Names and identifying details have been changed in this true account to protect the people involved.
Something was wrong with Faith Baptist Church. When I planted the church fresh out of seminary, I was short on practical experience but long on enthusiasm. The congregation grew slowly but steadily from a handful of people to a morning attendance of 140.
But now, four years later, there was a deadly malaise of negative, critical attitudes seeping through the church. And it seemed centered in the Bilo family
Claude Bilo, his wife, Vivian, and their two boys, Brad and Toby, had moved to town from out of state two years before. They joined the church and quickly became key leaders in our youth program. In a young church with many new believers, the Bilos were just the sort of Christians I needed. They had been believers for many years and were graduates of a Bible college. Even better, they’d been involved in a new church in their previous community, so they were no strangers to church planting.
But our relationship began showing strain. I wasn’t sure why. I assumed the problem was my pastoral inexperience. After all, they were both older than I, with more years in church work-a fact they had pointed out more than once.
I began calling Claude every week just to keep in touch. Claude was invariably polite, but he kept his distance.
My wife, Dionne, and I had Claude and Vivian and the boys over for dinner. The evening was pleasant enough, but after they left, Dionne said to me, “Do you think we’ll ever move beyond chit-chat with them? We don’t have this problem with anyone else in the church.”
I could only shrug my shoulders.
One Saturday morning Phil and Marge Kennedy came to see me. Their fifteen-year-old daughter, Amber, and the Bilos’ sixteen-year-old son, Brad, had become sexually involved. They were angry at both Brad and his parents, who they felt granted unwise liberties at home.
I assured them I would try to help them and the Bilos through this together without hurting the young people. Then I made an error. I mentioned that the board and I normally met for prayer on Sunday mornings before services, so I would enlist their help and prayer support, and we would work through this together. The Kennedys went their way, considerably more tranquil than when they came.
The next morning I told the five members of our deacon board the story, and asked for their prayers and counsel. Later, after the morning service, I took Claude aside.
“Claude,” I said, “the Kennedys were in to see me yesterday about Brad and Amber. I told the board this morning so they could pray about the situation. I want you to know you have our full support.”
Claude looked stunned, and then muttered a thank you.
That afternoon Claude called me at home. He informed me that he and Vivian were upset that I had so grossly mishandled the situation with Brad and Amber, and demanded to see me that night. With stomach tightening, I agreed to see them after the evening service.
When I arrived, they took turns attacking me, saying how wrong I was to tell the board about their son without getting their permission.
I learned some valuable lessons about discretion and timing. I mumbled my apology over and over, and finally left, exhausted. At least the problem has been faced, and I have apologized, I thought.
I went to work repairing the damage as best I could. I scrupulously avoided mentioning Brad and Amber to anyone else. The Kennedys, the Bilos, and the board agreed to keep the matter confidential. Both families insisted the young people would not see one another again. I met separately with Amber and with Brad, and they were open to what I had to say and repentant. Thankfully Amber was not pregnant. I was only too glad to be finished with the issue.
Not long after, though, I began to hear from other church members comments like these: “Are the Bilos still upset with you about the thing with Brad and Amber?” “I guess you botched that deal with the Bilos, huh?” The source of the information was always Claude and Vivian. They’d been furious about the possibility of other people in the church finding out, but they were the ones spreading the story!
“It feels like they’re using this as a weapon,” I told my wife one night.
Then Claude was elected to the board a few months later and used his position to take out his anger on me. Nearly everything I proposed, he opposed. Our minutes recorded many 6-1 votes.
After six months of frosty communication, my wife and I set up a meeting with the Bilos. They seemed eager to get together. We met at our home for dinner and spoke frankly about our damaged communication. Once again I apologized. Claude and Vivian graciously accepted the apology and offered their forgiveness. We prayed together, and Claude hugged me as they left.
Soon after, our youth director cornered me and asked, “Why are you praying that the Bilos would leave the church?”
