There she sat, nervously but methodically making her way through two pages of typewritten, single-spaced criticisms of our church office operation. To her credit, she met with me face to face, which is more than many critics are willing to do.
As she rehearsed the failures of the staff (and seemingly, everyone else born after the Spanish-American War) I felt increasingly melancholy. From improper procedures in answering the phone, to conflicting announcements in the bulletin, to secretaries breaching confidences, she had meticulously kept track of every offense. She had no less than fifty indictments.
When she was through, I did what pastors are supposed to do. I thanked her and affirmed her concern. After she left, I seriously considered conducting tours of the Holy Land for the rest of my career.
Why is it pastors so often serve as the lightning rod for the highly charged complaints and grievances of church members? Why do we attract criticisms that pulsate with gigawatts of negative energy? How do we protect ourselves from ecclesiastical electrocution? Can we transform these painful experiences from lethal discharges into spiritual energy and light?
High Pressure Systems
Upper air turbulence and the clash of competing weather fronts often produce violent and dangerous storms. In much the same way, unstable patterns and changing seasons in the church can produce high voltage criticism. Some conditions in church life predictably produce more lightning.
Transitions. When I began my ministry in a church that had been two years without a pastor, I noticed immediately how uncertain people seemed. If they were leaders in the old system, would they be trusted by the new? If they were good friends with Pastor Harry, would they enjoy the same relationship with me? In one way or another, all these insecurities became focused on me.
It wasn’t long until twenty-five people joined another church, unhappy or uncertain of their place in the new order. I was blamed for their departure, though I didn’t have a clue why they left. All they said was, “I don’t think I fit in here anymore.” What it felt like to me was, “Something is the matter since you’ve come.”
I was a new pastor, I didn’t know them; they didn’t know me. And they knew I didn’t know them. That’s unsettling. It can produce sudden storms and foul weather before I even have the opportunity to unpack my furniture.
Financial difficulties. When giving is down, trouble is usually up. Financial problems raise insecurities or frustrations that have been lying just beneath the surface of a church.
The most common result is the blame game, and the most logical “blamee” is the pastor. Blamers reason that people have quit giving because something is wrong, and it’s up to leaders to keep things from going wrong, and therefore, what’s wrong must be me. In its worst forms, angry parishioners will use a type of blackmail to get rid of the minister: they stop their giving, hoping to force the pastor out.
Projections and dependency. For some people, I become a Rorschach inkblot: they see in me whatever it is that is troubling them.
A psychologist friend suggests that people’s unresolved issues with their fathers make pastors a prime target for criticism. Either irrational anger or an inappropriate clinging is the tip-off. When someone clings, I instinctively retreat, and that makes the clinging individual angry.
At one church, one man began this pattern with me. He had been orphaned as a child. His mother had left him when he was young, and his father eventually passed him off to people who adopted him.
When I first met him, he had no beard. But within a couple of weeks of becoming friends, he began to grow one (I have a beard, too). Initially, he was my best friend. He was talented, intelligent, and loyal, and I was grateful for his acquaintance.
Over time I became uneasy about the demands he placed on me. We were having more lunches, breakfasts, and get-togethers than I could handle. Frankly, he became a nuisance. I attempted gently to put some distance between us, and he immediately picked up on it.
Something changed inside him. In less than a year, he went from ally to adversary. Soon he was opposing me on various issues, on any grounds he could dig up. The flip-flop was so obvious it was embarrassing. My two-cent Freudian analysis suggests that my backing off, however slight, made him feel orphaned once again.
Consumer mentality. Churchgoers today often think of the pastor as performing a service for them. They are as demanding and particular as if they had bought a suit from a clothing store and didn’t like the cuff length. If something doesn’t meet their standards, they want to see the store manager and file a complaint. The result is a critical and demanding spirit. The woman with the two pages of complaints acted like a customer who was pointing out the faults in our service.
Personal Pain of High Voltage Criticism
When I was younger, I believed my ego strength could protect me from the pain of criticism. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to admit how much this stuff hurts. I wish I could become what some call a “non-anxious presence,” but public and private criticism still unsettles me. When I’m criticized, I am subject to a variety of emotions.
Of all the jolts you take in the course of your ministry, perhaps none hurts more than having your character called into question. A pastor friend was confronted by a man who had a mile-long list of criticisms. My friend had tried previously to reconcile with the man over a few meals, but all he had to show for his efforts was heartburn.
My friend interrupted the attack: “Clearly, you think I’m doing everything wrong. But do you trust my heart?”
There was a long pause. The man looked at my friend and said, “No, I think you’re trying to ruin the church.” My friend was stunned.
Several months later, in a meeting with elders, this man appeared before the church elders with the same grocery list of complaints against the pastor. My friend asked him the same question, “Do you think Ben is trying to destroy the church?”
To the man’s credit (at least he was honest), he said yes. Now the board sat astonished and speechless.
Even if I’m sure the person is wrong, when people question my character, it hurts. My character and motives are two of the main things we offer a congregation. If character is questioned, the foundation of ministry is threatened. Frankly, I don’t think anyone except a sociopath can take that type of heat from people and remain indifferent.
