Welcome to another contribution to my “split segments”… posts that have to do with the church split which I went through 10 years ago. It’s also a little meditative commentary on the cartoon below.
People’s actions speak louder than words. I’m convinced that there are few Christians who actually want to split a church. I mean consciously. Christians want to believe they are good people. Christians want to be sincere. So they will never say to you, “If you don’t do exactly what I want, I am going to split this church in half!†It would be sinful to even think such a thing. But our actions betray us. You must believe what you see! You must hear what they are saying between the lines! They may say to you, “You are my pastor, and I’m behind you 100%. I will go with you to the end!†But beware! Jesus wasn’t impressed with Peter’s boisterous claims about himself, but discerned the overwhelming fear that motivated Peter to say that. You need to realize, like I painfully did, that the very one who is always claiming to be loyal actually may be desperately fighting their deeper urges to betray you. The people who were responsible for the split genuinely and sincerely expressed to me their full support. They truly believed in themselves and believed that they were actually helping the situation. They totally believed that what they wanted was best for the church. But the destructive forces they unleashed were beyond their understanding. I’ll tell you a secret: every person who said they’d never leave did. Every one of them is gone. The ones who stayed never said they’d stay or leave. But by their actions they proved their perseverance. Christians generally want you to be impressed with the spiritual persona we wear like a cloak, not what we all know lurks beneath. What someone thinks is a genuine, sincere kiss may actually be the final signal of betrayal.
We should all be trained in the ability to see through people’s words. We should be trained in wisdom and discernment. But people instinctively know a pastor’s greatest weakness: the need for praise and affirmation. Don’t let a person’s praise for you blind you to what’s really going on.
The painting is the creation of my friend Tina Newlove. I thought it was appropriate: the person seems blindfolded with people in the background. Been there!
My name is David Hayward, and I am the nakedpastor. I am a graffiti artist on the walls of religion.
Good intentions do not always lead to helpful actions.
Good actions are not always the result of good intentions.
There is always a story beneath and within (or before and after) the presented story.
I think it’s worth it to pay attention to the substories.
I left my church after eleven years because it no longer felt right to endorse a church infrastructure designed to lend support to the staff’s need for praise and affirmation more than it lent support to the community. There was a group of people who took it upon themselves to shield the pastor from any question, concern, or argument which challenged his “vision.” (Um, sorry to go there again. I can’t think of a better word.)
Had there been a place to openly disagree or had there been any inkling of a willingness on the part of the pastors to genuinely hear the concerns of the dissenting members, I don’t think there would have been a mass exodus. Or maybe it would have come down to the type of showdown your church experienced. (We did have a mini-showdown of our own.)
Can I play Devil’s Advocate for a moment and ask this: When a church splits aren’t ALL the members involved responsible in some way? Yes, they betrayed you. But didn’t you also in some way betray them? Very, very rarely is a divorce one person’s fault. And having survived one, I can honestly say that my own transformation began when I stopped looking at my ex’s blatant betrayal and started considering my own subtle version.
TTM: i agree with what you say. it is true that if you ask the people who leave that they would feel i was to blame. i do recognize some of my contributions to the split. absolutely. this post was primarily about discerning what’s really going on in the midst of the flurry of words that inevitably happen during times like this. but, to be honest, i feel that even though i am somewhat culpable, that the church was attacked by some people in some ways.
Thanks for your response. I figured you did consider your contributions to the split or at least that you would SAY that.
Seriously, it may have been one of those rare occasions when the whole collapse truly was brought about by the actions of one party.
I appreciate what you’re saying about taking into account more than just a person’s words. I’ve had several conversations with a friend this week about the importance of focusing on actions more than flowery verbal offerings. He doesn’t really get where I’m coming from. Then again, he hasn’t yet been brutally betrayed. I’m happy for him. Really. (Stop reading beyond my words…) ;^)
i totally agree with your observation about what happens when people say they’re with you, or behind you. i’ve seen it happen so many times that now when i hear those words, i know their departure is near. people who are really with you don’t need to tell you.
I think sometimes the utterance of certain words which do not have substance in our souls as much as we would want them to, can be expressions of a desire to be able to create this truth and a desparate hope that saying the words can help make it so. One of the characteristics of God is his ability to make things true just by saying it, and I think it is one of the godly characteristics we lost when we chose to let something other than God be our source. We have become people who see our words as separate from our actions and they were never meant to be divided.
It is good to be able to recognise the difference between the text and the sub-text (what is said and what is meant) but that is only the beginning. The goal is for us to have our motivations, desires, words and actions all be the same thing instead of separate entities. If we are not moving towards that, we have learned little indeed.
Nobody starts out wanting to split a church. But nobody goes into anything thinking “I’m wrong in this.” Every person is convinced of his own rightness, sometimes even years after the fact when an objective look at results indicates “wrongness.” We always justify what we do. Very rarely does someone look back and say “I was wrong.” At best it’s, “I had no choice.”
I picture a 3 x 3 grid in my mind – across the top are the headings good, neutral and bad and down the side the headings motivation, actions and spirit. I would like that I live a life with good actions done with good motivations and in a right spirit – sadly, that is not always the case, however heard we try. I think that is what you are getting at here David – to express loyalty is good, and often well motivated, but in Peter’s case his spirit wasn’t right. The difference between motive and spirit – how we think things are, and how they really are. I think of this grid when I’m trying to weigh up different things that come my way, but we needs Gods help with this. Thanks for this post David – it makes me want to put a spot light on my own heart and ask some questions.
