptance of God’s people, Marie relaxes and basks in the beauty of Christ’s body.

However … it doesn’t take much for Marie to become anxious, even at church.  She becomes upset when the leaders try and introduce any kind of change.  She feels pain when she doesn’t know what’s going on behind-the-scenes.  And if the pastor says the wrong thing during a message, she’s ready … to complain.

Not just to her husband, but to her friends, to her small group, and to her ministry colleagues.  Marie is a chronic complainer.  And though she has her positive traits, her complaining – if left unchecked – could destroy her church.

The Bible has a lot to say about complaining, and it can be summed up in one word: don’t.

Sometimes the Bible also calls it grumbling or murmuring.

In Numbers 14:2, we’re told that “all the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, ‘If only we had died in Egypt!  Or in this desert!'”  God’s people complained because they were afraid to enter the promised land due to the giants the scouts had seen there – and they were particularly upset with their two leaders.  (Numbers is full of stories of God’s people complaining about God, their leaders and their conditions.)

In I Corinthians 10:10, Paul warns the church at Corinth, “And do not grumble, as some of them did – and were killed by the destroying angel.”  This incident is probably the one in Numbers 16 where 14,700 Israelites died after Korah’s rebellion.

In Philippians 2:14, Paul warns the church at Philippi: “Do everything without complaining or arguing …”  Evidently this church had a problem with both practices, especially the feuding women Euodia and Syntyche (see 4:2-3).

And Jude 16 refers to false teachers who are “grumblers and faultfinders” who “follow their own evil desires” and “boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.”

You won’t find complaining commended in Scripture.  God doesn’t like it.  Why not?

First, complaining demonstrates a helpless attitude.  When I complain, I am saying, “I don’t like this situation, and I can’t do anything about it, either!”  But many times, we can do something – we just don’t want to do it.

Not long ago, my wife and I encountered an unpleasant situation at a church we were visiting.  It made us feel very anxious.  Complaining wasn’t going to make anything better.  We had two choices: leave the campus or stay and bear it.

We made a choice and stayed – and no longer felt helpless.

Second, complaining becomes contagious.  Have you ever seen a focus group on television?  At first, when the group is asked a question, the initial speakers seem respectful and positive.  But as soon as one person begins to complain, the dam breaks and others begin complaining as well.

In fact, church consultant Peter Steinke believes that complaining in a church may be compared to a virus in the body.  The virus travels through the body trying to find host cells.  If the host cell receives the virus, it replicates it and then spreads to other cells.  But if enough host cells resist the virus, it cannot spread.

We pastors are good at condemning the practice of complaining from the pulpit, but we also need to encourage those who hear complaints to resist them rather than receive them – because once a person receives a complaint, they tend to spread it to others.

This is often the point at which a church becomes unhealthy.

Third, complaining demonstrates a lack of faith in God.  There is often a permanency about complaining.  We act like life will never get better.  We say things like, “This church will never grow,” or “I can’t stand the music,” or “The pastor’s messages are getting worse and worse.”  But if God is involved, can’t the church grow?  Can’t the music get better?  Can’t the pastor start touching your heart?

For this reason, complaining factors out the Holy Spirit and factors in the flesh.  However, if we would turn our complaints into prayer, we’d see God do more and we’d gripe a whole lot less.

If you struggle with complaining, let me share four quick remedies:

First, speak directly with the person you’re unhappy with.  If you thought the pastor’s joke was tasteless, find a way to tell him, not five friends after church.  If you didn’t like that girl who was running through the worship center after the service, talk to her, not to everybody but her.

However, there is at least one exception to this rule.

If your pastor announces a policy, and you don’t agree with it, then either speak with him or those who put together the policy.  In fact, if a board created the policy, it’s perfectly acceptable to speak with the board member you know or like the most as long as you go on the record.

So if it’s a matter of personal sin, talk directly to the person who sinned.  If it’s a matter of policy, talk to any one of those who created it.

Second, talk to a friend outside the church.  There have been times when I’ve felt very strongly about an issue but (a) I wasn’t entirely sure I was seeing things right, or (b) I needed some additional perspective.  So I contacted someone who didn’t know the players and shared my concerns with that individual.  I would then incorporate as many of their suggestions as I could.  The advantage of this approach is that you’re not spreading the virus of complaining throughout your church.

Third, increase your prayer life.  Incessant complaining is often a telltale sign that a person has all but stopped praying.  If we took more of our complaints to God, we’d have fewer things to complain about with others.

Finally, learn to keep quiet.  Some people are more expressive than others, but you don’t have to give a running commentary on everything that happens to you in life – especially at church.  Just learn to muzzle your mouth as King David says (Psalm 39:1).

A few years ago, my daughter and I went to church at a famous cathedral in Scotland.  If my wife had been with me, we would have talked about the service afterwards, so I thought I’d take the same approach with my daughter.  As I started to make a comment, she assertively told me, “Dad, I don’t want to hear it!”

