What Are the Circumstances?

Time makes more converts than reason.
Thomas Paine1

An automobile operates by a series of explosions. Gasoline is mixed with air and ignited. Were these explosions to take place in an open area, they would destroy the engine. They take place, however, inside a piston chamber surrounded by steel walls. The walls protect the engine from negative effects of the explosions and, in fact, turn them into a force that drives the piston and makes automobiles remarkably efficient vehicles of travel.

Risks in ministry, like these explosions, can be very destructive if allowed to take place in an uncontrolled way. With proper safeguards, however, these explosions can propel the church forward. The question, of course, is how do we build safety chambers strong enough to withstand the explosions?

The Leader’s Credibility

The first factor to consider is your stage in ministry. The axiom proves true: Don’t make major changes in the first two years of ministry; establish trust first.

Our survey asked pastors to describe situations where they had to leave a church under pressure. A follow-up question asked what they might have done differently to forestall the firing. The most frequent response by far was typified by one pastor: “It was my first church. I did a lot of stupid things and made so many mistakes it’s hard to see what I could have done differently.”

Studies of graduating seminarians show the first year of ministry is one of the most dangerous times for a pastor. Many leave the ministry for good because of a crisis situation during that time. It is difficult to recover from mistakes of inexperience.

Our research indicated an equally dangerous time later in ministry, in the forty- to fifty-year age bracket. It appears that pastors are at risk during a “ministerial midlife crisis.”

In an article in the Presbyterian Survey, pastor Eugene Timmons outlined a “six-stage cycle” most ministers go through. His observations put handles on the different kinds of conflict a pastor can expect as the years pass in a church:

He calls the first stage the “honeymoon,” a time when minor mistakes are overlooked as long as major embarrassments do not occur.

The second he calls the “shakedown.” The shakedown begins when “lay people stop denying that they do not like some of the things about the pastor and his or her ministry.” It’s important for the pastor at this stage to work to hear the criticisms and try to deal objectively with them. He or she should take the criticisms as part of the continuing trust-building process.

The third stage Timmons labels “early conflict.” In this stage the pastor may begin to pick up a few feelings of distrust or dislike. A list of people with hard feelings towards the pastor develops, whether written or not. At this stage, people confront the pastor more openly, whereas in previous stages they would either have swallowed their criticisms or expressed them covertly.

The fourth stage is when the leadership itself (the elder board, the deacons, or whatever) feels free to make a move. Sometimes they will openly confront the pastor, but more often the really disenchanted ones will decline to serve. New leaders, less experienced, will take their place, and the pastor finds himself in a training situation.

The fifth stage is the “righteous cause” stage, where the pastor feels secure and comfortable enough to take the initiative, rather than merely answer criticisms and adjust the ministry to suit the whims of the congregation.

In the sixth stage the new leadership sees problems itself and begins to talk like the old leadership.2

It’s helpful for pastors contemplating risk-taking decisions to decide where they are in this cycle. The stage itself doesn’t determine the decision. But it can help pastors identify the amount of influence and power they have available, and thus accurately gauge the work to be done to execute the decision successfully. Stages don’t always have to be described in terms of conflict. The six stages above could be translated into the language of trust. How much trust have I developed in my years in this church? Who, and how many, in this congregation will help me with my ideas for more effective ministry?

Realizing that the answers to these questions vary from year to year helps a minister avoid being surprised by lack of support — or the abundance of it.

Shared Responsibility

The second safeguard is to bring people in on a decision to act as a buffer and support. If the decision doesn’t directly threaten or frighten the board, it is the natural group to include. At any rate, the leaders somehow need to be involved in the decision. If they are sympathetic, they become allies in the risk-taking decision.

At times, however, a pastor needs to win grassroots support, even though not all leaders back the decision. One pastor faced such a situation:

“The board had talked over the budget, and we had made the changes we thought necessary. When the budget was presented to the church for ratification, one board member, who had been through the whole budgeting process and voted for our budget, stood and said, ‘I don’t see why we have so much money going to outreach. We’ve never had money for local outreach before. I think we should pay the pianist instead.’

“I thought to myself, You’re a former pastor! You have to know better.

“I had to make a quick decision whether to say anything. I don’t like getting into an argument in front of the church, but I couldn’t stay silent. So I gave a few reasons for the outreach program. Then I said that paying the pianist was going inward instead of outward. This was the first time in our church’s history that we’d had some extra money to put into outreach, and I thought it important to do it.

“I didn’t know how the church would react. They had been through some hard times, and most had the idea it’s best not to rock the boat. In this case, I had one key element going for me. The pianist this board member wanted to pay was his wife. Even people who didn’t want to rock the boat could see the self-interest. His idea was voted down.

