Attempts at Honesty

Reflections on the interplay of the Bible and Culture

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Leader vs. Bully

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Resist the BullyOver the last few years, I’ve seen a lot written about leadership in the church. A quick Google search reveals an abundance of websites geared toward promoting leadership in the church. The question is why do we have such a perceived lack of leadership?

A long drive afforded me the opportunity to think about the leaders that I have encountered both in my career and in churches. Or, more specifically, I was thinking about situations where leadership was required but was lacking. I’ve seen good and bad leaders in both the church and in industry. Lack of leadership is not a church specific problem.

A leader is one who has an idea of where he wants to take the organization. He also knows how to work with people to get them moving in the same direction and contribute to the vision. A leader takes the time to get to know the people he leads and figure out the best possible way for those people to fit into the organization. This approach is non-manipulative and seeks to find solutions that are good for both the leader and those he leads.

But too often the person who is chosen to be a leader settles for being a  boss or bully who unilaterally makes decisions to drive the organization where he wants it to go. Often the boss uses coercion or manipulation to get people in line with his vision. This type of leader ends up becoming a bully who consumes the weak to fuel his own career.

I had experience with this at one of my employers. I signed on for a particular role only to have that role unilaterally changed by the general manager with no discussion with me. He had no consideration for my goals, desires or even my skill set. He made a decision based on his own perspective. In this particular case, I attribute his behavior to inexperience rather than willful belligerence, but the result is the same. While I continued to do a good job in my new role, the sense of accomplishment in my job was greatly diminished because my new role was not one that I desired or agreed to.

Unfortunately, the church is not immune to the bully being in charge. I have been in situations where the pastor used his position and presumed authority to keep people “in line” and subjected to his vision for what the church should be. On a pragmatic level, this method only leads to failure. On a spiritual level, this method is a usurpation of the role of the Holy Spirit in arranging the gifts and calling of those in the church for God’s purpose.

The best thing to do in response to a bully is to look for a church with a leader who is willing to allow you to be what God wants you to be. This is also true for the workplace bully. Perhaps the best outcome is to find another position working for a leader  who knows how to lead.

I understand that sometimes a move away from such a leader is not possible. The best thing that can be done in this situation is to recognize the nature of the bully and not be overawed by his abuse of position and power. One may end up doing exactly what the bully wants in light of the economic reality of needing a job. Yet, there is a difference between complying out of fear and complying because it is the best option at the time while looking for another option.

When the bully is a pastor or church leader, this is an indication that the pastor has a flawed relationship (if any) with Jesus Christ and that leader should not be trusted. Jesus was never a bully and no church leader should ever use manipulation or coercion to achieve his goals. I see no case where an exception to this rule could be derived.

What would the church look like if we walked away from any so-called leader who functions as a bully? Would we recover our ability to speak into the culture in a meaningful way? Would respect for the church increase if we followed leaders who modeled Jesus leadership style?

It seems to me that the people of Jesus’ day were attracted to his leadership style. Would it work today? It just might if we have the wisdom and fortitude to follow our master.

What church should be

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i-love-my-churchI know what hurt has come from some of my own church experience. I have seen the damage done to others by inappropriate treatment within a church. Quite frankly sometimes it makes me want to find the reset button and see if we can begin again with this whole thing we call church.

I can name two friends that were pushed out of ministry, guys that have good hearts and really ministered to people. They got pushed out because they did not fit with the current leader’s vision of what church should be. These are two different people, in two different churches, in two different states, in two very different parts of the country. The locations may differ, but the churches are similar because the leader has given the Enemy a foothold in that congregation by not allowing these two men to operate in their giftedness.

Perhaps there is a different way to organize church. Perhaps we overlook a pastor’s inability to shepherd his congregation because he is a gifted speaker and can draw large crowds. Perhaps we turn a blind eye to the damage caused when a leader seeks to build his church rather than Christ’s.

Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the damage that I have seen done by those who have built organizational structures that claim to promote the kingdom of God but only are building a kingdom among men. Today was such a day.

But as I worked on collecting firewood today, I was reminded that for every empire building hawker who claims to represent Christ, there are dozens, hundreds or thousands of men and women who are really doing the work of ministry and living out the claims of the Gospel to change lives.

Some of these men and women are bi-vocational, they have jobs outside the church but still effectively minister in the church. Some are full time employees of the church but give of themselves way above and beyond a regular work schedule. All of them are in ministry because they have been called to that ministry and can say with the Apostle Paul that they are “bond slaves to Jesus Christ.” In short, they are in ministry to meet others’ needs and not their own.

I keep coming back to the chilling words of Jesus in Matthew 7:

“On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” (Matthew 7:22–23, ESV)

God will sort it out in the end and those who have been obedient and have done ministry God’s way and with God’s methods will be rewarded for their effort.

