To Be a Good and Faithful Servant by Smyth & Helwys Publishing

C ECIL S HERMAN

GAVE HIS LIFE TO THE WORK OF

MINISTRY AND ALONG THE WAY INSPIRED UNTOLD NUMBERS OF US TO DO THE SAME.

THIS

BOOK OUGHT

sherman

Ministry/Leadership

TO SIT WITHIN ARM’S REACH ON EVERY PASTOR’S DESK. —Stephen H. Cook Pastor, First Baptist Church, Danville, Virginia 2002 Graduate, Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond

—Victoria Atkinson White Chaplain, Westminster Canterbury, Richmond, Virginia 2000 Graduate, Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond

For anyone who cares about pastoral work in Jesus’ name, this is a must read. —W. Randall Lolley Retired President of Southeastern Seminary

I couldn’t put it down. If To Be a Good and Faithful Servant doesn’t become a pastoral ministry classic and standard text for seminary classes, someone isn’t paying attention. —James H. Slatton Pastor Emeritus, River Road Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia

I predict that To Be a Good and Faithful Servant will be a textbook and handbook for a multitude of ministers.

—Daniel Vestal Executive Coordinator, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Atlanta, Georgia

CECIL SHERMAN most recently served as visiting professor of pastoral ministries at the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond. During his long career, Dr. Sherman served pastorates in North Carolina, Georgia, New Jersey, and Texas and was very active in church life and community service.

to be a good and faithful servant

From the course heralded as the most practical class a seminarian could take in preparation for ministry comes the quintessential instruction and commentary on servant leadership.

Chapter 7

WORKING WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE

Every congregation I served included difficult people. An idealist might suggest that none of them would be members of a church, but such idealism does not rest on good theology. The church is not a collection of saints; it is a halfway house on the road to heaven. We Christians are a community of people who are in the process of being saved, and for some of us the process has only begun. We must address this topic with humility. After all, likely some of the “difficult people” in my congregations thought they had a “difficult pastor.” The political nature of a congregation (every church has one) opens the door for a few to have real power. One negative person on a personnel committee can change the atmosphere of a meeting. One obstinate member of a board of elders can send people home dreading the next meeting. My former students have spoken to me at length about one or two people in their congregations who do not seem to like them. Most churches want to accomplish goals while maintaining congregational harmony. It is the pastor’s assignment to get something done and keep everyone happy. If the difficult person is persistent and persuasive, the pastor may be able to get something done, but not without sacrificing the people’s happiness. Or the pastor may be able to keep everybody happy by backing down. Eventually, neither solution works. Thoughtful people recognize that nothing is getting done, and the pastor is labeled “ineffective.” Usually, “getting something done” hinges on a pastor’s ability to get along with or get past difficult

TO BE A GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT

people. How do you approach the subject of difficult people in your church?

WHAT MAKES SOME PEOPLE DIFFICULT? People do what they do for a reason. I do not speak from the perspective of one trained in psychology, but here are obvious reasons for difficulties between you and some of the people you serve: 1. People who hold a different theology from you will eventually have a hard time working alongside you. Sooner or later, theology becomes a sticking point. It would seem that the subtle differences between fundamentalists and conservatives are slight, but that opinion comes from one who is conservative. A woman in a church I served came to my office by appointment. She wanted to confront me about the language I used when I called people to profess faith. The conversation was not comfortable; she was not comfortable. When she finished talking with me, I was not comfortable either. A similar situation involved a deacon chairman who asserted that the focus of my work should be evangelism. I believe in evangelism and always tried to give place to it, but I did not believe it was the sum of our ministry. The deacon did. Since he was chair of deacons that year, I was not able to dismiss his opinion. Theology drove our differences. 2. People who hold real power in a congregation often see change as a threat to their power. A former student of mine was of an evangelistic bent. A rural church called him; the search committee told him they wanted their church to grow. The pastor took them seriously and went to work gathering a younger set of people. He had come to the pulpit from the world of business, and salesmanship was easy for him. In two years, the little church doubled in size. Brand-new members began coming to business meetings. The “old church” came to view the “young church” with suspicion. As long as the new people came to church, taught Sunday school, and gave offerings, they were welcome.

WORKING WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE

But when they wanted to serve on substantive committees and take part in business meetings, they were unwelcome. Threat to power made some people become difficult. 3. Not all people naturally “get along.” There is a myth in the minds of some seminary students. They think they can go into a church and get along with everyone. As students, they have done so. But attending college and seminary are different from being pastor of a congregation. In college and seminary, you choose your friends and have some control over the people who come close to you. In a congregation, the pastor is supposed to be able to get close to everyone. That is not my experience. I’ve been able to work congenially with more than ninety-five percent of the members of my congregations, but not with all of them. During my first year at the Asheville church, a serious division took place over admitting a black woman into membership (see chapter 11 to learn about this experience in more detail). One man was of a different mind from me on that issue. When I left the church twenty years later, that man still had not allowed me to become his pastor. We differed over a matter he thought important; he never got over it. For a time, he was on the finance committee, and he made my life difficult. In congregational meetings from time to time, he was my public critic. I tried to get close to the man, but I was not successful. I wish I could get along with everyone. I take no pleasure in saying I failed in my attempts to warm to him. He did not go away, and I stayed for twenty years. During that time, I learned to live with a constant critic. I did not find it easy. 4. My dictionary defines “cussedness” as “a disposition to willful perversity.” Cussed people are born “in the objective case.” There seems to be no evidence that the grace of God has taken root in them. They seem to find pleasure in voting against anything proposed. Happily, I served churches that had no tolerance for “willful perversity,” and they handled those people. But in some small churches, homegrown negative people receive free rein. A promising pastor

TO BE A GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT

should not suffer abuse. We are called to serve; we are not called to stand still while mean-spirited people harass us.

