Small churches and the fear of losing people

Recently I received a call from a leader in a small church about an on-going problem in their church.  A controller continued to create problems in the church that resulted in people leaving.  Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon problem.  In larger churches such controllers can sometimes be minimized simply due to the size of the congregation, but in the smaller church it's hard to ignore such people.  They are often given tremendous power in the smaller church.  Because of the relational nature of smaller churches many people do not want to jeopardize their relationship with the controllers by calling attention to their behavior so few people are willing to confront them.  As the caller finished telling me about the problem I simply asked him, "So, what are you going to do about it?"

I received the usual responses.  Everybody knew how this person was.  Aren't we supposed to be loving and forgiving?  Most of our folks just want to get along.  Nobody wanted to say anything to the individual because they were afraid the person might get upset and leave the church.  At that point I responded, "You just told me people are leaving because of this individual.  As a leader in the church you get to choose who stays and who goes.  Now, do you prefer to keep people who continually create problems or people who want to do ministry in your church?" 

It's not a matter of losing people; it's deciding who the church will lose.  Far too many churches decide, because of their inaction, to keep the controllers and sacrifice those who were looking for a place in which they could satisfy their spiritual needs.  Tom Bandy, in his book Fragile Hope, really nails it when he asks if we love our controllers more than we do our own teenagers.  He asks, "If one must go so the other can belong, what will be your preference?"

This is much easier to write about than to live out in real life.  These people often have been in their church for years.  We know them and their families well.  They may be major financial supporters of the church or be highly involved in the life of the congregation.  As long as they get their way they may be some of the most charming individuals in the church.  It's hard to challenge such people, but if a church is to be healthy such confrontation sometimes needs to occur.

The leadership team from a small church called once soon after their pastor had resigned wanting to meet with me.  During that meeting they identified two families in the church that were the source of many of the church's problems.  I asked them what they planned to do about it, and was told they didn't see anything they could do.  I explained that until they were willing address the problem it would continue to limit their church's witness in the community.  I left the meeting feeling they would do nothing, but within a few weeks they confronted both families about their behavior.  Both times the families threatened to leave the church, and the leadership gave them permission to do so.  They did leave, and since then that church had doubled its attendance and probably tripled its giving.

We don't want to ever run people away from our churches, but at the same time we can't be so afraid of losing people we will not confront bad behavior.  Sometimes when some people leave through the back door it allows others to come in through the front doors.

To read more on this subject I recommend my book The Healthy Small Church: Diagnosis and Treatment for the Big Issues and Tom Bandy's book Fragile Hope (Convergence Ebook Series).