Few people work under higher expectations to be nice than pastors, yet few occupations nurture as much anger.
— Ed Dobson
My father pastored in Belfast, Northern Ireland, for seven years. Every Sunday he preached and then walked to the door to shake parishioners’ hands. And every Sunday one man said on his way out, “Well, you got it off your chest again, didn’t you?”
I never heard my father complain about that man’s disrespect for his preaching (he only recently told me about it). He was able to forbear.
If the same thing happened to me, I would probably go to that man, ask him what his problem is, and suggest there are 480 Protestant churches in town, one of which should be able to please him!
Pastoral life is ripe soil for rage. Criticism comes often and unfairly. Hard work may return small tangible results. Members resist leadership and change. Conflicts among church workers are endemic. Volunteers don’t show up for promised work. We’re pulled between giving our best to our families or to the church. There is never enough money, never enough time, never enough help. The work is never done.
Few people work under higher expectations to be nice than pastors, yet few occupations nurture as much anger. The result: many pastors are like a wide spot in a swiftly flowing river. On the surface, the water is fairly placid, but underneath is a dangerous undercurrent.
What should we do about this undertow of frustration, hurts, aggravation?
Recognizing the Anger
In our culture, many people think of the pastor as the nicest person in town, always smiling as benignly as a funeral director, never offended by even the unkindest cut. Consciously or unconsciously, most pastors try to live up to the omni-nice image.
That is as it should be; we are to be forbearing. The problem comes when we’re so afraid of getting angry that we cannot recognize when we are. And that seems to be the case with many pastors; they just don’t recognize how angry they are.
Many deny it or cloak it with euphemisms, but anger shows up: break downs in communication (not returning phone calls, for example), withdrawal from relationships (cocooning in the office), depression, even heightened sexual temptation. Three signs in particular seem most common:
• Sarcasm. What we fear to say in seriousness we sometimes joke about. A pastor who is resentful of the power of the women’s group might during announcements say, with a smile, “This Friday night, there will be a meeting of the real board in our church — the women’s group!” Everyone laughs, but this is not good-natured humor. It is sarcasm, and sarcasm cuts.
• Impatience at home. A pastor is hurt and angry at the members of the board, but he doesn’t say anything. Week after week at church, even as he speaks with members of the board, he keeps a warm smile on his face. At board meetings, he calmly accepts criticisms. Church members comment about their sweet, godly pastor.
But at the pastor’s home, it’s another story. When his wife serves dinner late, this pastor explodes. He rarely plays with his children, and when he does, he snaps at them repeatedly. He slams doors and is rude to telephone salespeople.
At home he feels out of control, and he wonders why he can’t be more patient. Or he explains it away: “I’ve just had a hard day.” But the fact that this behavior repeats itself signals that something deeper is going on.
• Preaching about “them.” I pity sinners in the hands of an angry preacher.
One pastor I know was preaching through the Book of Philippians at a time when a faction in the church was causing him a lot of problems. One Sunday the text in Philippians spoke directly to what the pastor saw as the attitude problems of his opposition. In his sermon, when he spoke to those verses, he couldn’t resist talking about the “people in churches who are like this” and how they destroy churches.
He didn’t name names, and he was careful not to look at any of the dissenters, but at that point in the sermon, he spoke with extraordinary fervor — what he now sees as anger. He spoke about “these people” with apocalyptic tones and without grace, as if they were demons. Everyone aware of the problems knew whom the pastor was talking about.
Of course, this veiled attack only strengthened the dissenters’ opposition. Months later, when they handed him a four-page letter chronicling their complaints, one item was his “using the pulpit to attack people in the church.”
Because anger is so difficult to recognize, I have asked my wife and other church leaders to be warning lights for me. I have given them permission to tell me when they suspect I’m chronically angry or to ask, “Ed, are you angry about this?”
If you drive by a waste dump, you will likely see several pipes sticking from the ground with a large flame burning at the top. As buried garbage decomposes, it emits methane gas. Pipes are buried throughout a waste dump to siphon off the methane and burn it safely. Otherwise, periodically, as the methane gases build up, the dump could explode in flames.
