Monday, February 6, 2012

Six observations about men in ministry

In one way or another, I spend quite a bit of time hanging out with men who work in full time ministry. Over time I’ve noticed that the same themes keep on coming up in our discussions. A friend suggested it might be good blog fodder. So here are a handful of observations. What do you think?


1. The house of cards is balancing precariously. Be afraid.
Men in ministry are desperately afraid. Afraid that the minister in the next suburb will steal your congregation, afraid that your people won’t like you, afraid that the other ministers in your denomination will think you are incompetent, compromised, heretical or ungodly. Things may look like they are holding things together, but it is all so precarious if could collapse at any moment. And you will have failed.

2. The house of cards is balancing precariously. Watch out.
Men in ministry have a tendency towards paranoia. People are out to get you. You have a small (and shrinking) group of people that you trust and everyone outside that group is treated with suspicion. Especially other men in ministry. The fact that they don’t do things in exactly the same way as you means that they don’t like your way. They think you are wrong (or worse, incompetent. Or maybe even heterodox.) Many of them will knock your house of cards over if they get the chance.

3. The house of cards is balancing precariously. Don’t strengthen your neighbour’s house.
Because you are so afraid that your own house will tumble, your ability to praise your neighbour’s construction skills are seriously depleted. You feel that to affirm the work of the minister in the next church will upset some delicately balanced system and cause your own work to fall (also true of co-workers.) Praising your underlings (who you don't perceive as a threat) or those in non-competing ministries is possible, but praising your peers... almost impossible.

4. What you want more that almost anything else is to be told you are doing a good job. With specifics. And you want your peers to do it. (But they won’t, because they are afraid that it will somehow knock their own house over (see #3).)

5. Ministers are emotionally muted around their collegues. There is shame in admitting weakness. Shame in struggling with doubts, shame in struggling with anger or sexual temptation, shame in admitting incompetence. So you don’t share anything much at all. This creates a weird self-protective dynamic. You both have PhDs in NT, surely you've got interesting stuff to talk about! No. It seems not.

6. Indentity issues are big. I don’t think I’ve met anyone who defines themselves more by what they do than ministers. Your whole self perception is wrapped up in your job. Fail at it and you’ve lost everything. You think that your friends wouldn’t like you any more if you were no longer the hot shot preacher you think they think you are. And if you’re a second generation minister there’s another bag of issues to sort through. If your dad is someone with whom you fundamentally agree, then how do you assert your independence from him?

Thoughts?

48 comments:

  1. I think #4 is correct, not sure about the others .. not at least for the Ministers that I have met and been involved with.

    I think in a failing ministry, the first couple might be true but in a strong ministry bearing fruit perhaps not.

    Thoughts?

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  2. Hi Jimmy. The most successful ministers I know worry that everything is about to collapse. But I may have a skewed sample group.

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  3. Well. That was painful.

    Thoughts? I think that you are absolutely right.

    I think if we could sort out #5 the rest would be less of a problem.

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    1. evening shags. wonder why God thought it'd be a good idea to do His work with us...
      I don't struggle with #5 - which is perhaps why other blokes in ministry don't quite know how to take me. i say what i think and it rather gets me in a bit of strife...

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    2. I agree with Simone that I think that #5 is more of a symptom. Although I also think that emotional intimacy of this nature is usually more of a learned thing for many/most guys - it's not all connected to insecurity.

      But I think it's possible that for some/many/most guys even though #5 is the symptom, working on that might actually drive the rest as you're saying Alistair. Sometimes you change people by addressing underlying thoughts or beliefs, but other times you focus on what is done, and doing something different encodes a different way of thinking and living.

      I suspect that this issue can be dealt with from a multiple of angles. And some will work better with some guys and others with different ones.

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  4. I think rather than restrained to ministers fullstop, it could/would be true of insecure males in general.

    One of man's greatest fears is that they will be inadequate, not enough. Sometimes this isn't true, but its a underlying thought for a lot of guys I know. Preaching the gospel transparently is something I'm always intent on doing in my area of ministry (youth) but I can see how you could see that poorly done by men, just know it's not neccesarily true all the time.

    I like what Reggie Dabbs said at a Youthalive conference in Victoria last year "I don't have to answer to you, I have to answer to God and his teachings". If we all followed that and followed less of the world we'd all be better off.

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    1. (and I'm not saying I have it all worked out either. I do not. but I'm working on it)

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  5. You know I like you all a lot.

    I think #5 is a symptom.

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  6. I wonder Simone how you think a list like this would help ministers who have these issues? I presume anyone who is insecure in the ways you speculate would be smashed by a critique like this. Can you offer the some encouragement to ministers who feel this way?

