A number of years ago, a pulpit committee representative from a large southern church took me to lunch and asked if I would consider becoming their pastor.
“Tell me about the church,” I said, and after touching on a number of points, he squared with me: “Steve, our church has a serious problem because it is controlled by one man. He gives a lot of money and has probably been there longer than anyone else. Because of who he is, he pretty much gets his way. The last three pastors have left because of him. But we believe we have a majority and we can take him.”
“You’re not looking for a pastor,” I commented. “You’re looking for a drill sergeant.”
“Well,” he replied, “I wouldn’t put it that way, but yes, that’s probably it, and you’re the only one we know who is mean enough to clean up the mess.”
I quickly told him I didn’t feel led to become their pastor, but I did have a hit list of fellow clergy I’d be glad to submit for the committee’s consideration.
As I thought about that incident later, I was horrified at the reputation I had somehow developed. How could I have gotten known as a drill sergeant when all I wanted to be was a faithful and godly man? That incident happened a long time ago. Now I am a lot older and a little wiser, and I have come to value my drill sergeant reputation. In fact, I have begun to see it as a manifestation of faithfulness and godliness.
No More Mister Nice Guy
I spend a portion of my time teaching seminary students, and one of the pastoral traits I urge my students to develop is, for lack of a better term, a “mean streak.” All too often in American churches, pastors have become sitting ducks for neurotic church members (and they are a small minority). If people don’t like the way a pastor parts his hair or ties his tie, they feel free to tell him. If they don’t like his wife’s dress because it clashes with the curtains in the church, they tell him. You wouldn’t believe the comments on my beard I have received over the years! Some people feel free to criticize and correct pastors on things for which they’d never think of criticizing anyone else.
Not long ago I was talking with a pastor in serious trouble with his congregation. He was being second-guessed and ridiculed in a shameful way. As we talked, it became apparent this young man needed to develop a mean streak to survive. He told me he felt he had been called to love his people, to understand them even when they were cruel and abusive.
“While you should be loving and kind,” I said, “it’s equally important to be honest and strong. Why don’t you bring the people making those comments before the ruling body of the church and have them justify their disturbance of the peace and unity of the church, or leave.”
The young pastor’s reply was interesting: “Steve, I know that’s what I should do, but I’m just not made that way. I feel my ministry is to pour oil on troubled waters, not put a match to it.” Needless to say, that young man is no longer in the ministry. He didn’t have enough oil for all the troubled waters, so he is now selling insurance.
Former professional football player Norm Evans told me once about a massive freshman lineman-six foot five-with whom he played. In the lineman’s first game, the opposing lineman kept pulling this man’s helmet down over his eyes. The young lineman went up to the coach and said, “Coach, he keeps pulling my helmet down. What should I do?”
The coach smiled and said, “Son, don’t let him do it.”
The Urge to Please
One of the hardest lessons I ever learned was that I can’t please everyone. I want to; I desire to be what everyone wants me to be. I want everyone to love me. The problem is, I simply can’t do it. And until I understand that, I will never be effective.
I’ve noticed the problem isn’t confined to clergy. Many Christians share it with us. We swallow spurious doctrines, refuse to ask questions, avoid confrontation, stifle protests, keep quiet when we ought to speak, allow ourselves to be manipulated-all because we’re afraid people won’t love us if we don’t please them.
In an insightful essay entitled “The Inner Ring,” C. S. Lewis wrote, “I believe that in all men’s lives at certain periods, and in many men’s lives at all periods between infancy and extreme old age, one of the most dominant elements is the desire to be inside the local Ring and the terror of being left outside. … Of all passions the passion for the Inner Ring is most skillful in making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things.”
I can understand that need to be in the inner circle, to be liked, because it is one of my problems. Have you ever noticed the Christian liturgy that takes place not during the worship service but after it? The pastor goes to the door and everyone files past. As they pass, the liturgy requires them to say, “Pastor, that was a wonderful sermon.” Then, according to liturgy, the pastor responds by saying, “Thank you. I’m pleased God used it.”
This practice works fine except on those occasions when I have preached a bomb. I know it, and the congregation knows it. During the sermon, people were checking their watches, and then they were shaking them to make sure they weren’t broken. Everybody was bored, and the sermon died before it got to the first pew.
