Building Trust

We ought not to make any conditions of our brethren’s acceptance with us but such as God has made the conditions of their acceptance with him.
Matthew Henry

The question of authority cannot finally be settled, though, until another issue is resolved: trust. Since a pastor’s authority in the church is derivative, the question becomes “Do the people trust this leader enough to give him or her the power to operate?” Roy Price, pastor of The Alliance Church, Paradise, California, has done a great deal of thinking about trust:

“My experience has been that real authority comes only out of a trust relationship. I’ve been in churches where trust between pastor and congregation was nonexistent and also where there was a high level of trust, especially between pastor and board. The difference in what I was able to accomplish was great.

“One church held an underlying suspicion about any new program or idea. That meant a hesitancy to accept my leadership.

“I learned my lesson there. Since then, one of the first things I do in every new charge is get a reading on the level of trust. To do that, I have to get to know the people. I spend informal time with them. The more I know them (and they know me) the more trust will grow—unless there’s a total mismatch, in which case I shouldn’t be there.

“Another good time for this is prayer times together. We learn a great deal about one another from listening to prayer requests.”

It sounds so simple. Where do most pastors go wrong?

“By rushing the process. It takes time. A lot of time. My error when I was younger was wanting to move too fast, making changes I thought needed to be made. But the people weren’t ready because they didn’t know me.”

Price wrote the following chapter in a previous pastorate. He continues to study the process of measuring trust potential in a board or committee and developing trust in the early stages of a ministry. It is a complex but vital task.

I had been in the church only a few weeks when the message was as clear as a highway billboard with flashing spotlights: We don’t trust you. Not everyone felt that way, but I knew I was on trial. The next three years were among the most agonizing I’d spent in twenty-two years of pastoral work. The attendance dropped each year, and with it, a loss of receipts. Two years in a row yielded red-ink reports. There was little visible response to the messages—a traditional barometer. I became aware that one leader wanted to find another pastor.

For the first time in my ministry, I chose not to run from the problem. But the inner agony was tremendous. Doubts of all sorts flooded my mind. Did God call me to this church, or did I act impulsively? Was I called to pastoral work at all? Maybe I ought to throw in the towel and take up another field of work. Everything I tried to do seemed fruitless. Evangelism programs brought literally no results. For every new person gained, it seemed two left.

During this period, I had to ask a staff member to find another place to serve, a task I never imagined I’d face. The church board had agreed to allow me to buy a home when I first discussed a call with them. They later reversed that decision, citing low attendance and finances as reasons. All of this came as a personal ego blow and a challenge to my ability to lead. At the root of the problems was a lack of trust in me. I had failed to evoke trust on the interpersonal level and as a pastoral leader.

The Problem Is More Than Meanness

Why don’t people trust their pastors or church leadership? Many times it’s simply because they have been burned. Dishonesty heads the list of culprits. It covers a large scope of things from withholding information to manipulative techniques.

For example, one pastor claimed a vision from God to validate a fund-raising idea. His laymen had difficulty refuting the plan. They didn’t like the idea, but they submitted with a wait-and-see attitude—how could they fight God? It did not take them long to realize they had been manipulated, and trust was undermined.

That wasn’t the kind of thing I was doing. I was not pulling tricks out of a hat or pursuing amorous delights. Nor was I aware of possessing a Napoleonic complex. But I was new. They did not know me, and I did not know them. Thus they didn’t trust me.

One day I mentioned my frustration to a member. She said, “Do you really expect people to trust you automatically because you were called here?”

“I thought that came with the job,” I said.

“Some of us have been burned, and we need time to get to know you,” she responded.

Nearly four years later I learned the story behind her statements. Her husband was a PK. The presbytery where his dad ministered became dominated by a leftist group of seminary professors and pastors. He battled the issues as an involved layman. He watched with anger as his father’s stand for conservative theology was gradually discredited.

A few years later this same PK went through a hellish nightmare with a close neighbor. The neighbor had been very active in a local church; he had gone to bat to get the pastor a significant salary increase and actively supported pastoral programs. Then he found the pastor was carrying on an affair with his wife. My friend not only spent hours with his neighbor helping him through this traumatic crisis but had to battle his own feelings of antagonism toward clergymen.

While I was not involved in either situation, his attitude toward me was affected. Others had destroyed trust in the clergy that I had assumed was already mine.

The Ingredients of Trust

I have come to some conclusions about how trust is developed between people. It parallels our relationship with God. Trust is defined as “a firm belief in the honesty, truthfulness, justice, or power of a person or thing.” The Greek word for faith is similar. Pistis is a “firm persuasion, a conviction based upon hearing.”

Why can we trust God? Because he is honest. Because history has proven the reliability of his Word. There are two bases for this confidence. One is the holiness of God’s character. The other is his faithfulness. Fulfilled prophecy, the history of Israel, and the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ combine to state emphatically that God is faithful. He can be trusted to do what he says he will do. Knowing this, I hope for a future of blessedness. As A. W. Tozer said, “The tempted, the anxious, the fearful, the discouraged may all find new hope and good cheer in the knowledge that our Heavenly Father is faithful.”

