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Leading in a church revitalization can be difficult when one or a few people are working against you. Today, we discuss how to lead through this situation.
Today’s Listener Question:
FROM CALEB
I have a church bully problem. One church member, whose name rhymes with Dodger, keeps making ends runs around decisions I make and is generally undoing things as I try to do them in our revitalization. I guess he’s not a bully as much as he is a foe making power moves on me and the staff.
Episode Highlights:
- Church members often want change until it means they have to change, too.
- It’s hard to be negative toward someone when you are praying for them.
- Sometimes it’s easier to lead around people than over them.
- When you have a power player in the church, it will inevitably lead to a negative situation in the church.
The seven tips when dealing with a power player are:
- This situation is not uncommon, even if everyone said they were on board
- Begin with prayer
- Try to decide if the blockage is a workaround or clash of the titans
- Enlist others to help
- Focus on the positive where you can
- Be aware of the energy vampires
- Only as a last resort, ask the power player to go
Resources mentioned in this episode include:
- ChurchReplanters.com
- ChurchAnswers.com
- Replanter Assessment
- Find more resources at the Revitalize & Replant page at ThomRainer.com
Revitalize & Replant is sponsored by the North American Mission Board and ChurchReplanters.com. More than 10% of churches in North America are at risk of closing and the North American Mission Board is committed to reversing this trend by decreasing the death rate of existing churches while simultaneously increasing the birth rate of new churches. To learn more about what it means to become a replanting pastor or to explore resources for replanting and revitalization in your own church, visit ChurchReplanters.com.
Submit Your Question:
Do you have a question about church revitalization or replanting for us to use on the podcast? Visit the podcast page to submit your question. If we use it on the show, you’ll get a copy of Autopsy of a Deceased Church and Reclaiming Glory.
The approach of Dan Sutherland, when pastoring Flamingo Road (Baptist) Church in Florida, seemed effective at that time.
In seeking to turn around that congregation, Dan reported having invited (in private settings) the opposition either to get on board, get quiet, or get lost. First, though, he personally committed to the start of a new church directly across the street from Flamingo Road Church location–one that would do what the old one was supposed to be doing to reach the community for Christ but wasn’t–if the congregation indeed chose to follow its oppositional members instead. Those actions displayed conviction–but also the courage that naturally should accompany that conviction.
Can church revitalization be successfully done–really–without conviction AND the courage of it? . . . In another decade, we will know!
🙂
What do you do when you and the leadership of the church see a need for revitalization but the pastor is unwilling to lead or even guide the planning?
Do it without him? Ephesians 4 indicates God gives pastors to congregations for their spiritual growth, which leads to their numerical growth (i.e., revitalization). If your church has matured to the point that it wants to serve as you describe, then that’s a good thing and it should begin to do it!
I am licensed minister in a denomination that has bishops. I was given pastoral responsibility for a small church that may be on its last legs. The challenge that I face is that I inherited a setup in which I must share the pulpit with two church elders and a pastor from another church who administers the Lord’s Supper at the church once a month. I have been advised not to change this setup since doing so might alienate the two church elders. However, two of the longtime members are exploiting the setup to signal that I am not welcome in the church. They do not attend church services on the Sundays that I preach. I have tried to talk with both members but one of them refuses to talk with me and the other, while offering me an explanation for his absence, did not explain why he was choosing the Sundays that I preach to attend another church which happens to be the church of the pastor who administers the Lord’s Supper once a month. Both members have very loudly within my hearing discussed plans not attend church on the Sundays that I preach and their preference for the pastor of the other church.
No offense intended but the assessment that the church is on it’s last legs is probably spot on. It’s hard to overcome the power of long-time members without a means to interact with and work with the power players.
Since, it appears, your hands are tied somewhat both by denomination and hierarchy there’s very likely little you can do. But, if you are able try to figure out how to co-opt (not a good word but it’s all I can come up with) them into being in your camp or at least not overtly hostile to you.
What is it that sets them off? Is it age, gender, heritage (in our area you hear the term “to-here” and “from-here”)? Or is it simply they don’t want to cede power? The former you really can’t do anything about but the latter can be addressed. Are there supporters among the other elders in the church? Or are you slugging it out with little power support?
As a sage advisor said, sometimes the right thing is to let a church die. As much as it hurts irreparable damage can be done limping a church along.
It is difficult to say what exactly set these two members off. One member was upset by a prayer request that I emailed to the congregation. There was a shooting at a local school and I asked for prayer for all parties involved, including the shooter and his family. So did my bishop and the pastor who administers the Lord’s Supper once a month but I was the only person who received pushback. I noticed that my preaching made both of them visibly uneasy. Frequent themes in my sermons are the importance of Christ’s death on the cross, our need for repentance and a personal relationship with Christ, the importance of living the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. I have been encouraging the congregation to be more outward looking and to invite friends and relatives to church. While I have approached both them, neither will talk about what is troubling them. These two members are the only ones who are consistently absent the last few Sunday that I preached.
East to say standing where I do but the problem is them not you. If most of the congregation is receptive (not specifically unchallenged but not outwardly hostile) then your message is a good message. Sometimes the truth causes people to evaluate their lives and, at least from afar, these two are looking for a “country club” and not a living body of Christ.
As hard as it is, the church is better off without them, at least in their current iteration.
Blessings to you.
Les
And for what it’s worth, our denomination is still “up in arms” because they changed the prayer book (in 1979) and the hymnal (in 1982), that we decided to ordain women, and any number of things.
Change is hard.
Conflict management = people leave.
Conflict resolution = problems leave–and cannot come back because, in the course of learning to resolve (rather than merely to manage) conflict, everyone involved must grow up.
Maturity and emotional security are required in adults in order to resolve conflicts. Not every adult is either mature or emotionally secure. Those folk who are not can be (mostly) gotten there, but it may take time . . . Everyone discussing again expectations–and each one determining whether or not he/she can live with those expectations–helps choose the future (e.g., “. . . I can do that, but my core values simply will not permit me to agree to do that . . . How about you? . . . OK–it’s decide; from this point forward, we all will . . .”).
There are such things as “blessed subtractions”–a subtraction from the membership, for sure, but a blessing nonetheless 🙂