So what’s going on here?” she asked standing outside the preschool building, her three-year-old daughter tugging at her hand. “My son went here too, and—well—something’s changed.”
“Yeah, ever since Pastor Thomas* left, and that’s been over two years ago,” replied another mother. “They said the preschool director decided to retire, but you get the feeling the whole story hasn’t come out yet.”
“A friend of mine used to go to church here, and she says the bishop may step in and do something. I think they’re getting a new pastor.”
“Another one? Well, I hope they do something soon, before everybody leaves. Amazing how quickly it all went downhill.”
“It’s a shame the new pastor—Jackson—didn’t work out. The preschool’s always been good.”
The first woman responded. “Did you ever hear why Pastor Thomas quit? Did he go to another church?”
“I don’t know. Seems there’s more to that story than’s been told.”
Seeds of discontent
“Oh, you’re from the fireworks church?” people would say, smiling, to members of Court Street Church. The congregation was known throughout the community for its big July Fourth celebration, including a parade, watermelon cutting, seed-spitting contest, and Roman candles. But it wasn’t long before the fireworks weren’t only overhead; they soon moved into the board room and eventually into the sanctuary. Fireworks church, indeed.
Court Street had a heart for kids, with preschool and youth programs that had anchored their thriving ministry for decades.
During the ten-year pastorate of Bob Thomas, the church enjoyed a growing reputation to match its swelling numbers. Everybody loved Pastor Thomas, a fine preacher and good administrator. The pews were full every Sunday. Court Street became the community’s church and a jewel in the denomination’s crown, so preserving the church and its reputation were important to the regional leaders when Thomas suddenly resigned.
“Pastor Thomas needs a break,” the people were told by the head of the district. “He’s overworked, and he’ll be taking a month off.” Then, with no explanation, the month became a permanent resignation, and ultimately departure from ministry altogether.
“We don’t know what we did wrong,” one member of the council said. “We were told, in effect, that we worked our pastor nearly to death and we drove him from ministry. And that’s about all they said.
“We wanted answers, but we got none.”
So the deck was stacked against Pastor Thomas’s successor. And sure enough, following a well-loved pastor hailed for his pulpit and ministry skills, and entering an environment suddenly marked by doubt and mistrust, Chad Jackson struggled to gain a foothold as the leader of Court Street.
Few, it appeared, were ready to follow.
Many, in fact, were leaving. Several hundred. Eventually, the church was one-third the size of its heyday.
Missing answers, missing peaces
“I don’t seem to be getting through to Pastor Jackson,” Margaret Collins confided to a few close associates. As director of Kid’s Corner Preschool for many years, Margaret had built a solid program that served the town.
She had found an ally in former Pastor Thomas, and together they had accomplished what many churches wrestle with—they built bridges from the weekday preschool to the Sunday worship and drew many young families into the life of the congregation. But now, to Margaret, that seemed threatened.
“Chad thinks he’s in charge of the preschool,” she opined, “and he wants me to make a lot of changes—without good reason. We never get any answers around here.”
When those changes didn’t happen, Pastor Jackson concluded that Margaret was a stumbling block. “She just won’t listen to me,” he said.
In council meetings, people began taking sides. The spirit of trust was gone. The preschool was only one subject of conflict. Soon there were others. And the debates became long and heated.
“The youth minister has to go,” demanded Cesar in one memorable meeting. A passionate man given to impassioned speeches, Cesar had teenagers in the youth program. He didn’t like some actions of the youth leader, a recent hire who was viewed as one of Pastor Jackson’s allies.
“We can’t let this go on!” Cesar argued, citing a litany of perceived offenses, from the curriculum chosen, to the outings scheduled. “He isn’t listening to the parents!” He punctuated his points with fist pumps on the table.
Youth ministry wasn’t the only contentious area. The council of the harmonious congregation had degenerated into an entrenched, argumentative knot. Those trying to address a troubled situation felt unheard. Those supporting the pastor felt vilified. And those in the middle felt targeted from both sides. No one looked forward to council meetings … or staff meetings … or hallway conversations, because they all seemed to devolve into arguments.
It was in this environment that the second resignation came. Not the youth minister’s, but Margaret’s. And that’s what started the rest of the church—and the community—talking.
“I don’t know why the denomination sent that new pastor,” one preschool mom said in a sidewalk interview. “Pastor Thomas could have returned after his break.”
