Steve’s Theory Re. Church Boards, #43: “There is a mysterious little red book that is passed among toxic boards with rules of conduct.  One of the primary rules is, ‘When a new pastor is checking out your place, put away the firearms, knives grenades and clean up the blood spills from the previous pastor… and hope the new guys isn’t trained in CSI techniques…’” 

Paul’s counsel to his understudy, Timothy, is as timely today as it was 2,000 years ago.  People really don’t change do they?  Human nature is human nature, right?  Pettiness is interesting to those who have lost sight of the central focus of the kingdom.  Sometimes people are teachable.  In fact, most are it seems.  But some are broken.  Those are the ones who are in need to care.  One thing is for certain – the broken ones who cannot see the prevailing future God has for us

“We’re going to outlast you.  We’ve outlasted the past several pastors.  We’ll do the same with you.  That’s that.”

You’ve just shared your vision with the board of your new church.  Somehow, like an addict who managed to hide his / her gigantic problem before getting married, when you checked out the church all seemed “happy happy, joy joy.”  Now that you’ve moved umpteen thousand miles the fangs and claws appear.  The real board sinks their heels in.  They make it crystal clear they are not open to your “newfangled” ideas about changing this or that. 

I receive emails continually with this scenario. 

Feel called to it or not, your part of your job description leader is to raise the spiritual watermark of your city.  That happens as you operate as Jesus directed – “Be wise as a serpent.”  There’s more to the verse, but we’ll stop there for now.  It is not all that often that serpent-like wisdom is something we need to lean upon when dealing with those outside the Church.  The unfortunate truth any veteran leader will tell you is serpent wisdom is needed when dealing with those who want to be a big fish in a little pond.  Those who the maladjusted, emotionally broken, who have convinced themselves they are serving when in fact they are seeking visibility or something they don’t even have an understanding of.  We all are in the same boat to some degree.  The difference between a healthy brokenness and a desperately unhealthy one is the willingness to call out for help. 

As the local church leader who is dealing with such non-leaders who are posing as the real thing, you have several responses to choose from:
A.    Become even more cynical than you currently are (that’s not healthy emotionally or spiritually). 
By the way, before you flog yourself for falling into a tad bit of cynicism realize this:  Only those who really care about something great happening can possibly fall prey to becoming cynical. Those who don’t really care about attaining God’s best, will never become emotionally involved.  

Ponder some positive responses to this vexing situation…

B.    Promote specific board members who are ill-fitted for the current vision scenario.  I use the word “promote” as in remove them to a better place where they will find greater fulfillment and do less damage to the church. 
In some church polity systems, boards are elected by a vote of the membership.  The way this would need to take place is for a given ill-fitted leader to feel loved, understood, led, cared for by you.  Once you tap into their real passion (not this sort of leadership obviously) you help them find an either existing ministry they lend leadership to – or even better, help them create a new ministry they lead, assuming they have a passion for that specific area.  Passion is the key. 

PLEASE… Drop the idea of “gifting” that has been so emphasized the past number of years.  I have read between a dozen and twenty books on the general topic of “help your people engage in their area of gifting with ministry opportunities that exist.”  Yet I have not read nor heard of a single – I write literally here – a single ongoing example of a large, growing, city-reaching congregation that has walked in this model of “gift discovery = effectiveness.”  The reason being, I believe, it is an American trend that is a misunderstanding of scripture.  I will write on this in coming weeks along with a much more realistic and scripturally based concept that indeed does bear fruit.

The absolute key here… the person (people) in question must feel they are serving in an area that clearly fits their passion.  Once tapped into, people will go far when their passion is released. 

C.    Strategically work toward influencing key players in your congregation.  Regardless of the size of your congregation, the size of the key influencers is not going to be enormous.  In fact, if you are observant, if you are a listener, you will be able to figure out who pulls the strings – whether officially or unofficially.  In established congregations, this power will likely rest in unofficial hands.  Pray for favor with these people.  Seek to bring them into your vision circle.  Keep in mind, this is not your vision after all, this is the vision God gave you. 
Keep in mind, your secret weapon might be sitting right next to you – your spouse.  This is not universally true.  If your spouse is not doing well emotionally, don’t even consider putting them through something like this.  On the other hand, if all is well, work as a team to forward the vision Jesus has put on your heart. 

Question:  Okay, but what do you do if the people in question still won’t budge?  What do you do if they are major contributors and they threaten to quit coming to the church even? 

That’s what we will look at next week…