Give Me the Ball

This blog is an excerpt from my book, RENEW YOUR CONGREGATION; HEALING THE SICK AND RAISING THE DEAD.

When the game is on the line and points must be scored, they say a true leader will start yelling, “Give me the ball.” The leader knows that winning and losing are in the balance. Success or failure will hang on what happens in the next few moments. A true leader has the confidence in his or her ability and so wants the opportunity to succeed.

I am not a born leader. I had to learn to lead. My earliest experiences in participation in team sports makes that clear. The picture is clear in my mind. As a skinny, nearsighted, nervous, new to the game, introverted, nine-year-old Little Leaguer, I sat at the end of the bench in the ninth inning of any close game and prayed I would not have to go to the plate and bat. If you could have read my mind or my body language, it was obvious that everything in me was screaming, “Don’t give me the ball!” I had no doubt I would fail and was more than happy to bypass the opportunity to prove my point. That nine-year-old, coke-bottle-bottom glasses–wearing me had no signs of leadership to be seen.

Those Little League days were a long time ago. Many things in my life have changed since I was a nine-year-old. I have played many games in many sports; and though I never was a superstar, I learned to do many things pretty well and gained a lot of confidence. Though I can’t ever remember insisting that my teammates give me the ball, I got to the point that when the game was on the line I was usually pleased to have the chance to win the game.

A recent Easter Sunday was a totally unique experience for me. I had undergone some knee surgery and was having trouble recovering. Easter morning arrived and found me lying in bed thinking only about how miserable I felt after another sleepless night. My wife, Nancy, as she left for worship, asked if I would be there later. I pulled the blanket over my head and said, “No way.” I was miserable in any way you wanted to measure miserable—physically, mentally, and spiritually. I was tired, frustrated, hurting, depressed, angry, and prepared to launch into a huge pity party. If anyone could have used a good resurrection morning sermon, it was I.

What a glorious Easter morning I was experiencing. I would like to say that God appeared in my bedroom that morning and healed me. But he didn’t. That kind of thing doesn’t happen to me. It was just me and my aching, nonfunctioning knee. My guess is God was busy at church that morning. But the “me” in that room was the person God had made me. God didn’t need to be there. His work was already done. He had been working on me for a long time.

As I lay in bed feeling profoundly sorry for myself, a new thought popped into my mind. “So what if I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in three weeks? So what if my knee aches? So what if I’m not preaching this morning? So what? I’ll be danged if a little pain in my knee is going to make me miss Easter worship for the first time in my life.” God may have not made me especially spiritual, but he sure made me strong-willed. (My friends called it hardheaded.) So it was up and off to worship on Resurrection Sunday. It took a while to get out of the bed, into some clothes, and out to the car. But what the heck, I had wanted to be late to church for years. Here was my big chance. I only regret that I don’t have video footage of my ten-minute struggle to get in the car. I think I could have won the $10,000 prize on America’s Funniest Home Videos.

It was great to be with the family of God. I was deeply moved during the time of worship. My associate minister preached a great sermon. But I couldn’t help sitting there in the front row thinking, “Give me the ball!” God not only did not give me the ball this Easter Sunday morning, he benched me. It is not that I think I am an all-star preacher. It is just that I was sitting in the room with hundreds of people seeking to hear from God on Easter morning, and I not only didn’t have the ball, I wasn’t even in the game.

Pastoral leaders who are going to lead churches in revitalization and transformation are leaders who have an internal voice crying out, “Give me the ball.” Church revitalization and transformation call for leadership: leadership that wants the ball.

Copyright © 2015, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved

Bill McConnell is Senior Minister at Lindenwood Christian Church in Memphis, Tennessee and is a Church Transformation consultant and a Christian Leadership Coach. He is a frequent speaker at Church Transformation events. His latest book on church transformation is DEVELOPING A SIGNIFICANT CHURCH and is available at Westbow Press.

