I had a 2019 blog series here for naïve pastors that got lost during my web hosting server migration. And I admit my own naïveté and stupidity with not having a solid backup & restore plan for my website. What I was able to do is resurrect that blog series into one long blog post. May it be informative and sobering for pastors to count the cost and recognize some of the ingredients that make it harder than ever to be a pastor.
Naive Pastors, Here is How Leadership Really Works
I’ve been stewing on this topic in recent months, especially when it’s surfaced in my conversations with pastors and church leaders. The topic revolves around the dissonance between what’s taught about leadership versus what it actually takes to become a better leader.
I’ve heard many accomplished pastors, those who write the books and talk about leadership, say that leadership is just about character and skills. Another one is known for saying leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less. Well, it’s so much more than that.
I am Naïve Too
Firstly, I confess that I was a naïve pastor. I took a leap of faith going to seminary about 30 years ago, thinking that I would be ready to become a good pastor by being faithful in my spiritual life and studying well in seminary. Going in, I knew pastoring would be the hardest job there was, and indeed I did experience it as such. And I believe pastoring has gotten even harder and more challenging than ever.
But that’s not what this blog post, and soon to be a blog series, I think, is about.
The Work of Pastoring
Yes, there is a lot of good things that happen on the surface in the world of pastoring. At its essence, in most churches, pastoring is teaching, counseling, and administrating. Needless to say, seminaries disproportionally teach about teaching the Bible. As important as may be, it is not enough.
Plus, in the larger churches, which categorically is a small percentage of the total count, there’s additional pastoring work that is more about managing staff and volunteers, strategic planning, organizational development, event management, logistics, communications, and many other tasks, projects, and programs.
What Else Is Really Going On
Where I want to go with this, is to write about and talk about those other parts of leadership. (Elsewhere, plenty of resources about practical skills and tips; plenty about inspirationally teaching about the Bible.)
What’s missing? Here’s some items I’m noticing (or shall I say, not seeing), in no particular order, and will work into a blog series:
- power dynamics– the organizational structure of a church, both formal and informal, affects the way people interact in a said church, and often it does not have a direct correspondence to spiritual maturity
- pain– one author says that one’s leadership capacity is proportional to your level of pain tolerance, or something like that
- psychology– theology is more like the tip of the iceberg, where as much of pastoring is more related to the sociology of religion and psychology of people
- posturing– I don’t like the word politics, and things aren’t supposed to be as bad as Game of Thrones, but once in a while, scandalous things do happen in church because of secret things
- positivity– too much of church is keeping everything hopeful and positive, but the problem with that is how it does not present an accurate picture of reality
- pragmatism– even though I’m idealistic about how things should be, so much of church operations concede to practical realities for keeping the lights on, instead of ministering to people who really need help
- passion– when it comes down to it, I think there’s this intangible ingredient that gives strength to a few good pastors for the long haul. (I think this word connotes more than vision or ambition)
That’s my quick list of things I’m thinking about. You’ll notice the alliteration in this list, yes, all the words start with the letter P, albeit somewhat contrived. And, perhaps, these topics don’t get talked about because they’re not money-makers. In a free-market economy driven by what people value and will pay for, well, these are not the seeds for best-sellers.
Coming up next, each of these bullet points will be expanded and elaborated upon. Thanks for those of you who are interested in following along. Your comments are most welcomed.
Naive Pastors Don’t Understand Power
I’d like to believe that a majority of people go into pastoral ministry with sincerity to help people and good intentions. Many of them with a sense of calling from God as far as they understand.
The reality with pastoring involves a ton more than sincerity. Seminary doesn’t prepare you for it. Even life itself doesn’t prepare most people for it.
When you’re in a profession or career of any kind that involves people as the main thing, there’s going to be politics. The word “politics” is typically defined and used in the governmental context, but it applies to any context that involves groups and individuals with its complexities of inter-relationships.
To avoid confusion, I’ll avoid the term “church politics” and replace it with the term, “power dynamics.”
One caveat before I get into this. I don’t have a political science degree. I’m politically apathetic, meaning that I don’t follow politics and current events like many others who read the news everyday. I do vote as an American citizen. Which is to say, I have a distaste for politics, but recognize the reality of its existence.
