03.10. X. Managing Church Troubles

X MANAGING CHURCH TROUBLES

IT IS a pathetic fact, that the greatest single problem facing the pastor is the problem of possible church troubles; in fact, we might say, of certain church troubles. The pastor who goes through any considerable number of years without meeting these, is the rare exception. In truth, in our somewhat extensive acquaintance we have never met him. Church trouble is something like death; it may be escaped for a time, but sooner or later it will come. The rise of church trouble is not necessarily menacing. However, the escape from evil results will depend in no small measure upon the way it is managed; and to a large degree that management will always be, with the pastor.

It is as impossible for a Bank to go through troubles and leave the President undisturbed, as it is for a church to pass through the same and leave the pastor untouched, or for a family to experience trouble without involving the parents. In advising upon this subject, we are going to depart from our usual custom and deal in “Don’ts.”

DON’T PROVOKE THEM Do your work, and do it well.—The majority of complaints and criticisms landed against a pastor involve his methods of work, quite as often as they do the preparation and delivery of his message. An indolent pastor is certain to come in for criticism. The moment hard working people find that the preacher is resting on his oars they become restless and critical, and justly so. Industry is a sine qua non of success in the ministry. The chief business of a preacher is to preach, and good preaching without careful preparation and hard study is impossible.

Too often young preachers become the men of all work about the house. They run errands, take care of babies, wash the dishes, buy the groceries, and do a dozen little jobs, and leave the essential work undone, and undo themselves in consequence.

It is my conviction that if a study can be had in the church, better have it there. When I was a young man I foolishly promised my wife once that I would put my study in the home. I did so, and for six weeks I lived in the midst of sweeping, bed-making, dishwashing, baby-crying. I got one sermon—rather a poor one—made in the six weeks; at the end of which time my wife had sense enough to see that it was a failure for both of us, and gently suggested that I move back to my study again, a suggestion cordially received and instantly acted upon.

There are two classes of preachers in every criticism: The man who is a failure, and the man who is an eminent success. The first is criticized because of his failure, and the second because he has jostled all the old comfortables out of their easy-going gait and changed the course of the rut in which they had run for forty years. The man who gets by without criticism is a sort of a hybrid, neither a failure nor a success. The most questionable compliment that ever is paid to a dead preacher is that “he had not an enemy in the world”; so, don’t covet that. Do your work well, preach the Word, be a good pastor, acquire success, and take the criticisms that come with it.

Suppress your wife’s ambition, and quiet her tongue. —Mark what I say. I do not mean “silence her tongue.” In many instances that would be impossible; but quiet it. The woman who is the preacher’s wife, who thinks she has to hold all the high offices in the church, is just as certain to produce church troubles, as she is determined to preside in the Ladies’ Aid or Mission Circle or direct the choir. In small churches the preacher’s wife can do an important work, provided she is destitute of ambition to hold office, and provided she can hold her tongue.

Other women can talk, and do talk; but what the pastor’s wife says goes further, is more contorted, and can create more trouble than the tongues of a dozen beside, for the people naturally identify husband and wife; and, according to Scripture, “they are one.” It is not the best fortune when she is the “one,” the whole one, as is sometimes the case. If you will take my advice, (and some of you won’t), you will seek the girl who would gladly serve Christ without official distinction, and who, while she is a student, is neither a back-biter nor a trouble-maker.

Protestantism practically demands a married minister. Your wedding day will have more to do with your future ministry than any other human event. Don’t trust your own judgment, therefore! “If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God.” If there is one subject upon which the single minister should pray more than another it is the subject of a wife. I have no doubt that most of you are praying on that subject already, but I am anxious that you “watch” as well as pray. Be cordial to, and considerate of, all the members.—Cordiality is a power! Phillips Brooks managed to get by as a bachelor. Perhaps he was the best loved and most highly esteemed of all Boston pastors, though he walked alone. The reasons therefore existed in the combined circumstance that he was a great student, a marvelous preacher, had the ability to smile on every baby and child that belonged to his parish, and thereby won both their affections and that of parents. A smile is the easiest and simplest contribution that a minister can make to the contentment of his congregation and toward his own success.

I often dine in a restaurant, not a block distant from my office, and there are five or six waitresses in it. One of them has never yet smiled when she came to wait on me, nor ever spoken the simple sentence, “Good morning” or “How do you do?” The others of them I commonly tip. This one has her first red cent to get from me. If she cannot afford to smile, I cannot spare the dime. Let preachers learn.