He can be contacted @ bill45053@gmail.com. Connect with him on Facebook @ William T. McConnell or on Twitter @billmc45053 or visit his Amazon Author Page @ Amazon

Dealing with Challenging People in the Church

Having been around for a long time, I have often heard people describe their churches as being like “a family.” That description causes me to think. I have been a part of churches like that: a family—a profoundly dysfunctional family. Most congregations live with strained relationships. The strained relationships in a congregation are rarely brought out on the table and talked about—dysfunctional behavior.
Our motivation toward inaction may be to believe talking about the problem would not be polite. Somehow we have developed the idea that, as Christians, we must be nice and that being nice means putting up with other people’s poor behavior. Perhaps we fear that talking about our problems will just make them worse. Or that a fight might break out. We live in the hope that, if we ignore our problems, they will just go away. But they don’t. They just remain under the surface and fester, and the church family remains dysfunctional.

But somehow even occasional visitors to worship services sense the tension that our unresolved problems cause. The visitors can’t quite put their fingers on what it is about the church that bothers them, but they are not interested in becoming a part of that church family. You certainly can’t blame them. Most of them feel that if they wanted to fight, they could just stay home on Sunday morning. That would have worked in my family.

For whatever reason or reasons, churches tend to ignore broken relationships and pretend that there is nothing wrong with their problem people. One of the first difficult things a leader will find himself or herself doing in revitalization is confronting some longtime members about their unacceptable behavior. Soon after arriving at Faith Christian Church in Omaha, Nebraska, Doug Pfeiffer confronted old problems. Doug approached these hurts and problems head on. In his words, “The church continued to struggle with the sudden and misunderstood departure of the long-term former pastor. We talked about this incident head on when it surfaced. Another was long-standing feuds between families and leaders. We dealt with conflict and dealt with it head on—bringing parties together to talk through the issues.” Doug’s loving but no-nonsense approach soon led his church beyond these problems and helped prepare the church for transformation.

Like many families, many churches have people who control those around them by using anger whenever something doesn’t go their way. Churches find themselves tiptoeing around their problem people and not even suggesting some new ministries for fear of setting off those people. I have difficulty understanding why churches often not only attract people with borderline personality disorders but often move those people into positions of leadership. Such people take it as their calling in life to keep the church from having a positive impact in their community.

Hasn’t every church had something proposed and found that a vast majority of the people, if not excited about the proposal, are at least willing to give it a try? Then someone begins to complain. They complain and gather a couple more complainers into their corner. Suddenly, a perfectly good ministry is stopped in its tracks because a vocal minority is against it. The minority rules because we don’t want to make anyone angry. Well, that’s not true. We probably make lots of people very angry while we are working so hard on keeping Mr. Cranky happy. The “new people” who proposed the new ministry, quietly leave the church, things remain the same, and some old-time members wonder what ever happened to that nice young couple who joined last year.

Possibly the church’s hurts, heartaches, and brokenness are in the distant past. Most people may counsel the leadership to leave well enough alone. I would urge a church to have a healing service. In that service, the church (people) would write on small pieces of paper the hurts and disappointments they have suffered. These could be brought to the altar where a prayer of forgiveness and healing would be offered. The people could be urged in the following week to seek reconciliation wherever possible.

If the people who have broken relationships still attend the church, it is very important to get those folks into the same room for a healing service. They need to talk about the circumstances of their strained relationship, hear what each other has to say, ask for forgiveness, and pray with and for each other. This is easier said than done. Most people will do almost anything to avoid such a “confrontation.” But once it has happened, it is amazing to feel the difference in the atmospheric pressure in the church.

These cranky barrier people and guardians of the status quo often wield great power in the life of the church. Often, they have been around a long time, have taken on some of the most difficult and unpopular jobs in the church (such as teaching junior high boys or chairing the evangelism committee), or have worked hard to position themselves in key leadership roles. Other church members would rather do anything to keep them where they are so they don’t get stuck with that job. Somehow we get the idea that seniority matters in the church and that if one has seniority then he or she wields extra power and influence. As members of the church board, they have convinced other members that the job of the board is to keep any new things presented from happening. The board, and some church lay leaders who no longer serve on the board but are perceived to have power, become the gatekeepers and keep the church safe from change. These guardians have several methods of controlling the direction of the church. As much as we hate to face it, many of these methods are unhealthy. Acceptance of such behavior by others in the church is why many church systems are dysfunctional. Among the weapons in the guardians’ arsenals are: temper tantrums, threats to withhold financial support, leaving the church and trying to influence as many as possible to come with them, gathering allies and attacking (usually just verbally) those who disagree with them, and demanding that the pastor resign.