The Powers that Be in Churches
The power dynamics in a church can be both formal and informal. When a church is started by a pastor, the power by default will belong to the founding pastor. When a church is launched by a small group of lay people, then the power defaults to this group, the founding members. As a church grows its membership, the power shift can shift. Some of that shift comes with dominant personalities, some from respect for spiritual maturity, some from social status because of wealth. (that’s a whole ‘nother topic for another day—money, pastoring, and church.)
Some naive pastors will be clueless about these power dynamics. Those who don’t know about power are likely the ones without power, certainly much less than those who do understand and have power.
And for those who are in power or have power, by seniority, by organizational position, or by social clout, it is to their advantage to not talk and educate others about power. This allows the powerful to keep their power. And, it also allows the powerful that have bad motives to abuse and misuse and manipulate; when this kind of pastor get exposed, their scandal taints the testimony and witness of the whole Christian church, sadly, terribly tragically.
Understanding Power Dynamics
The best Christian book I’ve come across that actually talks about power is Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power by Andy Crouch. (Christian books about power are rare; one could concoct this as being a conspiracy to keep the powerful in power, but I won’t go there.)
What this book insightfully noted is that all of us have a measure of power, so none of us are entirely powerless. Thanks to the internet and social media, that power is becoming a little bit more democratized. And that’s why it matters for each and every one of us to use the power that is available, to blog, to tweet, to voice our perspectives and concerns, because silence is what keeps people powerless.
How does power actually work in the context of your church, ministry, life group, or family? That’s something a savvy mentor can exegete for you, naive pastor, if you’re willing to recognize that power dynamics exist, especially when it is informal and invisible. Learning to navigate those power dynamics will be the path of growing out of naïveté towards maturity.
Naive pastors don’t know psychology and sociology
Pastoring and leading is primarily about people. It’s not only about people. It is so much more. And as much as we study the Bible or go thru years of seminary training, to prepare for Gospel ministry, that’s not the half of it.
The Bible is Not Enough
I was naïve enough to think that a solid 4+ years of Th.M. education, which is much more than a 3-year M.Div. or a mere 2-year M.A.B.S. Add 5 more years of actually working as a pastor and getting paid for it, I still didn’t get it. Theology is like the tip of the iceberg; there’s so much more about people, who are made in God’s image, underneath it all that requires more attention and adept skills.
Of course, the Bible does give you the rudimenary and foundational insights about people. How people are like sheep. Sheep who need a shepherd to lead them, or else they’d wander aimlessly. Sheep who are dependent or they’ll go hungry. Sheep who are defenseless and are vulnerable to attack from its enemies. Sheeps that poop. Sheeps that baaah baaah baaah because they’re needy.
And we are sheep that have gone astray. Human nature became imperfect and flawed near the beginning. The Bible calls being born into sin. Many churches and Bible teachers talk a lot about sin. That is rarely balanced enough with the dignity and worth of humans that God loves and values. Without that balance in view, more Christian people than not operate out of guilt and not meausuring up, instead of being thriving and free. But I digress; another topic for another day.
If studying the Bible thoroughly isn’t enough, or having a clearly structured theology to understand God and having the “right” answers, what else do we need to pastor and lead well?
Many years later, I can say and blog about what I think is really going on and what it really takes.
What do you know, about people?
Because pastoring is working with people, and for people, you have to know people pretty well, very well, as well as possible, as much as possible.
Fields of studies called psychology and sociology gives us profound insights into our human condition. I think I had taken 3 classes in my undergrad years, 2 in psychology and 1 in sociology. (I studied electrical engineering and computer science at Virginia Tech, in the pre-historic pre-internet days.) I don’t remember much of those classes; I don’t remember much of my years of formal education from undergrad or grad school, to be honest.
Why pastors need sociology
At this moment in history, the sociology of religion is one of the hottest topics in academia. I think the explosive interest in the 21st century about this comes from the confounding fascination over the questions around why in the world would enlightened and post-enlightened people, and so many of them, believe in intangible things of faith and religion, when we have gained so much knowledge about the world and the universe.
Where pastors can be useful for church leadership is in a couple of areas, off the top of my head: group dynamics, culture shaping, developing leaders to have competencies for developing teamwork, community building, and how increases or decreases in church sizes would affect people.
Sociology can also explain a big part of why some people choose one church over another, especially when the Bible teaching and worship music are practically identical.
