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Archive for the ‘Conflict with the Pastor’ Category

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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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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Book Excerpt: Protecting Reputations

Posted in Church Conflict, Church Coup Excerpts, Conflict with the Pastor, Current Church Issues, Pastoral Termination on May 11, 2011| Leave a Comment »

There is a plague that continues to make its way through Christian churches in our day: the forced termination of pastors.   The same church board that carefully checks out a prospective pastor over time discards that same pastor overnight.  The same people that act like loving Christians in hiring a pastor act like Satan’s messengers in forcing him to leave.  The same individuals who want a pastor to meet biblical qualifications before he’s called use crass political games to get rid of him.

And when a pastor is forced to leave a church, there are usually people who do their best to destroy his reputation.

This is an excerpt from a book I’m writing about what happened to me – and what happens to my fellow pastors – when a group in the church decides you need to leave for good:

When I first became a pastor in my late twenties, I was shocked at how many pastors in our district were forced to leave their ministries because they were opposed by a handful of antagonists.  As a rookie pastor, I met on a monthly basis with our district minister and other area pastors for lunch, and whenever a pastor was forced to resign, I wanted to know why it happened and how he was faring, especially since some of those pastors were my friends.  The dominant impression I received at those ministerial gatherings was that those ministers were forced to resign their positions because the pastor did something wrong and the lay people – usually the church board – reluctantly handed out the treatment he deserved.

For example, I once heard about a pastor in our district who told his congregation in frustration that they “didn’t give a damn” about a certain issue, but because this pastor used the word “damn” in a public meeting (not a church service), the person who relayed this news to me believed that the pastor had disqualified himself from office.  In other words, if a Baptist pastor can’t control his tongue in public, then he shouldn’t be a pastor at all.  But I wanted to know why this pastor used such strong language in public.  Was this the first time he had ever done that?  What might have caused him to use such language?  When I first came into the district, this pastor took a special interest in me.  One Sunday morning, he called me at home just to pray with me over the phone.  He seemed to be a good man, and if he became so incensed that he used strong language inside the four walls of his church, then maybe he had a good reason.  Maybe a few less than spiritual individuals in the church pushed him over the edge.  But in district circles, we rarely heard about unhealthy congregations.  Instead, the implication was that if a man was forced out of the pastorate, you could trace his departure to something he did or said.  In essence, he was a loser.

So early in my ministerial career, I learned how the district (and by implication our denomination) viewed pastors who experienced forced termination.  In general, the pastor became the scapegoat and was blamed for whatever conflict occurred.  Upon hearing the news that another colleague had bitten the dust, I would call that pastor and let him know that I cared for him.  I would also ask him about the factors that conspired to force him to resign, and every man I called was transparent enough to tell me.  Then I’d ask this question: “How many other pastors from the district have called to express their concern for you?”  The answer was always, “No one has called me.  You’re the only one.”  As I recall, in my first several years as a pastor in our district, seven pastoral colleagues were forced to leave their churches, and every one told me I was the only one to call.  That information broke my heart.  I later did a study of pastors who had served inside our district and discovered that out of sixty pastors that had left their churches, fifty were no longer connected to the denomination.  I felt so strongly about this issue that I wrote an article for our denominational magazine entitled “Who Cares For Lost Shepherds?”

Why don’t pastors seem to demonstrate concern for their colleagues who experience forced termination?  Maybe pastors have enough on their plates inside their own congregations to reach out to their peers.  Maybe some pastors are better leaders or teachers or administrators than they are shepherds and wouldn’t know what to say to a colleague undergoing crisis.  Maybe some pastors just don’t want to become embroiled in another church’s issues.  It also might be true that a lot of pastors know very few of their colleagues.  But my guess is that many pastors don’t want to associate with their terminated brethren because they are stigmatized as losers.  In other words, if you’re a pastor and you’re forced out of your church, the perception is that you are either incompetent, guilty of immorality, or don’t know how to play church politics properly.  There is something wrong with you, not the church, and in rare cases, that’s true.  But it’s not always true.  Jesus wasn’t crucified because He was unhealthy but because the political and religious leaders of His day were spiritually dysfunctional.  Paul wasn’t chased out of European cities because something was wrong with him or his message but because his hearers were hostile toward the gospel.  It’s popular to say, “If the team isn’t winning, fire the coach,” but some pastors have led their churches to growth and yet are forced to leave anyway because the old-timers feel insignificant as the church expands – and they wish to feel powerful once again.  While there are always pastors who deserve termination, the great majority who are forced to leave their churches have not done anything worthy of banishment.  But whether or not a pastor deserves termination, the church board should always treat him with dignity and respect.

Years ago, I sat with a pastor friend at a restaurant.  My friend had been forced to leave his former church exactly one year beforehand.  His daughter had been falsely accused of something she hadn’t done and the pastor chose to resign to protect her.  (The truth came out sometime later.)  The “clergy killer” in his congregation was both a church board member as well as member of the trustee board in our district.  Guess whose story got out first?  One year later, my friend had no idea why he had been mistreated so badly.  What had he done wrong?  I gave him a book called Forced Termination by Brooks Faulkner, and after reading it, my friend told me that he now understood what had happened to him.  But how much did our district help him?  According to my friend, they didn’t help him at all.

Several months ago, I was having a meal with a pastor, and I asked him if he knew how an old pastor friend of mine was doing, and this pastor told me that my friend left his church “because he was having some problems.”  The implication was that my friend left because of problems he had, not problems that were lodged inside the church family.  The pastor who told me that my friend “had problems” probably figured I would never reach out to my friend and discover his side of the situation.  Pastoral reputations can be ruined with a few key phrases or awkward pauses.

In my opinion, we can handle these situations much, much better.