So I kept quiet.  (But it was killing me.)

May I encourage you to do two things about this post:

First, if complaining is a problem, take positive steps to eliminate its hold on your life.  You’ll be much more joyful – as will everyone around you.

Finally, choose not to receive other people’s complaints unless you can take action.  If you can’t, then send them to someone who can address their concerns.

If everyone in a church followed these steps, the virus of complaining would never plague us again.

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Before Terminating a Pastor

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Board, Conflict with the Pastor, Pastoral Termination on June 3, 2011| 9 Comments »

Every day, it’s the same thing.

The number one phrase that people enter into their search engine that directs them to this blog is “how to terminate a pastor.”

Yesterday, there were three phrases using the terms “terminate” and “pastor,” as well as a fourth entry: “forcing out a pastor.”

There have been days when I’ve woken up and my article called “If You Must Terminate a Pastor” has been read multiple times.  It makes me wonder if it’s been read by an entire board somewhere that’s struggling with this issue.

I’d like to offer five suggestions to church leaders before they act to force their pastor out of his position:

First, talk to your pastor about your concerns.  When my kids were growing up, if they messed up in some fashion, I corrected them immediately.  They knew what I expected and were given time to change their behavior.

A pastor should be treated in a similar manner.

I realize it’s never easy to correct a pastor, but if he’s saying or doing something wrong – or there’s something he’s neglecting to do – then a member of the governing board needs to discuss it with him as soon as possible.

Let’s say a pastor is delving too much into politics in his messages.  In all likelihood, a few people from the church will contact him and tell him they think he’s crossing a line.  This might alert the pastor to a problem, but he might ignore their opinions and plow ahead anyway.

One of the board members then has to talk with the pastor, and the sooner, the better.  If it was me, I wouldn’t wait until the next official board meeting.  Instead, I’d invite the pastor out for a meal and share my concerns with him – and I would speak only for myself, not for the rest of the board.

Many pastors would realize they’ve crossed a line and would stop injecting politics into their sermons right away.  Mission accomplished.

After a private conversation – recommended by Jesus in Matthew 18:15 – the issue should now be closed.

However, some board members just can’t bring themselves to talk to the pastor in private.  So they begin talking about the pastor to each other.  Joe has one complaint against the pastor, Bill has another, and Reed has still another.  All of a sudden, Joe’s complaint is adopted by Bill, and Bill’s is adopted by both Reed and Joe.

This is how church conflict begins: by pooling complaints.

As they do this, the board members start to believe that maybe the pastor should leave.  In fact, they find it easy to blame him for everything that is wrong with their church.

However, the pastor isn’t at fault.  He doesn’t even know about the conversations the board members are having with each other.  Because they failed to use the biblical principle of confronting him directly before involving others (Matthew 18:15), everything that happens from this moment on will largely be the responsibility of those three board members.

If a pastor messes up – and he will from time-to-time – then one person should speak with him in private without involving others.  Ideally, if there are five members on the church board, then all five should approach him separately.

Wouldn’t you like to be treated that way?

Second, be clear about the change you expect.  While pastors are gifted individuals, they are not mind readers.  If you want your pastor to change the way he does ministry, you have to define the change you want.  Don’t make him guess what you’re thinking.

I served with one board that asked me to stop wearing a suit on Sundays and dress down a bit more.  Except for funerals and weddings, I never wore a suit after that.

One board member asked me to quit putting down the Dodgers in my messages.  They were his favorite team and he felt attacked every time I did it.  I stopped.

Here’s the template: “Pastor, I’d like to ask if you’d start/stop doing _____ for this reason: _____.”

I don’t believe that such a statement should be presented as a demand but as a request.  However, unless it’s a matter of doctrine or ethics, you may have to let the pastor make up his own mind about your request.

Many years ago in my first pastorate, two deacons called on a Saturday night and asked me if they could come over and talk with me.  When they arrived, I climbed into one of their cars and heard them out.

They wanted me to give altar calls every Sunday morning.

A public invitation is when a pastor invites people to receive Christ in a church service, often by praying right where they are.

An altar call is much more public.  It’s when a person is asked to walk to the front of the church before receiving Christ, like at a Billy Graham crusdade.

I wrote my thesis in seminary on “a theological evaluation of the altar call.”  I didn’t want to start doing it because we had a church of 40 Christians with few visitors.  Since everybody was already saved, nobody was going to walk forward, even if I was Billy Graham.  Then they would judge my ministry a failture.

Besides, the practice isn’t mentioned anywhere in Scripture and comes out of the 19th century camp meetings.  It’s an option, not a necessity.

So I told them I wouldn’t do it.  (I had more guts at 27 than I do now!)  They accepted my decision – and they never brought it up again.  But I was grateful that they spoke with me about making a specific change.

Third, give the pastor time to change.  With an issue like mentioning politics in a message, the pastor should be expected to stop right away.  If he crosses a line again, then the person who initially spoke with the pastor might choose to take one or two more people with him to speak with the pastor (Matthew 18:16).