DON’T PARLEY WITH TROUBLES

If trouble is in the offing, ignore it.—According to Webster’s Dictionary the “Offing” is “that part of the visible sea distant from the shore beyond anchorage.” “Out where there is deep water.” Hence, “Distance out at sea” as the phrase we have ‘Twenty miles offing here.” ‘To keep a good offing is to keep a vessel well off shore.” There are some preachers who can scent trouble twenty miles away, and who, the moment they scent it, set their sails for it. What folly! The most successful man I know in the ministry of the day has had more mean things said about him, more ruinous remarks made both concerning his character and conduct than any man I know on earth; and yet, he does not pay any attention whatever to them. In fact, I have heard him say more than once, “I don’t want to hear it,” when people attempt to report to him some critical remark. Without any reference as to whether he is deserving of these criticisms, we put our hearty approval upon his treatment of them. What is the use of making your ear an Achilles’ heel—the place of constant and deadly wound?

There are some preachers who, the moment they hear one word of criticism, fly after the folks that make it and demand proof of it; and sometimes they even go so far as to insist upon a trial. The preacher who is put on trial is dead before the trial begins. It doesn’t make a particle of difference whether he is justified or condemned. The fact that he has been tried is accepted by Society as a condemnation.

Only a few days ago, I was summoned to an adjacent state where an ex-parte council had been called. The preacher asked me if he should attend it and make it mutual. I said, “By no means. Ex-parte councils have no authority whatever, and no power. Don’t go near it. Don’t permit it to take place in your church. Ignore its findings; treat it with silent contempt.” When I came to the pastorate of the First Baptist Church, Minneapolis, the faction, who could not endure the new methods introduced and the growth that was coming in consequence, were jostled out of their ruts and, still worse, voted out of their offices; and they called two ex-parte councils. Both promptly condemned me and called for my resignation. The recommendations were brought to the church by certain members of the faction, who were still members of the church, and they were promptly laid upon the table without a word of discussion. Don’t fight with every fellow who comes around with a chip on his shoulder. Ignore his challenge; give yourself to the task in hand, and move on.

If the trouble is on ship-board, seek its settlement.— By saying “On ship-board” I mean if it is in the membership, and is of sufficient importance to justify interference; and it should be grave indeed when interference takes place.

Seek its adjustment! Johnston Myers of Chicago insisted that a method of adjustment was to go to the man who had the grievance and talk things over with him in a kindly way, and get him to go down on his knees with you in prayer, particularly if it was a personal grievance against the pastor. If it is a grievance between brethren, the Scriptures provide a way. The man aggrieved should go first to this brother. If he will not be reconciled he should take with him two or three witnesses. If then he will not be reconciled, he should tell it to the church.

However, none of this is liable to take place without involving the pastor sooner or later. If he is not the direct subject of the criticism, he is in danger of becoming involved in it because as counselor he seems to take the side of one or the other party. Be fair; be just; seek to divest yourself of prejudice. Listen carefully and kindly to both sides, and when the case is clear, and you know what God wants, insist upon that. It is very difficult for any man or company of people in a church to go back of the right, or to get by a sound, sensible and spiritual course.

Chronic trouble-breeders exclude.—But let me hasten to say, be sure that they are chronic trouble-breeders before you dare take this extreme step.

Attorney-General Daugherty in his “The Inside Story of the Harding Tragedy” says: “I always held, as a party leader, that the only way to harmonize an enemy or a traitor, inside the organization, was to throw him over the fence and put a loyal man in his place.” In my judgment this applies in church life as perfectly as in politics. Our mistakes are sometimes our best teachers. My own mistake in dealing with the trouble in the First Baptist Church of thirty-five years ago was to follow the advice of men and women who were too patient, too lenient.

I say this lest some young fellow will make a fool of himself by going straightway to the exclusion business. It is an extreme act; and ought not to be engaged in until all other reasonable attempts have been exhausted! But there come times when the best thing that could happen to a church is the exclusion of chronic trouble-breeders. The wise surgeon doesn’t take out his knife every time you have a pain in your side; but when he is convinced that the appendix is festering, to hesitate is to lose his patient and his own reputation at the same time. The principle applies in church life.

I was called a little while since to counsel in two instances. In the first instance, a woman had created church troubles for years, evidently desiring to be the whole thing herself in the church, of which she was a member. She had made it difficult for pastor after pastor. She had a little following of half a dozen folks. I advised her exclusion, and it was accomplished, and the church is prospering in consequence.

Only a few days since, I was called to counsel in another instance where a man and his wife had, for forty years, horned out pastor after pastor. I took the clerk’s record and looked it over and could not find that any man remained longer than three years in that pulpit, and I found on the field two men who had been deeply gored by this horned deacon and his still more horned wife. I advised their exclusion, and it was accomplished. Time will tell if this also was wise!

