A friend once told me "Leadership is not about who you hire but who you fire." He told me that years ago and it has freed me to make some difficult decisions. There are certain aspects to pastoral leadership that most people will never see. Often hard decisions must be made about people in order for them to grow spiritually.
I had to make one of those decisions recently about one of our team members. Things were not going quite as we expected with this person's responsibilities so I had to have a meeting and discuss this with them. Ultimately I had to move this person from the position they were in to another one that more fit their spiritual giftings. Thankfully this person was mature enough to recognize the need for the change and a bit reluctantly but glady agreed.
But it doesn't always go that way. I have had many meetings over the years where the people I talked to got defensive and sometimes down right mean. I have had them blame everyone else, including and especially me for their failures. To some extent I accept some of the blame because it was probably my fault for letting them into those positions in the first place.
I have had many people leave the church, which again proved to me that I made the right decision. Although it didn't cause the pain of seeing them leave any less painless. There is a part of ministry that I tend to refer to as the "darkside of ministry." This is the side that most people don't see when sheep bite back at the shepherd.
One of the hardest and loneliest parts of ministry is when you have to make the hard decisions and you can't talk about it with anyone else because of the sensitive nature of the situation. People tend to be down on what they are not up to date on. I have made some church changing decisions in the past because of the pride and sins of people in ministry positions and not discussed them with anyone but the people involved. The problem usually came when the people involved in the situation start to talk to anyone who would listen to them. Because it was a one sided explanation certain facts would inevitably be left out making me out to be the bad guy on a power trip or something.
I made some decisions at my last church that caused the church to be upset with me because they couldn't understand why I had to remove certain people from leadership. I don't use the pulpit for personal defense or attack so although I was hurting from the situations I didn't talk about it. That caused the people in the church to wonder and they talked with the people removed, who were hurting too. The thing about hurt people is they hurt people. Whole people help people. These people caused me great grief almost to the point of me quiting the ministry all together.
What made it lonely for me was people who I thought loved me and respected me automatically believed the stories of the people who left and decided before they ever asked me a question about it that it was completely my fault. They didn't come to me privately to talk to me. It almost seemed like they didn't care that I was hurting too. They assumed it was my fault and decided I deserved whatever pain and ridicule that I got. But what it really all came down to was the health of the church.
Pastoral leadership is not just about the individual but the church as a whole. If an individual is hurting the church through their words and actions I will side with the church. A pastor cannot allow an individual or a family to destroy the church just to appease them. If I had allowed a family in my last church to continue to do what they were doing they would have split the church and tried to run me off. So when I removed them from ministry leadership they did just that. They tried spliting the church and started an e-mail campaign against me. It got nasty.
I had to make a decision which I knew would cause the church and me personally grief. But I had to decide how much grief we would have. That's like trying to decide which of my fingers I want to cut off. The one that is healthy or the one that is hurting. Leadership comes down to this sometimes, Do you make the hard decision now and pay a price for it or do you continue to let the offending people do their thing and pay a heavy price for it later? That is when the decision is out of your hands and out of control. Their will always be a price for the hard decisions but leaders decide when and how high.
I had to make one of those decisions recently about one of our team members. Things were not going quite as we expected with this person's responsibilities so I had to have a meeting and discuss this with them. Ultimately I had to move this person from the position they were in to another one that more fit their spiritual giftings. Thankfully this person was mature enough to recognize the need for the change and a bit reluctantly but glady agreed.
But it doesn't always go that way. I have had many meetings over the years where the people I talked to got defensive and sometimes down right mean. I have had them blame everyone else, including and especially me for their failures. To some extent I accept some of the blame because it was probably my fault for letting them into those positions in the first place.
I have had many people leave the church, which again proved to me that I made the right decision. Although it didn't cause the pain of seeing them leave any less painless. There is a part of ministry that I tend to refer to as the "darkside of ministry." This is the side that most people don't see when sheep bite back at the shepherd.
One of the hardest and loneliest parts of ministry is when you have to make the hard decisions and you can't talk about it with anyone else because of the sensitive nature of the situation. People tend to be down on what they are not up to date on. I have made some church changing decisions in the past because of the pride and sins of people in ministry positions and not discussed them with anyone but the people involved. The problem usually came when the people involved in the situation start to talk to anyone who would listen to them. Because it was a one sided explanation certain facts would inevitably be left out making me out to be the bad guy on a power trip or something.
I made some decisions at my last church that caused the church to be upset with me because they couldn't understand why I had to remove certain people from leadership. I don't use the pulpit for personal defense or attack so although I was hurting from the situations I didn't talk about it. That caused the people in the church to wonder and they talked with the people removed, who were hurting too. The thing about hurt people is they hurt people. Whole people help people. These people caused me great grief almost to the point of me quiting the ministry all together.
What made it lonely for me was people who I thought loved me and respected me automatically believed the stories of the people who left and decided before they ever asked me a question about it that it was completely my fault. They didn't come to me privately to talk to me. It almost seemed like they didn't care that I was hurting too. They assumed it was my fault and decided I deserved whatever pain and ridicule that I got. But what it really all came down to was the health of the church.
Pastoral leadership is not just about the individual but the church as a whole. If an individual is hurting the church through their words and actions I will side with the church. A pastor cannot allow an individual or a family to destroy the church just to appease them. If I had allowed a family in my last church to continue to do what they were doing they would have split the church and tried to run me off. So when I removed them from ministry leadership they did just that. They tried spliting the church and started an e-mail campaign against me. It got nasty.
I had to make a decision which I knew would cause the church and me personally grief. But I had to decide how much grief we would have. That's like trying to decide which of my fingers I want to cut off. The one that is healthy or the one that is hurting. Leadership comes down to this sometimes, Do you make the hard decision now and pay a price for it or do you continue to let the offending people do their thing and pay a heavy price for it later? That is when the decision is out of your hands and out of control. Their will always be a price for the hard decisions but leaders decide when and how high.
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