{"id":848,"date":"2010-11-30T07:26:05","date_gmt":"2010-11-30T14:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/?p=848"},"modified":"2010-12-03T10:10:17","modified_gmt":"2010-12-03T17:10:17","slug":"the-difference-between-leadership-and-spirituality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/archives\/848","title":{"rendered":"The Difference Between Leadership And Spirituality"},"content":{"rendered":"
Most congregants in your typical local church remain largely ignorant of what goes on “behind the scenes” at their church. It’s not until they are thrust into some sort of lay leadership role that much of this stuff becomes apparent. Many people thrust in these roles are unable to cope with the things they see or hear. Many leave the church, disillusioned.Perhaps it is a good thing that only a few people in a local church see these things; otherwise we might have a mass exodus from the Church.<\/p>\n

Some argue that this mass exodus is already happening. Maybe people see\/hear more than we dare admit. Fewer and fewer people are attending church as time goes on. Despite our best tactics to get them to come, people continue to be turned off to church.<\/p>\n

As a person who has served on staff at a few churches, I can’t say I’m entirely surprised. As much “junk” as lay people see when they rise to leadership roles, often staff members see even more.<\/p>\n

Some of the things that seem innocent enough to congregants, if you were on staff at a church, you might feel differently.<\/p>\n

In my last blog post, I lamented over the way most churches are run: either with a government atmosphere or a business atmosphere. As a staff person who has served in both environments to a degree, I feel I can confidently say that neither atmosphere is spiritually healthy, even though it may appear so to many of the congregants.<\/p>\n

While it may look good to the congregant that their church is bringing in new visitors, that many high-quality programs\/ministries are being implemented, and that people in the church have a positive vibe about their church and their pastors, etc–I would caution people that they may be making presumptions that are not warranted.<\/p>\n

My goal is not to be paranoid or make others paranoid, but I do feel that I’ve heard\/seen quite a bit in the church world up to this point. Not only me, but other leaders see it as well. I think if your average staff person were to feel comfortable opening up to you about what they have endured during their tenure, you may have a very different view of your church.<\/p>\n

How can I say this? Because not only have I endured quite a number of things, but it seems all the friends I’ve made who serve at local churches have similar frustrations as I do. Not only this, but it has been my privilege to attend conventions geared for youth pastors, and the same themes are recurrent through the masses who participate. This is not some isolated personal experience of mine, it may very well be an epidemic.<\/p>\n

While many of the frustrations out there deal with conflicts that arise between staff members and members of the church (which are to be expected), the ones that are the most disillusioning for church staff members deal with issues relating to the senior pastor, or others in leadership in the church.<\/p>\n

As Mike Yaconelli (the founder of Youth Specialties, a company devoted to youth ministry) often shared, when he first started in youth ministry, he had much excitement about being able to work side-by-side with a pastor. In his eyes, what could be better than to become close to such a spiritual person and glean from their wisdom? After all, who is the first person you want to turn to when you have a spiritual need that seems bigger than you? For most people, it’s their pastor. Imagine being able to have access to this person, and for that person to pour their life, their spiritual walk, into you?<\/p>\n

Yaconelli shared how that sentiment quickly changed. The staff person quickly realizes that while the pastor looks like a pastor on Sunday mornings from 11 am – 12 pm, the rest of the time, he operates as a CEO. (The matter is greatly confounded when he is a lousy CEO, but that isn’t the point I’m trying to make here.) Even if he is a successful CEO, he is often little more than that.<\/p>\n

My point is to caution the congregant from believing all he\/she sees\/hears from the pastor on Sunday mornings. Perhaps much of it is a performance, and not genuine. Let me give you some examples:<\/p>\n

According to a study from a recent pastor’s conference, 57% of pastors surveyed said that if they could, they would leave their church for a better place to go, including a secular job. (In another study, 50% said they would leave the ministry for a secular job, but feel they don’t have any other viable option for a career.) So when a pastor on Sunday morning says there’s no other place they’d rather be, and portrays a positive spin on how incredible their church is, know that over half of them would leave if they felt they could. The average congregant doesn’t know this, but the people who work on staff probably wouldn’t be surprised by this statistic.<\/p>\n

