Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Personal Stories’ Category

Fifteen Months Ago

Posted in About Restoring Kingdom Builders, Burnout and Depression in Ministry, Healing After Leaving a Church, Personal Stories on January 31, 2011| 8 Comments »

The Lord has done some remarkable things in our lives over the past fifteen months.

Fifteen months ago, my wife and I lamented the fact that we would have to sell our house and move.  We had no idea where to go.

But the Lord prompted a former chairman of the church board and his wife to invite us to stay at their place in Surprise, Arizona, which we did for more than two months.

Fifteen months ago, my wife and I were so disoriented that we did not understand all that had happened to us or how to move on with our lives.

But the Lord put me in contact with Dr. Charles Chandler from the Ministering to Ministers Foundation, and Kim and I attended a Wellness Retreat in Tennessee that put us on the road to recovery.

Fifteen months ago, my wife and I knew that we would be leaving our wonderful church family behind, a prospect we dreaded.

But the Lord led us to a fantastic church (after visiting many not-so-fantastic ones) where we love the music, the preaching, their outreach orientation, and especially the way they do missions. (Kim is taking a class called Perspectives and absolutely loves it.)

Fifteen months ago, my wife and I thought that she might never visit or minister in Kenya again.

But the Lord arranged for a church in Georgia to seek Kim’s help in starting a ministry in Nairobi, and Kim was able to visit Kenya last May – while that church has invested thousands of dollars into the ministry of a pastor friend there.

Fifteen months ago, my wife and I were emotionally shattered and spiritually exhausted.

But the Lord led us to a wise and caring counselor, and He has slowly been rebuilding our strength.  While it may take some time for us to be 100%, we’re at a much better place than we were.  Several people have commented that it’s good to see us smiling again.

Fifteen months ago, my wife and I realized we would have to place our house up for sale, even though it was severely underwater financially.

But the Lord brought us a friend who proved to be a loving, persistent, and tireless realtor.  Although we sold the house four times before the short sale transaction was completed, we are forever in her debt.

Fifteen months ago, the former board of our church treated us in a manner we will never fully understand.

But the Lord used the next board to pray for us, encourage us, and let us know that we were still loved, and for that we will be forever grateful.

Fifteen months ago, to be honest, life didn’t seem worth living.

But the Lord has been refining us to the point where we are looking forward to whatever He has in store for us in the days ahead.

Fifteen months ago, we were looking backwards, trying to figure out what in the world happened to us and our church family.

But the Lord has turned our heads around so we are increasingly looking forward to what He has for us in the future.

Fifteen months ago, my wife and I knew that we would have to leave our positions at a church that we loved (and still love) very much.  We had no idea what else we might do because we felt that God had called us to local church ministry.

But the Lord helped Kim secure a job last summer at a charter school district office, and with her help, we are ready to launch a ministry for pastors and their families who have suffered in church ministry.  In fact, we hold our first board meeting next week.

And the Lord continues to do amazing things in our lives.  Because Kim’s work commute takes anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes each way, we knew we’d have to move toward her workplace when our current lease expired.

After enduring many frustrating experiences in trying to find the right place to rent, we discovered that our church had online classified ads.  We went to their website and found a fun place to rent (the walls in each room are painted a different color) in an unusual neighborhood.  We also discovered that our landlord went to my high school and that her step-mother was in my graduating class!

I have been passionate about pastoral conflict issues for more than 35 years, and now the Lord has called me to assist pastors who have suffered abuse, especially those who have experienced forced exits.

That’s why we’re launching our new ministry, Restoring Kingdom Builders.  If the Lord can help us rebuild our lives after undergoing life-shattering experiences, then He can use us to touch wounded pastors and their families.

Will you join us in praying that God will continue to use us for His glory?

I wonder what is in store for us – and for you – in the next fifteen months.

Read Full Post »

Nobody Knows

Posted in About Restoring Kingdom Builders, Burnout and Depression in Ministry, Healing After Leaving a Church, Pastoral Termination, Personal Stories, tagged , , , , , on January 5, 2011| 10 Comments »

One of the best-kept secrets in the Christian world involves the forced termination of pastors and staff members.  There are few books published on this topic (Why I Stayed by Gayle Haggard being an exception) because they don’t tend to sell and because the issue deals with the dark side of the church – not exactly great marketing material for the Christian faith.  Occasionally a story is published in a journal for pastors, but that’s about it.

