When You're Not Taken Seriously - Christianity Today

If people don’t take the preacher seriously, they are not likely to take the message seriously.
— Steve Brown

One of my pastor friends and his wife attended his wife’s twentieth high school reunion. His wife later reported to him that as she was talking to an old friend, catching up on their lives, she mentioned she had married a pastor.

As soon as the words were out, a look of pain crossed her friend’s face.

“I’m so sorry,” her friend said, her voice softening to a whisper. “I’m sorry because sex is sooo wonderful.”

Perceptions like this make me angry. People tend to see pastors as nice people who say nice things to nice people. We certainly don’t know anything about the real world! We’ve become irrelevant in many people’s eyes.

And whatever form it takes, I take it personally. Nothing ruffles my feathers more than being dismissed or patronized. I’d rather preach to an audience that’s angry at me than one that thinks all I do is carry a black umbrella and attend women’s teas.

I’ve had to come to terms with this fact about our culture, including much of the church culture: often we pastors aren’t taken seriously. That’s a problem not because of who I am, but because of who I represent. If people don’t take me, the preacher, seriously, they are not likely to take my message seriously.

So I’ve done more than come to terms with this fact; I’ve also learned how to fight it.

Reasons for Disrespect

We should begin by noticing a few of the reasons we’re not taken seriously. Some reasons, of course, have deep social or spiritual roots. These we can’t do anything about.

For instance, I’m convinced many dismiss us because of a supernatural struggle in their lives. After I had written my first book, I was interviewed by a radio station in Boston. With five minutes left in the interview, I realized I had talked about myself the entire time. So I immediately switched to the subject of Christ and attempted to communicate the essence of the gospel during the remaining moments.

Afterwards, several of the cameracrew and the taping director surrounded me and began firing questions at me about the Christian faith. I answered their questions until everyone except the director was gone.

I suddenly remembered I had an appointment. “Look, let me give you my card,” I said to him. “I’ll write the name of a couple of books on the back of it. Call me after you read these books. Then we’ll sit down and talk again.”

“Thanks, Reverend,” he said.

As I walked out of the studio, pushing open its swinging doors, the director called out, “Hey, Reverend!” I turned around. “I don’t think I’m going to read these books,” he said.

“Why not? You’re asking questions,” I replied.

“Yeah, you’re right. But I don’t want to read them. Because if I read them, I may find out you’re right. And if you’re right, I’ve got to change. But I don’t want to change.”

Rarely are people as honest as this director or even self-aware enough to know why they dismiss our preaching. But at least he respected the messenger. A lot of people dismiss us preachers because if they took us seriously they would have to take our message seriously. We have no control over whether they are ready to do that.

Still, there are many issues over which I do have some control, and the reason I’m not getting respect is because I’m not acting as if I deserve it. Here are two.

1. We take ourselves too seriously. A pastor friend in California tells the story of the time he was playing golf with several men, one of whom was a pastor. On the ninth hole, this pastor sliced the ball into the rough and exclaimed, “Damn!”

My friend can’t resist the opportunity to needle, so he said sarcastically, “Pastor Greg, I can’t believe a pastor would say something like that!”

The pastor was taken aback, and he stammered, “I’m so sorry. That was so unlike me.”

“Hold on. I was just kidding you,” my friend replied. But it was too late. This pastor was unnerved for the rest of the afternoon.

We’re sometimes so concerned about being a model of Christian behavior, we become stiff and unnatural, especially when we blow it. People won’t respect us if we take ourselves too seriously.

2. We don’t take our callings seriously enough. We pastors often take the path of least resistance. We do this in the name of pastoral sensitivity, but we end up perpetuating the myth that we’re wimpy, dreary lightweights when it comes to running a church.

One church I know of was having trouble keeping pastors. It seems that earlier in its history, the senior pastor had enjoyed a long tenure, but when he retired, he kept his hand in the church’s affairs. Since his “retirement,” he had personally appointed many of the elders, and he had managed to run off three successors.

One of the elders noticed the pattern and, with the support of a contingent in the church, came to talk with me about becoming the church’s pastor. After he described the retired pastor’s pattern of interference, he said, “But I think we’ve finally got a majority on the board, and I think we can take him on.”

