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There’s both ‘Promise and Peril’ as churches face conflict and change

Author would rather see pastoral transformation than pastoral turnover.

An interview by Ronald E. Keener with David Brubaker

“Congregations matter,” David Brubaker says in the first words to his book, Promise and Peril: Understanding and Managing Change and Conflict in Congregations (Alban Institute, 2009). “More U.S. residents belong to religious congregations than to any other kind of voluntary association. In an era of declining participation in many established associations, 20 to 30 percent of the U.S. population attends weekly gatherings in one of more than 300,000 congregations,” he says.

But congregations are places of not only regular praise and worship, but also persistent social conflict.” In fact it is that conflict that causes many parishioners to drop away from service in the church, whether on the church board, a mission committee, or nursery care. Conflict is all too prevalent in churches. For many, the question is “Who needs it?”

Church Executive asked Brubaker to respond to a number of questions on his research and book. He is associate professor of Organizational Studies in the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, VA.

What are the “promise” and the “peril” in your title?

The “promise” refers to the promise of change, which can bring transformation and revitalization to a congregation. The “peril” refers to the finding that congregations that make substantive changes to areas where change may desperately need to occur also are at higher risk of conflict.

What are the five outcomes for groups challenging the leadership or initiating a conflict.

These findings were from Fred Kniss’ research. (Fred was formerly chair of the Sociology Department at Loyola University, but is now Provost of EMU.) Fred found that when conflict occurred within Mennonite circles (in congregations, conferences, and the denomination itself) the severity of the conflict correlated with the degree of organization of the contending parties. The five possible outcomes were “withering” (the protest movement withered away), “defeat” (the protest movement lost), “schism” (a congregational or organizational split resulted), “compromise” (some negotiated settlement was reached), or “victory” (the protest movement won).

You say that established churches, especially mainline Protestant ones, are generally viewed as obdurate institutions that become amenable to change only with great exertion from internal leadership or at a time of leadership transition. That doesn’t sound hopeful for the vast majority of churches in this country.

Keep in mind that I was describing congregations from the perspective of “those who write for practitioners,” as opposed to an empirical reality. This was really the literature review chapter of my book, and I was attempting to summarize the literature on congregational change.

Elsewhere you say that “organizations tend not to make major changes unless and until their leaders change.” Does that make a case for pastoral turnover?

There are two ways in which leaders change. The most obvious is when one departs and another takes his or her place. But an equally important source of leadership change is when the leader herself or himself determines to make changes in their own behavior and in the daily operation of the congregation or other organization. I would generally rather see “pastoral transformation” than “pastoral turnover.”

You note that “organizations that fail to adapt to a changing environment will be selected out.” Does that account for the some 3,000 churches that close their doors every year?

Local congregations appear to be declining at about the same rate as other voluntary associations in this country. To oversimplify, the World War II generation started thousands of organizations after the war, the Baby Boom generation managed and grew them, and now our children’s generation is developing social networks rather than joining established organizations. Yes, congregations will have to change if they expect to be relevant to the current generations—Generation X and the Millennials.

How can a pastor judge the speed in which he can effect change in a congregation?

Ah, this is why emotional intelligence is more predictive of leadership success than is intellectual ability. A pastor will have to intuit the right pace of change, but should be able to do so based on feedback from key lay leaders in the congregation. Just keep in mind that there is a normal curve in response to change—some will love it, others will hate it, and the broad middle will “wait and see.” It’s the broad middle that we eventually need to move, not the hard-core opponents.

As churches grow to 500, 1,500 or 2,500 in attendance, what changes should occur in their governing structure? At what stages in the life of a church?

This is a tough question for me to answer, as I studied more the transition from a program-size congregation to a corporate-size, which I believe takes place at about 400 active members. The essential shift at that transition point seems to be from a “shared leadership” model (where the pastor and board share governance duties) to a primarily “staff-led” model (where the pastor and staff give primary executive leadership, but a lay board provides support and accountability). My intuitive sense is that the larger the church the more the leadership accrues to staff.

As churches grow are they more prone to conflict?

It really depends on how fast they grow. My research did not find a correlation between incremental growth and conflict, nor between a size transition (moving up or down between size categories) and conflict. But it does appear that very rapid growth (50 or more active members during the five-year period) increased the conflict rate by 10 percentage points (from 45 percent to 55 percent).

You say that “persistence of conflict within many religious congregations has spawned a conflict-management industry focused entirely on congregations.” Given such an industry out there, how well are they prepared to be of real help?

I decided to do this research after consulting with nearly 30 congregations, and realizing that my consulting approach and toolkit was generally (but by no means always) effective at identifying and addressing root causes. My own belief is that the organizational consulting industry is about where the field of medicine was 100 years ago—based almost entirely on personal experience rather than rigorous research and training regarding what works.

What leadership models in congregations most facilitate agreement and avoid conflicts? Did some power sharing between clergy and laity help?

Certainly “some power sharing between clergy and laity” is the most common governance among congregations I surveyed and among congregations in America in general. There is still a range from highly congregational (where the laity hold more of the power) to highly episcopal (where the clergy hold more of the power) polities, but in functional terms I have yet to encounter a congregation where there is not some balance of power.

What seems to be most important is that the “balance” be openly discussed and negotiated. Watch out for assumptions about who has the “right” to make certain decisions, as they tend not to be shared. It’s better to have clear, and clearly understood, bylaws and procedures in place.

What governance structures were important to a placid church or resolution of conflicts that arose?

