Through the Flaming Sword

In this post, I share some thoughts about how to “elder” someone whose ministry has been the cause of someone else leaving the worship or even leaving the meeting. I should add that I have not done the things I suggest below or actually asked the questions I propose. These ideas have come from years—decades—of thinking about the problem and serving on worship and ministry committees facing the problem. I am keen to know what my readers think, so your comments are welcome.

When someone stops coming to worship or even leaves the meeting because they can’t stand someone else’s regular vocal ministry, it’s time to reach out to the person who left with some pastoral care, and it’s time to engage with the vocal minister. The pastoral care should include the promise that the meeting will engage with the minister, or that you already have. So that engagement really needs to happen.

The worship and ministry committee needs to answer some questions for itself first:

1. How many other people are unhappy with this regular ministry? Has anybody else left the worship over the same issue? Are any members of the committee unhappy?
2. Why are people unhappy? Is it the content of the messages, the tone of delivery, the frequency of the speaking, or something else, or some combination of these? Alternatively, is it possible that the problem really lies with the person who left?
3. Gifts for ministry, or not? Does anyone think that the minister does have some gifts and even perhaps a genuine calling to vocal ministry, given that they speak frequently enough to bother some people, and the minister could just use some constructive eldership? (This has been my judgment in a couple of the cases that I’ve experienced.) 

The answer to the first question will calibrate how urgent the problem is and guide how intent the committee should be in working toward an outcome.

The answer to the second and third questions will guide the manner of the intervention.

So—how do you approach a troublesome ministry in as tender and constructive a way as possible? 

Note that I feel we are dealing with a ministry, not the minister. Keeping this in mind will, I hope, help a little to keep the minister from feeling attacked or criticized. But it’s actually what we’re about, anyway. I am asking that we start from a foundation of assuming the Spirit is at work here somehow, or could be, if we focus on that rather than on the person and their behavior. 

So—I would start with some questions:

1. We notice that you speak quite often in meeting for worship. Do you feel a general calling to speak that goes beyond the prompting to speak at the moment in any given meeting for worship?
   1. If they do feel they have a calling:
      1. Is there any way we can support you in your calling? Do you feel that the meeting should have a role in supporting your ministry in your calling? What do you want our role to be?
      2. How does your calling relate to or spring from the rest of your spiritual life? What is the rest of your spiritual life? Is there any way we can enrich your foundation in the life of the spirit?
      3. How much do you know about the Quaker traditions regarding vocal ministry? Have you read any pamphlets or gone to any workshops or RE programs on vocal ministry? Would you like us to recommend some?
      4. Regarding the three areas of possible contention with their ministry:
         1. Content. So what is it about your message, the themes you keep returning to in your ministry, that draws you? Where do these ideas come from in your past experience? Why do you feel that the meeting needs to keep hearing these ideas?
         2. Tone. What are you feeling when you feel the need to speak? Are you aware that some of us feel uncomfortable with the energy you project when you speak? That’s not your goal, is it?
         3. Frequency. What tests do you use to discern whether you should speak? What factors influence you to speak so often?
   2. If the answer about a calling is no, I don’t feel a calling, or I don’t know, I never thought about it, then:
      1. If the committee thinks that it’s possible that this minister does have a calling, but just needs some help with discernment and guidance:
         1. Well, since you speak fairly often, we think you might have such a calling. Would you like to explore that possibility with us? 
         2. If the answer is no, I don’t want to explore it with you, then ask, Why not?
      2. If the committee doubts that there is a true calling, still, something is going on to lead this person to speak frequently and in the way that they do. So then:
         1. Well, you speak quite frequently in meeting, so why? What is it that does lead you to speak? It seems like something is going on to create this regular pattern besides just a prompting in the moment. We would like to understand your process better.
         2. The committee will probably have to keep asking Spirit-led questions to probe this last aspect of the situation to its source, or to some depth that might lead to an opening. The opening is the goal. And we are aiming with our queries for the same spirit that guides our questions when holding a clearness committee— prayer, deep listening, humble submission to one’s own inner Guide.

At this point, or maybe earlier—somewhere in this conversation—one might think about asking the minister whether they are aware that people have left the meeting for worship because of their ministry. 

The minister is likely to want to know who the people are who left and why. I would not tell them. This is not about the persons; it is about the ministry. And the question of why people might be upset should be asked and answered within the minister, where it could lead to some opening, rather than by the committee, where it’s likely to lead to defensiveness.

Whether or not the minister is aware that people are that upset with their ministry, once you tell them the committee might explore with the minister:

• How that makes them feel.
• What about their ministry they think might be the issue (again—not what the committee thinks or what the person(s) who have left think is the issue).
• Whether it makes them open to some eldership, or makes them willing to consider reexamining their ministry in some other way.

And, somewhere in the conversation, I would add something like this: 

• Naturally, we are hoping that the person who left will feel safe in coming back at some point, and at the same time we are hoping that we can support your ministry in a way that is Spirit-led on our part and that deepens and enriches your service to the meeting and to the Spirit.
• For we know that the Holy Spirit is trying to work through you for all our spiritual benefit, and we suspect that you want that, too. So our goal is not to accuse you or correct you, but to find out where the source of your ministry lies and how we might support you as a channel for its manifestation.

Meanwhile, this whole thing is fraught with risk and could go south. At some point in the conversation, the minister might become defensive, feel hurt, and lash out or withdraw, even if you have acted with true tenderness and clarity of mission. And of course, it would not be hard for the committee itself to misstep somehow. And now you have added another hurt person to however many people are upset with this ministry. We are all only human.

This is why so many of our worship and ministry committees fail to act in situations like this. First, you have to come to a clear sense of the committee that such an intervention is necessary and about who should do it and how. Every committee I have knowledge of has struggled to get this kind of clarity and unity. But even when you arrive at some clarity and unity, whatever the committee might do can still make things worse.

Against this risk, we have to weigh the responsibility to protect the meeting for worship and the meeting’s fellowship, on the one hand, and to nurture Spirit-led vocal ministry on the other. My principle is this: As soon as one person has left meeting because of someone else’s behavior, then you might as well have lost the person whose behavior drove them out (assuming that the person who left has good reason). If you lose the frequent, troublesome minister because they feel offended by your outreach, or they stop speaking in meeting, you might get back the person who left—if you’ve acted soon enough. And you would have improved the quality of the worship.

Or the minister might stay, might keep speaking frequently and/or speak in ways that put people off. They might even starting acting out. More people might leave, or at least complain.

That calls for a level of pastoral intervention that lies beyond the scope of this post, which is already very long. And for which I have fewer ideas and less confidence. But I’m going to explore it anyway in a future post. Because we need to work on this.

§ One Response to Eldering Troublesome Ministry

• Adria Gulizia says:

  November 10, 2022 at 4:54 pm

  Hi Steve, I just gave a talk on spiritual gifts for Pendle Hill and created a blog post with the talk and resources on spiritual gifts. Is there any chance that you could make “one post to rule them all” with links to your posts on nurturing vocal ministry that I could link to on my blog?

  Reply