Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Church Renewal Podcast from Flourish Coaching. I'm Jeremy, I'm Matt, back. In part four of the Will my Church Need a Transitional Pastor mini-series, we briefly mentioned the impact of power dynamics in your church. Today we're going to get down and dirty with this topic. Power dynamics are real and felt by everyone. When stewarded well, they allow a church to thrive, but when stewarded poorly, they leave a trail of wreckage in their wake. Yet church to thrive, but when stewarded poorly, they leave a trail of wreckage in their wake. Yet, as important a topic as this is, it is one that is rarely discussed in our churches and it's an area where most of us will benefit from just a little bit more personal growth. Welcome back to the Church Renewal Podcast. This is Jeremy Seferati, and I'm here with Matt again. Hey Matt, hey Jeremy, how are you? Great, wonderful, excited to be here again, Excited to be talking about this topic. We're talking about power dynamics.

Speaker 1: 0:53

It's a dicey one, and it's also election day here in the US, so go figure. Thank you, lord, for your irony, matt. What are power, power dynamics? It's a term that you have uh, you obviously didn't coin it, but it's one that you use specifically in your faqs. When you talk about a church that has a set of families that are actually controlling most of the lovers, that there's a power dynamic issue. What do you mean when you talk about a power dynamic?

Speaker 2: 1:31

Yeah, so a power is inevitable in a congregation. Put any group of people together who need to make decisions and head somewhere and prioritize. Some things are over and there's going to be power that needs to be exercised. So power in itself is not evil. It's actually inevitable because power is an aspect of leading. So there's always going to be leadership, there's always going to be leading that happens in a congregation, and so there always is going to be a power dynamic. The question is whether it is a biblical power dynamic and whether it is the power dynamic is exercised humbly, carefully, thoughtfully and graciously by what I call the paper leaders. Okay, so the paper leaders are the people that you can have on the. You know that. You see listed in the bulletin. If you have paper bulletins or if you go to the website, you go to the leadership tab. The paper leaders are the people who are supposed to be, the ones who kindly, by the Spirit's power and dependence upon God, exercise the power in the church. This is your ministry org chart.

Speaker 1: 2:36

Yeah, exactly this is your C-suite if you're in the corporate world, right.

Speaker 2: 2:40

And so where it gets broken is at least a couple of ways it could get broken broken power dynamics In the small church.

Speaker 2: 2:51

Many times you end up with the matriarch or patriarch and they end up exercising the power. They're the ones you have to have permission of before you can start something new or especially before you excise something from the ministry of the church because it's a good ministry decision to do so. And so it's not really at that point the elder board that's wisely, carefully, thoughtfully, by the power of the Spirit, dependence upon God exercising the power. But it's this person or two that exercise the power. As you go up in size in churches that can turn into a couple of families or several families that really hold the power in a church and it's not really the elders. And here's how you know who has the power. Well, you know, we really should probably talk to maybe Jim and Jerry and Susie before we make this decision, and so if you know that you have to consult people in the congregation before you can make decisions as an elder, you know the power dynamic.

Speaker 1: 3:52

So that's really the critical issue there. It's you must consult before you may make a decision as an elder. This isn't about collaboration. This isn't about consultation and having meaningful feedback and conversation prior to making a decision. This isn't a stakeholder conversation. This is permission. Yeah, if you have to get permission.

Speaker 2: 4:15

Right. So that's at least a couple of the ways. In terms of church size, you also end up with power dynamics where, say, the different boards of a church are at odds with each other, so the elders and the deacons are not on the same page. Or if you've got trustees or there's some other council or something like that, where there is not a unity or a clarity necessarily about how authority operates in the church, how authority operates in the church. I'm not a huge fan of multiple board systems, but I think that what it needs to be is, if you do have multiple boards, you need to make sure that the elder board is the one that actually has the ministry and operational control of the church. They may delegate some of those duties to other boards, but they're ultimately responsible before the Lord and before the congregation that elected them.

Speaker 1: 5:10

And you're saying this not just in your bylaws on paper, but in practicality.

Speaker 2: 5:15

Absolutely. Yep, you need to be very, very clear about who actually has ministerial and operational budgetary control. So that's a couple of ways. I think that the third way that power dynamics or fourth way whatever this is can be broken is actually in the elder board itself.

Speaker 1: 5:31

Okay.