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Grace, Grace, Grace

Posted in Conflict with the Pastor on May 6, 2011| 2 Comments »

When I was running on my treadmill yesterday, a scene popped into my head that I hadn’t recalled for a long time.  Years ago, when I was pastoring in Silicon Valley, our family became friends with a family that attended another church.  This family invited our family over for dinner one night along with their pastor and his family.  I was looking forward to meeting this pastor about whom I had heard some good things.

When we sat down to eat, this pastor could not stop talking – about himself.  He was arrogant, rude, self-centered, and totally uninterested in anything or anybody but himself.  I could not believe it.  He never asked any questions about our family or our ministry.  It was all about him, him, him.  (Maybe I was invisible and didn’t know it.)  By the end of the evening, I don’t even think he knew my name, he was that oblivious to those around him.

I thought to myself, “This guy’s a pastor?  Aren’t pastors supposed to be a bit more others-oriented?”

Some of you might be thinking, “Well, I’m sure that’s the only time that’s ever happened to you.”

Uh, no.

Remember when O. J. got in his White Bronco and stopped traffic on LA freeways because the authorities were afraid he was going to harm somebody – especially himself?  I watched the whole drama from a hotel room outside Chicago with a leader from our church.  That night, we were supposed to be attending a banquet for Christian leaders, but I was gun-shy after an experience I had earlier that week.

While attending a conference, I was sitting at lunch around a table with seven other pastors.  I was hoping to get to know several of them, but it immediately became evident that we weren’t allowed to talk.  Instead, two pastors, who both led mega churches, did all the talking.  They talked, and they talked, and they talked.  I don’t remember anyone interacting with them.  They just lectured the rest of us on how to do church.  It was like we were supposed to be taking notes.  The longer this went on, the more upset I became.  It was obvious there was a pecking order at the table and that we little chickees weren’t even allowed to interrupt with a question or a comment.  The dominant feeling I had was that I was worthless.

You ask, “Jim, how common is this kind of rudeness among pastors?”  It’s hard to say, but I’ve encountered it too many times.

When I was at the same church I mentioned at the beginning of this article, I fractured my left elbow playing basketball.  The doctor immobilized my arm in a sling but I still carried out my normal duties.  At the time, pastors in the San Jose area met on a monthly basis for luncheons sponsored by the National Association of Evangelicals.  With my left arm in a sling, I dutifully attended the next luncheon which was held in a large room at a church where the pastor was on television.  (My grandmother used to watch this guy from Arizona).

Anyway, some of the pastors that were sitting around me wanted to know how I broke my arm, so I told them the story.  A little while later, this television preacher stood up and mentioned a time when he broke a limb, and when he did that, one of my new pastor friends raised his voice, pointed to me, and said that I had recently broken my arm as well.

I know some pastors who would have stopped and said, “What’s your name?  How did you break your arm?  How are you going to preach with only one hand?”  Stuff like that.  But you know what this guy did?  He just glared at me for a few seconds.  In my opinion, he wasn’t upset that he had been interrupted but that the limelight shone on someone else for a brief moment.

I believe that most pastors are tender people.  They really care for others, especially those who are hurting.  I’ve been around colleagues who bleed when they hear that someone went into the hospital or lost a loved one.  These pastors are true shepherds who care about their flock.  They are sensitive, dedicated, and kind.  In a word, they are servants.

But not all pastors are this way.  Sadly, a few are condescending and ego-driven.  I have often wondered how these guys stay in the ministry.  They never seem to see or hear anyone but themselves.  I’m pretty sure they would never give their life for the sheep, but they would definitely ask the sheep to die for them.  In a word, they feel entitled.

Entitled pastors cause trouble in churches.  Servant pastors bring hope and healing.

When I was seven years old, my family visited a Sunday night service where my uncle and aunt and cousins went to church.  A missionary spoke that night.  Sometime during the evening, a hymn was sung that I had never heard before.  It was called, “I’ll Go Where You Want Me to Go.”  The chorus went like this:

I’ll go where you want me to go, dear Lord,

O’er mountain or plain or sea

I’ll say what You want me to say, dear Lord,

I’ll be what You want me to be

It was a song of commitment and complete abandonment to the Lord.  The song was saying, “Lord, I will not do whatever I want to do.  I will do whatever You want me to do.  I will not go wherever I want to go, but wherever You want me to go.”  The song meant so much to me that I dug up the lyrics out of our hymn book and memorized all three stanzas.  Even now, when I think about that song, it reduces me to tears.

I am not entitled.  You are not entitled.  No person or pastor is entitled to anyone or anything.  We are who we are by the grace of God.

If anyone had a right to feel entitled, it was Paul.  Can you imagine the introduction he might receive if he appeared on Leno or Letterman?  “Our next guest composed half the books in the New Testament.  He rubbed shoulders with other biblical writers like Mark, Luke, and James.  He launched the Christian movement in modern-day Turkey and Europe by planting churches in population centers.  And some people say he’s the greatest Christian who ever lived.  Ladies and gentleman, the Apostle Paul!”  (And then the band plays Hello Pauly.)

Would Paul strut from the Green Room to the guest chair?  Would he spend all his time bragging about himself?

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:9-10: “For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.  But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect.  No, I worked harder than all of them – yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.”

Paul was saying, “I am not entitled to be a Christian leader.  I have done things I’m not proud of.  Whatever good I have done, it’s by God’s grace working through me rather than any inherent talent that I have.  It’s not about me, me, me, but about grace, grace, grace.”