Most pastors prefer to keep quiet about what happened to them because there is a stigma attached to pastors who are forced out of their positions, whether the pastor was guilty of sin or innocent of wrongdoing.  In addition, those who have experienced this particular malady find that few people really want to hear their story, which involves a lot of angst and anger.  Pastors need to tell their stories to heal, but often can’t afford to pay a counselor and usually have no idea where they can turn for assistance.  The truth is that almost nobody knows how much a forced-out pastor has to suffer except their spouses, ultra-loyal friends and family members, and a handful of counselors.  But since our best statistics indicate that at least 1,300 pastors are forced to leave their pastorates every month in this country, thousands of qualified and gifted pastors are suffering quietly but intensely all around us.

When I tried to do my own study on this issue many years ago, I was castigated by several denominational officials who believed I was trying to cause trouble.  But I just wanted to know if the denomination tracked the victims of forced termination (they didn’t) and if they had any ministry to help those who went through this awful experience (they don’t).  It always seemed ironic to me that while denominational leaders encourage pastors to take risks so their churches will grow numerically, if those risks don’t work out, and the pastor is forced to leave, those same denominational leaders end up distancing themselves from that pastor.

More than a year ago, I was given a choice at the church I had served as senior pastor for nine years.  I was told by key leaders that 95% of the church was behind my ministry and that only a small group stood against me but that it would take five years of fighting to deal with the determined opposition (which was assisted and validated by a party outside the church).  A pastoral colleague with a strong personality urged me to stay and fight, but the conflict had already taken its toll on my family, so I elected to walk away and keep the church as unified as possible.

When that happened, I didn’t know – and few Christians do – what such an experience does to a pastor.  Here’s a partial list:

*You feel like a pariah, not only in the body of Christ, but in the culture at large.

*You try visiting churches but find you can’t sing the praise songs because you wonder how good God really is.

*You realize that many of the people you once counted as friends in your former church have turned their backs on you.

*You discover that some of your best friends don’t want to be around you because they’re weary of hearing about the pain you’re experiencing.

*You find yourself becoming increasingly isolated from others because you don’t know where you fit anymore.

*You have no idea how to answer the question, “So what do you do for a living?”

*You find that you cannot function without anti-depressants.

*You no longer know who to trust among family, friends, and ministry colleagues because too many people have already flipped on you.

*You hear wild rumors about why you really resigned even though they’re patently untrue.

*You wish you could truly reconcile with those who hurt you but realize you will probably never see them again, so …

*You do your best to forgive them, but there are times when you can’t seem to let things go.

*You are forced to leave your community because you don’t want to run into those who have conspired to destroy your life and ministry.

*You cannot find another church ministry – even when you’re healed – because most search teams won’t consider a pastor who was forced to leave a church, regardless of the reasons.

*You cannot bear to attend Christmas Eve or Easter services at another church because those were your favorite services at which to preach – and you wonder if you’ll ever have that opportunity again.

*Your spiritual gifts are sitting on the shelf, atrophying day by day.

*You regretfully un-friend anyone from Facebook who is married to – or friends with – one of your antagonists.

*Your marriage becomes either stronger or strained, depending upon the care you gave it before termination.

*You feel like God is through with you … but you still have to earn a living.

*You discover that you are vastly unqualified for most secular jobs due to your pastoral training and experience.

*You find that you can’t share your faith because you aren’t very excited about it anymore.

*You praise God for anyone who sends you an email or a card because it means you haven’t been totally abandoned.

*You honestly wonder if God still loves you.

*You learn that those who conspired to push you out of the church are proud of what they did.

*You discover a vast underground network of other pastors who have been through the same experience – and that the template used to force them out is the same one used to force you out.

*You become aware that the people who tried to destroy you aren’t your real enemies but that they were simply instruments of the enemy of your soul.

*You aren’t suicidal, but like Elijah under the juniper tree, you wish God would just take you home.

*You left your community with your house underwater financially, and because you were forced to sell at a loss, your credit has been decimated.

*You find that if you’re going to survive financially, you have to start all over in a different profession – and that starting over is more difficult than you ever imagined.

There’s more I could list – a lot more – but you get the picture.

When the average person loses a job, they still retain their friends, their church home, their career, their house, and their reputation – at least initially.  But when you’re forced to leave a church as a pastor, you may very well lose everything I just mentioned overnight – and the accumulation of all those losses is absolutely overwhelming.

That’s why my wife and I are launching a new ministry called Restoring Kingdom Builders.  Even though I’ve researched this area of conflict for years – and did my doctoral work on it – I had to actually experience the pain firsthand to truly be qualified to help others.  Rather than becoming bitter about what happened to us, we hope to take what we’ve learned and use our experiences to prevent these situations from happening to others.

