The Church Revitalization Podcast – Episode 279

Is leadership dysfunction holding back growth in your church? While it’s easy to blame external factors like changing demographics or post-pandemic shifts, the uncomfortable truth is that internal leadership problems often create silent barriers that prevent churches from thriving.

Leadership dysfunction isn’t just about making bad decisions – it’s about creating organizational and spiritual barriers that directly impact a church’s ability to live out the Great Commission. When leadership isn’t healthy, it affects everything from volunteer engagement to newcomer retention to overall ministry effectiveness.

Many churches struggle with these issues but don’t want to address them head-on. It’s easier to focus on programming, facilities, or other surface-level concerns than to deal with deeper leadership challenges. However, identifying and addressing these dysfunctions is crucial for any church that wants to experience sustainable, healthy growth.

Let’s explore four common leadership dysfunctions that could be holding your church back from reaching its full potential. Understanding these issues is the first step toward creating positive change in your congregation.

Poor Conflict Management

One of the most pervasive issues in church leadership is the inability to handle conflict effectively. Many churches struggle with this because approximately 60% of pastors have a “steady” temperament that naturally avoids conflict. While this personality type can be great for pastoral care, it often creates an environment where difficult conversations are avoided rather than addressed.

There’s a crucial difference between peacekeeping and peacemaking. Peacekeeping focuses on maintaining surface-level harmony by avoiding difficult conversations. Peacemaking, on the other hand, involves engaging in challenging situations for the purpose of true reconciliation. Jesus himself modeled this approach – he wasn’t afraid to engage in difficult situations when truth and reconciliation were at stake.

In our current church culture, there’s often a celebration of peacekeeping. “Don’t rock the boat” becomes the unofficial motto, and leaders avoid saying anything that might make someone uncomfortable. This creates an environment where issues simmer just beneath the surface, leading to passive-aggressive behavior and unresolved tensions.

The result? Problems that could have been addressed early on through direct communication grow into major issues that affect the entire congregation. When churches lack healthy conflict management processes, they often develop a culture where important conversations are avoided, and real problems are swept under the rug. This not only prevents growth but can actually lead to decline as unresolved issues create toxic undercurrents in church life.

Healthy conflict isn’t about creating drama or constant confrontation. Instead, it’s about having the courage to address issues directly, with love and respect, before they become major problems. Churches that want to grow need leaders who can facilitate difficult conversations and guide their congregations through necessary changes with wisdom and grace.

Entrenched Parties and Processes

Think of entrenched leadership like trench warfare – positions become so firmly established that there’s virtually no movement or progress. When churches develop deeply entrenched systems and power structures, they often find themselves stuck in patterns that no longer serve their mission effectively.

This entrenchment typically manifests in two ways: through established power structures (“That’s Jane’s ministry – we don’t touch it”) and through rigid processes (“This is the way we’ve always done it”). While not every traditional method needs to be changed – some tried-and-true approaches still work well – problems arise when churches can no longer explain why they do things a certain way.

Sometimes, overall church success can mask these areas of stagnation. Leaders might resist examining or changing specific ministries or processes because the church is growing or stable overall. However, this mindset can blind organizations to opportunities for greater effectiveness and health.

The “we’ve always done it this way” mentality often stems from a desire to preserve relationships and avoid hurting feelings. While relationships are important, this approach can actually prevent healthy leadership development. When leaders avoid evaluating and providing feedback on long-standing ministries or processes out of fear of offending someone, they miss opportunities to coach and develop their team members.

Consider a ministry that’s been led by the same person for decades but has been gradually declining in effectiveness. The truly loving approach isn’t to avoid the conversation – it’s to engage that leader in discussions about ministry impact and explore ways to better utilize their gifts. Churches need processes that allow for honest evaluation and necessary changes, even when those changes might be uncomfortable.

High Tolerance for Disunifying Behavior

While extending grace is fundamental to Christian leadership, there comes a point when tolerance of disruptive behavior can damage the entire congregation. Churches must learn to distinguish between healthy disagreement and toxic behavior that undermines unity.

There’s an important distinction to make: questioning policies or procedures isn’t necessarily disunifying. Having honest, respectful disagreements about church direction can actually be healthy and productive. The problem arises when individuals engage in inappropriate behaviors like gossip, spreading rumors, or voicing complaints to people who can’t address the issues.

Scripture takes a strong stance on unity. In Proverbs 6, sowing discord among brothers is listed as one of the things God hates, alongside lying and other serious offenses. Jesus himself prayed for unity among believers in John 17, emphasizing that unity in the church would help the world recognize Him. When we allow disunifying behavior to continue unchecked, we’re not just damaging our church’s growth – we’re potentially hindering its witness to the world.

Churches often fire staff members for moral failures but hesitate to address volunteers or board members who consistently sow discord. This inconsistency sends a dangerous message about what behaviors are acceptable in church leadership. While grace should always be extended to those who recognize their errors and seek to change, continuing to accommodate individuals who deliberately create division undermines the church’s health and mission.

