Based upon surveys by various groups, approximately 100 Southern Baptist ministers
(one assumes the number is limited to pastors) are terminated each month. The
surveys do not include the number of pastors who leave under pressure, or who
are given no choice but to go to another pastorate.
Based upon surveys by various groups, approximately 100 Southern Baptist ministers
(one assumes the number is limited to pastors) are terminated each month. The
surveys do not include the number of pastors who leave under pressure, or who
are given no choice but to go to another pastorate. Perhaps there is no way
to know how that number would compare percentage-wise with other professions.
Regardless, the termination of a minister always leaves scars on the church
that terminates the minister, its witness in the community and the minister
and his family.
Why are ministers terminated?
Bob Sheffield, pastoral ministry specialists, Conflict Management/Mediation
Division of Life Way Church Resources, recently shared what he thinks, according
to his experience, the “Top Five Reasons for Forced Termination in the
Southern Baptist Convention.”
They are:
1. “Whos going to control the church?”
2. Poor people skills on the part of the pastor.
3. The church is resistant to change.
4. Pastors leadership style does not match the congregation.
5. Unresolved conflict before the pastor arrived.
Interestingly, incompetency, immorality, bad theology or failure
to do the work are not in the top five reasons for dismissing a pastor.
It is also interesting that careful communication and screening
work by a search committee could keep some of the reasons from arising. For
instance, the issue of “Whos going to control the church?” has
pretty well been settled before a new pastor arrives. If the church has operated
in a strongly set manner for years, the only way that will likely change soon
is through a significant struggle, and the pastor seldom wins. If the pastor
knew how things were when he accepted the pastorate and is still determined
to challenge those in control of the church, the chances are he will not last
and will not win, even if he is right.
If a church is resistant to change, and the pastor comes to
the church and immediately begins changing things, his employment is likely
to be the main change. Search committees frequently tell prospective pastors,
“We need a lot of change, and I think our people are ready for change.”
Nothing could be further from the truth, but the pastor comes in expecting folks
to be thrilled by his new ideas. If he persists in trying to make changes, regardless
of how much they need to be made, he is soon the major change.
An often overlooked reason for pastoral termination, but one
the surveys show is most real, is that strong, unresolved conflict that was
present when the pastor came to the field. If there is strong conflict, it is
likely that both sides (often there are even more than two sides) will demand
the pastor “take our side.” If the minister is friendly to both sides,
both sides become unhappy with him. If he is perceived to take one side because
he agrees with it, the other side will want his ministry among them terminated
sooner than later.
In each of these cases, the pastor search committee should
be open and frank with any perspective pastor with whom they have serious discussions.
Masking such problems actually deceives the prospective minister and brings
him into what is often a no-win situation. The pastor ends up being sacrificed
for problems he did not know about and had nothing to do with at the time he
accepted the church. The church should solve its own problems before bringing
a pastor into their quagmire hoping at his expense that he has some magic that
can settle it.
This editor has long thought that one of the unfortunate realities
of Baptist congregational life is this: The pastor search committee dissolves
as soon as the pastor is installed. The people in the church who at that point
know the best and why they believed God brought him to the church is no longer,
as a group, present to counsel him and be his advocate.
Perhaps a pastor search committee should remain as a committee
for the first year a pastor is in a church, to counsel him, even help guide
him and encourage him as he walks through what are frequently minefields that
can unjustly cost him his ministry. The committee could also be the advocate
for solving the problems of the church that will so bear upon the pastors
ministry. One may say the personnel committee, deacons or church counsel are
in place for this purpose, but they do not have the same relationship with the
pastor as the search committee.
When a pastor is dismissed for one of the “Top Five Reasons”
given by Mr. Sheffield, it is predominately a no-win situation for everyone
involved, including the Kingdom of God.
In the Old Testament, part of the religious ceremony in which
a sacrifice was made for the atonement of sin, the sins of the people were ceremonially
placed on a goat that was then set out of the camp to wander in the wilderness,
hence, the term “scapegoat.” Too many times, people of a church place
the blame for all their problems, sins and shortcomings on the head of the pastor
and dismiss him, trying to make him a scapegoat. It does not work. God still
holds them responsible for the problems which were present when the pastor came,
and then the additional blame for what they have done to the minister.
In every way, the church members are better off to do their
best to work things out decently and in order. God blesses that effort; He does
not bless making an unsuspecting minister a scapegoat.