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Why Church Membership?

Posted in Change and Conflict in Church, Church Health and Conflict, Current Church Issues, Please Comment! on October 26, 2011| 1 Comment »

Why should anyone officially join a church anymore?

For years, I had a ready answer: to commit yourself to a specific group of believers at a specific time and place.

But I’ve changed my tune – and am willing to be shown the light.

I grew up in an era when pastors offered altar calls at the end of every service.  While we sang a hymn, the pastor would invite attendees to walk to the front of the church (“the altar”) which signified they were making a spiritual decision.

Sometimes if you walked forward during the first stanza, you were indicating you desired salvation.  Second stanza?  Baptism.  Third stanza?  Rededication.  Final stanza?  Church membership.

Choreography aside, membership was considered so important that (a) you made your desire for membership public, and (b) it became the culmination of the conversion-baptism-rededication sequence.

In one church, a man named Gary walked forward for salvation on Sunday morning.  He was baptized that night and immediately voted into membership.

We never saw him again.

The practice of “instant membership” is still followed in some churches.  I recently visited a church in my area where two women went forward after the sermon and were quickly voted into membership by the worshipers.  (I didn’t vote.)

Although some would disagree, “instant” membership seems like “cheap” membership to me – and cheap membership feels meaningless.

I know a pastor who leads a church without formal membership.  If someone desires membership, they fill out a card and are told, “Now you’re a member.”

This leads me to ask: where does the whole membership idea come from, anyway?

Does it come from Scripture?  I’ve searched the New Testament and can’t find “official membership” anywhere.  The word “member” is used in passages like Romans 12:4-5; 1 Corinthians 12:24; Ephesians 3:6; 4:25; 5:30 – but it metaphorically compares believers to parts of the body, not joining a local church.

So if the New Testament doesn’t command or emphasize official membership – and it doesn’t – then how essential is it for spiritual growth or serving Jesus?

Once upon a time, churches were divided into members and non-members.  If you weren’t a member, you didn’t feel that you belonged.  Some churches even practiced “closed communion” where only members could take the Lord’s Supper.

When you became a member, you were invited to the front of the worship center on a Sunday morning and given the right hand of fellowship by the pastor – an indication that you were now “official.”

And yes, people back then treated members differently than non-members.

Sadly, this kind of thinking still occurs.  I received a phone call several years ago from a man who was in the hospital and near death’s door.  He asked if I would come and pray for him.  I instantly agreed.  He told me that he’d called another minister in town who asked, “Are you a member of our church?”  When he said he wasn’t, the pastor declined to see him.

To me, that’s wrong.  I don’t see a member/non-member distinction in the New Testament.  If we are to pray for and love our enemies, as Jesus commanded, then certainly we are to do the same for non-members.

In fact, the trend for the past 30 years has been to assimilate unchurched people into church life – loving them unconditionally – so they do receive Christ eventually … whether or not they ever formally join the church.

Every church has non-members who attend regularly, serve willingly, and give generously.  And every church has members who attend sporadically, never serve, and rarely give.

Aren’t those in the first group acting more like members – and are more committed – than those in the second group?

In our haste to quanitfy everything, are we making distinctions that neither Jesus nor His apostles ever made?

What are the advantages of membership to a church?

*Bolster congregational statistics (“We have 300 members.”)

*Expect people to attend, serve, and give consistently

*Can discipline members (especially leaders) and hold them accountable

*Can remove the membership of troublemakers

What are the advantages to a member?

*Get to vote on a handful of issues (usually annually)

*Receive a membership certificate

*Receive a church constitution

*Feel like you really belong

When a person first joins a church, they are showered with attention.  But doesn’t that usually fade over time?

Maybe I’m blind, but it seems to me that membership confers few benefits but requires enormous responsibilities.  In fact, the church receives 90% of the benefits without offering much that is unique.

For example, in Ken Sande’s book The Peacemaker, he assumes that Christians in a local church will become members.  Why?  So that church leaders have leverage (“accountability”) when dealing with uncooperative individuals.

So does membership have an inherently strong control component built in?

I haven’t heard one word about membership at the church we’ve been attending the past 16 months.  The church is about three words: WIN, TRAIN, SEND.  More than 1,400 people have come to Christ already this year.

They’re much more missional than institutional.

In fact, I’ve observed that the more missional a church is, the less they emphasize membership, but the more institutional they are, the more they emphasize it.

In other words, if we can’t convert unbelievers into believers, then at least we can convert believers into members.

While I believe that church membership can be meaningful, we need to create a better rationale for the practice than “we’ve always done it that way” or “it means something to me” or “it signifies loyalty to my church.”

When I join Costco, I receive lots of benefits, like bulk packaging, cheap lunches, free samples, and great discounts.  I willingly pay my dues every June for those privileges.

But what do I get for joining a church that I don’t get if I don’t join?

I can still join in worship, hear sermons, sample refreshments, attend classes, join a small group, use my spiritual gifts, ask for prayer … and so much more.

Want to straighten me out?

