Bullies
I don't like bullies. I never have. Growing up, my brother and his friend were often bullied by an older boy who lived on our street. One day, the big sister in me couldn't take it anymore. I decided to take matters in my own hands--I pushed the boy down and sat on him until the younger boys could get away. Not ten minutes later, the bully's mother came down to complain to my mother about my bullying her son. Somehow, I missed the parallels in my behavior and that of the bully, seeing myself instead as the heroine of the story. While my parents did not punish me, they did suggest that "an eye for an eye" (or, in this case, a push for a push) was not the most helpful response (toward empowering my brother or inviting the bully toward more reflective behavior).
Several years later, another group of boys tried to bully my youngest brother, I was prepared with questions:
- Who bullied you? Who taught you to beat up on younger boys?
- What do you get out of this?
- Does bullying really make you feel better about yourself?
In truth, I think they found the questions much more painful to deal with.
Of course, the reality is that bullying is a learned behavior. Those who bully have been bullied themselves. In many cases, the wounds run so deep, the one who bullies doesn't even see the behavior. Without intervention--without an experience of God's love--we do unto others what has been done unto us.
Recently, Thom Rainer of Lifeway Ministries listed nine traits of bullying behavior:
1 -- They do not recognize themselves as bullies. To the contrary, they see themselves as necessary heroes sent to save the church from her own self.
2 -- They have personal and self-serving agendas. They have determined what "their" church should look like. Any person or ministry or program that is contrary to their perceived ideal church must be eliminated.
3 -- They seek to form power alliances with weak members in the church. They will pester and convince groups, committees, and persons to be their allies in their cause. Weaker church staff members and church members will succumb to their forceful personalities.
4 -- They tend to have intense and emotional personalities. These bullies use the intensity of their personalities to get their way.
5 -- They are famous for saying "people are saying." They love to gather tidbits of information and shape it to their own agendas.
6 -- They find their greatest opportunities in low expectation churches. Many of the church members have an entitlement view of church membership. They seek to get their own needs and preferences fulfilled. They, therefore, won't trouble themselves to confront and deal with church bullies. That leads to the next issue, which is a consequence of this point
7 -- They are allowed to bully because church members will not stand up to them. I have spoken with pastors and church staff who have been attacked by church bullies. While the bully brings them great pain, they have even greater hurt because most of the church members stood silent and let it happen.
8 -- They create chaos and wreak havoc. A church bully always has his next mission. While he or she may take a brief break from one bullying mission to the next, they are not content unless they are exerting the full force of their manipulative behavior.
9 -- They often move to other churches after they have done their damage. Whether they are forced out or simply get bored, they will move to other churches with the same bullying mission. Some bullies have wreaked havoc in three or more churches.
(For the full article: http://thomrainer.com/2015/03/30/nine-traits-church-bullies/).
When I share this list with church people, they often nod their heads in recognition. Deep down, we know when somebody is behaving like a bully. My question is, why do we allow the behavior to continue? For the care of both the individual and the whole, bullying behaviors need to be named and stopped!
My prayer is that, as we move beyond the heresy of niceness, we will come to understand the power of love made visible through accountable relationships.
With love in Christ,
Debbie Rundlett General Presbyter
Holy Habit: Stop Bullying in Your Church Rather than wringing hands in distress, Thom Rainer offers the following antidote to bullying in congregations: - Fight bullying with the power of prayer. The most common targets of church bullies are the pastor and church staff. I encourage everyone in vocational ministry to ask humbly for people to pray for them daily. In two of the churches where I served as pastor, I had as many as 100 or more people committed to pray for me daily. They typically prayed for me for only two or three minutes each day at noon. Their intercessory prayers for me were brief, but they were powerful!
- Seek to have an Acts 6 group in the church. I am specifically referring to the manner in which the Jerusalem church dealt with murmuring and complaining. They appointed a group to take care of the widows who were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. The seven who were appointed to the task were thus not only to do that ministry, but they were also to preserve the unity of the church. Churches need either informal or formal groups that see their ministry as dealing with conflict, complaints, and dissension so that unity is preserved.
- Have a high expectation church. I have addressed the issues of high expectation churches and low expectation churches many times on this blog. Higher expectation churches tend to be more unified, more Great Commission focused, more biblically defined, and more servant oriented. Stated simply, high expectation churches don't offer an environment conducive to bullying.
- Encourage members to speak and stand up to church bullies. Bullying thrives in a church where the majority remains in silent fear of church bullies. Bullies tend to back down when confronted by strong people in the church. We just need more strong people in the church.
- Make certain the polity of the church does not become a useful instrument to church bullies. Many churches have ambiguous structures and lines of accountability. Polity is weak and ill-defined. Bullies take advantage of the ambiguity and interpret things according to their nefarious needs.
- Be willing to exercise church discipline. Church discipline is a forgotten essential of many churches. Bullies need to know there are consequences for their actions, and church discipline may be one of them.
- Have a healthy process to put the best-qualified persons in positions of leadership in the church. Bullies often are able to push around less qualified people who have found themselves in positions of leadership. There should be a spiritually and strategically designed process to choose and recruit people for key leadership positions.
- Have a healthy process to hire church staff. For example, an egregious mistake would be the church's hiring of a senior staff member without the enthusiastic support of the pastor. If the pastor and new staff member do not have good chemistry, a church bully can quickly pit one against the other. A unified church staff is a major roadblock for a church bully.
- Encourage a celebratory environment in the church. Joyous churches deter bullies. They like somber and divided churches.
How might you (and others) apply these antidotes to the life and ministry of your congregation? Spend some time in prayer and conversation with your pastor and leaders and commit to practicing at least one of the antidotes above.
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