From the beginning, my relationship with my new boss faltered. Just out of seminary, I had ventured with my wife from the security of our Southern California heritage to my first pastoral opportunity-a university ministry in a Pittsburgh church. Unfortunately, I arrived as a 26-year-old assistant pastor who had all the answers.
Right off I decided the senior pastor’s approach was a relic of a bygone era. His early-fifties’ ministry model expected the clergy to do the ministry while the congregation acted as grateful recipients. I knew the truth-that pastors are to entrust the laity with ministry and work themselves out of a job.
Though Doug, my boss, conveyed warmth, deep compassion, even charisma, he remained cautious and aloof by design, forming no personal friendships within the congregation. Too much familiarity would undermine pastoral authority, he was taught. In contrast, I wanted to be vulnerable and transparent, allowing God’s people to see the real, weak me.
I could recount other points of variance, but the upshot was I thought he was doing it all wrong.
Signs of trouble
My ideals quickly collided with the new realities. The first ideal to go was regular staff consultations. I had envisioned long hours together, marked weekly by mutual self-disclosure to weld our hearts as one. Not only was that expectation dashed, but we hardly met even by appointment. And when a few weeks passed with no face-to-face meetings, Doug didn’t seem to miss them.
I was hurt by this apparent rejection, and the hurt turned to righteous anger. Calling meetings is his responsibility, I thought. He’s head of staff. Why should I be the one to initiate?
Knowing now what I do about my critical attitude, I wouldn’t have wanted to meet with me, either.
I desperately needed affirmation from Doug. Being fresh out of seminary, I so wanted to succeed in my first position. But I also could not let on about any personal lack of confidence in my abilities.
Before long I was under fire. The college staff I inherited was still loyal to my predecessor. On more than one occasion, our meetings erupted with their frustration that I wasn’t doing things the way they had been done. I needed somewhere to turn for encouragement, someone to tell me I wasn’t a disaster. I craved for Doug to say, “I know it’s tough, but I’m on your side.”
It wasn’t Doug’s style to affirm. For him, nothing said was a positive stroke. The message I received, however, was that I could always do a little more or a little better.
The unspoken tension mounted for two years, with only rare emotional exchanges. But after my vacation the second summer, my rage and self-righteous evaluation of Doug’s ministry had to find expression. With sweaty palms and my heart in nay throat, I asked for an opportunity to “share with him.” (Translation: dump on him.)
Seated three feet apart on his overstuffed leather chairs, we faced each other and I unloaded: “For the last two years I’ve wanted to build a relationship with you, but I haven’t sensed that you were interested. Whenever we meet together, I’m the one who has to make sure it gets on our calendars. Even then, I’m never sure that something else won’t supersede it. And when we do meet, it’s just to talk business.”
Doug’s response, from pursed lips, was curt: “Is there anything else?”
I thought I might as well dump the whole load. “You seem to spend almost all your time with the emotionally needy. From my perspective, you have created an ego-satisfying ministry around yourself, keeping people dependent on you. You make yourself the center of everything. Nothing can happen in this church unless you’re present to give your approval.”
As soon as I finished, I wanted to grab my words and stuff them back in my mouth. I could tell he was angry and shaken. I’ll never forget his response: “If you have come to the point where you’re questioning my motives in ministry, I don’t see how we have any basis for a relationship.” Then came the devastating conclusion, “We will no longer relate on a personal level but will stay in touch only to carry out our professional duties.”
He stood up. The meeting was over. I was shown the door.
My ideal of a shared ministry was in shambles. I continued to justify myself by blaming Doug, and at my worst moments I wanted his ministry to fail. I quietly delighted in the critical remarks of other church members. I see now how I fueled people’s discontent by divulging my frustration.
Besides retribution, my other dominant desire was to flee. I wanted out. Another church requested that I apply for a position, but when I attempted to run like Jonah, the opportunity failed to materialize. It was as if God were saying, “I’m not letting you leave until I bring you and Doug together. I will settle for nothing less than reconciliation.”
That forced me to face the one I wanted to dismiss.
The big thaw
Reconciliation came as a slow thaw. There were no dramatic breakthroughs or magic moments when all was made right. We didn’t cry on each other’s shoulders with cathartic release. No, the icy wall melted an inch at a time.
Three factors contributed to restoration:
The pressure of the kingdom. We both knew all too well the biblical ideal of reconciliation. In my better moments, I knew Jesus was Doug’s Lord as well as mine. We were aware of the glaring discrepancy between the reality of our rupture and the call upon our lives to follow Jesus.
As God would have it, the same summer we severed our personal relationship, I was teaching John 13-17: “By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another . . . that they may all be one . . . so that the world may believe that thou didst send me” (John 13:35, 17:21). Great timing, Lord! An examination of our relationship would lead no one to believe we were disciples of Jesus or that Jesus was sent from the Father. Doug and I were compelled by the pressure of the kingdom ideal to move toward each other.
My confession of a critical spirit. When our relationship reached bottom, I was forced to ask, How did we get here? Only then did I start owning responsibility. When I confessed to God my haughty attitude, I began to understand Doug. I realized I don’t like being around people who are constantly sizing me up and concluding I’m deficient. But that’s what I had done to Doug.