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Healing the Soul

Posted in Church Health and Conflict, Current Church Issues, Personal Stories on October 19, 2011| 2 Comments »

What is the state of your soul today?

Most of us – including Christians – aren’t thinking too much about our souls.  We’re preoccupied with our bodies, emotions, and minds.

I typed the word “soul” into my iTunes search engine to see how the word is used in song/album titles.

The Beatles released an album called Rubber Soul.

Buffalo Springfield did “Mr. Soul.”

The Music Explosion sang “A Little Bit ‘O Soul.”

Sam and Dave did “Soul Man.”

But those are largely references to “soul music,” not the inner, invisible essence of a person.

Abba had a song called “Hole in Your Soul.”

Glenn Frey of the Eagles recorded “Soul Searchin’,” although he was referring to romantic love.

The Yardbirds did “Heart Full of Soul.”

Tracy Chapman performed, “All You Have is Your Soul.”  That’s getting closer.

Christian artist Carolyn Arends sang “I Am a Soul.”

And the Christian Irish band Iona once released a song called “Factory of Magnificent Souls.”

But the great hymns get it right, like “Lover of My Soul” and “Be Still My Soul” and “Arise, My Soul, Arise” and “It is Well with My Soul.”

The reason I bring this up is because of a church service my wife and I attended last month.

There’s a church betweeen our house and the 101 Freeway that I’ve passed scores of times.  One Sunday, we decided to check it out.

It turned out to be a very charismatic church, which made me somewhat uncomfortable.  There were aspects of the service that didn’t reach me … but some did.

One part of the service was reserved for those who needed prayer … for healing, for a job, for family problems … whatever.

If someone wanted prayer, they raised their hand where they were sitting, and others came around them, laid hands on them, and prayed for them.  That part of the service was very meaningful … and so rare in churches today.

At the end of the pastor’s Bible-based message, he admitted that many years ago, he was forced to leave the mission field because of depression.  He talked about his struggles to overcome his pain and how he needed others to help him climb out of his hole.

The service lasted nearly two hours.  Some of it wasn’t my style, but when we left, I told my wife, “That service was about healing people’s souls.”

And it made me wonder: how much emphasis are churches putting on the soul anymore?

David said of the Lord, “He restores my soul” (Psalm 23:2).

The Sons of Korah sang, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God” (Psalm 42:1).

That same psalm ends with this question: “Why are you downcast, O my soul?”

David wrote, “Bless the Lord, O my soul … praise the Lord, O my soul …” in Psalm 103:1-2.

Jesus asked, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?  Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?”  (Mark 8:36-37)

And He reminds all of us that the greatest commandment (Deuteronomy 6:4-6) is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37).

Souls aren’t just for Sundays.

We Christians need to take care of our bodies.

We need to understand and control our emotions.

We need to stimulate our thinking through reading and sermons and discussions.

And churches should be wholistic in their approach.

But most of all, we need to specialize in healing souls.

People can go to fitness centers and health food stores to build up their bodies.

They can visit a psychologist or psychiatrist to address their emotions.

They can enroll in a college course or read a book to feed their minds.

But only a local church can really address the health of the human soul.

How do you think churches are doing at that?  How can they improve?

What is the state of your soul today?

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Church Secrets

Posted in Church Health and Conflict, Current Church Issues on April 1, 2011| 4 Comments »

As the saying goes, “You’re as healthy as your secrets.”  We all have them.  Sometimes it’s something stupid we said or did, and other times it’s something stupid someone said or did to us.  We just don’t feel like talking about it, not to our best friend or spouse or even a counselor.  We just don’t want to go there, and there are times when that’s best.

But we can’t throw a shroud over everything in our lives.  Some facts about us are public knowledge, and others can be discovered without too much digging.  Just go on the internet and type your own name into a search engine.  That stuff’s out there?

But I don’t want to write about personal secrets, but about church secrets.  How forthcoming should the leaders of a church be about vital information?

When I was a kid, our church had a small wooden board nailed to the wall at the front of the worship center.  The board listed numbers that changed every week: last Sunday’s attendance for Sunday School, morning worship, and maybe evening worship, too.  And if the offering receipts weren’t listed on the board, they were placed in the bulletin.

What was the thinking behind these displays?

It was: “This church is open about information.  Many of you are members here.  Members have a right to know how their church is doing.  Rather than have you pull the information out of us, we’re going to lay it out there for everyone to see.”

Was this thinking wise?  Well, if a church wasn’t doing very well, the evidence was right there in black and white.  The average person could track the church’s progress or regress.  That might affect their own attendance, or giving, or morale.  It was a risk to put those numbers out there.

But since my childhood, I’ve been in many other churches that listed either the attendance or the giving in the bulletin – or both.  More churches list the giving than the attendance, but many still do it.

Is this healthy or not?

Some would say, “No, it’s not healthy.  It’s making people focus on the wrong things.  When we come to church on a Sunday, we should laser beam all our attention on the Lord.  We shouldn’t spend any time counting noses or funds.  Besides, I don’t really want to know those statistics anyway.”