Now that you know a little more about the repercussions of forced termination on pastors, what can you do to help restore them and their families to ministry?  Let me know what you think.  Thanks!

Read Full Post »

Criticism is Inevitable

Posted in Christian Music, Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Antagonists, Conflict with the Pastor, Personal Stories on January 3, 2011| 4 Comments »

Christian songwriter-singer Chris Tomlin is coming to our church for two concerts several months from now.  For some reason, this announcement took my mind back to the mid-1980’s and a conflict I had with two church leaders over contemporary Christian music.

The first church that I served as pastor met in the cafeteria of an elementary school that was difficult to find even with a map.  We almost never had guests, and when we did, they rarely came back, and I couldn’t blame them.  Few people were looking for a church that was a throwback to the 1950’s, and that’s what we were, at least for a while.

One December Sunday morning, I was out sweeping the walks before our service when a family of four walked toward the cafeteria.  I introduced myself to them and privately thought, “Wow!  Wouldn’t it be something if this family made ours their church home?”  Miraculously, they stayed, even though we had no youth ministry for their daughter and son.

Over time, the man of the house became a member of the deacons (our governing board) and later chairman of the board.  His wife became head of the deaconesses.  We all got along very well.

One Saturday night, our youth pastor took the expanding youth group to a Christian rock concert in a neighboring community, and this couple’s kids went along.  I trusted the youth pastor’s judgment and didn’t feel any need to veto the activity.  After all, the youth group weren’t going to hear Madonna or AC/DC but Christian artists.  What could possibly be wrong with that?

It just so happened that this father and mother had attended a Christian university that believed that all rock music – even with Christian lyrics performed by Christians – was wrong, if not of the devil.  When they found out what kind of concert their kids attended, they became quite upset.

Soon afterwards, this couple gave me a 15-page typewritten document specifying the evils of rock music.  The document was lifted from a book that condemned all contemporary Christian music.  I read the document carefully and made notations in the margins, disagreeing with some points and seeking evidence for others.  Eventually, I bought and read the book this couple used to make their points.  Most of it was way overblown.

I called the deacon chairman, told him I had thoroughly read his document, and asked if we could meet to discuss it.  He asked me point blank, “Are you still going to allow the youth group to go to Christian rock concerts?”  I told him, “Yes.”  I’ll never forget his next words: “Well, then, we’re leaving the church.”  And they did.

I tried to get together with him again, but to no avail.

Suddenly, our church didn’t have a chairman of the deacons or a woman leading the deaconesses.  They were there one Sunday and gone the next.  To compound the situation, this couple’s daughter fell in love with one of the young men in the church and they made marriage plans.  Although this young couple met at our church, neither my wife nor I were invited to their wedding (held somewhere else) even though nearly everyone else at our church was.

I’ve had more than 25 years to reflect on what happened back then, and I don’t know what I could have done differently.  Maybe I shouldn’t have allowed a husband-wife combo to both be in such prominent places of leadership, and maybe I should have thought twice about putting anyone into leadership who attended their particular legalistic school.  But our church was small, and we didn’t have many volunteers willing to serve in leadership capacities.

But there was no way I could have known about their beliefs toward “Christian rock.”  At the time, I listened to Keith Green, Chuck Girard, Phil Keaggy, and Amy Grant, and their music was tame compared to mainstream artists.  For me, reaching young people for Jesus was far more important than legalistic rules, but this was a big issue for them.  What bothered me most wasn’t their attitude toward the music, but that they refused to meet and discuss the matter.  They laid down an ultimatum: quit taking kids to Christian rock concerts or we’ll instantly leave this church.  I wouldn’t, so they did.  I never saw them again.

Pastors make scores of decisions behind-the-scenes of their churches every week, and because they can never know the personal convictions of each person in their fellowships, pastors can’t possibly know how each judgment call will be perceived.  Some of the time, his leadership will be applauded.  Occasionally, someone will take offense at something.  Sometimes he’ll hear about it, other times he won’t.  But criticism of a pastor nearly always gets around.

A pastor’s decisions will both attract people to a church and repel people as well.  In the last church I served as pastor, a woman visited the church on two consecutive Sundays and then wrote me a note on her response card.  For some reason, I did not receive the note until after the following Sunday.  She criticized me for not preaching on John 3:16 every week and said she would no longer return for that reason.  What she did not know is that the next Sunday – which she missed – I did preach on John 3:16 (it had nothing to do with her) and some people received Christ into their lives.  The following day, I received her note.  How was I to take that?

