Church leaders need skills to deal with difficult people

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Biblical Recorder: Journal of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina

Friday, July 17, 1998
Church leaders need skills to deal with difficult people

Church membership rosters offer a buffet of personalities.

A wire report
Church membership rosters offer a buffet of personalities, and just as some foods can be found disagreeable, so it is with personalities.

Avoiding difficult people is impossible for a person in a church staff position, according to Brooks Faulkner of the pastor-staff leadership department at LifeWay Christian Resources (formerly the Sunday School Board).

Faulkner led a "Dealing With Difficult Church Members" session during the National Conference for Church Leadership at Ridgecrest Conference Center, June 26-July 3.

Personalities come in all flavors, according to Faulkner, who offered church staffers participating in the workshop several ways to deal with them.

Before listing ways to deal with difficult people, he told them what types of personalities to watch out for.

"We're all a little bit crazy, and everyone in this room displays some of all these personality types," he said. "But the more we understand them, the easier it is for God to work through us more to deal with these people."

Faulkner described difficult people in "church language." They are the:

Behind-the-back movers. "They never come out front. They take their agendas around to their allies and come at you from behind."

I'm-in-chargers. "These are not just movers, but shakers. They are tough to the point of intimidation. If you do something they don't like, you're in trouble."

Blockers (or "We're not growing"). "The truth is, they don't want to grow. They talk like they really do care about the church," but the place of no growth is comfortable for them, Faulkner said.

Pacers ("I'm right behind you preacher"). "These are the clinging vines. They are like infants with a ravenous appetite and total lack of responsibility."

Front-and-centers. "These are...people who need to be up front. They want to be the soloist every Sunday. They need to use their gifts for God."

Faulkner offered several ways church staff people could deal with difficult people without losing their cool.

1. Never wrestle with a pig. "You both get dirty, and the pig likes it. You don't want to get to a place where you become like them."

2. Love them. "Go back to God's greatest commandment. Love those difficult church members like you love yourself. Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate."

3. Listen to them. "The easiest way to diffuse a difficult church member sometimes is just to listen to them. Give them a platform where they are comfortable talking."

4. If you're wrong, admit it. "The hardest thing to say in a Baptist church is, 'I was wrong; you were right. Can you forgive me?'"

5. Forgive them.

6. Don't put them down. "If you put them down, you elevate your own leadership absurdity."

7. Don't try to change them. "You can't change them, God can. If you want to try, you're in for a long ride."

"Never forget God's promise," Faulkner told the leaders. "For we know in everything, God is working to bring about his good." (BP)

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