Recently, my wife, Gail, and I had a chance to visit Yosemite National Park in California. We brought home pictures of us standing at the foot of some of those 3,000-year-old trees that rise a zillion feet into the air.
Think of it: 3,000 years to grow a tree. And think again: given modern machinery, the same tree can be (perish the thought!) cut down in just a few minutes.
Those trees prompted a thought about pastoral leadership and the issue of Trust— the kind of trust pastoral leaders desperately need from their people but sometimes do not possess.
No biblical leader that I can think of struggled with trust issues more than Moses. Leading a generation of people out of 400 years of slavery must have been like herding cats. Every time the man turned around, someone was questioning his judgment, his veracity, his sense of direction. You could argue that they finally broke him with their patterns of suspicion and defiance.
The apostle Paul cashed in on trust when he asked people to give him money to aid in the relief of suffering Christians in Jerusalem. He must have leaned on the trust factor when he convinced Timothy’s family to release him to mentorship.
Trust was in play when Paul gave strict orders to the Corinthians to discipline a known sinner. And—trust again—when he convinced them to take the man, now repentant, back. Trust won the day with Philemon, who was asked to receive a runaway slave back into his home—no longer as a slave but as a brother. No doubt about it: Paul’s word in most places was like gold. Trust backed that currency.
I learned quickly in my youngest pastoral years that people would follow only so far if I traded exclusively on my natural gifts: words that came easily, personal charm, new ideas and dreams. I was tempted to think that just because I had a seminary degree, because I was ordained, and because I was more knowledgeable about biblical ideas, people should have unlimited faith in me.
That stuff works well for a while, but in crunch time deeper questions begin to emerge. Did I have integrity and wisdom, or was it all froth? Was I reliable? Could I take people into unknown territory spiritually? organizationally? Charm and charisma are like a glider; they fly, but not indefinitely. And they don’t do well in turbulent times.
Crunch time might come when a leader asks people to come up with a staggering amount of money for a building, a staff addition, a project of generosity that benefits the poor. Crunch time might come when people are asked to abandon an old program and embrace something entirely new. Or crunch time might happen when a pastor has to confront the congregation with a blind spot or hardened spirit about something that requires repentance and new direction.
A young pastor goes off to an innovative church seminar, comes home with a head of excitement about new ideas, and, overnight, seeks to change just about everything. Soon after that the congregation goes on strike. The pastor learns the hard way that good ideas and promising strategies are not enough. They can’t make it without trust.
When trust really counts
More important—over the long haul—is how trust comes into play in the personal encounters of pastoral life.
Years ago I had the privilege of leading a young man to faith in Jesus. At the time he was living with a girl who was the daughter of one of our church leaders. Her family had despaired that she (or he) would ever walk in biblical light. Then one Sunday (for reasons I have forgotten) the two of them came to worship. At the end of the service, I met this couple, conversed with them, and eventually witnessed this young man’s conversion and change of life.
The young woman, raised in faith but obviously drifting, came back to spiritual life as a result. It wasn’t long before the two of them—recognizing the importance of biblical obedience—asked if I would marry them. I was delighted.
Then they cautioned me. Her father and mother, they said, would likely be hostile to their marriage. On behalf of the couple, I would have to approach the parents and gain their permission. I agreed to do this.
I recall sitting in the living room of this long-time Christian mother and father. The drama of the moment is such that even now, many years later, I can recreate my words to them. Calling them by name, I said, “I’m going to ask you to trust me. It is my judgment that your daughter and her boyfriend should marry. I believe that he is ready to be a loving and responsible husband and that she is prepared to assume the disciplines of marriage. I want you to support their desire to get married.”
There was a short quite pause as the parents took this in. Then the father said these words: “Pastor, we trust you. And if you think they are ready to be married, that this is a good decision, we’ll give them our blessing.” And they did.
This couple has now been married for more than 25 years, and the judgment we all made has been vindicated over and over. It would not have happened, however, if I had not been able to trade on trust.
The great Victorian physician, Sir William Osler once said to medical students:
“The practice of medicine is an art, not a trade; a calling, not a business; a calling in which your heart will be exercised equally with your head. Often the best part of your work will have nothing to do with potions and powders, but with the exercise of an influence of the strong upon the weak, of the righteous upon the wicked, of the wise upon the foolish. To you, as the trusted family counselor, the father will come with his anxieties, the mother with her hidden grief, the daughter with her trials, and the son with his follies. Fully one-third of the work you do will be entered in other books than yours” (italics mine).