But others would say, “Yes, it’s healthy.  It means the leaders are open about our church, whether we’re on the upswing or going through a rough patch.  And besides, if we value membership here, our members always have a right to know how the church is doing at any given time.  May as well just lay the information out there.”

I do not presume to have the final answer on this issue, but I know where I come down: on the side of transparency.  Let me make four arguments for it:

First, transparency is modeled in Scripture.  The Bible is full of numbers, from the ages of the patriarchs in Genesis to the number of Israelites leaving Egypt through the growth of the church in Jerusalem.  How much poorer would we be if the Bible never gave us any of those figures?

In addition, the people in Scripture are transparent about their feelings.  Moses didn’t want to obey God’s call and go to Egypt.  Elijah didn’t want to leave the cave and fulfil the Lord’s next assignment.  David ran the gamut of human emotions in the Psalms, often within a few verses.  Paul practically bled out when he wrote 2 Corinthians (we wouldn’t have most of the NT epistles if all the church problems were edited out), and the Gospel writers give us hidden glimpses of Jesus’ true emotional state (think the cleansing of the Temple, Gethsemane, and His words from the cross).  If the Bible was simply a book of duties and commands without human emotion, how could we even relate to it?  The genius of Scripture is how open it is about God, human sinfulness, and what it cost Jesus for our redemption.

Second, transparency means that we keep our members informed.  As the commercial used to say, “Membership has its privileges.”  Some churches either play down membership or don’t have it at all.  When our pastor gave his annual “State of the Church” message last January, he dazzled all of us with a bunch of numbers, but he never mentioned any membership statistics.  Most Calvary Chapels don’t have membership, either.  For some, membership is institutional rather than missional and separates a congregation into “haves” and “have-nots.”  If a church doesn’t have or value membership, then its leaders might be justified in keeping information from the congregation.

But if a church does have membership, its leaders must share certain key data with its members.

For example, even if a church doesn’t publish its giving statistics, members have a right at any given time to know how the giving is going.  They should be able to contact the church office or a board member for that information.  It should not be kept from them.  If the leaders are worried about what the member will do with that information, could that serve as evidence that the leaders have something to hide?

In addition, members have the right to know the decisions (not deliberations) that a church board is making.  Members have a right to attend board meetings and to examine board minutes.  While most members will never take advantage of these opportunities, remember: membership has its privileges.

Members are not entitled to know all information.  By law, pastors cannot discuss the identity or issues of those they counsel, and certain information about personnel cannot be shared, either.  But members are entitled to have enough information.

For example, if I’m a pastor, and I publish the giving numbers in the bulletin every Sunday, and we’re falling further behind budget, some people will be upset, and some might even stop giving because, they reason, we’re on a sinking ship.

But, if I don’t publish the numbers during the year, I have to share them sometime.  If I wait until the end of the year, and then the church finds out we’re tens of thousands of dollars in the hole, that could destroy the trust bond between us.  The members will ask, “Why didn’t you share this information with us sooner?  We could have increased our giving or done something about it!”

I’d rather just lay the information out there for everybody to see.  So what?  What are we afraid of?

It’s amazing to me.  I hear Christians lambasting the government for not being forthcoming when it comes to government spending and debt, but how open are our churches?

Third, transparency increases ownership.  Since information is still power, the more data people have, the better decisions they can make in their own lives and ministries.

When I was a pastor, I used to tell the staff, “Giving isn’t meeting budget right now, so manage your expenses tightly until things turn around.”  Conversely, if we just had a huge giving Sunday, I’d tell them, “Okay, if you’ve been holding off on a key expense for a while, this might be the time to pull the trigger.”  Don’t we operate on the same basis in our personal lives?

Years ago, Win Arn and his Center for American Church Growth published a little book on church ratios.  The book was crammed full of fascinating information (based on research) that was invaluable for church leaders.  For example, the average Christian will get to know 64 people (I think that was the right number) in a church regardless of size.  In other words, no one should expect to befriend everyone in a church above 64 people.  Rather than keep those goodies to myself (so I could be the fount of all wisdom), I’d share that information with as many church leaders as possible.  I wanted them to feel responsible for the church’s success as well.  It’s elitism when leaders assume that people can’t handle the truth.

Finally, transparency reduces conflict.  In our culture, as we all know by now, when a crime has been committed, the coverup is deemed worse than the crime itself.  We have seen this with Watergate, the Monica Lewinsky situation, and now the Barry Bonds perjury trial.  The same reality is true in churches.

The more information that a church’s leaders give its people, the less anyone will be able to say, “You’re engaging in a coverup!”  (Which only leads to people sniffing around trying to find out what’s being hidden.)  If I’m regularly sharing information with leaders and the congregation, I never have to worry about anyone claiming that I’m hiding things.

Our pastor does a great job of keeping the congregation informed of key matters on a regular basis.  After his message, he’ll frequently take five minutes to share something he wants us to know about the church.  He’s extremely honest in what he says, and as a former pastor, I resonate with him.  He treats us all like adults, not children, and we respond in a likeminded fashion.