This same survey found that 77% of the pastors surveyed felt they did not have a good marriage. 72% said they only read their Bibles when it comes to studying for their sermon. (Another study showed the number to be 70%.) Only 38% said they read the Bible for devotions and personal study. 71% say they are burned out and battle depression beyond normal fatigue. 26% said they have personal devotions on a regular basis and feel adequately spiritually fed. 30% said they had an affair at one point in their lives with one of their parishioners (either one-time or ongoing). (In another study, 40% said had an affair since starting their ministry, whether it was with a congregant or not.) 23% said they felt happy and content on a regular basis with who they are in Christ, in their church, and in their home.<\/p>\n

This survey was done among Evangelical pastors, not mainline churches.<\/p>\n

Of course, surveys can often be made to say whatever you want them to say, but it’s hard to dispute there is a problem here. More validity can be attributed to these numbers as you get to know people who work on staff at churches. They can often tell you that churches are not the haven of spirituality they appear to be, because pastors are not the people of spirituality they present themselves to be on Sunday mornings. There is a difference between being in leadership and being a truly spiritual person. The average congregant thinks their pastor excels at both.<\/p>\n

Francis Chan spoke recently at the Southern Baptist Pastors’ Convention. In his sermon, he lamented over how the job of being a pastor has in some ways hurt the genuineness of his relationship with God. Things that look like he is being “spiritual” are actually clouded with the motivation of trying to grow a church. He recalled how when he was in high school, he called up all the seniors in his school to tell them that Jesus loved them, simply because he loved Jesus so much and wanted all of them to know about Him. Today, he finds himself far away from that simplicity of devotion to Jesus. The things he does for Christ conveniently are things that would benefit his church, and thus his career.<\/p>\n

I can personally relate. This month, I’m encouraging our church to invite their neighbors to church for the Christmas season. This seems to be a time of the year when unchurched people consider attending church, and if they were invited, they might actually come! So I told my church that our family has decided to bake cookies for our neighbors, introduce ourselves to them (because we just moved here a couple of months ago), and invite them to our church. I encouraged our church to think of a creative way that they can invite their neighbors too. But part of me wonders…if I weren’t a pastor and were just attending some church, would I be baking cookies for my neighbors and inviting them to church with me this month? Why am I doing this really?<\/p>\n

I think a large reason why pastors find themselves in the spiritual state they are in is because of a “business-oriented” system that pervades the church. In some ways, pastors are the victim of this. In this regard, I feel pity, not judgment toward them. Being a pastor is a very difficult job, and most people don’t realize all that comes with the responsibility. Yet, in another way, pastors are the perpetrators of this system too. They are the ones who are in the best position to change things. Of course, being daring enough to try to change things may very well cost them their job, but we are supposed to be concerned with the kingdom of God first. It’s what we preach to our parishioners.<\/p>\n

I like that Francis Chan admits this. He admits that he has done his part to create this American church culture that promotes professionalism as well as many other business-oriented concepts that should not have its place in the church. His journey of faith is presently calling him to leave the successful church he started and find a small hole somewhere to regain that authenticity and serve in a place where he is not recognized as a Christian “star.” And to start all over from the ground up and build a church that more closely reflects Scripture, instead of what modern churches say you need to grow a church. I think there are other pastors out there who feel the same thing. The question is, are we willing to be daring enough to step out and follow these leadings that seem counter-intuitive to growing our own church? Maybe the business model has us focused on making our church successful when we should be more concerned about simply building the kingdom of God? For example, what if we chose to invest heavily in other worthy churches in our town, instead of our own? Are we willing to do whatever it takes–even lose our job–for the sake of being faithful to Christ in the midst of a church culture that is often ambivalent–or sometimes even opposed–to the biblical principles of true spirituality?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most congregants in your typical local church remain largely ignorant of what goes on “behind the scenes” at their church. It’s not until they are thrust into some sort of lay leadership role that much of this stuff becomes apparent. Many people thrust in these roles are unable to cope with the things they see […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-church-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":852,"href":"https:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848\/revisions\/852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}