What’s my point?  A pastor has to lead a church the way in which God leads him.  He has to set out a course and stick to it.  When he does – regardless of the direction – he will receive criticism, and some of it will originate from people whom he loves dearly.  And when that happens, some people will leave the church and blame the pastor for their departure.

The only time I’ve ever seen Rick Warren cry was when he talked about all the people who have left Saddleback Church over the years.  Even when some followers reject their leader, a good shepherd continues to care about those precious sheep.

If you’re a pastor, ask God for direction, seek confirmation from other leaders, put your head down, and lead!  Some will leave, but most will follow your leadership.  If you hurt when people leave, it shows you still have a shepherd’s heart.

And if you have a church home, and the pastor does something you don’t like, you have at least four choices: pray for him regularly, support him anyway, speak with him directly, or leave the church permanently.

I trust that the latter option will be your last resort.

Read Full Post »

Neutralizing the Church Police

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read Full Post »

Lying About Pastors

Posted in Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Antagonists, Conflict with the Pastor, Fighting Evil, Personal Stories, tagged , , , , , , on December 28, 2010| 2 Comments »

My family enjoyed Christmas dinner with my brother-in-law’s family this past weekend, and we played a game around the table that proved to be oodles of fun.  Someone called it “telephone pictionary.”

We were each given small notepads and asked to write down a Christmas phrase like “figgy pudding” or “Santa Claus is coming to town.”  Then we passed our notepads to the next person who had to draw a picture of the phrase on the next page.  When that person was done drawing, they passed the notepad to the next person who examined the crude drawing, flipped the page, and tried to write down the original phrase.  Then we passed our notepads along, alternating between creating a drawing and coming up with a phrase.  When all fourteen of us finally received our original notepads back, it was quite amusing to hear how a phrase like “silent night” ended up becoming “dead potato” within just a few minutes.

The same phenomenon happens in churches all the time.  And unfortunately, the greatest victims of distorted communication are pastors and their families.

Years ago, I served as the pastor of a church that chose to write a new constitution and set of by-laws.  Four people served with me on the “constitution team” and we had some fascinating discussions about how our church should operate.  When we completed our draft, I preached on every major section of the document and invited questions and comments after each message.  (This was done at a Sunday evening service.  Remember those?)  The team recorded the best suggestions and included them in the final document before the congregation voted on it.  The whole process was transparent and participative.

I specifically asked that the following phrase be included: “This constitution will be null and void after five years.”  I took the phrase from a suggestion made by Ted Engstrom, one of the leading Christian management experts.  The purpose of the phrase was to ensure that the church’s governing documents would constantly be reviewed and revised.

However, a group in the church held a meeting around this time and invited a secular attorney to join them.  When the attorney was told about the “null and void” phrase in the proposed constitution, he concluded that I didn’t want the church to have any constitution after five years so that I could become the constitution and take over the church!  Sadly, this is what some people chose to believe even though they never asked me about it.

More recently, in the midst of a major conflict, a former attendee began telling people that “They finally caught him!”  (The “him” was me.)  Evidently she believed that I was guilty of some horrible sin in previous churches (even though she had never attended any of them) and that I was using the same modus operandi.  But I had no idea what she was talking about, although I’m sure there were souls who were willing to supply that information.  In some people’s eyes, my ecclesiastical crimes – although still unspecified – merited the worst possible punishment.  But, to be honest, being lied about is punishment enough.

Not long after this accusation surfaced, I ate separate meals with three different former board chairmen, none of whom evidently knew that they were breaking bread with someone who had committed unspeakable felonies when we had served the Lord together!

I have heard terrible things about many Christian leaders over the years.  While the charges are occasionally dead-on, more times than not they are completely twisted.

Charles Spurgeon, whose sermons were often harshly reviewed in the London papers of his time, encouraged the pastors of his college with regular talks on ministerial life.  In his classic book Lectures to My Students, Spurgeon’s chapter “The Blind Eye and the Deaf Ear” is the single greatest counsel on handling criticism I have ever read.  Spurgeon writes:

