After yesterday's post on the dangers of toxic pastors to the church I had some ask about writing a similar post about toxic lay leaders. Actually, I have written several posts over the years about such leaders. Some of my books also contain sections that address toxic lay leaders. I usually refer to such people as controllers, and they are extremely damaging to a church. One reason they are so damaging is that no one wants to stand up to them so they are allowed to continue their bad behavior.
Controllers, or toxic lay leaders, care nothing about the church. They care only for their own position in the church. They seek to control the pastor, the finances and everything else that goes on in the church. They will attack anything that seems to be a threat to their power or position with no concern about who it might hurt or how it might harm the church. As I've written elsewhere, these people are cancers to the church. They are unhealthy cells attacking the healthy cells in the body of Christ, and if they are not stopped they will kill a church.
You can't stop a cancer in the body by pretending it doesn't exist or by covering it with a band-aid. It often requires aggressive action to stop a cancer from spreading, and often the treatment is difficult, but unless the cancer is treated properly it will kill the body.
Too often, the church is not willing to challenge a controller. They make excuses for the bad behavior of their toxic leaders. They allow controllers to run off pastor after pastor and member after member because of their refusal to take action against the controller. They stand there and watch their church grow smaller and more unhealthy each year and do nothing. As one departing pastor told me once, "We have too many nice people in our church who won't stand up to the ones who aren't so nice." This good pastor grew weary of fighting the small thinking of a handful of controllers and left after a very successful ministry in that church. Years later, that church has not recovered from his leaving.
When I was serving in a judicatory role a church board contacted me about an ongoing problem they were having. They struggled keeping pastors, and while new members joined their church, they often left within a few months. The board pointed to two families who were mostly responsible for the turmoil and loss of new people. I asked the board what they were going to do about it, and they said there wasn't anything they could do. I looked at them and said, "Then learn to live with it," and started to leave. They asked, "What can we do?" I explained that as leaders of that church they were the ones to decide who stays and who goes. If you have two families who are causing dissension in the church and driving people away you need to address their bad behavior and explain that it will not be tolerated. Within a few weeks the board did address the problem, and both of the toxic families left the church. They called a new pastor who has been there for several years now and the church has more than doubled in size.
When a church has someone causing dissension in the church, constantly creating problems and preventing the church from moving forward the lay leaders must address the problem. The pastor cannot do this by himself or herself. The offending individual needs to be addressed by the entire group of lay leaders, the offensive behavior pointed out, and it needs to be made clear that future behavior of that type will not be tolerated. When confronted by the group the offender knows the church means business. At this point, the next step is up to the offender. He or she can either adjust their behavior or leave the church. If the person decides to do neither the church will need to take appropriate action.
Is any of this easy? No, but it's no more difficult that watching good people leave the church because of the bad behavior of a toxic lay leader.
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