“Our Pastor’s Gone; We Got Our Church Back!”

Television’s Art Linkletter used to say that “kids say the darndest things.”  He was right of course, but the same could be said of church members who are being interviewed by interim pastors, denominational leaders or consultants: “Church members say the darndest things!”

The first time I heard this phrase I was gob smacked.  I asked for an explanation, and boy did I get one!  After hearing it from a few more members I realized that this was a topic which had been discussed thoroughly.

Since then I’ve realized that this is a “telling” statement which deserves some real thought by pastors and church members.  Why would someone say this?  The following are several possibilities which are worth our consideration:

(1) The pastor was not a pleasant person. I hate to say it, but some of us aren’t. Some of us are immature or insecure.  Some of us are angry and defensive.  Some of us are “control freaks” (more on this in a minute). Some of us have poor social skills or low-level emotional intelligence – both of which are requirements for pastoral success.

(2) The pastor wanted to be a dictator. There are a few denominations in which the pastor is expected to be the unquestioned leader.  He has authority which comes down to him from the denominational leadership. There are also pastors who are not in these episcopal, top-down leadership denominations, but who nevertheless believe that they should be the boss.  When they say “jump” the congregants are expected to ask, “How high?”

Unfortunately, in most of these cases the pastor doesn’t forthrightly share this viewpoint of his before assuming his position and nobody asks him either. In most of these situations the church’s bylaws are ambiguous on this question; you can read them to say that the pastor is in charge, the board is in charge or the congregation is in charge.

In any case, very few pastors get away with assuming this level of authority for long.  In most cases the church members will oppose this aggressively or at least passive-aggressively. I know of one church where the church members treated the pastor like the unwelcome guest at the teenage party; ignoring him or sneering at him during sermons.  It only took a few weeks before the pastor caught on and left.  The relieved, but ashamed, church members “got their church back” after a nine-week (seriously) pastorate.

(3) The pastor never bonded with the people. Veteran pastor, Lowell O. Erdahl put it eloquently in his great book, 10 Habits For Effective Ministry: “When pastor and people are well- bonded, the pastor can get away with almost everything. When pastor and people are not well bonded, the pastor can get away with hardly anything.”

This is an essential task which veteran pastors share with new pastors and future pastors regularly, only to have their advice spurned repeatedly.  I’m talking about the hard or happy work (depending on the pastor’s temperament) of getting to know people well. This takes time, listening, board game playing, dog-petting, eating together, praying together and, depending on where you’re serving, it might require fishing, hunting or haying. One pastor told his people, “We don’t play board games.”  Another had so many dietary quirks (I don’t mean medical restrictions – I mean “dislikes”) that it was impossible for church members to have him over for a meal. If you don’t love people enough to bond with them, consider a different career, and I’m dead serious about this.

Too many pastors are in such a hurry to start changing things that they just don’t bother.  It’s okay that they are not naturally “people-people,” but introverted pastors – at some point – must learn to act much more like extroverts than they actually are. If you don’t bond with the people, they won’t like you or follow you and they’ll be glad to help load your moving truck.

(4) The pastor and his wife were never a good “fit” for the church. This isn’t necessarily anyone’s fault; it’s more of an accident. But it does remind us that pastors and churches need to look each other over oh-so-carefully before tying the ecclesiastical knot.

• Here’s what I’ve seen by way of pastor-church mismatches:
• The pastor – or his spouse – who strongly dislikes the area in which the church is located.
• The church that wanted a different type of pastor. Typically, the problem is that the smaller church wanted a strong caregiver and the new pastor wanted to be a scholarly preacher or a dynamic leader.
• The pastor who thinks he’s too smart or too educated for the people in his area. I suppose it’s not a sin to think this, but it’s unforgivably foolish to actually say it – which some pastors do.
• Then there’s the pastor who said he was too good looking for his church. Honest.
• Then there’s the pastor who said that he wasn’t training people for leadership because the people in his area were not smart enough to lead anything anyway

(5) The church members viewed the church as being their possession, as if they had died for the church and purchased it with their own blood, like Jesus did (Acts 20:28). No one would actually come out and say that of course, but I’ve heard people threaten that they’re not going to let somebody else ruin “their church.”  These people are committing fraud of course, by pretending to own something which is not theirs.  I’ve written before about the shocking truth that no matter how many years you’ve served in a church, God has never offered you a stock option. (See my post: God Doesn’t Offer Stock Options.) After 4,000 hours working on the building and grounds, they’re still not yours; not one brick or square foot of sod.

In too many cases, church members who regard their church as their own religiously-flavored social club, resent a pastor who actually expects them to act like missionary members of a mission station on a mission field, which is how God actually views their local church.

I think the nature of this post calls for some DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Pastor, are you a likeable, loveable person? Do people move toward you when they see you coming or do they head off in the other direction? How about your spouse?
2. Pastor, have you landed in a location where you and your spouse are hopelessly mismatched? If you feel mismatched, do you think that God can give you the ability to adapt yourselves before your church members walk you to the door?
3. Pastor, have you bonded with your people? Do you love them?  Do you like them? Do they know it?
4. Pastor, is the degree of authority which you are exercising in keeping with your church’s constitution and by-laws? (If it is, but it’s not in keeping with the expectations of some in your congregation, that’s a different challenge that God can help you to resolve.)
5. Church member: Do you see the church as being your property because you’ve put so much time and work into it, or do you see it as it is, the exclusive property of God, purchased by the blood of Christ and gifted (Ephesians 4:11) with a God-called shepherd?
6. Church member: If you see your pastor as being seriously deficient, have you sought to pray for him and help him or are you merely waiting for him to give up and leave?