Though few people in my life have had the candor (or perhaps the audacity) to tell me I don’t belong in the ministry, when it has happened, it has left me with a feeling of shame, mingled with anger.
If I’m tired and under stress, I can begin feeling like a failure. I doubt the very thing I’ve given my entire adult life to. I wonder if I’m losing it as pastor. The Enemy jumps on those situations to whisper, “Your critics are right, you know. You have no business being here. Cut your losses and get out before you’re humiliated big time.”
If you’re not careful, your mind can begin racing and creating frightening scenarios: What if I have to move my family again? What if I can’t get another job or provide for them? What if I end up on an ecclesiastical blacklist? You begin imagining yourself ten years from now lying in an alley near a rescue mission, dead drunk, having lost your wife and family!
Then I can begin imploding. I blame myself for all that has happened. If only I had done this or that differently.
I don’t know how common the emotion of rage is among pastors, but I struggle with it. When I’ve been told that my ministry is bogus, I want to shout my defense. Yet, because of my professional and family responsibilities, I’m not allowed to do that. And the anger inside me just keeps building.
What I need to do is forgive, to bless those who persecute me. But sometimes their actions eat away at my soul.
Vital Circuit Breakers
Building codes require special electrical devices that prevent a surge of energy from overloading the circuits and leading to a meltdown and fire. These circuit breakers interrupt the dangerously high level of electricity in the line by providing relief from the excessive load.
In the same fashion, I’ve found I need emotional and spiritual circuit breakers to protect when highly charged criticism is directed at me.
Accepting who you are. When a woman told me that I always wanted to do things my way, I had to agree with her. Knowing myself, my gifts and convictions, and God’s call for my life has been absolutely essential to carrying me through the deep waters of ministry.
At age 50 I can say things with certainty about my life that I could not have said, nor should have, at age 25. There’s a peace of mind that comes with twenty-five years of learning who you are. I possess reasonably good self-evaluation skills and a good deal of self-knowledge. I’ve come to know my deepest passions in ministry.
Furthermore, if I know God has called me to a particular place, I can be assured that what I bring is what the church must need. Is that outrageous? Arrogant? If I didn’t believe that, I would call the moving van every time I’m struck by lightning.
(The corollary, of course, is also true. If I find I can’t do ministry the way God has called me to do it, then I must go elsewhere. And this for me is one test I use in determining when it’s time to move on.)
The necessity of rest. When fatigue creeps on you, it isn’t long before your instincts start failing you. As Vince Lombardi said, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.” You start to lose focus. You begin to make unwise decisions. I say things in meetings when I’m tired that I would never say if I was refreshed and well-rested.
One annual meeting came at the end of a long week and full day. I remember thinking to myself, I just want to get this stupid thing over with. When people began throwing verbal tomatoes at the staff, I showed little patience. My answers were short and curt, with an edge of sarcasm. What the people saw that night was a tired, touchy, frustrated pastor. I think they would have seen someone entirely different if I had taken a nap that afternoon.
Can we be gentle and sensitive when we’ve worked 60, 70, or 80 hours that week? I no longer trivialize the importance of getting adequate rest. It’s a cheap and simple fuse that can save me a great deal of trouble.
Keeping perspective on the 5 percent. I’m amazed at what 5 percent of the congregation can do to my perception of ministry. In the calm light of day, I can see that the overwhelming majority of the church is happy, contented, and sailing down the highway on cruise control. Yet, if I’m not careful, I can let the one nasty look or the one vindictive letter change how I see everything.
Several years ago psychologist Albert Ellis said that it is irrational to believe that every significant person in your community must like you before you can feel good about yourself. He is right, particularly in a church setting.
The power of a prayer journal. The biggest mistake I’ve made through the years is to turn my feelings in on myself, allowing them to implode. I now turn them into dialogue with God, and I do that with a prayer journal.
I use the journal to record the feelings and thoughts that are stirring in my soul. I lay them out before God where I don’t have to hide anything. When I feel betrayed, or my anguish is overwhelming, I’ll mirror that before God.
I often allow the Psalms to become my discussion with God, “Contend, O Lord, with those who contend against me.” My feelings are transformed into dialogue with God. That’s so much better than talking to myself, or even laying it all on my wife.
Later, when I’ve resolved a particular crisis, I like to go back and read the chronicles of my struggle. Seeing how I navigated heavy weather two years earlier, helps me weather my current storm.
Memorizing comfort. When I was young, I never won any awards for Sunday school Scripture memory contests. Someone else always rode away on the ten-speed bicycle at the end of the year. But in the last three years I’ve discovered that Scripture can give voice to things I don’t know how to express. It transforms the things churning inside me and brings real healing to my soul.
One summer I memorized the twelfth chapter of Hebrews. At the time the entire chapter seemed autobiographical: running the race set before us, remembering Jesus, who endured the cross, who didn’t lose heart though scorned by men. The chapter reminded me that pain is a discipline God uses in my life: I was in training, and the pain caused by criticism was my coach.
