Ministry Staff - Christianity Today

The music staff was fuming. I could hear their complaints as I walked down the hall.

“This will never work. We might as well cancel all the music.”

“He didn’t even ask what we thought. He just sent this memo.”

“This never would’ve happened if Jerry were here.”

Maybe, but I doubted it. Our new pastor had a different leadership style from his predecessor. And since the departure of the minister of music, the rest of us had little representation in big decisions.

I opened the door.

“Becky, look what he’s done now.” Our music associate rehearsed the group’s grievances while waving the pastor’s memo about. The pastor was preaching longer sermons. The services were running overtime, and people were grumbling. Beside each item in the order of service, he had noted a time allotment: two minutes for a hymn, a minute-and-a-half for a chorus, three minutes for the anthem. “This is unrealistic. Why should we bother to show up on Sunday?”

“Have you told the pastor that?” I asked.

They looked at each other. “No.”

“Well, I will!”

Approaching the “unapproachable”

People tell me I’m easy to work with, but, in fact, I can be confrontational. I suppose that’s why the staff hoped I would talk with the pastor about the memo. In my six years at that church, I worked with two pastors, two interim pastors, and three ministers of music. When between music leaders, guiding the music program fell to me in addition to my responsibilities as organist.

Living with this revolving door that is large church ministry, I have based my staff relationships on unwavering support and, when necessary, unvarnished candor. Even with my superiors.

“Plan a service using the pastor’s guidelines, and I’ll take it to him and share our concerns,” I told my fellow musicians. They knew I would do it, but one of them wondered how I would get to him. Some staff had complained that the new pastor was inaccessible. He devoted many hours to sermon preparation, and walked a fairly straight line from his study to the pulpit and back.

I called his secretary and made an appointment. I also thought very carefully about what I would say.

“We wanted to show you how the new worship service turned out,” I told him the next day. Our church had had a strong emphasis on worship music. Now there was almost none. He recognized that.

“That’s not what I meant to happen,” he said, noting only two choruses. “But we need to pare it down.”

“Well, that’s what those minutes in the margin do.”

Here was a pastor who was desperate to fix a situation. To him, this looked like a solution. “Perhaps we can help find some other ways to save time,” I offered.

He agreed.

“How did you get in there?” the music assistant asked me later as I reported the results.

“I made an appointment.” None of the other staff followed my lead, and the pastor’s reputation as unapproachable didn’t change. But that didn’t stop me from going down the hall when I felt an issue was important.

Later, a second meeting with the pastor, at my initiative, showed me that speaking up can be beneficial.

Entering his office, I expected to be rebuffed. Our choirs’ holiday spectacular had been cut dramatically when the pastor arrived because he thought the secular component had no place in a church program. The Christmas concert I had presented for several years included some secular music, too. “Just do it. He doesn’t need to know,” one staff member said to me. I thought he should know.

“You’re the pastor,” I said, opening our discussion, “and whatever you say is what I’ll do. I feel like this is something you might have a problem with. But I want you to see it before you close the door to it.”

I popped a videotape into his VCR. He watched a few minutes of the previous year’s concert, first some sacred music, then some secular. I showed him how I used “Jingle Bells” to illustrate a point and explained my philosophy behind the program and for reaching the people who would attend it. I had planned what I would say, remembering his position as pastor, his responsibility for the overall ministry of the church, and his personal leadership style. He is very business-like, so I had my reasoning laid out before I went in. He seemed to appreciate that. I made sure my language was non-combative.

When I got through, he said, “Becky, I trust you. Do what you feel is right for this program. Just, please, don’t do Santa Claus flagrantly.”

Over the next two years, he included me in several important decisions about the music minstry. At one point, he asked me to draft a list of members for a music minister search committee, then asked me to chair the committee.

Our relationship became one of mutual respect.

Prayerful preparation

One little session in a doctoral class has colored all my staff relationships since. That half-hour lecture, almost an aside in a course on music philosophy and administration, taught me the importance of careful confrontation.

Now I share it with my students who ask how to handle differences of opinion with staff members, especially their pastors.

1. Begin praying immediately. Ask God for guidance. “If I’m not supposed to say anything, Lord, then give me peace about it and help me to let it go.” There are times when God releases you from saying anything, but there are times when he doesn’t.

If God doesn’t release you from that burden, then get it on the table and talk about it. Either way, you can’t let bitterness cause walls to build up in a relationship. You must keep those doors open at all times in order to minister as a team.

2. Make a list. Write the pros and the cons on both sides of the situation. You need to see it from all angles. You especially need to see the effect on the ministry and the people in the church. They’re the ones who either benefit or have their spiritual lives hindered by what’s going on with the staff. Listing the arguments, whether you agree with them or not, helps you be realistic about what can be let go, what’s not going away, and what really matters.

3. Decide what you’re going to say. Just as important, decide how you’re going to say it. Sometimes when I need to say something confrontational, I write down sentences that make my point to be certain that I’m not in any way making a judgment or an accusation. When the language turns combative, communication stops. You might ask an impartial third party to review it. I have offered for students to say their piece to me and let me tell them how it sounds.

4. Then, speak up. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. And you have to be willing to take the knocks.

The senior adults in one church were complaining about the changes in the worship music. I felt the minister of music needed to know the undercurrent that was developing. I told him, “I don’t want you to change a thing you’re doing. But if I were in your position, I would want to know what’s going on.”

But he did not receive it well, and from that time on he seemed defensive whenever I spoke to him about the music program. That’s the only case I recall where a working relationship was hindered by careful confrontation.

More recently, however, a minister of music leading a church through similar changes accepted my candor, even appreciated it. The key is to be affirming. I can honestly tell the people I work with, “I really do love you, and I’m going to support you—no matter what.”

If I can say that truthfully, then they will usually be willing to hear the hard truths as well.

Becky Lombard is assistant professor at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and organist at First Baptist Church of New Orleans.