    Also do you think there is any place for these kinds of weaknesses in the ministry? For God is please to use the weak to display his glory. Thoughts?

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    1. Well, offering a list is a first step, and sometimes can be helpful even if you haven't worked out a solution yet. Especially in blogging where it *may* spark some people in the comments to brainstorm a solution, or spark someone else to blog about a solution.

      Simone's written the list in a way that encourages that. It isn't 6 rocks being thrown, it's thoughtful and written in a way that encourages reflection. The 'what do you think' at the start and the 'thoughts' at the end aren't disingenuous - they're clearly indicating that this is beginning a conversation, not self-contained.

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    2. God has been using men like this for the last 4000 years. I imagine he intends to continue.

      How is this list helpful? - I think articulating a problem mostly helps. It was a guy in ministry who said I should write this.

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  7. I think you're absolutely right Simone. I've had a little (for me) blog series about this issue in my head for about a year - constantly held back due to the never-ending DPhil. Raising the issue like you have here, but then looking at (or trying to look at) how ministers, other ministers, junior ministers, laypeople etc can help with this.

    I think that these dynamics aren't true of all ministers however. I think many of the most "successful" are not insecure. In some cases that's personality, and in some it's because they draw confidence from their success (whereas other "successful" ministers don't and their anxiety is never-ending). But I think in at least some instances I've seen ministers (not necessarily ones with large well-known ministries) who are confident and secure and whose confidence is located outside themselves in a grasp of their security in Christ that has gone down deep.

    I think it needs to be realised that being a minister in the current context (especially the senior or sole minister of a church) is possibly one of the worst contexts for encouraging insecurity of any that I know. I think until people 'cross over' to the other side into the role they find it hard to realise just how hard it is.

    Churches are entirely voluntarist entities these days, and people make their choice to go to a church based either on what it does for them, or how 'good' it is. And then they have an inbuilt tendency to individualism once they are in a church. Trying to be a leader of that, to exercise authority in that context, is very difficult. And I think Australia is one of the hardest places I know for this one issue - I think English ministers and (from what I can see from a distance) American ministers have it much, much easier. Only an idiot would voluntarily try to lead a voluntarist group of Aussies if they could pick any other grouping of westerners.

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    1. Drat that DPhil. Hurry up and finish it!

      re paragraph 2 - Yes.

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  8. It's probably worth saying that Andrew (Simone's husband) is one of the least insecure ministers I know (unless a lot has changed while we've been in the UK). And it's one of his greatest 'assets'.

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    1. Thanks for the vote of confidence Mark. I was feeling a bit paranoid that everyone would think this post was about me. But then I realised if she's right, half the people who read it are probably paranoid it's about them :)

      In all seriousness, while Simone is working with a larger sample of men in ministry than just me, I've given her plenty of material to work with.

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  9. I miss sitting in a room with Mark Baddeley ... He's great at asking questions that lead to me changing my mind.

    Thanks for the post, Simone.

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    1. I miss having you in the room Roger; your enthusiasm, willingness to learn, sense of humor, and lack of any need to try and protect your image for either orthodoxy or competency meant you helped the entire group relax a bit and just focus on wrestling with the issues. I hope things are going well for you now.

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  10. Ouch from me. But I counter with...
    A) even paranoids have enemies.
    B) I know a small bunch of ministry friends who do actually talk honestly every now and then, and actually want to encourage one another.

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  11. Whether it's because I'm not a senior minister or because I simply have other insecurities and issues that push these aside, I don't relate to this list entirely. At least, not as written.

    Though others from the outside may, perhaps, see some of it in me.

    The titles of 1 and 6 definitely fit me, but just not the particular examples in the list that follows.

    5 is an interesting one. Colleagues actually tend to have an either/or affect on me. They either mute me or turn up my volume. I'm not sure which happens more often yet.

    Perhaps I'm too young in the game to have fully developed symptoms?

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    1. Yep. You are too new to it. It's like you're living in a rental house. Sure you have to work hard to look after it, but if termites are found or if the roof collapses, it's not your problem.

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    2. I think it's possible you're too young - it does seem to be an issue that develops with guys as they move from being the 'young guy' with potential to the guy who actually carries the can. Most guys I know find that as they take on responsibility the amount of positive feedback they get drops, and the amount of flak and negative feedback increases. Everyone expects the leader to have broad shoulders.

      But you could just be very robustly secure - it could be culture (English products of the public schools and Oxbridge and the families that send to those institutions seem to be invincibly secure from what I can see), or personality, or a sense that you have already "proven yourself" to your satisfaction and have nothing to prove to anyone else, or it could be grounded in a strong sense of assurance in Christ. I think those are also all possibilities.

