Or, Healing Churches with Painful Histories . . .
Never buy a boat on a rainy day! That’s my new motto. I recently bought a “project” boat that had more issues than could have been discovered on the rainy day I purchased it. From needing a new motor to carpenter ants in the decking, it has been an adventure. This little boat has been full of surprises, much like working to heal a church with a painful history.
I was using the boat last weekend with friends when a loose connection caused a wire to get especially hot. You can guess what happened. The motor stopped and I was unable to repair it as we lay dead in the water. We started paddling back (I had emergency paddles on board) only to have one of the paddles break in half. We watched as the broken oar quickly floated away. With the tune to Gilligan’s Island running through our heads, we were finally rescued by a kayaker who heroically towed us back to the dock.
How does my boating debacle relate to healing a church with a painful history? Let me count the ways! First, as pastors, we sometimes overlook issues in the candidating process because we want a new, “better,” place too much, like me buying a boat on a rainy day. When I called the manufacturer of the boat trailer (that came with the boat and which also had “issues”) the service representative said I had bought a “Pig in a Poke.” I asked him what he meant by that phrase. He told me it means purchasing something without inspecting it carefully. Ouch. Many of us have accepted a call to a church whose history we don’t know and discover painful surprises along the way.
Second, like the loose wire that caused heat to build up and shut down the motor in my boat, our churches can sometimes suffer underlying disconnects which are rooted in its history. A former pastor broke the trust of the board by attempting a power-play to achieve some personal agenda item. Now heat builds up when you, as the new pastor, have something on your agenda. You sense the “resistance,” the same thing that causes heat in a wire. When trust has been compromised at the leadership level, and never rectified with repentance, it remains broken. Just coming in as a new pastor doesn’t fix it. Like my companions and I stuck on the water, we are left to drift with the wind.
Third, sometimes emergency paddles don’t help. I used practical, “problem-solving” wisdom in having paddles on board. Little did I know that one of them would not hold up under the strain. Similarly, when we sense our ministry is stalled we can look for such “practical solutions” to these spiritual “problems.” We do not realize that the Lord has our church under discipline because of what has taken place, and like the disciples rowing against the wind, we will not make headway until we let Jesus in the boat! We expend lots of effort paddling, but don’t get very far . . . and usually all our practical solutions—firing staff, redoing budgets, restructuring the church, etc. etc.—fail, like a broken oar. The struggle remains and our frustration mounts.
Finally, and this is the most humiliating part of my boating fiasco, we had to be towed in by a kayaker and it was a ridiculous scene. Five people on a mini pontoon boat being towed by a singular kayaker who was working really hard. All I could do was hold the rope that was tied to his kayak as he got the workout of his life. I’m not the type who accepts outside help easily. We find the same is true of most local churches. But what is the alternative? Shall we drift further and further away from God’s purposes as a church or will we accept outside help to get us back to dock? Humility has its rewards (1 Peter 5:6).
So remember, as it relates to the local church, you should never do the equivalent of “buying a boat on a rainy day”. But if you do, don’t give up the ship! Ask the Lord to send someone who can help you attend to your church’s painful history. If you do, the church you serve will be better equipped for journey it was intended to take, and you will be a lot happier for it.
Rev. Mark Barnard serves as President of Blessing Point Ministries. Blessing Point works to heal local churches that have been wounded by painful crises. Barnard is the author of the recently released book, Diagnosing the Heart of Your Church – How Church Leaders Can Assess Systemic Corporate Dysfunction.
