Currents Shaping My Soul: Why Do They Love/Hate Me?

People respect leaders. People resist leaders. They love pastors; they hate pastors.

Why this alternating current?

It’s fairly easy to understand why people love pastors: the comforting word, help in time of need, biblical instruction. What perplexes and frustrates us are the many reasons people resist pastors, for these objections generally lie hidden in dark subterranean chambers of the soul.

I’ve gone spelunking of late and brought specimens to the surface. See how many of these reasons for resistance you recognize:

“I know you can bring the changes we need—growth, vision, structure. But I don’t like the discomfort you cause when those things produce disruption and tension.”

“I had hoped you would be a special friend to me, but you don’t have enough time for me, and I don’t have enough objectivity to realize my expectation was unrealistic.”

“I used to have more power before you came” or “I have power, and you don’t, and I want to keep it that way.”

“You remind me of (pick one) a former pastor, my spouse, an abusive father, or someone else who hurt and disappointed me.”

“You’re gone too much” or “You don’t pick up the phone when I call.”

“I’m really passionate about Issue X, and you’re not as passionate about that as I am.”

“I’m mad at God, and you’re the nearest representative of God I know.”

“I desperately needed you when I went through that traumatic, embarrassing time in my life. And I opened up to you. But now you know the slime in my life, and knowing that you know, I feel uncomfortable around you.”

As spiritual leaders, we’re often not prepared for the resistance, the anger. Sometimes it’s justified, but sometimes it’s unjustified, undeserved, and unspoken.

Few members possess the self-awareness to say something like, “I’m moving into a different place in my spiritual journey, and I don’t think you can take me there.”

So instead, people distance themselves, drop out of ministries, vote no. Sometimes their inchoate longings take shape in toxic phrases either psychological (“The pastor’s into building his own kingdom”) or spiritual (“God’s not anointing this ministry like he used to”).

What to do?

I take comfort in an analogy. The 1980s told ministers to be CEOs, but the CEO analogy misleads; the more apt comparison for pastoring is parenting (see 1 Thess. 2:7, 11).

Almost every parent has heard “I hate you!” punctuated with the slam of a bedroom door. As a parent, you can’t take the anger personally: it’s an occasional and probably necessary part of the relationship. Psychologist Anthony Wolf even titled his parent’s guide to teenagers, Get Out of My Life, But First Could You Drive Me & Cheryl to the Mall.

Similarly, as a pastor, you can’t take all the resistance personally. Some of it will be specific and fair, calling on you to ask for forgiveness. But much resistance that parishioners give pastors is the same kind of resistance children give parents, a push-pull, a resistance combined with a greater respect, a little hate temporarily obscuring a lot of love.

You have to stay calm, focused on the bigger picture. The victory comes in remaining a pastor/parent at the very moment you want to scream back, child-to-child. Keep leading, keep loving, and usually, resisters return to respecters.

This is a trustworthy saying and worthy of all acceptance: People respect leaders, people resist leaders.

—Kevin A. Miller is editor at large of Leadership.