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Regime Change In the mid-eighties when the hapless Detroit Lions of the National Football League were having yet another year of spectacular underachievement, Coach Darryl Rogers (18-40 with the Lions) once banged around the clubhouse and shouted, “What does a guy have to do to get fired around here?” The past 24 months have been the season of regime change. In 2001, CEO turnover was 55 percent ahead of the year before. Some execs have left willingly, more than glad to turn the reins of leadership over to another. Others, not so willingly. Ken Lay of Enron is gone. james Goodwin crashed and burned at United Airlines, and Glen Tilton is now trying to keep the company aloft. In Congress both Senate Majority Leader Tom Dasehle and House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt have already faded into the mists of congressional history. The loudest cry for regime change has come from Bush-Blair-Cheney Trinity — a cowboy, a pretty boy and a doughboy — who want to topple Saddam Hussein and install a kinder/gentler government in its place. In this ethos of unrest, it’s not surprising that pastors are more sensitive to whisperings and murmurings behind the curtains of the palace, sacristy or fellowship hall. Perhaps I’m next, one wonders nervously. All pastoral relationships someday come to an end. But how does one know when the end approacheth? Sometimes you can’t see the coup coming. One pastor friend shared his story: “A member stopped by the church one day on some business, and noticing me in my office, stopped in to tell me that her father had died. He lived in another state, and she was getting ready to head there for the funeral and to take care of arrangements. I responded by telling her how sorry I was for her, wished her a safe journey and promised to keep her in my thoughts and prayers. “Somehow, whatever I said apparently did not strike her as ‘sensitive enough,’ and thereafter she began spreading unrest — in the hope that there’d be a pastoral change. To this day, I’m not sure what she was expecting. Did she want me to break down and cry? I don’t know. But from that day forward, I was on her hit list. “While I did not move for a few years, and did not move because of her, she was one person I was glad to leave behind when I finally did move on.” Such experiences are not uncommon. You know what I’m talking about. When you’ve got a few people in your congregation who believe you’re the ecclesiastical equivalent to Saddam Hussein, you can protest all you want, but there will be Sunday inspections and hard-liners who think your sermons are weapons of “mass” destruction. War inevitably follows. Even the apostle Paul felt the sting of criticism. People nodded off during his sermons. He was hard to understand. He stirred up controversy wherever he went, and some questioned his ordination credentials. Paul countered these criticisms vigorously, refusing monetary relief, preferring to support himself with his tent-making rather than be beholden to the very people he was charged to instruct, admonish and nurture in the faith. Pastors today, however, have pitched their tents in the sanctuary and rely on the congregation for support. When the opportunity for better compensation arises, it is hard not to hear the voice of God calling us to take a step “up” the ecclesiastical ladder. Let’s face it: Money is frequently a factor when pastors consider a regime change. This may work in surprising ways. One pastor I know has been with his current congregation for 15 years, and has no plans to leave because his wife has such a lucrative position in the professional world. So, barring a palace revolt, this congregation is stuck. A friend in the corporate world said he thought that the difficulty of pastoral transfers lay in the nature of the “profession.” “In my world,” he said, “no one thinks much about it if the CEO walks in one day and announces that he’s found a better job (often he says ‘a more challenging position’) and that the Board of Directors needs to look for someone else. And eyebrows are seldom raised when a Board of Directors decides they need new leadership. It’s the nature of the beast.” The relationship between pastor and people is different. In my conversations with both laity and clergy the metaphor of marriage continually leaked into the conversation. Pastors about to depart feel like they are jilting their lover, or abandoning their spouse. This is especially true since in many denominations, pastoral transfers take place only after a certain amount of sneaking around involving clandestine rendezvous in out-of-state locations. Later, the pastor returns — however briefly — with the flush of love fresh on his face, pretending that everything is okay. The congregation feels the pain as well. One lady, the moderator of her church, said that it’s possible on one level to be happy for the pastor, but “the ‘getting there’ is disturbing. A pastor being called away to another church is a bit like being rejected: You feel like a jilted lover. And while you may be quite happy with the new pastor in your life, you wonder when he or she, too, will spurn you for another suitor.” The professionalization of the pulpit has made it more difficult for pastors to recall their calling. We think of ourselves as being in a profession and as having a “career.” Better to preach like Coach Rogers coaches: Do your best, let the chips fall where they may, and wonder what you have to do to get fired.
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