Finally, your post makes me think of this quote that I came across on TallskinnyKiwi.com today: “The only true church is not the hotel Church, where guests rather avoid than meet each other, but the family church, life under one roof in communion, a church that can stand tensions and quarrels.” Hendrik Kraemer, Dutch missiologist, 1888 – 1965
Flattery will get you no where with me but pick up the toilet bowl brush and you just put yourself on our leadership team.
BrianM – now there’s a subject for a cartoon – I would never threaten a pastor with a toilet bowl brush to get on a leadership team
I can’t help to be a little pained by this statement as both Jon and I said many times that we’d support you through the crap we all went through. I hope you can find it it in your memory bank somewhere that many of us have said that we’re in it for the long haul….and we’re still there.
I can’t promise that I’ll never let you down or anyone else for that matter. That’s a fact of life for everyone in every and all situations.
I hope some day we can bury the split, let it ‘rest in peace’…..’cause shit happens and it always will. I was happy to hear that you didn’t even realize it was the 10 year “anniversary” until someone else mentioned it.
thanks for the correction heidi. i should’ve been clear. i was pointing out the people who made the big pronouncements that they were going to stick it out for the long… those who came into my study just to make this bold declaration… like how Peter did. i know and remember well you and jon making it clear you were committed, but that falls under a totally different category. understand what i mean?
I do understand David. You’ve got a good heart and I know it’s hard, if not impossible, to cover all your bases in a post. We just wondered if you remembered.
i love you lot… is that possible? i’ve never even seen you… thanks for the window in to the relationships you have. your honesty and integrity serves you well and i sincerely wish your community every blessing in the coming years.
np. my beautiful wife is asleep and i am enjoying a pipe… one day we may have one together… and at the risk of being boring, thanks again for this wonderful blog.
I wish I knew 20 years ago what I know today.
A wise person will never swear their loyalty to a person or institution. But in the same line, a wise leader would never allow the swearing to take place. A wise leader would instruct that the allegiance should only go to one Person. All other allegiances are not of the Spirit.
You can swear loyalty to the Sergeant but when the Major dictates something else or the Sergeant is disobeying commands, you have to obey the Major. God is the only one to whom ultimate loyalty should be sworn.
A Former Leader: Do you mean to say that a wise person will never take the vows of marriage? (If I remember correctly those vows did involve the swearing of loyalty to a person and, in some ways. loyalty to an institution…)
ttm: Ok, got me there!
Scripture does say that marriage is to be upheld – but does it say that that kind of loyalty and bond is supposed to be there in a local body or “church?” I can’t think of any place where it is even hinted at.
I agree with you, A Former Leader, I can’t think of any place Scripture admonishes a swearing of allegiance to a local church or a spiritual leader…in fact, it seems to warn against it.
And, I really liked your military analogy…it holds true in marriage as well. If your spouse (to whom you have sworn your support and loyalty) insists that you do something contrary to God’s law or demands that you support his/her disobedience to that law, you have an obligation to refuse since God holds the highest position of authority.
I agree with your post but would amend the statement that “nobody ever says “If you don’t do exactly what I want, I am going to split this church in half!â€
I know several cases where this was pretty much said. I think people are becoming more bold and disrespectful that they actually will come to your face and make challenges like this.
My response is usually along the lines of, “Fine, you can take half this church and then you’ll find out how much this job really sucks!” OK, not really, but that would be fun.
Hmmmm …. LOYALTY …. there is a word eh!
Loyalty is risky! Some leaders are easy to follow, some are hard to follow. David in the bible would be easy, Saul would be hard. I have a friend that I am loyal to. Come hell or high water, I am loyal. (I would hope). But what about those who are above us? Hmmm, this is where it gets sticky and dirty.
Why was David safe? One person said: “David was safe because he learned how to walk gracefully in seasons of loss or disminishment.”
I think NP will like this quote because of one word in it:
“When a leader remains lovesick for Christ in the midst of personal disminishment, you know he or she is safe to follow in loyalty because he or she is not motivated by personal ambitions but by intimacy.”
This whole thing reminds me of the time, way back in the day, when the church I was a part of began to implement a “plan of ministry” or something or other that was put out by a large American church that will remain nameless (not that the church doesn’t have a name; I’m just not telling).
Among the implications of this package deal were the following (whether they were explicit in the packaged instructions or simply interpreted that way, I don’t know):
1. Every person involved in ministry should be a member of the church.
2. Every person involved in ministry should have a job description for the sake of communicating expectations.
3. Every person involved in ministry should focus on that one specialty of ministry so they can do their best and not get overworked.
These bothered me in so many ways. The results for me personally were the following:
1. I backed off of youth ministry to focus on music.
2. I was given the title “Orchestra Director” with no real job description; I just pretty much kept doing what I was doing before.
3. I never became an official member of the church.
Fred:
“3. I never became an official member of the church.”
Smart guy! Count your blessings!
fred… sounds similar to np’s definition of vision… soooo corporate and constraining!