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Archive for the ‘Pastoral Termination’ Category

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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Beware of Bobbleheads

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Board, Conflict with the Pastor, Pastoral Termination on April 11, 2011| 2 Comments »

Back in the 1960s, a new kind of doll hit popular culture: the bobblehead.  The first such dolls produced were of baseball players Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Roberto Clemente.  Later in the decade, dolls were produced of The Beatles.

As a kid, I distinctly remember bobblehead dolls of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who had the best promotions in all of sports. The head on the bobblehead is oversized and, connected to its small body by a spring, continually nods.  The doll never says “no” but always says “yes.”

The only bobblehead I own is of former Oakland A’s pitcher Vida Blue, and I’ve been looking to give it away for quite some time.  If you want it, you can come over to my house and claim it.  (I met Vida Blue in Anaheim in 1972, the year after he won the Cy Young Award as the best pitcher in baseball.  I asked him to pose for a photo.  He stuck his tongue out at me.  I still have the photo.  But you can’t have the photo.  It’s precious.)

Anyway, I digress.  The reason I bring up bobbleheads is because some Christian leaders resemble them.  Just as the bobblehead constantly nods its head in approval, so too these leaders always seem to agree with the other leaders around them.

Where can one find Christian bobbleheads in a church setting?

They can be found almost anywhere that decisions are made: on the programming team, among adult youth leaders, on any ministry team, and on the church board.  Especially on the church board.

Church boards – whether they’re called elders, deacons, servant-leaders, or the Board of Directors – usually have lots of decisions to make and not much time to make them.  I’ve attended several hundred board meetings in my time (violins, please) and one of the constant themes is that “we’ve got to hurry up and get out of here by 9:00 pm” or whatever time is set.  (11:00 is more like it.)  The chairman introduces an issue, board members ask questions and discuss it, and the board eventually comes to consensus.

When the issue is relatively insignificant, this approach works well.  But the more an issue impacts the entire church family, the more time the board needs to take in deliberation.  It’s irresponsible for a board to make a quick decision, for example, over changing the times of the services or borrowing money to construct a worship center.  The greater the impact on the entire church family, the longer the board needs to take in making a call.

This principle is especially relevant when it comes to two issues: hiring and terminating the head pastor.  Let’s talk about the latter decision.

Every month in our country, 1,300 pastors are involuntarily terminated from their positions.  Some deserve it, being guilty of incompetence, immorality, or stubbornly refusing to repent of wrongdoing.  But in the great majority of cases, the template goes like this:

One board member has it in for the pastor.  Let’s call him the gunslinger.  For a year, he tries to wear down the pastor through controlling tactics, insinuations, harassment, and a lack of support.  He privately makes his case with the other board members between meetings in the church parking lot, during private meals, and at “secret meetings” in a restaurant or someone’s  home.  The gunslinger can’t seem to find anything the pastor does right and concludes that the board must “shoot him” to save the church.  When questioned about the propriety of such an undertaking, the gunslinger produces a Wanted poster with a list of charges against the pastor (and often his family) that indicate the pastor has to go, the sooner the better.  It’s never the quality of the charges but the sheer quantity that ultimately persuades the other board members.

If you’re wondering about how in touch with reality I am, let me quote from Guy Greenfield’s book The Wounded Minister:

This person “will lead a campaign of attack on the minister.  This person is not trying to give constructive criticism.  Even if some valid points are offered, his goal is nothing short of control, no matter what it may cost the minister or the church.  The antagonist is so full of rage that he feels compelled to attack the ‘enemy’ (the minister) until he is destroyed (terminated and eliminated from the scene).

This person probably has a ‘God-problem.’  He feels some deep-seated anger toward God, for some reason out of his past experiences.  Because it is difficult to show anger directly toward God, the pathological antagonist chooses the minister, the ‘man of God’ as his target.  Sometimes this anger is guilt-driven (possibly due to some hidden sin, such as an extramarital affair, for example).  His antagonism is an attempt to move the spotlight off his own sins and onto another.  Therefore the attack is a smoke screen to cover his own moral indiscretions … His stated reasons for opposition are a ruse for his own hidden agenda.  What he really wants is power, control, status, and authority.”

How does the gunslinger get away with his diabolical plan?

A while back, I bought a DVD collection of the classic TV show Bonanza.  The collection contains more than 30 episodes of the show from the first several years, all of them very, very good (even though they’re not remastered.  But what do you expect for $6.99?)  In some of the stories, there’s a bad guy who wants to kill Pa or Hoss or Hop Sing, but he never tries to go gunnin’ for them by himself.  He’s always got some not-so-bright “boys” who are willing to do whatever he tells them to do.  No matter how bad his plan is for stealing Ben’s cattle or grabbing some Ponderosa land or stealing Little Joe’s girl, the boys are in the background nodding their heads.

In other words, they’re bobbleheads.

Church boards have bobbleheads, too, or else the gunslinger couldn’t get away with anything.  They fail to realize that just as the gunslinger has been working on the pastor for a long time, so too he’s been working on them.  Greenfield again:

This person “tends to attract certain followers.  Without them, the antagonist’s efforts would fizzle.  He usually does not have the courage to go it alone.  He needs followers to bolster his campaign against the minister.  My antagonist was calculating in his enlistment of a small band of followers.  Each had a personal ax to grind with regard to what was happening in the church.  Each had a reputation for being a severe critic of former ministers.  All but one was a natural follower in personality makeup.”

In other words, they were bobbleheads.

Greenfield goes on:

“Four others were enlisted to join in this effort.  They began to hold secret meetings at Jim’s home on Wednesday evenings (at the same time the congregation was scheduled to hold midweek prayer meetings at the church building).  So Jack won over five men and their wives to concur with his accusations, none of which was true.  All of these men were deacons [board members].  Then, one by one, a few of their longtime friends, nondeacons, were persuaded to see things at church their way.”

The bobbleheads on the board kept nodding their heads in time with each of the gunslinger’s accusations.  They nodded so much that it became trendy to do so around town … er, the church.  Soon others began to “do the bobblehead” as well.  Greenfield concludes:

“In a few months, they knew they could count on at least 30 church members to vote with them regarding the minister’s future.  In the final showdown business meeting, they were able to muster some 50 members to vote with them.  There were some 135 members who voted to sustain the minister.  These were not good odds for future unity and fellowship in the church.  Therefore, I chose to take early retirement.  My health was too fragile to continue living with this kind of stress.”

The gunslinger never has to actually fire a shot at the pastor.  Just the threat of a shot causes most pastors to head for the high grass.  “C’mon, pastor, draw!”  But most pastors aren’t trained to shoot, especially at church leaders.  The gunslinger knows this and figures that even if the pastor tries to shoot, he’ll fire blanks – or wing the associate pastor.

