As I've already alluded to (here and here), I've been struggling with the leadership at our church. It's been an ongoing problem for several years now and I think I've grown re-discouraged about it lately because I thought things would change with the entrance of a new pastor, and they haven't. But as I prepare for our meeting, I keep asking myself, what is reasonable to expect? Where do I have expectations that I either haven't expressed to them, or that I'm out of line to expect? And the real problem, of course, is that I have a lot of energy behind this, so the ultimate question is, "How can I go into this meeting in a way that addresses the issues without going overboard, without showing bitterness, and without causing more hurt than already exists in the problem?"
So what should I expect from our church leaders? What is reasonable? What should they be doing? Our pastor actually posted some answers to that question, quoting extensively both from John Piper and the Bible. Here's the passage Piper preached on:
Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. -- 1 Peter 1:1-3
So they should be shepherds, voluntarily, not for gain but with eagerness, not lording it over the flock but as examples. But my idea of "shepherd" might be very different than someone else's idea of "shepherd." Piper describes being as shepherd in this way - "God holds them accountable for seeing the big picture and acting for the good of the whole flock." I have no idea if the elders of our church see any picture, let alone see the big one. And I'm not really sure what they're doing to "act for the good of the whole flock." If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? If the elders meet and see things and act on things but no one ever knows they've seen or acted, does it make any difference? Like I said last week, I still think our church is a good thing over all. It's a great bunch of people who truly do want to follow through on their decision to follow the Christ. But just because something is good doesn't mean it's easy. I'd love to hear your thoughts on church leaders and what is reasonable to expect from them.
You ask: "if the elders meet and see things and act on things but no one ever knows they've seen or acted, does it make a difference?" In my view: YES! I think an elder's board is at its best when no-one knows what it's doing ... in part because that means that the active focus of the church at large is on the work of Christ, not the leadership of the church.
ReplyDeleteI've served on our church board (like your elder's board, I suspect) for about ten years. Part of the role of such boards is to deal with the stuff that needs to be done that nobody wants to deal with. Some of it is mundane and boring. (Who do we hire to haul away the trash?) Some of it is exceedingly awkward. (How much do you pay the senior pastor?) Some of it is downright painful. (Do we need to fire the youth pastor?) None of those issues benefit from a public airing.
That's not to say that the board should act in secret, or unilaterally. Our board meetings are always "public", but almost no-one ever comes other than the board. I'd happily tell anyone what happens in any board meeting, except for those rare situations where we have to invoke vows of confidentiality.
That's one aspect of what a church board does. The other aspect is the long-term strategy and visioning and such. Our boards have never been terribly good at this; that may be more of a commentary on me than them, I suppose :). But our best vision-casting has come from our best senior pastors --- who, I suppose, have been freed from the day-to-day drudgery by the board in order to do that visioning.
But I return to the point I started with. If the focus of the church is Christ, the more the church is focused on Christ and less on its own members, or structures, the better off it will be. So silence from the board, by itself, isn't a sign of a problem; it may, in fact, be a healthy sign.
but i suspect that silence from the session coupled with ongoing problems that don't seem to be addressed is a bad combination. :-\
ReplyDeletewhat denom. are you in, jim?
Agreed ... silence when things need to be addressed could be an issue. One has to figure out how to read the silence.
ReplyDeleteThese days, we're in the Church of the Nazarene. We've spent most of our life in Wesleyan-tradition churches (United Methodist, Free Methodist, Nazarene, etc.)
so how do you figure out how to read the silence?
ReplyDelete... and shouldn't there be SOME communication -- more than the once a year congregational meeting?
ah, so here's another question that i've often wondered. how often should a congregation get together to talk? not to hear reports or to vote but to talk things out? i'd love for our church to have an open discussion on our sunday morning services, or our sunday school curriculum, or what we feel like we're all about as a church and are we actually carrying through on that. i don't mean having a poll or a questionnaire, but a discussion in which we can hear each other view points and talk them out.
the way the communication seems to go in my church is that if there's an issue that the leadership want to know what the congregation thinks about, they pass a request for feedback through our home group leaders, so they can ask us in our small groups and then pass it back to the elders at their next meeting. In a large church I think that's a good way of doing it.
ReplyDeleteand once in a while if there's something they need to let us know about, a letter goes out to all members.
I think a lot of it depends on the size of the church though - in a smaller congregation there might not be a need for these mechanisms.
How do you read the silence? By breaking the silence. If you don't know what someone thinks, there's no substitute for asking them. Otherwise, you're just as likely to project your own biases onto the silence as to deduce what is really thought. (Compare, for example, with those who say "Jesus never said anything about [fill in the blank], so it must be ok.")
ReplyDeleteHow often should the congregation get together to talk? Depends on what you mean by "talk". It's hard to have a true conversation with more than a dozen people or so at once. (Think about the last party you attended with at least that many people.)
You need to have effective communication within a congregation. I've come to the conclusion that such communication needs to be ongoing and multi-faceted. There may be a role for an occasional "all-hands" meeting to present and discuss certain topics. But that can't be the only thing you do. The pastor needs to speak from the pulpit. Teachers need to talk in their classes or small groups. And so on.
yeah. that's wise counsel. i hope we have a good talk tonight so i have a better sense of what's going on and so that they have a better sense of how to lead me (both as a member of the congregation and as an employee/volunteer worker).
ReplyDeletewhat size is your church?
ReplyDeletethe system sounds good. and yeah, i agree that that's probably the best way to go in a larger church.
the guys just left. i think the meeting went well over all. i felt like i was heard. and i heard what i wanted to hear. i think that's a good combo. :-)
ReplyDeleteand my appreciation for our congregation was renewed. it's really a great set of folks. and i really do feel like we're all headed in the same direction, despite the fact that we're a pretty oddball bunch in many ways.
hey, that's really cool! really pleased for you! (and I reckon being oddballs works in your favour)
ReplyDeleteunder 300. not huge, but too large for those sort of conversations when we're all in one place.