Speaker 2: 5:32

And so a little while ago Jeremy and I are recording these in a long sequence over a couple of days and so a little while ago, we were going for a walk outside to take a breath and get some vitamin D and decompress a little bit, and we were talking about this. He knew the break from me.

Speaker 1: 5:48

he's that's what he's trying to not say um.

Speaker 2: 5:51

So we're talking about this a little bit and I think that one of the things that can happen is that the elder boards functioning itself can be broken, and I've experienced this as workday pastor, I've experienced this as a transitional pastor. It's one of the most common scenarios that happen and when you're kind of going in as a transitional pastor, you're like okay, so how does this elder board actually work? This is a church that I'm just in dialogue with to help them, and the comment of one of the elders who serves both on the elder board and the search committee is the search committee has been able to disagree and stay together. The elder board not as much. And that was very sad to hear, but it's also pretty common is that elder boards have not been taught about how to disagree and commit. They've not been taught how to prioritize things and to be led well and carefully and respectfully with each other. And so you walk into an elder board and you find out oh okay, so it's actually whatever Jerry says, whoever Elder Jerry is, that's the way that the elder board goes. Or you've got Elder Jim and he's on the elder board, but you never hear him say anything and he never has an opinion. That's also a bad power dynamic because there's insight in that person. If you've got a life that is an elder, there better be insight inside of his head and heart that you're not able to tap into. And so, in terms of dynamics on an elder board, I'm very much a fan of Pat Lincione and the five dysfunctions of a team, and so one of the things I actually offer to churches is to come into their elder board or their staff team or both.

Speaker 2: 7:26

I do this with any team that I train for any of the tasks that we're talking about in transition. If I train them, we train them in either the short or the long version of what's something we call biblical teamwork. That is, a biblically rooted version of Lanchoni's five dysfunctions of a team, of Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team. The reason I like Five Dysfunctions is that it sets out for everybody the same rules for how we operate on this team and it keeps the people who are louder-mouthed and I just raised my hand, I'm one of the louder-mouths always on a team from overly dominating the team and making sure that, as Lanchoni puts it, that you mind the insights of all team members, because if we're following the Holy Spirit. It may be that in one meeting the answer to whatever thing that we're talking about comes out of one of the loud mouth smells Comes out of my mouth but in another meeting, perhaps the only person that the Holy Spirit has given insight to about this is the most mild-mannered one who never insists on his way, and we as a team have to be to keep in step with the Spirit and not just the common human power dynamics that happen usually because of the strength of personality or position.

Speaker 2: 8:51

And so, in terms of elder dynamic and Presbyterianism, the common way that we put that is that the pastor is first among equals. But what I've discovered is that actually comes in three forms. So pastors can mess this up too, not just elders, and sometimes when we're coming in in a transitional situation, we're understanding what has been and that sometimes you're coming into a group that's very wounded because of what has been. So here's the three forms of that first among equals. There's first among equals, and that is a situation where the pastor expects to actually call the shots and it's only notationally that he works among equals. I once worked for a man that this was his dynamic. It was a Presbyterian church, but I worked for a guy and I was there the night that this dynamic changed. Finally, it was the first night in 20 years that he lost a vote.

Speaker 1: 9:48

How did he take that?

Speaker 2: 9:50

I believe he started looking for a job right then to do something else and he was gone in about three years because I think that he, when it was first among equals, he could bear with it, but when it was shown that he was merely an equal, I'm not sure he could bear with that. So that's the first form, so the form that works the best is just said all the same tone, first among equals, that the group expects the pastor to lead, the pastor expects to lead, but he expects to lead in the context of, I don't know, going into a meeting. What the Lord wants to do. My job is to make sure we're talking about the right questions. The third, which is also a deformity, is first among equals, and you get that from elders. No man I want to say something here.

Speaker 2: 10:50

Sorry I couldn't help, but good reason, and and that commonly happens, um, for two reasons. One reason is those elders that are insisting that they're equals is because they were previously abused and they're trying to take back their rightful place. The other reason that it can happen is that they have an abusive dynamic themselves as elders and they want to insist that they're the people who have always been there and are always going to be there. Pastors come and go, and so are the ones actually here. Pastor, you're just here, functionally as a hired hand. You do the preaching, we'll take care of the rest, and so that power dynamic is broken as well. It's just broken in a different way.

Speaker 1: 11:39

Right. So what is the healthy middle way here?

Speaker 2: 11:44

Yeah. So the healthy, I think, is first among equals, which is that I do, as a pastor, think about myself as a leader of this team and I take that responsibility seriously and I grow in it if I need to, and most pastors do. This is a skill that someone who does not teach you. So another Lencioni book that we can link in the show notes is actually I have it in my bag right now is a book called death by meeting. It's the, it's the book title that I cannot say without smiling and giggling giggling a little bit. Death by meeting is a Pat Lincione book. It's maybe in the middle of the sequence of books that he's written.

Speaker 2: 12:18

The reason it's very, very helpful in a church context is many times pastors bring up a topic in an elders meeting that needs to be talked about. It is a true topic, it's a true question that should be before the elder board. The mistake that gets made is that it's a topic that takes an hour long to discuss. Well, and they try and squeeze it into a slot that only has 15 minutes and everyone knows the rest of the agenda, everyone knows the press of the clock where these elders either need to get up tomorrow morning and work, or they need. If they met early morning, they need to get to work, or if it's a saturday, their family's waiting for them to get home, right, and so elders are always filling the press of time in meetings.

Speaker 2: 13:02

And so if you bring up a topic, even a good topic, even an appropriate topic, a right topic, that should be discussed, but it really needs an hour conversation and the mental slot that everybody has is 15 minutes, that ends up as incredibly frustrating to elders and to pastors, because everybody knows it's an important topic but they haven't put it in the right place. So death by meeting is important because he talks about different kinds of meetings and the different kinds of topics that are appropriate to different kinds of meetings, and so I'm a big fan of different kinds of meetings for elders. Have some meetings that are just business, have other meetings that are just shepherding, have other meetings that are just vision and larger topics Don't try and squeeze them all into the same meetings and I think that that reduces the pressure in a particular meeting and helps the power dynamic not end up twisted.

Speaker 1: 14:02

It's one of the things I really appreciated about the eldership at the church where I served. They were the guys were intentional about I think they met twice a month, but they are intentional about making sure that one of those meetings was just to go through a book together that they were reading, to be discussing back and forth. One of those meetings a month would be to talk business topics. Once every so many meetings I, as Director of Operations, would be there to speak to the specific business agenda items and then they were also scheduling in once a quarter quarter. Let's get our wives together and have a meal together. Let's get together and just pray, because it is really easy to.

Speaker 1: 14:50

It's really easy for everything to become important when you're dealing with people's souls right right end of the story. And that's before you get to the finances, yeah, that's before you get to the finances, yeah, and that's before you get to you know the color of the carpet that needs to be replaced that you have to go talk to. You know, sister, susie, about, right, we're already at 15 minutes, okay, but we've only scratched the surface here. A word you haven't used yet is authority, yeah, but a word that's really really tied into this is authority. Yeah, I talk to my kids all the time because I love them. One of the things I talk to them about is authority, and I remind them all authority comes from God.

Speaker 2: 15:33

Yes.

Speaker 1: 15:34

All authority is his authority. That is either being used properly and appropriately by the people to whom he has entrusted it, right? Who are going to be answering to him for how they used it? Yep, and that includes when I leave your older brother in charge of you.

Speaker 2: 15:51

Yep, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 15:52

Your brother is operating under my authority, which he has because I have authority from God over you as your father, and I will maintain that authority until you are an adult, Right right, and my responsibility is to help you grow into a place where you can receive that trust of authority yourself from God that for a time, he's given to me In a church. It's very much the same thing and the power dynamic struggle that I have experienced and I've seen both in counseling and in ministry is that we we understand that there's authority, but the authority itself we recognize we see as a problem because we don't want to actually live under authority Right, or we want to maintain control and believe that the authority is actually ours to determine how to delineate and use Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 16:49

So Different forms of being autonomous right.

Speaker 1: 16:52

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. So, when dealing with a power dynamic, I'm suggesting that there's an underlying issue. Is there a path, a necessary path, to correct these issues?

Speaker 2: 17:06

Yeah, I think there absolutely is, which is that the first thing is that whoever is supposed to exercise carefully, thoughtfully, intentionally, dependent upon the Holy Spirit, under the wisdom of the Lord and from the Scriptures, the paper leaders.

Speaker 2: 17:22

Many times, when we're in a transitional period, if they are not the ones that are in operational control of the church, we have to work with them to either have other people be willing to live under their authority or to recommend to other people who are not willing to live under the authority of the paper leaders, those that God's put in charge in that church, to find another fellowship where they are willing to live under the authority of the leadership that's there and sometimes that comes down to.

