This article and The Sound of Clashing Expectations form a pair. Two pastors from two different denominations in two widely separated parts of the nation talk about the crunch of local-church expectations. Each has felt the invisible vise, and both have survived. Here they pass along helpful ways to manage the cross-pressures.
In the course of one month I received the following comments jotted onto Fellowship Cards at our church and dropped into the offering plate:
“We come to church, we pay our tithes, we read our Bibles, but none of us are going to make it to our final reward unless we start singing the ‘Amen’ at the end of the hymns. … “
“The van did not come to the university to pick up students today. Twelve people were waiting. I’d appreciate it if you could straighten things out.”
“My dog is hurting. She has sores on her back.”
“This year’s offering envelopes are too small! Must now fold a check twice to insert. What happened this year?”
Well, at least these problems were out on the surface where they could be dealt with.
Expectations become more serious, however, when they comprise a hidden agenda. Then they emerge at awkward, inconvenient, even embarrassing moments. Here are three common kinds:
The expectation to be just like a predecessor-or the opposite. If the previous pastor preached for twenty-eight minutes, ate Tuesday lunch with the chairman of the bus committee, wore three-piece suits, drove a ten-year-old Volkswagen, and always hugged the women on New Year’s Eve-look out! You can be sure some people will be offended, puzzled, and disappointed if you preach forty minutes, fast on Tuesdays, wear sweaters, drive a Delta 88, and shake hands modestly.
I recall several very difficult home visits, each of them shortly after I moved to a new church. Everyone was ill at ease, because each family expected me to play the role assumed by my predecessor-friend, counselor, confidant, or whatever.
Each time a pastor leaves a church, whole networks of human relationships are ripped up by the roots. The surest route to insanity for the new pastor is to try to duplicate those friendship expectations.
The expectation to be a perfect pastor to everyone. If I were a layman, the perfect pastor would be the one who conformed to my ideal specifications. He might be pleasing everyone else, but if he didn’t please me, he wouldn’t be perfect! After all, the point is that my needs be met.
My bluntness is rather crude, but I think I am not overstating the case. If you have 248 people in your congregation, you have 248 standards of perfection. One woman will want you to bury your nose in the study and be an expert expositor. A father will want you to preach “popularly” so as to hold the attention of his teenage rebels. Someone else expects you to spend every afternoon doing evangelistic calling, while another wants systematic visitation of the saints.
Make a composite of all these wishes, and if you don’t die of fright, be prepared to work thirty hours a day. Even then, if in the process of satisfying one expectation you are not instantly available to satisfy another, be prepared for misunderstanding or animosity. To complete your frustration, whenever you think you have arrived, ask your wife (or husband) what she expects from you!
The expectation to handle doctrine a certain way. No matter how carefully we approach our study of the Word, we all bring an interpretive grid. Within the confines of my denomination, for example, two pastors can preach on a given topic, each being true to the Alliance heritage and biblical meaning, yet be perceived as miles apart.
A new couple attended North Seattle Alliance about a year ago. After the service, they asked me a forthright question: “Do you preach expositionally?”
I waited to see if there was more. “I mean, do you preach through books of the Bible?” came the young man’s clarification. I still stood silent.
“What I really mean is, do you preach like Pastor ______? I listen to him on my way to work.” Ah, that was the real question. (The answer was no-but they still decided to come to our church.)
Deciding How to Respond
When all the war stories are told, the need to understand and handle these conflicting expectations still remains. I offer two alternatives. You can do what I did for many years: scream, wish I were a plumber, argue, and look for flaws in others. Or you can learn to manage expectations. Since the first option is injurious to your mental health, let me suggest some principles for establishing a perspective you can live with.
Know yourself. Strip away the accretions of the years-those layers of expectations others have laid upon you and you have willingly assumed. Who are you? “Think of yourself with sober judgment,” says Romans 12:3 (NIV). What can you do? With what do you struggle? What are your strengths? your weaknesses? What spiritual gifts do you have? or lack? What do you really enjoy? dislike? What gives you satisfaction? creates conflict?
Do not be lulled into thinking such self-examination can be casual or easy. Do not underestimate the power of others to make us dishonest with ourselves. It is costly to know oneself. We have carefully bandaged some ancient wounds, and it is painful to strip the dressing.