I really believe that those who misuse their positions of leadership within the church are the minority and that most ministers are seeking to be obedient to the Lord of their calling. The problem is that those who abuse their power for their own ends are often the most gifted and most prominent so it seems as though they are a larger group than they really are.

But God is not mocked. He is watching.

This is bad news to the self-promoters who abuse their congregations. But this is very good news to the faithful servants who give of themselves for the glory of Christ.

To those faithful servants I tip my hat and offer my hearty thanks. You encouraged me today.

Abusive Churches

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Abusive ChurchIn an article called Abusive Churches, Pat Zukeran lists eight characteristics of an abusive church. A summary of the characteristics in Pat’s words (bold emphasis added by me) is below:

First, abusive churches have a control-oriented style of leadership. Second, the leaders of such churches often use manipulation to gain complete submission from their members. Third, there is a rigid, legalistic lifestyle involving numerous requirements and minute details for daily life. Fourth, these churches tend to change their names often, especially once they are exposed by the media. Fifth, denouncing other churches is common because they see themselves as superior to all other churches. Sixth, these churches have a persecution complex and view themselves as being persecuted by the world, the media, and other Christian churches. Seventh, abusive churches specifically target young adults between eighteen and twenty-five years of age. The eighth and final mark of abusive churches is the great difficulty members have in getting out of or leaving these churches, a process often marked by social, psychological, or emotional pain.

My point in sharing this is twofold:

  1. I want to encourage church leaders to examine their leadership style against this list and see if there are areas in which repentance and reconciliation should take place.
  2. I want to encourage church members / attenders to examine the church they attend in light of this list. If you find that you are in a church that is described by these characteristics, find a new church.

Compulsion and manipulation should never take place in the body of Christ. Either God is in control of a local body or the leader is. There is no shared control. The leader should always keep in mind that he is an under-shepherd who is responsible to the Master Shepherd. The pastor or elder must never lose sight of the fact that he is leading his peers; we are all equal at the foot of the Cross.

I have been in churches that had several of these characteristics but I have never been in one that had all eight. Even so, I have found that the eighth item listed above is especially true. My experience is that coming out of a church that only had a few of these was indeed a painful process.

Satan is shrewd. If he cannot get us to embrace doctrinal error, he will trip us up with spiritual pride. Those of us who are identified as leaders in the church must be constantly vigilant in watching for pride to creep in. As I see it, pride is the foundation upon which the control and manipulation described above is built.

Leaders who walk in humility and submission to Jesus Christ will not fall into the eight errors listed above.

When labels are (mis)applied in the church

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Name LabelWe like to categorize other people by applying labels to them. Liberal versus conservative, rich versus poor, informed versus ignorant, interesting versus boring, popular versus nerdy, the list of possible categories is inexhaustible. Politicians use this tendency to categorize to their benefit by trying to portray themselves in a popular category while casting their opponent as the opposite.

There is  danger in carrying this drive to categorize people into the church. In the church there are to be no such categories; we are all equal when we come to the Cross of Jesus Christ.

Yet in some churches, people are categorized and labeled. People can be labeled as troublemakers, critics, backsliders, emotionally unstable, emotionally repressed, etc. Positive labels such as leader, teacher and supporter can also be applied.

Applying labels to people becomes a problem when it prevents them from growing into their God-given ministry potential. This is especially true when the labels are applied based on erroneous or incomplete information. Stephen Covey relates the story of the boys on the subway to illustrate how easy it is to misunderstand another person’s situation and actions.

One day on the subway, while quietly reading a book, Stephen was interrupted by two wild children that got on with their father at a subway stop.

The children were out of control, jumping up and down, running loudly through the subway car.

The father seemed not to notice or care that his children were misbehaving and disturbing commuters…

Stephen approached the father and wanted to scold him for not controlling his children and teaching them respect for others…

The father agreed, and sighed sullenly, saying “yeah, I just don’t know what to do or say to them. We just came from the hospital where their mother died from a random assault….”

I have seen people who have made suggestions get labeled as troublemakers. I have seen people who identify problems get accused of being divisive. On the flip side, I have seen those who are successful in business get tagged as church leaders despite their spiritual immaturity.

Church leaders must resist the temptation to label and categorize people in their congregations. Remember Paul’s words in Galatians 3:28:

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (NASB)

Look at the Disciples that Jesus picked. Among them was a terrorist, a traitor, two brothers with anger issues, a fisherman with a tendency to say the wrong thing and a thief. The man that wrote much of the New Testament was a murderer. Jesus trusted this rag tag bunch to found his Church, people we would likely write off as being of little help.

The point is that if someone is causing a problem in the church, that problem should be addressed without labeling the person. God deals with our sin without labeling us, who are we to refuse to do this for others?

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