I should have made this same confession to Doug, but instead I decided to turn around my attitude. Changing my inner climate was a sheer act of will power. I forced myself to pray for Doug, this time not asking God to straighten him out but instead affirming his ministry in prayer. I visualized him in his study consoling someone pouring out brokenness. My inner tirade against him began to be replaced by an image of the Holy Spirit resting upon him as he bent over his desk preparing a sermon.
Only as I began to affirm him did I realize the opportunity I was wasting. Here was a man with twenty years of ministry experience. He had much to teach me about compassion-a subject that to that point I had been unwilling to learn. From that time on, Doug actually became my mentor in ministry, and the movement toward each other became rapid.
True appreciation. One Sunday I was caught off guard. Doug was into the heart of his sermon when I was startled to hear, “Greg has the finest training program in college ministry of any I am aware of across this country.” Doug, would you say that again? Did I hear that right? I had no idea he felt that way.
Then shortly after that, he asked me if I would like to attend a conference with him in Philadelphia. This meant six hours together in a car. I was ecstatic. We could have been going to watch wheat grow as far as I was concerned. This was the symbolic gesture for which I had longed. It said to me, “I cannot put up with the deterioration in our relationship, and I, too, want to start over.”
Start over we did. Out of those hours in the car grew an ability to express a mutual appreciation. Even though we still considered each other a little off base, we came to realize it shouldn’t keep us from personal warmth and respect.
I can look back now on those difficult formative years without pain. I remember Doug as a man with a compassionate heart that attracts people, a mind that is creative and insightful, and an intensity for Christ that conveys the urgency of kingdom business.
When the right time came to leave and I was packing boxes my last day in the office, there came a knock on the door. Doug’s six-foot-four-inch frame filled the doorway, his face wearing its characteristic Cheshire-cat grin. He threw his arms around me, and that hug contained the joy of triumphal reconciliation.
From this beginning, I have carried with me the ideal that God settles for nothing less than reconciliation. God can construct reunion from the debris of battered relationships. And he does.
-Greg Ogden
Saint John’s Presbyterian Church
Los Angeles, California
THE OTHER SIDE OF RECONCILIATION
Every story of staff conflict has more than one side. Here Doug Dunderdale, the senior pastor in Greg Ogden’s story, offers his account of the working dynamics.
When Greg joined our staff, he was almost the exact opposite of Bob, the college pastor he replaced. That was no accident.
Bob was a street person, an athlete, an evangelist. He worked best one on one. And he did what had to be done-storm the dormitories and hallways of the universities. We needed bodies, and he got them. Our church, on the brink of closing, suddenly began to grow. From a morning attendance of fewer than one hundred, we grew to more than five hundred, most of them college students.
By the time Greg came, we needed someone to educate and train the young people coming to Christ.
Our division of responsibilities was clear: I did most of the preaching and administration; Greg was responsible for the college ministry. Both of us were busy counseling. An open-door policy meant students could see us at any time, with or without an appointment. If we were in our offices and no one was with us, we were available. I am convinced part of the reason for the hundreds of students who came was that open door.
I told Greg that policy extended to him; any time he wanted to talk, my door was open. That invitation stood, even when I sensed the growing distance between us. Not until Greg confronted me two years later did I realize my “generous” open door meant he had to do all the initiating. That wasn’t fair to him, especially when I communicated busyness.
Before long, I began to hear another word, affirmation. Greg said he “needed to be affirmed”-by me. Affirmation wasn’t high on my to-do list. I got my affirmation from preaching and from what Greg and the others on staff were accomplishing in the campus ministry, but he and the others needed to hear from me what I heard from a multitude.
Greg helped me see that I rarely affirmed anyone-not my wife, not my children, not staff members, not anyone. I didn’t even affirm myself! I saw what was wrong, not what was right. If a task was done well, it was what I expected; if it wasn’t done well, then I would say something. But Greg needed affirmation. We all do. I know that now.
When the pot boiled over, I wasn’t surprised. Greg and I both knew there was a serious disturbance in our relationship. The explosion had to happen; it was only a question of when. When it came, I listened to his complaints about my failures, but I didn’t respond to them. Instead, I dismissed him. When Greg left my office, I sat there cold and controlled-and miserable.
During our “professional relationship,” it seemed every sermon I preached turned to the themes of love and respect and harmony. As I preached Sunday after Sunday, urging God’s people to be of one mind and one spirit, I was terribly aware that what I preached was not true for Greg and me. My own ministry needed healing and reconciliation.
The healing, when it came, was surprisingly easy. But why were we surprised? God wanted us to be reconciled. Greg wanted it. I wanted it. We needed only to find the way.
I remembered my own time as an assistant, when my senior pastor openly affirmed me and my work. That had meant a lot to me. I began by praising Greg’s ministry publicly. It wasn’t difficult to affirm Greg. He had developed an excellent leadership training program. Over thirty Bible study groups and small-group discussions took place each week in the universities and in the church. I had known all along what Greg was doing. I had regularly thanked God for his gifts and abilities. But now I told Greg, and I told the congregation.
The last eighteen months of our ministry together were what God desires of staff relationships: There was love, trust, and respect. Yes, we remained who we are. Our styles of ministry were-and are-different. Even today I have to work at affirming people. Busy schedules kept us from time together. But God had healed our brokenness. We were one.
We couldn’t be content knowing we weren’t where God wanted us to be, so we had to work it out. We became what God was leading us to be: a team striving together to serve him, using our differences as complements of one another to win men and women to Jesus Christ.
-Douglas A. Dunderdale
Eastminster Presbyterian Church
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
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