Ministry Mess Management

Chapter Five: The Pastor Would Rather Be Beloved Excerpt—Introduction to the Case This case introduces a number of church-related issues and is rich with potential discussion material . . .We will look primarily at the effect on this church of a (very) passive pastor who was conflict averse, what the effect was in the body of the church and how it opened a power vacuum for the wrong kind of takeover. And, how it was repaired. Among the many skills necessary to lead effectively in a church or ministry, one must (a) know how to set and enforce virtuous, biblical standards, (b) be able to detect perverse organizational behavior and (c) have fundamental conflict management skills (including disciplinary and corrective skills); these are besides pastoring, shepherding, preaching and teaching, counseling and the myriad of other executive and administrative functions accompanying the modern senior pastor role. Local church pastors typically feel the core of their call as pastor is preaching and teaching the Word, discipling believers and giving succor to the hurting, but not to be managers, organizers, financial administrators or executives. Yet, research reveals that these constitute the majority of the use of their time, and it contributes to their untimely unhappiness and burnout. Neither are they equipped to deal with the vast variety of temperaments and personalities in their church or parish . . . The vast majority of leadership energy to this day has been around the church-organized. This leadership may be in the form of boards, pastors, presbyteries, councils, elders, trustee boards, etc. But, their leadership energy is focused on the church-organized. . . Church boards spend hours and hours on organizational issues (typically assets and programs) and simultaneously (and consequentially) struggle with the effect on body-life in the context of the organizational issues they must address. Furthermore, organizations require some form of executive control. The church-organized must be well managed, especially its risks, including asset management and protection of its staff, members, children and those who attend. An important part of executive leadership is keeping the organizational aspect of church (i.e., “the church-organized”) organized and functioning in a healthy manner. Naturally, this additional role falls to the pastor (Just ask the IRS.) And, the pastor is also tasked with leading the church’s accomplishment of its ends (as an organized activity). Those executive functions (or non-functions) are the focus of this chapter. In fact, one begins to wonder if anyone could even fulfill the role of contemporary pastor described above! Unfortunately, the pastor in our case was strongly conflict averse and wanted to be loved by all, as he thought was a natural consequence of his pastoral role. No one apparently told him his executive role was profoundly different and that dealing with organizational performance and malperformance was part of it. One could argue that the person who slid himself (with his wife) into the leadership gap also damaged body-life. This pastor’s desire to be loved and avoid conflict was a major impediment to leading his church, especially on the organizational side, but also even on the body-life side. Consequently, he left a wide-open leadership gap, and someone more willing to take over moved into the vacuum. There is an organizational principle: when there is free floating power, someone will take it. The Case For the most part, we are all social beings who would rather be liked than disliked. We would rather be accepted than rejected . . .The sad reality is that we are not always going to be liked or popular. For those who are going to lead, be it a congregation, an organization or even a family, there is going to be what I call a degree of “loneliness at the top.” Leadership calls for decisiveness, even in the face of an unpopular decision. Tough decisions need to be made, and the vision for the church-as-organization sometimes has to be imposed on certain members. This chapter is about providing leaders with a model to avoid because it clearly doesn't work—a model called “being beloved.” Not only will you find out what to avoid as a leader, you will be provided with a model for what does work. It is not the antithesis of being beloved, but being a leader and being beloved will clash at least 99% of the time. Being beloved means avoiding conflict. Being beloved means not saying no and making all things work out all of the time for everyone. That only works in Disney movies and stories. In the real world, running things as complicated as a congregation, a school or an organization requires expertise. Being a leader means being an expert with people, budgets, timetables, contradictory or conflicting visions for the future and on and on and on. Let's dig into it, shall we? In this case, the beloved leader was a pastor who led a congregation of about 450 families. This pastor was a strong theologian, a thoughtful and genteel person who was soft-spoken, yet good in the pulpit. He was beloved by his flock. The word “beloved,” however, is almost invariably a resultant code for weak leader. The pastor hated conflict, tension and saying no to people, so he avoided all of it. Leadership can be messy, decisions can be controversial and taking an organization in certain directions can be unpopular with some in the congregation. Real leadership can be lonely at the top, even for a pastor, perhaps more so for a pastor. Since the pastor avoided any controversy, didn’t say no to anyone and was so nice, he was truly beloved. And, he truly had a problem. His lead deacon (who was salaried) was running the show. The church had a moderately large congregation that required a staff of five. The lead deacon was his COO (meaning second in charge), and the deacon’s wife was the bookkeeper and receptionist. There were three other full-time employees: a maintenance person, lay youth pastor and a religious director. The problem? The deacon had taken more and more decision-making power, was not confronted and ended up being allowed to act as first in charge. He began to abuse his acquired power and eventually was getting away with some serious cronyism, with a little nepotism thrown in for good measure. The beloved pastor let it happen, and a weak council operated as an “advisory” group with no authority whatsoever . . .