“That simply is not true!” I said. “Where did you hear that?”
“From Claude.”
A few days later another church member asked me, “Pastor, I don’t understand why you never asked forgiveness for the situation with Brad and Amber.”
“I have asked forgiveness-many times!” I said.
“But Vivian said you weren’t sincere.”
From still another person I heard that Claude had told the adult Sunday school class that “I’m not sure the pastor is good for this church. He holds a powerful sway over new Christians. I hope we don’t have another Jim Jones on our hands.”
At that point, I called Greg Bradley, the board chairman, and asked for his help. I said I had attempted private reconciliation with Claude and Vivian, but now I was afraid anything I said to them would be twisted and used against me. We certainly couldn’t have them attacking me in a Sunday school class.
The board met six times with Claude and Vivian, and six times with me and Dionne, to hear our differing versions of the problem. They concluded that Claude and Vivian were using slander and outright lies to force my resignation.
Then Greg Bradley telephoned the Bilos’ previous church and was stunned to discover they’d been involved in an almost-identical conflict five years earlier and fifteen hundred miles away. Claude and Vivian Bilo had been asked to leave the church because of their critical, destructive attitudes toward church leadership.
After weeks of prayer, investigation, and discussion, our board saw nothing left to do but to begin the process of church discipline. Greg and two other deacons met with Claude and Vivian and urged them to stop the lies and attacks. Claude and Vivian didn’t feel they were doing anything wrong and refused to repent or quietly resign.
Eventually the board set up a special church meeting to recommend their dismissal, and again talked with Claude and Vivian, urging them to repent.
Saturday morning before the meeting, Claude showed up at my door and handed me a resignation letter. The board agreed to proceed with the meeting anyway, to give the church a complete explanation and to put to rest the charges that were flying around.
At the meeting, the church voted unanimously to accept the Bilos’ resignation.
Four years later, I received an unusual phone call.
Claude and Vivian and five other families had ended up at Trinity Bible Church, a new, independent church in town. Now one of these former members was asking my forgiveness and wanting permission to attend FBC again.
“Of course,” I said, “but aren’t you at Trinity?”
“Well, Pastor,” he said, “Trinity has disbanded.”
Disbanded? I’d heard of churches splitting, but dissolving?
I called the pastor and a key lay leader. Both identified Claude and Vivian as the prime movers in Trinity’s demise. The pastor confessed he had almost stopped to see me several times when the Bilos began to create problems, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it.
I felt guilty that I hadn’t called him when the Bilos began to attend there, but at the time I was so weary of them and hadn’t wanted to rehash the issue with anyone. I’d also hoped a new church environment might prove healthy for the Bilos, and I didn’t want to jeopardize that.
But the main reason I hadn’t called, I realized, was fear-fear of a lawsuit. The night after our meeting, Claude had called Greg Bradley and angrily talked about “slander.”
Then, after hearing that Trinity had disbanded, I soon discovered the Bilos had started attending yet another church in town, Grace Community. The pastor of Trinity had moved out of state, so I was the logical person to warn Grace Community. But the same fears reappeared. The news was full of stories of disgruntled members suing churches and pastors. How could I help a fellow pastor by telling the truth-without jeopardizing the financial stability of the church, or my family? Could I actually mention the Bilos by name? If I couldn’t, would a cryptic warning only cause more problems? Where was the line between the Bilos’ right to privacy, and this church’s need to know?
It came down to a single wrenching decision: Should I call or not?
Calling for Help
This pastor’s perplexing situation may be unique, but it raises a host of common questions and issues that pastors face. In each, church leaders must wrestle with how much to say-and leave unsaid-about current and former members.
What happens, for example, when nominations for board positions roll around? How much can a pastor safely say about a potentially disruptive nominee?
Or many times, troublesome members are simply “prayed out of the church.” They are not reelected to the deacon board, or not asked to teach Sunday school again. Soon the family feels the cool reception and leaves. When that family winds up at another church, and a letter of recommendation is requested, what should the pastor say? No formal discipline was administered; nothing exists on a public record that could be safely reported.
