Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Well, toxic church leaders are an enormous issue and it's one of the primary reasons why people leave churches nowadays. In this conversation, we want to unpack twelve red flags that pastors need to watch out for to make sure we're not becoming toxic church leaders. Let's do this.
You're listening to the Reach Right podcast, the show dedicated to helping your church to reach more people and grow.
Hey guys, I'm Thomas.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: And I'm ian.
[00:00:31] Speaker A: And today we're talking about red flags specifically with church leaders. Twelve traits of Toxic Church Leaders to be watching out for. So I wish we didn't have to do these kinds of episodes.
I guess we don't have to, but it is something that I think is a worthy conversation. I feel like that we're seeing more and more. There's tons of podcasts out there that are dedicated to firsthand accounts of terrible experiences at the hands of pastors and abusive church leaders and those things. And so I think we do this podcast mostly for pastors, the Retriete podcast. We are dedicated to helping pastors and church leaders reach more people and grow. So chances are you're a church leader, so it's things that maybe you need to watch out for. And I got to tell you, as we were creating this list and coming up with some of the ideas, I know, and I think most of us will find that there's some of these things that we're tempted towards or at least struggle with and some maybe not. So I imagine that as we go through this list, you'll find that maybe you relate to some or some things that you're maybe pricked a little bit about. Things you need to be watching out for in your own heart. And yeah, I think it should be a good conversation to unpack and things that people are looking at to signs of toxic church leaders.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: Right.
[00:01:51] Speaker C: And though there's obviously some negatives to all this, the positive is that it's helpful. It's like you said, something for ministry leaders to check themselves with or maybe just something that they may not realize is happening within leadership of their church. So we're glad to at least provide some checks and balances for folks in ministry out there.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I want to say this as we start out too, though, so we're coming at this from a place of love for the church.
I believe that the church is the best hope of the world. The only hope is through the church because Jesus declares that he's going to build the church and this is the method that God is going to use to reach the world is the church. And so this is from a position of love for the church. I know that a lot of these basically, the documentaries and things that are out there about your Mars hills or your hillsong New York or any of those, they're taken from a position of making the church look bad in a lot of ways. And it left me with some of those negative tastes in my mouth, I guess. So I want to preface this by saying that we love pastors, we love the church, and we know that pastors are human at the same time. And so I think in the end, very rarely are people intentionally doing a lot of these things. It's just something that naturally happens out of our human nature, rising up when we're trying to lead our church as well. I think most of us have the best intentions, but all of us, if we're being really honest, have fallen victim to doing some of these kinds of things. So we love you. We do this out of love, not because we dislike the church. So we say it with that preference. Let me kick it off. Thomas the first one is a lack of accountability unaccountability to anyone.
This is especially a problem within churches because by their very nature, they're really not set up well for that. When you have a person of spiritual authority, you have to be really intentional about finding people to be accountable with in your own life there. So most of the time, churches have some kind of a set up for this. Whether they call them elders or a board or a council or deacons or some combination of all of those different titles there there is something built in that should be holding pastors accountable. But I find in a lot of cases that it's hard to make that actually happen in a practical manner. So in addition to the natural ones that churches should have, I think pastors need individual people that they're accountable to. Oftentimes it's best to have these people outside of your church, because if you're trying to pastor someone and you're having to disclose things that maybe you're struggling with or things you need to be held accountable on, it's hard to have someone that you're pastoring and you're their shepherd to be the person that's holding you accountable at the same time. So the sheep don't do a good job of holding the shepherd accountable, let's put it that way. There you go. That's a good way to we do think this is something to be watching out for. If you are part of a church and you notice that it seems like the pastor really isn't accountable to anybody, that is one of those big red flags. So as a pastor, you want to be watching out for that and making sure that not only are you accountable to someone, but that your church knows that you have accountability structures in place that's really important.
[00:05:07] Speaker C: Yeah, no, that's good. And nothing much to add there. And I think that's actually a good transition into the next one, is to watch out for manipulation. Is someone on your staff or your pastor kind of using scripture, emotions or spiritual language to benefit them or steer things the direction that they want to go, rather than using those things for guidance and teaching and all of that.
