Baptist Spirituality

In an article on Churchleaders.com, David Mercer explores church betrayal as a unique experience among clergy: “Ask clergy privately about the most painful moments of their ministry and many will not point to long hours, low pay, or cultural hostility toward Christianity. Instead, they describe a moment when someone they trusted, an elder, a staff member, a board chair, or even a close friend in the congregation, turned against them . . . But the modern conversation about church trauma has focused primarily on abuse victims within congregations. That emphasis is necessary and overdue. Yet there is another reality: clergy themselves are often deeply wounded by the conflicts that remove them from ministry.“

My own experience affirms that church betrayal is all too common. I can think of at least two dozen instances (two dozen too many) that have not only thrust me into an abiding “flight or fight” trauma, but have changed my fundamental personality and approach towards the world in ways that have damaged by spirit, my family, and my witness. I’ve spoken about this often, and am quite outspoken of the ways that church dysfunction is not God’s intentions for the Body of Christ and the Great Commission.

But harm is a two-way street. It is not as if pastors are always the victims, and people don’t harm pastors for nothing.

We have to acknowledge the ways that parishioners feel as if they’ve been harmed too: They dislike the changes that a pastor initiates. They feel slighted that they are not included in decisions like they once were. They have spent years of volunteering and thousands of dollars in local ministry only to see their legacy unwind in a single stroke of the policy pen.

They feel as if the direction of the church isn’t like it used to be, and so the parishioner no longer feels at home in their own church.

They don’t want to attend elsewhere, but they don’t want to stay either. They are “in between”, because the church that nurtured them, raised them, provided them a place to belong and live out their own calling has been robbed from them.

And since they are “in between,” they try not to feel alone, so they invite friends to disengage from the church with them. Company is a balm to those who are in a season of disorientation.

They stay in leadership positions, but don’t attend all the church has to offer, and use that position to pull others away. They build coalitions “informally,” as the article states. They criticize and critique, but NEVER directly to the pastor which prevents the pastor from ever really addressing grievances. And if the pastor can’t fix the issues (because the parishioner knows they’re part of that issue), then the parishioner is able to subject the greatest amount of punishment on their pastor — or the pastor’s staff, especially when the pastor’s staff includes his spouse: Can’t get to the pastor, so go after those whom he loves. Can’t get to them, go after his children.

And the cycle begins a long stalemate of spiritual trench warfare. And nothing can be said because, as the article states, “The pastor will come off as defensive and bitter…”

Despite the depth of these traumatic experiences, pastors tend to rarely talk publicly about them. Part of the silence comes from professional caution. Speaking openly about conflict with a former congregation can make a pastor appear defensive or bitter, potentially affecting future ministry opportunities.

–David Mercer

But at the core, the pastor knows that the changes he initiates will bring about a healthier system. Because, after all, the system some parishioners long to protect — and helps them feel “at home” — is the very system that drove the previous two or three pastors out of the church and nearly out of the ministry. Its the system that feigned growth, but only succeeded in marginalizing other pockets of the congregation in the name of “maintaining the budget” or keeping “theological purity.” Its the system that kept outsiders from coming in, has shaped decades of the church’s reputation in the local community, and has inhibited true, sustainable growth.

Change is necessary, but change hurts. And sometimes the only thing people know how to do in the face of difficult change — especially when it changes a predictable system — is to inflict pain on the leader leading the change.

All of this amounts to how we really think about church. The church is not his church or her church or their church; it is God’s church.

Church is not an institutional enterprise, but a living organism, the Body of Christ. Bodies grow and stretch and move and scrape knees and break bones and thrive and, sometimes, die. Church is not a fixed community, but ever stretching and being stretched. In fact, those growing pains that often leave parishioners disenchanted and keep pastors up at night, might very well be the Holy Spirit moving the church into its next season of ministry.

Numbers, budgets, and statistics we use to measure church health or growth are not always representative of what God is up to. Recently, I re-read one of my favorite books, Leaving Church, by Barbara Brown Taylor. In it, she records how she grew her small church in northeast Georgia, going from two Sunday services to four. Weddings, baptisms, and community missions were blossoming. But the church still chased her out after five years of her tenure.

Some folks complain there aren’t enough people in the pews, so they blame the leader and use it as an excuse to perpetuate betrayal. Growth comes, and betrayal still exists. Trauma runs deep, and God will allow it to surface at times to bring about health.

Thankfully God does not give up on us or His church. Paths forward do exist, but they must be intentional avenues to bring about healing rather than victimization. There is plenty of blame to go around and, because of that, there must be shared responsibility in what is holding churches back. Thankfully, God has always been in — and is still in — the business of making broken things into beautiful things.

*Photo by Matt Richmond, unsplash.com