Church controllers

I recently had a call from a church member who was concerned that their pastor might be leaving because of the opposition he was receiving from a small faction of people within the congregation.  The caller said that the majority of members supported the pastor and wanted to know how to keep him from resigning.  This caller said that there is a small group of people who consistently keep things stirred up in their church, and because of that they cannot keep a pastor.  I explained that if a majority of members want to keep their pastor they must be willing to confront the controllers and demand they change their behavior.  Of course, the caller resisted that advice because he is a nice person who doesn't want to come across like the controllers.  I then shared one of my favorite lines:  The problem in many of our churches is that we are made up of very nice people who are not willing to confront those who aren't so nice thereby giving them the power to control everything that goes on in the church.

This is one reason some of our smaller churches are so unhealthy.  Church controllers are like a cancer in a body.  Cancer cells attack healthy cells causing the body to become unhealthy.  If left untreated the cancer will eventually bring about death.  When doctors find cancers they usually take immediate, drastic action.  Many of the treatments for cancer are unpleasant and no one wants to go through them, but without the treatment the long-term prognosis usually isn't very good.

Nice church people do not want to confront controllers.  It's not very pleasant.  You hear nice church people say things like, "I don't go to church to fight."  They may not like the things the controllers are doing to the church, but they aren't willing to stand up against them.  They avoid business meetings because they know the meetings will be unpleasant.  As a result, the controllers are allowed to do whatever they want to do until they drain the very life out of the church.

Tom Bandy asks a great question in his book Fragile Hope.  "All you need to ask is: 'Do you love controllers more than your own children, parents, neighbors, and work associates?'  Is it more important to keep controlling clergy, matriarchs, patriarchs, wealthy trustees, or domineering institutional managers, rather than welcome your own teenagers, parents, and immediate loved ones into the community of faith?  The choice may be as profound as 'Christ or Institution,' but for most people it is as simple as 'Controller or my teenager.'  If one must go so the other can belong, what will be your preference?"

Most people in a small church dislike conflict.  Small churches are built on relationships, and these relationships are vital to small churches.  Unfortunately, church controllers depend on this.  They know most people in the church do not want to do anything to upset the relationships that exist within their church which means they will allow the controllers enormous power in the church because the controllers don't mind at all upsetting the relationships in order to get what they want.  As a result, churches develop a poor reputation in the community and prospective new members avoid these churches because of that reputation.  To make a bad problem even worse, our young people abandon these churches as soon as they are old enough to make that decision.

I would love to see congregations reclaim their churches from the controllers.  In the few cases I've seen it happen it always led to the church becoming much healthier and it has always led to growth.   It won't be easy, but it can be done, and people don't have to sink to the level of the controllers to make it happen.  They may have to be firm, but they don't have to be nasty and mean about it.  Such confrontation will not be pleasant but it when it is successful it will lead to a healthy church, and a healthy church will become a growing church having a much greater impact on its community for the Kingdom of God.