To Fight or to Flee?

When people once are in the wrong,
Each line they add is much too long;
Who fastest walks, but walks astray,
Is only furthest from his way.
Matthew Prior

Half the failures in life arise from pulling in one’s horse as he is leaping.
J. C. and A. W. Hare

Our cat made a mistake. The neighbor’s kitchen door was open, and it must have appeared inviting, because Katie Cat went in to explore. When our neighbor, Mike, found her on the kitchen counter, Katie sensed her guilt. In a flash she flew upstairs and found the first available hiding place: under the bed.

Mike’s a nice guy. He just planned to reach under the bed, pick up Katie, and take her outside where she belonged. No malice; no problem. Katie wasn’t so charitable.

In a dark corner, backed against a wall, Katie, the gentle kitty who purrs on laps, reverted to feral ferociousness. She clamped her teeth onto Mike’s thumb and raked his hands with her claws. As Mike pulled free, she took off — climbing the drapes, leaping against the window, and tearing around the room with unbelievable energy. Caught in a mistake, sure her world had narrowed to this harrowing moment, Katie turned into a terror.

To fight or to flee — most of us face the decision at one time or another. Following a mistake, especially a big mistake, the choice almost always demands a decision.

Once you’ve faced up to a mistake, straightened things out with God, contained the damage, and said what needed to be said, you’re stuck with a decision: Do I — can I — stay in this church, or must I leave? Often it’s a tough call. Both solutions commend themselves, and with good reason.

If a pastor has any sense of accomplishment in a congregation, leaving following a mistake paints a once-colorful picture black. “The Flight of the Bumbling Me” is not the kind of exit music most pastors want. None of us likes to depart a loser. We’d rather stay and eventually exit a winner.

Yet to remain where you’re considered a buffoon or a crook or a pervert — with or without justification — is sheer agony. You have a reputation to undo, people to appease, confidence to rebuild. Perhaps in that setting you’ll always be “the guy who bankrupted First Church.” So what do you do?

Here’s what some pastors who have been through the process have to say.

Reasons to Leave

There are several possible reasons to leave.

You’re unwanted. One pastor, whose immorality ushered him out of one congregation and whose second pastorate ended abruptly following a leak about the first, advised, “There’s a definite sign that says to leave: when the people don’t want you anymore. That’s the determining factor, not the type of mistake or the magnitude of it. After all, what’s more serious, gossip or adultery? The magnitude is a cultural distinction. They’re both sin. And if you’ve already built a loving relationship with the congregation, you can weather almost any mistake. Then people want you to stay, if only for your own healing.

“But you’re a fool to stay where you’re not wanted. Even Jesus said to brush the dust off your feet.”

But what about split decisions — some beg you to stay and others insist that you leave? It depends on the severity of the split.

The pastor gives two examples: “I was discovered in an adulterous relationship in the first church, and the church council voted unanimously to fire me. I had no choice; I went to the business meeting and handed in my resignation. They told me to leave town, not to set foot in the church again. There was nothing split about that decision.

“Then fifteen months after we went to another church, that congregation asked me to leave, basically because I had not informed the entire congregation of the whole story of why I had left the first church. I had never trusted them with that information because I was sure they would ask me to resign!

“But this time the board stood behind me. I had told them all the facts from the beginning, and they were 100 percent with me. They were ready to go to bat for me. But I resigned anyway. I could see that to stay would have meant splitting the church, and I didn’t want to do that. You can’t force your ministry on people. If they don’t want you, then go; your ministry there is over.”

You’re not trusted. Sometimes the people still like you after you’ve let them down. This is more likely after a poor decision than after a moral failure. You’ve blown it, but nobody’s vindictive. They’re not ready to wash their hands of you. You’ve been their pastor, and the warm bond still means something.

But they’ve lost confidence in you. They may love you, but they don’t trust you.