You want to make sure that because I think that's one of the things that's unique about pastoral leadership is that you have God's word in the Bible to kind of refer to and sometimes misuse for your own benefit. That's something that's unique to pastoral leadership. So something to watch out for there for sure here's.
[00:05:57] Speaker A: The thing about manipulation is that I've never met or even heard of a case where someone looked at the Bible and said, I'm going to use this to manipulate people. I'm going to try and get my way by using the scripture and twisting it. It's something that happens much more naturally.
My wife and I have this thing where we like to watch anything that's cult related. So we'll watch Netflix documentaries about cults or find them on YouTube, whatever it would be. But that's one of our things. But I always wonder this question of, like, did the cult leader actually believe what he was saying?
Is he or she? I guess usually it's a he, but did he really believe this stuff or was he just actually that evil that he was manipulating this to actually do it? And I don't really know the answer to that, but I think for the vast majority of Christian pastors, I've never run into a case where someone knows that they're intentionally manipulating someone with scripture. But you become so accustomed to it and you turn a blind eye to it a lot of ways. And so that's why we use this term of red flags. It should be something that grabs your attention if you sense some of that manipulation happening there.
[00:07:05] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:07:07] Speaker A: Next one. One that, if I'm being honest, I can tend to struggle with is a lack of empathy. I think when you're within the church, sometimes as a leader, you become desensitized to a lot of the things that happen in the life of people that are within your church. When you're dealing with affairs every week and you're dealing with death in people's families and all those things, if you're dealing with it every single day, you forget sometimes that these are monumental life moments that happen for people once in a lifetime that are totally earth shattering for them. And sometimes it can be hard to really gain that empathy. It has to be something that comes from inside and from the Lord, but he needs to renew us sometimes and give us that sense of empathy. I'm reminded of how Jesus wept over Lazarus's death. He had a strong sense of empathy that he had that we need to emulate in that same way. And if we're not able to do that, that can be kind of a red flag. So, pastors, remember that while it may be something that's commonplace for you to deal with this, it is the first time in a lot of people's lives that they're dealing with, some of these tragedies that they're going through in their lives. And we do well to remember that the same way Jesus did.
[00:08:20] Speaker C: Yeah, and you may have said this, maybe not, but I think too, what comes to mind is that pastors will deal with people going through those earth shattering things in their life. So, like you said, marriage, death, whatever it would be. And even though you've dealt with it over and over again, it's probably the first time they have.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:37] Speaker C: So you've always got to kind of remind yourself of that.
And I get it know as a leader, sometimes you do put emotions aside and you got to stick to the vision and the course. And I think there's a balance with all of that and not acquiescing to all of the emotions. But you can't forget, like you just said, Jesus was a great example. He wept for Lazarus. You can't forget to empathize with humans and their emotions and what they're dealing with. So I think that's good. Thomas the next one would be constant need for control. So that's something to watch out want. We're for pastors being able to lead and make decisions. We've seen a lot of pastors that know one of the things that breaks my heart is there's a lot of pastors not allowed to lead enough and make decisions that will benefit their church. I've seen that for years. But at the same time, is your pastor reluctant to delegate things out? Do they need to be involved in every decision? Do they resist when others want to kind of take the lead on certain things? Those are things to watch out for.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a good point. We see this in going both ways. So we do see a lot of the pastors that are hamstrung by people that are not letting him or her control anything in the ministry. So when it comes down to just really minutiae, it seems like of things that shouldn't really matter and someone could make a decision. Even a low level employee at any other organization would make this decision, but they limit the pastor from doing it. So watch out for that. But also there is the other end of the spectrum where a pastor, the term we would use in the business world is a micromanager where they're like in control and watching and their finger on every single thing.
I think we all have some of those kinds of tendencies when they're things that we care about, that's just a sign that he probably really cares about the church a lot. But when it gets to be something that is just really prevalent, it can be a red flag.
