I have had the privilege of attending our current church for about twenty-three years. In that time, I have seen the congregation of around one thousand people regularly functioning as the hands and feet of Jesus in desperate times. Some have lost all their worldly possessions in a matter of hours due to house fires, and many have lost loved ones, some even to suicide. Others have been financially devastated by a crisis that seems to have come out of the blue. Life can be brutal. Yet, our church has rallied around the hurting and lavished sacrificial love in those moments.<\/p>\n
This time, the church was doing it again with a single mother named \u201cSally\u201d. Sally was no stranger to difficult circumstances. Her former husband was no longer actively engaged in the lives of their three kids, who were in grade school and middle school. Thankfully, her parents lived in the house next door and were able to help keep life as \u201cnormal\u201d as possible. \u00a0Normal, that is, until Sally got a devastating cancer diagnosis. After the initial shock wore off, the meal trains and fundraisers started. Keeping money coming in for the family would be an uphill battle. There would be medical expenses, kids’ sports, mortgage payments, normal life expenses, and seemingly endless airplane trips to Seattle for treatment. But the church stood ready for the challenge.<\/p>\n
Sky miles were donated to cover the cost of regular airline tickets. Individuals volunteered to chauffeur the kids to school and extracurricular activities, and others met Sally in Seattle to help her manage daily treatments while there. The Senior Pastor and his wife, whose children were grown and out of the house, invested deeply in the process by taking an active parenting role in the children’s lives, even to the point of signing adoption papers in the case of her passing. Day after day, year after year, the church poured into a dire situation. There were glimmers of hope. Through her story, people were coming to faith, and God was beginning to work miraculously with her health!<\/p>\n
One morning, the staff was unexpectedly called into a back room at the church for a mandatory meeting. In my heart, I knew that Sally must have passed away the night before. The mood in the room was one of utter defeat as we sat there waiting for the Pastor to come in. As he walked in, it was evident that he was exhausted and emotionally beaten down. He looked up at the staff with an empty face and said, \u201cIt is all lies\u201d. We all sat there, confused. What was lies? \u201cAll of it\u201d, he said, continuing, \u201cSally does not have cancer or any other physical ailment, and she never did.\u201d But this did not make sense. I personally saw the skin rashes from treatment. I was in the house notarizing paperwork for adoption while listening to her labored breathing. I had seen her hair loss, bruises, and seizures. Or at least that was what she wanted us all to see and think. Come to find out, we had all been duped.<\/p>\n
Sally had harmed herself to appear as though she was sick and receiving treatment. She had spent weeks, if not months, of her life sitting in hospital waiting rooms after her chauffeur dropped her off for \u201ctreatment\u201d. Never seeing a doctor, never experiencing healing, and never leading anyone to Christ through her story. The Pastor was crushed, the congregation was confused, and no one knew who they could trust.<\/p>\n
During that time, I was the Chairman of the Deacon Body, who, according to the By-Laws, was responsible for addressing substantial grievances against the Senior Pastor. But because no one thought that would ever happen in our church, I was also on staff. People began to bring their grievances regarding my boss to me. In the book A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, <\/em>the author references this as an Emotional Triangle.[1]<\/a> In my case, the church members (person A) had an issue with the Pastor (person B). In their minds, he had perpetuated a lie, and now I (person C) needed to do something about it. Unfortunately, I was caught in the middle. I was responsible for addressing the issue with my boss but lacked the power to do anything about it. The weight of the stress was crushing.<\/p>\n The deeper I became enmeshed in the relationship of all the A(s) and the B, the worse the situation and stress became. At the time, I did not know what was happening to me, but I began having deep panic attacks and significant derealization. All the while, I was failing to be the savior of the problem. In hindsight, almost everything went wrong.<\/p>\n Eventually, I crashed due to emotional burnout. I did not leave the house for almost three months. I became severely afraid of being alone, the dark, the wind, the sun, bees, germs\u2026I could barely function, and I honestly thought I was days away from the mental hospital. The last 18 months have been a long journey back from that dark place. But God used that refining time to grow me.[8]<\/a><\/p>\n I still reside in liminality regarding how a leader can be engaged and differentiated simultaneously. Still, I look forward to continued digestion of this book despite what feels like PTSD whenever I pick it up. Nonetheless, I am thankful that He is using this class to bring clarity to my heavy experience.<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Edwin H. Friedman and Peter Steinke, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix (10th Anniversary, Revised Edition)<\/em> (La Vergne, UNITED STATES: Church Publishing, Incorporated, 2017). 221.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Friedman and Steinke.2.3<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Friedman and Steinke. 194.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Friedman\u2019s Theory of Differentiated Leadership – Made Simple<\/em>, 2015, https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=FaifIIeQC9k.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Friedman and Steinke, A Failure of Nerve<\/em>. 70.<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> Redeemer Book Club: A Failure of Nerve<\/em>, 2023, https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2QcZ_Hi7A2E.<\/p>\n [7]<\/a> Friedman and Steinke, A Failure of Nerve<\/em>. 92.<\/p>\n\n