Whether you agree or disagree with me, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this matter – because I’ve been as transparent as I know how to be!

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Not Really Angels

Posted in Church Health and Conflict, Current Church Issues on February 7, 2011| 2 Comments »

I’ve heard thousands of sermons during my lifetime, and preached thousands myself.  Whenever I hear someone preach – whether it’s a pastor, guest speaker, TV evangelist, or seminary professor – the uppermost question in the back of my mind is: “What are you really like?”  If a speaker admits his or her humanity in a message, then I can connect with them.  But if a speaker acts like he or she is perfect while the listeners are imperfect, I usually tune out.  Angels make lousy preachers.  I want to see divinity (the Word of God) delivered through humanity (a real live person).

This is one of the primary reasons that Bill Hybels from Willow Creeek Church (near Chicago) has long been one of my favorite preachers.  He shares things at such a deep level that you as a listener feel liberated.  The book on marriage that he wrote with his wife Lynne, called Fit to be Tied, is a great example of Christian authenticity.  Both Bill and Lynne share their marital struggles in a way that is both real and redemptive.  Bill and Lynne have publicly acknowledged their need for marriage counseling, and I once heard Bill admit in a seminar for pastors that he was currently in counseling to address some issues from his past.  At the time, Willow Creek was the largest church in America, and I was amazed at his courage in candidly sharing his humanity with us.

For those of us who went to church in the 1960s and early 1970s, we rarely if ever heard our pastors admit they had problems in their lives.  They kept telling us that we had issues but they acted like they didn’t have any.  Maybe it was the way they were trained in seminary, or maybe authority figures back then were not permitted to admit they had foibles.  (For example, the press covered up nearly all of JFK’s indiscretions.)  For this reason, many of us grew up thinking that our pastors were “three feet above contradiction” (referring to the height of the platform from which the pastor spoke).

For this reason, I still remember trivia about Christian leaders that showed me they were human.

Dr. Charles Feinberg, dean of Talbot Seminary, once referred to the TV show Get Smart in an Old Testament class.  (I thought, “You watch Maxwell Smart too?)

Mr. William Ebeling, who taught at Biola for decades, once dropped something on the floor and said, “I’m always this shaky after the Dodgers lose.”

Dr. David Augsburger, one of the world’s foremost authorities on conflict, showed our class an episode of Seinfeld to illustrate the importance of confidentiality in counseling (it’s the one where the rabbi reveals on television things Elaine told him in private).

Richard Foster, author of Celebration of Discipline and other great books (I’m reading Streams of Living Water right now) is such a big baseball fan that he asked my father-in-law to give him regular updates of the World Series score while he was teaching a night class.

John Stott, the great British teacher and scholar (and I think I have every one of his books) – the closest thing Protestants have to a Pope – has always loved James Bond movies.

During my last class at Fuller, Kim and I were sitting in the back of Leith Anderson’s class on leadership, and his wife (who was seated behind us) told me they needed to get back to their room in time to watch 24.

And during a two week Doctor of Ministry class at Fuller, Dr. Archibald Hart held a pizza night for all the students and showed Mr. Bean (the beginning of my love for the guy) as well as a John Cleese movie.

These kinds of small revelations seem rather commonplace today, but for years, they were not.

For example, J. Vernon McGee, the famous radio preacher, once wrote that he couldn’t attend a professional baseball game because of all the smoking, drinking, and cursing.

One of my professors in seminary put his television in his garage and only hauled it out for the World Series.

I distinctly remember hearing a pastor speak at a missionary conference when I was in seminary, and the pastor was the hero in every story that he told.

Pastors used to chide their people for staying home from church one Sunday night a year to watch the Super Bowl.  (I would have hated to be a pastor on July 20, 1969, when the moon landing was televised.  That happened on a Sunday afternoon/evening and most people stayed home from evening services to watch history being made – but the pastor still had to show up for church!)

When pastors fail to reveal they are human, they seem to live in celestial places, not on earth.  They descend from heaven, present God’s Word, and then float back up again, living on a cloud until the next time they speak.  They don’t seem to understand the people they teach.  And they certainly lack empathy and compassion for those who struggle with sin or life.

This is why I believe it’s important for pastors to consistently share their humanity with their congregations.  Twenty years ago, as I was preparing to relearn how to preach so I could better reach unchurched people, one of my pastoral colleagues – who was doing a phenomenal job of reaching those without Christ – told me that he made sure to tell at least one story during every message that demonstrated he was human.  That kind of sharing is essential in our day.

Years ago, I had lunch with a Christian leader who attended a mega church in Silicon Valley.  While we were talking, he began to cry.  He told me that he wished his pastor would share stories from his life rather than from books.  He loved his pastor and wanted to know him better, but his pastor was trying so hard to convince everyone (and maybe himself) that he was perfect that he just couldn’t let down his guard in public.  I was privileged to spend three hours with that pastor one time at lunch, and he shared his humanity with me, but for some reason, he couldn’t do it with his congregation.  He had to protect his image.

