Bringing New Leaders up to Speed
January 1, 1995
In 1975 I served as the pioneer pastor of a new church. From our mother church, a large congregation with a long heritage, we inherited about fifty people and some experienced leaders. Although this was my first pastorate, those leaders and I worked fairly well together. Frankly, I couldn't understand other pastors' complaints about troublesome board members. Working with leaders wasn't so tough! Four years later, however, all board members, who were now fully experienced, rotated off the board because of constitutional requirements. We started year five with an entirely new set of leaders. Most were fairly new Christians and inexperienced at church leadership. I felt the difference immediately. The new leaders thought they needed to straighten out what the earlier leaders had done. Leading our council meetings was like driving with the brakes on. There was always an edge to things. One November day I decided to visit a member's home. I knocked on the door, and when it opened I found not only the person I came to visit but two of our deacons and another lay person from the church. Spread out on the table, I saw to my astonishment, were some of the church books, minutes, and other confidential papers. I asked what they were doing. After a bit of stuttering and stammering, I was told they had some concerns about the way certain things were going in the church. They told me they had planned to call and ask me to come over to settle a few things. At that point, it was obvious that settling their concerns was not only a good idea but essential. I called a man in the church to come serve as a witness to our conversation. That night we talked for several hours, fairly calmly considering the circumstances, but little was resolved. By ...
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