Some of you know Laura and I are working on a project to help churches move from toxic patterns and cultures into a tov culture. At the heart of a toxic cultures are leaders who do not recognize what drives them. OK: let’s admit it. Many think their theological statements, confessions and creeds drive them. Many think their Bible teaching drives them. They are indeed at least partly right. But under those desires to be sound in theology and faithful to the Bible are drives that determine how they use that theology and how they use that Bible to accomplish what they want.
As I read this, I felt, once again, grateful for the teaching pastor at my own church. Humility and genuine care, and hard work to check themselves against these four qualities you mention seem to characterize him. I am sadly aware of how greed drastically affected a prominent and large church in our area to which many of my close friends attend and are on the board. It was discovered that their pastor had been "paying himself" with luxuries on trips, clothing, fancy meals out, etc., without approval or going through proper channels. Sadly, that pastor committed suicide when it became public. What you share in Tov is helpful to many. That church is slowly recovering.
(New here - thanks so much for "A Church Called Tov" and these types of posts - it's so helpful to know people are thinking of these things!)
Love this and agree with all of the drives you mentioned!
Not sure if others have framed it this way, but this post made me think that there are "fulfillment idols" ("If only I had that, I'd be happy/enough/fulfilled") and "survival idols" ("If I lose this, I'll be destroyed/dead"). Both have the power to consume someone. The ones you've described here are mostly in the "fulfillment idols", with the possible exception of success.
A hypothesis: I wonder how many young pastors get into it, spend a decade, and then at least partially start acting out of self-preservation. That is, to admit wrongdoing would feel like a threat to their very survival - they might have a mortgage/etc. In complementarian circles the pastor's wife might not have a job (or marketable skills), or the pastor just might be single. In toxic environments, the pastor may have been pressured to "give everything" to Jesus, such that he may be underpaid and also has given any savings to the church in offerings, building funds, church plant funds, etc. And the pastor himself may not have any idea what he would do for a living if he didn't lead a church - what job would he even be qualified for - would it pay anywhere near what it pays know? So I wonder if this adds to the betrayal blindness that Russell Moore was writing about the other day (I know he's not the first - just a great look at it)? A pastor or staff member becomes unable to admit wrongdoing or see the toxicity in the environment around them because it would threaten their very livelihood. This could also apply to other "survival" needs like the life-giving relationships they have in the church. (I appear to have lost many of my best friends when we left our toxic church).
I have no idea how to solve this one - require pastors to carry savings equal to a year's salary? And maybe consistently, constantly ask pastors and staff to examine themselves for idols, even asking point blank "has the church become an idol for you?" and helping them walk through how to destroy that idol. Showing people that they really will be ok without "that thing", because they have Jesus, seems like it'd be a part of this. I wasn't on staff, but reading Counterfeit Gods (Keller) and really studying 1 Peter 1:13-21 was something that was key for me in getting out of our church.
I was at a church were an Associate Pastor was caught embezzling. But because he was seen as "untouchable as an annointed one" it was kept quiet and he was promoted to Lead Pastor and moved to a different church. I think the church system is toxic, not just the pastors in some places. I keep thinking of the prophet who was told to prophesy for years without any change on the people. How many pastors would be willing to do that and how many boards would allow a pastor to keep being "unsuccessful" for years without wanting to make a change, to be seen as "managing the situation"? We are so performance based that it becomes toxic. I am sitting here just completely amazed at the unfolding of the "crisis" at my old church, The Chapel, in Ohio where I was an unpublicized whistleblower. They finally admitted they hurt people in the last 3 months. But ended it there. What about the people they hurt the last 7 years? The top 2 pastors have been removed. They are using time as a leverage to give their people time to lose anger, get used to the new leaders, lose interest, etc. They are having a live Q & A for the congregants to address the events that happened in May, in October! BTW, I am loving TOV and it is speaking to me. I couldn't finish it the first time I tried reading it but will this time.