I’m reading through the Psalms in my quiet time right now (in The Message), and the authors (including David, who wrote roughly half the Psalms) are very open about their thoughts and feelings.  Read II Corinthians again and see how Paul opens up a vein and pours out his heart to his readers.  And note how frustrated Jesus could be on occasion and how angry He got (without sinning!) on other occasions.  In the Garden of Gethsemane, He was clearly undergoing a bout with depression as He faced the loss of every anchor He held dear in His life on earth.  Yes, Jesus was fully divine, but He was also fully human – made “a little lower than the angels” (Hebrews 2:9) in His incarnation.

Because of Jesus’ humanity, I can relate to Him.  Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin.”  The result?  We are drawn to Christ.  “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (verse 16).  I can relate to Him because He first related to me.

So please don’t make a mental list of all your pastor’s mistakes and share that list with others to make yourself look good.  And never think that your pastor is perfect.  He isn’t.  If you hear him say something stupid, or you see him doing something questionable, don’t come unglued.

Remember that he is not an angel – and never will be.

He’s just like you – he’s  human.  And God made him that way.

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Who’s Good at Confrontation?

Posted in Church Conflict, Church Health and Conflict, Current Church Issues, Forgiveness and Reconciliation among Christians on January 12, 2011| 7 Comments »

Have you ever had this happen to you?

Someone you know and love is heading in the wrong direction.  Maybe they’re drinking too much, or blowing money sky high, or are on the wrong career path.  You really want them to know how you feel, but you’re not quite sure you should get involved.

So you wait.  And you pray about it.  And you muster up your courage.  And you pray about it some more.  Then you wait for just the right time, all the while mentally rehearsing the words you’re going to use.

Then the moment presents itself … and you chicken out.  You let the opportunity pass.  You begin to second guess yourself, wondering if you’re just too critical.  But that good friend continues to make poor decisions, and you know you just have to say something.  So you do … and it all goes horribly wrong.

Your friend is hurt by what you said, so hurt that you fear you’ve risked your friendship for good.  You try phoning your friend, but she won’t call back.  You email her – zilch.  You text her, but she doesn’t respond.

You go over what you said again in your mind.  You tried your best to use the right words in a caring fashion.  You monitored your tone during the minute that you spoke and believe you showed genuine concern.  You honestly don’t feel that you did anything wrong, but your friend obviously doesn’t agree, and a cold war has broken out between the two of you.

It’s no wonder that people run from conflict like they’re fleeing from a rattlesnake on their front porch (a unique Arizona experience).

I hate confronting people.  Who am I to tell someone that they’re messing up their life?  Maybe I’m not the best person for the job.  Don’t I have enough dysfunctionality in my own life to work on without intervening in other people’s lives?  (The answer is “Yes,” so no need to comment!)  Why should I take on the responsibility for how someone else lives?

The average person doesn’t have to worry about engaging in too many confrontations.  Wives sometimes must confront their husbands.  Dads occasionally need to confront their sons.  Bosses periodically must confront those they supervise.  But most of us are adept at dodging confrontations because we’re just not very good at them.

But when you’re a pastor … confrontation is part of your job.  Staff members mess up.  Volunteers don’t show up.  Families nearly blow up.  While you’d prefer not to deal with matters, one of the jobs of a pastor is to intercept entropy.  If things are sliding downhill fast, you have to say something or else people will hit bottom and implode.

With staff members, you walk down the hall and have a little chat.  Most of the time, it goes well.  Occasionally, you have to call a staff member into your office so they know you’re serious.  Some of the staff take correction well, while others never do.  In fact, the source of a lot of conflict between pastors and staff members occurs right after the pastor engages in a confrontation, because from that moment on, many staff start viewing the pastor as their personal enemy.  While the pastor may not be conscious of this fact, that staff member will probably tell his network how much the pastor hurt him, and how unfair he is, and how he doesn’t know if he can work for the pastor anymore – and some in the network will side with their friend, which can keep the staff member from trying to change.

When the pastor confronts a volunteer, some listen and comply with the pastor’s concerns, while others ignore the pastor’s wishes, complain to their network, or eventually quit.

No one ever puts “confrontation” into a pastoral job description, but it’s a necessary part of a pastor’s calling.  Very few pastors are good at it, either by technique or by results.

Speed Leas is, in my judgment, the greatest living Christian consultant on conflict management.  He takes a biblical yet realistic approach to the whole issue.  I have read everything that he’s written on the topic that is currently in print, as well as his out-of-print manual Managing Your Church through Conflict, the single greatest resource on conflict I have ever read.

In the book he co-authored titled Mastering Conflict & Controversy, Leas wrote:

“I’ve always struggled with conflict in my life.  Conflict has been hard for me.  I haven’t understood it, and I haven’t understood myself when I’ve been in conflict.  My work is partly a quest to understand what happens to me when I get in a conflict, so I can do better.”