The impact of disunity often extends beyond the church walls. When internal conflicts become public knowledge, they can create “church hurt” and drive away both current members and potential newcomers. Even more seriously, public displays of disunity can create barriers that keep people from seeing Jesus clearly – potentially impacting their eternal destiny.

Lack of Shared Vision

Sometimes the most dangerous dysfunction isn’t what leaders do wrong – it’s what they fail to do at all. A lack of shared vision creates a leadership vacuum that can stall church growth and vitality. While this dysfunction might seem less dramatic than conflict or disunity, it can be equally damaging to a church’s health and growth.

Interestingly, churches without clear vision often appear peaceful on the surface. When there’s no compelling direction, there’s little to disagree about. However, this peace comes at the cost of purpose and progress. It’s the difference between an army ready for battle and a social club collecting badges – one is prepared to advance against challenges, while the other is content with maintaining the status quo.

The imagery Jesus used when He said “the gates of hell shall not prevail against” His church implies an offensive posture – the church should be actively advancing, not just holding ground. A God-focused vision creates this forward momentum, uniting the congregation around a common purpose that’s bigger than individual preferences or comfort.

When a church develops and communicates a clear, compelling vision, it often experiences initial resistance. This shouldn’t be surprising – vision creates movement, and movement creates friction. However, a vision that truly comes from God will generally unite the vast majority of the congregation, inspiring them to work together toward common goals. Those who resist such a vision often do so not because the vision is flawed, but because they’re more committed to personal preferences than kingdom advancement.

Healthy leaders understand that their role isn’t just maintaining what exists – it’s pursuing what God has called the church to become. They recognize that a church without vision isn’t just standing still; it’s slowly dying. Vision turns the focus from mere survival to active ministry, from maintaining traditions to pursuing transformation.

Moving Forward

These four leadership dysfunctions – poor conflict management, entrenched parties and processes, tolerance of disunifying behavior, and lack of shared vision – often work together to create barriers to church growth. The good news is that identifying these issues is the first step toward addressing them.

Remember that a healthy church will become a growing church, but not every growing church is healthy. Growth without health is unsustainable, while health without growth fails to fulfill the church’s mission. The key is to work on both simultaneously, creating systems and cultures that promote both spiritual vitality and numerical growth.

The path forward begins with honest evaluation. Church leaders need to ask difficult questions about how they handle conflict, whether they’ve allowed unhealthy entrenchment, if they’ve been too tolerant of disunity, and whether they’ve clearly articulated God’s vision for their congregation. This kind of self-examination isn’t comfortable, but it’s essential for breaking free from dysfunction and moving toward greater effectiveness in ministry.

When church leaders commit to addressing these dysfunctions, they open the door for genuine transformation. They create environments where healthy conflict leads to positive change, where processes serve the mission rather than hinder it, where unity becomes a powerful witness to the community, and where shared vision propels the congregation forward in fulfilling the Great Commission.

The church’s mission is too important to let leadership dysfunction hold it back. By confronting these issues with courage and wisdom, churches can remove the barriers that prevent growth and create cultures where both leaders and congregations thrive in pursuing God’s purposes for His people.

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Episode Transcript:

A.J. Mathieu [00:00:01]:
Is leadership dysfunction holding back growth in your church? Let’s explore that now on the Church Revitalization Podcast.

A.J. Mathieu [00:00:34]:
Today.

Scott Ball [00:00:35]:
Alright, A.J.. We’re talking about leadership dysfunction today.

A.J. Mathieu [00:00:40]:
What a great topic.

Scott Ball [00:00:41]:
This is, you might say leadership dysfunction isn’t just about bad decisions. It’s it’s the silent killer of church growth that many people don’t wanna talk about. And so today we’re gonna be diving into some of these uncomfortable truths about how leadership problems, directly impact your church’s ability to grow. And they’re not just organizational issues. These are spiritual barriers that prevent churches from living out the Great Commission. So we wanna identify these things, and root them out. So we’re gonna we’ve got four, common dysfunctions, and we’re gonna explore these four things today.

A.J. Mathieu [00:01:24]:
Yeah. It’s really I mean, it’s an unfortunate topic. You know, we, Scott, a long time ago, we did an episode about, toxicity pastors that are toxic. And it’s one of the most, watched videos that we have. And I just find that to be really sad.

Scott Ball [00:01:41]:
And most popular articles on our website and all kinds of things. Oh, no. Yeah. Sorry. Good thumbs up.

A.J. Mathieu [00:01:47]:
We got thumbs ups on the video.

Scott Ball [00:01:49]:
My goodness.

A.J. Mathieu [00:01:51]:
But, yeah, you know, I mean, I’ve just always felt like it’s it’s just sad and unfortunate that that’s one of the most popular topics because people are searching it, and then they find that episode. And so this is kind of along those lines again. You know, again, I it needs to be talked about because we want churches to be healthy, but it, I don’t know how else to say it. It’s an unfortunate, necessary topic.

