Make Your Mess Your Message

A few years back my wife introduced me to the novels of Louise Penny and her beloved Chief Inspector Gamache. What makes Gamache so compelling as a character is his unusual combination of humility and boldness. In one scene, he confronts a young detective under his care. “You need to learn that you have choices. There are four things that lead to wisdom. Are you ready for them? They are four sentences we learn to say and mean…I don’t know. I need help. I’m sorry…I was wrong.” 

“Four sentences we learn to say and mean,” he says, implying this discovery is not an event but a process. Ten years ago, I would have been able to say those four things. But in my case it took great deal of time and suffering to arrive at meaning them. 

I Used to Be a Pastor

Until a few years ago, and for almost 14 years, I was senior pastor of a church in Los Angeles. Our church did well by the measures often used to evaluate churches in the West. I once heard Tim Keller compare church planting to surfing: you have no control over the size of the wave you catch. Almost overnight, we became a well-respected, gospel-centered, mission-minded church in our city. Our staff grew from two people to more than 45, ministering to people around Los Angeles and beyond. During those years, I got married, we had three kids, and I wrote two books. By appearances, I was “successful,” and that was very important to me. 

Though we lived in the middle of a global city, I grew up in a small town in the other LA. In Louisiana, on some of the back country roads, it wasn’t uncommon to see old wooden bridges posted with signs: “WARNING: Over 5000 Pounds Cracks May Begin to Appear.” Under the stress and weight of leading a large church, balancing the demands of entrepreneur leader and organizational manager, pastor and preacher, husband and father, some of my own cracks began to appear. There were unhealthy patterns in my leadership style that I didn’t see at the time, and though it was painful, I can now say that I’m thankful God brought them to light. 

I’m telling my story now for a few reasons. First, several years removed and having received a lot of help from many different sources, at this point I may be able to tell my story in a way that serves others. Second, my wife and I recently launched Broom Tree Media under the care of Relational Wisdom 360, a nationally respected resource for building emotionally healthy relationships. Who am I to speak to others about emotional health and navigating conflict?

And that’s a third reason we are telling our story: we’ve learned how familiar some version of it has become. Being a pastor has always been a “dangerous calling” (Paul Tripp). But there are reasons to believe it’s never been harder to be a leader in a local church. Part of why we started Broom Tree is to equip and encourage leaders. This reflection on my own mistakes and growth is part of our origin story. How might our story  – with my wife as my best friend and collaborator in this venture – strengthen others? (Luke 22:32) 

Tensions in a Leader’s Life

I came into pastoral ministry after several years in corporate banking and carried some traits from the world of business into my new calling as a church planter: a commitment to excellence and constant improvement, alongside some very high standards for myself and others. I wanted to play my role as as well as I could. Beneath that dutiful persona, however, I was filled with an anxiety that no accomplishment could diminish. Later, I was surprised to also discover that I happened to be seriously depressed. Some depression is overt with all the classic signs. Mine was what Terrence Real calls “covert.” But I was suspicious of my emotions – and my theological training had encouraged this suspicion. So I stuffed my feelings and ran hard, just as I’d done as a competitive athlete in my youth. 

Until I got some serious help, I had no idea how much I was living in my head (or, out of one side of my brain) and detached from the wisdom of my body. I couldn’t feel the grief and shame that were coursing below the surface of my life. Nor did I realize how much my past, my childhood, was still affecting my present, particularly how I reacted under stress or threat. I lived on constant high alert. 

Another reason I’m telling my story is to normalize talking about emotional health and mental health challenges in the church, even and especially among pastors. From the outside, I had no discernible reason to be so riddled with self-doubt. I was highly theologically educated, knew the right words and how to say them. But I also happened to be terrified of vulnerability and unable to let myself receive the care that I so desperately needed. 

Though I could preach to others about the dangers of idolatry and the importance of rooting our identity in Christ, my sense of worth remained tied closely to my work. I talked every week about the grace of God, but I was driven to achieve and avoid failure at all costs. I lived as if the church’s viability depended on me, which left me exhausted, critical, and desperate to keep up appearances. 

These contradictions were not lost on me. I could feel the tension most every Sunday afternoon when I privately cared about the roller coaster of our attendance and giving. But I had no idea how to break free. So I soldiered on like I always had. My strategies of working harder and hustling for my worth – doing more, better – had served me well all my life. They’d always worked. Until they didn’t. 

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

The problem with burying your emotions is that they don’t go away. They’re just buried. Alive. And when the weight of stress piles onto that old wooden bridge, the underlying cracks get revealed and the emotions we’ve worked so hard to hide leak out onto the people around us, no matter how careful we try to be. I dealt with my distressing emotions by reaching for my drug of choice: control at work. That looked like insisting overmuch on clarity and accountability, and striving for what I called excellence (but can now admit was closer to perfectionism). I saw these impulses as virtues, not deficits. I was careful with my words. But my disappointment was still palpable to those I viewed as threatening what I needed to feel secure.