One of the patterns I have seen in toxic leadership and one that has done its share of damaging and negative impacting has been the spirit of competitiveness. I’ve seen both good and bad examples of leaders taking their experience of sports or other competition based activity and use it to run thru the people they are to be leading or leading with. There is a corrupting underside to the culture of sports that rarely gets mentioned in anyone’s writing, yet sports teams and a person’s experience inside the sporting culture, stands as the biggest test of leadership in our American youth experience. So much so that O wonder if coaches and coaching staff have a bigger influence on the shaping of our current church leaders and our next leaders than the theological schools do? Clearly we see too many church leaders competing in the community with other churches, in the church itself among leadership staff, and in the church leaders home with the spouse and often the church leaders own children.
When I think of ambition, greed, glory and success, I realize that some were in Paul (e.g. his ambition was to preach the gospel over an arc from Jerusalem to Rome, or at least Illyricum, and then Rome, although he was also ready to drop his program when God reshaped it), but that he rejected greed and glory (other than for God, but even there the glory was in the cross) and defined success quite differently ("that I might be like him . . ." and meant conformed to his death). the Bible, of course, is read through a hermeneutical lens, and that lens in toxic situations tends to filter out what Paul and others were about. I find it best to read both practice and Bible through the lens of those called "saints", i.e. of demonstrable holiness, and so get my applicational examples there. For instance, Robert Bellarmine was a bishop of great humility and simplicity of life or Francis de Sales as another bishop of great holiness. But, of course, one could pick many others. When I think about biblical scholarship (and historical scholarship) I choose Bede the Venerable as a model, for he is both a landsman (my mother's family was from the north of England) and a man of both learning and piety. That helps me understand what Jesus meant by a "scribe trained in the kingdom." But, frankly, this was not part of my seminary studies - not a course in prayer, let alone spirituality, no spiritual direction (officially - one or two professors did care for my soul or set a good example in their person). So there is a hermeneutical issue and that works out in a formational issue, i.e. how seminaries and the like form those who are supposed to lead in the church community.
There are a number of ways of looking at toxic drivers, for sure, but the one I find most productive is family systems or Bowen Theory, which was first applied to church systems by Edwin Friedman (Generation to Generation), but later applied by Ron Richardson and others. What strikes me is that it shows that it takes more than a toxic leader to create the toxic situation; many toxic leaders were not experienced as toxic at first nor even later in all situations (which is one reason why churches find it hard to believe the truth about a predatory sexual abuse, for he was such a "fine Christian" and so "loving" and so "effective in ministry" etc.). There is something in the systemic relationships that draws the toxicity out of the leader, on the one hand, and draws us into the situation on the other. Thus getting rid of a toxic leader often results in getting another form of malfunction. And one may find that one is repeatedly drawn to toxic situations that may be outwardly different but structurally similar (as I have found in myself being in some academic contexts). Not all, of course, have the same degree of toxicity. That has made me listen to the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcasts differently, for I am less interested in the "bad guy" than in the systemic relationships in which a host of supporting characters were enmeshed. After all, many of the names named are people I have had contact with or organizations with which I have been involved. My point is that this helps me to ask how I contributed to the toxic situation. It is also significant that a big part of the solution to healing the system is my being a less anxious presence in the system, i.e., as Dr Kerr added to Bowen Theory, spirituality. That would be at least a chapter in a book, perhaps a book in itself.
The calling to go low in the fashion of Jesus, to love and serve, is at odds with self-marketing, proving one's worth. There's a commodifying principle that feels entirely unavoidable.
At the back end of each one of those four, I bet you could find another drive: fear.
Do you want glory/fame because you think it would be fun to never go anywhere without being recognized, or because glory/fame gives you power, and you are afraid that without power you could be railroaded?
Are you greedy because you want more and more, or does the fear of not being able to get what you want when you want it drive your greed?
I think if we are like the Israelites who can pray for babies heads to be smashed against rocks, then we can help ourselves avoid falling into these toxic drives by just being honest with God and asking for it. I don't want to lie to God or myself that I actually want a big, nice house...or other pastors to look up to my church as one to emulate because of it's growth, or that I want fame/glory because I want influence over the same system that once deeply hurt me.
So I told him that's what I wanted.
And then God says "Where do those requests come from?"
They came straight from a place of fear.
Then God said, "What if you asked from a place of hope, what if you asked from believing I was the God that could do immeasurably more than you could ever hope or ask? What would you want then?"
That's when I think deep down, I really do want people to know Jesus. For the lost to actually be saved and transformed.
