A preacher’s biggest problem is how to toughen his hide without hardening his heart.
Vance Havner
As Gary Milam (not his real name) looked out over the Sunday morning congregation during the offertory hymn, his heart began to lift. Even some of the front pews were filled; it looked like the best attendance since he’d arrived six months ago. Welcoming the two new families earlier in the service had also been a boost. They were both excited about the church, and that rubbed off on him. He looked at his watch: Twenty after eleven. It was going to be a good message this morning; he could feel it.
His associate, Karl, leaned over toward him to say something, and Gary tilted his head that way while still looking out at the congregation.
“Gary,” Karl said, “I’m going to take some time at the end of the service. I’m turning in my resignation.”
Gary turned and looked at him. Two or three times Karl had made veiled comments about resigning, but still, coming in the middle of the service like this, it caught Gary completely off guard. “Are you sure that’s what you want to do?” Gary whispered, searching his eyes.
“I’m sure,” Karl said. He kept a steady gaze.
Gary knew he couldn’t bodily stop him. “I’d ask that you not do that.”
“It’s time.”
The offertory hymn was in its final chords. Gary stood, gave one more glance at Karl, and moved toward the pulpit. It was time to preach.
During the sermon Gary felt utterly schizophrenic. One part of him was looking at his notes and interacting with the congregation. But a deeper part inside his mind was trying to sort out what Karl’s surprise move was going to mean.
Actually, he’d known things were brewing, especially after Thursday evening’s deacons’ meeting. Some opposition to Gary had begun to surface in the congregation, and one man had brought his grievances to the meeting. The deacons had fielded the charges well, Gary thought, but what had bothered him was Karl’s silent nonsupport.
Since then he’d heard that Karl had never recovered from serving as interim pastor for six months and then being passed over for Gary. Karl’s wife, especially, felt he should be senior pastor, the story went, and Karl had been increasingly a sounding board for the opposition. This is probably the best thing that could happen, given all that, Gary thought as he led into his closing prayer.
Gary said something to the congregation about “a short message from our minister of education before we close the service,” nodded at Karl, and then walked over and sat down. Karl stepped to the pulpit, grabbed it on both sides, and began, “I regret that I must tell you I am resigning from First Church today.” He stopped, waited for the sudden silence to punctuate the statement, and then kept going. Karl rambled some, but two phrases hit Gary between the eyes: “Carolyn and I have been mistreated by the church leadership,” and “I have felt that, as a minister of the gospel, I can no longer serve when I have been asked to do things that violate my conscience.”
Gary was stunned. He didn’t know what Karl was alluding to, but he knew he’d never be able to repair the damage to his reputation if this kept up. He finally decided, at the six- or seven-minute mark, that as embarrassing as it would be, he was going to have to ask Karl to stop. He just wanted the service to end, but he couldn’t witness the assassination of his character any longer. Just as he got ready to stand, Karl ended with, “Of course, the church will have to vote on whether to accept this or not. I leave my fate in your hands.”
Sweet move, Gary thought. Way to start an all-out war.
Just then, Elmer Brownley, the church’s grandfather deacon, stood. “Brother Pastor, I want to say a word,” he said in that genteel Southern way of his. Gary motioned him to come forward. If anybody can settle things down, it’s Elmer, Gary thought.
But Elmer, with his winsome, flowery style, finally ended with, “I move we not accept our dear brother Karl’s resignation.” About twenty people on the left side broke out clapping.
Now Gary was frightened. He looked out at the two new families, and he could see the puzzled, tense look in their eyes. Things were getting completely out of hand. He moved to the pulpit, took a deep breath, and tried to be the most soothing diplomat he’d ever been. “We appreciate your support of the church’s leadership, Elmer,” he began, “and we want to handle this in the right way. But since we’re not in business session, such a motion is out of order. We’ll have to address it in the appropriate forum.” Elmer’s face turned red and angry. Well, I’ve cooked my goose with him, Gary thought. But he was finally able to dismiss the service.
Karl did decide to resign. But that was not the end of the matter. First, a deacons’ meeting that was called to discuss Karl’s resignation became a forum on whether to support Gary. But the secret ballot went nine to one in Gary’s favor.
