Wounded Minister

Guy Greenfield

Description

Every church deals with personality conflicts and intermittent discord. But in some churches, what should be normal clashes has become a devastating form of abuse-pastoral abuse. A growing phenomenon that cuts across denominational lines and impacts every level of ministry, pastoral abuse leaves in its wake thousands of wounded clergymen with ruined ministries, broken relationships, damaged health, even shattered faith.The Wounded Minister: Healing for Abused Clergy, written by a clinically trained pastoral counselor, examines the reality of evil in churches and the ways in which "pathological antagonists" emotionally and spiritually batter pastors. A deft mix of personal experience and in-depth research, this resource will help wounded men and women of all ministerial positions learn how to recover their broken hearts while rebuilding their lives. And as preventative medicine, it also provides guidelines on how spiritually sensitive Christians can develop a church structure that protects their pastors from this tragedy. Both compassionate and proactive, this book is an excellent resource for hurting pastors as well as lay leadership pursuing healthy church life.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2001
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781585584505
• Langue: English

Extrait

The
Wounded Minister
Books by Guy Greenfield
The Wounded Parent: Hope for Discouraged Parents
We Need Each Other: Reaching Deeper Levels in Our Interpersonal Relationships
Self-Affirmation: The Life-Changing Force of a Christian Self-Image
Families Practicing God s Love
Re-Igniting Love and Passion: 24 Marital Checkpoints
The
Wounded
Minister
Healing from and Preventing Personal Attacks
Guy Greenfield, Ph.D.
Foreword by Dr. Brooks Faulkner
2001 by Guy Greenfield
Published by Baker Books a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakerbooks.com
E-book edition created 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-for example, electronic, photocopy, recording-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-5855-8450-5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture is taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.
Names of people and churches and some specifics have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.
The internet addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers in this book are accurate at the time of publication. They are provided as a resource. Baker Publishing Group does not endorse them or vouch for their content or permanence.
To Shirley
Who taught me the healing power of laughter and joy
Contents
Foreword by Dr. Brooks Faulkner
Introduction
Part 1 The Reality of Abuse
1. Clergy Killers on the Loose
2. Pathological Antagonists in the Church
3. When Evil Invades the Church
4. The Minister s Greatest Enemy: Passive Lay Leaders
5. The Dangers of Autonomous Church Polity
6. Wrecking a Minister s Life and Career
7. Collateral Damage to Ministers
8. Collateral Damage to the Church
Part 2 Pathological Ministers
9. Ministers Who Invite Attack
10. Abuse from Pathological Ministers
Part 3 Recovery and Healing
11. A Ministers Advisory Council
12. Steps toward Healing for Abused Clergy
13. Recovering from Shattered Dreams
14. Wounded Healers
Afterword: Growing through Rejection
Notes
Recommended Reading
Foreword
This is not a book for the weak-hearted. It is a no-nonsense look at the hurts, pains, unadulterated anger, and ultimate redemption of a struggling minister who battled the demons within the church and within himself and won. It is a modern-day Howard Cosell who tells it like it is without shading it with diplomatic clich s and warm fuzzies. It is a Bunyanesque journey of a Christian s pilgrimage through the gates of a metaphorical Hades as a pastor and minister into the realm of forgiveness and understanding.
I found myself fighting the same villains as the author. I was angry along with him. I was insulted along with him. I was hurt along with him. I was humiliated along with him. I was lonely along with him. I was in despair along with him. The author has the gift of helping the reader crawl into the casket and feel the Lazarus pull that cancels the funeral and starts the wedding.
The Wounded Minister is cathartic. It takes the minister into surgery. It reveals the cancer. It displays the malignancy. But then it does what any good reading does. It helps the surgery succeed into potential spiritual health. The humanity of the author is not disguised. He sheds the sanctimonious shield of superficial spirituality and lets the reader see the raw ugliness that results when good people are hurt by bad intentions from unscrupulous church members. If you can read this book without feeling the catharsis of new passion and regeneration of personhood, you have long lost the sheer exuberance of eating ice cream.
This is also a story of Everyman in ministry. It is the minister who is terminated and struggles to find reasons why. It is the minister who is succeeding in every aspect of ministry but at the cost of self-respect, for not standing for the right things at the right time. It is the minister who is morally bankrupt but searching for new directions after admitting, All have sinned, but I never thought it would be me. It is a story of Everyman and a road to travel at the speed of Heinz, not the autobahn.