Pastors work overtime to build people’s confidence in their personal integrity, their understanding of godly (and appropriate earthly) things. After all, who will respect the knowledge of a pastor who thinks Sartre was an “exosensualist”? Or who will take the premarital counsel of the minister whose family is in shambles? The perceived level of maturity and competence on a number of measures can make or break a pastor’s ministry.

When a pastor errs, some people never forget it. If it is a major error, confidence in the pastor can be washed out, and ministry gets mired to the axles amid dubious parishioners.

A Southern Baptist pastor put it this way: “You can pass a point of no return, and the trust factor is gone. Then you can no longer command the kind of respect you need. You become muted, and once you’re muted, you have no ministry. Your only alternative is to leave.

“There’s a difference in congregations, though. You take a highly legalistic congregation that lives by the letter of the law: sneeze at the Communion table and you’ve lost their confidence. They’ll hang you after your first mistake.

“But some congregations have reputations for being loving. They want to believe in a person; they’ll build you up. We have a youth minister whose wife left him. It broke his heart, and I thought, It’ll be interesting to see what happens here. Our youth committee gave him 100 percent support. He got nothing but strokes of love. ‘Don’t leave us,’ they said. ‘We’re going to help you through this thing whether she comes back or not.’ She’s back now, and they’re reconciled. But the church never lost confidence in this young man. It would have compounded the tragedy had he been forced out.”

Jerry Hayner, pastor of Forest Hills Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, compares the pastor to a football coach: “You can’t let the people lose confidence in your leadership. Once they think you’re not a competent signal-caller, or you’re not showing the necessary good judgment to win the ball game, the magic is no longer there. Once you cross that line, you have to be nothing less than Jesus Christ to come back across it. The people have written you off.”

You run out of fight. A pastor accepted a call to a church with 99 percent of the congregation affirming his call. In spite of the church’s history of “losing” its pastors after about three years, he assumed whatever problems had existed would not necessarily resurface. That was not the case. A handful of strongwilled elders lay in wait to challenge his authority.

Within a year they were harping about “not being fed” by his preaching. He met with them and tried everything he knew to meet their expectations. After three years of struggle, he thought the relationship was finally improving, and he began to breathe a little easier. In a matter of weeks, he was stunned by a call for his resignation.

He probably could have marshaled the troops for a battle. His mistakes had been minor: some ill-considered words, not confronting the troublemakers directly enough, perhaps coming to the church in the first place. Yes, the church had lost a few people, but that’s not unusual with a new pastor, and the situation had stabilized. The congregation had even gained new members who were excited about the church. The majority of the congregation had no idea what was going on in the elders meetings.

Although the pastor had done nothing worthy of being fired, he quietly resigned. Sometimes you have no more fight left. He walked out of the last elders meeting with the parting words: “When you leave, please unplug the coffee pot.”

His decision was uncomplicated: “I’m sure, if I had felt strongly enough about it, I could have fought and perhaps won. But after three years of struggle, what would I have gained? If they all resigned and left the church, it would have been difficult to go on. But if they had remained at the church, I didn’t see how I could keep going on. I no longer wanted to fight.”

A significant — even a beatable — opposition often places a pastor in a no-win situation. Even if you win the battle to stay, you end up pastoring a crippled church. There are times to concede it’s not worth the damage. As one pastor noted, “Once I resigned, the church was free to fight over principles and not personalities. I think the right side is going to win, but my presence would have muddied the waters.”

A cartoon depicts a soot-covered man in rags peering out on a countryside ravaged by atomic war. The caption reads, “We won — I think.” For their own sake and for the welfare of their churches, many pastors will leave a church, choosing not to submit everyone to a battle resulting at best in a nebulous victory.

You need a fresh start. The pastor mentioned in chapter three who became overly involved in his wife’s soap-selling venture got to the point where he was embarrassed by his reputation.

He was delighted to accept a call to a new community where he could be free of any taint. He might have quit hawking soap in his original parish, but he never could have washed his hands of his image in that community. It took a new church in a distant place to give him a clean start.