That didn’t end the trouble, though. Two or three people set up appointments with Gary to tell him, angrily, that he should resign. One Sunday, as he walked through the foyer to go into the sanctuary for the service, a man planted both feet in front of him and called him a liar loud enough for everyone to hear. A petition asking for his resignation began to circulate. That didn’t get anywhere, so another petition saying “We want to promote peace and unity and harmony in the church, so we want to poll the church about their satisfaction with the current leadership” made the rounds. That ultimately led to a strong vote in favor of Gary by the congregation.
After the congregational meeting, two families left immediately, and then about ten more over the next couple months.
“At that point, I was ready to quit,” he says. “I was beaten to a pulp. I had responded to my critics until it had sapped all my spiritual energy. I was having a tough time trying to preach.”
While Gary was thinking about leaving, though, he went to a Bible study seminar on Philippians. “I saw what a pastor’s heart really was,” he says. “I determined I was going to develop a new relationship with my people regardless of how they responded. Then I made a fresh commitment to studying and preaching the Word; I’d get my mind off my problem and focus on the Scriptures. I came back and began a series in Philippians, and I saw that Paul was rejoicing in circumstances he didn’t deserve and didn’t desire. That helped change my attitude, and I think that did more to change the church than anything. There’s something about attacking someone who’s peaceful that just takes all the fun out of it.”
Now, he says, things have turned around.
The criticism has stopped. Recently ten people have become Christians and joined the church. Attendance continues to grow, and the congregation has united behind a major building program.
Small Numbers, Huge Impact
As the story above illustrates, a few troublesome members, even when they are placated or eventually leave, halt ministry. They wound people, they divide churches, and they deeply discourage pastors.
“A few vocal members” are probably the leading cause of pastoral resignations. Even when the handful of troublesome members doesn’t force a pastor out, it makes his or her life miserable. Though the group is invariably small, its impact is disproportionately large.
For one thing, critical comments carry more weight than positive ones. Ninety-nine people can tell us how meaningful our sermon was to them, but if only one person says, “It just didn’t hit me today,” that’s the comment we’ll likely be dwelling on at two o’clock that afternoon.
Pastors, whose focus is caring for people, may be particularly vulnerable to verbal attacks. “I’m a very sensitive individual,” admits a Lutheran pastor, “and I tend to take things personally. So every time someone says something critical about me, I really struggle through the process to see whether it’s applicable.” And when a few people kick up dust, or decide to leave, no matter how wrong or spiteful they were, some pastors feel a sense of failure.
One writes: “The vice-chairman of the church board had ‘strong disagreements with the direction the church is taking.’ I didn’t make the adjustments he felt were needed, so he convened three other families weekly to ‘pray for the spiritual life of the church.’ These families then petitioned our board of deacons to examine me about specific doctrinal issues, like my views of demons, and the geographic location of heaven. The deacons approved my views, so the vice-chairman then petitioned our district executive committee to conduct a similar review. The committee approved my views, but he still didn’t give up. He petitioned for a hearing by the entire district board. They supported me as well, so he finally left the church and took the three families with him. But I was emotionally drained. I ‘won,’ but I also felt I had failed as a pastor to meet the needs of these families.”
There’s a final reason why a handful of disgruntled members seems like an army. Often the few are powerful personalities, and so the rest of the church, which may actually support the pastor, doesn’t want to stand up to them. Wrote one pastor on the survey: “I presently have a family who fights my ministry. No matter what I do, it is wrong, and most of their criticism is shared with other members of the congregation behind my back. What really hurts, however, is not their criticism and personal attacks, but the lack of support I feel from the local power structure.” When the congregational majority becomes the “silent majority,” pastors feel all alone. “My leadership style led to conflict with a very dominant figure in the congregation who wanted everything done his way,” tells one minister. “I felt for a time that all the other church folk left me to fight the battle alone. The lack of support from those I thought were behind me brought me my greatest sense of discouragement ever in ministry.”
The pernicious aspect of dealing with the few troublesome members is that they pull a pastor away from the essential work of ministry. Robert Norris, pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, Maryland, knows the difficulty: “You spend more time with those people, and it becomes a drain on you. It’s a constant discouragement, because you know what you should be doing is building up those who are going forward, encouraging them. But instead, you’re spending more and more time with the sick and less and less with the well and willing. You betray your call to equip.”