Such behavior must not be tolerated. It must be confronted and named for what it is. Most people don’t care for confrontation. I know I don’t. But if one is going to truly be a leader, he must learn the art of positive, healthy confrontation. In fact, willingness to confront negative, unhealthy behavior in the church is a sign of leadership. It takes courage, prayer, faith, and a deep love for the church to confront people in the church who are damaging the church by their unhealthy, hurtful behavior. Such confrontation should be done in private meetings, but the leader should never go into such a meeting alone. Doing so sets one up to be misunderstood, misquoted, and misrepresented. Always do confrontation with at least one witness who has credibility in the church. At times a leader has no choice but to confront a problem of a problem person in a public forum. This should be done only when you are left with no alternatives.

Dealing with problem people is something that does not need to be done very often. Just as problem people get reputations in the church around their behavior, a leader willing to confront problems and problem people also quickly gets a reputation. People soon come to understand that poor behavior will not be tolerated; and such behavior quickly ceases, or problem people quickly move on to other churches or organizations where their behavior will be tolerated. But we are slow to do the needed confrontation because confrontation doesn’t seem nice.

Sometimes it is difficult to deal with problems and problem people because of the subtle methods they use or because of their passive/aggressive behavior. But sooner or later the opposition will rise to the surface. It is important to know this so that the church leadership is not blindsided by the opposition. Rev. Judy Turner tells of an experience she had several years ago, early in her work of church transformation. “Some of the leaders opposed passively, not showing up or participating in new gatherings or groups I initiated. Others expressed ‘concern’ to me about how many people were upset by what I was doing. When I was on vacation, some of the congregation got together and signed a letter asking me to resign, which arrived by certified mail when I returned.” This attempt at sabotaging her ministry instead led to confrontation that enabled her to move ahead with the transformation of the church.

It is important to keep in mind that some of the old guard, though not necessarily in favor of some changes that need to be made, can probably live with the changes. Pastor Brad Powell of NorthRidge Church in Plymouth, Michigan, gives some excellent advice in dealing with longtime members in times of transformation and change. “Unfortunately, leaders sometimes make the mistake of seeing these veterans as the enemy. While some people do become negative and disruptive, they’re still God’s people who have given sacrificially to start, build, and grow the church. The goal isn’t to get rid of them, but to get them so committed to being like Jesus that they’re willing to sacrifice what they love to reach those whom God loves.”

This blog is an excerpt from my book, RENEW YOUR CONGREGATION: HEALING THE SICK AND RAISING HE DEAD.

Copyright © 2015, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved

Bill McConnell is Senior Minister at Lindenwood Christian Church in Memphis, Tennessee and is a Church Transformation consultant and a Christian Leadership Coach. He is a frequent speaker at Church Transformation events. His latest book on church transformation is DEVELOPING A SIGNIFICANT CHURCH and is available at Westbow Press. He can be contacted @ bill45053@gmail.com. Connect with him on Facebook @ William T. McConnell or on Twitter @billmc45053 or visit his Amazon Author Page @ Amazon.

Leadership Takes Courage

The church of the 21^st Century in North America is struggling mightily with some significant problems and challenges. I am proud of the church for being willing to engage in such a struggle. For much too long the church chose to take the approach that there were no challenges; that there were problems, not with the church but, instead, with the culture.

Many have addressed the plethora of problems confronting the church: From a lack of authenticity, to a lack of mercy, to a lack of love, to a lack transparency, to a lack of direction, to a lack of consistency, to a lack of direction, to a lack of hospitality, to a lack of mission, to a lack of whatever. What the church lacks has been thoroughly dragged out and inspected. Except one thing. We haven’t taken a hard look at one of the church’s greatest weaknesses; one of the things lacking that is causing the church the most distress. I believe that to be the lack of courageous leadership.