But that's the hard ask. This is America. It's much easier to see myself as rich and famous, then believing people would have complete changes of heart, mind, body and spirit through the work I did.
As I read this, I felt, once again, grateful for the teaching pastor at my own church. Humility and genuine care, and hard work to check themselves against these four qualities you mention seem to characterize him. I am sadly aware of how greed drastically affected a prominent and large church in our area to which many of my close friends attend and are on the board. It was discovered that their pastor had been "paying himself" with luxuries on trips, clothing, fancy meals out, etc., without approval or going through proper channels. Sadly, that pastor committed suicide when it became public. What you share in Tov is helpful to many. That church is slowly recovering.
(New here - thanks so much for "A Church Called Tov" and these types of posts - it's so helpful to know people are thinking of these things!)
Love this and agree with all of the drives you mentioned!
Not sure if others have framed it this way, but this post made me think that there are "fulfillment idols" ("If only I had that, I'd be happy/enough/fulfilled") and "survival idols" ("If I lose this, I'll be destroyed/dead"). Both have the power to consume someone. The ones you've described here are mostly in the "fulfillment idols", with the possible exception of success.
A hypothesis: I wonder how many young pastors get into it, spend a decade, and then at least partially start acting out of self-preservation. That is, to admit wrongdoing would feel like a threat to their very survival - they might have a mortgage/etc. In complementarian circles the pastor's wife might not have a job (or marketable skills), or the pastor just might be single. In toxic environments, the pastor may have been pressured to "give everything" to Jesus, such that he may be underpaid and also has given any savings to the church in offerings, building funds, church plant funds, etc. And the pastor himself may not have any idea what he would do for a living if he didn't lead a church - what job would he even be qualified for - would it pay anywhere near what it pays know? So I wonder if this adds to the betrayal blindness that Russell Moore was writing about the other day (I know he's not the first - just a great look at it)? A pastor or staff member becomes unable to admit wrongdoing or see the toxicity in the environment around them because it would threaten their very livelihood. This could also apply to other "survival" needs like the life-giving relationships they have in the church. (I appear to have lost many of my best friends when we left our toxic church).
I have no idea how to solve this one - require pastors to carry savings equal to a year's salary? And maybe consistently, constantly ask pastors and staff to examine themselves for idols, even asking point blank "has the church become an idol for you?" and helping them walk through how to destroy that idol. Showing people that they really will be ok without "that thing", because they have Jesus, seems like it'd be a part of this. I wasn't on staff, but reading Counterfeit Gods (Keller) and really studying 1 Peter 1:13-21 was something that was key for me in getting out of our church.
Thank you again!
I was at a church were an Associate Pastor was caught embezzling. But because he was seen as "untouchable as an annointed one" it was kept quiet and he was promoted to Lead Pastor and moved to a different church. I think the church system is toxic, not just the pastors in some places. I keep thinking of the prophet who was told to prophesy for years without any change on the people. How many pastors would be willing to do that and how many boards would allow a pastor to keep being "unsuccessful" for years without wanting to make a change, to be seen as "managing the situation"? We are so performance based that it becomes toxic. I am sitting here just completely amazed at the unfolding of the "crisis" at my old church, The Chapel, in Ohio where I was an unpublicized whistleblower. They finally admitted they hurt people in the last 3 months. But ended it there. What about the people they hurt the last 7 years? The top 2 pastors have been removed. They are using time as a leverage to give their people time to lose anger, get used to the new leaders, lose interest, etc. They are having a live Q & A for the congregants to address the events that happened in May, in October! BTW, I am loving TOV and it is speaking to me. I couldn't finish it the first time I tried reading it but will this time.
One of the patterns I have seen in toxic leadership and one that has done its share of damaging and negative impacting has been the spirit of competitiveness. I’ve seen both good and bad examples of leaders taking their experience of sports or other competition based activity and use it to run thru the people they are to be leading or leading with. There is a corrupting underside to the culture of sports that rarely gets mentioned in anyone’s writing, yet sports teams and a person’s experience inside the sporting culture, stands as the biggest test of leadership in our American youth experience. So much so that O wonder if coaches and coaching staff have a bigger influence on the shaping of our current church leaders and our next leaders than the theological schools do? Clearly we see too many church leaders competing in the community with other churches, in the church itself among leadership staff, and in the church leaders home with the spouse and often the church leaders own children.