Burying anger and pretending it’s not there is similarly dangerous. Recognizing it is discomforting, but it’s the first step in healing.
Putting a Nice Face on Rage
If we don’t directly deny the anger, we may try to put a nice face on it. We recognize the powerful emotion, but we call it something good.
I can, for instance, describe myself as “a person of conviction” outraged by sin around me. I have listened to many sermons by angry preachers. Usually they call people ugly names, generalize, and overstate their case.
But prophets are not exempt from the calling to express the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The angry-prophet model, which you will have a hard time finding even in the Old Testament, is clearly not the pattern for New Testament pastors: “The Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim. 2:24-25).
Some people point to Jesus to justify preaching out of anger. But when Christ rebuked people, as he does in Matthew 23 in a series of woes, it was usually against hypocritical religious leaders and self-righteous legalists. I don’t often have an opportunity to preach to such people; mostly I’m speaking to lay people, people trapped in their sins. So usually “prophetic anger” doesn’t have much of a place in the pulpit.
We may rationalize anger by saying we are identifying with the poor and oppressed; we are giving voice to the victim’s rage, showing we understand the pain of the exploited.
Fortunately, there are better ways to identify with the oppressed. Prayer is perhaps the most effective. On Mother’s Day, for example, people are seated before me who grew up in broken homes or who were abused by their mothers. There are singles who were abandoned or divorced by their spouses and are struggling to provide for their children.
On such a day, a lot of hurt and anger resides in the congregation. So I try to express that yet without anger. In my pastoral prayer, I’ll say, “Lord, you know the pain and anger these people feel. I cannot honestly say that I know how they feel; I have never gone through what they have endured. But you know, and I ask you to extend special grace and comfort to them this day.”
Some pastors say, “I’m angry because that’s who I am. I’m being real. Not to express my anger is to pretend to be something I’m not.”
Then again, there is more to life than being genuine. Sometimes kindness and maturity demands that we put aside anger for the time being.
Finally, some pastors rationalize their anger by claiming it enables them to lead a group effectively. “If you’re going to be the leader,” it is argued, “once in a while you better stand up and let the board have it.”
Such outbursts keep people at a distance, and in one sense earn respect, but it’s the wrong kind of respect. People avoid crossing angry pastors because they fear their temper, not because they respect their leadership. In the long run, you are much better served by putting your foot down only on weighty issues and doing so with gentleness.
Calming the Storm
When Scripture encourages us not to let the sun go down on our anger, it implies that we can do something healthy with it. Here are three ways I deal with anger.
1. Talk about it. When I first came to Grand Rapids, I asked one of the staff members to take care of an issue. Several days later, I asked if he had followed through on it.
“No,” he said. “I didn’t think it was a good idea.”
I was so angry, I didn’t say anything. For weeks, rather than ask him to do things I felt were his responsibility, I took care of them myself.
Finally, I went to him and told him I was shocked that he hadn’t done what I had asked. I told him that if he thought my ideas were not good to tell me rather than ignoring me. Today, we laugh about the incident.
Most of us hate confrontation. I know I do, and anyone who does not probably wouldn’t make a good pastor. But if someone is violating biblical principles, we will have to say something.
The injunction of Matthew 18 to go to those who sin against us just makes good sense. As poet William Blake put it,
I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe;
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
Of course, we can’t confront people over every little offense. Pettiness and defensiveness are wearisome. We need time to process what has happened so we don’t confront others under the sway of pain and emotion or over a matter that was simply a misunderstanding. We need time to think through what the issue is and how and when we are going to deal with it.
I confront someone only when my feelings are under control. Anger is unsettling and frightening to others. So I prefer to say they “hurt” or “disappointed” me. But in general I try to talk about the issue, not my emotions.
• Count to a million. Much of the time, we are called to forbear what angers us.
I now and then catch wind of an uncomplimentary comment made about me. My tendency is to assume the worst. If it seems serious enough, I call individuals about what they have said. When we talk it out, I usually discover that things have been blown out of proportion, and that clears things up.