What seemed to be most important were not the structures themselves, but the culture of the congregation when it came to their attitude towards conflict. Regardless of structure, those congregations with a more proactive attitude tended to move towards the conflict when it was small to address it and resolve it, whereas those congregations with a more reactive attitude avoided the conflict until it had grown nearly out of control.

Did you find that women senior pastors (13 percent of the sample) mattered when it came to maintaining a balanced church?

The presence of a female pastor had no statistically significant effect on any of the other variables.

In your sample of Arizonachurches “less than half of the congregations (42 percent) experienced numerical growth in the five-year period converged by the survey.” Can you account for that in a state of such rapid population growth; is it a more secular society than elsewhere?

As we know from the recent American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), virtually all denominations in all regions of the country have been losing ground in the last 28 years (1980 to 2008), so it wasn’t surprising to me that Presbyterian and Episcopal congregations even in Arizona were modestly declining.

Was change that included outreach initiatives a threat to stability?

It didn’t quite reach statistical significant, but initiating new programs that focused outward (on the community) had a negative effect on conflict, meaning that they made conflict less likely to occur, rather than more so. It appears that an outward focus is a good antidote to conflict.

You make a distinction of congregations that are changing but not growing. What do you make of that?

For example, 46 of the congregations initiated a building project during the five-year period I studied, yet didn’t experience growth at a significantly higher rate than the 54 congregations that did not. Congregations appear to be trying a number of things in the search for growth, including new buildings and new worship services, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are growing.

You see no correlation between churches engaged in building projects and growth in attendance, as some capital campaign consultants talk about. How do you see that?

Keep in mind that I was testing for statistically significant correlations, meaning that the change undertaken (e.g., a building project) directly correlated with the growth or decline that was experience. Certainly in individual cases there would have been significant growth, but taken as a whole (all 46 congregations that undertook building projects) there wasn’t.

Nor do mission statements correlate with growth. What should we make of this “no growth” result; what few things really matter for producing member growth?

I did a study of change and conflict, rather than change and growth. However, when I ran a correlation of all the change variables with growth there were no statistically significant results. From other research I’ve read, it appears that congregations that are very clear about their identities and have open cultures (that welcome newcomers) are more likely to experience growth.

How can a pastor deal constructively with conflicts in its early stages? When does it become pastor-centered, and what can be done to head it off?

Conflict is most likely to become pastor-centered in pastoral-size congregations, since they by definition are pastor-centered. Pastors need to learn to move early to engage conflict when it is at the “disagreement” stage, rather than waiting until it has polarized the congregation and requires outside intervention.

Do you subscribe to the oft repeated comment that churches are organisms and that all organisms are meant to grow? Where does conflict play into this?

Yes, I do adhere to the metaphor of a congregation as a living organism. Most biological organisms have a natural lifecycle—they are born, they grow, they mature, they decline, and they eventually die. Unless a congregation finds a way to reinvent itself sometime in the “decline” stage, most will also eventually die. Fortunately, our theology also calls us to believe in resurrection!

You note “four findings.” Give a couple sentences that summarize them.

Finding 1: Most congregations are relatively stable in size-size transitions are uncommon.

·        Since only 18 of the 100 congregations went through a size transition (up or down) in the five year period, it appears that “congregational homeostasis is indeed a reality.

Finding 2: Congregational fights tend to focus on leaders.

·        Conflict seems to be explained in terms of people (e.g., “leadership”) or hot issues (e.g. “homosexuality”), even when the underlying causes appear to be more structural or cultural.

Finding 3: Simply growing or declining does not correlate with conflict.

·        As I mentioned, unless there is significant growth or decline (50 or more active members in a five-year period) growth does not seem to cause conflict.

Finding 4: Changes to structure and culture highly correlate with conflict.

·        This is the essential finding of my research: that changing a congregation’s decision-making structure or adding or dropping a worship service does correlate with conflict.

You seem skeptical of team-based ministry—at least as a way of a more effective strategy. Are you critical of the team-based model of decentralized decision making?

I’m only skeptical of team ministry when it is presented as a panacea for all that ails a church. I think clarifying a congregation’s identity and its decision-making structure and culture are generally more useful. If that clarification results in a desire to move to a team-based structure, than I’m all for it.

Do you find that churches use power inappropriately? That churches can be too authoritarian or autocratic? Why so?

As Speed Leas found from his extensive consulting experience, pastors that are too authoritarian or too accommodating both get into trouble. People won’t long tolerate a pastor whose attitude is “you’re either for me or against me.” Nor will they long tolerate a pastor who never reveals what she or he is thinking.

When churches go through restructuring, why does this produce conflict? You note that “healthy congregations tend to talk openly about power and seek to distribute it widely.”

My own belief is that when we mess with structure we mess with power, and that power is the important but often unspoken currency in congregational decision-making. It’s much better to acknowledge that structure mediates power and authority, and therefore when we restructure it’s OK to talk openly about how this will affect power relations.

How should larger churches go about effective change to lower the conflict potential?

Larger congregations (200 and above) will generally want to establish “Reference Committees” (or teams) to deal with significant change or conflict. When a process that is viewed as legitimate is put into place to effect change, the broader congregation tends to support the outcome.

Many churches (and parachurch organizations) are losing first generation leaders to death or retirement. How should these organizational transitions be made to be successful? Use what processes?

Here I think Jim Collin’s research in Good to Great is particularly relevant. Level 5 (the most effective) leaders not only manage their organizations well, but they attend to succession issues years before the succession occurs.

A few churches were a father transitions to the son have not been successful. What would you advise in these situations?

The first-generation leaders were likely not Level 5 leaders, and were concerned more about their legacy than about the future of the congregation. Other lay or staff leaders in the congregation needed to step forward earlier to initiate success planning.