Pastors’ mistakes of orientation may follow them throughout their tenure in a community. A pastor perceived as uncaring at her first funeral in a new church may wear the insensitive label as long as she stays in that parish. The one who pushed too hard at the beginning may always be considered aggressive. Sometimes pastors get off on the wrong foot with a key personality in the church, and everything is rocky from then on, no matter how hard they try to rectify their mistakes.

In situations like these, throwing in the towel is wisdom, not defeat. Nothing is particularly noble about remaining in an unproductive situation, especially one of your own making, when your gifts and energy can be productive elsewhere. “You don’t know how good it feels finally to be appreciated,” one pastor told me, “especially after the beating I took the last four years. I don’t know why I took so long to make the change.”

Your repentance needs to be demonstrated. When the failure is moral offense, often a trial period apart from church responsibilities is a wise course of action. This allows the fallen leader to reestablish moral roots and public credibility.

A young pastor fell into an adulterous relationship with a woman in his congregation. When it was discovered, his wife left him and he resigned his church. He’s under the wing of a caring congregation now, and they have every intention of reaffirming his call to ministry and even helping establish him in a new congregation. Yet, during this year-long hiatus, he’s working as a construction laborer. This work with his hands is not so much penance as therapy. It allows him to make a new start after his mistake, to order and discipline his life that ministry might resume.

“Discretion is the better part of valor,” or so goes the saying. Some battle lines should never be drawn, some battles never fought. Sometimes emptying your files and leaving graciously is the best course of action following a mistake. But not always.

Reasons to Remain

Mistakes don’t always signal the end of a ministry. If every pastor who made a mistake were finished, we should all buy stock in Allied Van Lines. Staff directories would be on chalkboards, because everyone would be moving.

Thankfully, not every mistake is fatal. The reasons for staying — even after a major mistake — often overwhelm those for leaving. Every day, pastors are retaining their positions in order to live through and grow beyond their mistakes. So what signals the time to remain rather than relocate?

The people want you to stay. This first reason may appear obvious, but to those in the throes of error, it is not always so. Within one’s heart, it’s easy to say, I’m finished. Nobody will take me after this.

At the same time, a loving congregation might be thinking, We’re sorry Bob’s blown it, but he’s still our pastor. We can forgive him. Let’s get beyond this mistake and back to ministry.

A congregation rallying behind their pastor is so different from the one preparing to ride him out of town. Yet at just the moment when a pastor’s conscience or pride is wounded, reading the intentions of the congregation is often difficult. A sense of failure may distort perceptions of the minds and actions of parishioners. The group ready to forgive is imagined to be ready to mutiny. Jumping ship appears the only course of action, when a willing crew would rather ride out the storm with their captain.

“Never underestimate the power of a congregation to forgive,” advises one pastor. “Yes, congregations can be stiff opponents, but so many really want to support their pastors, even when they obviously err. I think a pastor can live down just about any mistake — if the congregation is with him.”

The immediate and “honorable” pastoral resignation will sometimes be refused. “Tom, we love you too much to let you go,” said one congregation when their pastor tendered his resignation following a botched building program. “We won’t accept your resignation. We want you to stay here, and we’ll lick this thing together.”

Resignation is a final step. Prior to that resignation, hopefully the pastor has taken time to discern the signs of congregational support. Some questions to consider:

— Am I able to separate my feelings about myself from what I perceive the congregation feels? Am I hearing what they are saying or what I expect them to say?

— How many of the notes, calls, and comments are sympathetic? How many are hostile?

— Has anybody asked me to stay? Are there any indications of congregational warmth and support?

— What do the opinion setters — the “tribal chiefs” in the congregation — think about my staying? Do I have them on my side?

— Does this congregation have a history of nursing the wounded or shooting them?

— Do people view my staying as helping or hindering the mission of this congregation?

One pastor said, “My most important ministry has been making up for my early mistakes in the pastorate and not moving elsewhere.” Ministry can continue, perhaps even flourish, under the care of a wounded healer.