However, many pastors develop habits where it’s difficult for them to change overnight.

I was never very good at home visitation.  When I had to visit shut-ins, neither one of us enjoyed the experience very much.  When I stopped by to see newcomers who had visited our church the previous Sunday, they rarely came back.

The boomers didn’t want a pastor coming to their house.  (There were too many things to hide before he got there.)  But many in the builder generation expected that kind of personal attention from their pastor.

If I was asked to visit in homes, I could probably do it for a week or two, but since it’s unnatural for me, I’d find reasons to quit doing it as soon as possible.

It takes time for pastors to change their behavior or learn new skills.  Board members need to realize that.  Maybe the pastor’s progress could be measured on a monthly or quarterly basis.  But give him a chance to change first – and give him points for trying.

Fourth, realize your pastor is unique.  Many Christians have a favorite pastor from their past.  Maybe he led them to Christ, or baptized them, or married them, or counseled them – and he became their pastor forever.

But then he resigned or retired, and while he’s not around anymore, precious memories still linger.

There are times when a board member wants to terminate a pastor because he isn’t Pastor So-and-So from my past.  Over the years, many people have told me about their favorite pastor.  At first, I felt a little intimdated, but then I realized that it’s okay to form a special bond with a man of God.  It’s one of the primary ways God causes us to grow.

But on some level, there are people – even board members – who become upset or even angry with their current pastor because he doesn’t do things the way their favorite pastor did.  They canonize his personality and his methodology.

If this could be the case with you, I beg you: please ask God and a few loved ones around you to tell you the truth as to whether you’re being fair toward your pastor or not.

Because even if you get rid of him, that favorite pastor is not coming back.

Finally, take time to pray that your pastor changes.  Many board members come out of the business world, and prayer is not a business principle.  But prayer works wonders – even with a pastor.

Instead of persuading fellow board members to fire the pastor, why not ask the King of Kings to change him instead?

I once had a pastor who had an annoying habit.  I prayed fervently for him without talking to him about it.  He not only changed, he told the church he had changed!

That principle isn’t in Good to Great, is it?

But it is in the Bible!

Let me put this in a nutshell: before relying on business practices or playing church politics, resolve that you will handle any problems with your pastor in a biblical and spiritual manner.

If you do, the odds are good that you won’t have to terminate your pastor because he’ll respond to you in kind.

Think about it.

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Afraid of Church?

Posted in Church Conflict, Current Church Issues on June 1, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Several years ago, my former church held a social event on a Saturday evening.  We enjoyed great food, crazy games, and gondola rides on a lagoon behind the church campus.

During the event, I met a woman from the neighborhood who came from the Czech Republic.  (She wanted a boat ride but wasn’t attending the event.)  She had experienced some tragedy in her life and told me her story.  After a while, I suggested that she might visit our church sometime.  She seemed to consider the idea.

I carefully led her over to the stairs that rose up to our event center.  The closer we got, the more panic she felt.  Although I was very gentle with her, she wanted nothing to do with being inside a church.  She became extremely anxious and exited the building as quickly as she could.

She was afraid of church.

Like her, many others are also afraid of church.  Some are afraid to set foot on a church campus.  Others are afraid to enter a worship center.  Still others are afraid of Christian music.  And lots of people are afraid of preaching.

Why is this?

For starters, some people have never attended church in their lives – not for a wedding, or a funeral, or a children’s program, or a worship service.  While some people almost pride themselves on never darkening the door of a church, the very thought petrifies others.  But one day, they can’t avoid it any longer.  Their daughter is getting married, or an uncle passed away, or one of their kids has a role in the Christmas program, and the event is held at a church.  They don’t see a way out of the situation, so they go … with all their defenses up.

Is there some kind of event that you’ve never attended and it makes you nervous just thinking about it?  Maybe you’ve never attended a rap concert, or a city council meeting, or an indoor arena football game, and you have no desire to go because you don’t know what will happen if you do.  That’s understandable.

That’s how many people feel about attending any event at a church.

Next, some people have suffered traumatic experiences inside a church service.  Some churches used to exclude non-members from communion, either asking them to leave or asking them not to partake of the elements.  Feeling excluded feels unsafe to some.  On the other hand, I once attended a church service where everyone was expected to leave their pew, walk forward, and kneel around the altar – something I did not want to do.  (But I did it only because I felt coerced.)  The whole experience shook me up because I did not want to embarrass myself in front of scores of strangers who already knew what to do.

Some people don’t sing at church because they never sing anywhere else.  Other people freeze up during the greeting time, either because they want to remain anonymous or because they don’t like to shake hands with strangers.  And a lot of people hate it when a preacher yells about anything because it reminds them of an abusive stepfather or boss.

Shouldn’t such people just “get over it?”  They’d like to, but remember: while going to work is a necessity, going to church is purely optional.  And if the leaders of a church – however well-intentioned – create experiences that make people feel uncomfortable, those people may choose to stay home from church for a long, long time.