Survival Strategies
Pastors across the country have found ways to deal with the few difficult members, however. Though some church leaders have learned through great pain or resignation, they have discovered strategies for not only surviving the few vocal parishioners but actually ministering to them. Here are veteran pastors’ insights.
Accept the fact that such people not only can, but will, be part of every church. “I once believed it possible that a church might bring suffering to a minister,” writes Lynn Anderson, for the past sixteen years minister of the Highland Church of Christ in Abilene, Texas. “I now believe it is inevitable.” It’s not easy, though, to accept the fact that Christians can act in such hurtful ways. A Leadership survey in 1981 found that a stunning 85 percent of pastors had at one point in their professional lives “felt betrayed by persons I thought I could trust,” yet only a few said they’d anticipated that anything like this could happen. Says Maynard Nelson: “When I started in the ministry, I naively believed that all the church members would be supporting me and praying for me and that we would be seeking to reach out to the world. The forces of evil were ‘out there.’ It was a disillusionment, then, when I found that sometimes the church members were the greatest problem to deal with. It wasn’t the world out there, it was rather petty things, bickering, and factions within the church. But it helped as I gradually came to realize that really, the church is human, but in it God has chosen to reveal his love and grace and mercy.”
Try to focus on the supportive majority. It’s hard but essential to remember that the few vocal members really are few. Though two families are disgruntled, another thirty may be quite pleased with your ministry. One Presbyterian pastor from the South said he was helped by the counsel of a friend who is an insurance agent. “He told me he had learned in his training the ‘Rule of the 5 Percent,’ which says that no matter what you do, approximately 5 percent of your insurance clients aren’t going to be happy. So don’t sweat them. Well, it’s just about the same in the church.” This kind of thinking helped one pastor, who wrote: “The key family, the ones who started the church, expressed major dissatisfaction with my ministry and announced they were leaving the church. I had invested a large amount of time with this family, they had been my strongest supporters and affirmers, and now they turned on me and left. But I decided to stay because I realized they were only one family. The rest of the church was so positive I figured it was better to stay.”
A third strategy is to weigh your critics, which means discerning between a member offering valid criticism and the one who’s a destructive force in the church. What’s the line between an aggressive person and the “divisive person” Paul warned so strongly against? Most pastors, rightly so, tend to give difficult members the benefit of the doubt, to tolerate them and be patient with them. But when is it time for a pastor to take a strong hand, for both the peace of the church and the ultimate spiritual growth of the uncharitable person?
Truman Dollar, pastor of Temple Baptist Church in the Detroit suburb of Redford, makes this distinction: “Disunity … comes from people who are acting autonomously, who are not obeying the Scripture: ‘Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.’… There’s a big difference between being autonomous and being a strong, independent thinker, what I call being ‘secure in Christ.’ People who are secure in Christ offer some of the brightest and most helpful ideas for the growth of the church. And they can be aggressive.
“But here’s the difference: They offer ideas, do homework, take initiative, and still maintain the mind of Christ. When the body has made its decision, they don’t continue to lobby or create dissent. The autonomous person, on the other hand, maintains his position long after the vote and says, ‘You’re all wrong.'”
An Alabama pastor expands on the ways he knows when a critic is becoming more destructive than constructive: “I can tell when I have accepted their criticism and acted on it, when I have truly changed or improved what they were criticizing. Then I watch: Do they shift to carping about something else so they’re never satisfied? And are they willing to themselves accept correction? If not, then, as harsh as it sounds, I recognize they have a ‘poisonous bite,’ and I need to deal with them in a different, firmer, way than I do others.”
But for members who do not fall into this tiny group, most pastors suggest really listening to them.
One pastor who learned to listen to his critics was John Yates. “This church is a very historic church; George Washington was on the vestry that built the building,” he says. “So when I came to this church and began to suggest changes, not everyone was pleased. About a year after I’d been here I had an annual review, and all kinds of criticism came out. That was hard, but I came back from that and suggested a ‘rector’s advisory committee’ of five people from our vestry. I said, ‘Can we meet together at least once a month? Any way in which I am coming across to the congregation as arrogant or unthoughtful or insensitive, will you please tell me? Tell me what people are saying, because lots of times I think there may be miscommunication. And if I am leading in a way that’s counterproductive, I want you to tell me.’