I have a real heart for wounded pastors.  Based on some of the ex-pastors I’ve been meeting, there are others who feel the same way I do.  Pastors are ordinary people that God has called and gifted to serve Him and others.  When a pastor enjoys success in ministry, it’s not ultimately because of his talent or his personality or his intellect.  It’s because of God’s grace.  As Paul wrote years later in 1 Timothy 1:15: “Here is a trustworthy statement that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst.”

It’s only when we pastors forget about God’s grace that we become thoughtless and rude.  When we start to think that we are entitled to all the good things God has done for us, we will dishonor God and alienate people.  But the more conscious we are that we don’t deserve salvation or our family or a leadership position, but that all we have and are comes from The Father of Lights, the more others-oriented we will be.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been able to follow an ego-driven Christian leader very far.  But I’m more than willing to follow a grace-filled leader anywhere.

Let’s pray that God will fill our pastors – and our own lives – with His grace, grace, grace.

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Criticizing Pastors

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with the Pastor, Current Church Issues on May 4, 2011| 8 Comments »

My wife and I recently visited a church that meets in a high school.  When we drove into the parking lot, we had no idea what to expect.  As we walked toward the front door, we wondered: What’s this church all about?  What kind of service will they have?  Will the pastor’s message be something we can relate to?

At the church we’ve been attending for the past ten months, people arrive early to get a good seat.  That wasn’t necessary at this church, so the place largely felt empty until well into the worship time.  When the service did start, worship was led by a guy wearing a cap who told us that those on the stage were “stoked” that we were present.  Although the worship leader and his band sounded okay, there wasn’t as much dignity during the worship time as I would have liked.

When the pastor got up to speak (at 11:02 am – I always time the preacher), he looked like a friend from my former church.  His message was a bit paradoxical to me.  While his written notes were intricate and extensive, he didn’t spend much time interpreting Scripture and spent most of his time making rambling applications.

At one point during the message, the pastor asked how many people were watching the NBA Playoffs.  I think three people raised their hands.  (If the Phoenix Suns aren’t in the playoffs around here, basketball doesn’t exist.)  He then asked if there were any Lakers’ fans in the house.  Even though I am a HUGE Lakers’ fan, I kept my hand down.  (I’m a low-profile kind of guy.)  But my wife instantly raised her hand and went, “YEAH!”  She was the only one in the whole place with her hand up.

Oh, no.

The pastor wanted to launch into an anti-Lakers tirade (evidently quite a popular pasttime in Phoenix churches), but after looking at Kim, he said, “Maybe I shouldn’t say anything.  It looks like her husband can take me.”  (I looked that way because I knew he was about to disparage my second-favorite all-time sports team.)  The pastor then criticized Kobe Bryant for something and moved on.  As a first-timer, I did not like being singled out, but what can you do when your wife expresses her undying support for your team in front of strangers?

The pastor’s message lasted slightly more than an hour.  When Kim and I got into the car, we quickly discussed the church and the message for a few brief moments, and then we talked about something else.  We haven’t talked about that experience since.  We instinctively knew that church was not for us.

However … it perfectly met the needs of the people who attend it.  They absolutely love their church and their pastor, as well they should.  There was obviously a connection between the shepherd and his flock.  It wasn’t one that I understood, but it was palpably real.  After all, the guy has been there forever.

Based on our little experience, let me share a few comments about criticizing pastors:

First, find a church – and a pastor – you like.  When a pastor stands in front of a congregation week after week, he can’t hide who he is.  It just emerges.  Sooner or later, you’ll learn how he relates to God, his wife, and his kids.  You’ll learn what he thinks about politics and social issues.  (And the Lakers.)  You’ll even learn how he feels about himself.  Discerning listeners could write a brief biography of their pastor after hearing him speak for a while.

To remain under a pastor’s teaching ministry, you have to like and respect him.  You don’t have to agree with everything he says.  But if you cringe every time he preaches, then find a church where you’re comfortable.  Because if you stay in a church where you don’t like the pastor, you will inevitably tell others about your feelings.  If you tell 50 people, 48 might disagree with you, but even if only two agree, you’re starting to form a critic’s coalition – and you’ll start lobbying for more members.  (And that’s how conflicts begin.)  Although I’m sure I could be friends with the pastor I mentioned, I didn’t resonate with his preaching.  If I stayed, I’d become a critic, and that wouldn’t be healthy for either one of us.  So I need to visit enough churches until I find a pastor I can listen to consistently.

Second, pray for your pastor before he preaches.  It is amazing how prayer can turn critics into supporters.  If you pray for your pastor’s teaching ministry during the week – and especially right before he speaks – you’ll have formed an alliance with God on your pastor’s behalf.  Rather than nodding off during the message, you’ll eagerly listen for God’s voice.  Rather than picking apart the pastor’s logic, you’ll be rooting for him to make sense.  Praying frequently and fervently for your pastor will not only make you a better listener – it will make him a better preacher.

When I first started preaching as a young man, a group of people always stood around me and prayed for me right before the message.  At times, I sensed God’s power coming upon me during those prayer times.  I became more energized, passionate, and courageous  because I knew that those who prayed for me were interceding on my behalf.  When Aaron and Hur held up Moses’ arms in Exodus 17, Israel prevailed in battle over the Amalekites.  When the two men took a break, and Moses’ arms fell to his side in exhaustion, the Amalekites gained momentum.  Pastors can only hold up their arms for so long.  They need solid supporters who will stand next to them and hold them up before the Lord.  If you’ll do that for your pastor, I guarantee that he will preach better – and you’ll criticize him less.  You’re invested.

Third, realize your pastor is all too human.  He will screw up on occasion.  He will screw up in his preaching, his leadership, and his pastoring.  Count on it.  He may execute his duties flawlessly 97.3% of the time, but he will goof up – sometimes badly.

