Toward the end of the last millennium, the American Film Institute produced a list of the Top 100 Films of All-Time. Since I was unfamiliar with most of them, I systematically visited the local video store and checked out as many as I could.
One of those films was High Noon – now listed by the Institute as the 27th greatest film ever.
Last night, through the magic of Roku, my wife and I watched the film again.
Gary Cooper stars as Marshal Will Kane. (My brother John has lived for years in Montana on land once owned by Gary Cooper.) As the film opens, it’s Kane’s wedding day. He’s marrying Amy (played by Grace Kelly).
But as they’re ready to leave on their honeymoon, Kane and his wife learn that the dreaded Frank Miller has been released from prison … and is coming to town on the noontime train … to wreak vengeance on the marshal who put him behind bars.
As evidence of this fact, Miller’s brother and two cohorts ride through the middle of town toward the train depot while all the townspeople scatter.
Marshal Kane is advised to hightail it out of town with his bride and not look back. After all, a new marshal is scheduled to take over the next day. Let him handle the Ferocious Four.
Kane is torn. On the one hand, everybody’s telling him to leave town with Amy … so that’s what he does. But five minutes outside town, he turns around and goes back, telling Amy that they’ll never be safe if he doesn’t confront Frank Miller and his boys now.
As I watched the film with fascination, I saw many parallels between the way people reacted to the conflict inside their town and the way churchgoers respond to open conflict at their church:
First, everyone feels anxious when a group’s leader experiences an attack.
The opening scenes of High Noon show a town that’s been rejuvenated. The people of the town are having fun and laughing.
But when Ben Miller (Frank’s younger brother) and his two buddies ride through town, everybody gets off the street and hides.
The town became a happy place because of the work done by Marshal Kane. He’s the one who cleaned up the streets and made the place safe for women and children.
But as anxiety rises in the town, people begin to engage in self-preservation.
When a group – and it’s always a group – attacks a pastor, the entire church senses something is wrong.
Sometimes people can tell a pastor is under attack because he’s no longer himself. He lowers his head, doesn’t smile, and seems jittery.
Other times, people start to hear rumors about the pastor – or charges by people who don’t like him.
And as anxiety begins to spread around the church, people start heading for the tall grass.
Second, a leader under attack needs reinforcements.
Marshal Kane was a tall, strong man who knew how to handle a gun. But would he prevail in a showdown with four experienced gunmen?
Probably not – so Kane began asking the townspeople for help. He asked men whom he had once deputized. He asked the guys in the local saloon. He even interrupted a church service and asked the congregation if a few men would volunteer to assist him.
After all, if 8 or 10 men stood shoulder-to-shoulder next to Kane, then maybe Frank Miller and his gang would see they were outnumbered and just ride out of town.
No pastor attacked by a group in a church can survive unless he has reinforcements.
Maybe some staff members are willing to stand with him … or the entire governing board … or some former leaders … or a group of longtime friends.
If the associate pastor stands with the pastor … along with the board chairman … and a few other key leaders, the pastor may have enough support to turn back the Gang of Gunmen.
But without that support, the pastor … and possibly the church … are toast.
Third, most people bail on their leader when he needs them the most.
This is the heart of the film.
Amy, the marshal’s new bride, runs away from her husband when they return to town because she’s a Quaker and doesn’t want to see any killing.
The guys in the saloon prove worthless.
The people in the church discuss helping their marshal … then decide against doing anything at all. (The pastor says he doesn’t know what to do.)
And Marshal Kane can’t convince any of his deputies to help him. One who said he’d stand by his leader runs when he discovers nobody else will help the marshal, and the current deputy is angry with Kane because he wasn’t selected to be marshal after Kane’s tenure.
Kane even goes to see a former girlfriend … and she announces she’s leaving town, too.
Over 25 years as a solo or senior pastor, there were attempts to get rid of me on three separate occasions.
The first two times, the board stood with me.
The last time, most of the staff and a group of current and former leaders stood with me.
But when most pastors are threatened, everybody bails on them.
Why is this?
Because people aren’t informed? Because it’s not their fight?
No, it’s usually because those who stand beside their pastor when he’s under attack end up enduring the same vilification that the pastor receives … and few are willing to suffer like that.
Finally, the only way to defeat the attackers is to stand strong.
After Frank Miller came in on the noon train, he and his boys left for town to carry out their plan: kill Marshal Kane.
At the same time, Kane’s former girlfriend climbed onto the train … along with his wife Amy.
When Amy hears shots, she instinctively bolts off the train and heads for town.
When she gets there, her husband has already killed two of the four gunmen.
While the drunks in the saloon nervously wait … and Kane’s friends hide in their homes … and the congregation down the road prays … Amy, of all people, defends her husband.
And in so doing, she saves his life … and their future together.
When a group attacks a pastor, they have one of two goals in mind: defeat him (by forcing him to leave) or destroy him (by ruining his reputation and damaging his career).
Because most pastors are tender souls, he usually has just two chances to emerge victorious after such a showdown: slim and none.
Even if the pastor wilts while attacked … and most do … the attackers can be driven away – and even eradicated – if the pastor has just a few Amys on his side.
While we have several incidents in the New Testament where a spiritual leader is corrected (Paul opposed Peter to his face in Galatians; Aquila and Priscilla instructed Apollos in Acts 18), we don’t have any incidents in the New
Testament where a group of believers tries to destroy their spiritual leader.
So let’s do our best to eliminate this ecclesiastical plague in the 21st century.