“In the case of false reports against yourself, for the most part use the deaf ear.  Unfortunately liars are not yet extinct, and … you may be accused of crimes which your soul abhors.  Be not staggered thereby, for this trial has befallen the very best of men, and even your Lord did not escape the envenomed tongue of falsehood.  In almost all cases it is the wisest course to let such things die a natural death.  A great lie, if unnoticed, is like a big fish out of water, it dashes and plunges and beats itself to death in a short time.  To answer it is to supply it with its element, and help it to a longer life.  Falsehoods usually carry their own refutation somewhere about them, and sting themselves to death.  Some lies especially have a peculiar smell, which betrays their rottenness to every honest nose.  If you are disturbed by them the object of their invention is partly answered, but your silent endurance disappoints malice and gives you a partial victory, which God in his care of you will soon turn into a complete deliverance.  Your blameless life will be your best defense, and those who have seen it will not allow you to be condemned so readily as your slanderers expect.  Only abstain from fighting your own battles, and in nine cases out of ten your accusers will gain nothing by their malevolence but chagrin for themselves and contempt for others.”

While Spurgeon notes exceptions to the above rule, his counsel is timeless.

They lied about David.  They lied about Job.  They lied about Jesus.  They lied about Paul.  And if you are doing anything worthwhile for the Lord, “they” (meaning Satan and his minions) will lie about you, too.  While I don’t like to be lied about (no one does), haven’t we all – knowingly or unknowingly – spread lies about others at times?

Years ago, I read Steven Covey’s classic The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  Some of the phrases in that book have become part of our culture (like “seek first to understand, then to be understood”).  But one of the best phrases in that book is just five words long: “Defend those who are absent.”  As conflict expert Speed Leas says, we tend to exaggerate when we talk about someone who isn’t around to defend themselves.  But when that person is in our presence, it’s surprising how carefully we phrase our words.

Resolve that you will never intentionally lie about anyone, especially Christian leaders.  If you hear what you suspect might be a lie going around about someone, contact them directly and ask if it’s true.  Isn’t that what you would want that person to do for you?

Proverbs 6:19 links “a false witness who pours out lies” with “a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.”  Deception and division go together.  Liars destroy reputations and separate friends.  Resolve to tell the truth in every situation, especially when it comes to Christian leaders.

Because when we spread lies about another person, we are doing the devil’s work for him.

Read Full Post »

Why Care About Pastors?

Posted in About Restoring Kingdom Builders, Healing After Leaving a Church, Pastoral Termination, Personal Stories on December 15, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I grew up in a pastor’s home and viewed it as being normal.  While my family was at church every Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday night – in addition to cleaning up the facility most Saturdays – I liked my life.  Even though I was a PK, I had a great childhood.  Church was home.

Until I was nine years old.  One Sunday night, after the evening service, my parents put me and my younger brother and sister to bed.  Shortly afterward, the phone rang, and my parents scooped us out of bed and took us to the home of the head deacon.  We three kids were placed in the room adjacent to the living room.  My brother and sister fell asleep quickly, but I could hear what was being said through the wall.  As I lay there in the dark, I heard the leaders of our church – some of whom taught me Sunday School – verbally crucify my father.

My dad probably should have resigned at that point, but he had founded the church.  It was his life.  He hung on for two more years before he finally resigned.  Twenty months later, he was dead at the age of thirty-eight.

Without its founding pastor, the church lasted for several more years but eventually disbanded.  It’s a good thing my father wasn’t alive to hear the news.  It would have killed him.

There is a part of me that wants to go back in time and help my dad manage that conflict in a different fashion.  Would he still be alive today if he had?  I’m not sure, but I do know this: there are thousands of pastors every year in our country who undergo similar experiences.  The best statistics available indicate that at least 1,200 pastors in America are forced to leave their churches every month.

What happens to them?  A high percentage of them never pastor a church again.  Many of their wives and children stop going to church, some for good.  (One pastor friend told me that after such an experience, his wife didn’t attend church for four years.)  Because pastors have engaged in specialized training and earned degrees that fit them only for church ministry, the great majority of pastors are  not qualified for secular jobs.  But because they feel they’ve been rejected by their previous church, the now ex-pastor struggles with self-confidence, depression, forgiveness, and an inability to trust people – especially Christian leaders.

Thankfully, over the past two decades, ministries have popped up all over the United States that seek to assist wounded pastors.  Some ministries specialize in counseling.  Others have retreat centers where a pastor and his wife can relax, read, and pray, as well as seek counseling.  Still others specialize in church conflict.  An organization composed of clergy caregivers called CareGivers Forum meets annually.  My wife Kim and I attended the latest conference in Wisconsin and were gratified to meet about sixty people who believe that God has given them a special calling in this particular area.  But unless the church of Christ wants to kick gifted pastors to the curb, we need many more ministries for pastors all over the United States.