Case in point. 2 evangelical churches literally next door to each other, but one has a majority of Asian Americans, and the other is majority white, Anglo Americans, and yet the Bible teaching is usually a white speaker and the worship team is also mostly majority culture. What’s up with that?
Is there a book like sociology for pastors? Might be really valuable for someone to author that.
Why pastors need psychology
Whereas sociology explains the collective, psychology drills down into the individual personality. Granted, the 2 disciplines overlap like a venn diagram, I’ll leave that to the experts for sorting that out more precisely. For instance, I can’t tell you the difference between group psychology or sociology. I’m using broad paint brushes.
One of the few things I do remember from seminary is that people only have 2 motivations: reward and jeopardy. Something to be gained or something to be lost. Gain or pain. I don’t like this, to be honest. I want to believe that some people are altruistic and selfless. I behave that way more often than not.
One thought that comes to mind, then, is why does someone want to believe and live a Christian life? On the reward side, to grow personally through self-improvement, to have a more meaningful life of purpose, to get more of God’s blessings. On the jeopardy side, to avoid God’s punishment and discipline, or to avoid disappointing relatives or friends who are religious, Many other reasons, I’d imagine.
For the pastor who knows a little psychology, that could be a helpful thing or a dangerous thing. We all know of pastors who misuse and abuse their position in so drastically ugly and manipulative ways. On the good side, inspiration and motivation are a necessary part of caring and leading people. Just teaching the Bible in a squeaky clean and accurate fashion has some value, but it will fall short on the front lines of pastoring. There is a place for that, in Bible commentaries and academia, methinks, but getting good theology into people takes persuasion and inspiration.
Best Talk by Tim Keller on Persuasion
The best talk I’ve ever heard from Pastor Tim Keller was from 2008 on the topic of persuasion—he touches on the psychology and the rhetorics it takes to communicate effectively.
Do you know of some good books that’s like psychology for pastors? Perhaps the most closely adjacent subject would be pastoral counseling, there’re many books on that. And, now, we are starting to see books about the church and mental health, much needed.
But psychology and sociology are humanistic, right?
Some Christians are suspicious of any academic discipline that doesn’t come straight from the Bible, in a literal sense, particularly when it comes to the understanding of human behaviors, relationships, beliefs, thoughts, and feelings. They believe that the assumptions of psychology and sociology are erroneous and therefore they’re 100% erroneous. Or, at least 80% erroneous. This Bible passage justifies that conviction, in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NIV) —
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
For those that believe Christian theology is incompatible with secular psychology, and that there’s no such thing as Christian psychology, they too will, and have, formed an understanding of our human condition, one’s identity, and relationships.
All that to say, though Christians have a wide range of beliefs about psychology and sociology, pastors will get valuable insights from these 2 disciplines for healthier and more fruitful ministry.
Naive pastors and the unexpected pain of pastoring
The Bible talks on several occasions about suffering. And you don’t have to be a Christian, or even a spiritual person, to know that the world has too much suffering for inexplicable reasons.
But, what do you do with that reality? Some teach that one should detach from suffering but that could become confused and conflated with Buddhist teachings. I believe suffering can be accepted in a healthy way (or unhealthy ways, too, for the record.)
Suffering and pain is plain and simple a part of life. (Not to split hairs, here, suffering and pain are not identical, but I’ll be using these 2 words interchangeably as I unpack my ruminations.)
Pain is a signal to your brain that something is wrong. There’s the obvious physical pain, whether it’s a paper cut, or a hand accidentally touching the stove. And there’s the less obvious pains of high blood pressure or emotional pain from loss of a loved one, frustration over relational strains.
For the naïve pastor, it’s easy to take a cursory reading of the Bible and advise someone who is experiencing pain in the midst of suffering to have more faith, to pray, and to persevere. Saying and dispensing the correct answer can come across flat and hollow. Yes, that’s true truth, but there’s so much more.
There’s 2 parts to consider here. First, how does a pastor counsel someone in suffering. Secondly, how does a pastor go through suffering decently well.
The Unknown Secret of Spiritual Growth
One of the first book that I recall bring this to light is Sam Chand’s book on leadership, titled Leadership Pain: The Classroom for Growth. The book is well worth the read and there’s a bunch of great Sam Chand quotes online. But here’s the quote that seared into my understanding:
“You’ll grow only to the threshold of your pain.”
