A cancer in the church: The club mentality.

There's a golf club near my house that has been barely solvent for years.  The membership continues to decline and the age of the members continues to increase.  Interestingly, new neighborhoods have continued to go up all around it though with young families moving in who definitely are in the economic range of a rather affordable golf experience.  The leadership of the club continues to run things in a manner that does not attract new members though.  First of all they do not market to the new neighbors at all.  If I were in charge every new homeowner would get a welcome packet and a free round of golf, but for these guys a free round of golf is blasphemy.  Secondly, the leadership and some of the staff are simply unfriendly to anyone new.  The fact of the matter is they don't really want any new members.  They want their own private club with just their old friends and they'll probably have it that way right up until a bankruptcy auction eventually takes place.

Unfortunately, I've seen the same thing happening in churches all over the country - the club mentality.  Somehow over time a group develops that begins to define what "we" is and anyone outside of "we" becomes "them".  Going from "them" to "we" is almost impossible.  The worst part is that any pastor hired is also a "them" and that's the most disheartening and dysfunctional part.

In the case of pastors being on the outside, what I've seen is that search committees are made up of the core group of church lay leaders and maybe a matriarch/patriarch.  They like the way things were for a long time and are not open to change.  They end up painting a pretty enough picture for prospective pastors to think it will be a good place, but in reality they are simply hiring for an open position and that position is not vision-caster and spiritual leader.  That open position is hospital visitation and preaching. Vision and leadership are not in the unwritten job description.  Vision, actually has no place there at all and leadership to them is well handled by a semi-monthly deacon board meeting that makes sure nothing has changed since they last met.

This is a systemic issue that either has to be nipped in the bud or face a major upheaval later.  At the core is a control issue in which the club members do not want to give up any.  The real problem there is that they also are not willing to let Christ lead there lives.  The best possible outcome is a change of heart through much prayer.  The situation may be avoided if leadership along the way doesn't let it happen in the first place.  It can also be avoided with a clearly defined authority structure that is well written in the form of a church constitution or other document.  It also needs to be revisited every five years or so and kept current and relevant.

A.J.