“Afterwards many people came to me and said, ‘I don’t think his idea was good. Thanks for taking a stand.’ Only one person objected.

“In making that decision to speak out, I was weighing the good of the church against this man’s personal agenda. I had done my homework with the board, but at times you have to risk an open battle to woo the power of the whole congregation.”

Pastors are odd mixtures of Lone Rangers and coalition makers. In some cases they must operate as if no one else in the world can or will help. As a short-range strategy, most of us can operate this way. As a long-range strategy, however, the pastor must draw on the full resources of lay power.

The pastor is somewhat like a motorboat propeller. The propeller can run for a short time out of water. However, it is built to run against the resistance of water; when it runs without that, it keeps increasing in velocity until the engine burns out. Lone Ranger pastors do the same. Pastors are built to run in a sea of people. When they don’t have that resistance, they spin themselves into burnout, or they send the church careening in odd directions. Either way, ministry eventually comes to a standstill.

Occasionally, pastors are put in the position of taking Lone Ranger actions because they function as spokespersons for the church’s silent majority. The issue may be a sensitive one that no one else in the church wants to support publicly. Such situations greatly increase the risk of the decision.

Timing

Proper timing is one of the most crucial of safeguards. There are two extremes: hastiness, where circumstances have not sufficiently ripened for action to be taken; and procrastination, where the proper moment came and went, lost because of indecision, fear, or laziness. Between those two extremes waits the proper moment to take a risk, and the leader is constantly searching for that moment.

Jesus knew the value of proper timing. In the seventh chapter of John, Jesus refused his brothers’ invitation to go to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles because “for me the right time is not yet come.” Later, however, after his brothers had gone to the feast, Jesus went, arriving about halfway through. Either time was risky for Jesus to go to Jerusalem. The Pharisees and temple authorities were seeking to arrest him and have him killed. Jesus, however, chose to take the risk (a risk to his life by the Jewish authorities) at one time and not the other because for his purposes (to teach in the temple) it was wiser to delay the trip. Perhaps the increased crowds in the middle of the festival afforded him a better chance of being heard.

The key to good timing is knowing when the people involved are prepared for the decision. On our survey, the second most frequently mentioned ingredient of good decision making was taking the time to prepare key people. One pastor explained: “I tend to bring people along with me in my reasoning and decision-making process, so there aren’t surprises. That means I rarely get surprised.”

Here’s a list of questions helpful in deciding the right timing:

What would be the perfect time to act? Will that time ever come?

What would be the worst time to act?

What makes the risk necessary now?

What would happen if, after making preparations, I didn’t risk now?

Will it ever be any easier?

Have my preparations created any impact? Are the people who should be taking my preparations seriously doing so?

Can I turn back? When is the last time I can turn back? Will things be the same as before if I turn back? What will have changed?

What other preparations do I have to make?

Personal Preparation

The fourth safeguard is to acquaint oneself thoroughly with the problem and all foreseeable ramifications. The “content” of what you’re about to do must be mastered. This is not a time for winging it.

The emotions of a risk-taking situation are so difficult that the factual elements of the case need to become second nature to the risk taker. A salesman so masters his product line and sales pitch that in making the actual presentation, he can concentrate solely on modifying the presentation as he gets feedback from his audience. Pastors do the same.

Adequate resources exist to aid pastors in this preparation. Management literature on decision making abounds; with some modification it can be most helpful in the local church setting. Simple research techniques, particularly from the social sciences, can teach a pastor how to collect and evaluate the data of a complex sociological setting. Colleagues in ministry usually will lend a sympathetic and evaluative ear to your problem.

Perhaps the most interesting statistic from our survey arose from the answers to our question about biblical models pastors had used in their decision-making process. Of the many biblical decision makers mentioned, Jesus and Paul were named most frequently. Interestingly, among the respondents who had at one time or another been fired, not one mentioned they used Jesus as a model. Among those who had never been fired, however, Jesus was the most frequently mentioned model. A number of factors in Jesus’ decision making may explain the correlation, but certainly a key one was Jesus’ relentless attention to personal preparation.

Considering the circumstances naturally leads to another question one needs to ask before taking a risk: What can I handle? The personal temperament of the risk taker provides the major factor not only in deciding if the risk should be taken but in developing the strategy for taking the risk. To that question we now turn.

Thomas Paine, Writings of Thomas Paine (New York: AMS Press, Inc., 1896).

Quoted in Martin Marty’s Context, (15 June 1985): 6.