[00:10:39] Speaker C: Yes, that's agreed.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: Next one is an ego driven pastor.
This, I think, is common and especially in those fast growing kind of churches because there's advantages in some ways and the world gives us advantages, at least on the surface. To having an ego driven pastor. When a pastor. It's not good in the long run, for sure. But you could grow a ministry and just like you can grow a business if you have a really high, ego driven kind of a person that really wants to make a name for themselves and get themselves out there and get the church name out there because their identity is tied to what's going on at the church. This can work for results, but in the end, when it's all about that person, that is a huge red flag, because that never ends well. It always comes crashing down. When it was about that person and their ego that was getting built up, the moment that they have a slip up or they step back from anything like this, or something takes them out of the ministry for a while, or they go on a vacation, that immediately everything falls off a cliff at that point. So watch out for that. That's a big red flag.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: That's good.
[00:11:50] Speaker C: The next one is resistance to feedback. So it goes along right with that last point.
Is your pastor or ministry leader open to getting constructive criticism?
Or does it always turn to blaming someone else? Are they always right and everyone's wrong? So that's obviously the word that comes to mind, which we know is so important for all of us as not just pastors, but believers to have is humility.
So that's one sign of a lack of humility is resistance to feedback or critique or improvement and so on. So that's definitely something to watch out for and be on the lookout for.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: For sure.
[00:12:32] Speaker A: Yeah, that's something we've tried to instill here at Retriete, is that we have an openness to feedback. And I remember when you and I kind of first started out in working together, Ian, years ago. It's painful, right, to sit there, but we used to work at a company where there was constant feedback, critique, critique, critique, and everybody's natural inclination when they first started out in, that was resistance. And we did it too much. Probably the culture at that company was probably too much critique and feedback turns into personal attacks and that kind of stuff there. But I still say at the same time, there is a lot of health in it when the feedback we receive does make you better at your job. And so if there's a resistance to any I think what I see in pastors is because of this spiritual authority level that they have, again, the sheep are not to tell the shepherd how to do his job better. That's kind of the thought pattern there. Whereas I don't think you can back that up from scripture. I think that you need to have ears to what people want to say and what you're, especially people that are in your leadership teams, you need to be open to hearing what they have to say. Otherwise it is a red flag.
[00:13:49] Speaker B: That's good. Absolutely.
[00:13:51] Speaker A: Next one is isolation. I think this is probably, if I had to guess which one is most common, I think this is probably it. I think there are a lot of pastors while they are always surrounded by people and activity and friends and people that like them in the end. So many pastors are actually in reality isolated. They don't have anybody who is where they have a real relationship in their lives. And while they say hey to everybody and they give hugs in the foyer and they say it's so good to see you, it's all so shallow and surface level and there's not really those deep friendships that pastors need to have. And so I actually have a lot of empathy and sympathy really for pastors in this situation. And we put it in as a red flag. I think it can be if someone is resistant towards any kind of move out of isolation. But I really have more sympathy for pastors that suffer from isolation because I've never met a pastor that really said that, who was suffering from isolation. That said, I really want to stay isolated, I want to stay in this place here. We all want to be out of that and everybody knows that. But in almost every case, it's just a hard thing to get over because your life is so surrounded with people that you're shepherding that maybe you don't feel like you can have fully open conversations with. I will say this too, as someone who has been married for 20 years and has had a relationship with lots of pastors wives, this is really hard for them, the isolation side of things there. So again, I wouldn't just always lump it in as a red flag, but I think that it's something that is a real problem within the church that so many of us suffer from. And if we're not intentional about getting out of it, it can become a red flag that way.
[00:15:37] Speaker B: That's good.
[00:15:38] Speaker C: One other thing I'll add too is I've learned that a lot of pastors actually have pastors like or spiritual fathers or mentors. And it can be a close friend too, like you mentioned too, just someone to do life with. We're not just talking about when we say mentor and everything, we think of a pastor also needing a leader or someone to speak into them. But it's not just that, it's friendship, but have that who is that person for you? And I think that's where I've seen a lot of pastors benefit is that they do have someone that's like a pastor to them even though they're leading or a spiritual father or mother or something like that. So those are just some ideas that I think a lot of pastors are aware of, but worth mentioning. Next one is lack of transparency.