“You’re not looking for a pastor,” I replied, “You’re looking for a drill sergeant, someone mean.”

“I wouldn’t exactly say that,” he mumbled.

“That’s exactly what you’re looking for. Someone who’s strong enough to stand up to this man.”

“Well, maybe. And we figured you’re one of only two pastors we know of who could do it.”

That’s a sad commentary: when this man thinks of pastors, he doesn’t see many strong ones.

Setting the Right Tone

I’m hardly a drill sergeant, of course. I couldn’t have stayed pastor at Key Biscayne as long as I did if that were true. People need and deserve a caring pastor, and I believe they got one in me.

But people also need and deserve a leader. And that means at times you’ve got to be willing to “play mean,” whether it’s your personality or not.

Before we can expect people to take us seriously as preachers, then, they must take us seriously as pastors. Here are three ways I try to ensure that.

• Stand up, stand up for Jesus. Paul writes that he doesn’t mind being a fool for Christ if that’s what it takes to live and preach as a Christian. I’m sorry to say I’m not as courageous as Paul. But I’m convinced that the more we are willing to take public, and sometimes humbling, stands for Christ, the more our people respect what we say in the pulpit.

After graduate school at Boston University, I pastored a church in the Boston area. My own spiritual journey was slowly inching me away from the intellectual agnosticism of old liberalism to a more orthodox, Christ-centered faith. One of the men who mentored me during those days was an elderly pastor with muscular dystrophy, a short, inarticulate man who walked on crutches. He pastored a sister church close to mine, and he knew God deeply and taught me how to pray.

The local presbytery, of which we were a part, was planning to launch an inner-city ministry. Both he and I were in attendance the day the presbytery discussed the reasons for going ahead with the project. At one point in the meeting, my mentor stood up and shuffled to the front of the group.

“This inner-city ministry is a good idea,” he said, “because we need people saved.”

The presbytery broke out in laughter, guffawing at what seemed to most of our colleagues a presumptuous, unenlightened statement. I was one of the few who didn’t snicker, but neither did I stand up for my friend. That night, I knelt down and prayed, “God, if they ever laugh at a brother or sister again, they’ll laugh at two of us.” I’ve kept that promise ever since.

I mentioned that story on one of my taped sermons, and I once received a letter from a man who was convicted about his own lack of courage. He wrote that he was riding on a commuter train in New York when a passenger stood up and started asking the people around him, in a loud, obnoxious voice, whether or not they were saved. Then he began handing out tracts.

“I started to slink down in my seat,” he wrote, “ashamed of this bothersome stranger who was pushing the gospel on the other passengers. But then I remembered the story you told about not standing up for the truth. So I stood up, put my arm around him, and said to the others in the train car, ‘I want you all to know that this is my brother, and I agree with everything he is saying.'”

These courageous stands don’t necessarily have to be taken in view of your congregation. Don’t worry. The word will get around that you stand up for what you believe. And that will mean another word will get around: that you’re a pastor who has some credibility.

• Tell people you’re human. Some of our people have no idea what goes on in a pastor’s life. That means sometimes we need simply to challenge their stereotypes.

One of my associates was counseling a woman who had just admitted to an affair. She was attempting to explain why she decided to sleep with a married man when she finally blurted out, “You don’t understand. You’re a pastor.”

Her comment so annoyed my associate, he just about jumped over his desk. “I’m not letting you get away with that,” he said. “I face the same temptations you do. You can’t get off the hook that easily.”

He may have been a little too blunt, but that woman got the point.

An old pastor friend once told me, “Don’t tell people you’re a pastor, but if they find out, don’t let them be surprised.” I agree with that to a degree. But I don’t mind when people are surprised, especially when I seem so, you know, normal! I want my people to consider me streetsmart, someone who understands the world in which they work and live.

When someone says, “Reverend, some day I’m going to take you out and show you the real world,” I’ve been known to say, “I see more of the real world in one week than you’ll see in a lifetime.” I refuse to let people live in their misconceptions.

• Don’t always be nice. I had been invited to speak at a retreat outside Atlanta. During one of the sessions, I illustrated a point by talking about my growing up with an alcoholic father. Afterwards, one of the participants tapped me on the shoulder, interrupted a conversation I was in, and said, “Steve, your father didn’t love you.”