I recently made a list of all the pastors I know who have been forced to leave their churches.  Besides my father, that list includes my father-in-law, my financial planner, a pastor at my daughter’s church, a pastor at my current church, a pastor friend who went to college with me (and who wrote an article in a major journal about his termination), a church consultant friend, a professor from college, and several ministry mentors, just to name a few.  In fact, according to an article in Leadership Journal from the 1990’s, 23% of all pastors have undergone the pain of a forced exit.

And you can add my name to the list, too.

After being forced to leave a church I pastored for nine years only a year ago, my wife and I were able to attend a retreat the following month in the southeast designed to help the victims of forced termination begin the process of healing.  We thoroughly enjoyed the skills we gained, the encouragement we received, the new perspectives we learned, and the hope injection we received that week.

Because that retreat was so meaningful, Kim and I want to offer retreats for pastors and their wives in the Southern-California/Phoenix area beginning this spring.  Because we believe that God can do a deep and lasting work in the lives of hurting pastors, we are calling our ministry “Restoring Kingdom Builders.”

If you know a pastor or a staff member who has recently experienced the pain of forced termination, please ask him or her to contact me at jim@restoringkingdombuilders.org.  We welcome pastors from all Christian denominations.

Please pray that God will richly bless this new venture.  Thank you!

Read Full Post »

Forced Termination: It Can Happen to Any Pastor

Posted in Change and Conflict in Church, Church Conflict, Conflict with Church Antagonists, Conflict with the Pastor, Pastoral Termination, Personal Stories, tagged , , , on December 9, 2010| Leave a Comment »

When pastors reach a certain stage in their ministries – especially if they’ve been in the same church for many years – it’s easy for them to conclude that they are immune from experiencing a forced exit.  If a pastor survives five years of ministry in the same place, he assumes that most of his critics have left and that those who remain are willing to follow his leadership.  So it comes as a surprise to pastors when they have been in a church for more than five years and yet still have to battle for control of a congregation.

I attended a prominent Christian college, and during my junior year, I took a class in The Gospel of John.  While the class met too early for my taste, the instructor – who was teaching his first class – proved to be a master teacher.  (Had all my teachers been as clear and interesting as he was, I would have emerged from college with straight “A’s.”)  The following year, I invited this instructor to lead a winter retreat for our high school and college students, and his insights into Scripture produced changed lives, including the life of my best friend, who eventually became an influential pastor himself.

Years later, this instructor became the pastor of a well-known mega-church, and it didn’t surprise me one bit.  While attending a seminary near his church for a doctoral program, I jogged over to the church one morning and walked into the worship center.  It was one of the most massive church auditoriums I have ever seen.  I could just imagine my former teacher mesmerizing and motivating the thousands of attendees with his careful and practical expositional skills.

The pastor had a large vision for reaching even more people for Christ.  This meant updating the church’s music, spending more money on the worship services, and recruiting more gifted volunteers and employees.  But the pastor ended up resigning under pressure instead.  According to the local newspaper, a small group of the old guard disagreed with the pastor’s agenda for the church.  The group believed that their seniority in the church entitled them to be consulted about any future plans and when they weren’t, they created havoc behind-the-scenes.  When the pastor resigned, he cited “personal character attacks” and “disrespect for his leadership” from a vocal minority in the church as reasons why he departed.  He had been the senior pastor of that church for fourteen years!

I went through a similar situation a year ago.  I believed that God was calling our church to reach a younger demographic in our spiritually-resistant community.  Rather than make sweeping changes, I wanted to add a third service and transition to a multi-venue format while keeping the two existing worship services largely intact.  This new vision would have required edgier music, additional gifted personnel, and generous funding, but even though most of the staff and the worship planning team were behind it, the governing board was not.  It wasn’t long before I left the church as well.

Let me draw two conclusions from the above stories:

First, pastors must pay a price for spiritual and numerical growth.  I recently heard Andy Stanley say that no one person in a church should stand in the way of a church’s ability to follow Christ’s Great Commission.  And yet when a pastor tries to reach more people, he is often met with resistance, sometimes from staff members, other times from a vocal minority (which has another agenda altogether), and often from the official board.   Sometimes the price paid is that those who are obstructing progress end up leaving the church – and sometimes the price paid is that the pastor ends up being forced to leave as well.  When the pastor has finally gone, people speculate as to why he resigned, wondering if he was guilty of moral failure or poor health or burnout, when the real reason is that the pastor’s agenda for outreach clashed with the agendas of other powerful interests.