Greenfield then asks the question that I’ve often wondered about.  Maybe you have, too.  “Now why would a handful of malcontents, led by a pathological antagonist, be able to enlist followers in a crusade based on a combination of falsehoods and half-truths?”  In other words, how does the gunslinger enlist bobbleheads to his cause?

If you have some ideas, I’d love to hear them.  I will share my own ideas next time.

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Pulling Our Punches

Posted in About Restoring Kingdom Builders, Conflict with the Pastor, Current Church Issues, Fighting Evil, Pastoral Termination on March 30, 2011| 1 Comment »

I went to a great seminary.  I loved everything about it: the professors, the books, interacting with fellow students, writing a thesis – just the general environment.  Sometimes the reading got to be a bit much, and at times the incessant papers nearly drove me mad, but I knew what the goal was: a solid Bible education.

We were in seminary to learn the Bible: to preach it, explain it, defend it, apply it.  Our professors knew, loved, and practiced the Word of God.  Being in seminary was a foretaste of heaven.

We didn’t learn much about business in seminary.  After all, we weren’t trying to get our MBAs, but our M.Divs (Master of Divinity degrees).  In fact, when I graduated from seminary after five years, the business world had little if any influence on the local church.

My how times have changed!

If you’re going to pastor an impactful church these days, a seminary education doesn’t seem necessary.  Some people say that what you really need is to take successful business principles and apply them to the church.  Develop your mission.  Cast a vision.  Find your niche.  Market your product.  And evaluate, evaluate, evaluate.

I am not saying that any of the above ideas are wrong.  Pastors can learn from any and all fields.  But in our culture, churches are getting more and more away from what the Bible says and are becoming increasingly enamored with what business says.

I could cite many examples, but one of the most prominent ones concerns the way churches view pastors.

The old paradigm said that a pastor was called by God to love the people and teach the Word.  Loving the people involved practices like counseling, hospital visitation, and praying with people.  Teaching the Word involved disciplines like studying, writing, and delivering biblically-based messages.

The new paradigm says that a pastor is the CEO of a small business, the local church.  You’re not called; you’re hired.  You don’t love the people as much as you lead the church.  You don’t teach the Word as much as communicate a message – one that should continually advance the church’s mission.

It’s all so different.

The reason I bring this up is that many pastors – including myself – were trained at a time when we believed God was calling us to be a pastor, not a CEO.  As some churches grew in size, their pastors became cultural superstars, and a lot of smaller church pastors suddenly felt inadequate.  Most of these large church pastors were using business principles in their churches, so the business way of doing things gradually spread to other churches.

But somewhere along the line, we lost the whole plot.

We now expect pastors to be CEOs, elders to be the board of directors, and money to be the bottom line.

Where’s the Bible in all this?

I bring this up because of my passion for pastors who have been involuntarily forced out of their churches.  How often is the Bible used in such situations?  How often are business practices used instead?

What does that say about our confidence in the relevance of Scripture?

Please don’t misunderstand me.  Pastors and churches can profit from some of the insights and practices of the business community.  But as followers of Jesus Christ, we should go to Scripture first and business second, not business first and Scripture second.

If God’s Word is primary, that changes everything in a local church.

What’s the bottom line in business?  Money.  How about in a church?  Devoted disciples.  The problem is that it’s easier to measure donations than changed lives.

What does a business do when it has hard times?  It cuts expenses.  It lays off employees.  It gets rid of product lines.

What does a church do?  It digs into Scripture.  It gathers together for prayer.  It believes God for great things.

It’s ironic: many Christian leaders believe what Scripture teaches for salvation and spiritual growth but ignore Scripture when business practices dictate otherwise.

Let me give you two examples among many I could cite.

Example one: I had a conversation yesterday with a Christian man.  We were discussing what should be done (if anything) about the people in a church who are wrongfully involved in forcing out a pastor.

My friend’s view is that a church doesn’t need to do anything to these people because God will punish them in His time and way.  He told me the story of an associate pastor who engineered the ouster of the senior pastor.  The associate got cancer and his wife died a horrible death.  His conclusion?  Christians don’t need to address the perpetrators in any way because eventually “God’ll get ’em.”

Where do we find that in the New Testament?

Yes, God will repay all of us according to our deeds in the next life (2 Corinthians 5:10), and the law of sowing and reaping still applies in this life as well (Galatians 6:7).  But would you rather receive correction from God directly or mediated through the leaders of a local church?

As Hebrews 10:29 reminds us, “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Instead, the New Testament tells us exactly what to do when those inside a church sin and cause division.  We are to gently and lovingly confront them until they repent.  We are to show them the error of their ways and bring them back to the Lord.  For example, look up Romans 16:17-18; Titus 3:10-11; 3 John 9-10.

Jesus said in Luke 17:3-4, “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.  If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.”

There are four action verbs mentioned here: sin, rebuke, repent, forgive.  Jesus lays out the sequence for us.  When someone sins, we rebuke them.  When they repent, we forgive them.  But how often do we follow His way?  Instead, when people sin, we quickly forgive them and dispense with our rebuking and their repenting.

In other words, if I’m the ringleader against my pastor, and I mount a campaign to force him to resign, and he eventually leaves, most people will quickly forgive me even though I’ve sinned.  No one will rebuke me.  No one will insist I repent.  No one will follow Jesus’ instructions.  And, of course, that leaves me wide open to do the same thing again.

Where’s the Bible in all this?

Example two: The church’s governing board is upset with the pastor for something he said.  One of the board members has had it.  He wants to fire the pastor outright.  During the meeting, another board member comes to agree with him.  Several aren’t yet sure, but nobody feels confident enough to defend the pastor.  After talking into the night, the remaining holdouts come around and agree that the board will fire the pastor.  They then agree to meet again to discuss how and when they’ll talk to the pastor and what (if anything) they’ll say to the congregation.

During this whole episode, they never crack open their Bibles.  They never discuss gently rebuking the pastor so he can repent and be restored.  They never ask for his intepretation of the event or let him present any defense.  They never even ask God for His guidance, asking Him to bless their decision instead.

In other words, they handle matters like they were in a seventh floor office at work.

Once again, where’s the Bible in all this?

The mission statement of Restoring Kingdom Builders is 25 words long:

“To begin the healing process for pastors and their families who have experienced forced termination and to teach Christians ways to manage these conflicts biblically.”

Please notice that last phrase: “to teach Christians ways to manage these conflicts biblically.”

Which conflicts?  The ones that involve the forced termination of pastors.