[00:16:26] Speaker A: We kind of covered this a little.
[00:16:27] Speaker C: Bit, but specifically this would be is there secrecy, I think, or just is your pastor leadership are they not communicating transparently or are they making financial decisions all on their own or just decisions that should have some accountability and other people weighing in on it? So are there a lot of closed door meetings? Are there vague financial reports and those types of things? Of course, transparency is very key for a healthy church.
[00:17:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I think this is primarily in the financial realm. This is a really big deal. I think that I've always in my ministry erred on the side of transparency. So people from within our church, anybody who wants to see it, can see what our church budget looks like in the big picture. The only thing that we would kind of keep a little bit private, obviously people's individual giving amounts, which I think is biblical. We shouldn't be telling, you know, Joe gave this and Susie gave this, and so we shouldn't have that.
I also am a little bit more closed when it comes to individual salaries.
And it's not so much like that.
I think there's a case to be made for people to know how much your leadership as a whole makes and maybe even your senior leadership.
So if someone would know what your lead pastor is paid, if that would be something that's known, at least by the people that are elders or board members within your church, they definitely need to know that kind of information. I don't know that everybody within the church needs to know that our children's minister makes $32,000 a year or 55, whatever that amount is. I think we got to be careful with some of those just because that is their private information. It needs to be kept that way. So there is a red flag of giving being too revealing about everything. But I think that by and large, it gets tricky when it comes to the big picture financial stuff. So if you don't want people to know that, hey, we spent 80% of our money on salaries this year, that's a big red flag. Or if there's I know within my denomination and kind of church history, we have votes on big financial decisions like property acquisition and new staff members, some of those kinds of things. So that kind of stuff is important. But, yeah, I just think, erring on the side of transparency, outside of a few exceptions of things that you obviously shouldn't be disclosing, I think that really is the better way to go and a way to avoid red flags there.
[00:19:02] Speaker C: Totally agree.
[00:19:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Next one is spiritual superiority. Sounds evil. Probably is if you're holding that. But I think it's something that creeps in. Right. It's just as you're in ministry and you're getting up there, you're preaching all the time and you constantly have this feedback loop a lot of times where people tell you how people always generally tell you how good you are at preaching. Occasionally they'll tell you how bad you are. But you're more likely to hear good feedback than bad feedback from most church leaders because people want to get on your good side and encourage you. And they mean well when they do that. And so I do know this is something that does tend to creep in, that we tend to think of know. And Jesus speaks to this when he talks about removing the log from your own eye before you deal with the speck in somebody else's eye. And that applies to church leaders as well. So we need to be really careful about this. The remedy for it is to really do that hard work and take a look at your own life before every message you preach, before every counseling session. Take the time you should be confessing and repenting more than anybody within your church.
[00:20:08] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:20:09] Speaker A: That's how you overcome those kinds of things. And it reminds you of all the ways that in reality, you're not superior to anybody. It's just an assignment that God's given you. It's not because you're better. So something we need to be watching out for.
[00:20:21] Speaker C: That's why I often love hearing a pastor say, I'm preaching to myself, right? But that's good. Next one is inconsistency.
So are words and actions consistent, inconsistent if your pastor is kind of up and down on those things or.
[00:20:39] Speaker B: That.
[00:20:39] Speaker C: Can create some mistrust for obvious reasons. So I think that in leadership in general, you need to always be consistent. And that doesn't mean that sometimes you won't get a little off or be tired and make some mistakes, but overall, be consistent in your words and actions and following through, like you just said, on the same things we're holding everyone else accountable for.
[00:21:01] Speaker A: Yeah, that's true. I feel like a lot of pastors struggle with the consistency side of things. A lot of people struggle with consistency to do what you say you're going to do and do it over and over again for sometimes years on end. It's just challenging.
But it's something that people notice when things you say you're going to do are missed. And so it's something that can be a red flag and something you want to address for sure.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: That's it.