I struggle with conflict, too.  As a pastor, I never liked it and usually tried to avoid it, but there were times when I was forced to engage in it or else (a) a person might be destroyed, (b) a family might be destroyed, (c) the church might be destroyed, or (d) I might be destroyed.  Knowing that confrontations can easily backfire, whenever a pastor senses God leading him to do it, that confrontation must be considered a loving act.

Paul put it this way in Galatians 6:1: “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently.  But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.”  Translation: only spiritual individuals (not just leaders) should confront others, but they should do it gently and with humility.  Most of us are pretty fragile inside, no matter how we appear externally, and we rebel against harsh, arrogant attempts at correction.  Most people – including children – only respond positively to demonstratable love.

I have found that I can usually control a lot of elements when it comes to confrontation: the place, the time, the seating, my tone of voice, my language, my facial expressions.  But what I cannot control is how another person will respond to my correction attempt.  That’s what makes confrontation so … adventuresome … and troublesome … at the same time.

Although I can’t locate the exact book in which he said it (half of my books are in boxes in the garage), I recall reading something Charles Swindoll once wrote.  He said that about half the time that he had to confront someone, things turned out well, but the other half, things turned out poorly.  Same confronter, different confrontees, varying results.

Maybe the primary reason we’re uncomfortable confronting people is because we can’t predict with certainty how our friend will respond – or if we’ll still be friends afterwards.  But followers of Jesus need to obey their Lord, and Matthew 18:15-20 is still in The Book: “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you.  If he listens to you, you have won your brother.”

If that one verse was obeyed by all parties, friends would nearly always stay friends, pastors would almost never be forced out of churches, and churches would never split.

Although I’m not very good at confrontation – and admit it, you aren’t, either – we need to learn to do better.  When confrontation works, people are transformed, families are saved, and churches become healthier.

With God’s help, it’s worth it.

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Neutralizing the Church Police

Posted in Church Conflict, Church Health and Conflict, Conflict with Church Antagonists, Fighting Evil, Personal Stories, Please Comment! on December 29, 2010| 3 Comments »

It’s quite a challenge to be a youth pastor in any era, but it was particularly difficult in the late 1970’s.  I served in a church that was about ten miles from Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California, and many of our people were drawn to the verse-by-verse teaching of Pastor Chuck Smith as well as the praise choruses emanating from that body.  (Contemporary Christian music originated at Calvary.)  Some people would attend the Sunday morning service at our church but then sneak over to Calvary for the evening service – and then they would come back to our church and want it to be like Calvary, which it was never going to be.

Our church had a piano, an organ, and a choir (with robes), but Calvary had guitars at several of their evening services during the week and rock bands at their Saturday night concerts.  It wasn’t long before that influence crept into our youth group, a development I welcomed.  We sang a lot of praise songs – with acoustic guitar accompaniment – but that was as far as we could go.

Until one day, a young man in the church decided to put on a youth musical written by John Fischer.  The musical required drums.

One Saturday afternoon, before or after practice (I forget), as the youth were banging on drums and other instruments in the worship center, two retired men walked into the sanctuary and threw everyone out.  These men especially expressed their disdain for drums.  (Hadn’t they read Psalm 150?  Guess not.)

I liked these men personally and always counted them as friends and supporters.  But without warning, they assigned themselves the unofficial role of church police.

Suddenly, they were wreaking havoc everywhere they went.  They would drive by the church at different hours of the day.  If the pastor’s car was missing from its customary space, they assumed he was at home napping or watching television.  If my car was missing, they assumed I was out goofing around someplace.  The pastor preferred being away from the church building because he liked to visit people in hospitals and their homes.  Because I was attending seminary in the mornings, I didn’t arrive at the church until 10:30 am, but even then, my ministry wasn’t confined to the church campus.

Before long, the church police began making all kinds of wild accusations, mostly against the pastor.  They believed that because they didn’t see his car parked outside his office all the time, he wasn’t working hard enough for them.  They successfully began to find allies who agreed with them.  A man walked up to me after a Sunday evening service and told me that if the pastor didn’t start working harder, ten percent of the church was going to leave.

I loved my pastor and tried to do everything I could to defend him against the attacks that were building against him.  I went to the governing board and pleaded with them to stand behind their pastor, but they chose to do nothing.  Frustrated, I then took a friend with me and we visited the most powerful layman in the church, but only because we knew he supported the pastor whole-heartedly.  As we recounted the onslaughts against our pastor, we tried to protect the identity of the troublemakers, but this wise man told us, “Gentlemen, when Paul talked about those who caused him trouble in his ministry, he used names.  Who are these people you’re talking about?”  Reluctantly, we told him.

As far as I could tell, no action was ever taken against the Destructive Duo.

Then one day, when the pastor was on vacation, I received a phone call.  One of the two “church policemen” dropped dead of a heart attack.  He was in the process of moving to another state when he collapsed and immediately expired.  Since I was the only other pastor on staff, I went to this man’s home to console his shocked widow.  His funeral was held a few days later, and I’ll never forget it, because our pastor had to come home from vacation to conduct the service – and he wasn’t very happy about it.