Scott Ball [00:02:13]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, hey. Before we hop into these four things, I wanna just give a quick shout out to Healthy Church’s toolkit. There’s lots of if you’re if you’re like, man, we wanna improve our leadership. We wanna get better. We don’t wanna be dysfunctional. We wanna get on the same page.

Scott Ball [00:02:29]:
And we’re gonna be talking about a lot of these, as we talk about these issues today, a lot of these solutions, revolve around building a leadership pipeline and getting a healthier leadership culture and building a shared vision for the future. And there’s a lot of resources in the Healthy Churches toolkit that can help you do that, and you can get seven days for free. Go to Healthy Churches toolkit dot com. Register. Get access to all the goods, and you get access to, leadership coaching as well, unlimited leadership coaching with all plus accounts. So if you’re like, hey. I I just need someone to balance ideas off of and get advice and input from, when you sign up for a plus account in Healthy Churches toolkit, you get access to unlimited coaching, from our team. So check it out.

Scott Ball [00:03:15]:
Go check that out.

A.J. Mathieu [00:03:16]:
During normal business hours?

Scott Ball [00:03:18]:
During the yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You, but, you know, you get access to a calendar.

A.J. Mathieu [00:03:21]:
We don’t have a 247 call center.

Scott Ball [00:03:23]:
So That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. No. But you you you get access to a calendar and you can Yep. Set up set up meetings. Yeah.

A.J. Mathieu [00:03:29]:
That is a yeah. That that is a that is a good value. Alright. Our first, topic that we’re gonna talk about today, our first point is poor conflict management. And this is, I mean, this is just evident in a in a lot of situations. Churches are no strangers to conflict. Right? I mean, everybody listening, just gave an amen on that one. And, you know, they there’s we talk about this also when we, when we work with churches and we talk about vision, shared vision, and, you know, when you hear of a church that has no conflict, that’s actually a red flag, because, you know, it’s that’s just not normal.

A.J. Mathieu [00:04:07]:
Humans are challenging, creatures, to to interact with one another. So, yeah, a lot of times when there is a lack of conflict or in a perceived, you know, abundance of peace is sometimes because, we’re not communicating clearly about perhaps what our direction is. Church may just be directionless, and a directionless church is more likely to have less conflict because everybody’s just kinda doing their own thing anyway and assume everybody thinks like they do. So when you articulate, future plans and and, you know, desires and things that we believe God’s calling us to, that’s when conflict sometimes comes up. But it it manifests in a variety of situations, from the most minor of things to major decision making in the church. People just disagree. And, unfortunately, a lot of people handle situations, with an, a level of maturity less than their years. And, it’s it’s, astounding sometimes how, you know, perfectly, who people you would think would be perfectly mature in handling things with humility and, and a good dialogue choose not to.

A.J. Mathieu [00:05:19]:
And, and this is where, you know, some of that some sometimes toxic behaviors, and, unfortunately, even sometimes sinful behaviors come in. But leaders in a church not handling the conflict effectively, sometimes they’re the ones that are in the conflict, but you would hope that there’s somebody with a level of wisdom and maturity that can help, you know, intervene and have parties work through things in a mature way. But, unfortunately, that doesn’t happen, and things are sides get taken, you know, factions form, and we’ve got just something getting worse and worse.

Scott Ball [00:05:58]:
Yeah. I mean, conflict management is this might be the number one thing. There’s a few things behind this. I think, something like 60%, not only did these exact percentages, A.J., but something like 60% of all pastors have the ‘s’ type temperament, which is like a shepherding, steady. Yeah, ‘s’ stands for ‘steady’. And you know, by temperament, they hate conflict. And so they often create an environment that is conducive to passive aggressive stuff and just conflicts, bubbling just but maybe just beneath the surface. And there’s a lot of peacekeeping, but not a lot of peace making.

Scott Ball [00:06:48]:
And, and so this passive avoidance of comp active, and intentional conflict avoidance is is maybe keeping the peace, but it’s not making peace. And Jesus didn’t do this. Jesus was willing to engage in difficult situations for the purpose of reconciliation, right, and trying to make things right and for and to stand on the side of what is correct and what is right. And, in our culture today, our culture celebrates peacekeeping. Our culture celebrates, don’t rock the boat. Hey. Don’t don’t say anything difficult. Don’t Yeah.

Scott Ball [00:07:26]:
Don’t say anything that would make someone feel bad. And we have a lot of pastors who just are temperamentally just predisposed to not wanting to engage in hard conversations. And as a result, it just the church can’t move forward. And so conflict avoidance is not the solution. It’s healthy conflict, saying hard things. We’re gonna get into more of this, actually, because it’s a similar theme that kinda recurs. But, poor conflict management, I think, is maybe just the baseline, and that really undergirds pretty much everything else on our list here, A.J..

A.J. Mathieu [00:08:03]:
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. So moving on to our next point, entrenched parties and processes. So this is, again, how that poor conflict management starts to manifest itself, is that we’ve got people that that are dug in. So So on the one hand, we might have people that, you know, they believe they’re right.