With very little change in wording, Osler could have been talking to those in pastoral ministry. Trust makes possible “an exercise of influence.” Oh, by the way, trust makes it possible to fail occasionally. People forgive a failing moment if their overall perspective is of great trust.
The leadership connection
I have been impressed with the new breed of pastors who have a passion to launch great church-based evangelistic endeavors. I admire them, and I value their friendship. They certainly have surpassed anything I (or most pastors in my generation) could have dreamed. And they write well about the skill sets of leadership: things like vision, passion, cultural sensitivity, developing leaders, and lots of other things.
There is one thing, however, I don’t hear enough about, and that may reflect a tendency to think that leadership is mostly about skill and instinct. What don’t I hear about? Trust: that almost indescribable quality of relationship in which a leader builds and then enjoys the confidence of the people.
“We make our money the old fashioned way,” the Smith-Barney company once declared in its commercials. “We earn it!” Similarly, one gains trust the old fashioned way: it is earned. It cannot be demanded or assumed.
One of my theories of ministry has been that a pastor really does not begin to enjoy the leadership “bite” or “traction” that is necessary to get things done until he or she has been leading for about five years. Therefore my logic: the fifth year of a ministry and beyond are years where trust is all important because novelty and newness no longer exist. As my father used to remind me: people will follow you for a while because they picked you. But they’ll follow you over the longer term because they have learned to trust you.
Back to the gigantic trees in California: they’re not hard to cut down in a short period of time. Like them, trust can be forfeited in a short amount of time. I know. I once forfeited the trust of people I cared for very much. I lost some very precious friendships. And I lost my honor. To regain any of what was lost took a long time.
How to build trust
Now here’s the big question. How is trust generated? Here are seven sources I have observed over the years.
Trust builds with consistency. Consistency of message, of vision, of the management of circumstances. People are constantly watching. They wish to know: will you be the same person when things are going wrong? Can you hear a thoughtful “no” from the board? Will your personal responses be in alignment with the things you’ve preached from the safety of the pulpit?
Trust builds with dependability. Are you a person of your word? If you make an appointment, are you there on time? If you commit to doing something for someone, does it get done as promised? If you make a promise, make sure it is kept.
Trust builds with openness. Are you truthful about yourself? About what is really happening behind the scenes of the organization? In trustworthy people, there is an absence of slickness, slogans, and strategies that do not offer the full message. People do not feel tricked or duped.
Trust builds with a reputation for hard work. Sermons reveal a craftsmanship of serious study. The pastor gives the congregation just a bit more than what it thought it paid for. Board and committee meetings are marked with thoughtful presentations and explanations. There is a sense that the pastor is on top of the job of congregational leadership.
Trust builds with a belief that the pastor has an impartial pastoral eye for everyone. The rich (major donors), the attractive, the young, or the influential are not uniquely favored. The pastor engages with the children, with the weak and the struggling, with the old, and with the more common person who serves in the congregation in places where recognition is scarce.
Trust builds with longevity. This simply means that the pastor sticks in there for an extended time. Relationships are built; the buildup of ministry episodes (funerals, weddings, baptisms, etc.) occurs; people see the pastor sharing their passages of life. And when that crunch time comes, they are more apt to say, “The pastor was there for me; I’ll be there for what he believes God wants for us now.”
Trust builds with an ever-deepening spirit. Somehow the congregation wants to feel that their pastor fixes his or her eyes on Jesus. They will gather confidence because they sense that the pastor’s life and leadership reflect a person who seeks the heart of the Father and speaks out of a certitude that is humble yet convinced, fully repentant yet graced, self-effacing yet competent through the power of God.
More than once I asked my congregation for second offerings which would be given in-total to people in some part of the world who had sustained a great tragedy. Trust made it possible for people to dig deep. More than once I asked my congregation to step out in faith on a new budget or building program or staff addition. Trust made them willing to do it.
And more than once I asked my congregation to swallow hard and accept something that was new or even against the grain of their instincts. Only trust made it possible.
Trust eludes a complete definition. But, as they say, you know it when you see it. And I think about that when I look skyward at an enormous California sequoia. How long to grow; how quickly destroyed.
Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
