How to Handle a Frustrating Church

Hosts: TJ Freeman, Joe Wagner, and Josh MacClaren

Summary: In this episode of Rural Church Renewal, TJ addresses the frustrations of pastoring a church that resists leadership. He shares insights on staying committed, loving the congregation, and shepherding them willingly. Drawing from Charles Dickens' 'Great Expectations' and biblical passages, TJ emphasizes the importance of humility, patience, and enduring love for the church. He encourages pastors not to compare their leadership with others but to focus on faithful service. The episode also highlights the upcoming Rural Church Conference in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, offering a chance for renewal and community. 

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Transcript

The people in your church just don't wanna be led. They are frustrating. And they're frustrated with you. Seems like you're always the object of their attack. They really don't understand where you're headed with them theologically because they just can't get their minds around what God said about the church.

They seem to be using it for their own purposes instead of God's. What do you do when you find yourself pastoring a church like this? Do you start singing the old song? Should I stay or should I go now? I don't know. Well, actually, I have some ideas. Why don't you stay tuned to this episode and we'll talk about it.

 Well, thank you for joining me for another episode of Rural Church Renewal. Yes, I'm flying solo this time. Where in the world are Joe and Josh? Your guess is as good as mine, but hey, they're serving Jesus faithfully and I'm glad to be working alongside him. Actually, we started our residency this week and we all have a lot on the plate.

You may have even noticed. That we didn't release an episode here for, oh, I don't know, a week or two. My apologies. Our apologies. But ramping up for our rural residency program has been all hands on deck. And so I've told you on this podcast before, what I now say to you again that once in a while we have to just fly the airplane.

Remember that old expression? If you've ever watched any flight videos, you've heard him talk about it. When you are flying, you aviate. Then you navigate, then you communicate. How do I know that? Well, I have a dad who flies and a lot of YouTube videos, same thing as a pastor. You know, there are some things that you do that are extra, but sometimes you just gotta fly the plane.

And that's what we've had to do here lately. We want to care for our flock well and also gear up to do our rural residency well. So that means communicating with you has been a little oh, delayed. So I apologize for that. But thanks for patiently waiting and for listening to my weird illustration of why it took us so long to get an episode published again, and for why I'm by myself right now.

Today I want to talk just a little about what to do when you get into a situation in the congregation where you feel stuck. You know, you're frustrated because it doesn't seem like they wanna follow your leadership. You're frustrated because they're, they're really being unloving and unkind to you. And you know, you're not supposed to worry about that too much, but you are a human and it hurts.

You want to see the church glorify God, but it feels like they're trying to glorify stuff they like instead. And that just is a hard place to be. And all of us dear ones, find ourselves in places like that from time to time. I don't think there's anybody who's ministered in the rural church who has not felt like that at times.

So whether you're volunteering for VBS or you're the regular Sunday morning preacher, you know what it's like to feel the frustration of trying to lead in the rural church and being frustrated. And I wanna zoom in on something that comes from a text that isn't the Bible. Okay, don't freak out. I'm going to get us there, but I've been reading great expectations.

Have you read that? Charles Dickens. It is a very, I can see why it's a classic. It's a very engaging book and I've really enjoyed it. There is a passage in the book where Pip, who's the main character, he's kind of the narrator through the whole book, is reflecting on a conversation he had with Mrs. Haveum and it was regarding.

Mrs. Have's adopted daughter who she wanted to see Pip marry and who Pip very much wanted to marry himself. And Mrs. Havesome at one point pulls Pip aside and they're talking about how this girl is disagreeable to the arrangement. She doesn't have any affection for pip, et cetera. And Mrs. Hachem looks at Pip and she says this phrase over and over again.

Love her. Love her. Love her. Now you can see I've brought in extra biblical material that can very easily connect to scripture. In fact, all stories are some kind of have some kind of connection back to the greatest story ever told, which is the gospel narrative in scripture.

Can you think about how the Bible might tell a shepherd or a volunteer leader in the life of the church to love the bride? I can think of several ways. Number one is a verse we often talk about from one Peter. One peter chapter five tells us, shepherd the flock of God. That's among you. Exercising, oversight, not out of compulsion. It has this idea that we love the congregation and we willingly serve the body, and it's shepherding the flock that the Lord is actually entrusted to us.

That might be the disagreeable flock that you were thinking of during the intro. That might be the stubborn person or that rebellious faction in your church. And you have the responsibility to shepherd that flock and you should do it not out of compulsion, but willingly. I think we can hear our Lord, the chief shepherd saying something like, love her.

Love her. Love her. This is the bride of Christ. This is the Lord's household. He's the cornerstone holding this whole thing together, and you're going to have seasons in ministry where the church is especially difficult to love. You're going to feel like I want to give up. I want to quit. I might wanna leave ministry forever.

I definitely wanna leave this kind of group and this kind of people and whatever. And you, if you've pastored very long, probably know what the job boards look like. You've had a moment where you've looked at online posts to see what other churches might be hiring. That's a normal way to feel, but it's not healthy.

Normal and healthy aren't always the same. You have been entrusted a flock by the Lord. That you are called to love, not under compulsion, but willingly shepherd that flock faithfully. And I think if you can just rise above the way that it impacts you and think about what you're doing for the sake of the Lord, instead, it will help with your perspective.

Some other things that I've thought about here from the text, from the biblical text, we are to bear with one another in love. That is a command direct from the scriptures.