Next, some people expect that a church will be a safe place – and if it isn’t, they’ll just stop going.  I believe that a pastor who preaches from Scripture should be able to talk about any issue from the pulpit, even tough social issues like abortion or homosexuality.  However, if a pastor does it without sensitivity, he can unintentionally slash the hearts of those who feel guilty about their past conduct or those who struggle with their present behavior.  The pastor would say he’s being “faithful to the Word of God” and prophetic in his presentation, but if he condemns sin without offering grace, many people will just stop going to that church.

Because he wanted to reach unchurched people, Robert Schuller believed that a pastor shouldn’t deal with controversial issues from the pulpit, that those should best be left for classroom discussions.  But Bill Hybels, who also championed reaching unchurched people, was comfortable dealing with any and all issues, including cultural hot potatoes.  The key is to proclaim the truth while making people feel safe at the same time, because if they don’t feel safe, they won’t come back.

I am not talking about compromising the gospel or avoiding difficult topics.  Most Christians want a church to explain its position on issues from Scripture.  This adds to their knowledge and helps them explain and defend their faith in the marketplace.  For example, if a pastor never talks about abortion, how will most of his people obtain a Christian view of the practice?

But if a pastor becomes so incensed about abortion that he starts screaming and yelling, he may run off women who have secretly had an abortion even if they have already repented.

Finally, some people are afraid of God – and maybe they ought to be – and identify God and church in their mind.

Why bring all this up?

My wife and I experienced a horrible trauma 18 months ago.  The trauma was inflicted by Christian people that we loved and cared about.  We had to move to another state to start the healing process.

To be honest, we didn’t want to attend church anywhere for a while.  It felt dangerous to us.  While we did take a few Sundays off, we eventually began visiting churches, but some of them did not feel like safe places.

At the second church we visited, the pastor raised his voice about an issue, and I sensed he was addressing some critics.  But it still felt uncomfortable.  As my wife and I were walking on a sidewalk toward the parking lot, a couple tried to go around us and forced us off the sidewalk.  (That wasn’t nice.)  And let’s not even talk about how so-called Christians behave in a crowded parking lot.

Forget being seeker-sensitive – some of these churches weren’t even believer-sensitive.

You’re probably wondering, “Jim, aren’t you being nitpicky about this stuff?”

No, I’m not.  Here’s why.

There are millions of people in the United States who believe in God and who already like Jesus Christ – and yet they aren’t yet Christians.  We can blame them all we want for their unbelief, but when they do finally visit a church – maybe after years of avoiding one – what kind of experience do we give them?

We act like they’re not even there.

Maybe they’re not afraid of church as much as we are afraid of them.

A pastor friend once told me about a time that he went up after class to speak with one of his seminary professors.  My friend said, “I appreciate what you taught us: teach the sheep and love the sheep.”  The professor said, “No, I said love the sheep and teach the sheep – and in that order.”

If our churches are going to be safe places to hear a dangerous message, then we need to learn to love people before we teach them.  They need to have a positive experience from the church parking lot to the nursery to the children’s rooms to the church lobby and into the worship center.  They need to have a positive experience inside the service, from the songs to the greeting time to the offering to the message.

But I’m seeing a disturbing trend today.  Too many churches are becoming in-grown.  They don’t seem to want guests to come so they don’t expect them to come, either.  The emphasis is on spiritual formation – which is fine – but to the neglect of reaching lost people for Jesus Christ.

So when people finally do show up – and it may have taken them months to work up the courage – we simply aren’t ready for them.  Nobody greets them.  Nobody talks to them.  Nobody even notices them.

So when the service is done, they slip away as fast as they can – all the while even more determined not to go to church anywhere.

After trying a church, they’re even more afraid of church.

Many years ago, I learned this adage: most people will give a church only one chance.  If a church treats their guests well, they may be able to reach them for Jesus.  If the church neglects their guests or makes them feel unsafe, they will probably never return, and may write off Jesus and His people in the process.

It takes courageous leadership to make a church a safe place.  There are churches that do this and do it well, and they don’t compromise their message in the process.  And the leaders do their best to involve everyone in the church in reaching people for Christ.

But they have learned to love people for Jesus before they teach them about Jesus.  And in so doing, they have earned the right to be heard.

How about your church?  Is it a safe place for hurting people – even those who have experienced trauma in their lives?

If not – in the words of Jean-Luc Picard – make it so.

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Dealing with Dysfunctional Church Leaders

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Antagonists, Please Comment! on May 25, 2011| Leave a Comment »

My professors never said anything about this issue when I was in seminary.  Over the years, I only recall reading one article on the topic.  And yet it’s one of the biggest sources of conflict in any church – especially for pastors.

What should a pastor do when a church leader is highly dysfunctional?

We all have our dysfunctions, don’t we?  There are areas in our lives that just don’t work.  It could be that we experienced trauma in our childhood or pain in our recent past, and we’re just not very good at handling certain issues.