A.J. Mathieu [00:08:20]:
They’re not really willing to come to the table, can’t see a a point of view beyond their own. And then we’ve got, a leadership structure in the church that is able that allows it to continue. We don’t have a structure in which people, you know, can perhaps take grievances into a neutral space, to be able to dealt be dealt with in in a mature way that can, you know, hopefully lead to reconciliation or, you know, some common ground that we could move forward in. And this so much is you know, has to do with, personal preferences much of the time. You know? Just instead of finding the commonality in what is God calling us to and, and being able to move together, you know, maybe with some not that everybody would always have to have their way. I mean, that’s that’s kind of the thing. You that’s not gonna be the case. We want to be able to work towards a solution that we’re like, okay.

A.J. Mathieu [00:09:22]:
This this kinda moves us all forward, though it may not be my perfect solution.

Scott Ball [00:09:27]:
Yeah. I was trying to do this, find this factoid, about World War one and, the trench warfare there. I think, I don’t know. It’s no one hold me to this. Okay? But I think that in in the last couple years of the war, the front lines of, of of of both sides only moved maybe within a handful of kilometers, in all these years of fighting. And that to me, that is stuck. That is stuck leadership Yeah. Visualized.

Scott Ball [00:10:06]:
When you have these entrenched systems and parties, I mean, they are really dug in, man, and there is just no movement. And we don’t even know why. Why are we fighting this anymore? Why are why did we why did why is this the hill we decided to die on? Now I’m not a big fan of making change for change sake just going, well, let’s just let’s just move the line, just to move the line. I’m a big proponent of let’s figure out why this is here, why are we doing this. And if there’s a good reason for maintaining this method or this process, you know, I’m I’m I’m, I think you and I both, A.J., are on the record on this podcast of of saying, yeah, we maybe went away from from Sunday school too quickly, as a culture. So, I mean, I think there’s some room to say not every old idea is a bad idea, but we we also should not become so committed to our trenches that we don’t know why we do things anymore. And, I was actually working with the church, A.J., not that long ago where I had I said, hey, I have some feedback on this particular part of ministry. And, the person I was talking to said, I don’t even wanna hear it.

Scott Ball [00:11:29]:
Until this person isn’t a part of, you know, this ministry, or isn’t leading this part of the ministry anymore, there’s really not a point in hearing any feedback. And I’m paraphrasing. But, I thought, oh, wow. Like, that’s not good. If someone said, I don’t even wanna hear don’t bother giving me the feedback. So long as, you know, this leader is is leading this thing, there’s really no point. I was actually I was with a different church and not that long ago, had a similar kind of conversation. I was like, well, now why is it that we do this thing this way? And they go, this is the way.

Scott Ball [00:12:07]:
Yeah. We don’t we don’t question it. This is the way. And I thought, well, this isn’t this isn’t good. And they They’ve had a lot of success, and so there is a lot of question like, we don’t touch it because it’s been successful in the past. So we don’t we’re not gonna push

A.J. Mathieu [00:12:24]:
it. Yeah. I think oh, yes. Oh, perhaps overall church success can sometimes overshadow small areas of stagnation. You know? Kind of assume everything what what we’re doing right now should all stay in place because it’s helping us achieve overall success when I just don’t know that that needs to be thought of as true. There can be improvements to be made in specific areas that could contribute to even greater, you know, growth and health in the church. But, yeah, often, you know, longevity of doing something becomes like that’s just the measure. You know, that’s that that will determine if something is available to be discussed for change.

A.J. Mathieu [00:13:08]:
The longer it’s been there, the less availability that will be to discuss doing something different. And it’s and it’s comes back to this preservation of feelings, preservation of emotions and relationships. And, you know, I mean, I’m sometimes accused of perhaps not being as empathetic as I could be, but, I still think we should ask why, you know. I mean, what is the intentionality of doing this? Yeah. I mean, even think about it from, you know, even here we go. Here’s A.J.. From an analytical point of view, you know? I mean, we have a church of 50 or we have a church of of a 50 or 300 people, and we’re doing something that perhaps a handful of people engage in, and somebody’s been leading it for, you know, eight years or twenty two years. And we keep doing it just because of that.

A.J. Mathieu [00:13:58]:
You know? I mean, let’s you gotta zoom out a little bit. Like, we’re we’re a a large congregation of people now, and we’re trying to achieve certain goals. And and, you know, maybe we could that room could be used for better in a different way, or it’s really confusing to talk about what this person’s ministry is. It doesn’t fit necessarily with our with our goals on on our vision. The I I don’t know. That’s the wrong thinking to me. I mean, why are we why are we doing that? And and I know some people push back and go, oh, if it’s that small, it doesn’t matter anyway. Let let George keep doing it.