After that pastor retired, another pastor came to the church.  After a short while, he was tired of the antics of the second retired guy who complained about everything.  After several warnings, this pastor told the complainer to leave the church campus and never come back.  It didn’t matter that his wife was a sweet woman, or that they had friends in the church, or that they had been there longer than the pastor.  The pastor had had enough, and since nobody was willing to take any action concerning the griper, he took matters into his own hands – and it worked.  The church was able to get on with its mission because an internal dissenter had left.

Hear me loud and clear: when people cause trouble in a church – whether they are charter members or have many friends or are politically connected – they need to be informally or officially confronted and warned to stop their complaining, because complaining has a way of growing into church cancer.  If they won’t stop, then there are at least four possible scenarios:

First, their complaints spread while more people take up their cause.  This is a recipe for a church splinter, split, or coup.  Believe me, you do not want this to happen.

Second, their complaints spread and eventually focus on the pastor, who becomes the scapegoat for all that is wrong in the church.  These kinds of complaints can easily lead to the pastor’s forced exit and throw the church into chaos.

Third, the official leaders of the church gain some God-given courage and confront the complainers, telling them that they have three choices: (a) come to a board meeting and lay all your complaints out there, (b) then stop the complaining altogether and let the board handle matters, or (c) leave the church without taking anyone with you.  Unfortunately, many boards back down at this point because some of the complainers are their friends, and after all, they reason, it’s easier to get a new pastor than it is new friends.

Finally, God strikes somebody dead.  “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:26).

One of the constant themes of this blog is that the people of the church – not just the pastors and the governing board – have the power to stop troublemakers dead in their tracks.  Complainers are only permitted to operate because the people of the church listen to their gripes or look the other way even when they are aware that divisive actions are happening all around them.

If you attend a church and know that certain people are engaged in divisive activities, what could you do about it?  I’d love to hear your responses.

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Toward More Peaceful Church Meetings

Posted in Church Conflict, Church Health and Conflict on December 20, 2010| 2 Comments »

What were you attracted to as a teenager?  Sports?  Some cute guy or girl?  A cool car?  An athlete or rock star?

I was attracted to church business meetings.

I know that sounds really strange, but let me tell you why I was drawn to those meetings.

The church I attended had a business meeting periodically on a Wednesday night after prayer meeting.  While my peers played in the parking lot or went home to watch TV, I sat in the back of the worship center and watched “mature” Christian men and women act like kids.  Arguments usually broke out.  Tempers almost always flared.  It was quite entertaining at times, especially since I knew so many of the players.  On one famous occasion, after disagreeing vehemently with someone, the church secretary stomped down the center aisle, opened her office door, and slammed it – hard.  That was the last time anybody saw her at that church for years.

There was something inherently destructive about those meetings – and yet they were exciting.  If you were a church member, you were expected to attend.  As the years went on, I moved closer to the front of the auditorium so I could be in the middle of the action.

When I became the pastor of a small church in Northern California, our church had business meetings once per month after the Wednesday night service.  We voted on nearly everything.  Those meetings made me nervous because the unexpected usually happened.

When our church later merged with a sister church five miles away, I became the pastor of that new body.  Soon afterwards, at another infamous business meeting, a board member yelled across the room at the wife of another board member.  It was embarrassing for everybody.

I began to ask myself, “What is it about these meetings that brings out the worst in everybody?  Why do people’s personalities flip when they come to these meetings?  Why do we even have these nefarious meetings in the first place?”

The meetings seemed to be patterned more after the American town hall model than anything we find in the New Testament.

So I began talking to pastor friends, and in the fourth year of my ministry, I hit upon an approach that minimized the conflict in those meetings.  Here’s what we did:

*We changed the terminology.  A “business” meeting sounded like it was only about money.  We replaced that term with “congregational” meeting instead, a term that many churches use.  It said who should attend (the congregation) and the ultimate process used (congregational voting).

*We decided to hold an informational meeting one week before every congregational meeting.  We introduced every issue at the informational meeting that would be decided upon at the congregational meeting: potential board members, budgets, and any other pertinent matters.  And we let non-members attend the informational meeting (after all, they served and gave offerings, too) although only members voted at the congregational meeting.  For a biblical example of holding two meetings to make decisions, look again at Acts 6:1-6.

*We never used Robert’s Rules of Order at the informational meetings.  Different leaders of the church, including me, made presentations to the congregation.  Then at the congregational meeting the following week, we used Robert’s Rules exclusively for voting.  Since hardly anyone in the church knew the rules that were originally created in 1876, those who did ended up controlling the meetings.  So we just eliminated the confusion and encouraged people to talk in an orderly fashion.

*We presented simple etiquette before each meeting, such as, “Use the microphone if you want to say something” or “Feel free to be open and honest but don’t say anything you may later regret.”  While participants had strong opinions – and we wanted to hear them – the way the leaders handled matters up-front usually kept everyone at peace.