Jerry Hayner remarks, “The ministers I’ve seen who were willing to be human beings with feet of clay, who shared their pain and their mistakes to help their congregations avoid those same problems, have stayed on. Their churches have not accepted their resignations, and they’ve continued on to have successful pastorates.”

This much is certain: one cannot remain effective without the support of the leadership and congregation. With it, however, staying is often the best choice.

You want to weather the storm and later leave confidently. Quick flight may actually work damage. It confirms people’s worst suspicions and the pastor’s sense of failure. If the ship appears sound, staying to ride out the gale can be a positive move, even if the eventual intention is to seek another call when the seas die down.

A pastor tells of a man who stayed to live down his mistake: “When I was in college, rumors began fluttering around that this pretty little woman in the church had the pastor in her bedroom. I found it hard to believe — not this man! And that’s the way a lot of people felt, but there was evidence that seemed to indicate at least the strong possibility that it happened.

“It was never really proven, but the rumor was so strong the truth mattered little. People were going to believe what they wanted to believe. A lot of preachers would have shoved off, but he didn’t. He maintained his innocence with the deacons, with small groups, and with individuals. He never took it into the pulpit. He never said, ‘There are liars in this community!’ or that sort of thing. Instead, he just preached the best he’d ever preached. The church actually prospered. He stayed and won his battle. There are times when you can.

“Later he resigned with dignity and went on to a big-city pastorate for several years. He finished up his ministry not far from the first church. He’s retired now, revered in his own church and beloved in the whole area. He outlived the stigma. He didn’t leave the area until he did.”

Why did it work for this pastor when others have been sent packing? He had a mostly loving church he had pastored effectively for a number of years. And things went well, even as the rumors circulated. Had the church taken a nose-dive, the pastor would likely not have survived.

Was he guilty? “He never admitted it,” recalls his friend. “In fact, he told me one time that he didn’t do it. He said, ‘I was indiscreet, yes; but sexually involved, no.’ But I don’t know.” It’s a complicated case. Should he have stayed? The jury is out. He did stay, however, and both the church and his ministry appear stronger for the decision.

Remaining brings the possibility of better results. Leaving can often appear easier. You’re gone. You can put the mistake behind you and start over. Maybe word of it won’t follow into your new situation. Cutting and running looks good when the debris of a mistake comes crashing down. But the immediate temptation to flee needs to be resisted. Leaving can set back the ministry of a church and place your future in jeopardy.

One veteran pastor says, “Just because we have pain in the Christian life doesn’t mean we are outside the will of God. You look through Christian History — Jesus, Paul, Peter, Martin Luther, and the rest — and if people had decided there can’t be pain in the will of God, where would we be?”

A pastor friend of mine went to a small church that had been withering under a leader coasting toward retirement. This new pastor brought creative ideas and energy into this, his second charge. He had plans for effective evangelism, revitalizing the Sunday school, and building a new building. For a while, it looked like he just might make it happen. Then, after eighteen months, I got a phone call from him.

“I’m resigning,” he said, and the flatness of his voice told me the rest. A small group of the old-timers, people actually on the fringe of the newly vital church, had engineered a midnight massacre. They started rumors of discontent, blew the situation out of proportion, and cast such fear of a church battle into their pastor’s mind that he capitulated without a defense. He handed in a letter of resignation and slipped out of the role of pastor onto the rolls of general assistance. I sometimes saw him as he picked up groceries for his family from the community food pantry, and a couple of years later, this injured man was gardening and teaching sporadically to make ends meet.

It was a classic example of a church where the wrong side prevailed. After my friend left, the church struggled merely to remain viable; yet before the blowup and resignation, it looked like they would go somewhere. Now their life together is covered with a cloud of despair. They don’t feel good about what they did to their pastor, and the community remembers them as “the church that sacked their preacher.” Nobody won. Even the disgruntled faction faded back into disinterest.