A.J. Mathieu [00:14:30]:
Right. But, you know, I don’t know. What does that teach what does that tell us about leaders leading George? Let’s just say George. You know, I mean, are we are we leading George well to not be coaching, to not be talking with him about the the results of his ministry. He’s putting in effort, you know, maybe that he really cares about. You know, what he’s been doing has been shrinking over the years. I mean, shouldn’t we be coaching George like we would the the 25 year old, you know, assistant youth pastor? So, I don’t know. I think I think sometimes these decisions break down when you when you kind of dig into them a little bit.

Scott Ball [00:15:09]:
Yeah. I mean, we we did an episode not that long ago on ministry silos, And, this is how they form, you know, where we just go, alright, you do youth, you do you boo. You know, like, and, we’re just gonna leave each other alone. There’s some data that says that 85% of pastors said that the most common source of conflict, was control issues. And, I think that that it’s not just pastors. Like, it’s not just pastors who have the control issues. It’s it’s a matriarch or a patriarch in the church that you can’t that you can’t cross. You know? I I worked out on staff at a church.

Scott Ball [00:15:48]:
I think I told this story a few weeks ago where, there was a guy who had been on staff for, like, twenty or thirty years. He was not the lead pastor, but he was just on staff. And, you know, that guy that guy got his way, man. Well, it doesn’t matter what it was because the idea was you can’t, you can’t cross him. Like, the he’s he’s been here. He’s earned his stripes. He gets to call the shots. Even if it was nuts and it makes no sense and it’s not good for the whole church, it doesn’t matter.

Scott Ball [00:16:14]:
He’s been there forever. You can’t cross him. These things happen in churches, and, it’s not it’s not healthy. So and and when churches going back to the first point, when churches are unwilling to engage in healthy conflict, these just become the questions that you can’t ask, the things that you can’t say. And when you start to identify those things, A.J., where you go, oh, that’s a person you can’t approach. Oh, that’s a topic we can’t talk about. That’s when there’s a problem and it’s dysfunctional and it’s holding your church.

A.J. Mathieu [00:16:45]:
I met a guy recently that, he I don’t know what his age is, but let me just say post retirement age. Okay. And had been at a church for a long time and was involved with, like, youth and student ministry for long, long, long time. I don’t know exactly what the timeline was. We just had a brief conversation. But at some point in the not so distant past, they came to him and said, maybe we could have you work with our senior adults now instead of instead of some of our youngest people. That’s that’s maybe somebody more age appropriate. And not that, you know, older people can’t lead young people well.

A.J. Mathieu [00:17:24]:
They certainly can. But all you know, there’s gotta be some relatability, understanding trends and language and, you know, current, current situations. But he graciously made that move, and he loves what he’s doing still. And, and it’s a successful ministry area. But I I just thought that was kind of an interesting situation and kinda fits in here. There’s ways to do things and make changes that it just works out great for everybody instead of maybe let somebody wither on the vine, at the you know, with the excuse of perhaps preserving their their, their feelings. So, yeah, there you go.

Scott Ball [00:17:58]:
What’s that quote? It’s true what they say.

A.J. Mathieu [00:18:02]:
Old people. While dangerous beyond slow and dangerous beyond the wheel can still serve a purpose. I shouldn’t I shouldn’t be able to quote them and our as well as I can.

Scott Ball [00:18:13]:
I wasn’t going to mention the movie, but but you were with me. We were on the same wavelength.

A.J. Mathieu [00:18:18]:
Okay. Our third point, here in, in, dysfunctional leadership that could be holding back church growth is a high tolerance for dis, disunifying behavior. And even more so that which kind of starts to step into the sin space, which, you know, I think I don’t know. Perhaps our maybe our interest in extending grace might, you know, perhaps go a little bit too far. That’s a little bit hard to say, isn’t it? Based on what we, the understanding of our savior that our grace might have limits. But Jesus had Jesus had limits on on what was tolerable as well and called for, you know, a change of behavior. And so, we also need to recognize when something perhaps has gone too far and we we’ve gotta have a tough conversation about a change of behavior.

Scott Ball [00:19:15]:
Totally. And I I think that there’s a difference. I think there’s we have to have the discernment. I this is a theme. I know I’ve talked about it with, like, lots of churches I’ve worked with, and I’ve probably mentioned it on the podcast several times. So but this is one of the bells that I ring a lot, and I’ll continue to, and it’s relevant here. There is a difference between having an honest disagreement about a policy or even be questioning why are we doing something this way like we were just talking about. I think that’s actually healthy and right and good.

Scott Ball [00:19:52]:
Like so I’m not I’m not against having difficult critical conversations. What I’m am against is inappropriate conversations that’s gossip, or inappropriate in the sense that you are complaining, to someone who can’t do anything about it. You know, you’re and you’re sowing discord or rumors or just discontent among the congregation when the more appropriate thing to do would be to approach, you know, if you are a leader, approach another leader. If you’re not a leader, like, if you don’t have a title in your church, just approaching the pastor or the power structures, and saying, hey. I have an issue with this thing. I do have a problem with with that behavior, that sinful behavior of sowing disunity. It’s on the list of things that God says He hates, right? In Proverbs six, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and the last one is and one who sows discord among brothers. And it’s the thing that Jesus prays for John 17, right, that there would be unity, among that they would be one, that the brothers would be one.