A few years ago, I was asked to speak at a memorial service for a man I did not know well.  The service was scheduled to be held in the middle of a Saturday afternoon.  I had prepared my remarks well in advance and was positive I knew the time the service started.  So I casually made my way over to the local retirement center, thinking I’d be early.  But when I entered the public assembly room, I discovered I was half an hour late instead … and everybody was waiting for me.  (And not all of them were happy.)  I know why I was late: the wife of the deceased kept changing the time over the  phone, and I latched onto one of the times without double-checking.  (My fault.)  Naturally, I apologized to everyone present.  But I didn’t look prepared that day, and I was a sitting duck for criticism.

If you were in that room, would you have forgiven your pastor or criticized him to others?  If the deceased was your husband or father, would you have been tough on him?  If the pastor was late to every memorial service, okay, he’s got a problem, but if he’s only late to one in his life – and this was the only one in my three decades plus career – it’s an anomaly, not a pattern.  (By the way, the wife of the deceased told me that she was just glad I made it, and our friendship never missed a beat.)  When a pastor makes a mistake, and he apologizes for it, forgive him and let it go or else you’re the one in the wrong.

Finally, keep most criticism to yourself.  The pastor of the church Kim and I have been attending is a terrific preacher.  He’s prepared, passionate, relevant, and courageous.  But he’s been letting someone else preach more recently, and while this person appeals to a younger crowd, my wife and I don’t enjoy listening to him.  Instead of interpreting a passage accuarately and then doing creative applications, he prides himself on doing creative interpretations – some of which do violence to the text as well as the history of the Christian faith.  We’re both so uncomfortable listening to him that we plan to check out other churches on the Sundays he preaches.

I don’t know this pastor, and I will probably never meet him, so I haven’t earned the right to criticize him to his face.  While I don’t think he’s a heretic, he’s an emerging church guy … and that’s all I’m going to say right now.  His views of Scripture, Jesus, and the church are vastly different than my own.

We won’t lobby to have him removed.  (Nobody would listen to us anyway.)  We won’t share our feelings with our friends.  (Unless he starts teaching heresy.)  So instead of insisting that he leave (and how selfish that would be), we plan to look for a pastor and a church whose vision and preaching we can fully support.

What are your thoughts on criticizing pastors?  I would love to hear them.  Thanks!

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

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Charging Leaders with Wrongdoing

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with the Pastor, Pastoral Termination on May 2, 2011| 5 Comments »

I’ve been writing this blog about pastor-congregational conflict issues over the past five months.  Every day, I’m given the terms that people type into their search engines to find the blog, and the top two phrases have been “how to terminate a pastor” and “facing your accusers.”  Evidently there is a lot of confusion among Christians as to how to handle the correction and termination of a pastor.  (And pastors don’t help because they rarely teach on this issue.)  Take a moment to imagine how differently pastors would be treated if every church took Moses’ words in Deuteronomy 19:15-21 seriously:

“One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed.  A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.  If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse a man of a crime, the two men involved in the dispute must stand in the presence of the Lord before the priests and the judges who are in office at the time.  The judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against his brother, then do to him as he intended to do to his brother.  You must purge the evil from among you.  The rest of the people will hear of this and be afraid, and never again will such an evil thing be done among you.  Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”

Please notice several things about this passage:

First, an accuser must be a witness.  An individual had to see someone committing a crime before they could report it to the authorities.  You were not allowed to say, “Well, I heard that Joshua stole a cow” or “some of my friends told me that Seth assaulted the high priest.”  If you reported what you heard from someone else, that might make you a prosecutor but not a witness.  There’s a big difference.  You had to witness the events firsthand for someone to be tried.  If you didn’t, you wouldn’t even be heard.  J. A. Thompson notes in his commentary on Deuteronomy that this section deals with “the false witness who has been a menace to society in every age and among many peoples.”

How differently matters are handled in our churches.

Can you imagine going to a meeting of the governing board or standing up in a public meeting and accusing your pastor of a litany of charges without ever having witnessed any of his offenses yourself?  And yet this is exactly what happens in many churches.  Rather than instantly believing (or disbelieving) the charges, someone should ask the accuser point blank, “Have you personally seen or heard the pastor commit any offenses?  If so, when and where?”  If not, the person has been disqualified as a witness and should be silent.  Then those who have seen the pastor say or do something wrong should come forward.  If nobody does, the charges – according to Scripture – should be dismissed.

One of the best features of American jurisprudence is that a plaintiff is able to face his or her accusers.  In other words, a witness cannot make charges against someone – resulting in their arrest – and then be able to hide out as the accused is tried and sentenced.  The accused must be able to face their accuser in court and have his or her attorney cross-examine them.  Many Christians believe that this legal principle comes straight from passages like this one.  It would be a shame if unbelievers obeyed biblical principles in a greater way than believers.

Second, one witness is not enough to establish guilt.  What does Scripture say?  There must be “two or three witnesses” to a crime, not just one, because one person could easily misrepresent an event.

When I was in high school, I was walking home from school one day with a friend when we both witnessed an accident between a motorcycle and a car.  The motorcyclist ran a stop sign, hit the car broadside, and then flew over the car, landing on the pavement.  (He was okay.)  While I told the police what I saw, my friend saw things a bit differently – and probably more accurately – because he planned to become a policeman (which he eventually did).  We both saw the same accident and yet came to several different conclusions.  Several witnesses are able to give a more complete version of events than a single witness could ever do – and this protects the accused from a personal vendetta by one person.

Both Jesus and Paul later quoted from this passage when they mentioned the necessity of having “two or three witnesses” establish the facts in a confrontation (Matthew 18:16; 1 Timothy 5:19) – and Paul’s words to Timothy deal specifically with Christian leaders.