Many years ago, a church I led hired a contractor to do some remodeling for us.  The contractor turned out to be a crook.  The board had to hire a lawyer.  It got nasty.

For months after that experience, if I sensed that anyone was even remotely cheating me out of money, I became very upset – even if it was just a store clerk handing me the wrong amount of change.  It took a while for me to heal, but I eventually did.  During that time period, I was dysfunctional in that one area of my life, but that didn’t mean I was unhealthy overall.

However, some people never heal from their hurts, and they in turn have a habit of hurting others.

So granted that “we all have our issues,”  how should a pastor handle a dysfunctional leader?  Notice that I didn’t say anything about a dysfunctional attendee (because everyone needs to feel safe in a church).

Instead, I’m talking about people who cannot communicate properly, have consistent problems with authority, engage in highly inappropriate behavior, and seem blind to the way others respond to them.  In a word, dysfunctional people are unpredictable.

And many of them are experts at maneuvering their way into leadership positions.

Dysfunctional people have a way of making their entire ministry dysfunctional.  Rather than advancing the cause of Christ, they cause such consternation that their overall impact damages others.

Let me give you an example.  I once supervised a staff member who could not write a coherent sentence.  This person would submit a newsletter article to me but it was such a mess I couldn’t publish it.  Someone had to rewrite it for publication, and since I served as editor, the responsibility fell to me.

For a while, I asked the staff member to do the rewriting, but his second attempts were usually no better than his first ones.  So I rewrote his article, gave it to him, asked if he wanted to change anything, and then submitted it for publication.  While this system tied me in knots, it was the best we could do at the time.

But after a while, he started to become upset with me.  Since he didn’t see anything wrong with his articles, he thought I was being way too critical – but we could not publish something that made him, his ministry, and the church look bad.

While I really liked this person, he carried that same attitude over into his ministry.  He was going to do what he desired and no one – not even his supervisor, the pastor – had the right to dictate otherwise.  Yet what was normal for him was abnormal to others.

Should I have let him remain in leadership?  While I wanted to think about his well-being, I also needed to think about all those people that he was adversely affecting.

Since I have always tended to give staff members more chances than they deserve, I let him stay until he resigned.

In another situation, I served with a woman who had a bleeding heart.  She was very intelligent but always gravitated toward wounded people.  If I yelled out to our leaders, “Let’s take the next hill for Jesus!” I’d focus on making the hill while she would stop and help the first casualty.  It’s safe to say she had the gift of mercy.

Remember when the OJ verdict came down?  It happened on a Wednesday morning.  That night, at our midweek Bible study, I made a passing comment about the verdict.  Most people were tracking with me, but this woman said, “But why did you think he was guilty when his own mother believed in him?”

After the service, this woman trapped me in the church kitchen and ranted at me for at least ten minutes.  Whatever hostility she had bottled up inside of her came pouring out.  I thought pots and pans were next.

Here’s where this gets tricky.  What was the real reason that she came unglued?

It may have been that she saw her husband or her father or her boss in me, and because she couldn’t tell them how she really felt, she unloaded on me.  Pastors are usually perceived to be safe people who won’t hurt back.

But she led an important ministry in the church.  A lot of people looked up to her.  Should I have let her stay in leadership?

She later apologized.  I forgave her.  We both moved on.  And she stayed at the church and continued in leadership.  But it wasn’t an easy call.  It never is.

Let me share a few thoughts about pastors and dysfunctional leaders:

First, sometimes a pastor inherits dysfunctional leaders from his predecessor.  Whether it’s a staff member, a board member, or a ministry team leader, a new pastor usually comes to a church with many leadership positions already filled.  Since the previous pastor chose them, these leaders sometimes feel entitled.  As time goes by, the pastor tries to determine which leaders are healthy (and effective) and which are not.  The healthy ones get to stay.  The unhealthy ones either need to be marginalized or removed – or else that entire area of ministry could go up in smoke.

Second, the pastor needs wisdom to do this well.  For example, he can wait for the ministry to go into decline and then die.  He can then bury it, wait a while, and restart it with a new leader.  Or he can offer the leader another position in the church (usually one where they can’t cause much damage).  Or he can call the leader into his office (possibly with a witness) and gently but firmly remove the person from office.  But if he does this:

Third, the pastor may face a backlash.  The dysfunctional leader probably won’t understand what the pastor is saying.  He or she may interpret the pastor’s words as personal rejection.  Then they’ll contact their friends and begin to lambast the pastor (proving his judgement right).  While every pastor wants peace in the church, allowing dysfunctional individuals to remain in leadership can ultimately lead to church wars.

I’ve had this happen so many times.  After you make your decision, you know what’s coming.  The former leader and their friends may form an unofficial coalition and mount a counterattack against the pastor, or withhold their giving, or leave the church altogether, encouraging others to join them.