      It's also possible that this is more of an issue for Boomers and Gen X, and that possibly Builders were more secure and Gen Y will be as a group. I think that's unlikely, but it's certainly possible.

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    3. Thanks for your generous list of possible reasons for my resilience Mark. I'd say it's fairly unlikely, however, that 'very robustly secure' describes me.

      I have my own ministry insecurities, and personal ones. They just don't match Simone's list for the most part.

      @Simone: Perhaps. I'm not claiming invulnerability or security, just suggesting that there can be difference between men.

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  12. I suspect this is true of many blokes, and not just in ministry. There is a thing called the "Imposter Syndrome" which many people struggle with in the corporate world.

    From wikipedia - "Despite external evidence of their competence, those with the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved."

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    1. I originally had a sentence at the start saying that this was all men, not just men in ministry, but I pulled it out because I wanted it to bite with ministers.

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    2. That wiki quote describes perhaps 70-80% of PhD students I know well enough to discuss such things with. There is even something of a saying that if you're doing a PhD and don't feel like a fraud then you're not doing it right.

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    3. I have a book called "For Women Only" that gives women an insight into what's going on in their man's head. (The author interviewed and surveyed hundreds of men for background for a novel and ended up writing this book as well.) There's a companion book "For Men Only".

      The author describes this "Imposter Syndrome" in there as something that most men feel about their work. Women have it too but apparently not as strongly.

      Being reassured by people who aren't your work peers means nothing in I.S. You only know you're doing ok if your peers (i.e. people who would know) tell you so.

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    4. re: byron. ROFL. and another ROFL. Painfully true.

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    5. Yes, I'd only ever heard this in relation to academics. It certainly describes most of us!

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    6. by 'this' I mean Imposter Syndrome.

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  13. Simone, nice work.
    Insightful and provocatively put, with the generalisations serving to amplify the tendencies.
    I decided to sleep on this, because I'm nine years removed from functional denominational life, and most of your stuff seems far removed from my day to day experience.
    For #5, anyone who has run into me knows I suffer from 'Donkey Syndrome': the trick isn't to get me to open up, the challenge is to get me to shut up.
    I don't know how much variation you encounter in city/country settings as to these observations.
    Here I pray weekly with most of the leaders of the other churches in town (followed by coffee). We laugh, we cry and we walk together, very much aware of the differences of our expression.
    You're right, though, that it's possible to lead from fear, not freedom. But that won't grow healthy disciples.
    Last year I decided to stop worrying and realised my desire for this local church to be 'under control' ie running well, with no problems, meeting budget with just the right number of people coming along, was actually a desire for a situation without compulsion to be consciously depending upon God for our spiritual growth and capacity to meet our challenges. (See above re. #5)
    Some of your observations, to my mind, flow from the very recent variations of congregational expression in denominational churches.
    Only a generation ago congregational leadership would be more akin to 'branch managers', but now they are 'local entrepreneurs'. Uniformity has given way and the nature of the continuing nature of our unity is still being hashed out.
    Thanks again.

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  14. Not being in ministry myself but having been in lay leadership roles in a couple of churches, the things in this list do ring true for me. 5 especially seems more about men in our culture (bearing in mind the dangers of stereotyping men) but what sits behind pretty much all of them is isolation.

    It's hard for ministers to find good support within their congregations because they are "the boss" and even if they are part of a big denomination it often doesn't have good support systems for local ministers. (That's certainly true of the one I'm in now and the one before - not sure about yours). This means a lot of them struggle along on their own. Finding good support is so crucial to avoiding burnout - very similar to the caring professions in which I work. Kutz if you get a good support network now perhaps a lot of these things will never apply to you :)

    Two other things that affect a lot of ministers I know (but not all).

    1. You have a PHd in NT, but you just spent the day making sure the blocked toilet got fixed.

    2. The music this week was terrible, so 10 people complained to you, none of whom spoke to the musicians directly about it.

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  15. The last statistic I heard was that there are over 10,000 dropped, kicked or burnt out ministers in Australia! Your six observations go a long way to explaining why. As Mark B. alluded, if your identity is in your job and not Christ then you are in danger of being one of the 10,000. But mere identity alone will not give you the skills or the context to grow into the person God intends you to be. That comes through a community where each of those six can be safely addressed and challenged. For over 15 years I have been a member of a Pastors Renewal group established by John Mark Ministries where 10 guys share their life story, commit to spiritual and practical growth and support one another in a safe environment. It's not a silver bullet but it beats fear filled isolation.

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    1. I basically agree, but I think it is a little bit more complex than just finding your sense of worth and security outside yourself in Christ. That is basic and revolutionary, but the "little bit of more complexity" is important, I think. There is a proper, non-sinful, sense in which we get a sense of who we are from what we do, and from what other people feed back to us. We aren't meant to be aescetics on a pole who just relate to God.