[00:21:23] Speaker A: All right, here's a big one that I think we kind of think of ourselves as not doing this, but what it is fear tactics. Using fear. And it's kind of like in that manipulation vein, but using fear tactics to try and get our desired response.
I'm trying to think of examples of this. I think that this is something that I don't see a lot of churches do anymore. But I saw it a lot when I was coming up in the Faith in the. It's like talking about some of these topics that put people in fear for their own eternity if they don't listen to the words that their pastor says.
It's not a hard jump to make, especially for new Christians. If we teach that heaven is real and hell is real, which is orthodox teaching, I believe it, I teach it. But for some people, the next step in that is that listen to what the pastor just told me, because he told me about that. And if I don't do that, then I'm in danger of the hell that he's talking about there.
I have seen this. I've seen this kind of stuff happen. I feel like it was probably more commonplace a generation or so ago, but it is something we need to watch out for, and it definitely can rear its head again.
The church has a long history of these kinds of things, of using fear. That's how we get into situations like indulgences that used to be sold and give this money to the church, or else your loved ones will be tortured for eternity. I mean, that kind of stuff can rise up and we have a history of it there. So watch out for that kind of stuff if you see it. I'd love to know in the comments if you have seen that kind of thing before.
[00:23:01] Speaker C: Yeah, I bet there'd be some interesting responses if that is going on. So some crazy stuff. So, last but not least, dismissal of boundaries. There should always be boundaries in leadership. Is your pastor overstepping personal or professional boundaries? Are they some of the other examples we kind of thought through? We're expecting like undue sacrifices or just certain financial offerings and those things, certain things like that.
There should be boundaries, definitely. Like you said earlier, we hear, of course, all of the failures that happen within the church, but obviously there needs to be boundaries between pastors and other women within the church and those types of things to prevent affairs and vice versa, too. If you're a woman in leadership, you need those same boundaries as well.
So that's something to definitely be on the lookout for.
[00:24:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I think with relational boundaries are really important, obviously, between men and women and those kinds of things.
I'm old school and I know that people get mocked for this sometimes now, but the old Billy Graham rule is something has been helpful for me. And yeah, let me know in the comments if you think that's right or wrong or what you kind of do for those kinds of things. That would be interesting to see what our retryed audience thinks about the old Billy Graham rule. That, of course, is that Billy Graham famously would never allow himself to be alone with a woman that wasn't his wife in any circumstance in ministry. So something that's important to think about, I think also just financial boundaries. I think those are really important.
If your pastor is the only one that counts the ties and offerings and deposits it and does the bookkeeping, well, that's like a recipe for challenges. And there's some people that you'll never have an issue and they could do it. And that's the reason why we have boundaries though, is because it's not for everybody.
I don't keep the Billy Graham rule because I'm afraid that I would do that. I would do something I shouldn't do every time I would be in that situation. But I just want to keep away from any possibility and set an example for other people on what that might look like. So anyway, all that to say have boundaries, and this goes back to the consistency side of things is be consistent with those boundaries. Just having boundaries and saying them doesn't actually keep boundaries. I think it's an additional red flag. If there's boundaries that are stated but you see them not complied with, that's really something to be watching out for. If you see someone say, I'm going to do this, and then they don't actually do it. So that's something to think about for sure.
[00:25:46] Speaker B: Oh, good. Yeah.
[00:25:46] Speaker A: I hope this has been helpful. This is a serious issue within the church. I know we kind of make light of it in some parts in this podcast episode, but this is something that people's eternity is riding on these kinds of issues. There are people that will not make a decision to follow Jesus or run away from their decision to follow Jesus because of church hurts and these things, these red flags that were ignored. So I cannot overstate how important and serious this stuff is and that's why we do this. So hopefully this has been helpful to you. If it has, it would mean a lot to us if you would hit that subscribe button. Leave us a comment down below. Hit the like button. We're so thankful for you in our reach, right family here and we hope to catch you next week.
[00:26:30] Speaker B: See ya.