“Ma’am?” I said, turning.

“Your father didn’t love you,” she repeated. “My husband loves our children by not drinking and by spending time with them.”

I felt as if I had been slapped in the face. I blushed with anger and blurted out, “Ma’am, I wouldn’t trade ten of your sober husbands for my drunk daddy!”

Most times I would have ended the conversation politely and stewed about her comment for days. I could have been more tactful. But tact isn’t everything, even in the pastorate, especially if we want people to respect us.

• Know when to say when. In one of the churches I served, a man had given $5,000 towards the building program. He must have assumed his gift gave him the right to badger the building committee and me, for he was overbearing and negative, and he complained incessantly.

One Sunday morning, while the elders and I were gathered to pray before the service, he strode into the office and began his litany of complaints about the building project.

“Hold on a minute,” I said. “You’ve already used up your $5,000. That’s all $5,000 gets you. If you want me to listen to your complaining, you need to give more money. But that’s all I’ll take for now.”

He was furious, naturally. And he soon left the church.

As pastors, more times than not, we need to practice patience and loving kindness with our people. But there comes a time in each pastor’s ministry when he or she should no longer be patient, when patience would be a disservice to the church and to the gospel. It takes wisdom and experience to know when you can get away with such brash behavior. But it doesn’t take many instances for people to get the idea that you are someone they have to reckon with.

Take the Long View

In some situations, people simply take pastors for granted. In other situations, they simply don’t respect us. If that’s the case, it’s usually a long-term problem that needs a long-term strategy.

One church I know of had a history of running off pastors. They called one of my friends to the pastorate, and I just about died when he told me. I told him what I knew about the church: that a cantankerous majority kept the reins tight and whenever a pastor tried to challenge them, they knew how to make his life uncomfortable. I said to him, “Listen: you have to be strong when you pastor there.”

About a year later, he called me and said, “You’ve got to help me find another church. I can’t stand this anymore.”

I agreed to start looking, but nothing was immediately open. In the meantime, my friend decided to take a fresh approach. He began to build a constituency in the church, to get control of the nominating committee. Gradually he put more elders of his persuasion on the board. When we talked once about this, I told him, “If you ever get a majority vote, you better run with it — and don’t take any prisoners!”

I heard one sermon tape of his in which that happened. In it he said, “I had a sermon prepared this morning, but in my devotions, I was reading a passage about Moses confronting his elders. I think I’ve got to say some things to you. Now, I don’t know whether I’m Moses and these other folks I’m about to mention are the elders, or whether they’re Moses and I’m the elders, but we can’t live with this anymore. We’ve got to get it straightened out.” He went on to name people he felt were the source of the trouble.

In a few weeks, a congregational meeting was called to ask for his dismissal. But he won the vote, and he ended up staying there another seven or eight years. When he left, he left a healthy church, one with a healthy respect for its pastor.

Some people say, “Don’t get mad, get even.” I don’t think that’s Christian, but to pastors, I might say, “When people don’t respect you, don’t get mad, get chips.” Earn the right to be strong with them by paying your pastoral dues: visit the hospital; bury the dead; perform baptisms and marriages. And along the way, slowly build a base that will allow you to preach as you need to.

Intellectual Credibility

Many people think pastors are intellectual lightweights. They don’t realize the amount of study it takes to preach week after week, and they haven’t a clue as to how much academic rigor we go through in seminary. I’ve done a couple of things to counter those types of misperceptions.

The first is an evangelistic outreach more than anything, but it had the added benefit of showing people that I was to be taken seriously at an intellectual level.

In one church, I offered what I called a “Skeptics’ Forum.” We printed invitations and encouraged all members to invite their atheist and agnostic friends to attend. I promised to be the only Christian there, so as not to intimidate the visitors.

The first Monday night, I let the visitors set the agenda. They told me what they wanted to talk about, what questions they had. I wrote them on a legal pad and then used that information to plan the coming weeks. Each meeting I’d take a few minutes to express the Christian view of pain or the Devil or belief in God. And then we’d have a give-and-take session for a couple of hours.

A large number of these people became Christians, and those who didn’t no longer laughed at the Christian faith, nor the messenger of it.