Holiness and faithfulness are qualities we too can share. God commands us to be holy. Since holy means “to be whole,” it is a synonym for integrity. Moral wholeness means keeping our promises, being honest in all personal and business transactions, and maintaining moral purity.

Why can’t our word be as good as God’s? Isn’t that what Jesus meant when he said our yes should be yes and our no, no? We need not swear by heaven or earth. To promise to remember someone in prayer just to acquiesce to a request is not honest. We must be faithful to our commitments in ministry, finances, conversation, and with our family.

Recently, my associate paid me the highest compliment I have ever received. “If there’s one word I would choose to characterize you,” he said, “it would be integrity.” I asked him why. He cited these instances: When he candidated for the position of associate, I was quite candid about the problems in the church. I did not conceal my personal struggles or the church’s deep needs. He felt I could have snowed him with the positive and sidestepped the negative, but to him that would have diminished my integrity.

In contrast, he told me about a pastor who always talked about the great things in his church until, by contrast, my associate felt like a failure. But when he talked with the man’s assistant pastor, an entirely different picture of the church emerged.

My associate also pointed out how I relate to people who are dissatisfied with me. Although I’m friendly, I don’t pretend we’re best friends. He called it “warmth with reserve.” To him it was better than pretending there was no dissatisfaction.

The last thing he mentioned was my transparency to him and the congregation regarding my strengths and weaknesses. Well, I was feeling pretty good by this time.

Then he said that if I were to preach on hospitality in the home, he would inwardly react by saying, Wait a minute, Roy. You need to be a better model before you exegete that subject. I have hidden behind various justifications; my wife’s work helps pay for college costs, and she doesn’t have the time or energy for entertaining many guests. I think our reasons are legitimate; yet his observation is equally valid.

Submission to authority is a part of integrity. When the centurion came to Jesus for his servant’s healing, he asked the Lord just to speak the word and it would be done. Referring to his own authority as a commanding officer, he said he could assign a man to a task and it would be done. What was the source of his authority? He was in submission to the one over him. “I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me.” He knew Jesus had an integrity that came from submission to authority. The result was a power in ministry that the centurion recognized.

I recently asked the board for permission to lead a tour group to Israel. On my own I had booked the tour and had begun recruitment when I became aware of a board member’s reservation about it. I reacted. I was reimbursing the church for all postage, stationery, and clerical time, and I was taking vacation time to go. Why should I bring it to the board?

Because it is over me. So I submitted.

Later, I learned that a leading pastor in our city had developed a large tour business a few years ago. Though he had gotten full board approval, the matter was not adequately communicated to the congregation. The press had made it front-page news. My board member was only seeking my protection. The lesson was simple: Be open and trusting with your board, and they will protect you.

Integrity is not a one-shot transaction. Consistency makes integrity active day after day. When I ran into problems in former churches, I conveniently found God calling me to other places of ministry. By sticking it out this time, I have won the confidence of the congregation. Several members have written encouraging notes expressing appreciation for my perseverance. Sensitive and supportive people exist in every church. One anonymous note read, “I appreciate your courage and persistence during a time of great stress.” I needed that.

Lewis B. Smedes said, “Personal integrity in a minister is an indispensable quality, yet it comes only with great struggle.… Dulling the cutting edge of honesty is really very easy. Masks get comfortable very soon. Roles are learned terribly fast. Ministerial cosmetics go on quickly.” A pastor who keeps to the basics will earn respect and trust over the long haul, while the magnetic smooth-talker fumbles his way to another parish.

Trust Takes Time

Southern Baptists have found that a pastoral crisis occurs about every eighteen months of ministry. An interesting corollary is that SBC pastors move on the average of every eighteen to twenty months. In my denomination the average pastor stays only between three and four years. Inconsistency is a large part of this crisis.

Most pastors like to change existing programs and introduce new ones shortly after beginning a new ministry. I’ve found that you can effectively change things only after your consistency has laid a solid base of trust for you. Without that base, the congregation can become alienated and create a pastoral crisis.

A lay leader took me to lunch one day. While talking about the concerns of the church, he opened my eyes when he commented, “Pastor, let us get to know you before you try to change things.” He was pleading for the development of trust so change could be understood and accepted. Instituting adult electives, reorganizing the executive board, and launching a remodeling project had been too much, too soon. Concern about the changes was the outward manifestation of the problem. Could I be believed? Was I a leader who knew what I was doing? Was I willing to slowly demonstrate my integrity?

These questions emphasize a parallel truth. It takes time to build trust because it takes time to know another person. Those of us—and I include myself—who do not have enough close personal contact with our congregations face tremendous obstacles in developing trust. Lack of time, escalating transportation costs, and too many responsibilities are obstacles that must be overcome in developing a trust relationship with people.

The PK I mentioned earlier waited a respectable length of time before he committed himself to me. Time was needed. He has since become a close friend and confidant. Had I been a short-term pastor, the relationship would never have developed. How unfortunate that just when people and pastor are getting to know each other, he often terminates the romance.