Second, every pastor is at risk of a forced exit.  If any pastor is safe from being pressured to leave a church, it’s a founding pastor.  Almost every attendee who comes to such a church comes after the pastor was already there and usually because of the pastor.  But given a determined opposition, almost any pastor can be fired or forced to resign.  A pastor friend once told me that he looked at pastors who went through forced termination as losers – and then it happened to him.  23% of all pastors have been forced out of church ministry at least once.  While a distinct minority of pastors shouldn’t be in any kind of ministry, many great pastors find themselves in the wrong situation with the wrong group at the wrong time and end up losing their positions and even their careers.  While this scenario may be a fact of church life, it brings needless heartache to everyone involved.

Thankfully, the instructor I mentioned at the beginning of the article has become the co-pastor of a church.  The other co-pastor was also the pastor of a mega-church and he, too, was forced out of his position due to false accusations and denominational pressure.  God’s will was assuredly done in permitting both men to leave their churches and band together in their new setting, but the way they were forced out was diabolical.

If you’re in a church where the pastor is under fire, let me ask you one question:

What will you do to make sure that your pastor isn’t unfairly forced from his position?

Read Full Post »

When You’re Upset with Your Pastor

Posted in Conflict with the Pastor, Forgiveness and Reconciliation among Christians, Personal Stories, Ten Most Viewed Articles, tagged , , , , on December 7, 2010| 7 Comments »

I was once the pastor of a church where we were building a new worship center.  The church was located in an extremely unchurched community (less than 5% of the population went to church anywhere) and our leaders believed that God wanted us to reach out to the spiritually lost around us.  Demographic studies showed that the community preferred an intellectual approach to the Christian faith (as opposed to an emotional approach) and that they preferred a presentational worship style (as opposed to a participative style).

Six months before the building was completed, I encouraged the worship team to improve the quality of our Sunday services, including using more video and improving our music while singing fewer songs.  One of the women on the worship team, who had always been a friend and supporter, took issue with my vision for our services.  She wanted the congregation to sing for at least half an hour because this approach was meaningful to her.  She began to lobby for her position to the point where I had to call a meeting with her and our worship leader.  We all listened to each other’s viewpoints and she left the room agreeing that if she had any further problems with me or my policies, she would speak with me personally.

But soon afterwards, she was at it again.  She vehemently complained to the chairman of the board (who was a friend of both of ours) about me and used language that was so full of anger that the chairman believed she was ready to launch a serious conflict.  The chairman reiterated my position to her (the board had already approved it) but she was determined to have her way.  After causing heartache to many people, she ended up leaving the church, an outcome that I did not welcome because I genuinely cared for her.  But I couldn’t let her – or anyone else, for that matter – stand in the way of the ministry that God was calling our church to do.

When a believer in a church is upset with the pastor, how should that person handle their feelings?

According to Matthew 18:15-20 and 1 Timothy 5:19-21, if I as a believer sin against you personally, you as a believer have the obligation to come and discuss it with me in private.  Neither Jesus nor Paul mention exclusions for pastors.  As a pastor, I have sinned against people on occasion.  When I’ve been aware of it, I have tried to take the initiative and make things right on my own.  But sometimes I’m unaware that I’ve hurt someone.  In the great majority of those cases, the individual who is hurt never comes to tell me how he or she feels.  In fact, I can count on both hands the number of people who have had the courage to come and tell me that I’ve hurt them over 35+ years of church ministry.  I suspect that most pastors have had similar experiences.

Instead, when the pastor hurts someone – consciously or unconsciously – that person usually tells their social network what the pastor has done rather than tell the pastor himself.  A few years ago, a friend told me that a woman in our church was angry with me.  I asked, “How many people has she told?”  Using his hands to count, he concluded, “Ten.”  Then I asked him, “What did I do wrong this time?”  He said, “You didn’t say hi to her one Sunday.”  I told him, “Go back and tell her to talk to me about it.  If she does, then this is really an important issue for her.  If she doesn’t, then it must not be that crucial.”  Of course, she never came and spoke with me, and over time, she collected a plethora of offenses that I had committed against her and shared them with anyone who would listen.

Although many Christians are aware of Jesus’ words in Matthew 18, we need to distinguish between personal offenses and policy offenses.  If I personally offend you – whether I’m a pastor or not – then you need to contact me, tell me how you feel, and let me have the opportunity to work things out with you.  Most Christians choose to tell their family and friends instead which just spreads discontent throughout the church.  Sometimes these harbored offenses build up to the point where believers who have been collecting them share them with others, and before long, as believers pool their hurts, the pastor becomes guilty of scores of offenses – and those offended become determined to get rid of the pastor at any cost.