HOW DO YOU WORK WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE? 1. Maintain courtesy. People can disagree without becoming disagreeable. Most people expect pastors to live to a higher standard. Strive to meet their expectations. When people are unkind or when the conversation begins to deteriorate, work hard at kindness. A light touch and a little humor can come in handy. 2. Work at ways to communicate with difficult people. Sometimes the problem with difficult people is that they do not understand what you are trying to do. If that is the case, make time for them and go over every detail. Don’t freeze them out of the process. If lack of understanding is the basis of disagreement, help the person comprehend the issue or situation. 3. Never lose your temper. Some people have a low opinion of pastors from the outset. They think pastors work for them and that they have the right to order their leaders around, embarrass them, or humiliate them in public. When the Asheville church was getting ready to build, we had arranged a sizeable loan with a local bank. A difficult man who opposed the project unilaterally arranged a meeting with the chair of deacons, the chair of finance, the bank president, and myself. At the meeting, the man opened a plat of the church property and said to the bank president, “When our church cannot repay this loan, how much of our property are you going to take?” I was angry that the man put me in an awkward position. In fact, I was seething. But I held my tongue. The bank president replied, “We would not have offered you the loan had we not thought your church could repay it. We have more confidence in your church leadership than you do.” Despite the difficult man’s galling behavior, it was crucial that I not show my

WORKING WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE

anger. Happily, the project went forward, and the church repaid the loan years early. When a church member tempts you to say something rash, with good cause or without, carefully hold your temper in check. If you respond in anger, then the issue shifts: you become the issue rather than the church program, ministry, etc. What you say can hurt you more than it hurts others. 4. Provide full pastoral care to difficult people and their families. I tried to be prompt in pastoral care for every member, but when one of the few difficult people in my church was involved, I strove to be more prompt than usual. Pastoral care ought not to depend on my feelings for the person in need. Everybody has trouble. Reasoning that difficult people deserve what they are getting does not become a representative of Jesus. What if I did measure my pastoral care in proportion to the feelings I had for this member or that? If so, shame on me. It is possible that difficult people need special care. Give it to them. 5. Be honest, even to difficult people. If your critics catch you in a lie, you have both sinned and armed your opponents. Be known as a truth-teller, and be so consistent that you become like Caesar’s wife: “You are not only virtuous; you are known to be virtuous.” An unkind remark does not deserve a reply. Let it pass. Of course, you shouldn’t forget all critical remarks; you can learn from some of them. But most do no good. The sooner you can put them out of mind, the happier you will be. Sitting on them, nursing them, and enlarging them causes misery and harm. 6. Learn to find humor in difficult people. This is not the same as making fun of them. Bruce McIver, author of Stories I Couldn’t Tell While I Was a Pastor, was a pastor in Dallas, Texas. He learned to see the funny side of a pastor’s work, and he went about the country teaching hard-pressed preachers how to laugh.

TO BE A GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT

HOW CAN DIFFICULT PEOPLE AFFECT YOU? Dr. Daniel Bagby and I guide a seminar for first-year doctor of ministry students at Baptist Theological Seminary of Richmond. These students are all graduates from college and seminary. All have some experience in ministry, most of them in a congregation. Some of these thirty- to fifty-year-old people have come back to school to rethink ministry. They tried it, and it was harder than they expected. They are not sure they want to do this work for the rest of their careers. They hope the graduate program can recharge their batteries and send them back to their churches with renewed energy. One part of their frustration is relational. How can they get along with difficult people? When you as a pastor become discouraged and depressed, maybe it is time to ask, â&#x20AC;&#x153;What is this job doing to me?â&#x20AC;? Are difficult people changing the way you think about yourself and your job? Consider these points about difficult people: 1. Difficult people can blur your focus. My job as pastor was to preach, to teach, to do pastoral care, to lead the congregation in mission work, to worship, and to evangelize. But in my good churches I met a few difficult people. They were few, but they were well placed on prominent committees and in positions of authority. After a few incidents, they began to dominate my thinking, and I began to obsess about them. I had lost my focus. When difficult people began to convince me, I overestimated their influence. They seemed more powerful than they actually were. An incident in my first church comes to mind. Two men came to my office and asked me to resign. I had been pastor for about two years. They said many people were unhappy with my work, and I should resign for the sake of the health of the church. While they talked, I thought about how to respond. I knew I must not overestimate their influence. The church was thriving, growing, and serving. I decided to invite these men to bring their idea to the next congregational meeting. Since I had been employed through a vote of the congregation, I would not resign until a majority of the members in business session wanted me to resign. The men knew they had no