“They thought it was a wonderful idea. So for about five years we met one Saturday morning each month. Sometimes a person would say, ‘John, I heard that you did so-and-so, and I’d like to tell you, if you handled it that way, you blew it.’ There were people on the committee whom I had a real hard time with. And they had a real hard time with me. But meeting was such a help. I would ask their advice about how to handle a pastoral problem or leadership problem, and we got to be close, with frank communication. As a result, nine times out of ten I was able to nip a problem in the bud.”
Develop “sensitive calluses.” A United Church of Christ minister expresses his frustration: “It pays off sometimes for me to be insensitive, to let the water run off my back like a duck’s. But I’ve been surprised that even the most educated, successful, and sophisticated people in my congregation are terribly fragile. If I’m not sensitive, I can’t minister to them.”
One helpful insight to this problem came from a pastor who went through a church split because of a few vocal members. “I was an associate for a while with a pastor who used to brag about his ‘shoe-leather skin.’ I didn’t want to have to have that, but as I looked around I couldn’t see how you could survive without it. Every older pastor I knew was tough and rough and callous and a little bit bitter.
“But then I met this one pastor who had been through all kinds of hell in his congregation, and yet he was gracious and humble and gentle; he’d ended up sweet. I thought to myself, So there is a way. But I didn’t know what it was. I was talking with a friend who is a pianist one day about this, and he said to me, ‘Eric, maybe this will help. As a pianist, there are two things I want. I want sensitivity in my fingers so I can feel the keys, but I also need them calloused enough so that I can play for a long time.’ Ever since, I’ve been trying to develop sensitive calluses.”
Remember that God can use “what is meant for evil as good.” “I came from a church where for nine years I really didn’t know any criticism,” says one West Coast pastor, “to here, where in two years I’ve had more criticism than in my whole life. One thing that’s helped me is that old phrase, ‘You either get bitter or you get better.’ I have a choice. I keep trying to say, ‘I’m not going to let this thing make me bitter. By God’s grace this situation is going to make me better.'”
One pastor said the only way he could endure criticism was to “consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart” (Heb. 12:3). The key is focusing on Jesus, on remembering his love and faithfulness and commitment.
“Sometimes I’d call my former senior pastor,” says one minister, “and pour out to him all the criticism I was getting, all the miscommunication that was happening, all the ways people were misinterpreting my motives. He’d listen, and then he’d say, ‘Oh, do I understand. John, God’s making a man out of you. God’s about a great work, you know.’ That would sort of bring me back and refresh me and encourage me. I hadn’t been able to see it, but God was at work.”
From Break You to Make You
“A congregation can either make you or break you” is a saying that a few difficult members demonstrate clearly. But what about the members who make a pastor, the ones who encourage, who make it all seem worthwhile?
Often pastors mentioned just one or two people as giving them all the encouragement they needed to keep going. Just as it takes only a few difficult members to drive a pastor crazy, it takes only a few delightful ones to keep him or her sane. The bright, positive, forward-looking members also have a disproportionate impact on the church. The people who come to Christ, who really change, who give up destructive habits, who learn to reach out — these may be only a handful, but they bring armloads of encouragement.
The Leadership survey asked pastors to identify a time when they felt, “If for no other reason, this is why I want to stay in the ministry.” Many of the answers told of a specific person and how he or she had grown in grace through the pastor’s ministry. Reading the answers is encouraging in itself:
• “I had preached a series of sermons on prayer, and later I found out that it had helped the prayer life of one of our oldest members. It was a thrill seeing God use his Word to change the lives of people.”
• “Over a period of fifteen years I saw several members of the same family come to Christ and begin to grow spiritually.”
• “A student came to know the Lord, and now she tells others about it, as a direct result of my life touching hers.”
• “A young man I had helped through and after an emotional breakdown decided to go on to a Christian college.”
• “In one marriage, the husband had moved out, and the wife was despondent, terrified, and bitter. The husband and wife agreed the children were better off with one parent than two at war. Over time I was able to establish ground rules for communication, stress management, and so on. The husband and wife are now back together, and the children have two loving parents. And the parents love their pastor.”
A key characteristic of a congregation’s encouraging people is that they are grateful. One pastor wrote of his most encouraging moment in the ministry: “A young mother, reared in our church, moved with her family to another town and church. Upon returning, she told me, ‘I have come to the conclusion that you are one of the best, true-to-the-Bible teachers I’ve ever heard. Thank you for teaching me and my family God’s Word.'”
Wrote another: “I asked a woman why she had gotten saved, expecting some theological response. Instead, she said, ‘Because I wanted to be like you and your wife.'”
You can go a long way on a comment like that.
In fact, it was because of such a comment that one pastor is even in the ministry today. “One night while in seminary,” he wrote, “I told my wife I was thinking of throwing in the towel. The phone rang then, and I found out a deacon from our home church was in the hospital for tests, and it was almost surely cancer. I called him to cheer him up, and while we were talking, he said, ‘We sure do miss you here. But we know that God has bigger and better things for you.'”
Maximizing Ministry to the Encouragers
So within each congregation there are various types of people, and some tend to lift a pastor and move a ministry forward. Others tend to pin a pastor down and hinder the church’s mission.
No pastor, of course, can completely exempt himself or herself from ministry to the more discouraging members. And indeed, none would probably want to. Though more draining to shepherd, these sheep are no less a part of the flock, and pastors feel a call — perhaps an extra urgency — to help and care for them. “It just so happens that the church is the place where very difficult people hang out,” says one minister, “but rightfully so. That’s where they should be.”
But recognizing that, what practical things can be done to maximize ministry to the well and willing? Here are ways pastors have found to spend more of their energy where it’s more productive and, thus, be more encouraged:
Monitor where your time is being spent. One pastor suggests taking a datebook from the last month and candidly evaluating which kind of people you’ve been spending the most time with. Whether you choose that method or not, pastors have found their ministry more effective and encouraging as they’ve been somewhat conscious of where they’re investing their time. “I see it as following Paul’s command in Ephesians 5 to ‘not live as unwise but wise, making the most of every opportunity,'” says Jim Bankhead, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Opelika, Alabama.
Spend time with people on a project you love. Ministers said their spirits have been buoyed when they carved time from their schedule for a ministry area they were specially interested in — say, helping the poor, reaching college students, building strong marriages. The people who join the pastor on the project tend to share the pastor’s vision and enthusiasm. As a result, the ministry moves forward, which is encouraging in itself. But as important for the pastor is that for at least one hour each week you’re with people who resonate with your interests.
John Yates, for example, has long had an interest — partly because he has five children of his own — in helping Christian families. So about five years ago he asked several married couples if they would like to meet with him and his wife, Susan, for a semester to study Christian family life. He wasn’t quite sure what would happen, but they began meeting every other week for several months. The result? “They drew things out of me and my wife we hadn’t anticipated. We were able to minister to them, teach them, in a special way. In fact, we were so encouraged by what happened that we decided we would try to extend the experience to others.” The church has since started many of these Family Life Action Groups, and other churches have reproduced the idea. A powerful ministry came about because John invested at least some time each week in a favorite area. And as a fringe benefit, “the groups have turned out to be a great encouragement” to him.
Give people opportunities to tell how God has been working in their lives. Chuck Smalley, associate pastor at Wayzata (Minnesota) Evangelical Free Church, explains the dynamic: “The thing that attracted me to ministry was being involved with people, and the thing that keeps me in ministry is seeing people’s lives change. So it was exciting last month at a banquet for the people in our small groups. We had five or six people stand and share the benefits of being in a small group. One or two were from a small group for older singles, and they’d been divorced and really gone through a lot of pain. To hear them tell how God has changed their lives, and how their small group is one of the most important things in their lives, made me want to keep going.”
In a sense, each of these steps is a way for the pastor to allow people to minister to him or her. Through them “the whole body … grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work” (Eph. 4:16).
Placing Our Feet
I asked one church leader, “How can we minister to the few difficult members without letting them utterly discourage us or cut off ministry to the others?”
“In ministry,” he responded, “my one foot may become pinned to the earth, caught in the difficulties of the moment. But don’t forget: I have another foot. And I try to keep that one planted in heaven.”
©1988 Christianity Today
