Where there are people there are power struggles. As a new pastor, I unknowingly waded into the middle of a scrum in one of my sermons. I was quickly informed, in no uncertain terms, whose turf I had infiltrated through my preaching. Every church has tribal chiefs who stake out their turf and expect to be consulted, at the very least, before anything happens in their areas of responsibility. Turf wars develop when the pastor or other leaders encroach on another’s turf. Even our sermons can threaten tribal chiefs.
TOP DOG OR UNDER DOG
Everett Shostrum wrote a seminal work in the 1970s on power and persuasion entitled Man the Manipulator: The Inner Journey from Manipulation to Actualization. He argued that all humans experience a hunger for power as part of our human nature. There is some manipulator in every person. Shostrum used a wheel to demonstrate eight different types of manipulators. The top half of the wheel he called “top dog” types. The bottom half of the wheel he called the “under dog” types. There are four top dog manipulators: the judge, the bully, the calculator, and the dictator. There are four under dog manipulators: the empathizer, the clinging vine, the nice guy, and the protector.
I see these types in our churches. They exert their influence in our ministries and we, as pastors, do the same. Tribal chiefs may be either top dog or under dog influencers. Pastors lead churches from both top dog and under dog types of influence. My experience has taught me over the years that top dogs tend to win the battles in the short-term. The under dogs tend to win the church fights in the long-term. Of course, winning the fight should not be the goal. The key is to learn to use our natural styles of influence to edify others for the good of the church, the mission of Christ, and the glory of God. We can turn manipulation into actualization (Shostrum’s word) or edification (our word) by minimizing ourselves and maximizing others.
PRINCIPLES
I have found that remembering certain principles helps me navigate the turf wars in church. The late Leslie Flynn wrote a book entitled When the Saints Come Storming In which I found helpful early in my ministry. He advocated that we distinguish between “bossism and leadership.” Bossism is not leadership. A boss demands his way without allowing any disagreement. A leader allows an occasional negative vote in the pursuit of greater goals (p.157). We all tend to relish control, to be in charge, but control has a shelf life. Bosses build bad teams. We must build teams that last if the church is to be successful. A church boss may get his/her way in the short term, but volunteers vote with their feet. They opt out of ministry. The team falls apart.
Manipulators are controllers. Christians learn to use spiritual language and sensitivity to hurt feelings to control decisions. “Nice guy” leaders protect their turf against change by claiming it will offend someone. How often have we heard the unverifiable claim that “many have told me they are upset” with the decision. Controllers need to be right, and when controllers clash the turf wars heat up. People need to give up the right to be right for the church to be effective. Mavericks stimulate ministry. Churches tend to marginalize mavericks because they disrupt ministries. Mavericks make controllers uncomfortable, but we need mavericks to provoke new ideas. A little discontentment with the status quo can energize ministry. We need to coach people up not out, as the saying goes, especially mavericks. Sometimes the solution is to separate people to multiply ministry. It is the Paul and Barnabas recipe for growth. As pastors, we try to move leaders into places where they can be the most effective for the growth of the church and the glory of God.
Turf wars leave battle scars, and any pastor who has been in a church very long carries the battle scars of ministry. We must be careful not to let those battle scars enter the pulpit lest we turn the sermon into a rant. There are times, of course, when a conflict becomes big enough, or the issue becomes important enough that we must address it from the pulpit. Most of the time, however, turf wars are best addressed privately. We need the discernment of the Spirit to know the difference.