Most clergy-centered ministries in America are focused on the “healing process” for those who have gone through the pain of a forced exit, and my wife and I want to do that as well.  But isn’t it also wise to try and prevent these situations from happening in the first place?

That’s what I want to do.  Will you pray for my wife and me as we begin this ministry?  And when you hear about pastors who have undergone the pain of termination, will you let them know about our ministry?

And while you’re at it, may I suggest a project?  As you re-read the New Testament again, notice how many times the human authors – inspired by the Holy Spirit – make concrete suggestions as to how divisive people in a church are to be treated.  These instructions are always to the leaders or the people of a local church.

While reading Jeremiah 1 in The Message several days ago, I came across a fascinating phrase, especially as Opening Day in baseball approaches this Thursday.  God told Jeremiah (the prophet with whom I have the most affinity), “Don’t pull your punches or I’ll pull you out of the lineup.”

I believe He’s saying the same thing to me.

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Guarding Clothes

Posted in About Restoring Kingdom Builders, Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Antagonists, Current Church Issues, Fighting Evil, Pastoral Termination on March 25, 2011| 4 Comments »

Several decades ago, I took a friend to a White Sox-A’s game at the Oakland Coliseum.  (The White Sox won 1-0.)  After the game, while we were stuck in traffic, we both noticed some verbal interplay between a young woman and a car full of guys.  While both parties were in their cars, the guys were yelling at her, she was yelling at them – and there was alcohol involved.  Suddenly, the young woman grabbed a bucket of ice, ran over to the guys’ car, and poured out the ice through the driver’s side window onto the lap of the driver.  She then ran back toward her car, but the guys caught her and began beating her up.

I can’t stand to watch anyone get hit in real life, especially a woman.

Instinctively, I wanted to get out of the car and defend her, but my companion cautioned, “Don’t Jim – she asked for it.”

What would you have done in that situation?

As difficult as it is to watch non-TV people fighting, it’s even more disturbing to watch one-sided combat.  And yet, that’s what Saul of Tarsus did the first time we meet him in Scripture.

The most prominent early Christian outside the apostles was Stephen, “a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit … a man full of God’s grace and power” (Acts 6:5,8).  (How many Christian leaders would be described that way in our day?)  Just like with Jesus, some Jewish leaders made up charges against Stephen, incited a mob against him, held a kangaroo court, and produced false witnesses to trump-up charges.  Unlike Jesus, Stephen was able to mount a vigorous defense of his message from the Old Testament, but the verdict had been decided long before he began speaking.

Sometimes it’s hard to read Acts 7:57-58.  Luke mentions five phrases that indicate that the mob had already made up its minds about Stephen’s guilt.  Note the phrases in italics:

“At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him.”  If a movie was made about what really happened on this occasion, it would be rated NC-17 – or maybe NC-35.

Here’s what I want to know: why didn’t anybody try and stop the mob from carrying out this horrible action?  It was clearly a miscarriage of justice.  It didn’t honor God.  It couldn’t be explained away.  It was wrong.  But according to the text, no one protested this mob action.

And then Dr. Luke slips in a little phrase at the end of verse 58 to introduce us to someone: “Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.”  Most commentators believe that Saul was more than just an innocent bystander; as Acts 8:1 notes, “Saul was there, giving approval to his death.”

Once again, what would you have done in that situation?

There is no doubt that by not protesting, and by watching the coats of the executioners, Saul’s silent tongue was an indicator that he agreed with Stephen’s guilt, stoning, and death.  I am not saying that Saul could have singlehandedly stopped it.  (Although we don’t know because he didn’t try.)  But somewhere along the line, he made up his mind: Stephen needed to die, and Saul preferred a box seat to doing anything about it.

Saul would feel much differently years later.  In Acts 22:20, while recounting his testimony before another Jerusalem mob, Saul (now Paul) found himself in their crosshairs.  He summed up his actions years before: “And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.”  One can sense the regret in Paul’s voice: “I can’t believe I did that.”

This time, because the Romans were in charge of the proceedings, Paul was able to escape the mob and live another day.  But I wonder how many times he was haunted by the fact that when an innocent man of God was being stoned, he stood idly by without registering a protest.

Why bring this up?

I had breakfast this past week with a Christian leader who started a ministry for terminated pastors many years ago.  As we were discussing the statistics of how many pastors leave their churches every month, my friend told me that the latest statistic is 1,800.  When I did a search online, I discovered that the stats being quoted now are that 1,800 pastors leave their churches every month and that 1,300 of that group are involuntarily let go.  That’s a lot of pastors – and churches – in pain.

While I concede that there are pastors who need to leave their churches, the overwhelming majority of these forced exits happen to pastors who have done nothing worthy of being fired.

And in most situations, either a handful of board members (usually three) and/or a small contingent of opponents (less than ten) conspire together to remove the pastor from office.  And when they do so, they exaggerate the charges against him and offer him no defense.

Here’s what I want to know: why doesn’t anybody protest this kind of clandestine behavior?

When there is clearly injustice being perpetrated, why doesn’t even one board member tell the spiritual assassins (called by some “the gang of three”) to knock it off?  Why don’t they threaten to expose them to the congregation?  Why do so many board members suddenly go silent when their more vocal colleagues plan to do evil?

And if matters get to the floor of the congregation, why don’t more people in the church vocally support the pastor?  Why do supposedly strong believers suddenly wilt like Peter rather than stand strong like Daniel?

In other words, why do good Christians so often end up guarding clothes rather than fighting injustice?

When I was a kid, James 4:17 used to bother me.  It still does.  Our Lord’s half-brother writes, “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.”

When you know you should protest … when you know God wants you to speak up … when you know you should walk away from the clothes … but you don’t – that’s sin.

In our new ministry, Restoring Kingdom Builders, I want to empower lay people to speak up when it looks like their pastor is being verbally or vocationally stoned.  I want to share with them specific measures they can take to counteract this plague of forcing called, trained, and godly pastors out of churches and even out of ministry.

Rather than guarding clothes for others, maybe it’s time we say, “Watch your own clothes.  I see what you’re up to, and with God’s help, I’m going to do everything I can to stop it.”

Who’s up for this?  Are you?

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Who Will Stop Me?

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Antagonists, Conflict with the Pastor, Fighting Evil, Pastoral Termination on March 21, 2011| 8 Comments »

Hi.  I attend your church.  You don’t know who I am, but I show up nearly every Sunday and sit in the next-to-the-last row on the left side.

And it’s ironic that I attend your church at all, because I don’t like the pastor.  I don’t like his sermons.  I don’t like his kids.  I don’t like the schools he attended and the hobbies he jabbers about from the pulpit.  I just don’t like him – and for that reason, I’d like him to leave.

