The Defensive Pastor – seven deadly mistakes

I once sat in on a series of meetings between a pastor and a number of church members. They, it’s fair to say, were not impressed by either his leadership or his preaching. He was not impressed by their attitude, which he thought was undermining his leadership and his preaching. The meetings were not expected to be easy, and they certainly lived up to those expectations. Tense. Occasionally angry. And increasing, not lessening, the tension.

My role was merely to be present, on the sidelines. I wasn’t in a position where I could be a referee — although both sides would later try to win me into their corner.

I’m sure if we watched a recording, there would be a lot of “fault on both sides” and “more in common than they thought.” That’s often the way.

Having said that, they were not “agreeing violently.” They really did disagree, and by the end of each meeting they were further apart than before.

I’ve often thought back to those meetings and tried to learn lessons — not from the underlying problem (where actually my sympathies did lie more with the pastor), but from the way the pastor tackled the problem. Because any pastor is going to be in that situation at some point, and more than once. So I wanted to learn how things went so badly wrong from the pastor’s side of the equation. Because that’s the side I’m normally coming in from.

I’ll make my own mistakes, but there’s no reason why I should repeat his. Which makes me wonder how safe the people around us feel to challenge or question our decisions — and what that might be telling us?

So here are seven things which I read as mistakes. On their own, they might not be damaging. Taken together, they were deadly.

1. He read a question as a criticism

He was, I think I’d say now, quite thin-skinned. When he was asked why a decision was made a particular way, he started with the assumption that the person disagreed with him. Now that might have been right, but it’s not necessary — or wise — to start like that. When someone asks, “Why are we…” or “Why do you…”, our first response has to be to see this as a communication challenge. Has the person correctly understood what we’re doing or not doing, or are they responding to a rumour? Has the issue been exaggerated or distorted or mangled on the way?

And even if they have clearly understood the issue, then we need to make sure we’ve given the reasons — and the reasons behind the reasons. And often when you go that far down, you’ve reached a level of agreement from which it’s easier to handle a higher level of disagreement.

I’ll give you a recent example. We have taken the decision to continue to pass baskets round for the collection. Yes, we do digital — contactless, websites, and online — but there’s something about the physical act which is communal, and a teaching point, and which is powerful when it comes to praying about our giving.

We changed the pattern recently. I was persuaded that moving from the front of church to the back was more visible and obtrusive than moving forwards from the back. So we’re trying that option at the moment.

Does everyone on the team like it? Not really. But when I had the “a lot of people are saying…” conversation recently, I chose to hear that as “I don’t understand why we are doing this.” So I started not on the logistics, but on the values of hospitality, making people feel welcome, and so on. To read it as a criticism from the outset is to miss the possibility of a winsome teaching moment.

To read it as a criticism is to miss a teaching moment.

2. He read the questioner as a critic

That is, he moved fast to personalise the issue. And having potentially misread the question, he ran the risk of misreading the questioner.

Which meant that from the outset he took up an oppositional stance — meaning, there’s only one of us who is going to be right in this conversation, and I’m going to take any disagreement with me as an expression of hostility.

3. He responded to the criticism, not the question

At this point, he was playing a sort of chess game in his head, thinking several moves ahead.

In lots of contexts, that’s a really wise move — answer the question behind the question, check the assumptions the person is working with.

The thing is, he didn’t look in the mirror. He didn’t check his own assumptions. He wasn’t actually answering the question behind the question — he was responding to what he assumed was the criticism behind the question. And because he had misread that, the conversation was seriously off course.

4. He responded to the critic, not the questioner

This was terrifyingly inevitable from what he had already done. Having decided to “play the man and not the ball,” he decided that the person was hostile towards him. He read them as aggressive, and he turned his reaction into a classic “fight, flight, or freeze” decision tree. “Freeze” wasn’t an option because he thought they were going after him. “Flee” wasn’t in his nature. So “Fight” was the only option left.

“Fight” was the only option left.

5. His basic stance was defensive

That “Fight” mentality became the default. Now, he wasn’t a nasty man, a bully, or shouty. There wasn’t anything to raise any alarm bells. But it became clear that he was behaving like a wounded animal, terrified of another attack. Because of the way he had read the conversations, he had learnt that they stung — and he didn’t like that. So he braced himself for the permanent threat of attack, and every comment and conversation was interpreted as part of this mythical battle.

I can’t imagine what it was like inside his head to be constantly ready to be bounced, bounced on, undermined. But I do know it meant it was very hard to initiate a conversation with him, because you could never predict which way it would go wrong.

6. He psychologised the disagreement

This was an unpleasant little wrinkle. Along the way, he’d picked up the habit of putting a psychological matrix over issues. That can, of course, be helpful. Knowing that someone is going through a bereavement or a tough time at work can help you understand some of their reactions. But most of the time, most people are operating in a broad zone called “normal,” without undue stresses assailing them from the outside, and without serious defects of personality within.

So imagine how he was cued up to misread people by having a standard observation: “He has a problem,” “She has issues.” To disagree was to need counselling. Try having an adult conversation — an adult disagreement — when the other person keeps pulling out that light sabre.

Oh, and if you’re starting to think, “Hang on, someone here certainly does have issues,” I’m not here to tell you you’re wrong.

7. He defended himself by going on the attack

Meaning that he not only anticipated a problem by readying himself for it, he tried to get his attack in first. However mild the question, he was vocally and intellectually strong, cutting his interlocutor down before the conversation got going. Again, I’m not saying he swore or shouted or demeaned the other person. But he took firm control of the upper hand from the get-go, and that determined the course of the conversation.

What can we learn from all this?

That we pastors are often intellectually and verbally quick, and we have a positional advantage — in that we stand in a teaching position and people are used to listening to us and following our guidance.

We start off with an unfair advantage.

If we compound that by not being open to real conversations, open to challenge, open to being wrong, open to being persuaded otherwise, open to apologising — then we are storing up a pile of hurt in the future.

Because if we don’t allow genuine, proper questions and challenges now, then down the track they will turn into genuine criticism.

And rightly so.

Think it through

How safe do the people around you feel to challenge or question your decisions — and what might that be telling you?

Pile in!