The corollary is that one’s leadership capacity is proportional to how much pain one can suffer and endure and go through. Whoa.
In my own experience with suffering and pain, I held on to the truth in James 1:2-4, not only to know it cognitively but to know it experientially and live it viscerally and painfully.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.https://james.bible/james-1/
That’s the side of spiritual growth that most publications and preachers don’t talk about, because these are hard sayings. It’s much easier to program a curriculum or deliver an inspirational or motivational pep talk. It’s much harder to speak about this truth, this secret truth, that there is an essential part of spiritual growth that can only come by going through suffering with faith and perseverance, even if it’s just hanging on and not giving up on God, believing that God doesn’t give up on you. Now, don’t go foolishly looking for suffering, it’ll come, just you wait.
When A Pastor is Going through Pain and Suffering
Suffering happens to pastors too, because they’re as human as anyone else in this world. I’ve blogged about how pastoring is one of the hardest jobs in the world. There’s that extra degree of difficulty in the work itself.
Then there is personal suffering that’s very much the same kind of thing that everyday people go through too, like suffering of a loved one, financial strains, unresolved conflicts, trauma of many kinds, death of someone close, and diseases that are untreatable or treatable. And most recently, there’s a growing awareness of mental health challenges among pastors that tend to be under-addressed.
Because of the pastor’s role in a congregational setting, there may be parts of the pastor’s life that cannot be freely and openly addressed in a public context, depending on the church polity and culture. This isn’t exclusively to pastors, but it comes with expectations of those in leadership positions.
Pastors need a safe place for her/him to have support in processing and resolving the stresses of ministry work. Staying healthy is an absolutely essential thing for fruitful and effective ministry, because without it, the collateral damage is catastrophic. Tragically, pastors have died by suicide, like Jarrid Wilson and Andrew Stoecklein. Other kinds of catastrophe damage terribly too, like abuse, trauma, and scandals.
Where Pastors Can Get Personal Help and Support
Where can pastors find personal support for whatever it is that they’re going through? That can be challenging because of the economics of the matter, since most pastors are underpaid with limited budgets. There are nonprofits and ministries that specifically serve pastors and church leaders for their personal and spiritual health. Some of that may come with denominational and network associations too. I don’t have the bandwidth to track and build a list of all those ministries.
What I can do is share about one that I’m familiar with. That is Standing Stone Ministry. Founded by Jim & Debbie Hogan, this ministry provides shepherding for shepherds through confidential relationships and retreats. Their book, Shepherding Shepherds: The Standing Stone Story, tells about how all of it works.
Learn more at standingstoneministry.org and let them know DJ sent you.
4 More Things for Naïve Pastors to Know
Good Bible teaching and right theology alone will not get pastors prepared for a lifetime of fruitful ministry. That textbook knowledge has to be translated and developed into skillful practices, wise insights through healthily-processed life experiences, and gracious humility for all human kind. One research showed that most pastors and clergy don’t last in ministry for long, to the tune of only 10% of pastors last for a lifetime, with 85% of seminary graduates quitting in less than 5 years.
“A Duke University study in 2007 found that 85% of seminary graduates leave ministry within 5 years, and only 1 in 10 retire as a pastor.” https://t.co/spy7RrWwHN— DJ Chuang 🍊 莊迪斐 (@djchuang) December 12, 2019
Aside: I wrote up this blog series to pull the curtains back for naïve pastors to know more of the reality with the pastoring life, in hopes that with a realistic eyes-open approach, pastors will better navigate the adventures of this rewarding vocation. And, seeing the timestamp of this blog series’ previous entries and approaching the end of 2019, I’m just going to wrap this series up with shorter reflections rather than waiting for me to have the time and energy to write up a longer-form post for each point I had originally outlined.
Positivity Gone Wild
It’s good to have a positive outlook and to be optimistic. It even has great health benefits, like less stress, longer life, greater achievement, and more (cf. The Many Benefits of Optimism).
But pastoring well also requires a realistic understanding of the broken realities of the world as it is and how people have both problems and potential.
Part of it may be attributed to American Christianity and its faith expression gets formed in competitive context in the free-market economy. Positivity sells; realistic perspectives not so much. Faith leaders have rightly noted the sad lack of lament in American church liturgy and worship songs. Celebration is the tune of the day.