The right thing to do would be for me to leave the church and attend somewhere else.  After all, at this point I’m not aware of anyone else who feels the way I do.  But I don’t want to leave.  I want to stay.  I want him to leave.

There’s a quick way for me to pull this off: start making accusations against the pastor.  It almost doesn’t matter what I accuse him of doing: sleeping around, embezzling funds, fuzzy beliefs, power plays – you get the picture.

Still with me?

I can accuse the pastor of various misdeeds through (a) a whispering campaign (“Did you hear that the pastor was recently seen …”); (b) a letter sent to select church homes (“The pastor doesn’t believe in the virgin birth!”); (c) a few strategic emails (“The pastor has been seriously overspending funds recently”); or (d) conversations with my friends (“Why does he continually refer to that TV show all the time?”).

Having done this sort of thing before, I know that one or two of my accusations will eventually reach the pastor, and he’ll be very upset.  But I also know my accusations will reach the ears of the governing leaders as well.

And if my charges are taken seriously, no one will come and talk with me.  No one will ask me for the evidence that my charges are true.

The pastor’s supporters will disbelieve the charges immediately.  His enemies (among which I count myself a proud member) will believe all the charges and more.  (We’ve just been waiting for someone to articulate them.)  It’s the group in the middle that I’m aiming for.  I just need to pick off a few to accomplish my goal.

By this time, a few people will add charges to the ones I’ve already made.  It almost doesn’t matter what they are or if they’re true or not.  The board may choose to investigate the charges, but if they do, they will almost certainly not be traced back to me.  And if anyone tries to confront me, I will just do what they do in politics: deny, deny, deny.

My first attempt may not be successful.  The pastor may survive my little campaign.  But if I keep making little charges here and there, the wind will pick them up, and when they get to the pastor, they’ll start to wear him down.

And then one of these days, the pastor will resign due to burnout or stress, or a small group in the church will add to my accusations and formally drive the pastor out.

The pastor will be told by the leaders of both the church and the demonination that he needs to leave the church to preserve its unity, that the church needs to start with a clean slate.

But no one will do anything to me.  I have ecclesiastical immunity.

Nobody will sue me.  Christians aren’t to sue other Christians according to 1 Corinthians 6:1-8, right?

Nobody will confront me.  After the board deals with the pastor, they’ll be too tired.

Nobody will finger me.  In the unlikely event that the leaders launch an investigation to find out who started the rumors, they would probably speak with others long before they got to me.  If I caught wind of their efforts, I’d quietly slip out the back door of the church, wait a couple months, and then return.  Nothing would happen to me.

Nobody will ask me to leave.  After all, I’m allowed to attend services at my own church, right?

And when the church calls the next pastor, if I don’t like him, I already know what to do.

Who will stop me?

Nobody.

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Saying Goodbye After a Pastoral Termination

Posted in Conflict with the Pastor, Healing After Leaving a Church, Pastoral Termination, tagged , on March 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »

As a child (and a young man, and an adult), I was an avid reader of the Peanuts cartoon strip.  There was often more wisdom and true-to-life observations in those little panels than you’ll get in most places.  One time, Linus and Lucy were going to be moving away because their father had taken a job in another city.  Charlie Brown hung his head in sorrow and said, “I need fewer goodbyes.  I need more hellos.”

Exactly.

But there comes a time when all of us must say goodbye – to a departing friend, to a graduating class, to a treasured house, to a dying loved one – and even to a church family.  During my ministerial career, I’ve said goodbye to six church families.  In some cases, it was a wonderful experience.  As people said kind things about you, it was almost like listening in at your own memorial service.  In others … well, let’s just say that people aren’t always thoughtful.

Let me discuss five ways that a terminated pastor might say goodbye to his church family:

First, he needs to tell his side of the story.  When I first became a pastor, I was shocked at how many of my colleagues were forced out of their churches by either a small minority or the governing board.  In each case, I contacted these men and heard their side of the story, and in each case, they were grateful that they could tell their story to somebody.  Know why?

Because they had been told that if they told their side of the story to anybody, that would be divisive.

Unbelievable.

For years, conventional wisdom held that when a pastor was forced to leave his church, he should fall on his sword, refuse to say anything to anybody, and walk away.  But the pastors that I spoke with regretted that they had followed that counsel.  After they left their church, these pastors (a) allowed their enemies to define their legacy, (b) saw friends flip on them (because they only heard one side), (c) watched their reputations be destroyed, and (d) felt they had to leave the pastorate for good because they felt stigmatized.

There is a lawsuit currently on its way to the Supreme Court.  It involves a claim by a pastor that he was terminated and then defamed by two pastors within that church.  You can read about it here:

http://www.thestreet.com/story/11000761/1/us-supreme-court-weighs-review-of-pastor-defamation-verdict-first-amendments-free-exercise-of-religion-clause-at-issue.html

While all of us should be sad that Christians feel they must use the secular legal system to settle disputes, this trend will continue until the Christian church gets its act together and allows pastors who have been unfairly treated to defend themselves in a structured and just manner.  Mainline churches have their own court systems – why not evangelicals?  Even Jesus had the opportunity to defend Himself at several trials, crooked as they were.

While I don’t believe a falsely accused pastor should publicly tell his story inside his church (then accusations will be tossed back and forth), he can do so privately, and should.  The best way to do this is to contact selected church friends and tell them your account of what happened.  The devil doesn’t want this to occur because he only wants one side of the story told: his side.  And the devil will use his side to not only defame the pastor, but to defame the church as well.  Because while Satan does target pastors and their families, he hates churches most of all.

Then when the pastor leaves, when his detractors try and smear him, there will be those who have heard “the other side.”

Maybe the biblical example of Jesus is a good pattern to follow.  While Jesus did not tell His side of the story to Caiaphas or Pilate or Herod, His disciples (like Matthew and John and Peter) did tell His side in the pages of the New Testament.  The Gospels are both apologetic and evangelistic documents.  In fact, the gospel itself encapsulates Jesus’ side.  He died – that’s the verdict of Jesus’ enemies.  He arose – that’s the verdict of His followers.  We know the full story today, but for a long time, many people only heard that Jesus was a criminal, not the promised Messiah who became the Lamb of God.

Second, he needs to act with class publicly.  And this isn’t easy, especially if the pastor believes that he’s been unjustly treated.

This kind of class starts with his resignation letter.  It should be brief rather than long, positive rather than negative, thankful rather than bitter, and unifying rather than divisive.