When I talk about church leadership I understand that churches are led by both clergy and lay leaders. But I, as a member of the clergy, am going to only address the lack of strong leadership that our pastors are failing to provide for the church.

It is more than understandable why our pastors are failing to provide leadership for our churches. Most of us did not answer a call to leadership; we answered a call to the pastorate; to be pastors. Most of us went to school – 4 years of college and 3 years of seminary – to train for the pastorate. We learned to read and write and speak. We learned some theology, Greek and Hebrew, pastoral care, Christian education, spiritual disciplines, church administration and, most importantly, how to run a projector. We took classes in almost everything except leadership. Leadership wasn’t on the agenda and, for most of us; it is not on our radar screen.

In fact, most of us were taught to do church in reverse leadership. Instead of answering a call to a church and leading the people forward in God’s calling for that church, we were taught to go to a church and ask this question: “What do you want to do?” Like most politicians of our era, we attempt to lead from behind. Back in the crowd is a place of comfort and safety. Nothing of much consequence happens in the life of a group (or a country) when such non-leadership is exercised, but one’s life expectancy in the organization is markedly increased.

Most of us fail to lead because we were not taught to lead and leading never occurs to us. We just coast along from church to church to church wondering why nothing particularly significant happens in our ministries and finally land safely in retirement. We become so accustomed to not much happening in our churches we come up with statements like the one a dear preacher friend made to me several years ago: “If you move them and inch, you’ve done some great work.” The truth is we have worked hard but we have not done great work. We have hardly moved them. And we won’t do great work until we learn to lead our churches in the Mission God has called us to.

When we look at the topic of leadership we must think in terms of courageous leadership. Leadership that does not display courage is not truly leadership. And this, I believe, is where we have a profound problem. Like a majority of folks, being courageous day in and day out is too much to ask. We can have flashes of courage. But courage as a way of life is difficult. Because of the personality type attracted to ministry, many of we preacher-types tend to want people to like us and approve of us. More of the ministry we do than we would like to admit is done so people will like us and approve of us. Doing pastoral ministry often brings gratitude and thanks from those receiving that ministry. And that gratitude really massages the old ego. Having people recognize us in public as being “wonderful” for being there for them during a difficult time is addictive. It is not a bad thing, but it can become primarily why we do ministry. And that is unhealthy.

The courageous leadership it takes to lead a church forward often is met with opposition and sometimes with anger, unkind words and even threats of violence. It takes courage and conviction to deal with such criticism and remain on task and on target. In a vast majority of churches I have worked with, any display of opposition immediately halts the forward momentum of new or proposed ministries. We are so afraid of offending someone that we allow the most negative people in the church to “lead” the church. We abdicate leadership for fear of incurring someone or ones’ displeasure.

Bill Hybels, pastor at Willow Creek Community Church, encourages pastors to ask and answer a difficult, soul searching question. “As a leader, how often have I aborted a vision secretly because I’ve lacked the courage to do the hard thing?” This is true in far more cases than any of us would like to admit. Leading a church into change and transformation is difficult, demanding and dangerous. The possibility of verbal abuse, exhaustion from long hours of work and having people oppose every new initiative is extremely high.

Many clergy look at that and decide to not take on the challenge. Instead, we quietly exist in dying churches patiently waiting for the day of our retirement. I say, shame on us. We are afraid someone may not like us. We are afraid we might be fired. We think: Life is good, why upset this good deal? Brene Brown challenges us: “You can choose courage or comfort. But you cannot choose both.”

For those of us honest enough to answer yes to the question Hybels proposes, he also says: “Don’t go to your grave with you cool visions and dreams. Don’t die a coward.” Strong words but good words. As many have already said, I want to come to the end of life regretting the mistakes I have made instead of regretting the many things I did not have the courage to attempt.

The church in our culture is losing ground in any way you choose to measure it. Most of our churches “leaders” choose to wring our hands, bemoan the demise of the church, encourage our people to hang in there and invite others to join us in dying as an organization, and continue to do business as usual. This is not leadership. The most often repeated command from God, “Be not afraid,” was not given by chance. If you are going to be a God follower and a church leader, be of good courage. Please.

Copyright © 2013, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved