My sabbatical is coming to an end and I think I am ready. I am missing Salem Pres, missing the excitement of a new workday. These are the exciting forms of leadership for me. I love to look at our community and identify why things are thriving or not. And then I love to form patterns, habits, and communications to either perpetuate or correct these situations. This is my vocation.
Not many pastors like these forms of leadership. They usually like to think about ideas, disseminate those ideas in one-on-one conversations, in small groups, or to whole communities. Those ideas shape thought and behavior in a community and in many ways this is the pastoral calling—teaching. This mimics what the Apostles. They reflected on the words of Christ and took those words to the world not just to share opinions, but to shape thoughts and lifestyles so that people can dwell in union with Christ. I too like these forms of leadership and in many ways my sabbatical has been a time of reclaiming this calling of the pastor-poet.
But I also love to think through how the system operates. There is a lot of creativity and curiosity involved. Its like taking apart an engine and putting it back together. But this analogy only goes so far. An engine only works one way – the way it was designed. Church communities do not have one design. They are like families more than they are like engines. The beautiful side of my passion is that I can work with our community to prevent conflict and promote hospitality. Articulating and designing ways for people to join our family and ways to continue participating in our family are the work of a sort-of deacon-elder hybrid, which is how I see myself. Every gift has a dark side though. For the teacher, it might be the desire to impose one’s world-view on a group or it is a narcissistic need for validation. For my vocation, it is control and people-pleasing.
Because I like to “take things apart”, dissect, and reassemble, I spend an immense amount of energy preparing for each leadership moments in our church. When we discuss something organizational, I come with research, angles, analogies, and a proposal. Most of this is rooted in zeal—until it turns dark. It turns dark when I have no curiosity and act on fear. This is the language one of our elders used when confronting me about this behavior. Zeal means coming with much excitement, many ideas, and many proposals. Zeal turns to control when the excitement, the ideas, and the proposals are non-negotiable.
When I began at Salem Pres, there were so many leadership opportunities. The church was (and still is) so young. So much of the church was formed by lay leaders without strategy or the ability to scale-up. Many of these pioneers had also come and gone. It was the frontier. Small groups, the worship music, the liturgy, even our budget, were all led by people outside the elders and deacons. This was not a bad thing, and control of these things did not need to be “wrestled” away from these lay-leaders. It was simply that more intentionality, more attention could be invested in each for the long-term flourishing of the church. All these exciting raw portions of the community were opportunities for creativity and definition. Many of those raw portions have been shaped into something beautiful because of cooperation in our church.
I happened to come to Salem Pres in its sort of “third iteration.” It began as a grassroots, loosely defined community within community. Then it transitioned to being its own independent collective. When I came on it was beginning to pursue more definition as not just a community, but a community with a mission to grow, to be inclusive, to be thoughtful. It has been such a fun journey to participate in the settling of the wild frontier and to watch it prosper.
Many people probably do not know that I have worked in churches since 2003. I worked for churches in Colorado, California, and North Carolina before coming to Salem Pres. In that time I saw more examples of malady than vitality. That illness was often rooted in the pastoral leadership. Without meaning to, Pastors can hurt people deeply. Unfortunately, I have seen the deeper sickness of pastors deliberately hurting people, but even if it is accidental it can be scarring.
This motivates my zeal for being careful and thoughtful in pastoral leadership. It is terrible when pastors abuse and manipulate people for their own agenda. But the lesser evil (which is an evil none-the-less) is still the “gospel-cowboy” who while well-intentioned, does not think critically about collateral damage or external costs on people’s emotions when churches make decisions. I am scared to death of the church not assessing every single potential externality. When it hopes to prevent conflict, this is a good desire. But when fear is relentless and it produces stubborn over-thinking, the result is control and people-pleasing.
Being controlling is very problematic for the Christian because it basically dismisses God’s power and it also makes grace futile. So that is a big deal. It is not the same as micromanagement. I like to spread leadership around the community and empower people to contribute. I have loved over the past few years the way our church has empowered lots of worship leaders, liturgy writers, new elders, new servant leaders, re-thought small groups, and introduced new ways to do hospitality. Unfortunately I began to fear what could go wrong in each of this arenas and I became controlling. This probably comes as a surprise to the congregation, because it really only manifested itself in session meetings. Thankfully we are Presbyterian! My weakness was (hopefully) disguised by the particular body of wise, prudent, and spiritual elders our congregation called.
This form of control is rooted in people-pleasing, an accusation I would have never leveled at myself. I always thought people-pleasing meant a passive desire to be liked. I think some would accuse me of being socially aloof and callous before they would call me a people-pleaser. But, my desire to prevent conflict and hurt in the church has been so graceless and controlling that I’ve realized its a form of people-pleasing. I may not care if people like me or like Salem Pres. I am just terrified people will rightfully say they were damaged by the church.
But of course they will be damaged by the church! I can play a small part in preventing that, but moving into fearful, controlling, non-negotiable thinking will certainly not stop it. Only prayer, humble curiosity, and grace will. Oh God, and your church, forgive me. Thank you for your grace.
austin pfeiffer 