In mid-January, the Wall Street Journal published an article about church discipline, choosing for its focus a case in which a 71-year-old woman was expelled from her congregation. The article made almost no use of concepts that are central to church discipline – redemption, unity, and discipleship. Almost immediately, a small niche of the blog world erupted at the overwhelmingly negative portrayal of discipline. A few secular blogs picked up on the article, too, and they used it to bolster cynicism.
Off the Agenda decided to take the opportunity to address and to expand upon the core issue brought up in the article – how leaders and congregants can survive the pitfalls of conflict. In the following article, Ken Sande, president of Peacemaker Ministries and a member of Building Church Leaders’ Ask the Experts panel, explains several steps that leaders can take to avoid destructive conflict. This article first appeared on Peacemaker’s website:
Every year hundreds of churches and ministries are thrown into turmoil when someone criticizes or raises serious questions about the conduct of a pastor or ministry executive. All too many of these situations end in resignation, dishonor, or division – usually because those who are responsible for addressing the allegations commit one of two major errors.
Under-protecting Your Leader
The first error is to under-protect the leader who is accused of wrongdoing. This may involve allowing gossip and rumors to spread unchecked, jumping to conclusions about a leader’s guilt, or failing to give him a meaningful opportunity to defend himself. It may also involve expecting or allowing a leader to spend significant amounts of time responding to trivial or unsubstantiated criticisms voiced by a few perpetually dissatisfied people.
These patterns can lead to a “culture of criticism” that will wear down most leaders. When leaders are subjected to endless criticism, their credibility is needlessly eroded; this can diminish trust, commitment, and enthusiasm throughout their church or ministry. When leaders spend many hours responding to petty complaints, their effectiveness and productivity usually suffers. And if they are eventually forced out of office by continual complaints or because they were not given a fair chance to defend themselves, their supporters will often launch a campaign to punish the remaining leadership team.
Over-protecting Your Leader
The second error that many churches and ministries make is to over-protect their leaders. They develop a blind loyalty that compels them to automatically “circle the wagons” when a leader is accused of wrongdoing. They assume the complaint must be unfounded and immediately look for ways to minimize it or explain it away. They may rely on second-hand information or simply accept the leader’s interpretation of his accuser’s words and motives. And sometimes in an effort to protect the leader, they attempt to silence, discredit, or even penalize the person who brought the accusation.
This excessively protective pattern can create a “culture of denial,” where problems are automatically concealed. If there is even a little truth in a complaint, over-protection prevents a leader from addressing a problem in its early stages, when small changes on his part might easily lay the matter to rest. If a serious complaint is true, circling the wagons can have even worse consequences. It will delay needed changes, aggravate or multiply harm to others, and diminish the credibility of the people who should have been holding the leader accountable in the first place.
Even if accusations against a leader are largely unfounded, over-protection can still cause significant damage. When serious complaints are automatically rejected, or when the investigating team fails to address them in a clearly objective manner, they will often leave a cloud of doubt hanging over both the leader and the ministry itself. These clouds accumulate over time and steadily diminish the leader’s reputation both inside and outside the church or ministry. In addition, if an organization develops a reputation for making superficial investigations, it may lack credibility when subsequent issues must be addressed.
Accountability Within a Culture of Peace
Both of these errors – under-protection and over-protection – can be avoided if churches and ministries replace a culture of criticism or denial with a culture of peace, where people are equipped and encouraged to resolve leadership complaints and other conflicts in a biblical manner. There are several concepts that are especially important when preparing people to deal constructively with leadership complaints:
- Teach people to live out the gospel in all of their relationships. Every Christian leader will stumble and fall at times – just think of Moses, David, Peter, and Paul! Therefore, people should be regularly reminded that their leaders, like everyone else, need the benefits of the gospel on a daily basis. This does not mean that we simply ignore wrongdoing or fail to exercise appropriate discipline. What it means is that we approach every situation in the light of the cross, eagerly looking for ways to bring God’s truth, grace, mercy, and forgiveness to bear in a way that reveals the redeeming love of Christ (Eph. 4:29-32; 2 Cor. 2:7; 1 John 1:8-9).
- Train all of your people, and especially your leaders, how to respond to conflict biblically so that they can put off worldly reactions to conflict, such as accusing, manipulating, and controlling, and work together to resolve their differences in a way that shows the wisdom and power of Christ in their lives (Matt. 5:9).
- Teach people to receive criticism in the light of the cross. As Alfred Poirier points out in his excellent booklet, Words that Cut, a mature believer is aware of his own sin, willing to look for the truth in criticism, and able to respond to attacks in the light of what Jesus has done for us at the cross (see Prov. 15:32; 17:10; 1 Tim. 1:16).
- Teach people to shun gossip and slander, especially against leaders. Scripture warns us that the tongue is like a spark that sets whole forests on fire (James 3:5?6). These sparks could be substantially reduced by regularly teaching people to replace gossip and slander with respectful dialogue carried out in the spirit of Christ (Prov. 16:28; 26:20; Eph. 4:29).
- Repeatedly commend the habit of making “charitable judgments,” which is an inclination to believe the best about others, and look for the best in others, until clear facts prove otherwise (see 1 Cor. 13:7).
- Encourage people to distinguish between style and substance. Many complaints against leaders arise because church members or ministry staff are offended by a leader’s personality or leadership style (2 Cor. 10:1, 10). While it is sometimes helpful to talk privately with a leader about these issues, personality and style issues should not be elevated into allegations that a leader has sinned or committed a substantive wrong.
- Remind leaders to trust God to protect their reputation. When leaders are accused of wrongdoing, they often become highly defensive, especially if they believe the charges are largely false. One way to help them regain a calm and objective confidence is to have them spend time meditating on the promises God gives them in passages like Psalm 37, Proverbs 26:2, Isaiah 30:15, and Matthew 11:28.
Based on your experience, are there any principles you would highlight or add to this list?
Peacemaker Ministries. Used by permission. www.Peacemaker.net. To see the full-length article, click here.
To explore Building Church Leaders articles, multimedia, and downloads related to church discipline, click here.