If the pastor is permitted to preach one more time – which he often isn’t when he’s terminated – his message should look back with gratitude and look forward with hope.  It’s not the time or the place to burn bridges.  The memory of an effective ministry can all but be wiped out with a few thoughtless public remarks.

By the way, if a pastor needs to leave a church to keep it united, shouldn’t those who perpetrated his departure leave as well?  In other words, shouldn’t the church begin again with a clean slate?

Third, he should allow a goodbye event.  Sometimes when a pastor is forced to leave a church, no one wants to throw him a party of any kind, so he just kind of slinks away.  But even if the pastor doesn’t wish for an event like this for himself, it’s part of the grieving process for the church as a whole.  If the church’s leadership doesn’t wish to throw a huge party, they can at least … order cake.  (Just make sure the pastor and his wife get some.)

A better event would be for the pastor and his wife to attend a party at the home of one of their trusted friends.  They can invite those they still feel comfortable being around.  The pastor and his wife can also arrange for photos to be taken with their precious supporters.

Fourth, the pastor should encourage people to stay in the church.  Frankly, I cannot understand how a pastor would leave a church – under any circumstances – and later want that church to be destroyed.

Which is the greater legacy: to leave a church and then have it flourish years later, or leave a church and watch it flounder and eventually die?

The growing church makes Jesus look good and enhances the legacies of all pastors who have come before.

When mistreated, some pastors will leave a church and start another one down the block or across the city – and their core group will consist of followers from the church they just left.  They will encourage people to leave that church and join them in their new endeavor.  This kind of move guarantees bad blood between those two groups for a long, long time.

It’s far better to encourage people to stay in the church and make it better.

Finally, he should not interfere with the church’s affairs.  It is a breach of professional ethics for a pastor to leave a church and yet continue to exert influence within the fellowship.  When a pastor leaves a church, in most cases, he should leave the community and not return.

If he stays in that community, there will be people in the church who will complain to him about the pastor or the board or certain decisions, and the former pastor – being human – may not be able to resist offering his opinions.  Whether or not it’s his intention, too many pastors undermine their successor through their offhand comments.

When a pastor leaves a church, he should leave in every way possible.

He can and should keep some friendships.  He can receive news about how the church is doing.  (And should rejoice when the church is doing well.)  He should pray for the church and its new pastor, and if he hears criticism about his successor, he should either support him or say nothing at all.

One of the worst church crimes imaginable is when a pastor seeks to undermine his successor.  It’s not your church or my church: it’s Christ’s church.  Can you imagine Joshua undermining Moses, or Paul undermining Timothy?

I guess some pastors, in the words of Michael Jackson, “never can say goodbye.”

Because conflict situations like a forced termination may only occur once in the life of a pastor and a congregation, it’s wise to think through some of the issues ahead of time.

May you never have to experience a situation like this, but if you do, may the Lord give you the grace, wisdom, and courage to do what is classy and right.

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If You Must Terminate a Pastor

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Board, Conflict with the Pastor, Pastoral Termination, Ten Most Viewed Articles, tagged , , , , , , , on March 14, 2011| 65 Comments »

One of the most excrutiating experiences that a supervisor can have is to fire someone from their job.  The first time I had to do this with a staff member, I felt horrible.  Although I did not hire the person initially, I felt partially responsible that the staff member didn’t work out.  I wondered, “What if I had supervised this person better?  What if I had given them more attention?  More training?  More warning?”

Most pastors will leave a church via their own resignation.  They will choose the method and timing of their departure.  In the great majority of cases, they will leave one church for another.  Sometimes they will leave a pastorate to teach in a Bible college or join a parachurch organization.  And one day, they will preach their last sermon and then retire.

But many pastors – surveys now indicate more than 25% – leave church ministry involuntarily.  They are usually forced from office by a faction of ten people or less … sometimes by their governing board.  Most of the time, the process is handled clumsily, resulting in seething anger, ecclesastical division, and incalculable damage.

How can the termination of a pastor be handled in a more biblical and optimal fashion?

An attorney can recommend the legal way to terminate a pastor.  The CEO of a company might suggest how it’s done in business.  The church’s insurance agent might propose ways the church can minimize risks.  And I could mention the way the federal government terminates employees … except they almost never terminate anyone!

If you’d like to read what the Bible says about correcting an elder/pastor, please check out 1 Timothy 5:19-21 (which applies Matthew 18:15-20 to spiritual leaders).  I believe a pastor should be removed for heresy and for immorality but that many of the reasons why boards fire pastors today have more to do with style than sin.  (Please see some of my previous blogs on these topics.)

I was a pastor for nearly four decades, and I saw a lot of my colleagues terminated in senseless ways.  If I was still in pastoral ministry, and the board decided I had to go, here’s how I would like that process to be conducted:

First, I’d like to see a possible termination coming.  If attendance was plunging, and giving was going south, and church opinion makers were unhappy, I would probably sense that my time in that place was coming to a close.  And if members of the church board had talked with me about making changes in my ministry, but I either wouldn’t or couldn’t pull them off, that would suggest to me that my days in that church were numbered.

Some pastors have confessed to me that they stayed too long in a previous pastorate and wished they had left before they did.

Last fall, I had lunch with a former mega church pastor.  He had been in his church for more than two decades, but for some unknown reason, attendance suddenly began declining at a rate where nothing he tried worked anymore.  When he preached, he sensed that people weren’t listening to him.  He eventually reached a settlement with the church board and resigned.  The Lord confirmed to his spirit that his time in that spiritual community was over.

If a board has shared their concerns with their pastor, and if matters haven’t turned around after a reasonable time frame (maybe six months to a year), then the pastor should not be surprised if the board openly talks to him about leaving.

But if the ministry is going well, and attendance and giving are holding steady, and the board has never discussed the pastor’s behavior or ministry with him in a formal way, and then the board decides to terminate the pastor … the pastor will rightfully feel blindsided, and the board may very well lose control of the situation.  While the board may have the legal and ecclesiastical right to remove the pastor from office (and in most congregational churches, they don’t have that right – only the congregation does), blindsiding a pastor with termination may be considered a destructive act that results in ripping apart both the pastor’s family and the church family.  (Just know up front that many of the pastor’s supporters will leave the church within a few months.)

If I’m going to be involuntarily terminated, I want to see it coming a mile away.  And if I do see it coming, I will try and make my own plans to depart before the board ever has to deal with me.

Second, I would like the process to be fair, not fast. When one member of a church board decides that “the pastor must go,” his anxiety can become contagious.  Before anyone realizes the full ramifications, the entire board may then fall into line and quickly decide to fire the pastor.  While anxiety drives us to make fast decisions, Jesus encourages us to make fair decisions.