Scott Ball [00:21:29]:
And so this is of huge importance. And so we we do fire people in church’s positions because of moral failures, and that’s well and good as they should. But, we don’t ever seem to dismiss volunteers or board members or staff members even from the behavior of sowing disunity, and that’s that’s equally offensive and bad. So the you have to have the discernment to know the difference between a a well intended disagreement about policy or procedure, and someone who is intentionally trying

A.J. Mathieu [00:22:15]:
to

Scott Ball [00:22:15]:
railroad, the church or gossip or disunify the church, which is those are not the same things. And when you’re on the back end of a criticism, A.J., it can feel like someone is attacking you. And so that’s why it takes discernment to go, is this person attacking me and sowing disunity, or are they just disagreeing with me and we need to have a conversation? And I think you can overreact, I guess. But what I more often see is that churches make excuses for people who are sinning, and that’s not good. Yeah. Absolutely. It’s not about grace. I mean, there’s grace.

Scott Ball [00:22:58]:
There’s plenty of grace. I mean, you said we should be less great. I I think we should be plenty gracious if someone says, hey. I did this, and I shouldn’t have. You know, I’m sorry. Like, we should restore that person. But if someone is sowing disunity and they’re not sorry about it, we should not keep them around. Yeah.

Scott Ball [00:23:17]:
That’s how I feel. Like, they should

A.J. Mathieu [00:23:18]:
be Yeah. Absolutely.

Scott Ball [00:23:19]:
Asked not to be part of the church anymore.

A.J. Mathieu [00:23:21]:
I mean, I I think it I think it’s a good practice, and it’s a biblical practice for people to go to the source of things. You know? I mean, don’t don’t make end runs. Don’t, you know, drop little things, little hints to other people. If you’ve got something with a brother or sister, go to them and and have that conversation with them. That’s the quickest way to solve issues like that. And making it public. You know? Because sometimes a little, you know, a little minor minor public, you know, like, still within the body, can even go out beyond the body, you know, and become public outside the church. And that’s where, you know, it’s of grave importance to the John 17.

A.J. Mathieu [00:24:04]:
The prayer in John 17 is of grave importance because, I mean, Jesus gives a reason for the necessity of unity in the church and said the world would know that he was sent by the father, that he loves them, and that he wants them to be, a part of, you know, his body and his family. And so disunity in the church that leaks outside can result in somebody’s, eternal damnation. If you really wanna carry this out to the extreme, disunity in the church can keep people from seeing Jesus for who he is. And, and that’s a that’s a pretty significant consequence. So

Scott Ball [00:24:42]:
Yeah. I mean, that not is

A.J. Mathieu [00:24:43]:
a big deal.

Scott Ball [00:24:44]:
Yeah. And not to belabor the point, because we need to move on to the last point here. I mean, when people talk about church hurt and things like that, which I think is largely overblown to some degree, people not taking personal responsibility. But there’s it’s a real thing. Churches really do hurt people, and I think a lot of it has to do with these three things we’ve talked about so far, like a lack of willingness to engage in healthy conflict, the fact that there are power structures in place that are really entrenched and don’t listen, and that we we allow disunifying behavior to happen and people gossip and people are, and we don’t openly address these things. These all lead to hurt and pain. And to your point, A.J., there are some people, especially those who are spiritually immature, that cannot handle this. And it and it and it just you know, going to the parable of the of the sower, You know? Like, these are these are the these are the seeds that fell on that thorny ground that spring up quickly.

Scott Ball [00:25:49]:
And then when when troubles come, they’re choked out by it. And and, like, far be it from us that we would be the thorns that would choke out the faith of Yeah. Of a of a young believer, where the gospel is just starting to to grow. So Yeah. This is really important.

A.J. Mathieu [00:26:08]:
Yeah. Wisdom and maturity, I think, should should in in us, put us in a posture of maybe asking first or closer to the beginning of what responsibility do I have in this? Am I, you know, what part have I played in this? You know, I mean, I mentioned at the top of the show, you know, our previous toxic pastor episode, and we get we get emails about that. I mean, I’ve I’ve with some regularity get emails with stories that are just they’re terrible, but a lot of times, it’s, you know, I’ve been to three different churches. Yeah. It seems people seem to have toxic pastors everywhere they go. It kinda makes you wonder a little bit, you know?

Scott Ball [00:26:51]:
It’s a hard thing to admit to be like, is the toxic pastor in the room with us right now? Like, you know, if if you go to five different churches and there’s a toxic pastor at all of them, every single one

A.J. Mathieu [00:27:03]:
Yeah. What’s the common denominator there? Yeah. So, you know

Scott Ball [00:27:08]:
It’s like it’s like having five divorces. It’s like, man, you can’t pick them.