If the pastor can just wait it out, the whole situation usually blows over in a couple of months.  But as these scenarios become more difficult over time, a pastor may stop making the hard calls and allow unhealthy leaders to remain – but he’ll have more problems down the road if he does.

Fourth, some people will applaud the pastor for his courage.  Many years ago, I needed to remove someone from leadership who had only been there a few months.  By doing this, I was admitting that I had made a mistake in choosing this person in the first place, but it was evident they just weren’t working out.  After I made the decision, a top leader came and asked, “What took you so long?”  It quickly dawned on me that other leaders were seeing what I was seeing and were just waiting for me to eliminate the dysfunction – and when I did, they gained new respect for my leadership.

Finally, it’s better to have no one than the wrong leader.  For the church’s first 18 years, Don Cousins served as Bill Hybels’ right-hand man at Willow Creek Church.  As the church grew into the thousands, the leadership team could not find the right person to lead their Jr. High ministry.  While they searched, many families left the church and went elsewhere, but this did not sway the leaders.  They were determined to wait until they found the right person for the job.  They believed that if they acted out of anxiety and placed the wrong person in that position, then (a) kids and families would leave anyway, (b) it would take up to a year to remove the person, (c) then they’d lose people who liked the Jr. High leader, (d) it would cost them a severance package, and (e) they’d have to engage in the whole search process over again.

In the end, they waited two years to find the right person, but it was worth it.

After a whole night in prayer, even Jesus chose a leader who didn’t work out: Judas.  If our infallible Savior selected a leader who was unhealthy, we can expect it will happen to pastors as well from time-to-time.

What are your thoughts on this issue?  I’d love to hear them!

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Who Are We Trying to Reach?

Posted in Change and Conflict in Church, Church Conflict, Current Church Issues, Please Comment! on May 23, 2011| 2 Comments »

In my mind, the biggest question facing every pastor and church leader is this one:

Who are we trying to reach?

As soon as a pastor answers that question, nearly everything else falls into place – but his problems are only beginning.

For example, if a pastor believes his church should reach men, that will impact his message themes, the kind of music the church offers, the way people dress, and a host of other decisions.

The church my wife and I have attended for the past year targets men.  They believe that if they reach a man, his wife and their children will also come to church.

So the parking lot attendants are all men.  The initial wave of greeters are men.  (The second wave includes women.)

At yesterday’s service, the pastor talked about what happens to partners after they divorce.  The video testimony during his message was given by a man.

The music style at services is primarily rock with a little pop thrown in.  The worship leaders and band members are always men.  There are always two backup vocalists – one on either side of the stage – and they are usually women.  Performance songs are sung equally by both women and men.

The pastor announced that softball leagues are beginning for the summer, and you can either play on a coed team or a men’s team.

The dress at the church is Phoenix-casual.  Many people – including men – wear shorts, some year-round.  In other words, men don’t need to get dressed up to come to church.  (That appeals to a lot of guys who never get dressed up for anything.)

When new men visit the church, they relax when they see other men everywhere.  They start thinking, “Maybe the Christian faith isn’t just for women and children after all.”

However, a lot of pastors are afraid to decide on a target group because they know such a decision is inherent with conflict.  And yet if a church tries to reach everybody, it will eventually reach nobody.  No person – or church – can be all things to all people.

Once a pastor decides on a group to target, should he announce that decision to the congregation?  It might seem like the church is excluding entire groups, especially in this politically-correct world.

So if a pastor announces the church is targeting men, some might say, “Then you obviously aren’t interested in women or children!”  And if a pastor says, “We’re trying to reach young families,” some of the seniors might complain, “Then it’s obvious you don’t care about us.”

It’s a dilemma for pastors: if you do target a particular group, then your ministry has more focus and you enhance your ability to grow – but some people also might feel excluded, which can affect their attendance, giving, and morale.

If a pastor can’t make a decision about this dilemma, then his church won’t grow until he does.

But if the pastor doesn’t handle the target thing just right, it can result in a mass exodus – or his head on a platter.

In my second pastorate, there was a couple in the church who came from the Midwest.  They had Swedish roots, and they attended that church partly because it had a Swedish background.

One Sunday morning, the couple sang an old hymn in Swedish – and they did not sing it well.  Who was their target?  People who knew Swedish.  How many people in our church knew Swedish?  Probably a handful.

I thought to myself, “These Swedish songs have to go.”  I’m not sure I ever told anybody that, but I set up a policy that insured that all song selections had to go through me before they were done in a service.

That went for any songs in French, Japanese, and Navajo, too.

But that didn’t make me popular.  In fact, the couple that sang that hymn became the worst church antagonists I had for years.  (However, they have since been surpassed.)

Then I had to discern who we were going to reach.  I settled on young families.  Why?  Because younger people are more receptive to the gospel than older people.  The older a person gets, the more resistant they become to the gospel.  God’s grace can reach down and touch anyone’s heart, but if a church truly wants to make an impact in their community, they usually target younger families.