Let’s say that a pastor has recently displayed inappropriate anger several times in private.  The board should not convene and decide to fire the pastor immediately.  Instead, Jesus says in Matthew 18:15 that if a believer sins [and this includes the pastor], it’s your duty to “show him his fault” in private [one-on-one, not in a board meeting].  Then Jesus says, “If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.  But if he will not listen …” then you are to take one or two witnesses along, and “if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.”  Some scholars believe that the board should be informed between verses 16 and 17, although Jesus doesn’t say that.  In other words, the process is:

*A single believer [maybe the board chairman] talks with the pastor about his sin in private.

*If the pastor refuses to change, that single believer asks one or two more people [a staff member? a friend of the pastor?] to witness a second confrontation.

*If the pastor still refuses to change … only then does it become a board matter.

*If the pastor refuses to listen to the board (that’s three refusals), then either they can terminate him (if the church’s governing documents allow for this) or the church as a whole can vote him out of office in a public meeting (although there will be lobbying and it may become very divisive).

I don’t pretend to know how much time is needed between steps (maybe a month or two between each one?) but Jesus did not necessarily intend for the process to work instantly.  The person being confronted – in this case, the pastor – is not being corrected for getting angry, but for refusing to acknowledge his anger and make the necessary changes in his life.

Before saying, “But pastors should be able to change their behavior immediately,” how long does it take you to make a major change in your life?

That’s why we need to give a pastor some time to make changes in his life.

Third, I would expect to be offered a generous separation package.  The minimal severance a pastor should receive is six months.  If a pastor has been in a church for more than six years, then a good rule-of-thumb is that he receive one month’s salary for every year he’s served in a church.  While some board members might exclaim, “I would never receive severance pay like that at my job,” please realize the following facts about pastors:

*They are ineligible for unemployment benefits.

*They and their family members will suffer tremendously.  It is common for the older children of a terminated pastor to stop attending church and even leave the faith.  The wives of terminated pastors go from being somebodies to nobodies overnight.  If the marriage has already been strained by ministry, the couple might head for divorce.

*The terminated pastor is often in so much pain that he turns to alcohol, drugs, or illicit sex.

*They will lose almost everything dear to them by being terminated: their careers, their income, their church family, their local friends, their house (if they have to leave the community and sell), and their reputations – in other words, they will lose their life as they know it.  (This is why pastors often hang on at a church long after they should leave.)

*They will be stigmatized as a “loser” in much of the Christian community.  As a veteran pastor told me when I first entered the pastorate, if a pastor resigns with no place to go, it’s the “kiss of death.”  If he applies for another church position, his resume will most likely go to the bottom of the pile because he was fired from his previous church.  The Christian world is very small and word gets around quickly.

*They will suffer constant depression, great anxiety, and feel like God has abandoned them.

*They will be shocked to discover that many of their ministry colleagues will turn away from them.

*The terminated pastor usually has to rebuild his life and ministry, and that takes time.  The separation package allows for the pastor to pull away from ministry so he can take stock of his life and begin the healing process.  If the pastor is given a token separation package, he and his family will feel that he has been “kicked to the curb” and it will take them a long time to recover and forgive those who hurt them.

We talk a lot in the church today about social justice.  This is ecclesiastical justice.

If a board cannot or will not give the pastor a generous separation package, then they need to think twice – or ten times – about letting him go.  Getting cheap here borders on being unchristian.

Finally, I would welcome the opportunity to resign rather than be fired. If the members of a governing board want to be vindictive toward a pastor, they can fire him outright – but the word will quickly get around the church, and the board will be severely criticized by many while others will angrily leave the fellowship and encourage others to come with them.

When some churches blindside a pastor by firing him, they never recover … and it becomes easier to fire the next pastor.  When I was a kid, my dad felt forced to resign as a pastor, and after the board fired the next two pastors, the church went out of existence.

But if both the pastor and the board announce that the pastor resigned voluntarily, it takes the heat off the board and allows the pastor to leave with dignity.

The optimal win-win scenario is for the pastor to trade a unifying resignation letter for a generous separation package.  That is, the pastor cites multiple reasons for his leaving in his letter, doesn’t harshly criticize anyone in the church (especially the leaders), and encourages everyone in the church to stay and support the next pastor.  Years ago, I learned this adage: “The way you leave is the way you will be remembered.”  Leave bitter, and you will leave a legacy of bitterness.  Leave with class, and you will leave a legacy of class.

A small percentage of pastors deserve to be terminated – maybe even quickly – because they have inflicted great destruction on their ministries, their families, and themselves.  But even then, they should be treated with dignity and their families should be cared for.  But the great majority of terminations go wrong because the board wants the pastor to leave as quickly as possible, and they run the risk of dehumanizing him in the process.

Next time, I’ll talk about how to say goodbye to a pastor in a way in which everyone can win.

I just want to see Christian churches handle these situations in a more biblical and redemptive way.

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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Is the Pastor the Problem?

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with the Pastor, Pastoral Termination on March 9, 2011| 1 Comment »

Imagine that you are a governing leader in your church.  The church hasn’t been growing, either spiritually or numerically, and you’re beginning to wonder if the pastor might be the problem.

In fact, you’re privately thinking that maybe the pastor needs to leave the church, the sooner the better.

Before proceeding further, be very careful about blaming a church’s lack of progress on the pastor alone.  If a baseball team hires a great manager but the stadium is awful (think Oakland) or the players are abysmal (think Kansas City), the manager isn’t going to win.  A championship team requires the right leader overseeing the optimal players delivering clutch performances (and a lot of quality pitching!).  While the pastor obviously plays a central role in a church’s success, other factors are almost always at work as well.  Honestly ask yourself:

*How clear is our church’s mission?  How often and how well is it communicated?  (You may need to create a new mission or better present the one you have.  People forget a church’s mission within a month or so.)

*How effective is our system of church government?  Have we created such a bureaucratic nightmare that we are taking the fun out of serving the Lord?  (An increasing number of churches are letting the pastor choose the staff and the board – his own ministry team – and are seeing their churches grow rapidly.  They would say – and I don’t mean to offend anyone by saying this – that the trained professional should lead the church, not the amateurs.)

*How are other churches in our immediate area doing?  Are we in a resistant or receptive community?  (While any church can grow, the community plays a large part in the rate of growth.)

*How possible is it that we are going through a temporary time of non-growth?  (This happens in every church, regardless of size.)

*What kind of spiritual barriers might be causing the Lord to withhold His blessing?  Could there be “sin in the camp?”  (There could be, and it’s as likely to be in the staff or board as it is in the pastor.)

