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Table of Contents
Spiritual Leadership Series (Part 2): Challenges to Spiritual Leadership
[Part 1 of this series appeared in the print edition of the Fall 2000 issue.]
Interview with Ron F. McManus
As long as the pastor is the doer, and the people sit around determining how well the pastor does it, you have produced a system that creates conflict.
–McManus |
How can pastors lead people who have strong personalities?
McManus: If a pastor views people with a them-and-us attitude, there will be trouble in the camp. Instead, a pastor needs to meet with the key leadership in the church and help them determine why their church exists. Until the pastor and church leaders can get on the same page concerning the mission of the church, there will be challenges at every turn in the road.
Acts 2:42–47 clearly delineates the mission of the church. The pastor must talk and preach this purpose. I tell pastors, "Don’t talk about vision, and don’t launch any ministries until you and your congregation have thoroughly come to terms with why your church exists, and have become people of worship, people who are biblically committed in relationship to one another, who are growing as disciples of Jesus Christ, and who are reaching the lost."
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As pastor you want to take the congregation where they want to go. But you shouldn’t force people to go where they don’t want to go. |
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When I became pastor at one church, I met with about 25 key leaders—Sunday school teachers, board members, ministry leaders. I asked, "Why does our church exist?"
I received a different answer from everyone in the room, including one lady who said, "We have to pay off the mortgage." I knew everything I would try to do would have 25 different ideas about whether or not we should do it.
Pastors need to find common ground and a base on which to build ministry. This is the 101 percent principle in building relationships with people: find 1 percent you can agree on and give it 100 percent of your attention. If it takes a year to do this, don’t do anything else until you get there. Once this common ground is understood, it will diminish conflict in the church.
In leading the church, the pastor needs to get everyone’s agenda on the table so it’s not what you want to do and what I want to do. The issue becomes focused on purpose. If reaching the lost is one of our reasons for being, then we need to decide how we are going to accomplish this. If my idea is not what you believe is right, then what is your idea? But we are going to reach the lost, because that’s our mission.
Two principles will help pastors guide their churches: understanding the mission of the church, and understanding the biblical philosophy of ministry in Ephesians 4 and how to implement this philosophy. I want to help pastors understand that the biblical philosophy of ministry is to equip God’s people for works of service—for ministry. We’ve given lip service to that for years, but we haven’t implemented it. As long as the pastor is the doer, and the people sit around determining how well the pastor does it, you have produced a system that creates conflict. People in the church will only find fulfillment when they are fulfilling the calling and the gifts of God in their lives. Only then will you have a church with happy people. Otherwise, they will be frustrated because they know they are not using what God has given them. But they don’t know what to do about it, because we haven’t taught them. I want to help pastors understand how to implement this in the local church.
What if a pastor has gone through all the proper steps, and he still has someone who doesn’t want to follow him? How do you work with this person?
McManus: If you have those in leadership who seem to be against everything you want to accomplish, ask that they help you understand why they are opposing you. Often you discover issues that have nothing to do with what they are opposing.
I had a leader who was against a church building program. When we talked, I found out his issue wasn’t the building program at all. It was something that had happened 2 years earlier. Once we got that resolved, he had no problem with the building program.
There are some people who will never agree with the pastor, no matter what he or she does. At that point, it’s the desire and will of the church that matters. Pastors need to fulfill God’s purpose for their lives in and through the church. Sometimes pastors need to proceed, even when everybody doesn’t agree.
I have never seen anything accomplished in my pastoral ministry that did not have people who said we couldn’t do it, and it would never happen. But after it happened, they were ready to rejoice in all the good things God had done.
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This is the 101 percent principle in building relationships with people: find 1 percent you can agree on and give it 100 percent of your attention. |
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Remember, Jesus lost one of the Twelve. Not everyone is going to follow the pastor’s leadership. But it is important that pastors do everything they can, from their perspective, to encourage a person to follow. There are no accolades for pastors bragging about how many people have left the church. If you are a shepherd, you have a heart for God and for people. You grieve over any loss. This doesn’t mean you let people sabotage your ability to move forward; but you love people and have a heart for them, and it hurts when they oppose you or leave the church.
As pastor you want to take the congregation where they want to go. But you shouldn’t force people to go where they don’t want to go. Through the ministry of preaching and teaching the Word you can help the congregation come to a new understanding of how to be effective for God. You should try to lead them to that point.
You can’t force or browbeat people to follow you. There was a day when we could say, "Here’s where we’re going," and people would follow. That day is gone. Today’s generation is totally turned off by autocratic styles of leadership. Pastors who don’t understand this are going to have difficulty leading. People will not respond; they will react and resent that approach to leadership. I tell pastors, "You can preach commitment until you are blue in the face; you can talk about commitment, but people are not committing to commitment anymore. They will commit to something that is going to make a difference in their lives, that will help them feel valued, and will help them fulfill the call of God in their lives." The ministry is not about the pastor; it’s about people. And the pastor’s job as spiritual leader is to see the people in the congregation succeed for God.
To be effective, pastors need to be consistent in leadership. Over the years pastors have told people what they believed God had said to them, but their follow-through has been lacking. When that happens, pastors lose credibility. When that happens with pastor after pastor, it’s no wonder laypeople don’t believe what the pastor says anymore.
How does a pastor handle the pain people have experienced because previous pastors have hurt them?
McManus: People have been abused and hurt by authority, and they bring that baggage to the church. People have a tendency to do one of two things with a spiritual leader: either not trust anybody in spiritual leadership because they have been hurt; or, they will put the leader on a pedestal because the pastor represents the authority they never had in their lives. Both are equally dangerous for a pastor. If they put you on a pedestal, all you have to do is make one mistake in their eyes, and they will remove you from that pedestal so fast you will never know what hit you. The best thing you can do as a pastor is to make sure you operate with integrity. Follow through on the commitments you make, and love people anyway. Those qualities will help you gain respect with most of the congregation.
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