Once a pastor and his key leaders make that decision, they need to view the entire ministry through the lens of that group.

And they need to make sure that the music style fits their target audience.

The leaders need to ask themselves, “What kind of music do young families listen to these days?”  While most younger people are pretty eclectic musically, most churches can’t produce a variety of genres at a weekend service.  So the leaders also need to ask, “What kind of music can we offer that will attract those families?”

Once that decision is reached, it may exclude the choir, the organ, and the musical saw.

The “worship wars” were fought in the 1980s as baby boomers gradually began to assume the leadership of Christian churches.  Choirs and pipe organs started to disappear.  They were replaced by guitars and keyboards.  While this trend delighted younger people, it upset many seniors.

And this once again created a real dilemma for pastors.  While seniors are often more generous and consistent in their giving, younger people tend to be more stingy and sporadic.  So if a church changes their musical presentations from a choir to a rock band overnight, that move might offend older people without necessarily attracting younger people – and the seniors might withhold their giving or take it to another church.

This is why a pastor needs to bring all the leaders along together in determining which group a church is going to reach.  Because when the outcry comes – and it will – the pastor will need all the support he can get.

Some of you might remember the musical changes that happened in the ’80s and ’90s:

*The songleader (who waved his arms to the time of the music) was replaced by a worship leader (who played guitar or keyboard).

*The organ and piano (sometimes) were replaced by several guitars, bass, and drums.

*The volume was cranked up a lot (to give the service an event feel).

*The words to the songs were transferred from the hymnbook (which caused everyone to look down when they sang) to a video screen (where everyone had to look up to see the words).

*The worship leader often introduced new songs into a service, which meant fewer hymns were sung.

*While the congregation used to sit while singing some songs, now everyone stood for every song.

*The churches whose music hit the target group grew, sometimes rapidly.  The churches that canonized their musical presentations usually remained stagnant, sometimes going into a death spiral.

(Incidentally, I love many of the old hymns.  I have a “Christian Hymns” Playlist on my iPod that includes 175 songs by artists as diverse as Amy Grant, Johnny Cash, and Michael W. Smith.  If we have a hard day, sometimes we play those songs all night.  Hymns are great as long as they aren’t done in a dirge-like style.)

Once a target group is chosen, the following questions become easier to answer:

*What time will our services start?

*How long will our services go?

*How will we structure our services?

*What kind of events will we offer our church and/or community?

*How will we follow up guests?

*What kind of lighting will we have?

*How will we invite people to receive Jesus?

Choosing a target group simplifies scores of decisions just like these for a pastor.  But the alternative is for a pastor to impose his own personal tastes onto a congregation, which some pastors do.

I love the band U2.  For years, I looked for opportunities to sing a U2 song like “40” or “Yahweh” in a service, but it never happened.  (We did manage to play “Magnificent” between services, however.)  And yet if the worship leaders didn’t like the songs, or the target group didn’t like U2, then we shouldn’t have done their songs just because I liked them.

While it might not have worked in that venue, many worship leaders where we attend now love U2, and their songs are played all the time.  (When I heard “In God’s Country,” I knew I was home.)  Playing U2 songs works at this church – but it doesn’t work everywhere.

Someday, people from every race and tribe and culture will surround Jesus’ throne, singing songs of praise directly to Him.  What a great day that will be!

While every kind of person will enter Christ’s kingdom, no church can reach everyone.  A pastor needs to prayerfully consider the group a church is best positioned to reach and then pursue them vigorously.

I’d love to hear from you.  Who is your church trying to reach?

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Following a Successful Leader

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Staff, Conflict with the Pastor, Personal Stories on May 18, 2011| 2 Comments »

“Never follow someone successful.”

That advice was given to me and seven of my classmates when I took a class on managing church conflict in seminary.  Our instructor was a retired army colonel who seemed to know what he was talking about.

I learned this the hard way at the last church where I was a youth pastor.

The previous youth pastor (let’s call him Bob) was a friend of mine who was moving to another state to complete seminary.  We had known each other off and on for quite a while.  As I recall, he had a hand in recommending me to be his successor.

I had many friends in that church already.  The search team was very positive toward me.  It seemed like a good fit.

But after Bob left, I was unaware of the affection that the adult leaders and the young people had for him.  Some of them practically worshiped him.  One girl told me, “I feel sorry for you.”  An adult leader told me, “You’re just so … different” – implying that there was something wrong with me.  There were even signs of rebellion among the ranks.

Since I had never been through this experience before, I began to feel tinges of jealousy toward Bob.  I didn’t really know why he was viewed as being godlike and why I was held in contempt by certain people.

One Christmas, Bob came home from school and was scheduled to speak on a Sunday morning.  You would have thought that Jesus was appearing live on stage.  There was a buzz throughout the campus that day that I didn’t know how to handle.

Years later, Bob and I got together for a meal, and I told him about his near-saint status inside the church and what a challenge that was for me.  We both had a good laugh about it.