But it is a story of hope. At age sixty-two, when the walls crumbled and the author was all but terminated, he asked, What can a man expect at this age and at such a time as this? Financially pressed and with a bleak future, he fought back and now in his late sixties gives even more meaning to his life in the November and December years of his ministry. He takes us through the haze of forgiveness into the bright lights of purpose, meaning, and direction.
The author does not leave the reader hanging. He ties the knot so that the package will hold. His ultimate purpose is described pointedly in the introduction, where he says that the major purpose is for wounded ministers to recover from their shattered vocational dreams and to find their way back into an active and supportive ministry in the church or in one of its agencies. You should not put this book down until you have read chapters 11 through 14. The heart of recovery is there. Describing the malignancy is more than adequately done in the first ten chapters, but the genius of the book is in chapters 11 through 14.
Dr. Greenfield gives four strong remedies but the prescription prices are expensive: Restrengthen your faith, listen again to your call, be creative, and replace dysfunctional core beliefs. The prognosis is possible but the probability of passionate implementation may be questionable. The jury is still out, and only the strong willed among recovering ministers will adopt a new pattern of spiritual and psychological health.
Chapter 14 describes ways the wounded healer can become an encourager for one s fellow abused minister. Truly, ministers need each other.
Chapter 9 defines traits that tend to get the wounded minister in hot water. Neurosis is defined in terms of how the minister relates to others and also perceives himself. How can a minister deal with his own anger? What about narcissism? Is it reality or perception in the minds of those who are looking for ammunition to bring the minister down? And, also, can a church deal redemptively with the overly emotional (unstable) and attention-seeking minister? A salty look at the bully tendencies of some as well as the ADD (attention deficit disorder) minister makes captivating reading.
All those staff members who are not senior pastors will want to pay close attention to chapter 10, for it is in this chapter where the author answers the question for the reader, Who will battle for the common man (staff member) when abuse is apparent?
Then, almost as an afterthought but certainly a poignant afterthought, the author concludes in the afterword that the only reconstructive and redemptive process is to stop whining and get on with the call.
This is exciting reading. This is gripping drama. But it truly is the yellow brick road that leads back to Kansas. For the minister who is lost in the maze of self-destruction after a tornadic termination, this book is for you. For the counselor who is looking for pragmatic answers to inflammatory questions in a minister-client s life, this book is for you. For the wounded minister s spouse who is trying to understand what is going on, this book is for you too. And, just as important, for those church members who are trying to be conciliatory with their new pastor after taking termination detours with other pastors in their church, this book is for you.
Dr. Brooks Faulkner Senior Specialist, LeaderCare LifeWay Christian Resources Nashville, Tennessee
Introduction
Emotionally, this is a very difficult book for me to write. I am a wounded minister from the front ranks of the battle of church conflict. Although it has been a few years since I was wounded in the ministry, if I allow myself to think about it, I can still feel some anger over what I experienced. It should never have happened. I did not ask for it. I did not anticipate it. It just happened-gradually over a period of three years.
Today I can say that I have dealt with much of the bitterness I once felt and have risen above it by the grace of God. This book is an attempt to show others how to do this for themselves. However, I want to say up front, before exposing some of the harsh realities wounded ministers have faced, that most churches are full of wonderful and loving laypersons who care deeply for their ministers. The problems on which I am focusing are caused by a very small percentage of persons, yet these few cause horrendous damage in the life of the church. This book is an attempt to do something constructive about the abused and the abusers.
My Experience of Abuse
Looking back, I must admit that I was somewhat naive about how conflict and division take place in a church. I found myself at age fifty-nine being called to a church that had a history of conflict. Over a period of twenty-five years, this church had had seven ministers, not one of whom had had a pleasant exit. On my arrival there, I had no idea that I would become number eight. The pastor search committee had simply told me that they needed an older man with a lot of experience. I felt I qualified and they agreed. Ninety-six percent of the congregation voted to invite me to be their minister. I later learned that was the highest percentage of a vote they had ever given a minister.
Within my first year, I began to realize that I had made a very serious mistake. No one told me this; I simply began to read the signs of a long-standing conflicted atmosphere. One former member, an attorney,