If you go to Colossians chapter three, in verse 13, you're gonna see that the congregation in Colossi has been encouraged to bear with one another in love. Bear with one another in love, and if anyone has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you. So you almost also must forgive.

There's the standard, peeps. You must forgive to the degree that the Lord has forgiven you. You must forgive others as the Lord has forgiven you. You must, bear with one another in love. So look at the congregation, not as something that's against you, not as something that wants to harm you. Even if they maybe really do. Look at them as a people who are not yet fully formed.

And know that you're the shepherd the Lord has put into that congregation to help them become fully formed. And I just want to, well, let me just jump over to Ephesians four real quick. There it says, with all humility and gentleness, with patience bearing with one another in love, and the verse continues and the way that we should treat each other, there's that same concept, humility, gentleness, patience.

Here's what I think happens a lot. We get into our congregations, we're excited. Things don't change as quickly as we hoped they would, or things go great for a while and then we hit a roadblock or whatever, and we get really down and frustrated. There's several reasons for that, and I'm just gonna come out and say one that I think is very true for a lot of us, there is a sense in which you know that your congregation is a reflection of your leadership.

And if they don't look as theologically astute, or eager or earnest, or whatever is you wish they would, if they're not going down the theological roads that you are trying to lead them and loving it as much as you wish they should, that can feel like a reflection on your leadership, and that can be really hurtful.

Now, you might be a bad leader. Let's just be honest. We're all varying degrees of poor leaders, hopefully taking steps to get better. That's all of us. But your congregation being slow to change and frustrating and all of that. Really should not be viewed by you as a reflection of your leadership. You just need to keep figuring out, how do I do better?

How do I do better? How do I do better? How do I stay faithful? How do I stay faithful? How do I stay faithful? How do I love them? How do I love this bride of Christ in humility? And don't be going to little pastor's gatherings and being embarrassed that, well, my congregation doesn't look as conservative as I wish it would.

We're not singing like I wish we would. Or they can't sit for a 50 minute sermon like I wish they would. Don't be doing that. That kind of comparison game's gonna just frustrate the daylights out of you. Love that congregation where they're at, not in the sense of accepting sin or whatever. It's not what I mean by that.

But love them where they're at spiritually and theologically, and be willing to give the rest of your life to leading them in the direction you think that they need to go. According to scripture. They literally might not get there in your lifetime. The the lifetime that you have is short. To bring the kind of change necessary in a congregation that's really gonna last may require a whole lifetime.

You literally might be the guy that turns the ship two degrees. But if that ship keeps going under the next guy's leadership in the direction that you help set, two degrees, makes a massive difference over time. So, be okay with being the guy who's just in the soup with your church fighting. Slogging it out.

I don't mean with them. I mean for their spiritual welfare, for their maturity, and faithfulness. Labor hard and long for them. It's really worth it. Love her. Love her, love her. And that's my encouragement for you. So quit feeling sorry for yourself. Quit trying to feel, like, trying to act like you're in an impossible situation.

Quit looking at the greener grass. That's none of that's gonna help you. What's gonna help you is to look at your Lord, look at the good shepherd, the chief shepherd who will appear, who's coming for you, who's going to reward you for what you've done leading this flock, and know that he's called you to lead this people, and then just serve them faithfully.

Bear with them, forgive 'em. Be humble. Be patient. Do the hard work for a really long time. You will never, ever regret having done that, even if you don't see visible fruit in your lifetime. That's my encouragement for you today. Coming from great expectations, but even greater than that, coming from God's word.

And we have a great expectation that is sure and it is really good and will be without regret that our Lord Jesus is coming back for us and it'll be before you know it. Thanks for listening to this episode of Rural Church Re Rural, I can say it, really Rural church renewal. Now, before you go. As long as I've got your attention, I wanna point you to our rural church conference.

It is in October, the 10th and the 11th, in BEA full Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. We are gonna be at the First Presbyterian Church. No, we're not dunking any babies while we're there. We're just using the facility. You gotta sort that out on your own. We are going to gather for a time of studying God's word.

We're gonna hear some really good sermons from Sean DeMars. We're gonna hear some great stuff about rural ministry and the theology of place from guys like Mike Miosi and Raphael Man and yours truly. That's right. I'm taking a session. This is a wonderful time you're gonna want to get registered soon.

Space is limited here in this beautiful historic church building in downtown Wellsboro. It's gonna be a great time just to get away. We'd love to have you stay over. Sean's gonna preach at our church on Sunday. So we'd love to have you stay and come to church on Sunday as well if you can find some pulpit supply or whatever.

And we just wanna meet you and talk about rural ministry together. And lemme tell you what, this conference blesses the attendees. So much. The content's good, but we have a team of volunteers whose whole goal is to have you walk away feeling noticed and well cared for. There's people doing like table massage or no chair massage, reflexology on your feet, without any of the weird spiritual woo-hoo stuff.

There's all kinds of special fall themed snacks. Don't you love a good fall themed snack? It's gonna be maple everything. You'll walk away feeling really encouraged. My wife is leading a session on Saturday for ministry Wives. So if you're a ministry spouse and you'd like to come along and sit in her session, she'd love to have you there.

I think that'd be an encouragement and we encourage leadership teams to come as well. We think it's good when a whole rural leadership team can sit under good teaching together, no matter your role. So. I'd really like to encourage you to be there. Really looking forward to that time together. It will be sweet and thanks for listening through that.

I can't say Joe's little line, so you're gonna have to figure out what you're supposed to go raise. But go do that and I'll see you next time on Rural Church Renewal. Goodbye.