Finding Aaron and Hur. Every pastor needs an Aaron and Hur, the two men of Israel who held up the arms of Moses in the battle against the Amalekites (Ex. 17:8-13).
When I arrived at one church, I met two men who introduced themselves by saying, “We’re here to pray for you.” From that point on they were up at six o’clock every Saturday morning to pray on my behalf.
The Aarons and Hurs in my life have seldom, if ever, been aware of the machinations going on within the church, but their prayers for me have helped me weather many storms.
The support of family. When one presidential candidate announced his withdrawal from the race, he was asked if he was deeply disappointed.
“No,” he replied, “but my 10-year-old daughter is. She said she believes if people knew how wonderful her dad was, they’d certainly vote for him.”
That’s the type of support every pastor needs. And I have no better supporter than my wife, Loretta. I’m reminded of a cartoon in which a minister is sitting in his living room on a Sunday afternoon sucking his thumb. His wife, obviously attempting to comfort him says, “Yes, honey. Your sermon was just fine.” I turn to my wife for comfort when I’m feeling overwhelmed by the insecurities and anxieties the pastorate produces.
Once during a particularly difficult time in our ministry, we took a trip that covered a large portion of the northern United States and Canada. We were driving through a marvelous portion of a wooded landscape. It was late in the afternoon, and the sun was low, setting the horizon on fire with shades of purple, red, and orange.
We were listening to a tape by Garrison Keillor. He described a scene in which a husband and wife are sitting across the breakfast table from one another. The husband is a mess; he has the flu. The pressures in his life are making him sick. The story ends by Keillor telling how his wife reached across the table, took his hand and said, “You know, I care for you.” In his deep baritone fashion he concluded by saying, “And you know, sometimes that’s enough.”
Loretta and I were feeling the burden and the sorrow of having served as lightning rods for so many months at our church. We reached out and held each other’s hands as the story ended. It was a wonderful moment.
Harnessing the Energy of the Critics
The same water that, unchecked, uproots trees and floods a town can, when channeled, light a city. As frustrating and difficult as it is to serve as the lightning rod for a congregation, it does have its useful side.
We ought to worry, in fact, if we never receive a zap now and then. If I can’t remember the last time I was criticized for something, chances are I’m not doing anything significant. If my goal is simply to keep all the cattle mooing softly in the corral, I’m failing as a leader. But if you are moving them out on the trail toward Dodge City and points beyond, you can expect an occasional stampede or two. It comes with the territory of leadership.
But I try to listen to Balaam’s donkey. It was the nineteenth-century pastor and writer George MacDonald who said, “Truth is truth, whether it’s spoken by the lips of Jesus or Balaam’s donkey.” In the midst of even the most withering criticism, I need to stop and listen for the grain of truth. Granted, it may come across as unfair, judgmental, and cruel, but underneath the rough exterior there may be something of value.
This is especially true if an issue keeps surfacing. If people say repeatedly, “We feel you don’t care about us pastorally,” it likely indicates people are feeling lonely and in need of spiritual support. That doesn’t mean I have to become more pastoral-make more hospital calls, arrange more counseling sessions. But I better make sure that somebody is doing that sort of thing.
Sometimes, of course, there’s nothing better I can do than simply apologize. At my last church, I suggested that we add a third service to our Sunday morning schedule. Although there wasn’t much enthusiasm for the idea, my attendance projections indicated we could support a third service. I enthusiastically pushed the new schedule through staff, elder, and congregational meetings.
After a few months on the new schedule, attendance continued to sag. Finally, a good friend told me the truth, “Ben, the numbers just don’t support that type of change. You really should have done your homework first.” I was angry at him, but I was forced to be more thorough about my original calculations. Sure enough, he was right. I remember distinctly the emotion I felt at the time: stupidity.
I began to see all the administrative pain I had caused choirs and church school teachers. I felt like quitting and entering a remote desert monastery. But that was not the time to flee. Instead, I simply admitted to the board that I had blown it and began taking administrative steps to return to two services.
After one horrible defeat, in which he lost thousands of men, General Ulysses Grant was seen going into his tent that night to cry uncontrollably for nearly an hour-he’d made some strategic blunders that needlessly cost men their lives.
But the next day, his men saw him emerge with the determined look of a general. He calmly mounted his horse and continued on with his campaign.
That is the type of resolute courage I want to have even when I’ve deservedly been struck by lightning.
Pain Is the Diploma
My seminary degree and my years in the pastorate don’t authenticate my ministry, not at least according to the apostle Paul. He believed his apostleship was validated by the sufferings and hardships he had endured: shipwrecks, beatings, hunger, and rejection. In some ways pastors are called to a ministry style that invites confrontation and criticism. It’s the nature of our calling.
I don’t want to rationalize insensitivity or poor leadership as prophetic ministry. Yet, as I look back, I’ve often been placed in situations where new foundations needed to be laid. That often involves shaking things up.
I can’t serve God and play it safe. The risk of criticism and misunderstanding is the price of a pastor’s life, a life filled with dreams and visions of what God wants to do next. It’s a risk I’m willing to take.
Ben Patterson is pastor of New Providence (New Jersey) Presbyterian Church.
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