*How committed to Christ are the members of our governing board and staff?  Is each leader attending services faithfully?  Walking with the Lord?  Serving with joy?  Giving generously?  (Both the pastor and the board/staff must be spiritually-oriented for the church to experience God’s blessing.)

*How likely is it that our pastor has been stung by criticism, tackled by burnout, overwhelmed with responsibility, plagued by family problems, or needs some time off?  How can we discover this information so we can encourage and strengthen him?  (Ministry is more difficult today than ever before.  If a board doesn’t learn how to care for this pastor, it will need to learn how to care for the next one.  Might as well start now.)

Too many times, one or two key leaders in a church come to the conclusion that their pastor needs to leave.  While the rest of the church would totally disagree – after all, they’re attending that church largely because of the pastor – these leaders only need to persuade the other governing board members to make the pastor’s departure a reality – and sometimes that doesn’t take very long to accomplish.  Why not?  Because of anxiety.

Anxiety can ruin a church because it easily becomes contagious.  If a couple of leaders can’t rest until the pastor leaves, they can make everyone else anxious until he goes.  This is where the other board members and key congregational leaders need to stand up for patience over against anxiety.  Unless the pastor’s messages and behavior are truly destroying the church, the governing leaders need to take their time in dealing with the pastor.  When God’s people are anxious, it’s a sign they aren’t praying biblically, but when they are praying biblically, anxiety vanishes (see Philippians 4:6-7).  So take the time to bathe a situation like this in prayer first.  Who knows?  If the pastor is the problem, maybe he will choose to resign on his own initiative.

When a church calls a pastor, it’s like a marriage.  When a church chooses to remove its pastor, it’s like a divorce.  Before a married couple gets divorced, they need to make sure they have done everything possible to save their marriage.  In the same way, before a governing board forces out a pastor, it needs to make sure it is has done everything possible to identify and heal any problems it might have with its shepherd.

Sometimes a board will force out a pastor because “that’s how it’s done in business.”  (If a church is a business, then maybe Peter Drucker should have written the New Testament.  But the New Testament was written by Jesus’ apostles, and they have given us specific instructions on how a church is to be managed, and we can’t solve spiritual issues using secular solutions.)  In addition, sometimes a board will force out a pastor because it is unwilling to address the glaring problems that are on the board itself.

If I’m a governing leader, and I have concerns about the pastor’s effectiveness, here’s what I would do:

*I would set up an appointment with the pastor – maybe breakfast or lunch – and ask how he’s doing spiritually and vocationally.  I’d listen so as to understand.  Then I’d share my viewpoint about his ministry and the church as a whole, letting the pastor know that this is how I personally feel, not how my family or friends or the board feels.  I’d speak for myself, not for others at this juncture.

Sometimes this is all it takes for a pastor to turn things around.  Years ago, I was experiencing and expressing frustration with some board members, and the chairman took me out to breakfast and told me I needed to change my attitude or the board might do something unpredictable.  I changed.

*Find a way to evaluate the effectiveness of the pastor, staff, and governing board members on an annual basis.  (It’s not fair to evaluate the pastor alone without also evaluating other leaders.  Ministry is a team effort.)  The evaluation should be measured against the pastor’s job qualifications and position description – and it should be simple rather than complicated.  A friend of mine once served on the staff of a megachurch and he showed me his evaluation.  It went on for pages and pages.  It’s no wonder that he quit the minstry soon afterwards.  Churches that criticize their pastor for the least little thing slowly turn their pastors into perfectionists.  Why?  Because, pastors reason, the only way I won’t be criticized is if I’m perfect.  (But then someone will ding you for not being human enough!)

One caution: be careful about criticizing the pastor for what he’s not doing.  This is done all the time with political leaders like President Obama.  I hear people say, “He’s not doing this.  He’s not doing that.”  Well, of course – there are thousands of things that the President could do, but if you criticize him for not doing Number 65 and Number 876 and Number 1,295, you’re just not being fair.  Sometimes this same tactic is used on a pastor.  I always felt I got in more trouble for what I didn’t do than what I did do.  One person thought I should promote home schooling.  Another thought I should become more politically involved.  Different people have their own private agendas for the pastor, and he can’t possibly know or meet them all.  A leader should be evaluated on the basis of what he has been called by God to do, not by what everyone else wishes he would do.

When you have evaluated the pastor, let him respond to the evaluation.  If he’s honest, he will probably agree with much of it.  Agree together on what he will do differently.

*Measure his progress on a regular basis, maybe quarterly or semi-annually.  To be fair, measure the progress of everyone else in leadership as well so you’re not picking on just one person.  The evaluators will be more compassionate if they know they’re also being evaluated.

In many ways, this approach takes Jesus’ directives in Matthew 18:15-20 seriously.  Work the steps carefully.  Don’t rush through them or skip them.  (See my previous blog Skipping Steps on this matter).  The board can feel good that it’s clearly communicated its expectations directly and fairly to the pastor, and the pastor can feel good that there are no hidden agendas at work.  And, once again, if the pastor doesn’t like what the board has told him, he can start looking for another ministry.

It is possible that what the pastor really needs is some continuing education, or a leave of absence, or a sabbatical, or some counseling.  If the church can arrange to pay for some of these possibilities, both your pastor and your church will greatly benefit.

But what if the board creates expectations, shares them with the pastor, takes its time, and yet things spiral downward from there?

*Bring in a church consultant to work with the pastor, the board, the staff, and some of the key leaders in the church.  While this step might seem expensive (think $5,000 to $10,000), it’s a pittance compared to the price a church will pay down the road in departing attendees, withheld giving, and congregational disharmony if the pastor is forced to resign.  Remember: do everything you can to prevent a spiritual divorce, even if you are personally convinced that the pastor is the problem.

But if you’ve done all you can, and things still haven’t improved, what then?

I’ll deal with that on my next blog.

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Facing Your Accusers

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Antagonists, Conflict with Church Board, Conflict with the Pastor, Pastoral Termination, Ten Most Viewed Articles on March 7, 2011| Leave a Comment »

As I write today, I have conflicting emotions.  While I am eager to put down some thoughts on paper that I’ve been carrying around in my head for a long time, I wish I didn’t have to write even one word about today’s topic: pastoral termination.

Why not?

Because in a perfect world, a pastor would be called to a particular church and stay until he retired or went home to glory.

Because in a perfect world, the leaders of a congregation would speak honestly and swiftly to their pastor about any issue they had with him, and after sufficient prayer and discussion, both parties would come to an understanding, resolve matters, and lock arms to continue building Christ’s kingdom.

