I am the pastor of a church of 400 in the Southwest. I’ve been there for five years. I have an associate, a Christian Ed/Youth Director, an Administrator, and several support staff.
I recently fired a secretary of long-standing who is also a church member. She was basically incompetent, gossipy, with an inability to accept correction and direction from me or anyone. Yes, my contract said this was within my authority. So did all of the denominational directives. I offered to pay for computer classes. I also offered to find her a counselor for her emotional problems. All of this was refused, and the situation seemed irremediable.
One thing that had endeared her to members of the congregation was the face that she was very pastoral. She also was best friends with the congregational leader’s wife. I approached this woman (the wife) asking her to help solve the problem, but nothing came of it. The secretary subsequently resigned the day I was to fire her. The leader’s wife shunned both my wife and me from that day on and refused to take communion from me one Sunday.
Now the situation has spread to other parts of the congregation, people choosing up sides either with me or the fired secretary. What should I do next? I feel like I’ve made mistakes, but I’m not sure what.
1 comment:
Dear Pastor.
I can sense your frustration in this scenario, and unfortunately, it is a familiar one. Joe and I wrote about similar dilemmas in our book, Thriving Through Ministry Conflict (Zondervan, 2006).
One of the main difficulties with church life is the interlocking organizational models, and this case you’ve presented is a prime model. Church organizational models include business, family, and community. You acted out of your business model. You saw an incompetent, underperforming employee, and you took steps to correct the situation. When it proved uncorrectable, you fired the employee. That’s exactly the way things unfold in the business world.
Unfortunately, in the church world, you have the other two organizational models. This woman was not just an employee, she was a church member, and therefore a family member. How can you fire a family member? This becomes a huge dilemma for those in leadership in churches. And it often takes the form of what we call a set of competing values. One value = I want to be a good steward of God’s money, and run an efficient “business” here at the church. The competing value = I must nurture the “children” here in the congregation.
Joe and I will make further comments on this case, but for now, I want you to think about the three models of church life, and the competing values that they present. You may want to take a piece of paper, and draw three parallel columns, and head each with the three organizational models. Think of what values (and therefore demands) that the business aspects places on you. Then go to the next column and think of what values the family model places on you (e.g. You’re the parent, with all the “children” expecting you to be the good parent and heal their wounds), then the community (within the community model, we are all on an equal plain, bearing each others burdens and ministering to one another). I think if you do this visual, you’ll begin to see how these values begin to compete with one another. We can talk next a bit about competing values to see how that plays out.
Jim
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