Dealing With Disruptive Individuals

With a united group of elders, it is possible to establish boundaries with individuals who are being disruptive.

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Integrating Divergent People
I once had a church member—actually, a non-member but informally, a member—who was Shepherd’s Rod. He went to a Sabbath School class where the teacher knew how to handle his doctrinal divergences, and, after potluck, argued theology with the Caribbean brethren in a patois so thick no one else could understand them. But he was also one of my hardest-working ‘members’; sometimes, it was just me, him, and the head elder out swinging hammers on our addition early on a Sunday morning.

As pastors, we are in the business of opening the doors to let individuals into the church; it doesn’t come naturally to us to close doors behind them on the way out. From the beginning of my ministry, I have been able to successfully integrate people into my congregations with all manner of discrepancies relative to their Adventist community, doctrinal and practical, by putting in place one or two simple boundaries and remaining flexible with the rest.   Individuals in the church are not being disruptive simply because they have their differences with the church community but are still able and willing to operate within the bounds set by the community and its leaders. Individuals become disruptive when, for whatever reason, they demonstrate that they cannot or will not do so.

And by “whatever reason,” I mean that those reasons do not come in neat packages that accord with our views of correct doctrine and practice. Sometimes, the people most theologically obsessed with God’s grace can be ungracious in the extreme. And, as George R. Knight has been known to quip: “I have even known vegetarians who are meaner than the devil.”

Basic Expectations

Before dealing with an individual who is actually being disruptive, I establish a baseline of expectations around how to handle conflict. It is my job to do this because as the pastor, I have the overall stewardship of the purpose of my church. And my church—not to mention myself—cannot be who we are called to be and do what we are called to do if we are being disrupted. Entering into conflict to resolve disruptions is part of how we “bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” to love one another as he loved us (Gal 6:2; compare John 15:12).

One of the first conversations that I now have when I get to a new church is with the head elder, then the elders, and then the board about Matthew 18 and so forth. Along with the expectation that we will forbear with each other’s foibles and annoyances so that church life doesn’t turn into one long grievance session, I begin by giving permission to confront me if I am crossing any lines. I clarify that I expect that no one, including myself, will get their way in the church all the time. If the leaders adopt this expectation, we can extend it to the church members in general.

I teach differentiated leadership by pointing out that only the Holy Spirit should get his way in the church all the time, and it’s the job of the rest of us to try to listen to what He is saying, including through what our fellows are saying. By this, I attempt to establish through example how I want leaders to respect boundaries with themselves by not over-identifying themselves with the church and among each other by operating within our scopes of responsibility in the church, so that we can seek consensus and resolve disputes when they inevitably arise.

General Disruption
Sometimes the whole church is in a state of general disruption because these principles have not been followed and power-networks allowed to develop, often over generations. In my first district, I asked my churches do a Natural Church Development evaluation after my first year, and the report from one came back with a Loving Relationships percentile in the single digits. This was the result of conflicts between the two major families in the church that went back to people who were no longer even alive.

So, I did an expectation clarifying exercise. I asked the church whether they wanted to work on the problem, or whether they wanted me to just preach, visit, etc., and direct my extra energies into the other church in the district. They chose to change, but during the course of that change, we lost four families who held multiple board positions due to various reasons.

I thought that I might have just killed my church, but then an aphorism that my college professor, Errol Lawrence, taught us became real to me: “Everyone is irreplaceable, but no one is indispensable.” It is not infrequently the case that the most disruptive people in one area of church life can be the most productive in other areas of church life. And they get away with violating boundaries because of their productivity; their relationship with the church community is therefore transactional.  

Addressing Conflict
But it turns out that when a few people are allowed to pee in the pool, pretty soon the only people who want to join them in that water are people who also want to be free to pee in the pool. However, the reverse is also true. After I had addressed conflict in my church and guided it toward a consensus on how it would be handled going forward, people who had been sitting quietly on the sidelines of the congregation came forward to do the work of those who had left.

With a group of elders united under these principles, it is possible to establish boundaries with individuals who are being disruptive. The elders, after establishing the capability to do so, are often the best people to have the difficult conversations that need to be had—not least because they can often have more influence with people they have known for longer than the pastor, but also because this frees up the pastor from “hovering over the church.” I have also found that elders are the best group to take the lead in this work when I or my family become involved in a conflict with a church member (or vice versa), so that there is no accusation of self-interest. And, if the matter ends up before the church board or business meeting, the elders can speak with moral authority to the situation and help build consensus around the wisest course.

On a very few occasions, as the one with overall stewardship for the purpose for which the local church was called together, I have had to firmly close the door behind someone, sometimes via a legal instrument like a trespass notice or restraining order. But it was always because the community and its leadership understood that this is the only way to maintain the boundaries that are indispensable to our purpose. And (except where there was a threat of physical harm) it was always with a line of communication open in the hope that the individuals would be softened by the Spirit and restored to Christ’s body.

David Hamstra is Lead Pastor of the Edmonton Central Seventh-day Adventist Church and Managing Editor of Best Practices for Adventist Ministry.