Let me repeat, it is a desperate act, and should be the last resort. But when it becomes clear that people have done nothing but breed discontent, write unsigned letters, anonymous letters, (the lowest conceivable piece of conduct), get up petitions and, under false pretenses and by foul arguments persuade others to sign them; and, year after year, pastorate after pastorate, have proven themselves ill-contents, critics, slanderers of competence and character, the best thing that could possibly happen to the church is to remove them, and when the time comes for such action, and it is started, go through with it! Don’t get cold feet; remove the cancer!

DON’T FAIL TO PRAY The average church trouble exists because there has not been enough prayer.—The adjustment of the average church trouble is difficult because too often its settlement is attempted apart from prayer. In fact, oftentimes the parties to church trouble are afraid to pray about it. They do not want the guidance of the Holy Ghost; they want their own way. They cannot say, “Thy will be done.” Their will stands first, and they are not ready to have it set aside by even the Lord Himself; and, sad to say, sometimes the preacher finds himself in that position where he thinks his way is so unquestionably the right way that he does not need to consult God on the subject.

Here we might learn from Abraham Lincoln who, when somebody suggested to him during the days of the Civil War that he call the people to pray, that God might be on the side of the Northern armies, answered, “God is already on the right side. If I call them to prayer, it will be that we may get on God’s side instead of having God come to our side.” That is exactly the spirit that should prompt prayer when troubles arise, that we may discover which side God is on, and stand with Him.

Experience has proven the power of prayer in connection with opposition.—The Book of Daniel contains the finest illustration of this fact. There were one hundred and nineteen Vice-Presidents in the reign of Darius the Mede. In their jealousy toward Daniel they held a secret meeting. This is the ordinary way of trouble breeders. Whenever a secret session is held with the object of opposing some servant of God, you may be fairly sure that the people holding it are in the wrong. Right delights in the day and in the open session. Wrong takes cover under darkness and behind closed doors. At the end of the secret session they brought back a lie. They told the King that “All were agreed on the subject of the statute,” and thereby secured his signature. It is a rare thing that holders of secret meetings will tell the truth when the meetings are over. The fact was that the only man who had a right to call the meeting was not even apprised of its assembly, and by that falsehood they secured the King’s signature to the decree. The decree demanded of Daniel one of two things, either disobedience to the earthly, or disloyalty to the heavenly King; and Daniel elected the former,—disobedience to Darius rather than disloyalty to God. Every prophet of God who does not so elect is unworthy of his office.

Mark the method of Daniel in meeting this diabolical conspiracy. He did not call an opposition meeting. He did not say, “Now these fellows have had their turn. I will get my friends together and we will hold a counter secret session.” That is the way it commonly occurs in the church. The moment the faction have held their meeting and the report of it leaks out, as it always does, the pastor is tempted to call a few of his personal friends to his house for a counter session. It then remains to be seen who can muster the most friends in the final showdown.

Daniel met it in another way. He went down on his knees three times a day, his window open toward Jerusalem. God heard his petition and answered. He answered in several ways.

First, by keeping Daniel while in the lions’ den. The true prophet of God has a promise that no weapon formed against him shall prosper. He answered further by bringing the king under conviction, and for the entire night sleep went from his eyes, and even music could not induce the same. God can do marvelous things in over-ruling and even over-turning the machinations of men.

Put your trust in Him rather than in councils, secret sessions, or even intimate friends.—The preacher who performs his duties well and conscientiously, who treats criticisms and every strife with patience and intelligence, and who takes to God, in prayer, the difficult problems of his office, who meets in open session and before his own church, fairly and squarely, the issues that opposition may force upon him, will commonly come out unscathed, as Daniel did, with the divine approval upon him; and he will witness the confusion and overthrow of his enemies.

All things are possible with God.

“Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shall be fed.

“Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.

“And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday.

“Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.

“Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil.

“For evil doers shall but cut off: but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth” (Psalms 37:3; Psalms 37:5-9) OUTLINE OF CHAPTER TEN MANAGING CHURCH TROUBLES I. DON’T PROVOKE THEM a.Do your work, and do it well. b.Suppress your wife’s ambition, and quiet her tongue. c.Be cordial to, and considerate of, all the members.

II. DON’T PARLEY WITH TROUBLES a.If trouble is in the offing, ignore it. b.If the trouble is on ship-board, seek its settlement. c.Chronic trouble-makers exclude.

III. DON’T FAIL TO PRAY a.The average church trouble exists because there has not been enough prayer. b.Experience has proven the power of prayer in connection with opposition. c.Put your trust in Him rather than in councils, secret sessions, or even intimate friends.