Health Reflections Part 3: Stress and Conflict

We're going to take a brief detour and talk about stress and conflict, especially in churches and ministry situations. Why? Because much of the stress that churches give church members and church leaders comes from people trying to avoid stress through conflict.

So the first key: Conflict occurs any time there are two different ways to do something. Therefore, conflict is normal and inescapable to the human experience. You are going to have conflict if you have more than one person involved.

Second: the other people involved in the conflict may not be aware they are involved. They may not even be alive. Many people in church leadership encounter stress because they compare themselves, their work, their ability to do things to people in the past. Or to other exemplars that you do not see all of. Far before "Influencer Culture" started wrecking normal life, it was disruptive in the ministry world. One would hear of a pastor "over there somewhere" who amazingly made all the visits, preached all the best sermons...and then start trying to match him.

Doubly-so if your deacons/church leadership heard of him. Or you read The Reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter in seminary came to believe your work needed to match his, without making any adjustments for culture changes, economic differences, basically failing to acknowledge that you're not a 17th-Century Puritan. These conflicts arise between unstated expectations and results.

A frequent place they show up is when you are ministering in the shadow of someone. Every person has a different personality and the shift from Gregarious George to Contemplative Christopher can raise a conflict between a church member who found George great and Christopher seems...colder. Both ministers love their church, but the unspoken conflict rises.

Third truth about conflict: Left unaddressed, conflict will grow into crisis. Crisis then becomes catastrophic after a time. Here's the hard part of all of this: you are going to have to address the conflict. I know, you want to get along with everyone--but a false unity is like the skin that grows over a splinter. Underneath, problems are getting worse, not better.

What do you need to do?

First, listen for those voices of conflict early and try to address it. Start with the unstated expectations or the ones brought in from outside. Keep in mind that there are no definite Biblical examples of what pastoring a church looks like. The closest you get is Paul reminding Timothy to "appoint elders" in each town, but beyond that, Paul's generally a missionary and traveling teacher, not a long-term pastor. 

Any comparisons you make are to historical figures or contemporary figures and never to a complete profile in Scripture. That means they can make mistakes; it also means that you may not have the full picture. It's interesting to read biographies or book forewords that peel back the home life of some of the "heroes" of the age. Ask yourself who was cooking, cleaning, taking kids to school, etc., while Famous Pastor was spending 4 uninterrupted hours in prayer and Bible study. Who mowed the yard? Who did the administrative tasks at the church?

You are very possibly stressing yourself because you don't see the help he had, so you assume he carried it alone and therefore you must or you're not good enough.

Second, you'll probably have to talk this one out with others, but you'll have to confront the conflict that you are not meeting people's expectations. Now, some expectations are legitimate. I'm the pastor of a traditional Baptist church. My folks expect that I'll be the main guy preaching most of the time. It's not unreasonable for them to expect that out of 156 ordinary sermon opportunities (Sunday AM/PM, Wednesday), I'll do 120-140 of them. There are also unreasonable expectations: 156 of the sermons would be unreasonable. That would require never taking a break, vacation, or ever being sick.

If you are being held to unreasonable expectations, you need to have a chat with those putting them out there. It is also likely, though, that you are perceiving demands that aren't real. You may need an ally in the discussion, such as a denominational worker or fellow church leader, to help you be clear. (I know, sometimes it's hard to trust some of those outside folks; I have some I trust and some that I do not trust.) You may even need to just calmly chat with some of your folks about how what they say hits differently than what they mean: they think it's a joke that "you can't go on vacation, preacher, we can't live without you." You hear "pack twice, once for the mountains, once for the guilt trip."

But you're going to have to confront it, especially if you can't get it out of your head.

So, address the conflict. It may or may not end well for you, but conflict is real and it causes stress, especially when left unaddressed. And, as a wise man once said, "when you set out to clean up a mess, you don't sit around watching the mess get bigger." You'll need to be about it sooner rather than later.

Fronting some stress now can save you loads of it later. And stress-loads onto your health are like radiation: cumulative. It builds up over time, bit by bit, even without a major event.