But if a pastor commits a policy offense – that is, he makes decisions about the church’s ministry that attendees don’t like – I don’t believe that Matthew 18 applies.  The pastor hasn’t sinned against anyone personally.  You may feel that he has, but he’s simply making a decision that he believes will advance the ministry.  If you don’t like the decision, you should be able to speak with the pastor or any official church leader (i.e., board member, associate pastor) and let them know how you feel.  They may or may not agree with you, and the policy may or may not change, but at least you’ve gone on record as to how you feel, and that’s the mature way to handle matters.

Of course, if the pastor offends you personally, you may choose to instantly forgive him, and you may also choose to pray that God will help him see the light.  But if you’re upset with your pastor for some reason, please don’t spread the virus of complaining to others.  Either speak with the right person or keep it between you and God.

And if you’re upset with what I’ve written for some reason, you know what to do …

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.

Read Full Post »

Reclaiming Abused Pastors

Posted in Conflict with Church Antagonists, Conflict with the Pastor, Fighting Evil, Personal Stories on December 2, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Soon after I was born, my parents took me to their church  in Inglewood, California, and dedicated me to the Lord.  The pastor who presided over my dedication was a man with a large forehead and a contagious grin.  As a kid, I could never understand him when he preached, but for some reason, I liked him.  He seemed … well, jolly.

When our family moved to Anaheim (I was only four), my father pastored several churches, eventually planting a church in Garden Grove.  After he died, I eventually became a youth pastor at a second church – also in Garden Grove – but my first pastor, the one who dedicated me as a child, was called to still another church in Garden Grove, just a couple miles from our home.  (No, none of these churches was The Crystal Cathedral!)  My wife Kim and I attended that church during my first year of seminary and I later became that church’s youth pastor.  I peformed my first wedding and baptism in that church, and I was ordained to the ministry there a few months after graduating from seminary.

One night, a man I knew approached me in the church parking lot after a service and told me that a group in the church was unhappy with the pastor.  When I asked him how large the group was, he told me that his group consisted of ten percent of the church.  As I probed further, the issue seemed to be that the pastor didn’t work hard enough for this group and they were going to make some demands until he complied with their wishes.  Many of the members of that group were retired and were constantly snooping around the church looking for any problems they could find with the ministry.

Although I had never before attended a meeting of the governing board, I asked the chairman if I could come to the next meeting, and he permitted me to do just that.  I told the board that there was a group of dissidents in the church that were threatening the pastor and that they had begun to make his life a living hell.  (The pastor’s wife had already received a nasty anonymous phone call.)  The pastor himself told me that the attacks on him were becoming so vicious that he couldn’t focus to study for sermons.  I asked the board to do something to protect their pastor from this abuse.  They voted 5-2 to do something, but they never did  anything about the problem.  In fact, the pastor himself cast one of the two votes not to take any action against his opponents.  Why not?  Well, years before, in that same church where I was dedicated, the associate pastor had led a rebellion against the pastor and the ensuing conflict was so painful that it altered the pastor’s personality, rendering him almost paralyzed to deal with personal attacks.

After the pastor retired a few years later, he refused to ever do any pastoral work again – no funerals, no weddings, nothing.  The conflicts he had experienced had taken their toll on his body, mind, and heart.  And he was such a tender man, the only man I’ve ever called “Pastor.”  (He is now resting in the arms of Jesus.)

There are thousands of pastors just like the one who dedicated me as a child.  They are committed to Christ.  They use their gifts to touch the lives of others.  They really care about people.  They want to build Christ’s kingdom.  But sometime during that pastor’s tenure, a group inside the church opposes his/her ministry and abuses the pastor – and sometimes his family – continually.  Such pastors are often so worn down by the opposition that they resign from ministry and never lead a congregation again.  They are kicked to the curb, their experience and gifts going forever unused.

That’s why my wife Kim and I are launching a new ministry called Restoring Kingdom Builders.  We have experienced opposition from antagonists firsthand and know exactly how it feels.  We want to provide emergency treatment for pastors and their spouses who go through such tough times through retreats, counseling, consulting, and writing.  We don’t want such pastors to end up bitter and useless to Christ’s kingdom.  We want to love them and direct them toward healing and wholeness.

Look for the official launch of our new ministry in early 2011!  I’ll be revealing more details over the next few weeks.  Please pray that we will honor the Lord in all we do.  Thanks for reading!

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts