How to avoid, deal with issue of pastor, church not connecting with each other

How to avoid, deal with issue of pastor, church not connecting with each other

Pastor John was angry. He was hurt. “I felt like I had been sucker punched,” he said.

But he had not always felt that way. 

In fact, Pastor John was initially excited when he was named pastor of the church. 

“It was going to be something different for me and, I thought, something that would probably match my personality well and my gifts and my calling,” he shared.

But once settled into his new role, Pastor John had an uneasy feeling that he just wasn’t connecting with the church. “It was like they were keeping me at arms length,” he said. 

Further uneasiness crept in as he began to realize the problem was about more than just “making connections” — some in the church weren’t happy with directions the church was taking and began to transfer those feelings onto the staff, he said. 

Pastor John had reached a painful realization: the church was not what had been initially portrayed. He had found himself in a mismatch.

In retrospect, Pastor John doesn’t believe his pastor search committee intentionally misled him. “They really thought they were painting an accurate picture of the church,” he said. 

Like Pastor John, Pastor Michael also experienced a wide range of emotions after a church mismatch. “In a huge sense I felt hurt and violated,” Pastor Michael said of his situation, yet added that he also felt “rescued” from his particular circumstance. 

Pastor Michael served at the church during a period of decline in financial giving and attendance, as well as a time of discord among some staff members, he said. 

“I was under [the] implication [that the] staff was united,” he noted. “That was not the case.” 

Looking back, Pastor Michael wishes he had known more about the church — like the relationships among staff members and the parameters of the pastor’s authority and leadership — before entering what ultimately resulted in the mismatch.

David, a layperson, has served on more than one pastor search committee. During a particular committee term his church experienced a mismatch with the pastor that “came out of left field.” “We thought we had done everything,” David noted of his committee’s diligence. 

While the factors that resulted in each of these mismatches varied for Pastor John, Pastor Michael and David, there are lessons and personal advice they would each offer to both churches and pastors on ways to handle and even potentially prevent mismatches from occurring.

From the pastor search committee standpoint, David stressed it’s vital for a committee to listen to its church and understand on the front end what they are looking for in a pastor. 

“If a church … seeks to be all-inclusive on their committee structure, a lot of times you make the mistake of selecting committee members who … don’t fully comprehend where the church is, where it’s going, what its vision [and] mission [are],” he said. 

David also believes churches that remain unresolved on elements such as worship style, preaching style and meeting times sometimes make the mistake of expecting the new pastor to resolve those types of issues. 

“If your committee doesn’t have some assurance that leadership is working on … or has already solved those [types of] issues, then you can’t expect to call a pastor to come in and resolve (them),” David explained. “He’s in a situation that he can’t overcome a lot of times. And they’re not his issues, but he’s going to be asked to come in and resolve them, and that’s not fair to him.”

Another potential mistake a church can make is viewing the pastor search committee as a “training ground” for a church leader. “You don’t put people in and say, ‘This will be a good experience.’ You’ve got to have committed, dedicated Christians (who) know your people, know your church and are familiar with it,” David said. 

Constant prayer and building trust among the committee members are also important elements of a successful pastor search committee, he added. “The ultimate goal is [that] when you come to the church with a recommendation, you want it to be unanimous.” 

While Pastor John recognizes that every mismatch situation is different, the way he sees it, the best way for churches and pastors to avoid a potential mismatch is if the search committee and its candidate “could come to the table” in complete honesty with each other. 

Pastor Michael also acknowledged the importance of honesty. “Just be honest with your pastor when you’re calling [him],” he said. “Don’t go into it with hidden expectations.” 

And if a church and pastor ultimately do end up in a mismatch, it’s “going to take a lot of wise counsel,” David said. 

Pastor John would advise a fellow pastor going through a mismatch to draw as close to God as he’s ever been in his life and listen. “Seek a lot of good advice — pull your friends closer to you than they’ve ever been, but be careful in how you listen to them … that you don’t let them, (while) well-meaning, sidetrack you from trying to follow what the Lord wants you to do,” he added.

A mismatch “puts you in a position to wholeheartedly trust the Lord and trust He is going to guide you through,” Pastor Michael said. “Trust that God knows best and that He will protect you. Realize it’s not a quick process but God will bring healing. Know there will be better days ahead.” 

Pastors are just like anyone else in that they don’t enjoy conflict, David noted, but “if you reach a point where it has to be addressed, do it in a very Christian, professional way — don’t do it in a public manner.” 

If a mismatch reaches a point beyond one or two key leaders in the church talking with the pastor, David suggested seeking professional help through the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM) office of LeaderCare and church administration (see story, this page). “You have someone who can come in and sit down and help you mediate a process,” he said of the SBOM resource. “What you want is to try to resolve any issues.” 

David also noted the importance of the pastor’s family and said that when a church initially calls its pastor, it calls his family as well. He encouraged pastor search committees to talk with the pastor’s wife in that process. The meeting may entail nothing more than having a cup of coffee with the couple or taking them out to dinner, he said. 

David noted other steps that can be taken to help the couple, particularly if they are new to the area. These include introducing them to the local school system if they have children and helping to familiarize them with other aspects of the community, such as the medical facilities.

Pastor John and Pastor Michael, like many pastors who have been through a mismatch, didn’t go through the experience alone — their families traveled the difficult journey with them.

“Remember you’re dealing with people,” Pastor John would tell churches. “These are families, and it affects the whole family.” 

Traveling down the road of a mismatch is definitely a process, he reflected. “But the neat thing is what happened since then. … From that day forward it’s been watching how God has worked and how we (my family) have allowed Him to work in our lives.”

Editor’s Note — The situations in this article took place in Alabama Baptist churches, but the names have been changed.

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