*People relaxed at the informational meetings because they didn’t have to vote that day.  They had time during the next seven days to think and pray and talk to others first.  And if conflict broke out at the informational meetings – and it rarely did – church leaders had an entire week to listen to people’s concerns and answer their questions before any vote took place – and if need be, the meeting could be cancelled before anything ominous happened.  By the way, I believe that church leaders should always know the outcome of any churchwide vote in advance, and this system allows leaders to do just that.

*When we met at the congregational meeting to make a decision, we always voted by written ballot.  We never accepted motions where someone called for a voice vote and said, “I move we make it unanimous.”  If God’s people are to vote their conscience, they need to be able to vote “no” as well as “yes” – and most people are uncomfortable voting “no” if they are in the minority.  These meetings typically lasted only ten minutes and were held on Sundays after worship.

*We encouraged a thorough discussion of the issues.  I’m a firm believer that churches should have few secrets.  While pastors cannot ethically discuss what people say in counseling sessions, and church leaders should never share confidences that ruin the reputations of others, I wanted us to be open about everything else.  Even salaries?  I took a class from Leith Anderson where he said that if a person at his church really wanted to know the salary of a pastor or staff member, that person had to first sit through a one-hour presentation so the numbers could be shared in context – and only then would they be given the amount.  I can live with that.

*This system worked beautifully for 24 years of ministry.  During that time, the churches I served as pastor went through some great adventures, like selling our property, relocating, and building a new worship center.  The leaders made well thought-out presentations and asked God’s people if they had questions and concerns, and sometimes people had plenty of input.  The leaders stayed as long as necessary – and no one called for the question, tabled a motion, or recommended we be dismissed to end the proceedings.  Non-anxious leaders tend to produce a non-anxious church body.

If you’re in a church where the public meetings produce conflict rather than harmony, I suggest you implement the above process into your church’s life.  While too many meetings can be a waste of time, it’s better to have two meetings and enjoy peace than it is to jam everything into one meeting and leave people anxious, confused, and upset.

1 meeting for discussion + 1 meeting for decisions = an informed, calm, and united church family

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Railroaded at Church Meetings

Posted in Church Conflict, Church Health and Conflict, Please Comment!, tagged , , on December 17, 2010| 2 Comments »

Last month, our country held its mid-term elections.  Imagine that you went into the voting booth having no idea who was running for office until you got there.  (If I still lived in California, I’d exclaim, “Oh, no, Jerry Brown is running again?”)  Many of us become familiar with those who are running for major offices, although we still don’t know anything about more than half the names on the ballot.  But how wise would it be for officials to unveil the names of political candidates only on the day of voting?

And yet that’s how thousands of churches choose leaders every year.

When I was in my late teens, I was asked one year to count ballots for the annual business meeting at my church.  95 people cast their ballots for elder, and one man received 20 “no” votes.  Because the candidates only needed to receive a simple majority, he was still elected to office, but shortly afterward, he resigned due to sexual misconduct.  I wonder how many of those 20 people knew something about this man’s life that the rest of us didn’t?  Maybe if some of those people had known ahead of time that his name was being considered for elder, they could have shared what they knew with the pastor or church staff and his name could have been quietly withdrawn.

For years, I attended public church meetings (whether they were called “business” meetings or “congregational” meetings) in which candidates/issues were presented to the church and then the church was expected to take a vote immediately.  This process often raised the anxiety level for people because some of them simply were not ready to make a quick decision.  They wanted time to think, pray, and talk to others before casting their vote.  When they were not given that opportunity, they sometimes claimed they were being “railroaded.”

That’s why I like the process of selecting elders that our church has.  Last Sunday, three potential elders came and stood on the  stage with their wives.  The pastor briefly introduced each person and then referred to their biographies, which were made available on an insert in the program.  Then the pastor said that we had a month to give feedback about these men and we were told how to do that.  Only after the one-month feedback time would these men become elders.

Those who know me know that I am very deliberate when it comes to decision-making.  The more crucial the issue, the longer it takes me to decide, but once I do, I don’t look back.  Whether it’s voting for the President of the United States or an elder in my local church, I take my vote very seriously.  And from the time a candidate’s name is introduced to me, I need time to think, to pray, and if need be, to speak with others.

When a church introduces candidates in a public meeting, and then expects God’s people to vote immediately on those individuals for office, people are denied the ability to think.  They are denied the ability to pray.  They are denied the ability to speak with others.  In a word, they are being manipulated.  Some people may vote “no” on some of the candidates just because they inherently sense this even if they can’t put it into words.  They feel violated.

Why do churches do this?  Sometimes it’s because the leaders figure that people will only come out to one meeting, if that, so that have to take all their votes at once.  Sometimes it’s because the leaders don’t know who is running for office until right before the meeting!  But usually, it’s because of anxiety.  The leaders just want to get the “voting thing” over with.

But if believers aren’t allowed to think, pray, and talk with others, why vote at all?  Then the members end up becoming “sheeple,” just doing whatever their leaders tell them to do.

Is there a better way to handle such meetings?  I believe there is.  That will be the topic of my next blog.

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.

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