Fear nothing but sin.
George Herbert1
What is it about the human psyche that makes risk taking so difficult?
Much of the scientific research on the subject has been done in decidedly nonecclesiastical settings — gambling casinos. Psychologists Gideon Keren and Willem Wagenaar, for example, observed more than eleven thousand hands of blackjack played by 112 gamblers in an Amsterdam casino, attempting to analyze how the players made their judgments. They found most players were reluctant to take large risks, and attributed the generally conservative play to three factors:
— Minimizing regret. Busting (taking one card too many and going over the game’s limit of twenty-one points) was avoided. Better to let the dealer win than to be the cause of your own loss.
— Delaying bad news. Because the dealer plays last, players would rather lose at the last possible instant rather than force their own loss by acting too soon.
— Attentional bias. Players tended to work harder to avoid losing than to figure the best way of winning.2
Each of these reasons holds obvious implications for leaders. Leaders, like gamblers, tend to delay the decisive action needed in a risk-taking situation.
Leaders in the local church often add one more factor to this list — the reluctance to face personal confrontation. When we asked our survey respondents to list the biggest hurdles they have in making difficult decisions, they often expressed this fear:
— “I have a strong aversion to confrontation.”
— “It’s the nagging, building anxiety I hate the most.”
— “I’m afraid of the challenges to my authority such a decision seems to inevitably bring.”
— “I just dread the people hassle.”
Thus, in spite of its importance, most local church leaders find making risky decisions difficult, because it often means clashing with a church member. Even when pastors gather enough courage to make the confrontation, and even when it is successful, many have trouble taking any satisfaction in it because of the temporary conflict it creates. Tom Monitor, pastor of the Meadowland (Virginia) Baptist Church, remembers such a confrontation:3
“When I came here, two families controlled the church. One man had been first elder for twelve years, and a husband and wife team had been the Sunday school superintendent and treasurer, respectively, for eleven years. The control was so tight that when I went to the treasurer and said, ‘I’d like to know our financial standing and policies,’ she said, ‘I’ve been around the church a lot longer than you have, and I’m going to give you a little advice: You take care of the preaching, and I’ll take care of the finances.’
“That early conversation set the stage for our relationship. From then on I was ‘that arrogant seminary student who thinks he can run the church.’
“I learned the Sunday school superintendent/treasurer couple played a little game every year. When the nominating committee would ask them to continue serving, they would say, ‘No, we’d better resign’ … but it was well understood they didn’t mean it and just wanted to be begged to serve again. In the past, the pastor had dutifully done so and returned them to office.
“So my first spring in the church, when they said, ‘We’re not going to run for our positions this year,’ I said, ‘OK, we’ll find somebody else.’
“Then I went to the congregation and said, ‘Ralph and Martha have decided not to run again for their positions. Let’s thank them for their many years of service, and let’s begin as a congregation to pray about who God wants to serve in these positions.’
“What had been a cold war with this couple suddenly became hot. Several meetings with them, the first elder, and two other elders ensued, the stated agenda was to find out what the problem was between them and me — why I was not willing to work with them. But we all knew what was really happening.
“For one of those meetings, the superintendent’s wife sent a list of grievances with her husband. The first one was that I did not give a monthly report of my activities at the board meetings as called for by the constitution. The first elder said, ‘Well, I can tell you why he doesn’t do that. I’ve never told him about it.’
“The next grievance was that I spent money that wasn’t approved by the board, the third that I wasn’t willing to work with the people who had always been in charge of the church. I explained that a minister must have the authority to spend certain monies without calling a board meeting and showed how the accusations lacked any substance.
“After reading the first three, and listening to my responses, the superintendent folded his paper and put it back in his pocket. Sometimes the ideas you come up with in the privacy of your own home fall flat when exposed to outside air. At least, that’s what the superintendent seemed to feel, and the meeting ended shortly after that.
“But the couple soon took up the battle on another field. They sent a letter to all the denominational officials they could think of: general superintendent, district superintendent, former district superintendent, first elder of this church, third elder of this church. The letter said, ‘We are charter members of this church, and we have always been able to work with other pastors. But we have been unable to work with Reverend Monitor. Therefore, we are resigning our memberships.’
“The responses I got back were almost all supportive. My general superintendent called to say, ‘Tom, I just wanted you to know that I often get letters like this, and I threw this one in the trash can. Then I prayed that God would make you strong in a negative situation.'”
The strangling power structure of Tom Monitor’s church was finally broken. The church has prospered since then, largely because he had the courage to confront the manipulative couple. Without confronting the situation early in his tenure, he may have faced a far worse situation down the road. With the risky confrontation, however, he went through short-term pain and discomfort. But he created a better ministry for the majority of church members.
Why don’t more pastors face the need for such risk taking? There are many reasons.
Personal Insecurity and Other Hang-ups
Tom Monitor, despite his success, cites one factor that causes pastors to resist decisive but risky confrontation: “I’m still not comfortable about that situation. Even this morning I noticed the former Sunday school superintendent’s car parked at the home of another fellow who recently quit coming to our church. That brought back all kinds of fears.”