A.J. Mathieu [00:27:13]:
Yeah. I can’t I can’t take very good ones.

Scott Ball [00:27:15]:
Like It’s like, wait. Hold on. You’re the you are half of the spouse. Half half of the spouses in all of these marriages. Yeah. I’m not I don’t I shouldn’t make light of that, but I and I’m not suggesting the church hurt isn’t real.

A.J. Mathieu [00:27:30]:
Right. Yeah. It is real.

Scott Ball [00:27:33]:
All of a more reason for us to be to have healthy leadership cultures so that we can deal with things rightly.

A.J. Mathieu [00:27:39]:
Exactly.

Scott Ball [00:27:39]:
And I’m suggesting that we don’t. And it it can compound. It can take something where someone has a legitimate issue on their own, and you’re giving them now the the green light to complain about your church because you didn’t handle your end of the thing

A.J. Mathieu [00:27:56]:
Yeah.

Scott Ball [00:27:56]:
Wisely.

A.J. Mathieu [00:27:58]:
Right.

Scott Ball [00:27:58]:
And so they deceive themselves and go, it’s all them. Mhmm. They never dealt with their own stuff because you didn’t you didn’t handle your end of the leadership equation the right way.

A.J. Mathieu [00:28:08]:
Yeah. Yeah. We need to be introspective in all things. Yeah. For sure. Okay. Our last, our last leadership dysfunction, point that could be, you know, restricting growth in your church, I would consider, like, dysfunction by omission. And that is a lack of shared vision in the church.

A.J. Mathieu [00:28:27]:
Mhmm. I think, you know, healthy healthy leaders that are pursuing, you know, something bigger than themselves, feel called by God to to, you know, gather his people and and move forward together, have gotta communicate that well. That’s gotta be clearly defined. What’s our what’s our vision? You know, and also mentioned at the top, sometimes the churches that don’t don’t have conflict aren’t pursuing a shared vision. And so, you know, it’s that it’s a little funny to say that, you know, I don’t know if you’d call that a double edged sword. Like we have peace, but we don’t have vision. Now we have vision and we’ve lost some of the peace. I would contend though that a true God focused vision that you’ve perceived God has established your church there to to work on, you’re you will have a strong majority of people that feel that way, see it, and wanna pursue it together.

A.J. Mathieu [00:29:21]:
And, you know, perhaps only those that that don’t, you know, maybe have have a pure heart towards the things of God would would push back against that. There’s still gonna be personal preferences, and that’s fine. There’s a lot of lot of different places that people could per perhaps get connected that’s a better fit. But, but we’ve got to to be a healthy leader, we’ve got to be pursuing, a shared vision in the church.

Scott Ball [00:29:45]:
You know, I was just as you were talking, I was thinking, what’s the difference besides age? And, obviously, age is the number one factor here. But

A.J. Mathieu [00:29:57]:
Between me and you?

Scott Ball [00:30:00]:
No. I was gonna say between the scouts and, like, the army. But there’s badges.

A.J. Mathieu [00:30:09]:
Uh-huh.

Scott Ball [00:30:09]:
There’s training. There’s camping. There’s Like, survival skills Yeah. Learned and gained.

A.J. Mathieu [00:30:16]:
I’m spending grace to you right now to carry this analogy out and, find what your point is.

Scott Ball [00:30:20]:
Yeah. Now, obviously, there’s one’s for children and one’s not, but Yeah. Beyond that, what’s the key differentiating fact?

A.J. Mathieu [00:30:28]:
Between the Boy Scouts and the army? Well, there’s certainly a lethality quotient. For sure.

Scott Ball [00:30:36]:
I was just thinking about how Jesus said that the gates of hell would not prevail against his Church, which implies an offensive maneuver here, that there’s a mission of the Church to break down the gates of hell, right? And which means the church ought to be much more like the army than the scouts. But there are a lot of people who really just want, like, I want the badge, I want the camping, I want the training, I want the survival skills, but I don’t ever want to actually have to apply it. And, I think that what a shared vision does is it starts to to shift the focus from scouts to army where we go, Okay, what is it that we’re here to accomplish? What which gate of hell are you know, which which gate of hell are we going to be breaking down as a church? What’s our battle plan? What are we actually doing? What are we doing all of this for? Like, if we’re we’re we’re just gonna sit and soak in this information and look at all the stripes I have on my on my jacket, are we gonna actually apply all of this to beat down the gates of hell or not? And I and to me, that’s that is a difference between a healthy church and a dysfunctional one. It’s one one dislikes the one dislikes the patches, and the other wants to beat down gates.

A.J. Mathieu [00:32:05]:
Gotcha. You finally brought it back or brought it around. I I I gotcha.

Scott Ball [00:32:10]:
You know, like, my analogy, I was formulating that analogy as you were talking

A.J. Mathieu [00:32:13]:
about it. I gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So not a good time? You’re not advocating teaching the boy scouts to kill. You’re instead wanting to people to be I’m

Scott Ball [00:32:22]:
insinuating that you got you got some guys and gals, you know, who metaphorically are beyond the scouting age, but they still like the patches. And then, you know, you really should at this point, this is not what we are.

