An elder told me two couples were upset with our worship services. We were in the process of evaluating the services, so I asked him to have them contact me. A few days later, the elder returned and said, “They don’t want to meet with you, because they feel you would intimidate them.”
“Well,” I said, “would they be willing to write me a letter outlining their concerns?”
The elder agreed to ask them.
A few days later, the elder, beginning to feel like a rubber ball bouncing between us, returned again. “They refuse to write a letter, and they say they don’t want to be identified.”
“How can we make changes,” I exclaimed, “when people won’t tell us what’s bothering them?”
Low-grade infections
After pastoring for almost twelve years now, I’ve come to realize that not every problem can be neatly resolved. No matter how prayerful and circumspect the ministry, some degree of criticism, disrespect, and tension will exist. I call ministry in this atmosphere “living with a low-grade infection.” It is the price any pastor has to pay for the privilege of influencing dozens or hundreds of lives for Christ every week.
I was quite close to one couple. A few years earlier I had helped them through a tragedy in their family. I heard they were upset about some issues in the church, so I called them one Friday to talk about it.
“Have you read our letter?” they asked.
“No, I haven’t received it yet,” I said.
“Well, be sure to read it before Sunday.” They didn’t want to say any more about the issue.
The letter arrived later that day. In essence, it said, “For two years we have observed the Holy Spirit leaving our church. It is our perception that he has left. And we are leaving also.”
I thought the couple and I were close. This was their first indication to me that anything was wrong.
When I met them Sunday night, at a meeting with two elders and two other couples, they complained the church was no longer friendly and was too large-but they left for a church that was larger. When challenged to help us solve the “problems” they said they had already decided to leave. The Spirit supposedly had left our church, but one of them stayed in our small-group ministry for seven more months. Later, I invited them to let me pray with them and affirm them as they left our church. They chose not to do so.
In retrospect, one or two disgruntled couples per congregation probably indicates a low-grade infection rather than a terminal illness. But when you’re living with the infection, the fever is not easily understood or solved. How do you know whether you’re facing a church-threatening disease or a simple flu?
Symptoms to observe
I’ve learned to watch for a couple of symptoms of the low-grade infection:
The actual number of people involved is much smaller than reported. In one meeting, a man said, “And hundreds of people feel just the way I do.” After the meeting, though, when one elder challenged him about the statement, the man conceded the figure was unsupported.
Dealing with the stated issue doesn’t solve the problem. Church consultant Carl George says, “The issues are never the issue. Control is the issue.”
Three months into our infection, I believed the situation had gone on long enough, that control was the issue, and that the discussion should be cut off. The elders, particularly the one who chaired the previously mentioned meeting, disagreed with me. He had worked hard to collect comments and had promised to respond to the concerned group after the elders reviewed their complaints. Since this elder tends to move slowly and thoughtfully, while I have been known to be a bit impetuous, it seemed prudent to stay with his approach.
Just a few days later, however, the man who had been most vocal in complaining met with two other elders to complain to them. The first elder, who’d been listening patiently to his concerns, felt betrayed. The complainer seemed not as interested in getting answers as in fomenting discontent.
I called the former pastor of this man and found he had left the previous church saying the same things about that pastor and church. When confronted, he admitted nothing. One elder finally told him, “Every time we scratch an item off your list, you add another. We are no further along than when we started talking six months ago.”
Pastoral antibiotics
Eventually, though not without a struggle, we were able to bring our infection under control. Along the way, we learned a number of lessons:
Meet with people, listen, and be prepared to make changes. Tracking down issues can and does take lots of energy and time. But it must be done. The person’s motivation may be correct and his or her suggestions helpful. In some cases, we followed suggestions that were made, even though the way they were made was not the best.
Also, listening and responding is the only way to distinguish people with legitimate concerns from habitual complainers.
Clarify your position. People made comments such as, “The Holy Spirit’s power is missing,” and “There’s not enough ‘brokenness’ in the church.” We did not declare clearly and quickly enough, “No, the Holy Spirit is still here, and these are the things that confirm that.”
Carl George says that in a controversy, the one who clarifies the prevailing position prevails. Ultimately, when we did clarify our belief that the Holy Spirit was still present, that view prevailed.
Confront individuals when necessary. After the elders had listened carefully to all the concerns and had tried to respond to them, they felt confident about the congregation’s direction. For example, some folks complained that we needed to “allow people to worship God as he leads them,” but our style of services had already been established in response to surveys of the congregation and planning by the staff and elders.
The elders decided then to talk with people who continued in gossip and criticism. One man had, in an elder’s presence, praised and thanked me for help I’d given during a painful time in his life-and then, at a public meeting, which I did not attend, forcefully criticized me. The elder told him this was hypocritical and that he should apologize to me.
The man never came, but when I ran into him in the community, he did offer some feeble words. I didn’t recognize them as an apology until the elder asked me if the man had come to apologize.
Realize that losing some people is not all bad. As a controlling, driving person, I found the situation hard to give to the Lord. A friend helped me with his explanation of “palms down” giving of issues to God. When we give him our cares with our palms up, we can keep control of them. But with palms down, we truly “cast all our cares upon him.”
What happened? We lost at least 5 percent of our people, but I believe there is a new moving of the Holy Spirit in our church. There is much evidence to support this. And as Carl George point outs, “People leaving is not always bad because the people who leave usually involve themselves in their new churches.” However, it usually takes two years to fully overcome such a leaving because those who leave frequently continue to talk about the church and have a negative influence.
Keep close to the leadership team. I learned to be honest with the elders. They made it safe for me to share my anger, frustration, and pain with them. They ministered to me, corrected me where I was at fault, and guided me back to a Spirit-filled life.
I also learned to recognize their role. After an initial meeting with critics, the elders asked me not to be involved with the dispute. They wanted me to focus on leading, preaching, and setting vision, and they were concerned the focus of my ministry would blur if I got caught up in what was happening. It was impossible not to know what was going on, but the elders did the hard work of confronting and listening. When the ordeal was over, I presented each elder with a plaque that read, In appreciation for your faithfulness, love, and courage during a time of great testing. God bless you. James 1:2-4.
Frankly, it’s been a long, tough year. I told the elders, “I never want to experience such an ordeal again.”
Then I went on to say, “But I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” Learning key lessons, discovering areas I needed to grow in, seeing the love and concern of the elders, and becoming more confident the church was headed in the right direction-none of these could have happened without our bout with a low-grade infection.
– John Vawter
Wayzata Evangelical Free Church
Plymouth, Minnesota
Copyright © 1989 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