      We are meant to be doing good works and in significant relationships. And those are part of God's good intention to give us a sense of security in who we are - once your absolute and utter security in Christ is established and grasped.

      As always with these things, I think justification by grace through faith, the knowledge that my life is hid with Christ in God beyond the reach of harm, is basic and foundational. But it forms a basis to put other things in their right place, it doesn't sweep them aside as though it is all that matters.

      Men are supposed to get some of their sense of who they are from what they do. I think that's good and right and healthy. And that sense should partly come from the relationships around them - peers, underlings, superiors, father figures etc.

      Hence why I want to write a series about this - the most important bit each of us can 'work on' ourselves - coming to grips with how freeing it is to have declared utter bankruptcy and never being able to move out of that. But all of us can do things to help each other with this beyond simply saying, "You need to get your sense of self-worth outside yourself in Christ". God has given us tools to help each other get the sense of security we need to function well and orientated towards the good of our neighbor. We can help our neighbor in this and help bear their burden.

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    2. Mark (or anyone else!), on the issue of relationships, have you by any chance read Susan Faludi's book Backlash: The Undeclared War against American Women? While it is far too feminist for most evangelicals, her analysis of the Promise Keeper's movement is absolutely fascinating. She spends time with a couple of small groups associated with the movement and she expects them to be super macho types. However she is really taken back by what she finds and she concludes that most of the men involved are basically desperately seeking an environment in which they can connect meaningfully with other men. This is something that the groups really struggle to provide because it is so counter-cultural.

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  16. Yep. As a minister's kid I saw a lot of this among the ministers I knew growing up. It's a scary job and it's made worse by the feeling you can't trust most people. Regrettably, a lot of people prove you right on that score.

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  17. As someone who has been on the receiving end of a minister's insecurities I think that this list is spot on! I think one reason why all men experience this is because rather than trying to work yourself out of the job and let others take over (and then move on to other places) men want to keep their power base and control.

    If a minister is going to part growing a church to maturity he and the leadership need to get over these issues.

    We all need all the grace available to do this.

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  18. For what it's worth, I think #6 is absolutely true, and drives whatever version of 1-5 you suffer from.

    That being said, my ego is far too large to feel like I identify with many of the first five. If any house of cards falls down, I'll instantly conclude that the fault lies with the 3 of diamonds rather than me. My version of #4 is probably more like wanting everyone else to do a good job, so they can catch up with me and things will finally work right...

    And I'm always emotionally muted. Which could be an asset, actually. I can take a hit, and not do anything with it until later.

    But I'm also weird, so I probably throw out the stats ;-)

    I'll propose #7: It's impossible to balance the weight of responsibility against the degree of authority held and the need to empower laity. It's like a titration experiment, where the tiniest swing completely overwhelms the balance.

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  19. I really hope that 2 and 3 aren't true very often. I really do hope that. I've experienced it on occasion, but those are sad. Really sad. Make me want to directly talk to brothers about it type of sad.

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  20. I think that it also has do with ministers who don't engage with social/political/economic/community (macro) issues in light of the gospel. there are so many issues of social justice where we can be salt and light together with other churches etc. Many evangelical pastors think that this selling out the gospel and so retreat into protecting their little domain.

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  21. Sean, I think it's more to do with them perceiving that others have enormously high expectations of them and that they will be hung out to dry if they show any sign of weakness. And that's actually true a lot of the time!!! But thankfully, they work for someone who is perfect and eager to shower them with grace and mercy and hopefully that encourages them to continue with their work and to think less about others' opinions and more about Jesus.

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  22. I work in a small village in the country and find many aspects of #1 and 2 ring true. 2 years ago, at our Bishop's suggestion, I started meeting up with a few other guys who are mostly, like me, sole ministers in small villages nearby (nearby = 45 minute drive). For each it is the first time on our own. Despite differences in the parish issues we face, it has been tremendously helpful to talk to other guys who 'get it', to bear one another's burdens and pray together. It helps to know that many of the issues are not about my inadequacies, as I had feared, but just part of the job.

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  23. Deb, in my experience the minister at my church admitted to me that he is scared that people won't like him so he develops a way of people pleasing to keep people happy. When you offer to help or do things differently it makes it look like he is not the one giving all the ideas for ministry.

    For sure God's grace is deep, but when you are aware of your weakness and aren't willing to change or hand over certain things and you use the fact that you are a sinner as an excuse then people get frustrated and leave which is what is happening at my church.
    Such people may be able to give sound bible talks but are they leaders?

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