sides
As I was leaving the office, I ran into Rowland, our worship pastor. All I really knew about him was he was the sickest guitar player I’d ever been around, he’d help me find a house, fix a dishwasher, and install a garbage disposal. I decided to risk it. This whole thing was going to implode anyway, might as well figure out where he was in the mix. He was equally shocked. We made a date to show up at elders’ meeting the next morning.
To say the elders were surprised to see us would be an understatement. After prayer, one of the elders jokingly teased me - “So Grant, what in the world would get you up this early in the morning?”
“Funny you should ask that - Rowland and I were just wondering if the Elder Board wants Mark as the Directional Leader of this church or not. Because if Mark isn’t the man, I have a job back in Kansas and Rowland needs to get his resume’ ready.”
5 of 7 elders looked like they had just been dropped into the middle of a movie with no idea as to the plot line.
“Grant, what in the world are you talking about?”
I turned to the two other elders. “I’m guessing by their reaction that you hadn’t exactly brought this topic up with them before talking to me.”
As messy as you can imagine is as messy as it got.
Remember growing up and an argument break out in a game? If it wasn’t resolved quickly, somebody would holler “do-over” and that’s exactly what we’d do. It was simple. It was quick. Nobody had to prove they were right - just do it over. Somethings happens as we get older, at least to some of us. It’s like it’s more important to be right than anything else. I wish I could say that we were beyond that. We weren’t.
We sought counsel from our founding church leaders. The advise was simple. If there was not a moral issue at stake (there wasn’t) then choose to lower the intensity level by talking through stylistic and/or personality clashes. If you can’t do that, then leave quietly and quickly. If leaving quietly wasn’t possible, then the elders needed to immediately dismiss them as fast as possible.
Hard medicine to swallow but the best guidance we’d ever get. We never followed a lick of it. I understand on one hand why. The elders had just gone through hell and not one of them wanted a repeat of that. They honestly (naively) believed that they could sit down and work it out. After all, if they couldn’t do that as elders what did that say about them? Yet, the more we tried to avoid a rerun of the last split, the more we headed straight toward that exact destination.
The major roadblock to the problem was that one side of the table honestly believed that there were moral issues at stake, they had done nothing wrong in the process, and would only accept one solution - the removal of the senior leader. It left very little room for meaningful discussion.
At that point, the best decision was the hardest one. And nobody really wanted to make it. I admire the desire to work the issues out, but it was degrading fast into “Cover your own rep” mode. Rumors and half-truths were flying all over the body and advancing the mission of God was the furthest thing from our minds. The pastor and elder who started the murmuring should have been fired and removed. We should have had one announcement about it. Then the next Sunday we should have started back on our mission to Tibet and Brazil.
We did none of that. Instead we allowed bitterness and venom to leak into the church while we wrestled over our egos. We all screwed up.
It’s in the middle of this the student volunteer team meets to try to figure out what to do. Looking back - it was stupid to even have a meeting like that. I’ll never do that again. No one in the room had all the facts - only the rumors and half-truths they wanted to believe. No one had anything directly to do with the conflict among the elders. I was arrogant enough to believe that I could bring redemption and restoration to the table. Right out of the gate one of the volunteers called the senior leader evil and that he needed to be fired and hurt because of all the hurt he’d brought to the church.
I was completely dumbfounded. I’d never seen that kind of venom and bitterness towards a pastor before. Nobody said anything.
I waited for a minute then said the only thing that had been running in my mind the entire time. “That’s demonic and not allowed in here in Jesus’ name. You can either repent or leave.”
He said nothing. I kept talking. “I really need an answer.”
“Are you saying that if we think there needs to be a new directional leader at Grace we can’t serve in youth???”
“No, what I’m saying is much worse than that. If you are so jacked up that the only thing on our mind is the removal of a pastor and hurting him when there are NO GROUNDS to do so - leave. Leave this house, leave this ministry, and leave the church. We can’t help you, we can’t minister to you and the only thing that will be accomplished with you staying is we’ll destroy each other and the church. Besides that, what is it that makes any of us think that our opinion matters? We’ve not been called, ordained, and commissioned to lead the church. Our elders have been and they’ve spoken clearly on this subject. Mark is the Directional Leader, this is what we are doing and who we are striving to be. If you can’t follow that - leave. Get over yourself and follow or leave.”
Next, the Cleanup.
14 responses so far ↓
1 kurt // May 21, 2007 at 8:06 am
Wow.
I’ve been thru the same kind of journey. I called that time of my life “the vortex.” Stepping into chaos, and sadly becoming part of it, as much as I tried not to. The hard part was that the leadership didn’t want to look at some real issues and bad decisions made in past years that were still haunting the church.
Main issue: a few years prior to my arrival the senior pastors wife has an affair. The leadership feels the loving thing to do would be to give her more involvement in the church…by giving her leadershp of the women’s ministry…which was disastrous.
I left that church three years ago and they still have division and strife.
2 kris // May 21, 2007 at 9:02 am
ouch … so painful and so distracting ….
3 clay // May 21, 2007 at 11:09 am
i guess when your parents dont go to the church, you are oblivious to all of this. haha.
4 heath // May 21, 2007 at 1:00 pm
man, the background makes things so clear. If only I would have known… well I probably would have run away like the place was on fire, but in retrospect it sure makes the whole thing make a lot more sense.
5 mike // May 23, 2007 at 8:50 am
Grant,
I regularly check your blog. Most of what you have to say is somewhat interesting. However, your recent emails about the church seem quite arrogant. You make it sound like you flew in, told the church the way it was, and you were on your way to recovery. Part of the problem with today’s church is that we don’t equip our pastors to be good leaders. We teach them how to preach, teach, or lead worship. However, in reality, this is a small part of the actual job. It needs to be run like a business. It can have both. I think some of the problem is that people like you come in, with no “business” experience and you like to act like you know how to solve problems. If you would have reacted like that in our church, our council would have sent you back to Kansas.
6 Grant // May 23, 2007 at 10:28 am
I won’t argue with “seem quite arrogant” part (sometimes the truth hurts!):). But I do wonder if you read the other parts of the story.
If teaching, leading, caring, and listening to the Spirit as He leads His church is in “reality” a small part of the job - then the church is in deep weeds.
I’ve been fortunate that in the contexts I’ve served in it HAS been the primary role of a pastor to teach, follow the Spirit, care, and equip the saints (Eph. 4:11). You’re right - I wouldn’t last long in a place where those were minor things the pastor did.
And yes - the church needs organization and order but its essence is one of a living, breathing body. Not a business.
Our problems weren’t “business” problems anyway. They were integrity and interpersonal relationship problems.
When a board hires an associate to support and help the senior leader, to tell that associate that there is unity in the board room and in reality there isn’t…not good.
To be fair - most of the guys on the board had no idea what the other two guys were thinking.
As an “employee”, I wanted clarification. Is Mark the man or not? If he isn’t - great. Let me know, I’ll drive on.
If he is - then the backbiting and gossip and undermining has to stop. Especially in the church this is true.
7 MarkE // May 23, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Grant:
This series of post raises some great issues about how we do church that I think need to be faced and discussed. I have been doing church long enough to experienced many of the issues.
I am not sure I fully agree with the advice your founding church leader: “If you can’t do that, then leave quietly and quickly.” I can’t imaging Paul saying something like this to a leader at the church in Corinth.
I am aware that there is a time when leaving may be the best. I certainly have left a few churches. But one has to be careful about avoidance. Avoidance is rarely a good thing. Seems there is more opportunity to grow spiritually by staying than avoiding. What an opportunity to practice our spirituality by working through things.
The most disappointing thing about all that has gone on in my experience with church conflict is the inability of the leaders rise above it. Apparently their spirituality was not much help. What an example it would be for someone to actually stay and work things through. I am not just referring to you, but all the others at Grace and the other churches I have been involved with.
8 Grant // May 23, 2007 at 2:44 pm
I agree with your thoughts on avoidance…that accomplishes nothing.
Yet, Paul and Barnabas had a significant enough disagreement over John Mark that Paul decided to leave them and do his own thing. We’re never told the juicy details but apparently they tried to work it out and couldn’t. It appears they agreed to disagree and went their separate ways.
Sticking it out and working it through is possible as long as both sides want that. If one side has as its aim the destruction of the other (win at all costs), something has to give. In this case neither side gave and the result was disastrous. We kept pounding at each other and everyone lost.
What we did was sin. We drug the Bride of Christ and each other through personal attacks and “vision conflict” discussions.
After going through that, your more apt to “surrender” than stay because the cost is too high and too distasteful.
9 MarkE // May 23, 2007 at 5:35 pm
I thought about Paul and Barnabas about a minute after I hit the submit button!
Like I said, there is a time to leave. I just think that many members just left rather than work through both the personal and interpersonal issues that create such conflict. Hardly kingdom living.
To me, the more interesting discussion would be how someone actually tapped into the divine resources of 2 Peter 1 and lived life in the kingdom in the midst of worldly, institutional conflict. Or at least struggled to do this.
10 Grant // May 23, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Hard but good counsel…
As usual from Mark E.
11 MarkE // May 23, 2007 at 8:57 pm
Mostly I am full of crap! I hope it goes well in CO for you and your family. We miss you here.
12 Denise // May 23, 2007 at 10:48 pm
Actually, shouldn’t this be part 4?
13 loren k // May 24, 2007 at 9:03 am
how did you ever build a youth room with all of this going on?
or was that part of clean up?
14 Grant // May 25, 2007 at 8:35 am
This happened way before you showed up on the scene.
Your thinking of another situation! ha ha
Leave a Comment