But life often doesn’t have a happy ending, on this side of heaven. Death is an ugly certainly for every single one of us. It’s healthy for us to have time to cry, to grief, and to lament. Better to acknowledge reality as it is in the present _and_ to have certain hope in what will be in heaven one day, with some of God’s will on earth as it is in heaven, but it won’t be all of it.
It’s good to not call everything a success and to be honest with brokeness, failure, and when we are wrong or have wronged one another. Confession is good for the soul.
What Happens Behind Closed Doors
I don’t like the word politics. I would like to think that things in the church and religious leadership aren’t as bad as Game of Thrones, but you know what, scandals are scandalous because posturing political moves do happen, abuse of power, resulting in thousands of people disillusioned and thousands or millions of dollars misappropriated.
Truth is, whether organized religion, disorganized, or non-religion, any grouping of people will have people dynamics and posturing of who gets to be the leader, the top dog. Whatever that’s called, the skill of navigating organizational positions, climbing a corporate ladder, it’s the accruing of social capital that does make a difference. Pretty much it is unavoidable; there may be a few exceptions. Churches might be exempt from taxes (for now?) but they’re not exempt from gaining status by knowing the right people, being part of the good ‘ol boys club, being loyal to certain people, power brokering, having guanxi (關係).
In other words, your quality of work and faithfulness to theology is a valuable and good thing, but it’s not the only thing, even though on stage and in books, what preaches is being humble, being faithful, and doing your work with excellence, whatever that means. Years of experience does not automatically mean that you will be chosen to be the next leader for an open position or given more responsibilities or a raise. Perplexing, right?
Why’s It Called Practical Theology?
Even though I’m idealistic about how things should be, so much of church live and operations make concessions to practical realities for keeping the lights on, instead of ministering to people who really need help or doing solid Bible teaching.
Statistically speaking, a minority number of churches are growing and thriving because people want finely developed theological teaching, like most seminaries are designed to produce in its graduates.
What keeps the donations coming in for churches to stay operational (instead of closing its doors, as many churches in the USA do, every year), because that’s the economic engine, are programs that keep attendees happy when their felt needs are met. This means children and youth programs that make the parents’ children want to go to church, for fun and social reasons. This explains why a majority of churches are designed for young families, and financial accounting gets measured in family units.
The majority of people who don’t fit into this demographics, like singles, widowed, orphaned, homeless, mentally or socially challenged, handicapped, childless, unemployed, or reaching non-Christians, cannot practically be the larger portion of the church budget, because the math doesn’t make sense. And yet, these are the very people with the greatest needs who need the most ministry and the good news of the Gospel.
Have You Got Passion, Burden, and Calling?
Twenty plus years after graduating from seminary and not losing my faith, by the grace of God, as some may have, I believe the X-factor for having a fruitful lifetime of ministry is having that God-given passion, burden, and calling.
Some call it passion, that undying energy to keep going through hard times. Some call it burden, having a sense of weight and intrinsic motivation to have to do a certain thing for a certain group of people. Some use the word calling, which I’ve found to be the terminology du jour, and kinda losing its meaning from over-usage.
In short, pastoral ministry has to be a more than just a job or vocation to be most fruitful. Sure there are some who can work as a pastor for a lifetime and reach the finish line without burning out or embroiled in scandal.
Fruitful ministry comes from that kind of discipleship, where a pastor’s faith and passion gets reproduced contagiously to others, who will do likewise. This may not be huge numbers and metrics, it doesn’t have to be. What I believe to be more valuable is the seeds of faith that bears fruit in the next generations and the next.
Discovering Why God Created You
At age 53, I’ve only recently come to know what I am devoting the rest of my life to. Some call it life goals or purpose. I prefer to call it my 3 things I’m committing to with the remaining days, months, and years of my life. If you don’t have this kind of clarity yet, that’s okay; it took me a very long time to get here. All in God’s timing, eh?
My sense of calling that I feel most compelled to be and to do revolve around 3 letters with this acrostic, M.S.G. I made this video to explain what my calling is.
May you too seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all these things will be added unto you. In His time.
Please add a comment and continue this dialogue. We can dig into any of these topics and unpack it some more. Contact me if I might be any help, even just as a sounding board or to pick my brain (I’m not offended if you want my time for that.)
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