But I wasn’t laughing at the time.

However, I learned some valuable lessons through that experience that I couldn’t have learned any other way.  How can a Christian leader stay sane when following someone successful?

First, realize some people grieve the loss of a spiritual leader for a long time.  I had a youth pastor that I greatly admired when I was at Biola.  Since he was in seminary, sometimes we’d ride back to the church together after school.  I could talk to him for hours.  He was smart, human, and funny – and he knew his Bible well.  I picked his brain about everything.  (One time, we tossed a Frisbee down the center aisle of the church while talking.  Then I went up to the balcony and tried to throw the Frisbee into the baptistry.  We called our game BapFrisbee.)

My youth pastor meant the world to me.  When he graduated from seminary and took a church in Colorado, it hurt – a lot.  He was my spiritual mentor, my go-to guy when I got stuck in life.

Darrell, I will never, ever forget you.  Without you, I would probably still be flipping burgers at McDonald’s.

Although I became the church’s youth pastor after Darrell left, I never felt any sense of competition toward him.  As far as I was concerned, he could do no wrong.

And that’s how many of the kids felt about Bob.  He had taught them God’s Word, played crazy games with them, led them to Christ, and listened to their problems.  He had earned the right to be greatly loved over time, while I had not.  I slowly began to understand why they felt the way they did about him.

Second, determine to be yourself.  Bob couldn’t be me, and I couldn’t be Bob.  We were completely different individuals.  But I think it was difficult for some people to see that.

After a while, Bob became predictable to the adult youth leaders and the kids.  They learned to understand his humor.  They could tell when he was upset.  They became accustomed to his teaching style.  And then all of a sudden, Bob was gone, and I was taking his place.  At first, I wasn’t predictable.  My personality, leadership style, and methodology weren’t better or worse than Bob’s – just different.  Some people were just off balance around me.  While that bothered me, I couldn’t be a Bob clone.

There were times during the first year after Bob left when I just wanted to quit.  But slowly, changes began to occur because …

Third, expect that as a new leader, you will gain new followers.  Some of Bob’s biggest supporters gradually dropped out, moved away, or left the church, so they weren’t around forever.  And some of the new Jr. High kids didn’t really know Bob at all, so I was their first youth pastor.  Then some new students came to the church, and I instantly became their youth leader as well.

There was a group of high school and college guys in that church that I really loved.  We played sports and went to ballgames together.  They meant so much to me.  Some of us became friends for life.

I learned that youth groups, like churches, never remain static.  They are constantly turning over, maybe 10-20% per year.  If a leader just hangs in there, most of his opposition will eventually leave – and most newcomers will become supportive.  The process just takes time.

Fourth, pave the way so someone can succeed you.  When I finally left my last youth pastorate after 3 1/2 years, I truly loved the adult leaders and the students.  My wife and I sensed a great outpouring of love as we prepared to move to Northern California, a response we couldn’t have envisioned just three years before when I was chasing a ghost.

Now someone had to follow me.

So on my last Sunday, I took a few minutes to encourage the congregation to love my successor the way they had loved me.  I didn’t want anyone to go through the hell that I had gone through.

I learned a lot about following someone successful, so much so that those lessons have stayed with me for the rest of my ministry.  And I especially learned this lesson:

If they loved your predecessor, most people will gradually come to love you.

Finally, remember John 3:30.  For a few months, John the Baptist was the biggest star in all of Israel.  His appearance became iconic.  His preaching drew crowds.  His message sparked debates.  Arising out of nowhere, John had become THE MAN in the land.

And then Jesus came along.

Suddenly, the crowds left John and began following Jesus.  It would have hurt a lesser man.

Someone told me recently about a man who succeeded a well-known Bible teacher as pastor.  This Bible teacher had his own unique speaking and writing style that endeared him to thousands.  I have many of his books and once subscribed to his messages on cassette.  He would have been a tough act for anyone to follow.  After a few years, his successor resigned and became very upset about the way he was treated.

I can understand why he might have felt that way.  It’s unfair to be compared to someone else when you’re just trying to be yourself.

But remarkably, John adopted an alternative viewpoint.

John knew his role.  It wasn’t to be the Messiah.  It was to pave the way for Israel’s Messiah.  When the crowds left John and followed Jesus, John didn’t become jealous because that was the plan all along.

In John 3:30, John said, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

Those are the best words I’ve ever run across for dealing with the whole predecessor-successor thing.  There’s a time for me to be in the spotlight followed by a time when the spotlight needs to shine on someone else.  Only a narcissist would insist that the spotlight shine on him forever.

But John was far from a narcissist.  He was truly humble in the best sense of the word.

In essence, John said, “Who gives a rip what people think about me?  I only care what people think about Jesus.”

I was once in a church where there was a little plaque fastened to the pulpit where only the preacher could see it.  It served as a reminder why we were all there in the first place.

The plaque said simply, “Sir, We Must See Jesus.”

I couldn’t say it any better myself.

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