After reading my last post, you may be thinking; surely, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
How could she know all this inside information? Don’t forget; I was on staff; people were in and out of the church every day, and people talked. Those individuals don’t know what other people are saying. You eventually get the complete picture when you add up all the information.
November 2017… the preacher the church was considering wanted to meet with the staff individually, with certain members of the pastor search committee attending the meeting.
My meeting was set for 10 a.m., and I wasn’t excited about it. I was beginning to question the process and procedure. I was questioning the ability of the committee to make a choice without the good doctor looking over their shoulder… I just wasn’t feeling it.
One of my many weaknesses is that I don’t usually believe the best about people first. I guess it’s because of the many hurts I’ve encountered in my life, but I don’t easily trust people.
I will meet someone with my guard up and then wait for them to prove to me that they can be trusted. I’m not saying this is a strength of mine, but I’m saying that my life has conditioned me to be this way, whether right or wrong.
I walked into the office that morning to meet the prospective pastor. My guard was up. He was sitting across the table with his wife. There were two pastor search committee members with us in the room.
Let me pause here to say that I thought this was strange. Why couldn’t we just meet the preacher and his wife without them hovering? I will never understand why it was done that way.
Perhaps it was so we wouldn’t share too much?
The meeting went surprisingly well. This man seemed genuine, humble, and excited about the possibility of coming to the church. I would find out later that he asked the two search committee members why they weren’t paying me more. However, he was impressed with my ideas and my enthusiasm. I left feeling good about this possibility.
The church called him.
He began his pastorate at Tree Town Baptist in January of 2018. Stability was on its way, and for the first time since I had been hired, I would have an accurate idea of what was expected of me. I couldn’t wait to get started.
This new pastor and his family became quick friends. We lived about 30 minutes from the church, and our house offered a retreat of sorts away from the town where he pastored. His wife and I got along very well; I loved his kids, and our kids got along with his kids.
It was good. We spent almost every weekend together with the new pastor’s family, and we loved it.
I felt like I was working with my friend. We had similar goals for the church and the ministry. I trusted his opinions. He listened to my ideas and helped me get them approved. He changed my title to Children’s Minister instead of Children’s Coordinator and bought me my own business cards. I was flattered. He had a good work ethic and good ideas, he was easy to talk to, and our personalities worked well together. He began to feel like family. It was an easy and good work relationship and friendship.
Even as I type this, it makes me sad that things didn’t stay that way. I hate that it’s past tense. It was good, it was really good, and losing it hurt.
Staff meetings took on a different look after this pastor was hired. They were more detailed, longer, and included a section of time where we worked on leadership development. But, they were still on Wednesday afternoons at one o’clock at the beginning of his pastorate.
This seems like the place to talk about the issues with the music minister.
There was some friction between the members and the music minister during the interim process. He said things to people that weren’t well received.
There were a lot of complaints. I will admit that I even had complaints, and he probably had complaints about me as well. He and I had always gotten along well, but that interim year was a real challenge. There was a huge power struggle. It was difficult for all of us.
The pastor search committee offered to fire him before the new pastor arrived. But, the new pastor didn’t want to look like a failure initially, so he was adamant that they give him a chance to “train” the music minister. He wanted to fine-tune the music minister’s leadership abilities and felt like he was capable of doing this. Keep in mind that he had never managed staff before. His previous church was just him and a guy who volunteered. His pastoral experience included pastoring a small church in a small town. This church in Tree Town was only his second church to serve as Senior Pastor. The music minister actually had more experience in ministry than he did. I’m not making excuses for the music minister’s behavior. Still, I’m just laying out the facts so you can understand the dynamic and power struggle.
The leadership training was limited to studying and discussing leadership books. For example, we read “Becoming a Welcoming Church” for our first training experience.
The pastor made an outline for us to follow during the staff meeting. I actually really appreciated this part because it helped us stay on topic. We started with leadership building and discussion. Then we would evaluate the previous week’s services in detail… the notes said… What went right? Why? What went wrong? Why? The pastor asked us to make notes during the service to give feedback. This is essential to my story because it made church hard for me. I was constantly evaluating everything. Sunday morning worship was no longer a worship service for me. It was work. It was a time to be making notes on everything that went right or wrong. Here’s where it got complicated… let’s say you thought part of the sermon didn’t go well… are you going to mention it to the pastor? What if a song didn’t go well or the praise team had issues… are you really going to bring this up in a staff meeting? It ended up being a time of accolades and pats on the back about how good everyone was doing because no one wanted to tell the truth. I got tired of evaluating the services… really tired. I became cynical, really. After we finished the evaluation part of the staff meeting, we talked about our calendars and upcoming events. Each one of us got the opportunity to talk about what we had coming up and what we needed help with. We would update our progress each week.
Each ministry helped the other. We didn’t only take care of our own areas; it was a team effort. Toward the end of the meeting, we would decide who was the hero for the week in the church. We talked about church members who had gone above and beyond the previous week. We also talked about who in the church needed attention… people having surgery, babies, struggles, etc. We talked about who we had ministered to and how.
We also had to answer the question each week about Gospel Conversations. This got tricky because we were “encouraged” to have several gospel conversations throughout the week. Wherever we went, we were supposed to turn conversations toward Jesus, steer conversations toward the gospel, or pray with people… we were to find ways to share Jesus each week. That’s not a bad thing… on its own, but when the encouragement becomes more of a demand, and when you hadn’t had a “gospel conversation” that week, you felt ashamed. It was a big deal if you didn’t. I began to feel like I was manipulating every conversation I had, not because it felt right, but because I needed a story to tell in staff meetings. I didn’t want to get in trouble or be called out.
There was a section titled “anything to be aware of” at the very end, and this is where things got really interesting.
It would be better titled… “Church Gossip for the Week.” This was always at the end, always after sitting for at least an hour, and we were tired. The “concerns” quickly became gossip. This was where you told the story of an angry church member, or something negative you heard, or where you discussed the older lady who was always a problem… Reliving this part leaves a terrible taste in my mouth. I’m not even going to pretend that I didn’t partake. I’m not innocent at all in this area. I talked just as much as anyone else. It was encouraged.
But, I would hear the pastor speak ill of a church member and then kiss their butt when he saw them. I would do the same thing. We needed to keep the people happy. Especially the older ones who gave the most money. We were encouraged to point out the troublemakers and then work extra hard to keep them happy. Everything stopped if the offerings quit coming in.
There was one more added element. The pastor would joke about “petting” people. He used this term to describe how he kept people happy and on his side. He said some people just needed more petting than others. He made sure to visit a few places each week to shoot the breeze. There was one place he made certain to visit because it was important to keep that group of ladies happy. He wanted them always to feel important and heard, and the happier they were, the less chance there was for them to cause trouble. That in itself, I guess, isn’t bad, but the condescending term of petting people isn’t ok, or his real reasoning behind it. I didn’t even see that when I was in the middle of it. I guess it didn’t feel right, but it was almost encouraged. And because we were friends, I didn’t want him to feel like I was judging him in any way. He was my boss, my friend, my pastor… and I just thought he needed a safe place to air his grievances. I honestly enjoyed the fact that I was “in the know.”
Have you ever heard the saying, “once you’ve seen how the sausage is made, it’s hard to partake”? I became disenchanted very quickly. Sunday was so beautiful, worshipful, and holy… and the staff meeting was completely opposite. What were we doing? Was this really what ministry was supposed to look like?
There was another massive change in the church in April of 2018. The church secretary resigned. She had been there for 20 years. She was the glue that held us all together. She was a huge reason why I wanted to take the job. I loved working with her. She was like a second mom to me. I loved her, and I still do. The night she resigned was literally like a funeral. I cried like a baby.
The secretary gave the church plenty of notice before her retirement, and she agreed to stay on long enough to train the new person they hired.
If you aren’t already shaking your head asking how many layers there are to this story, let me add another one.
In 2015, my husband was elected to the Personnel Committee. This committee had 6 elected members, plus the chairman of the deacons, and the pastor was also allowed to sit in on the meetings, but he didn’t have a vote. This happened before I was hired. Upon my hiring in the fall of 2016, my husband requested to be removed from the committee due to a conflict of interest. The committee declined his request and told him he could just sit out when the meetings had anything to do with me. He begrudgingly agreed. When the pastor resigned, they froze all committees. No one rotated off, and no one rotated on. So, this added extra years to the committee requirements. When the new pastor was hired, my husband again requested to be removed from the committee. Still, the new pastor “jokingly” said it would be good to have a friend in his corner on the committee. I’m not sure how things would look today if he hadn’t been on that committee. I definitely wouldn’t know as much as I do now. My husband and I share everything, so the church was naïve if they thought I didn’t know. However, the other side is that he could have fought for me more if he hadn’t been on the committee. The conflict of interest thing came into play when he felt he couldn’t say certain things or defend me when he needed to. Looking back, the church should’ve listened to his concerns. They should’ve accepted his resignation.
Because of his position on the Personnel Committee, I know way too much about hiring the new church secretary. I think that will be an excellent place to start the next post.
Until Next Time,
Whitney