Never mind. The Christian liturgy is chiseled in stone: I still must go to the door, and the people still have to file past me mumbling the same comment and receiving the same response. I’m sure you’ve had those days, too.
The problem comes, however, when we decide we have to avoid those days more than anything in the world. So we pen sermons to please the congregation. We know there is truth to be said, but we don’t say it because it might offend someone. We know we need to be strong, but if we are too strong, people might be upset, so we pass out pious pablum that doesn’t offend anyone.
Because our self-identity as pastors is so caught up in what we do in the pulpit, the distance soon narrows between being kind, sweet, and insipid in the pulpit and being kind, sweet, and insipid in every area of life.
The Courage to Offend
I used to have a book in my library (since borrowed and never returned) with a great title. I don’t remember who wrote it, but it was titled Bible in Pocket; Gun in Hand. It was about the frontier preachers in America and their determination to preach the gospel whether or not anybody wanted to listen. They would have been uncomfortable in many contemporary churches. In fact, most of our churches would have been uncomfortable with them. Those gun-totin’ parsons simply would not have been able to play the game.
If we examine the biblical record without bringing preconceived ideas, we become acutely aware that most of the men and women of the Bible and church history would also be uncomfortable in many churches. Moses might get angry enough to find some stone tablets to break. Joshua might call out his fearless troops and fight to give the land back to the pagans. Gideon, Deborah, and Samson would probably wonder who’s leading, and the prophets would laugh. John the Baptist would never get invited to dinner-and be glad.
Somehow many have translated leadership into terms of servanthood and love that are divorced from the biblical sense of the words. As a result, a mild style of leadership has made them targets for every upset church member with a theological or cultural gun. Such pastors could benefit from a Christian mean streak.
We’ve got people thinking pastors are supposed to be nice people whose calling is to tell other people to be nice. Then they talk of “a crisis in pastoral leadership.” I believe the crisis has more to do with the inability to develop toughness than it does with burnout or lack of money or training.
If every media representation of a pastor paints a smiling, harmless wimp, and if we begin to interpret the Scriptures from that cultural perspective, after a while we start becoming what everybody thinks we are. Much of the anger directed at outspoken Christian leaders, I believe, is not from what they say but because they aren’t supposed to say anything at all. They break the established tradition of niceness, and that simply is not done.
Get-Tough Principles
I’m no expert, but I am a survivor, and after more than twenty years of survival, I have isolated four principles that I violate only at my own peril. And, preacher that I am, the principles are in the form of an acrostic spelling out WIMP. Let me share them with you.
First is the principle of waves: Any time you refuse to make waves when you ought to, you will face greater waves later.
Almost every time I have tried to avoid a problem by looking the other way or by covering it with sweetness and light, what could have been handled with honest and loving confrontation at the beginning has become so monstrous it requires a major shooting match at the end. By waiting, I needlessly hurt others, the church, and myself.
Elijah’s question to the people, “How long will you falter between two opinions?” (1 Kings 18:21) is an appropriate admonishment to those of us who try to put off dealing with problems. I served a church once where the clerk of the Session (the leading lay office) was constantly resigning when he didn’t get his way. I tried to be nice, to understand and soothe him, but it didn’t work. I finally accepted his resignation, filled the position with someone else, and called him into my study to explain what I had done and why.
I expected the church to fall apart, but it didn’t. Instead, he ended up receiving Christ and offering a public confession before the entire congregation. An elder in the church I now serve says, “Steve, always do right, and it will come out right. But even if it doesn’t come out right, you will feel right having done right.”
Second is the principle of image: People see you as a representative of God, even if you don’t like it, and often will react to you on a human level as they react to God on a spiritual level.
I fully expect to go into an airport sometime and find three restrooms: one for men, one for women, and one for clergy. Our image-and thus, God’s-is sissified.
Paul said we are ambassadors for Christ (2 Cor. 5:20), and an ambassador must truly represent his or her government. If I am sweet when I ought to be angry, weak when I ought to be strong, and nice when I ought to be hard, I do not adequately represent the government. And people might start picturing our “terrible” Lord the way I have allowed them to caricature me.