I often wonder what would have happened had my friend fought the opposition. Surely he was not perfect. He had made his share of mistakes. But the magnitude of the mistakes hardly warranted his firing. As it turned out, a majority of the church liked his leadership. As messy as a church battle might have become, as painful as it might have been for my friend and his family, I expect he would have emerged the victor, and, more importantly, the church might have continued to reach out. His hasty exit — overnight, in fact — impoverished his family, crippled the church, and allowed the wrong side to claim victory.

Sometimes after an initial setback, you size up your forces and stay for the battle. Principle overrides the avoidance of pain.

Personal Factors

Whether a pastor ultimately resigns or stays, personal and family needs must be factored into the decision.

Some personality types are better equipped for heroic stands. Such pastors thrive on challenge; in difficulty, they produce beyond themselves. Other pastors wither under criticism and conflict; they flourish in a tranquil situation others consider dull. One’s strengths and capabilities help determine the decision to fight or to flee.

In a survey reported by Terry Muck in When to Take a Risk, more pastors who stayed after a tough decision reported that it taxed their health than pastors who were actually fired. In their estimation, those who stayed endured more personal pain.

Gordon Weekley resigned his church in Charlotte when he finally realized the extent of his drug addiction. He had a chemical enemy to fight, and that gave him nothing left to pastor a church — at least for a while. As much as the church loved him, they accepted that resignation. Gordon was bankrupt, his pastoral resources spent. For his sake, and for the welfare of the church, he needed to resign.

Perhaps my friend mentioned above who capitulated to the minority knew himself better than anyone else. Perhaps he knew that no matter what the odds, he could not have survived the fracas. If so, his resignation was wise. Broken, he would have been of little use to anyone.

On the other hand, Alan Taylor stuck out a rough period at Broadmoor Presbyterian. At one point he was convinced he had blundered badly by removing himself from a comfortable pastorate and immersing himself in a misunderstanding. But he wisely realized some things work out over time. He has spent several years now at Broadmoor, and he grows more satisfied with the position daily. He didn’t leave; he paid the price — one he figured he could bear — and he survived.

The cost to family is also a consideration for pastors. No pastor wants to put his family through unnecessary unpleasantness. In Terry Muck’s survey, pastors who had been fired considered the cost to their children slightly higher than if they had stayed and taken the heat, although both options occasioned considerable unhappiness. Since the same fired pastors counted their personal pain less than had they stayed, it appears the easier route for the pastor may actually be the more painful for the family.

Stories of pastors’ children sitting through congregational meetings as their fathers are skewered make any parent shudder. Pastors want to avoid such ugly confrontations for their families. Yet, it’s no church picnic for a child to be uprooted under unhappy circumstances, leave friends, and deal with a parent’s defeat. Both leaving and staying can expose spouse and children to unpleasant circumstances.

To help make an informed decision about the effects of fighting or fleeing, pastors sort through questions like these:

— If I stay and work through my mistake, is this the kind of congregation that can get ugly? Are my spouse and children apt to be subjected to vicious parishioners? Or is this a forgiving, caring congregation intent on helping us all through a difficult time?

— How will my decision affect the security of my family? Do we have a place to go? Will I be able to find suitable employment?

— If we stay, will the community be as accepting as the congregation? In town, what will my wife be forced to bear? Or my children at school?

— If we go, will my family take with them a sense of defeat? How will our decision affect our children’s sense of selfworth, their attitude toward the church and the faith, and their esteem of their pastor/parent?

— How much of the decision should we share with our children? What are they old enough to understand and bear? When do we share the whole story with them?

— Do we have family consensus on what is right? Can we support each other to take the proper course of action, despite the consequences?

In the end, each family must make an intensely personal decision. The dynamics are different in each set of circumstances. What remains is the priority of the family bond. As one pastor put it, “Sometimes pastors have to decide to save their own families, even at the expense of the church. They have to say in essence, ‘Church, this is your problem. I’ve got to live with this family, and if I lose them, I don’t have another.'”