ReplyDeleteSee, if your church is more than twenty or thirty in size, I think you're past the point where everyone can personally communicate with everyone. At that point, you have to start figuring out additional ways to communicate.
ReplyDeleteGlad your meeting went well ... if you were heard, and were able to hear, that's a good thing.
Meg, I loved your comments on my blog about people looking for different things from their leaders. I need to give this some consideration. I think, maybe that is why the AA model of the "sponsee" identifying the "sponsor" as someone who has something they want is a very cool model and it stops me from casting my "pearls before swine". I love always and offer what I've been given when asked but only foist my wisdom on those who have identified me as having something to offer them.
ReplyDeleteAnd since you asked, as I read this post I was struck by two truths and one feeling. The two truths are: 1. If you spot it you got it. & 2. If I'm disturbed the problem lies in me. the feeling was one of empathy for the low grade fear and anger that you are experiencing as you wait.
The first truth is one that many of my friends don't accept. It states that if, as I take someone else's inventory I see things I don't like or conversely that I do like I am, in fact primarily discovering things about myself. When the person accuses me of being manipulative, I could well have been, but really what is being said is that they are a manipulative person. Likewise, when someone complements me for loving well they are telling me that they love well too.
The second truth follows on from this. It means that I can't look at outside sources for the source of my discontent. It lays inside of me. When Bonhoffer ended up in the Nazi prison camp, his source of peace never changed. I am really good at blaming everyone from my wife, or my kids or my boss, or the government, or the driver driving too slowly in front of me for my problems. But they are not the problem, I am.
You might very well ask what that has to do with church leadership. And the answer is everything and nothing. It changes how I interact with the leadership God has placed over me. Sometimes I wish it would change how they behave but that would be missing the point.
I know that I prayed for you and your fam as you met with the leadership and I trust you came away both blessed and a blessing.
And I disagree that silence is a good thing. I disagree that some things are better worked out in the back room away from the congregation. It seems to me to make a mockery of the Spirit's making us one, but that is another post... I'll have to think about the best way to answer that as well.
i think a lot of my thoughts there stem both from the Soul Types book and from Philip Douglass's presentation to Presbytery two years ago (and from what I've read in his book, What is your church's personality?).
ReplyDeleteI don't know that I agree with that. Anyone with discernment will be able to see clearly whether or not they have the same characteristics. For example, my son is like me in that he judges first and might bother to figure it all out later. I'm better about not doing that now that I'm a little older and wiser, but I still see it in myself. But my daughters are the jealous types. They'll get really upset if I help another kid or say something nice to someone else. It's something incomprehensible to me. Jealousy is just not a characteristic that I engage in much, if ever. But that doesn't change the fact that I can see it very clearly in her. Just spotting it in her doesn't mean it's something in me.
ReplyDeleteMeg, I think the primary point about being part of a congregation or gathering is whether God placed you there. We were talking over dinner last night with Steve and Michelle about being able to disagree, to grow, to share concepts without being defensive (as I had become on Steve's blog). It is absolutely precious to have friendships deep enough to bear that discussion. But too many people abandon their churches because of a disagreement in doctrine or relationship without asking the Holy Spirit to teach them how to respond, and what their role in the fellowship is. We have people in our group (we're the pastors of a 30ish member church) who disagree with us on certain doctrinal points, certain eschatological points, certain methods of evangelism, etc, but God has drawn this group together and we are all learning about God as we pursue Him together, and learning about His diversity that makes each of us unique. What a privilege to be in a group like this! But most of them wouldn't be here unless God had drawn us together. Leaving, giving up, deciding to nurse a hurt instead of healing the hurts with deep interaction are all ways that the enemy has designed to destroy the unity that God wants to build. So, although the issues of leadership, organization and relationship style are important and need to be worked on, the real issue in belonging to a body is whether God placed you there. If He has, pray, and keep good honest communication open with them...perhaps you are the catalyst for change.
ReplyDeleteI acknowledge that there is danger in having decisions made out of public view. At the same time, there is danger in having every decision made overtly in public, especially when those decisions involve people. Recall that Jesus himself said that the first several steps in resolving conflicts require private or semi-private meetings; it's only when those steps fail that public consideration is required.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's not that everyone has to be involved in every decision. Recall that the disciples in Acts 6 intentionally delegated some of their authority to others.
:-) you may find my "So Why Don't You Leave?" post interesting. http://dandelionwine.multiply.com/journal/item/45/So_why_dont_you_leave (in other words, i agree whole heartedly.)
ReplyDeletei think i agree with this. if we bothered the entire congregation every step of the way as we decide on new lights for the church or new windows or whether we should downsize our dumpster or... i think people would throttle us. those are things that it's nice to be in the loop on (the bulletin included an announcement that the lights had arrived and the speaker said that they'd be installed this week. that's info. enough.) but to be in the play-by-play? that's a bit much.
ReplyDeleteditto for people who are having issues that the leadership is helping with that really aren't for public consumption.
on the other hand, someone made an oblique comment in our prayer meeting yesterday morning that there's a member of the church in financial need. now that's something i would like to know about because then we, as a family, might be able to help or the session could decide to disperse some of the deacon's fund. we have the money, we might as well be using it. granted, it would still have to be done with care (as not everyone likes their business to be shared) but at the same time, we WANT to help. sometimes we need to learn that sharing our weaknesses can be just as body building as sharing our strengths. ... of course, it's a delicate matter.
http://tameion.multiply.com/journal/item/34/Church_Elders_Duties_and_Responsibilities
ReplyDelete