Secrets

Your organization is only as healthy as the secrets you keep.

This is one of the things I discuss in my "Healthy Small Church" workshop. It's true of any organization whether you are talking about a church, a business, or even a family. When secrets are kept, the organization can never be as healthy as it can be when things are out in the open. And one of the things you can be sure of is that eventually your secrets will come out, and when they do the results are usually worse than if the secrets had not been kept in the first place.

I am aware of a church going through difficult times because the leadership has tried to keep secrets from the congregation. Of course, they say they were just trying to protect the congregation, and that may in fact be what they were trying to do. But, that is not what some in the congregation believe now that the secrets are coming out. What the church is now having to address are trust issues, and it is doubtful these issues will be resolved for months, and probably years, from now.

When I was pastor at Hebron we tried to keep people informed of what was going on in the church. Our finances were published every quarter for our business meeting and copies were left out for people who did not attend the meeting to pick up. The financial report showed every dollar that came in and every dollar that went out. There were no secret meetings held to address issues that came up in the life of our church. At least if there were, they were kept secret from me as well! We tried to keep everything that was done in the church in the open, and if questions were asked we could answer honestly because we had nothing to hide.

One issue die arise during my pastorate there. Some people were concerned that something had been arranged in secret. When one person first heard of it a handful of concerned members immediately began their investigation. It sounded like the Watergate hearings. "When did you know about this, and what did you do?" Despite the fears of these concerned members, nothing had been done in secret. We had nothing to hide. We could answer all their questions honestly and with our integrity intact.

Are there secrets in your church? I encourage you to bring them out into the open. They will probably be revealed anyway, and the sooner they are made known to people the less damage they can do. I also encourage you to refuse to operate secretly. Keep all your dealings in the open so that you can maintain the trust of your people. Once you lose that trust it may never be recovered, and without trust you cannot lead your church.