— James Small
Portland, Oregon
Imago Dei Community Member
When I think of ambition, greed, glory and success, I realize that some were in Paul (e.g. his ambition was to preach the gospel over an arc from Jerusalem to Rome, or at least Illyricum, and then Rome, although he was also ready to drop his program when God reshaped it), but that he rejected greed and glory (other than for God, but even there the glory was in the cross) and defined success quite differently ("that I might be like him . . ." and meant conformed to his death). the Bible, of course, is read through a hermeneutical lens, and that lens in toxic situations tends to filter out what Paul and others were about. I find it best to read both practice and Bible through the lens of those called "saints", i.e. of demonstrable holiness, and so get my applicational examples there. For instance, Robert Bellarmine was a bishop of great humility and simplicity of life or Francis de Sales as another bishop of great holiness. But, of course, one could pick many others. When I think about biblical scholarship (and historical scholarship) I choose Bede the Venerable as a model, for he is both a landsman (my mother's family was from the north of England) and a man of both learning and piety. That helps me understand what Jesus meant by a "scribe trained in the kingdom." But, frankly, this was not part of my seminary studies - not a course in prayer, let alone spirituality, no spiritual direction (officially - one or two professors did care for my soul or set a good example in their person). So there is a hermeneutical issue and that works out in a formational issue, i.e. how seminaries and the like form those who are supposed to lead in the church community.
There are a number of ways of looking at toxic drivers, for sure, but the one I find most productive is family systems or Bowen Theory, which was first applied to church systems by Edwin Friedman (Generation to Generation), but later applied by Ron Richardson and others. What strikes me is that it shows that it takes more than a toxic leader to create the toxic situation; many toxic leaders were not experienced as toxic at first nor even later in all situations (which is one reason why churches find it hard to believe the truth about a predatory sexual abuse, for he was such a "fine Christian" and so "loving" and so "effective in ministry" etc.). There is something in the systemic relationships that draws the toxicity out of the leader, on the one hand, and draws us into the situation on the other. Thus getting rid of a toxic leader often results in getting another form of malfunction. And one may find that one is repeatedly drawn to toxic situations that may be outwardly different but structurally similar (as I have found in myself being in some academic contexts). Not all, of course, have the same degree of toxicity. That has made me listen to the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcasts differently, for I am less interested in the "bad guy" than in the systemic relationships in which a host of supporting characters were enmeshed. After all, many of the names named are people I have had contact with or organizations with which I have been involved. My point is that this helps me to ask how I contributed to the toxic situation. It is also significant that a big part of the solution to healing the system is my being a less anxious presence in the system, i.e., as Dr Kerr added to Bowen Theory, spirituality. That would be at least a chapter in a book, perhaps a book in itself.
The calling to go low in the fashion of Jesus, to love and serve, is at odds with self-marketing, proving one's worth. There's a commodifying principle that feels entirely unavoidable.
At the back end of each one of those four, I bet you could find another drive: fear.
Do you want glory/fame because you think it would be fun to never go anywhere without being recognized, or because glory/fame gives you power, and you are afraid that without power you could be railroaded?
Are you greedy because you want more and more, or does the fear of not being able to get what you want when you want it drive your greed?
I think if we are like the Israelites who can pray for babies heads to be smashed against rocks, then we can help ourselves avoid falling into these toxic drives by just being honest with God and asking for it. I don't want to lie to God or myself that I actually want a big, nice house...or other pastors to look up to my church as one to emulate because of it's growth, or that I want fame/glory because I want influence over the same system that once deeply hurt me.
So I told him that's what I wanted.
And then God says "Where do those requests come from?"
They came straight from a place of fear.
Then God said, "What if you asked from a place of hope, what if you asked from believing I was the God that could do immeasurably more than you could ever hope or ask? What would you want then?"
That's when I think deep down, I really do want people to know Jesus. For the lost to actually be saved and transformed.
But that's the hard ask. This is America. It's much easier to see myself as rich and famous, then believing people would have complete changes of heart, mind, body and spirit through the work I did.