Afraid of another power struggle?
“Oh no. There’s no power base in the church for them to work from now. Most people are genuinely pleased the way things turned out.”
Then why is it still such a sore spot? Personal rejection? Fear of criticism?
“I think it’s personal insecurity. I’m a pastor because I love people — and I guess I want to be loved in return. After Ralph and Martha resigned, I looked for a letter to the editor in our local newspaper. Seriously! Our situation has worked out beautifully; I did what had to be done for the health of this church. But I hope I never have to go through that again.”
Youth and Inexperience
Reluctance also arises from lack of experience. Like most leadership skills, risk taking is learned on the job. Some experience lessens the fear. One pastor used the following analogy:
“When an airliner goes down and two hundred people are killed, statistics show that the number of people flying immediately falls off and stays off for three or four weeks, until the shock lessens and traffic gradually builds back up. The ones who cancel trips are the occasional flyers who probably don’t know, or believe, the statistics on how safe flying is. Business people who fly all the time don’t miss a trip.
“In many ways, a young pastor is like the infrequent flyer. He comes into a church with an underdeveloped ability to measure the risk of certain decisions.”
Pastor Monitor put it this way: “This is my first church. For five years prior to coming here I was associate pastor and youth director of another church. In that position I was not accustomed to risks. I was sheltered by my senior pastor, at least from the emotional intensity. He ran interference for me more than once. I was not anxious for confrontation nor ready for the challenge I was about to face.”
The veteran pastor, on the other hand, has learned that risky decisions are a natural part of ministry. The old hand realizes, Although it may be unpleasant at times, on the whole the ministry is a safe place, and I’m going to survive the rough spots.
The Unique Role of Pastor
The role of pastor is a delicate one, which also makes risk taking precarious.
Consider the difference between scientists and leaders. The scientist can study, perform experiments, and tell us whether a trip to the moon is possible. The leader, however, must say whether we ought to risk the human lives and invest the necessary funds. The scientist can provide the statistical probabilities, but someone else decides whether it should be done.
For the local church pastor, the roles of scientist and leader are rolled into one. As “scientist,” the pastor researches and quantifies the risk. As “leader,” the pastor decides whether the risk is consistent with the goals of the church. At times even a high probability of success is not enough to tip the scales in favor of making a certain decision. Perhaps the expense in terms of spiritual integrity or church morale is too great.
Colorado pastor Alan Ahlgrim uses an analogy to describe the multifaceted role pastors play: “A pastor wears many hats. One is the hat of the theologian. When I wear this hat, I make decisions based upon correct theology. A second is a shepherd’s hat. My concern is the lost sheep, and I make decisions based on their welfare, indifferent to the rest. A third hat is for the administrator, when I must disregard the lost sheep and cater to the ninety and nine.
“I find the multiple-hat problem most acute in relating to staff and the core people of my congregation. How are they to know when I’m wearing the hat of friend and when I’m wearing the hat of administrator or theologian? I’ve found they can’t. Some meetings I change hats so quickly that I come across as arbitrary or inconsistent. In my own mind I’m following perfect logic. To them I’m a scatterbrain, or worse.
“One of the most unfortunate problems this created was with a church secretary, one of the sweetest people I have ever known. She had the gifts of hospitality and mercy par excellence. She protected me from interruption during my study hours. She screened telephone calls. She even kept an eye on my health.
“Unfortunately, Brenda was not an efficient secretary for a large church. She became rattled easily. She confused phone messages and made frequent typing errors. She even listed people in the bulletin as having birthdays and anniversaries when in fact they had died a year ago. I knew something had to be done. After she made a series of serious errors with my correspondence, I finally said, ‘This just isn’t working out.’ She said, ‘Do you want me to resign?’ I didn’t answer her directly because as a gentle friend I wanted to let her have time to make the decision.
“I knew if she went home and finally decided to resign it would be devastating to her. So I called her husband, who was also my friend, and said, ‘I think you should be aware of what happened this afternoon, because Brenda will need a lot of support.’
“He said, ‘What you’re telling me is you want her to resign.’
“I said yes, and as soon as I said it, I realized our friendship was over. Both of them were extraordinarily angry.
“Looking back, I should have told her I was firing her instead of trying to finesse her resignation. I thought I was taking a pastoral, humane approach. But I didn’t realize that when one is wearing the administrative hat, the hat of pastor simply can’t be seen. Unless you know the difference, a few bad experiences like this can paralyze you with indecision.”
Shooting at a Moving Target
The decision whether to take a risk often depends on the importance of the issue. One pastor called this the “Choose Wisely the Cross You’re Going to Die Upon” Decision.
One pastor made such a decision:
“From what I understand, one man in our congregation was ready to leave the church anyway. But when I came, I gave him the reason to do so.
