One In Jesus

* Retreat

I imagine it’s pretty common for elders and staff to occasionally take a weekend off together, to sort through church issues and build relationships. It’s a good idea. Here are some keys to making it work —

— Everyone has to be there for the whole time. Demonstrate that this is important to you by getting there on time and staying to the end.

— Spend plenty of time together in purely fun activities. I’m a terrible party planner. I mean, to me the idea of a good time is typing up a post on elder-staff relations. I’m boring. But the young ministers can’t go one way while the old elders go another. This is not vacation. It’s not a time to celebrate your autonomy. It’s a time to bond across minister-elder lines. A little self-discipline helps. Have fun for a purpose.

— Pray together. Continue reading →

* Don’t invite former employers and parents into the room

Sometimes a minister carries around gaping wounds from previous elderships. He feels betrayed or abused, and so he has trouble imagining that the new eldership will be any better. Whatever the elders say is filtered through his former experiences. And this is a sure relationship destroyer, because the new elders aren’t even given a chance to be better than the last eldership.

The same problem can come from unresolved problems with parents. Ministers with unresolved problems with their fathers will often transfer their paternal resentments to the fatherly elders — leading to all sorts of problems. Continue reading →

* It’s fine for ministers to collaborate with each other, but not against the elders. No block voting. Ever.

A minister feels oh-so strongly that the parking lot needs to be restriped. He’s afraid the elders will say no. And so he meets with his fellow ministers, saying something like, “I really need you guys to support me on this. When we meet with the elders, we need to all agree on this!”

Let me shell the corn, as we say here in West Alabama. That’s asking your fellow ministers to deceive your elders as to their true intentions. If they support you becauase you really need their support — to preserve your relationship as fellow staffers — then they aren’t supporting you because they agree. Continue reading →

* No surprises

We say to the staff: “Don’t assume that you have to drag us kicking and screaming into a more progressive worship style. Don’t try to push and manipulate us piecemeal. Don’t dare add innovations to the worship without talking to us first! Rather, let’s sit down together and decide together where we’d like the church to go. And then let’s discuss how we can work together to lead the church there, wherever that may be.”

Most elderships have been burned by a young minister who just couldn’t wait for the congregation to catch up, and so in a futile effort to accelerate the church’s acceptance of some innovation, he added the innovation to a worship service without permission from the elders. The thinking was “forgiveness is easier to get than permission.” And it is. But the loss of trust and the feelings of betrayal will affect the relationships within the staff for a very long time. And it’s a strategy that hardly ever works. Continue reading →