Speaker 2: 17:50

So it can be congregants, it can be volunteer ministry leaders, it can be staff, it can be people on other boards that want to exercise inappropriate people on other boards that want to exercise inappropriate authority and getting the authority lines clear and kind, because I think that clarity is kindness. If an elder board does its job and they give clarity to ministry leaders and the authority within their clarity of you know goals, and then what are the, what are the guardrails to stay between, if they can give that kind of clarity to ministry leaders and say you've got the authority. As long as you operate in the sandbox, it's yours, go at it. And they can do that with staff, they can do that with volunteer ministry leaders, they can do that with other boards. Then that actually frees those boards to exercise the proper authority that's been delegated to them, first from the Lord, but through the eldership, and so that's many times where we're having to fix that.

Speaker 1: 18:48

Yeah, what happens if a power dynamic is not corrected?

Speaker 2: 18:52

Um, it ends up I'm trying to not be crass it ends up being a really big issue for the next pastor. Remember, the point of a transitional period is to lay the groundwork for a fruitful pastorate for the next pastor who comes in. So a gift you give to the next pastor who's going to come in after a transitional period is a working power dynamic that's understood and embraced by everybody that the pastor then comes to work in the midst of, and so you're trying to give him a gift by giving him a working power dynamic.

Speaker 1: 19:33

So why would sweet Pastor Fred not have already dealt with us?

Speaker 2: 19:39

Oh, because pastors are weenies, generally speaking. That's what I discovered when I read Freedom's Failure of Nerve for the first time a decade ago, and I started it nearly 10 years ago today. I started Freedom's Failure of Nerve. Freedom's Failure of Nerve we can link in a couple more resources about it. Is it pastors that we can link? And a couple more resources about it. Is it pastors?

Speaker 2: 20:02

Again, 75% of pastors, who are more relational types that are externally driven. They're tended towards people-pleasing, walking towards difficult things, confronting people that are using power the wrong way and saying no, it's the Lord's wisdom that the power of be exercised, his authority and power be exercised through the eldership, not through another board or congregants or whatever. That the wisdom and the the. I can just give you a word from my growing up experience the spa to go do that is not something that it's not only within, not within the the experience set of pastors. It's highly uncomfortable for them, which is why I like using pastors. Taking pastors through crucial conversations is that helps them learn how to have those really difficult conversations when they're needed. So they're not a weenie, but they actually get this solved, because pastor Fred didn't solve it, but Transitional Pastor Joe should, because it's what's needed.

Speaker 1: 21:06

You have described this in other places as the pastor who doesn't hold the appropriate boundary to say to Brother Bob or Sister Sally when they come into his office and say, Pastor Fred, here's a problem that you need to deal with. Pastor Fred doesn't say to them when they leave his office hey, you left a problem here back in my office, that's your problem. You need to come back and get this.

Speaker 2: 21:34

Yeah, yeah. They absorb the problems of other people and think that they're supposed to solve all of them, instead of always having people walk away from their office with their problem One way to describe this that I've used with pastors. So we're dancing on the edge of an area that's called family systems theory, something that we train our transitional pastors in. If you're unfamiliar with this topic at all, the beginning level book for this is Jack Shatama's. If you Met my Family, you'd Understand We'll link to it in the show notes. But the way that I've analogized this for pastors, and particularly this, is a challenge of again that 75% of pastors that are externally motivated and are people-oriented tempted towards people-pleasing. If somebody comes into their office and they've got a problem, and you should imagine it as a monkey and that and so if you let people bring you problems and then leave them with you to solve not have them leave with their problem, eventually, once four or five people have visited your office, you have four or five monkeys jumping around your office and welcome to the head of many pastors where it feels like they've got monkeys jumping around inside their head no more monkeys bouncing on the bed we have that as a plaque over our bed because we have three boys first and

Speaker 2: 22:52

there's lots of bouncing on the bed, um, and so, yeah, the the. The design is that if somebody comes in anxious with a problem, that you listen to them, you counsel them, you talk to them, you give them guidance and you hand them their problem to walk away with, because it is their problem, not your problem, and many pastors make the mistake of absorbing everyone else's problems. So the way that I put it in coaching is they receive expectations instead of setting expectations, and that'll drive you bananas for sure. Especially, you'll need all those bananas with all those monkeys.