“My friends are looking for a new church,” another offered. “Lots of people are. Now that Margaret has quit, we may look around as well.”
“Did Margaret quit? I heard she was fired.”
“Well, they’re not saying much.”
“Too bad,” said the first mom. “This used to be a good church.”
Even visitors were telling us, “something is wrong here.”
“Court Street is really not as bad as you’ve heard,” Margaret said to the bishop at a denominational event some time later. “They’re good people—at heart.”
The bishop’s weak nod and slight smile revealed he had heard plenty.
His fair-haired child had become his problem church, producing endless phone calls and emails about the decline of Court Street Church. Perhaps that was when the bishop decided to reassign Chad Jackson, and bring in yet another pastor in less than two years. He didn’t know how that decision would set off the final firestorm.
Leaders behaving badly
The bishop and the denomination’s regional supervisor decided to call in an interim pastor. They also brought in a mediation team to address the conflicted situation. Paul Cornwell and Gary Wright from Peacemaker Ministries, based in Billings, Montana, visited the church and began conducting interviews with church leaders, attenders, and people in the neighborhood.
“Even visitors were telling us, ‘Something is wrong here,'” Cornwell said.
“This was the most well-integrated conflict we had ever seen,” he recalls. “At least 60 percent of the congregation had taken sides. And those who hadn’t were still confused about the departure of their beloved Pastor Thomas two years earlier.”
“Some of us had tried to move on,” one council member said, “but people still wanted answers from the denomination—and we weren’t getting any. They said it was a personnel issue, which meant he had to maintain confidentiality. And the church wanted answers from us on the council—and we didn’t have any.”
The anger and confusion continued to play out in their meetings, too. Cornwell remembers the council as “the most aggressive group I’ve worked with.”
“Most people are escape artists, they want to get away from conflict,” he said, “but not this group. They had a very adversarial style of communication.” The council members had settled into their positions, and they were virtually willing to duke it out.
“We began teaching cooperative means of communication,” Cornwell said. “And as we do in many consultations, we focused on the Four G’s of peacemaking: Glorify God, Get the log out of your own eye, Gently restore, and Go and be reconciled.
“The intervention team spent time with church members in conflict-coaching sessions, helping people to understand how they might have contributed to the church’s current situation. As a result of these conversations, church leaders identified several needed action steps.”
In just a few weeks, relationships among the council members were improving. Healing was underway. Until the bishop’s new appointment was announced.
Et tu, Cesar?
Pastor Gary Haskell was enjoying a successful ministry in another part of the state. After several pastorates helping troubled churches overcome their tough situations, he welcomed a peaceful, productive season.
Then the bishop called.
“Are you sure we want to go to another troubled church?” his wife said, in a tone that bordered on pleading. Any pastor and spouse would rightly be concerned about their reception in a congregation that had reportedly ended one man’s ministry and left a second wounded. “Can’t they find someone else to take on Court Street?” she asked. She had a point. Who would willingly accept a church with trust issues, an adversarial relationship with the hierarchy, and a combative leadership style?
What the Haskells found when they contacted Court Street was a warm reception from hurting people eager for a fresh start. And one last big fight.
“I should have said no when the chairman called and said he couldn’t make the meeting,” recalled the incoming vice-chairman of the council. “He said it would be a routine meeting for me to lead, no big items on the agenda.”
But debate over housing the new pastor proved far from routine.
“The denomination wants us to make other arrangements for the new pastor’s housing, and to allow the Jacksons to stay in the parsonage until the end of the school year,” the personnel committee chair explained. “That way the kids can stay in school and not be disrupted.”
“That’s six months!” one exclaimed. “The parsonage is right next door. Are we going to have to see Pastor Jackson every time we come to church?”
“It’s none of his business what we do here. He’s done. That parsonage doesn’t belong to the bishop. They can’t tell us what to do.”
“We have a new pastor coming,” Cesar injected. “The old one has to go!” Overcome by emotion, he broke into Spanish best left untranslated.
The argument went on for hours, interspersed with angry threats, explosive outbursts, words not suited for church, and the ultimate escalation: “If that happens, I’ll leave the church!”
The vice-chairman, on his first day in office, ended the meeting with a plan to reconvene the next night. In the meantime, they called the Peacemakers team. This had quickly developed into a make-or-break moment for Court Street Church.