If you are serious about this, you may find it helpful to keep a journal of your findings. Or you may discover you need someone else to confide in (confess to), lest you fool yourself.
You and I would get more done if we spent more time doing the things we do best and delegating the rest (or treating them with benign neglect). Some years ago I tried to compensate for my ignorance of Christian education by systematically buying and reading the best books in the field. I found I still didn’t understand it, I wasn’t particularly interested in it except as a defensive effort, and my time could be more profitably spent in other things.
I eventually discovered that the only thing I needed to know about C.E. was the name of a parishioner who was an expert. Any time a question came up, I’d pick up the phone. I don’t remember ever feeling dumb after that unless I failed first to check with Pat.
Be transparent. Do not pretend you can do it all. If you find a certain area of ministry onerous or difficult, say so at the right time. Develop at least enough competency to “pay the rent”-Lyle Schaller’s term for the minimal tasks that come with a pastor’s territory (funerals, some administrative work, etc.). But then seek other church leaders’ help in freeing yourself to operate in areas of strength. If you are stiff and awkward in visitation but shine in counseling, tell them. You don’t need to tell everyone in the church, but do tell the right people.
Be inner-directed. In 1973, David Riesman wrote in The Lonely Crowd about the “inner-directed” person, that is, the individual who derives values, motivation, and purpose from within.
As pastors we should have a fairly clear idea of what we hope to accomplish. We have not become pastors to please people, but God. It is God who called us, who equips us, who works in us, who provides for us (regardless of who signs the salary check), and God who directs us. Unless we grab this perspective, we will be victimized by people’s expectations.
Be purposeful in pursuing your course. I came upon a helpful concept in the very first issue of LEADERSHIP. Texas businessman Fred Smith said the pastor must constantly remind people of his commitment to the most important thing. “I don’t think they would be offended the least bit if he said, ‘Folks, Tuesday is my day with God. I have to spend some time with my boss to keep this job and he has called me into conference on Tuesday. He takes a dim view of me answering the phones and appearing at social occasions on conference day. Your boss wouldn’t like it if you’re running out of the room when he was trying to talk to you. Mine doesn’t either.’ “
Smith says he knows a pastor who does this. He secludes himself and studies all day on Tuesdays. And it works. His people know he’s studying and respect him for it.
A minister is supposed to expound the Word, continues Smith. And he can’t do it without studying. If he lets secondary matters take control, “he would be like the merchant who was so bent on trying to keep the store clean he would never unlock the front door. The real reason for running the store is to have customers come in, not to clean it up. Anybody’s time can be completely used up.”
Be able to absorb some misunderstanding. One of the most helpful definitions I know is this: “Management is the ability to inflict pain.” To that I would add a corollary: “Leadership is the ability to absorb pain.” The sooner a pastor realizes not everyone will love him and some will misunderstand even his purest motives, the better adjusted he will be.
Perhaps the whole question of expectations would become academic if we would constantly be monitoring our lives by this standard: “Does it meet God’s expectations?”
Create positive expectations. There is power in encouragement.
I remember one church where I really believe everyone expected me to fail. While it wasn’t ever verbalized, the negative expectation was almost palpable.
I went from that church, defeated in spirit, to another where I was greeted by such a warm, affirming response that it literally turned my life and ministry right side up.
Certainly that church nurtured me with encouragement. They expected that when I stood to preach I would have something to say, that my counsel could be trusted, that my judgment was sound. Actually, my preaching did improve, because suddenly my task was a joy, not a burden.
That’s what the power of positive expectation can do.
The Starting Point
But it begins with you and me. When you walk into a worship service, what is your expectation level? When was the last time you caught someone doing something right and told him so? Do you write notes of appreciation and praise?
If you want lay people to encourage you, to expect your best, you must be prepared to do the same. Define their tasks, help them, believe in them, praise them publicly and privately, and pray for them.
It becomes a habit. If it isn’t yet a habit for you, begin today. The whole church can catch your spirit.
Expectations can work for you or against you. True, the pastor feels expectations from every corner-peers, denomination, supervisor, church board, spouse. But it is possible to handle the web of diverse expectations that may be tying you down. And to a large degree, you will determine which way those expectations will go.
James A. Davey is pastor of North Seattle Alliance Church, Seattle, Washington.
Warren Bird is assistant editor of The Alliance Witness, Nyack, New York.
Copyright © 1984 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