“He had the belief that you should not eat in the church building. He felt it was a theological issue, based on 1 Corinthians 11, where Paul deals with abuses of Communion and the love feast. Since these good practices had apparently degenerated into drunkenness and gluttony, Paul suggests people should eat before they come to church so they don’t defile God’s house.
“I didn’t think this should be taken as an across-the-board prohibition against eating at church. But this man felt strongly about it, and before I came he had somehow convinced the board they should prohibit eating in the church. Talking to others on the board, I discovered no one else felt strongly about it either way, so I decided to set my brother straight.
“I blithely assumed it would be a simple thing to go over to his house, explain the biblical principle, and correct his faulty interpretation. Once he understood how he had misconstrued the passage, the whole thing would work out.
“So I did, but it didn’t. He got upset and left the church, and bad feelings always accompany that. Looking back, I should have kept my mouth shut for at least two years. Even then, I’m not sure I would have fought about this issue.”
Complicating decisions like this is the fact that many issues change in importance from decade to decade. Thus, some reluctance to take risks comes from being uncertain whether this one is currently worth it. However, many issues in localchurch ministry have always been with us. People don’t change, and many of the confrontations pastors face are simply people problems.
Similar patterns punctuate the history of the church. Some of the problems facing the New Testament church (the question of circumcision, for example) are generally moot points for the modern church. There’s no more risk in them. But overall risk has not lessened; only the specific risks have changed.
For example, an accelerated growth rate has made change itself a problem for the modern church leader. The successful church leader is one who can quickly discern changes and adjust leadership style accordingly: “We need to teach survival skills to cope with risk, uncertainty, and stress which will be difficult for us to manage as individuals and as society.… Education of this sort must be perceived as a lifelong process.”4
Ever-changing conditions demand courageous, resourceful leaders. Gone are the days of a monolithic approach to decision making that fails to recognize that different procedures for decision making apply in different situations. Coping means flexibility where possible. Lynne Dixon, pastor of the Saratoga (Indiana) Church of God, used one approach in this case:
“I usually ask myself, ‘Is this decision good for the church’s organization and efficiency, or is it good for the church’s maturity and the growth of the body of Christ? If it’s mainly for efficiency, I tend to choose for the individual — we can be very inefficient at times.
“Our piano player is an example. She was an excellent musician at one time, but developed arthritis in her hands and also began losing her sense of timing. When it was time for the offertory, she would start playing when the plates were coming back in. But she did the best she could.
“Some people didn’t like it, but they couldn’t play the piano at all. This woman could, and she was willing to play even though it hurt a great deal. It might have been more efficient to look for another piano player, but there were none in our congregation, and it would have cost money to hire one from outside. I decided to stick with what we had. Maybe we didn’t sound as good as other churches, but I didn’t think that was quite as important.”
To what lengths would she go to retain this pianist’s right to minister at the expense of the “efficiency” of morning worship?
“If another pianist were available and willing, I think we’d change. If she still said, ‘This is my ministry, and I won’t give it up,’ then I think I’d work at it, maybe by saying, ‘Well, we need to develop some young pianists. Would you help me do that?’ But for now, she’s the best we have and doing the best she can.”
Has this pastor ever had to decide for the group against the individual?
“Yes, when we purchased the vacant lot next to the church, several people in the church didn’t think we ought to buy it. The majority did, though, so we went ahead with the purchase.
“I encouraged those who disagreed to come to all our meetings and voice their objections but to abide by the majority’s wishes. After the eventual vote, they were upset, but no one left the church over it.
“In that case, it didn’t seem to me the growth and maturity of some individuals were at stake as much as it was just a difference of opinion over a business deal. The will of the majority was the deciding factor in that case. In a sense we went with the efficiency of the organization.”
Clearly, the decision about when to take a risk is a complicated one. Many initial, innate fears tangle the decision. One way to overcome the uncertainty and conflicting value scales is to collect as much information as possible about the conditions of each case. Four questions cry for answers:
— What kind of risk is it?
— How important is it?
— What are the circumstances?
— What can I handle?
The first question is overlooked most often. Treating all decisions as the same type is to court disaster. To stress the importance of this distinction, the next six chapters provide guidelines for distinguishing different kinds of decisions. The last three questions are dealt with in chapters 10, 11, and 12.
Once these four questions are properly answered, it’s easier to assess the riskiness of the situation and decide whether it is time to boldly step forth or wisely mark time.
George Herbert, “Jacula Prudentum,” Works (London: Oxford University Press, 1941).
Robert J. Trotter, “Blackjack Behavior: When Rational Minds Go Bust,” Psychology Today (October 1985): 14. See also Gideon Keren and Willem Wagenaar, “On the Psychology of Playing Blackjack,” Journal of Experimental Psychology (June 1985): 133-157.
Names and some identifying details have been changed in this story.
Elsie Johnson, “Anticipatory Leadership,” Catalyst for Change (Spring 1981): 27.
Copyright ©1987 by Christianity Today