A.J. Mathieu [00:32:37]:
Let’s put our training into into action. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Scott Ball [00:32:41]:
They don’t want that. They just want they want all the accoutrement, but they don’t want they don’t want the mission. They don’t really

A.J. Mathieu [00:32:47]:
nice uniforms. They’re pretty nice.

Scott Ball [00:32:49]:
Yeah. And going back to, we had an offline conversation earlier today, me and A.J., about revelation, the seven letters in revelation to the churches and how every single one of them is written to the one who conquers, to the one who’s victorious, to the overcomer. Like, I just love that language, you know? Because that it’s all offensive, not like I’m offended, but, like, on offense.

A.J. Mathieu [00:33:15]:
Yeah.

Scott Ball [00:33:17]:
Language and our churches, man, they’re just dead, like, they’re just like, I don’t know. And and that to me, it’s it’s a function of dysfunctional leadership.

A.J. Mathieu [00:33:25]:
Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. You yeah. Yeah. Perhaps, you know, they they take that overcome as just stand still and be able to survive bad things that happen to you. And that, unfortunately, is sometimes the posture of churches.

A.J. Mathieu [00:33:42]:
Instead of pursuing something forward and overcoming obstacles that would prevent you from achieving the goals God has set before you. And I think the latter scenario is where God wants us to be, moving forward, always on mission, in action.

Scott Ball [00:34:00]:
Yeah. What is it, Christus victus? Is that right?

A.J. Mathieu [00:34:05]:
Is that it? Victory in Christ?

Scott Ball [00:34:09]:
Christ is Victor, right? That is the image in Revelation, right?

A.J. Mathieu [00:34:14]:
Not fluent in Latin. I don’t know. It’s true. You’re surprised.

Scott Ball [00:34:18]:
It’s it’s a theological concept of, you know, Jesus defeating death and sin. Yeah. Even evil powers.

A.J. Mathieu [00:34:27]:
I agree.

Scott Ball [00:34:28]:
Yeah. Yeah.

A.J. Mathieu [00:34:29]:
Alright. There you go. Four points on how leadership dysfunction can hold back church growth and certainly church health. One has to come before the other. A healthy church will become a growing church, but not every growing church is a healthy church. So, we need to work on these in tandem. Alright. Scott, any last thoughts?

Scott Ball [00:34:51]:
Healthy churches toolkit. If you want some resources to get a shared vision, if you would like some leadership we have, like, vision audits, leadership audits. I think, maybe one thing that would be helpful, maybe just to wrap this up and to tie in the toolkit, is that sometimes these kinds of conversations can be difficult because they feel personal. And when you have a resource or a tool or an audit or an exercise, this is why having on-site consulting even is so helpful. But when you have something third party or external to go through, it depersonalizes it so then you can we can both be looking at something different. Like, we can be both be looking at the problem or the solution as collaborators rather than against one another. Yeah. And so, you know, I really do yes.

Scott Ball [00:35:48]:
I’d like for you to sign up for the toolkit, but it’s because there’s stuff in there that will help you. You download one of these audits, work on it together. Now we’re talking about the audit rather than talking at each other. And, that’s, I think, very valuable. So so definitely go to healthychurchestoolkit.com. And, again, we won’t tell any money if you sign up for free for seven days, get the things you need, and cancel. But there’s more in there than you can enjoy in seven days, so that’s why we want you to subscribe.

A.J. Mathieu [00:36:14]:
Be ashamed of you, but that’s okay. We’ve we made that available. That’s true. But, you know, this is actually though a really great point though, Scott. I guess we we didn’t build an application point into today’s episode, but this is, I think, this is certainly part of it. Having systems in place, we talked about that, having dysfunctional processes in the church that allow bad things to kind of take root. But having, a leadership pipeline that is designed to have people accountable and to have, evaluation points in place and training, is when things can be kind of nipped in the bud and not allowed to fester. So, the toolkit also has our training content for leadership pipeline design in there and, building that into your church where conversations can can happen and, you know, minor corrections can take place before they blow up is a really important aspect of a healthy church and one that is functioning well.

A.J. Mathieu [00:37:12]:
So jump in there and take advantage of it. This was Episode 279 of the Church Revitalization Podcast. So today’s show notes are at malphursgroup.com/279. Video is over on YouTube if you wanna see our smiling faces, and we are glad that you’re with us. We will be back again next week. We’ll see you then.

Scott Ball [00:37:31]:
That’s right. Hey, enjoy our let us know what you think about this different music.

A.J. Mathieu [00:37:37]:
Oh, I haven’t even heard it. I’m anxious. Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Ball [00:37:40]:
We might try out a few things. It’s been the same one for a long time. So let us know what you think about this. Here it comes right now.

A.J. Mathieu [00:37:46]:
Go play. Right now.