Or how about the member who comes for counseling about entrenched problems with stealing, or drinking? The person later asks for a recommendation for a prospective new job. Does the pastor not mention what he knows, in hopes the job will be the big break for the person, a boost of confidence that will help him lick the problem once and for all? Or does he mention the problem, almost assuredly ruling out the person for employment?
Telling the truth has always been difficult, but in today’s litigious society it’s dangerous. To get help on the sticky issue of what pastors can safely say in delicate situations, LEADERSHIP decided to go to two sources.
The first is Tom Brandon, general counsel and regional director of the Christian Legal Society. Here is his counsel on how to avoid slander.
Safeguards Against Slander
Slander is oral defamation of someone’s character, impugning their reputation in the community. Several statements are considered slander per se-their utterance presumes damage. Accusing a pastor of sexual immorality, for example, may well fall into that category, because it says he’s not qualified to do his job.
So how can pastors talk honestly about disruptive members without defaming their character? Make sure whatever they say falls within these guidelines:
It is truthful. Truth is always a defense against slander.
It is said only to those who need to know. The situation the pastor above faced is analogous to an employer-employee relationship. Say I find an employee is stealing from me, and I fire him. I then check his references and discover he stole from two or three previous employers. If the employee tries to be hired at another firm and I am contacted as a reference, what can I say? The courts have generally held that employers have the right to say why they let the person go-because this prospective employer has a clear right to know.
It’s wise, therefore, to always keep the declarations or disclosures to the few people who must know. Published statements and public meetings are much more open to charges of invasion of privacy and emotional distress.
In the renowned Guinn church discipline case in Oklahoma, for example, the church sent out a letter, after she was disfellowshiped, to several surrounding Churches of Christ. While that was not a violation in and of itself, it was one of the elements the jury looked at to determine if there was intentional affliction of emotional distress.
It is a response to questions from those who need to know, rather than volunteered information. Volunteering information is much more hazardous from a legal standpoint than responding to questions from, say, a pastor considering someone for membership.
The traditional letter of transfer is often perfunctory, but it does two important things: helps the receiving pastor be aware of potential problems, and allows the sending pastor to communicate delicate information in the realm of what is called a “privileged communication.”
If a letter is requested for former members who undermined your ministry, you could relate something like the following: “I understand so-and-so are applying for membership in your church. You should know that we cannot give a good recommendation because they did not leave here as members in good standing.” If asked for further information, you can then give the essentials. Such a conversation would be considered a privileged communication, because it involves people who have a clear responsibility to know.
In a case like the one above, in which the pastor feels an ethical obligation to volunteer information to a fellow pastor, it would be wise not to share details but simply to offer yourself as a resource if he or she desires more information. Perhaps like this: “Pastor Jones, I care about your ministry, and so you should know that Joe and Mary Smith were members of our congregation at one point, and there were some problems for which we exercised discipline. Let me encourage you to talk to them about it and see if they would be willing for you to ask me specifically about it.” This wisely doesn’t disclose the details. The pastor may not want to know them; he or she may even be a close friend or relative of the people. But it does let the pastor know you’re available to answer questions-to respond to his initiative.
The whole process is made much easier, of course, if there are informal ties between local ministers.
Situations You Face
The second resource we’d like to hear from is pastors who have been through such situations. Describe the key events. How did you handle them? Looking back, did you say more than you’d wished? Or not enough? Did you fear being sued?
What counsel would you offer someone facing a similar situation?
We’ll publish portions of readers’ experiences and insights in a forthcoming issue of LEADERSHIP. Anonymity, if desired, will be maintained. If you’ve faced a situation where it was difficult to speak the truth safely, please take a few moments to send your responses to LEADERSHIP, 465 Gundersen Drive, Carol Stream, IL 60188. Your experience may benefit your colleagues in ministry.
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