Speaker 1: 23:34

Absolutely. We are only scratching the surface. As you said, and for both you and I, this is a topic that we are particularly interested in. There will be a lot of links in the show notes for resources here, including since we didn't get into it, I'm going to link back to the episodes that you did back in Season 1 with your own story, mm-hmm, to the episodes that you did back in season one with your own story, going back to dealing with some of these power dynamics and crucial conversations. But I do want to end with this question what is a gospel response to working through to healthy, corrected power dynamics?

Speaker 2: 24:15

so somebody wants to inappropriately exercise power because of something that is missing in them?

Speaker 1: 24:25

Somebody wants to inappropriately exercise power dynamics because of something that is missing in them.

Speaker 2: 24:34

So I need to be right, I need to have the right answer, I need to set this course. I need to. Sounds kind of like they have a feeling that they need to be right.

Speaker 2: 24:43

I need to have the right answer. I need to set this course, um, I need to, and it, and it sounds kind of like they have a feeling that they need to be God. Yes, absolutely. So it is a very small um, you know, I need to be God, like I need to be the one who's in control, because if I'm not in control, this isn't going to go well to live with that. And so the question is and my temptations are along this line, anybody who knows me knows that my temptations are along the control power line, right. And so how do I work that in my own heart, when I feel anxious or worried that something's not going to turn out the way that I want and I'm tempted to jump into places that I shouldn't, or I need to just trust the Lord? How do I minister the gospel to myself?

Speaker 2: 25:23

One of my board members has been very good for me says Matt, you need to think about what's at stake. And I'm tempted to say, well, flourish is at stake. And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and he goes no, no, no, no, no, flourish is not at stake. The Lord's got flourish. What's at stake? Well, people think, okay, okay, well, you know, people might think, but that's not really what's at stake. I don't think what's at stake. Well, I feel at stake.

Speaker 1: 25:53

Hmm.

Speaker 2: 25:55

And when I take the time to step back and to think through it and go, oh, this is actually about me and me feeling okay about me and need to go back and go. Oh, man, the gospel tells you way better news than that, way better news than this has to go this way. So I feel okay about me. The gospel says you're loved, you're received because of Jesus and you could never be at stake because you're in my hand and I ain't letting you go. And so the person who's inappropriately exercising power what do they need? They need the gospel. They need the gospel. They need the gospel. They need to understand the gospel better and be free of that need to exercise power inappropriately because they don't need it. In fact, they need not exercise power inappropriately because Jesus has done it all. They need to understand the gospel in a way that they can finish that sentence. I need not exercise inappropriate power here because and they need to be able to fill in that blank, particularly for them that's how I fill in my blank. I am not at stake.

Speaker 2: 27:11

You could hate this podcast. You think I'm crazy, but you know what. It's okay, I'm not at stake based on my opinion of me or your opinion of me. It's totally a ripoff from Keller, by the way. The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness, which every single Christian should read. The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness. Listen to it, read it. It's money. And the reason is I am never at stake. I couldn't possibly be, because Jesus has done everything necessary for me to be received in the Father's family. He set His love on me. He wanted me. It's bizarre that he wanted me, but he did. He wanted me so much he sent His own Son, and so I'm held on to. I'm never at stake, and that's what I need in order to not inappropriately exercise power.

Speaker 1: 28:03

Thank you, guys for coming along. Our prayer is for you that the gospel would bear fruit in your life. Stay tuned for more to come. Thanks for listening to the Church Renewal Podcast from Flourish Coaching. Flourish exists to set ministry leaders free to be effective wherever God has called them. We believe that there's only one fully sufficient reason that this day dawned, Jesus is still gathering his people and he's using his church to do it. When pastors or churches feel stuck, our team of coaches refresh their hope in the gospel and help them clarify their strategy.

Speaker 1: 28:40

If you have questions or a need, we'd love to hear from you. You can find us at flourishcoachingorg and you can reach us by email at info at flourishcoachingorg. You can also connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and we would love it if you would like subscribe, rate or review the podcast wherever you're listening. Please share this podcast with anyone you think it'll help and if we get a client because of a recommendation you make, we'll send you a small gift just to say thanks, and a special thanks to Bay Ridge Christian Church in Annapolis, Maryland, for the use of their building to record today's episode. All music for this show has been licensed and was composed and created by artists. The Church Renewal Podcast was produced by me, Jeremy Seferati, in association with Flourish Coaching, with the goal of equipping and encouraging your church to flourish wherever God has called you.