I also teach students to use words from time to time that few in the congregation will know, to quote writers few people have read, to make a reference to things esoteric — for no other reason than to remind them that, in fact, you study a great deal to pull together sermons week after week.

Naturally, this can be overdone and usually is by young ministers, to the detriment of the clarity of their sermons. Still, when done in measure, it makes the point without getting in the way of the message. To put it crassly: they’ll think you’re smart, and so they’ll better listen to what you say.

Preaching for Respect

There’s a story about an ambassador, a short, frail man, who talked quietly whenever he was with important people. One day, somebody asked him why he always softened his voice.

“When a big man shouts, people take him seriously,” he said. “But when a little man shouts, he just looks silly. So I talk quietly.”

There are many ways we can effectively use the pulpit to enhance our credibility. This ambassador understood a key one: we shouldn’t violate our personalities; we should use well our natural gifts. Here are a few others.

• Use earthy language. Using profanity in the pulpit would turn me into a little man who shouts. Swearing only violates the integrity of the preacher and further distances him or her from the listener. But I occasionally use language that suggests stronger wording, for instance “spit,” as in, “I don’t give a spit!” I’ve also made statements like “This place has more rooms than a Chinese bordello.”

I used to use “horse feathers” a lot. One of the elders came to me and said, “Steve, I wish you wouldn’t do that. I know what you’re doing. But every time you say “horse feathers,” I think you’re going to say something worse, and I just wince.” So I decided to quit using the phrase.

Still, even though I occasionally offend, I look for colorful expressions that I can say naturally and that will communicate to people that I live in the same world they do.

• No euphemisms. By being straight with people, we also can increase the effect of our words. In stewardship sermons, for example, I might begin by saying, “You know about all the missionaries we support. Look at these staff people who minister day in and day out. You know firsthand the significance of their ministries. You know that people from our church reach out to the homeless and the aids babies. All this is expensive.”

Then I pause and say, “Now let me get honest for a minute. If you don’t support this ministry, I also don’t get paid. So this subject has extreme existential importance to me!”

Though some object to my crass revelation, I know a lot of people are thinking it when I’m giving an appeal for “the ministry of the church.” They know very well that if we don’t make our budget, it affects my salary. So I mention it up front.

• Be contrarian. Making contrarian statements is a third technique to shake people up and to get them to take seriously the gospel. I often tell my students at the seminary where I teach, “If you think you shouldn’t say it, you probably should.”

I may be making an evangelistic appeal to my audience, and I will say, “I don’t give a dink for the millions going to hell.” At that moment, you see, I don’t. I’ll continue, “Right now, I care about you, because I know you, and I want you to respond to Christ.” (I’ll qualify that for some audiences, of course.)

When I’ve encouraged other pastors to speak like this, they frequently say, “Steve, if I said that, my people would crucify me.”

My standard reply is, “No, they wouldn’t. God’s people are wonderful — at least 90 percent of them. If we constantly play to the 10 percent who get mad at us (and will be mad at us for eternity), we’ll never communicate effectively to the other 90 percent.”

One of the best compliments I’ve received was, “Steve, you really force people to listen. They cannot not listen.” That’s my goal in taking risks: gaining a hearing for the gospel of Christ.

Serious Respect

One year recently was particularly tough on me. I was cleaning up after Hurricane Andrew, and my mother had just died, when my wife, Anna, discovered a lump in her breast. I thought, Lord, no! I don’t think I can take any more. I’m not Job; I can’t deal with Anna having cancer.

We were still in North Carolina at the time, wrapping up the loose ends of my mother’s estate. Anna immediately called up a friend of ours, whose husband is a doctor. She asked if she could be examined immediately.

A day or so later, the doctor examined her and assured her that everything was fine.

“I’m going to remove the lump,” he said, “and then I’ll send it to the pathologist. But I’m sure it’s benign.”

So, right there in his office, he gave her an anesthetic and surgically removed the lump. Immediately following, the doctor closed his office, and we went to lunch with him and his wife.

I can still remember the love I felt that afternoon for that doctor. I deeply respected him for his wisdom and skill, for lovingly applying his gift to me and my wife in a difficult, scary situation.

That’s how I want my listeners to respond to my calling. For when they do, they will start taking seriously the message I bring, the message that can make all the difference in their difficult, scary situations.