WORKING WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE

chance before the congregation, and their idea died. Did the incident shake me up? A little. The way to make difficult people look foolish is not by argument. Do something good for the church, and you undercut a voice that says you are ineffective. Most of the time, your critics don’t have the power to pull you down. Incumbency is on your side. If you have done your job, if you have visited the sick and prepared thoughtful sermons, you are in good shape. 2. Difficult people can make you afraid to act. If you do something, you may be criticized. Because of this, some pastors stick with the routine to avoid criticism. This is the wrong way to go. I spent my years in ministry as a Baptist. In the Baptist system, a pastor is elected to office by congregational vote. A pastor serves as long as he or she chooses and as long as the congregation is happy with his or her service. This means that another vote of the congregation could terminate my pastorate. Pastors get in trouble in two ways. First, we do something that offends or displeases. If the charge is not moral, we will probably survive. Second, we do nothing. We are perceived as lazy or ineffective. Congregations have more tolerance for this error, but in the end it can do a pastor in. In the sheep-stealing Scottish highlands, there is a saying that goes, “Better to be hung for a sheep than a lamb.” I always wanted to be in trouble for doing something rather than doing nothing. When you try to do something that follows Jesus, it is hard for difficult people to criticize. 3. Difficult people can make you hurt yourself. In chapter 2, I told you about Jim Slatton’s uncle, who said the rattlesnakes could make him hurt himself. This is not just a story. A pastor who had served a congregation for nearly thirty years was in a contentious meeting of the board of deacons. An unhappy deacon lured the pastor into an intemperate comment. He said, “You s.o.b.’s . . .” (and that did not mean “sweet old Baptists”), and from that point, the pastor was defenseless. He had let the rattlesnakes make him hurt himself.

TO BE A GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT

The answer to this problem is self-control. If you know you are going to be in a meeting that may become contentious, go home early, rest, collect yourself, eat a pleasant meal with your family, spend time in prayer, and then go to the meeting. Guard yourself. Don’t let one or two difficult people make you hurt yourself. 4. Difficult people can make you leave a pastorate prematurely. There are times when a church needs steady, trusted leadership to see them through a tight spot. It is criminal for a pastor to leave when an important, moral vote is approaching. Difficult people surface at times like these. The church needs a familiar voice to guide them. Should you have opportunity to leave at just such a delicate time, the church would be set back. A new pastor would have to start all over again, and that takes time. There is another reason not to leave during a tough situation: it is not a good pattern. Several times in my life, I’ve watched my churches process the controversial. Race and the women in ministry issue in Asheville come to mind. In the time leading up to those votes and in the months thereafter, my presence was needed while the aftershocks subsided. Even if a search committee came calling, I could not leave in good conscience. 5. Difficult people can drive you out of ministry. God “calls” whom he will, and I am in no place to say who ought to stay in ministry and who is free to leave. Certain personality types have special difficulty dealing with difficult people. Congregational polity makes that person especially vulnerable to difficult people. It may be that a different polity can protect you. If you find yourself unable to interact with certain types of people on a consistent basis, consider moving to a Methodist or Episcopal system of church governance. Protection for the pastor in these systems may make it possible for you to exercise your “calling” and live with a few difficult people. (Note, I did not say these systems would relieve you of dealing with a few difficult people. They are present in any church no matter the polity.)

WORKING WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE

As a seminary student, I don’t recall anyone warning me about the difficult people I would encounter in ministry. If they did, I was not listening. But as it turned out, I encountered many more kind, caring, and helpful people than difficult people. For every difficult person, I worked with several more who had an inclination to help me succeed. Unbeknownst to me, when I began as pastor in Asheville, two good church women, Mary Dalton and Eileen Rowe, determined to be my faithful supporters. Years later, they told me, “We decided to make a success of you.” Probably, Mary, Eileen, and a few others did more to help me with difficult people than I did for myself.

C ECIL S HERMAN

GAVE HIS LIFE TO THE WORK OF

MINISTRY AND ALONG THE WAY INSPIRED UNTOLD NUMBERS OF US TO DO THE SAME.

THIS

BOOK OUGHT

sherman

Ministry/Leadership

TO SIT WITHIN ARM’S REACH ON EVERY PASTOR’S DESK. —Stephen H. Cook Pastor, First Baptist Church, Danville, Virginia 2002 Graduate, Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond

—Victoria Atkinson White Chaplain, Westminster Canterbury, Richmond, Virginia 2000 Graduate, Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond

For anyone who cares about pastoral work in Jesus’ name, this is a must read. —W. Randall Lolley Retired President of Southeastern Seminary

I predict that To Be a Good and Faithful Servant will be a textbook and handbook for a multitude of ministers.

—Daniel Vestal Executive Coordinator, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Atlanta, Georgia

to be a good and faithful servant

From the course heralded as the most practical class a seminarian could take in preparation for ministry comes the quintessential instruction and commentary on servant leadership.