Low trust churches

A Baptist pastor recently called me frustrated over recent events in his church.  A group within the church had worked for some time preparing a proposed change to the church constitution that would eliminate the need for the congregation to vote on every decision that had to be made.  Steps were included to ensure that people would continue to have input on major decisions, but a vote would not have to be taken for every decision.  This was especially needed since the church had already eliminated its monthly business meeting and now only had two business meetings a year.  Numerous special called business meetings had occurred to vote on issues so the church would not have to wait for the next semi-annual meeting to made a decision.  The new proposal would streamline the decision-making process in the church while ensuring that the congregation would continue to be able to vote on larger, essential items such as the calling of a pastor, the budget, and major changes that would have a large impact on the church.   A number of people who do not normally attend business meetings were there to oppose the recommendation.  The proposal failed on a tie vote.  The pastor said the church was split 50-50 when he went there and after several years of ministry it remains evenly divided.

This pastor and I had talked about the challenges he faced in this church before.  It is a divided church, and it is a church that has little trust in its leadership and in one another.  Low trust churches insist on voting on every issue simply because the people do not trust one another.  People insist on having a say on matters even though they may never have studied the issue or really know anything about it.  In one church I know the congregation is primarily made up of four families, and each of the families have to be represented on every board and committee in the church because they really do not trust one another.  They have been going to this church for years together, but there remains little trust in the church among the various families.  This lack of trust has been a major factor in each of these churches inability to experience healthy growth.

As a life-long Baptist I was raised to appreciate congregational decision-making.  For most churches it worked well for many, many years, but it is not a model that is effective today.  Things change too rapidly in the 21st century to expect a group of people attending a church business meeting to be able to make a rational vote after a 5-10 minute presentation on some matter.  Think for a moment on this scenario:  a church committee examines a particular issue for several months.  They talk with various experts to get the best advice they can find.  They explore numerous options and visit other churches to learn how they handled this issue in their churches.  They make a presentation to the congregation prior to a vote, and at the end of their presentation people who know little or nothing about the matter vote against it because the proposal doesn't fit what they expected it would be.  I've seen this happen twice in the past few years, and both times it was devastating to the churches.  I anticipate the ramifications of their decisions will cripple those churches for years to come.

The bulk of the decision making has to be handed over to the primary leaders in most congregations so decisions can be made in real time.  If you cannot trust them to make good decisions then maybe they shouldn't be leaders in your church, or it might be a sign that it's time for you to move on to another church where there are some leaders you can trust.  In a worst-case scenario it may be that you don't trust anyone to make decisions except yourself because only then can you be sure that the decisions that are made will be beneficial to you and your agenda.

As long as the church membership cannot trust their leaders to make many of the decisions that need to be made without calling for a church vote, the church will continue to experience decline.  It will be unable to make the necessary adjustments quick enough to meet the needs of this century.  A pastor trying to lead a low-trust church will find it almost impossible to do so.  Such churches prefer managers over leaders, and they are unlikely to follow a leader

It will be uncomfortable, but members of low-trust churches need to grant their leaders decision-making powers.  If that happens, the leadership needs to be very careful to make good decisions to demonstrate that they can be trusted to do so.  If these two things can happen the trust level in the church can be raised to a place where the church becomes much healthier, and that health will be reflected in the quality of ministry that occurs within the church and community.