Most people, pastors and laypeople alike, become disappointed with their church. It’s inevitable. People are flawed and since churches are made up of people, churches are flawed. If we’re not careful, though, this disappointment can turn into discouragement, frustration and anger.

So if disappointment is inevitable, how do we avoid the awful emotional turmoil that often follows? One word: expectations.

The reason we become discouraged is due to the mental expectations we set for people in church. Let me ask you a question: In the deepest recesses of your heart, what do you expect from the people in your church? Do you expect them to behave properly all the time? Do you expect them to always act spiritually mature? Do you expect them to never offend others? If we’re honest, we often set higher standards for others than we do for ourselves. We give ourselves leeway because we judge ourselves by our motives, but we judge others by their actions.

I was recently telling a friend about a person in my church who disappointed me. I took it very personally and was becoming discouraged. Then my friend asked me, “Is the church a gathering of saintly people, or a hospital for the spiritually sick?” That question frankly reminded me that my expectations of church people are sometimes unrealistic.

I was disappointed by this church person and thinking to myself things like:

• “How dare he ______________?”
• “He should know better than to _______________.”
• “What was he thinking when he _____________?”

This line of thinking was quickly causing me to spiral downward from disappointment to discouragement.  But my friend’s question helped me remember that church people are flawed people. And flawed people blow it sometimes.

The bottom line of my post today is simple: if your expectation is that the church is a hospital for spiritually sick people , you’ll be emotionally ready for disappointments.  But if you always expect the church to be a gathering of saintly-mature-people, you’ll be emotionally vulnerable to discouragement.

This doesn’t mean we let people off the hook or never hold people accountable.  This certainly doesn’t mean that we should not disciple people to maturity. That’s another conversation altogether.

The point of today’s post isn’t to address the spiritual growth of others. Instead it’s meant to address our own emotional readiness for disappointment.

Remember:  People will let you down, but don’t let it get you down.

Recently I had a church consultant say something most pleasant while simultaneously disturbing to me: “Alan, you really have that ’nice guy factor’. Not a lot of senior pastors have that.”

I deeply appreciated the compliment, but I was saddened by the follow-up statement that few senior pastors are nice guys. After processing my friends sentiment for a few days, I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t necessarily agree that most pastors are not nice guys. Yet after flipping through the mental Rolodex of pastors I know, I was sadly reminded that some of us really aren’t all that nice. Some are downright arrogant, mean and self-centered. I was also reminded that there have been many times in my own experience when I’ve been that way myself.

So why do we not always have the  ”nice guy factor”?

Some of us have been wounded. Wounds in ministry are many and often they are unavoidable. Betrayals, gossip, cynicism, false-accusations, power-grabs and complaints are things that can discourage us and over time can even wear us down to the point of breaking.

Help for wounded pastors:  Go to counseling and read The Search For Significance by Robert S. McGee, especially the parts focusing on BLAME.  Pastors, we are much nicer people when we forgive others quickly and stop looking at others with suspicion.  Pray that God will help heal your wounds and teach you to forgive those who’ve hurt you.

Some of us are insecure. Insecurity kills pastors and we often don’t even recognize it. When we are insecure we look to things like numbers and approval to make us feel better. When numbers are down and/or approval is absent (or complaints are present), we become more and more discouraged. When we are insecure as pastors, we may be afraid to let others speak from “our” pulpits (as if the platform is ours instead of God’s). We feel threatened when someone on our staff outperforms us or when the church down the street is growing faster than ours. Insecurity makes us speak negatively of others and makes us look for the worst in others. We do this because it makes us feel better about ourselves.

Help for insecure pastors: Go to counseling and read The Search For Significance by Robert S. McGee, especially the parts about the performance trap, approval-addiction, and shame. We are much more pleasant when we see the best in others and find confidence in the fact of our forgiveness in Christ. This breeds a God-confidence that is inspiring to others and empowering to us. Insecurity will rot away at you like a cancer: deal with it quickly!

Some of us have succumbed to the “business-creep”.  What do I mean?  ”Business-creep” is when books and best-practices from the business sector begin to influence the way we lead our churches more than the servant-leadership of Christ in the Bible.  PLEASE HEAR ME: I’m not saying business books and practices are bad. Some of my favorite business books are Good to Great, The Advantage, The Speed of Trust, Inside the Magic Kingdom, First Break all the Rules and Entreleadership. I’m a firm believer that all truth is God’s truth, so we should implement the truths we learn from the business arena. However, we should never let the principles of business trump the principles of Christ-likeness.  As pastors we can sometimes put the bottom line before people. That makes us unlikable, but it also makes us sinners. When we treat human-resources like resources instead of humans, we err on the side of worldliness and that breaks the heart of God. We must not allow the “business-creep” cause us to harm people.

Help for Pastors who struggle with the “business-creep”:  Read Love Works by Joel Manby.  This unique business book is written from the belief that the best business model is built on 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. It’s a powerful book about the way Biblical love can and should shape us as leaders. Biblical love is not “soft”, so it addresses hiring and firing from the perspective of grace and love. This is a book that all of us as pastors need to read and implement. By doing so, we will be more capable leaders who are at the same time attractive to others for the sake of Christ.

The bottom line for me is this: Pastors have an obligation to have the “nice guy factor”. This doesn’t mean we should avoid tough conversations or tough decisions. Rather, it means we embrace and approach those things with Christ-likeness. When we’re mean, cruel, angry, untrusting, arrogant or rude we do a great diservice to the Kingdom of God. Pastors, we are influencers. Nice guys influence positively. Not-nice guys do the opposite.