With the Gang of Four lying motionless on the town’s streets, the townspeople come outside and cheer Amy and Marshal Kane … who drops his badge onto the street and leaves town for the final time.
Once upon a time, pastors would endure an attack in one church … then go to another church, where they’d be attacked again … then do the same thing several more times.
In our day, most pastors are leaving ministry after the first attack.
If High Noon ever comes to your church, don’t just talk or pray. If your pastor is being unfairly accused, be willing to fight with him.
Because if he leaves town, the Gang of Four will end up in charge.
Restoring Kingdom Builders 
Facing Down Church Bullies
Posted in Conflict with Church Antagonists, Jim's Ten Favorite Articles, Please Comment!, tagged 3 John 9-10, church antagonists, church bullies, Diotrephes on June 22, 2012| 2 Comments »
Bullying has become a huge problem in our country.
Parents bully children. Brothers bully sisters. Bosses bully employees. Teachers bully students … and students bully teachers.
Have you seen the video of the middle schoolers in New York state who bullied a 68-year-old bus monitor as she rode home on the school bus? Disgraceful.
Churches have bullies, too. And there’s a sense in which church bullies are the worst of all because we don’t expect that kind of behavior in church.
How can one detect a church bully?
A bully demeans others by picking on weaknesses and calling people names and making demands. If you don’t do what a bully wants, he or she threatens to hurt you in some fashion.
I once knew a bully who tried to intimidate me in board meetings. He went right after me every chance he could. He wanted power and sensed that I was slowly taking it from him. Fortunately, I didn’t have to take him on because others did that for me … but it could have gotten nasty.
Church bullies often get their way because they sense that no one has the guts to take them on. They know that Christians value “being nice” and that if they aren’t nice, they can get their way more often.
Believe me, it works.
This is why Christians – especially leaders – have to learn to face down the bullies.
It’s biblical.
In 3 John 9-10, John the apostle 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 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.”
Diotrephes was a church bully.
He “loves to be first” … he wanted to control the decision making.
He “will have nothing to do with us” … he didn’t recognize John’s authority as an apostle.
He was guilty of “gossiping maliciously about us” … attacking John verbally, probably disparaging his apostolic credentials.
He “refuses to welcome the brothers” … visiting leaders and teachers sent by John.
He “stops those who want to do so” and “puts them out of the church” … excommunicating John’s representatives.
Wow! This guy really had issues.
Diotrephes’ misbehavior was threatening the very existence of that church. Can you imagine challenging the authority of John, the Apostle of Love?
How did this Apostle of Love propose to deal with this church bully?
“So if I come, I will call attention to what he is doing …”
John was going to face him down … maybe with the help of church leaders, or the congregation itself … but John was going to meet Diotrephes at high noon.
He was going to confront him … maybe publicly, maybe privately … but he was going to stop the bullying.
John may have been hoping that this warning would cause Diotrepehes to run for the hills. If we had 4 John, maybe we’d find out what happened. (We’ll have to wait for heaven for the thrilling conclusion.)
Sometimes a pastor has to face down a bully.
I once served in a church where an ex-policeman was griping about everything. He griped about the music. He griped about the youth. He griped about the neighbors.
Part of me felt sorry for him because he was no longer a policeman … but he had morphed into the church police.
Because nobody dealt with him, he became bolder and bolder with his griping. This went on for several years.
Finally, a new pastor came, and he tried to work with this man, but nothing worked … and he couldn’t tolerate the behavior any longer.
He finally ordered the man to leave the church … and he left.
He faced down the church bully … and the church was better off for it.
Last year, I had breakfast with an ex-pastor who told me what happened at his former church.
There were people in the church who were terrorizing the pastor, and the church board didn’t know what to do to stop things.
Wisely, the pastor hired a consultant, who met with the board and told them what to do:
You have to go and face down the bullies.
The board members just looked at each other. The bullies were their friends.
The consultant barked, “Now!”
The board members got in their cars and did what they should have done months before.
Stephen Brown is one of my favorite Christian communicators. He’s half-crazy, but that just adds to his appeal in my book.
Anyway, in his classic book No More Mr. Nice Guy!, he tells a story about a pastor who was being bullied by a parishoner … and the pastor couldn’t take it anymore. The man gave a large amount of money to the church and had many relatives in positions of leadership. Brown’s friend believed that he would divide the church if he confronted him. Brown told his pastor friend:
“Invite this man to your study and say, ‘I have had it up to my ears with you. Before this meeting is over, one of us is going to resign.’ Then tell him all the things he has been doing to hurt the church. Tell him, ‘This is not your church or my church, this is God’s church, and He will not allow you to act in this manner anymore.’ Then tell him that you are God’s agent to make sure that he doesn’t.”
In some cases, this tactic might backfire. In the case of Brown’s friend, it worked. His pastor friend called two days later and said:
“Steve, you wouldn’t believe what happened. The church member who has been giving the church all the trouble asked if I would forgive him. He said that he knew he had a problem and asked for my help. Not only that, he said that if I would give him another chance he would be different. Not only that, his two brothers came in and thanked me for what I did, and said that I was the first pastor in twenty years who had had the courage to do what needed doing.”
I can’t guarantee this tactic will work in every case, but if you’ve tried everything else, it’s certainly worth a try.
Because of church bullies, I’ve endured sleepless nights … worried myself sick … threatened to quit church ministry … and turned myself into an emotional wreck, all because nobody – including me – would face down the bullies.
It’s time we started doing just that.
Go … now!
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