Third, every charge against an individual must be investigated by an impartial body.  While I’m stating the obvious here, a witness cannot say, “I saw So-and-So commit such-and-such an offense” and be instantly believed.  Their charges must be tested.

The other night, I was watching a dramatic depiction of the trial of Sir Thomas More, who served as Chancellor under King Henry VIII of England.  Henry had More (a Roman Catholic) arrested for high treason and confined to The Tower of London.  More’s Protestant opponents (sad to say) continually accused him of denying the right of the king to be the head of the church in England.  While More successfully beat back the initial wave of charges, he was finally accused by Richard Rich (the king’s Solicitor General) for denying the king’s right to lead the church during a personal conversation.  Based on the testimony of one man, a jury required a mere fifteen minutes to pronounce More’s guilt and arrange for his execution.

Regardless of how you might feel about Henry VIII and Thomas More, isn’t there something inside of us that recoils when we hear that a private conversation with a single person could result in the death of a Christian leader?  By the same token, how can the wild accusations of one person result in the besmirching of a pastor’s reputation in our day?  And rather than just take one person’s word for it, shouldn’t an impartial body be appointed to check into the charges?  Isn’t this what Paul had in mind when he told the church in Corinth (in 1 Corinthians 6:1-8) that they should be able to handle their own affairs without involving the secular court system?

Finally, if the charges proved to be false, then the witnesses were to receive the exact punishment the accused would have received.  What Brown writes about societies applies even more stringently to Christian churches: “Any society is sick if people within it will lie deliberately in order to inflict harm on others.  The Lord is a God of truth; he does not deceive us by anything he says.  Therefore, the word of those who belong to the covenant community must also be reliable and trustworthy.”

Please note that the law of lex talionis (known as “an eye for an eye”) specified the limit of punishment (if Joseph harmed your eye, you could harm his eye but not his ear) rather than demanded punishment (if he harmed your eye, you had to harm his eye).

Several weeks ago, I had lunch with a veteran Christian leader who told me about his church’s policy when it comes to accusing staff members of wrongdoing.  Two women in the church claimed they had seen a staff member engaging in inappropriate behavior.  Their claims came to the attention of my friend and he did a thorough investigation of the matter.  While he concluded that the staff member did not use his best judgment, he exonerated him from any serious wrongdoing.  One of the women was dissatisfied with the decision and began to repeat her charges to others.  My friend then contacted her and told her that if she did not stop her accusations, then discipline would be exercised against her.  Her accusations ceased.

This step is missing in Christian churches today.  We have created a climate where people can make accusations with impunity – whether they’re true or not – because they know that nothing will happen to them.  These accusations are often passed around the church in the form of gossip and are believed before the accused leader even hears about them or can respond to them.  Because the leader is then perceived to be in the wrong, he or she is asked for their resignation.  What a travesty!

I recommend that Christians find ways to include the principles embedded in this Deuteronomy passage (not necessarily the penalties!) into church life so we can protect our Christian leaders from false and malicious charges.  As Moses said, “You must purge the evil from among you.”

But the truth is that this passage is a safeguard for everybody – including leaders.  Isn’t this the way you would want to be treated if you were accused of an offense?

What do you think about this passage and these principles?

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Ready! Aim! Preach!

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Antagonists, Conflict with the Pastor on April 27, 2011|

Do pastors ever intentionally target specific individuals in the congregation when they preach?

Yes.

And in the process, they also provoke conflict.

When I first started preaching, I was only nineteen.  When I prepared a sermon, I was just trying to put together some coherent thoughts based on the Bible so I could fill the half hour or so I had been assigned.  It wouldn’t have dawned on me to scold anyone in particular from the pulpit.  I had a hard enough time just trying to make sense.

As time went on, I became more issue-oriented when I preached.  If I detected a topic that wasn’t being addressed in our church, I’d talk about that.  My thoughts were centered on content, not people.

But that all changed when I became a pastor.

I was 27 years old in a church where the average age was sixty.  (Doesn’t sound so old anymore.)  When I stood up to speak, I looked out on a congregation of … 30-40 people.  I quickly got to know them all, and I didn’t like some of them.  (You wouldn’t have, either, but that’s another story.)

These people were ultra-fundamentalists, hyper-critics who wanted the church to go back in time three decades.  The music reflected that, as did the way the church was governed.  I grew not to like some of those growling faces when I got up to present the Word of God.

So when I prepared a message at home – and I spoke three times a week – I’d say to myself, “So-and-so really needs to hear this point.  I will tailor it to her specifically.”  Then I’d go to church and let it fly.

Only much of the time, whenever I aimed a portion of the message at someone … they didn’t show up!

For example, whenever I got on people for not attending church on a regular basis, I was saying that to people WHO WERE ALREADY IN ATTENDANCE!  (The people who weren’t there never heard the message anyway.)

There were other times when I’d say something for the benefit of one person, and I’d look out, and they’d be asleep, or talking to someone, or not paying attention, and I’d realize that I had just wasted my time.

And, of course, even if they heard me loud and clear, they probably thought I was talking to someone else, not them!

So it didn’t take me long to learn that preaching to one person was a colossal waste of time.  Maybe it was therapeutic for me, but it didn’t do anything to visibly change the person I was “aiming” at.  Besides, how would I even know when my missives had hit the mark?

One of my preaching mentors – and he was definitely old school – advised me to target specific people in the congregation when I spoke.  He did it, and he felt he had success with it, but after a while, I could not bring myself to do it anymore.

I should have learned from the last pastor that I served under as a youth pastor.

The pastor was gone one Sunday.  At the end of the service, some kind of praise anthem was sung, and a few people raised their hands to the Lord.  As I recall, some of those people were in the choir.  Handraising was not done at our church.  It was a practice imported from those divisive charismatic churches, and we weren’t about to become charismatic!

So when the pastor returned home, he was informed – probably by those same people from my first church – that handraising occurred in our church last Sunday!  Oh my!

So what did the pastor do?  He prepared a sermon for the following Sunday about controversial issues in the church, ticking off some examples … and then mentioned handraising.

Uh oh.

That was strategic product placement, wasn’t it?

Suddenly, the congregation was divided.  You were either for handraising or against it.  No middle ground.

Those against it stayed at the church.  Those for it began making for the exits.

Years later, I had breakfast with the pastor.  We got to talking about his handraising sermon.  He told me candidly that he never should have highlighted that issue.  He said, “People just wanted to express their love for the Lord.”  And he was right.

As the years went on, whenever I prepared a message, the faces of certain people would naturally flit through my brain.  It happens to every speaker.  We don’t want to speak to a mass of people, but to individuals.  And it helps if we speak to certain individuals, not those we don’t like or those we think are stuck in sin, but those who are hurting.

As I worked on a message, sometimes I would write down the names of a few people in the church on my worksheet, not because I wanted to “nail them” with the message, but because I sincerely wanted to help them advance in their walk with Christ.  I would ask myself, “What kind of applications would free them to live for Jesus?”

As the congregations I spoke to increased in size, I no longer tried to aim a message at any one person.  Why aim at one when dozens more needed help?

But from time-to-time, I believed that God wanted me to say something that I knew might offend certain people in the church.  Although I’d ask the Lord what He wanted me to do, most of the time, I said it anyway.  I subscribed to the philosophy of teacher extraordinaire Stephen Brown:

When in doubt, say it.

Why?  Brown believed that would usually be the most interesting and memorable part of the message.  And while many pastors try not to offend anyone in their message, my top two spiritual gifts are teaching and prophecy.  The gift of prophecy leads me toward saying the hard thing rather than shying away from it.  But I always tried to do it with grace rather than with rancor.

In fact, my preaching philosophy comes from John 1:17: “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”  I tried to preach the truth with grace.  Rather than bind people, I wanted to liberate them.

Our pastor speaks to several thousand people every Sunday.  His applications seem to be aimed at the congregation as a whole.  He has a big enough staff that they can handle the problem situations.  And if he’s having problems with a church leader, he’ll probably call them into his office during the week and deal with the situation in private.

That’s the way it should be done.

So do pastors sometimes aim part of a message at certain individuals in a church?

My guess is that the younger the pastor, and the smaller the church, the more it’s done.  But the older the pastor, and the larger the church, the less it’s done.

Let me conclude with this thought: while pastors can be controversial when they preach – just teaching what the Bible says provokes controversy in our culture – they should never deliver a message in anger or aim a message at a particular person.

When a pastor gets worked up, he raises the conflict level in his church.  When he remains calm, he brings the conflict level down.

This Sunday, listen carefully to your pastor’s message.  If part of his preaching seems like it was aimed at you, he didn’t do it on purpose.  He may not even know you.

That’s the Holy Spirit.

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Book Excerpt: Why Jesus Was Terminated

Posted in Church Conflict, Church Coup Excerpts, Conflict with the Pastor, Pastoral Termination on April 20, 2011| Leave a Comment »

The following article is from Chapter 11 of the book I’m writing. The chapter parallels the way that Jesus’ enemies “terminated” Him with the way that pastors are often terminated today. Thanks for reading:

It is my contention that there are a host of similarities between the way that Jesus was cruelly terminated and the way that many pastors are unjustly treated in our day.  In fact, a case can be made that the steps leading to the crucifixion of Jesus are replicated on a regular basis in churches throughout the world.  While some parallels are inexact – for example, pastors lack Jesus’ perfect character and miracle-working power – the unoriginal devil uses the same template today to destroy spiritual leaders as He did in our Savior’s time.  Why change your methodology when it’s been working so well?

In re-reading The Gospels recently, I believe that the single verse that best describes Satan’s strategy in attacking a leader is Mark 14:27.  The night before His death, Jesus quoted from Zechariah 13:7 and told His disciples, “You will all fall away, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’”  While the devil sometimes picks off a stray sheep or two – and even provokes some sheep to fight each other – he knows that the single best way to slaughter an entire flock is to eliminate their leader.  Without their shepherd, the sheep wander off toward cliffs, fail to find nourishing pastures, and become prey for wolves.

Let me share some parallels between the way that Jesus was mistreated twenty centuries ago and the way that many pastors are mistreated today.

First, the enemies of Jesus were threatened by Him.  Before Jesus came on the scene, the Pharisees and chief priests and elders were the unquestioned spiritual authorities in Israel as well as the undisputed arbiters of Jewish law.  But in one of the first of many clashes with Israel’s leaders, Jesus publicly challenged their authority inside a synagogue on the Sabbath in Capernaum.  Jesus met a man there with a shriveled hand.  Although healing on the Sabbath was considered to be work and a violation of the popular interpretation of the Law, Jesus turned His attention toward the Pharisees before addressing His patient.  Showing His awareness of their presence, Jesus asked them in Luke 6:9, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?”  The Pharisees chose to remain silent rather than engage Jesus in dialogue.  After looking them directly in the eyes, Jesus instantly restored the man’s hand to health.

Jesus committed a good deed that Sabbath day.  He cared much more for the spirit of the law than its letter.  While the Pharisees lived by their extra-biblical, legalistic codes, Jesus consistently behaved within the true meaning of God’s law.  In the Father’s eyes, Jesus only did good while in the Pharisees’ eyes, Jesus only did evil.  But who did Jesus work for: the Father or the Pharisees?  He served His Father alone.  Because He could have healed the man on any other day, Jesus’ attitude got Him into trouble with the religious authorities.  They began to worry that He might gradually come to displace them as leaders in Israel.

Jesus not only threatened the authority of the Jewish leaders by spurning their man-made laws, He also threatened their influence via a scathing public indictment (Matthew 23), castigating them for practices like hypocrisy, narcissism, vanity, majoring on minors, and being obsessed with their spiritual images.  And in Luke 13:17, after healing a woman with spinal issues on the Sabbath (once again in a synagogue), the synagogue ruler angrily told those in attendance, “There are six days for work.  So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”  But Jesus did not back down, accusing His opponents of being “hypocrites” who lead their animals to water on the Sabbath while prohibiting supernatural deliverance for hurting people.  Luke concludes, “When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing” (Luke 13:17).

Most of all, according to John 11:48, Jesus threatened their very survival.  After Jesus raised Lazarus, the Sanhedrin concluded, “If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation,” referring either to Jerusalem itself or the temple.  In other words, if Jesus kept attracting a large following, He might put the Jewish leaders out of business altogether, rendering them irrelevant.  Due to their scarcity mentality, they couldn’t let that happen.  While John the Baptist nobly proclaimed, “He must become greater; I must become less” (John 3:30), their sentiment was, “We must become greater; He must become nonexistent.”

While Jesus and the Jewish leaders contended for the soul of their nation, many pastors and church leaders fight for control of a congregation.  There are people in every church who have been there for years – especially charter members – and who sense that their influence is being displaced as the pastor’s influence increases.  When that happens, it’s not uncommon for these people to band together and strike back.

Next, the enemies of Jesus plotted to destroy Him.  It is simply amazing to read how many times in the Gospels we are given insight into the real motives of the Jewish leaders toward Jesus.  While their decisions were made in the dark, they later fully came into the light.  For example, after Jesus healed the lame man at the Bethesda pool on the Sabbath, John tells us that “the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God” (John 5:18).  John 7:1 tells us that Jesus purposely stayed away from Judea “because the Jews there were waiting to take his life.” The attitude of the leaders became so well known that some of the people in Jerusalem began to ask in John 7:25, “Isn’t this the man they are trying to kill?”  Jesus Himself told the Jewish leaders that He knew about their hostility toward Him in John 8:40 when He said, “As it is, you are determined to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God.”  After Jesus declared that “before Abraham was born, I am!” the Jewish leaders “picked up stones to stone him” but Jesus slipped away from the temple area (John 8:58-59).

Finally, after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, we’re told about the Sanhedrin that “from that day on they plotted to take his life” (John 11:53). They were even so enraged at the miracle Jesus performed on Lazarus that “the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and putting their faith in him (John 12:10-11).”  During the last week of Jesus’ life, Luke tells us, “Every day he was teaching at the temple. But the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him” (Luke 19:47).

The New Testament writers never tell us that anyone at this point was trying to kill Peter, or James, or Thomas – just Jesus.  In the same way, no one in a local church bands together to eliminate the small group director, or the children’s fourth grade teacher, or the office manager.  No, if they go after anyone, a group always goes after the pastor.

When I use the word “destroy,” I am not for a moment suggesting that the enemies of a pastor in church settings wish to kill him as they did Jesus.  While that sort of thing has happened – and I have some news stories in my files as evidence – it’s extremely rare.  It’s much more common for individuals and groups to try and harm a pastor’s reputation, remove him from office, or damage his career.  Rediger writes that “it is frightening, as well as embarrassing, to see how many religious leaders are willing to destroy careers, congregations, and missions in the name of theological cleansing, or whatever the source of their vexation.”  Greenfield ads, “In some cases, the commitment to do harm, to tear down, to destroy could be seen as just short of murder, because the evil actions are intended to kill the leader’s ministry, career, position in the church, and even his health.”

In my mind, it is often very simple to determine which side in a “religious war” represents the devil and which side represents the Lord. In a word, Satan majors in destruction (I Peter 5:8) while Jesus majors in redemption (Titus 2:13-14).

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The List

Posted in Conflict with Church Antagonists, Conflict with the Pastor, Pastoral Termination on April 18, 2011| Leave a Comment »

One of my favorite Peanuts comic strip series involved the time that Lucy (in her psychiatrist role) decided to help Charlie Brown overcome his faults by highlighting them all.  She obtained a camera and began taking pictures of everything he was doing wrong.  Then she invited him to her house and displayed his faults on slides.  After several weeks of this torture, poor Charlie couldn’t take it anymore.  He let out a blood-curdling scream after which Lucy told him, “Wait until you get my bill.”  In the final strip, after lamenting Lucy’s huge charges, Charlie turns toward us and says, “And I still have the same faults.”

How would you handle such an assault?

Pretend you’re ten years old, and one day your mother gives you a list of 22 shortcomings in your life.  How would you deal with that?  Try and improve?  Or give up on life?

Imagine you’re nineteen and your boyfriend or girlfriend claims that the 17 faults in your life constitute the reasons why they never want to see you again.  How would you survive such rejection?

Surmise that you’re twenty-eight and your boss says you’re fired.  When you ask why, he details 13 ways in which you were incompetent.  How would you avoid spending the next two weeks in a mental hospital?

Most human beings are emotionally fragile, no matter how confidently we present ourselves in public.  Psalm 103:14 says that the Lord “knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.”  Dr. Archibald Hart believes that you have good self-esteem if you don’t hate yourself.  Studies repeatedly show that the vast majority of Americans – as many as ninety percent – struggle with accepting themselves as they are.  (Donald Trump excepted.)

Yes, we’re stronger than we think, and yes, criticism can ultimately help make us better people.  But the way someone criticizes us can either destroy us or heal us.

If someone is trying to heal us through criticism, they will bring up our faults one at a time.  Over the course of a lifetime, we all learn about our weaknesses from a variety of individuals: parents, siblings, friends, teachers, employers, spouses, and even children.  This pace allows us to receive our faults and work on them over the years.

But if someone wants to destroy us, they will dump all our faults on us at once.  Sometimes this is cruelly called “clearing the air” or “gunnysacking.”  This is what happens to many pastors when a party in the church becomes determined to expel him from their midst.

Let me be the first one to say that pastors have their flaws – some of them personal, others related to their profession.  Most pastors work on their flaws by enlisting the power of God’s Spirit to change them.  A small percentage of pastors – usually those with personality disorders – are blind to their faults and blame others for all their problems.  These are the pastors who cause major problems in ministry.

Pastors have just as many flaws as anybody else.  Nowhere does the Bible say that those who teach Scripture have entered a sinless state.  In fact, pastors may be just more adept at covering up their faults.  The smaller the church, the more people know about their pastor’s marriage, finances, children, hobbies, relationships – and faults.  While this makes the whole pastor-people relationship ultimately healthier (because we’re all trying to live in community together), it can backfire overnight if some party uses this proximity as ammunition against the minister.

I am not talking theory.  This happened to me in the second church I served as pastor.

A group of seniors in that church had a Sunday School class.  It was led by a former pastor who felt insignificant.  He began complaining about church practices that he did not like.  His complaints soon went viral, and before anyone knew it, the whole class revolted against the pastor: me.

The class recruited a few others and held a “secret meeting.”  They made a list of all my faults, both as a person and as a pastor.  (My wife said they missed a few.)  They then turned their guns on her and our two children (our son was nine, our daughter six).  They wrote down every fault that came to mind.  Seventeen people against one.

The group then appointed two representatives and scheduled a meeting with two elders.  The intent of the representatives was to present The List to the elders, hoping they would agree with the complaints and terminate my employment.

One complaint was that the wife of our band’s drummer wore short skirts and that I should have prevented her from doing so.  Someone else complained that my wife’s slip was showing one Sunday.  God has mercifully helped me to forget most of the complaints, but they were all that petty.

To their credit, the elders didn’t let the reps read their entire list at once.  After each complaint, an elder offered a response, which took all the fun out of the exercise.

Why would professing Christians sit around and pick at another person – much less a pastor – that way?  Why create The List?

For starters, The List indicates the lack of a single impeachable offense.  If a pastor committed homicide in the church lobby, no one would complain that he doesn’t keep his car clean.  If surveillance videos showed a pastor stealing money from the offering plate, no would would mention that he went home five minutes early last Tuesday.  The List is a confession that a group cannot nail the pastor with any moral or spiritual felonies, so they resort to nitpicking, hoping the sheer quantity of charges will substitute for their lack of quality.

Second, The List is a signal that the group wants to end their relationship with the pastor.  Want to end your marriage?  Tell your spouse every wrong thing they’ve ever done to you.  Want to get fired?  Tell your boss every problem you have with her management.  The List is a prelude to destroying a relationship.  In this case, it’s an admission that the group believes the pastor is irredeemable.  But does Jesus want us to give up on people that soon?

Of course, we have to wonder: rather than “doing the piranha” on a spiritual leader, why doesn’t a group leave the church en masse instead?  Because … if they can force the pastor out, they’ll stay.  But if they can’t, then they’ll leave.  In my case, because the board stood behind me 100%, my critics all left – and formed a new church a mile away.

Next, The List demonstrates a lack of courage.  When Christians sit in a room together and tick off a pastor’s faults, they are silently confessing that they all lack the guts to confront him in private.  Jesus didn’t exclude spiritual leaders from His directives in Matthew 18:15-20 to go to a brother in private if he sins – and a pastor is a brother.  If you believe your pastor has a glaring fault, then talk to him privately, humbly, and lovingly.  When a group gather to create The List, they implicitly confess that they are interested in power, not love.

When a group gets together specifically to demonize one individual, people say things they would never say to the pastor’s face.  Groups that do this are famous for exaggerating the pastor’s alleged misbehavior.  When the pastor isn’t present to defend himself against the charges, then every accusation makes him look guilty.  Who will defend him when the meeting’s purpose is to accuse him?

I once had a teacher at Biola named Mr. Ebeling.  While he could be a cranky old guy, he used to say, “If Christians would just read their Bibles!”  He was right.  Where in Scripture do we find a group of Christians who gather together to detail the faults of any spiritual leader?

Finally, The List demonstrates that people have become malicious.  Revelation 12:10 says that Satan is “the accuser of the brethren.”  He’s the one who continually goes to God and says, “You call Jim one of your children?  Look what he just did!”  (And I keep him quite busy.)  But what does Jesus do?  He defends us.  He protects us.  He may have to chasten us, but He does it because He loves us.  Most of all, He forgives us.  We are His own.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:5 that love “keeps no record of wrongs.”  Christian love does not keep lists of offenses against other Christians.  (That’s what politicians do to each other.)  Love deals with each offense as it happens, never to destroy a brother or sister, but always to bring them back to God.

Here is a project: write down five things you like about your pastor and his ministry.  List all five in an email or note and send it to your pastor.  Better still, send him one commendation per week.  (Remember the wisdom of sharing five compliments for every criticism?)

Why not counteract The List with one of your own?

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Why Follow a Gunslinger?

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Antagonists, Conflict with Church Board, Conflict with the Pastor, Pastoral Termination on April 13, 2011| Leave a Comment »

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

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

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

Let me offer five possiblities:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Will you be one of those people?

 

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