Another contributing factor to trust is transparency. Empathy aids transparency. People need to know that they matter and that their pastor cares about what is going on in their lives. Aloofness will not get a pastor into the heart of the people. It takes more than just understanding them. Jesus is a great high priest because he is touched with the feeling of our weaknesses. We trust him with our problems because we know he cares.

I am strongly committed to the Scripture as having answers for the needs of people. Yet I have learned that helping is more than preaching, and preaching is more helpful after listening. My chance to preach comes regularly; opportunities for the congregation to express their burdens and frustrations come only in personal conversation.

I listen in the foyer and try to ask people about their families, jobs, or personal lives. I listen at committee meetings. I listen in personal conversation. I listen in counseling. By listening, I’ve nurtured trust. If the trust level is high enough, any suggestion or support will likely be received.

Respect for the rights and integrity of other people strengthens transparency. Am I consistently acknowledging the self-worth of others?

Genuineness is fundamental to transparency. A. W. Tozer wrote of the disease of artificiality: preachers intoning their sermons with an unnatural voice or speaking with vagueness, and avoiding anything that might backfire on them. Tozer demanded: “Every man who stands to proclaim the Word should speak with something of the bold authority of the Word itself. The Bible is the book of supreme love, but it is at the same time altogether frank and downright. Its writers are never rude or unkind, but they are invariably honest and entirely sincere.”

Finally, genuineness requires that we lay aside our super-spiritual masks, our pseudosuperior roles as the clergy, and be what we are—people redeemed by the blood of Christ. Many will want us to play a role, and it is often safer to do so than to disclose our struggles. One study has stated that “appropriate self-disclosure has a large number of benefits: increased trust, increased liking (and often, loving), increased attraction, and increased mental health.” But those results carry the risk of rejection and loss of control over others.

Am I the Type to Be Trusted?

Recently I became aware of the basic difference of temperament and style between my predecessor and me. He was a warm, fatherly, person-centered pastor. Acceptance, kindness, and understanding were readily communicated. I’ve always seen myself as friendly and somewhat extroverted. Only recently have I understood that I am task-oriented rather than people-oriented. I work hard on research and sermon preparation and have a gift of teaching. A few meaningful relationships satisfy my social needs.

The difference in our counseling ministries has made this apparent to me. Whenever I’ve talked with him about the church, he has frequently made reference to the heavy counseling load he had. It’s the exact opposite for me, a matter that has generated some criticism. There is less demand for my counseling here than any other place I’ve ministered. I’ve wondered why.

One evening I was talking with a psychologist in the congregation about this matter of trust and some of the struggles I’ve gone through. Though he had heard the former pastor only once, he contrasted the two of us with uncanny accuracy.

Those attracted to the former pastor must have found me distant and aloof at first. Under such conditions, trust is smothered. Had I understood those dynamics earlier, I might have avoided a great deal of trauma and introspection. I may not have behaved differently, but I would have understood the dynamics between the congregation and myself.

Pastors are not the only ones at fault if trust does not develop. Simply stated, pastors too have been burned by their people. Insensitive, callous remarks about preaching style and content or personal matters have driven many people from pastoral work.

After fifteen months in my first pastorate I was just another statistic, fully washed up. I had been criticized for “not preaching with enough love,” for poor sermon construction, for not visiting enough, and for not being an effective administrator. One evening as I parked the car I prayed, “Lord, let me get through this board meeting without some hint of criticism.”

At the closing prayer I sighed with relief. While I was preparing to leave, two leaders of the church stopped me and in effect said, “Pastor, don’t you feel your wife could be more outgoing?” They were sincerely trying to help a twenty-four-year-old and his wife, but criticism wasn’t the way to accomplish their purpose. I slammed the file cabinet shut, angry enough to fight.

“I hope you don’t feel we’ve been too hard on you,” one said.

“Too hard?” I replied. “I certainly do. You men have criticized about every area of my work. In criticizing my wife you’ve gone too far.”

I resigned. I had no place to go. I was broken in spirit, confused, and crushed in heart. Eventually, God brought healing and led me back into pastoral work.

That experience, joined with other events, caused me to become more withdrawn and distant. I have been wary of church boards, fearful of rejection, and hesitant to disclose myself ever since. Obviously, my attitude has not been an aid to building trust. But there is something to be said for a man’s accepting what he is and working with that. If God shaped the events of my life, perhaps he could do through me what he could not do if I were a different type. If that is so, then I must accept the fact that an intimate counseling-centered ministry is not for me.

I still need trust, though. Integrity and faithfulness aren’t built upon temperament. And trust is a two-way street. Integrity and faithfulness are fundamental to pastor and people alike. Absent in either party, trust languishes. Present—or at least developing—in both, trust flourishes. The benefits are cooperation, peace, and a freedom of relationship that is contagious.

Who is responsible to see that trust is developed? The pastor is—if you’re the pastor. The layman is—if you’re the layman.