Peter Cartwright, the early Methodist circuit rider, didn’t allow that problem. When he came into a town, he would often stand on the outskirts, turn to his friends, and say, “I smell hell.” The stench of sin bothered him. How easy it is to try to cover the smell of hell with the perfume of platitudes, but if we will be true to the image we represent, we cannot.
A couple came to me the other day asking to be married. After discussing their situation with them, I realized he was not a Christian and she was. At that point I had a problem endorsing their marriage. I said, “I like you guys a lot, but I’m not going to be able to do the ceremony,” and I explained the biblical reasons why I could not perform the ceremony.
The young woman began to cry, and the young man got angry. He said, “I thought pastors were here to help people, and you’ve made her cry!”
I said to him, “Son, I am helping you; I’m telling you the truth. If you don’t like the truth, you should go somewhere where people will lie to you.” He and his fiancยe left my study angry, but I can live with that. And maybe when they think of pastors in the future, the image won’t be the same. They may dislike pastors, but they’ll know pastors aren’t afraid to speak the truth.
Third is the principle of mandate: Having been given by God a mandate for leadership, you must lead, or your sin is unfaithfulness.
I love God’s charge to Joshua, and I assume it belongs to me and every pastor called of God: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go” (Josh. 1:9).
Someone once said about leadership: “Either lead or follow or get out of the way!” I have recently completed a building program, and in handling that responsibility I did almost everything wrong. I was afraid to lead because any direction I might take could split the church. So I got in the way. My indecision was causing significant problems until my good friend Jim Baird showed me he cared enough about me to tell me the truth.
“Steve,” he said, “if you are not willing to pay the price of leadership, then don’t expect anything to happen.” That shook me up enough to make me take a stand, to lead, and we did complete the project.
Finally, there is the principle of passing: Hold your church lightly and be willing to leave quickly.
I admit it: I used to play a lot of poker, and I learned (with Kenny Rogers) a lot about life from the poker table. I learned there are times when you need to pass and wait for a better hand. Other times you just need to leave the table. I don’t think a pastor should resign at the drop of a hat or over piddling issues, but I do believe there are issues important enough to cause a pastor to leave-and leave quickly.
Jesus knew about us, I believe, when he gave us the sacrament of shaking the dust off our feet. “And whoever will not receive you nor hear your words, when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet” (Matt. 10:14). You don’t do it very often, but when the right time comes, it’s effective.
In our city we have an announcer who signs off each morning with these words: “Now, y’all hold on to what y’all have got until y’all get what y’all want.” I suspect that’s good advice for a pagan, but not for a Christian, and certainly not for a pastor.
I keep an undated resignation in my files, and the fact that I know it is there and I am willing to use it keeps me from selling my soul. I won’t capitulate on something important only to stay in my church. The knowledge that I can always go into vinyl repair has covered a multitude of sins.
The Tough Side of Ministry
Developing a Christian mean streak is, of course, another name for Christian boldness. “The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion” (Prov. 28:1). Without boldness, we cannot serve God adequately.
I’m angry at the structures that tell me I can’t be angry. I’m angry at myself when I compromise in the wrong places. I’m angry when society and the church tell me I am not to be what God called me to be-an obedient ambassador of Jesus Christ.
In Perelandra, the second book of C. S. Lewis’s science fiction trilogy, the protagonist, Ransom, has been sent to the planet Perelandra to prevent a fall similar to Adam’s on earth. The adversary, in the form of a man named Weston, is also on Perelandra, working against Ransom’s efforts.
Ransom realizes with horror the evil represented by Weston, and gradually comes to understand he must face and destroy Weston in battle. It is a frightening prospect. In the darkness of the Perelandran night, Ransom considers the fact that he can stand and fight or he can run. Out of the blackness comes a voice that says, “My name is also Ransom.”
With Ransom, we face the same decision. We can stand and fight, or we can run scared. It behooves us to act in a manner that honors the name we bear-Christians. If we are going to carry the name, we must be willing to pay the price. Ransom stood and fought the forces of evil because he was reminded of the name of another who refused to withdraw from the fight.
We also bear the name Ransom. If we are only out to be nice, mild-mannered folk, we should either change our name or change our calling.
Now, don’t you feel a mean streak coming on?
Stephen Brown is pastor of Key Biscayne (Florida) Presbyterian Church.
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