Because in a perfect world, church attendees would emulate their pastor’s lifestyle, follow his leadership, and obey his teaching.  And if they couldn’t do any of the above, they would quietly leave the church rather than insist that the pastor leave.

But ours is not a perfect world, not even within the hallowed halls of our biggest and best churches.  And when there is conflict between a pastor and the governing board, or the pastor and a staff member, or the pastor and a vocal minority, life inside a church can seem more like hell than heaven.

I know.  I’ve been there – all too many times.

So if a board or a group in a church believes that a pastor needs to leave, what can they do?

Let me begin by saying that the Bible does lay down guidelines for pastoral termination.  More than thirty years ago, I served on the staff of a church where the governing board pleaded with the pastor to make some changes in his ministry, and he warned them to back off by quoting I Chronicles 16:22: “Do not touch my anointed ones; do my prophets no harm.”

This pastor viewed himself as an “anointed one” and a “prophet.”  He interpreted the phrase “do not touch” to mean “do not criticize the pastor.”  He hid behind this verse as well as I Samuel 24:6,10 where David told both his men and then King Saul that he would not “lift my hand … against the Lord’s anointed.”  But we need to be extremely careful how we interpret these verses.  Prophets, priests, and kings were all “anointed ones” in the Old Testament, specially called by God to their offices.  We can make legitimate applications to modern-day leaders from these texts provided that we (a) interpret them in context, and (b) compare them with other biblical directives.

In essence, God is saying in these Old Testament verses, “Since I have chosen Israel’s leaders, they should only leave office how and when I dictate.  I will not stand for any assassinations or coups or premature attempts to destroy a leader – especially if he or she is carrying out My orders.”  While God could directly remove a leader (like taking Elijah to heaven in a whirlwind), He sometimes permitted humans to do so (like allowing the sailors to throw Jonah overboard).  But back then, Israel didn’t vote on anything.  They couldn’t vote Saul or Jeremiah out of office.  They could use violence to restrain or kill them, but God did not sanction that solution at all.  In fact, God often allowed very wicked leaders to hold office a long time (like Ahab and Manasseh).

But when we come to the New Testament, God equates pastors with elders (1 Timothy 5:17-18) and then, under the inspiration of God’s Spirit, Paul writes these words to his ministry protege Timothy in verses 19-21: “Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses.  Those who sin are to be rebuked publicly, so that the others may take warning.  I charge you, in the sight of God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels, to keep these instructions without partiality, and to do nothing out of favoritism.”

This is the most complete text we have in the entire Bible on dealing with the sinful conduct of a spiritual leader such as a pastor (including staff members) or an elder (including board members).  It applies Jesus’ directives in Matthew 18:15-20 to spiritual leaders.

Anyone in the public eye will receive malicious personal attacks.  Some pastors think, “If I’m really nice, and cool, and sensitive, then no one will criticize me.”  Wrong.  Jesus was perfect yet He was both verbally and physically crucified.  There is a price to pay for spiritual leadership, a price pastors and staff members must pay as well.  No matter who you are, somebody will criticize, attack, and hate you.

Paul knew this (both by studying Jesus’ life and by his own experience), so he told Timothy “do not entertain an accusation against an elder [pastor] unless it is brought by two or three witnesses” (verse 19).  Let me tell you a story that illustrates the right way to do this.

I had been a pastor for about three years when I faced a very painful crisis.  A friend of mine, who had once been chairman of the church board, was our church’s songleader.  (Churches used to sing hymns accompanied by piano and organ and led by a songleader.  He would wave his arms to the music and dictate the pace and volume at which a hymn was sung.)  I had asked the songleader to sing a particular hymn for the next service, but he refused, telling me that no pastor had ever told him which hymns to select.  He threatened to quit on the spot.  It wasn’t pleasant.

Soon afterwards, he called the chairman and came to the next board meeting, bringing along a friend.  The songleader brought along a list of seven complaints he had against me.  He intended to read all seven in hopes that the board would legitimize his complaints, tell me to give him free reign as songleader, and then either reprimand or fire me.  He only had one or two substantive complaints but expanded them into seven and then dumped them all on the board – and me (an approach called “gunnysacking.”)

The chairman, to his credit, would not permit the songleader to read all seven complaints at once.  Instead, he asked the songleader to read the first complaint, and then the chairman asked him what evidence he had to back up his charge.  The chairman then asked me to respond to each complaint.  (The songleader did not anticipate this process.)  After presenting the sixth complaint, the songleader left the meeting.  The next morning, he called to tell me he was leaving the church.  (And he did leave, but his widow later invited me to conduct his memorial service.)

While I wish my friend would have stayed in the church (I truly loved him), the board did at least five things right during that meeting:

*The accuser presented his complaints against me to my face.

*The accuser was asked to produce evidence for each complaint.

*I as the pastor was able to face my accuser directly.

*I was able to respond to each accusation made against me.

*The board members were able to witness both of us as we discussed the issues.

While the above process is consistent with Scripture (and modern-day trials), it is used relatively rarely today.  Using the same story, let me illustrate how these situations are handled all too often.  (And to make the story more contemporary, I will substitute the phrase “worship director” for “songleader.”)

The worship director is upset with the pastor because the pastor wants the congregation to sing a certain song the following Sunday.  So one night after band practice, the worship director tells a vocalist and the bass player that is he tired of the pastor’s interference in the services.  Seeing how much the pastor’s decision hurts their friend, the vocalist and bass player go home and tell their spouses that the pastor is controlling and domineering.  After the following Sunday’s service, the bass player and his wife go out to eat with another church couple.  The bass player comments, “You know that final song?  The music director didn’t want to do it, but the pastor insisted it be done.  I don’t know how much longer the music director can stay at the church with a boss like that.”

Without the pastor’s knowledge, more and more people in the church begin to whisper that he’s a “control freak” and a “micro manager.”  Within several months, a group at the church begins meeting in secret.  Why?  Because the music director (who is their friend) claims that the pastor has been abusing him, and because an increasing number of people are now complaining about the pastor behind his back.  It’s now open season on the preacher.

The group that meets in secret begins listing all of the pastor’s weaknesses, as well as those of his wife and children.  Then this unofficial group assigns a couple members to meet with a sympathetic staff member as well as a supportive board member.  The group begins to feel exhiliration because they are finally “taking back their church!”

One night, after a regularly scheduled board meeting, the pastor is asked to step into his office.  Three board members meet him there.  They officially ask for his resignation.  When he asks about the charges against him, they rattle off a huge list.  The pastor is devastated.  It’s the first time he’s ever heard about these charges from anybody.

See the difference?  How are these issues handled in your church?

Next time, we’ll explore this issue even further.  Stay tuned!

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