Go to your corners
The denominational leader reported he had stayed up all night after the horrific first meeting. He was sick over the way the council had so quickly reverted to unChrist-like ways. And he was glad the Peacemakers would have a representative on scene.
“When I arrived, it was obvious that battle lines were drawn; it was a very anxious time,” Peacemakers’ Gary Wright said. The meeting was moved to the sanctuary, and Wright spoke first. “I felt led to be very direct, and spoke about the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5, and about seeking God’s will and not our own agendas.” Everyone, including Cesar, was quiet.
The turning point
The vice-chairman of the council remembers a sense of conviction as each person seemed to be weighing his own responsibility in the troubles—not only the previous night’s debacle, but over the past two years. “We had a time of prayer together, and the room was very quiet. The Holy Spirit was at work!” Wright said.
When the district leader reintroduced the housing package for the new pastor and explained it in greater detail, there was a calm discussion and finally, a reasonable conclusion.
The district head agreed to find other housing arrangements for the Jacksons. The council agreed to financial concessions to make that possible. And the Jacksons moved out to make room for the new pastor’s family.
The church leaders look back at that night as a turning point. The peacemaking principles were applied specifically, and angry shouts gave way to listening.
Another significant shift began that night: the church moved from counting votes to seeking consensus. “When you vote, there are winners and losers, and it magnifies conflict,” Haskell said. “But in consensus-building, we discuss a matter until the areas emerge where we are mostly all in agreement. If we forget sometimes and call for a show of hands, one of the council will speak up. ‘We don’t vote here, we reach consensus.’ It started that night.”
Over the next two years, the church developed its own peacemaking team, with Cesar and the council vice-chairman leading the way. “Cesar now understands what a forceful and dynamic person he is, that his energetic and passionate personality can change friendly discussion to argument, even if he doesn’t intend it that way,” Cornwell assessed. “Cesar, and all the leaders, learned new ways to talk—and to listen.”
Court Street’s peacemaking team has now, three years later, mediated conflicts within the congregation, including one involving the youth minister, who ultimately was released. They have welcomed former preschool director Margaret into a new leadership role. And now they are joining Cornwell, Wright, and Peacemaker Ministries in consultations with other troubled churches in their state.
Unfinished business
A year after his arrival, Pastor Haskell asked the leaders of Court Street to revisit the conflict that led to his arrival. “It’s not finished,” he told them, “if we have not truly been reconciled to the former pastors and to the leadership of our denomination.”
He urged repentance as key to healing.
“But we didn’t do a lot of the things we were accused of,” one person objected.
“And,” said another, “we have reached out to our former pastors, but we still don’t have answers to our questions.”
“Even so,” Haskell replied, “we have things for which we can—and should—repent. We should respect our leaders even when we disagree or don’t have all the information. We must respect their efforts for everyone—staff and denomination, too.”
The church’s peacemaking team planned a special service and invited both former pastors, the bishop, and the regional leader to attend. “We want to apologize to you and be reconciled with you and our denomination,” they were told. The pastors did not attend, but the bishop and the district head did. As did more than one-third of the current membership and some former members who had fled the conflict.
It was obvious that battle lines were drawn. it was a very anxious meeting.
“I was concerned when Cesar got up to speak,” admitted Pastor Haskell. “He’s a forthright guy, and he told it like he remembered it—warts and all. But he also told how he has been changed into someone who appreciates peace and wants to represent Christ well in his relationships and in the work of our church.”
Haskell “stood in the gap,” as the vice-chairman described it, repenting on behalf of the congregation for their estrangement from the former pastors and from the denominational leaders. The bishop and supervisor apologized as well.
“We did not realize how severe the problem had become,” one said. “If we had known, we would have acted much more quickly, and we would have told you much more about what was happening.”
“Those apologies went a long way in helping us heal,” said the vice-chairman.
In the end, as combative leaders made peace, attendance is growing again, and the spirit of the church is renewed, by all accounts. “I’m proud that our people have become a peace-oriented people,” their pastor said. “At conferences and events, I have watched them reach out to the former pastor, to the bishop and others, and to former members.”
In the end, the fireworks church has become the peacemaking church.
Eric Reed is Leadership‘s media editor.
Copyright © 2011 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