Several years ago, as I preached in a southern church, I read from the niv Bible; I had forgotten that this congregation was a strong supporter of the kjv. Weeks later I heard that the pastor of that church was angry with me. He reportedly had told several staff members that I was arrogant, insensitive, and foolish, and that I would never preach in his pulpit again. I got the impression this man was furious with me.
So I called him and then went to visit him. He had been bothered by what I had done, but he said he was hardly furious. We managed to resolve the issue.
Such experiences have taught me to take negative comments with a grain of salt, being patient as much as possible. I do admire the forbearance of my father, who pastored in the generation when ministers believed they should always accept abuse as lambs mutely going to slaughter. Although I never heard him say anything negative about people in church or about ministry, I now know that he was misrepresented, abused, and taken advantage of. He was hurt many times, but he never struck back.
While there are times we need to confront those who seriously hurt us — as much for their sakes and the church’s sake as for our own — I think my father’s example has a lot going for it. More often than not, I want to bear the nicks and cuts that are part of the pastoral terrain, to be “slow to anger,” “not resentful.”
Healthy forbearance (versus denial of anger) involves adopting an attitude of forgiveness, willingly embracing, for Christ’s sake, the pain that others mete out to us.
• Keep your balance. A balanced life — including exercise, family time, and fun — helps me keep life’s hurts in perspective. I run three to seven miles daily; after running four or five miles, my anger is often exercised right out of me.
I also try to get a good night’s rest; for me that means at least seven-and-a-half hours. This regimen is essential for both my physical and emotional health. When I become tired or emotionally strung out, even small offenses become critical wounds.
Not Even the Appearance
If people perceive I’m angry, then the effect is about the same as if I were angry. So I’ve learned to be cautious in a couple of areas.
The first is flippant remarks. In my first year at this church, I preached a series on women in ministry. A few weeks before, I announced from the pulpit my plans to preach that series and then jokingly added, “Of course, it may be a two-minute series.”
The following week I received a scathing letter from a female attorney in our congregation: “Every day in the marketplace, I struggle with what it means to be a woman, to be perceived as second class. Last Sunday a person I respect as godly made light of the problem.”
I knew I had made a huge mistake. As far as I knew, I didn’t have any anger toward women, and the purpose of my sermon series was to affirm women in ministry, but my hearers didn’t know that. I knew I had to apologize to her.
Another area concerns preaching. One Sunday while preaching in Romans 1, I was talking about the sin of homosexual conduct. I noticed a man who had not been in church for several months. He was a homosexual, a married businessman living a double lifestyle. He had the hiv virus and had recently been so ill the doctors thought he would die.
I came to verse 27: “Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.” I thought, Maybe I should skip this part today. It is this man’s first day back in church. He’s going to think I’m preaching at him. But I quickly decided, No, I’m obligated to preach the whole truth.
At the same time, I knew I needed to speak the truth in love, otherwise this man might view me as just an angry moralist. So I made sure that I spent as much time on God’s forgiveness as on his judgment.
Curing the Long Madness
“Anger is a short madness,” said Horace. I would add that anger not dealt with biblically becomes a long madness. However we rationalize our wrath, the fact is anger “does not achieve the righteousness of God.” That is true for several reasons.
First, anger is wedded to hostility. As lust is to adultery, anger is to murder. When we are angry, we usually have a desire to hurt.
Second, ironically, anger is impotent. Unleashing it doesn’t solve anything but almost always adds fuel to destructive flames.
Third, anger cripples us. It limits our ability to model a Christlike life, which is the source of all long-term and effective ministry.
Fourth, anger is the mark of spiritual failure. In 1 Timothy and in Titus, most of the qualifications for ministry have something to do with self-control.
Instead, spiritual leadership requires that, as much as is possible, we short-circuit anger. And the only biblical way to do that is to forgive and to ask for forgiveness.
In one recent board meeting, I had some conflict with an individual. At the close of the meeting, I said, “Before we go, I need to apologize to Phil in front of everyone. I was abrupt and defensive in what I said. I don’t want us to leave this meeting with that unresolved. Phil, I’m asking you to forgive me.”
Phil forgave me on the spot. Asking forgiveness may not be the way it’s done in the world, but it is Christ’s way. It is one way we show the life-changing power of the gospel.
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