In early 2016, some members of our team brought their concerns about my leadership to our board of elders. I wish that I could turn back the clock so I could just listen and focus on understanding. To my enduring regret, I was convinced that I was not the problem. I was wrong.

I was so convinced that other issues, other people, were the root problem that I was blind to the truth. (And nothing blinds you like being convinced that you are on the side of righteousness.) There are obviously pastors who are able to wear all the hats required to lead a large and growing church. But as for me, I was simply unprepared for the challenges of leading and managing a large organization. I was in so far over my head that I didn’t even know it. I didn’t know. 

Things might have gone differently if I’d responded back in 2016 with genuine humility. The energy behind my desire to defend myself should have signaled that I needed help. By God’s mercy, our elders hired the exact right helper – an old-school psychotherapist named Thom. Like a Grand Master in chess, Thom was always ten moves ahead of me. After months of intensive therapy (12-15 hours a month) I began to experience all those buried emotions. Sadness, fear, anger, anxiety, and shame came tumbling out. I felt like I was breaking apart, like letting myself feel these things was going to kill me, or at least incapacitate me. 

Thom helped me see how I had been tryng to soothe my chronic anxiety through work, and that I’d become addicted to stress. My body was so dependent on stress hormones that every time a significant deadline passed or a vacation rolled around, I would get physically ill from the withdrawal. Today I see myself as a recovering addict and very much relate to the recovery community. I need help and I’m still getting it. 

I was shocked as the blinders came off and I could begin to see how and why some on our team had experienced me as intimidating, unapproachable, controlling, even domineering. The same gifts that made me so effective as a speaker and respected as a pastor could be directed to anyone who failed to measure up to my suffocating expectations. I didn’t raise my voice. I was careful with my words. There were no smoking guns. But I’ve come to understand that Maya Angelou was right when she said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Eventually, some of the people who worked alongside me began to feel run over by me – because they were. 

It took time, but about a year into therapy, I was able to own in a genuine way how I had used words to cast myself in the best possible light, which the Bible more plainly calls lying, and admit how I had become transactional in my leadership, prioritizing tasks over people. I had thought that’s just what it meant to be the boss. Today what grieves me most is that my leadership hurt some of the people on our team that I cared about and the church that I loved, that God called me to serve. As the senior pastor, I bear the responsibility. 

I’d never before understood what Gamache meant, “You need to learn that you have choices.” The day I realized that I could make a different choice, that there was another, better way to respond in my anxiety – was the beginning of a new life. But healing has been a long road. There are no quick fixes. Change is slow, painful, and non-linear. Transformation requires ongoing vulnerability in a community of compassionate solidarity. 

My sins were not intentional. They were what Dan Siegel calls “nonconcious.” But intention does not equal effect, nor does it does absolve me of responsibility (Lev. 4:1). Thom taught me what it means to stop blaming others and to start taking responsibility for my own emotional processes. 

In my zeal, I lost sight of the fact that one of the most important parts of my job as a leader was to care not only for the people in our congregation, but also for all those on our staff team. You can’t lead people that you don’t genuinely care about. And we can’t genuinely care for people unless we are able to sit with them in their pain. As Edwin Friedman tried to tell us almost thirty years ago, you can’t sit with others in their pain unless you are deeply in touch with your own. I thought I had already taken that “sacred journey” (Buechner). But my inability to be a non-anxious presence was the telltale sign that the most important work of my life was still ahead of me. 

Conflict in the Church

If you’ve ever been around a church split, then you can predict some of what happened next. Gradually and then definitively, sides formed, lines hardened, and words became amplified. Our staff, then our leadership and eventually our church sorted and became sharply divided over my fitness to continue as pastor. Have you ever wanted to call a time-out in the middle of your life? 

In 2019, after several years of internal debate, several rounds of consultants, and following the recommendation of the outside counselor they had hired, a majority of our Board of Elders seemed poised to support me and forge a path forward. Dissenting voices, however, brought their concerns to a local group of denominational officials (called a presbytery in our context). 

With skilled helpers beside me and more than a year of internal work behind me, I was able to articulate the concerns about my workplace leadership. Not wishing to defend myself any longer, I confessed all that I could, as ruthlessly as I could, giving a specific and lengthy confession (similar to the 4th of the 12 steps, “a searching and fearless moral inventory.”) When I presented my confession alongside a detailed plan of repentance that I’d been following, the local presbytery voted to remove me as pastor and even revoke my ordination. We were shocked and devastated. In many ways I’d spent my whole life trying to avoid the very thing that ended up happening to me. 

My wife and I decided to appeal the decision of our local presbytery. The elders of our church also appealed the local presbytery’s decision, as did a few other pastors who had served on our staff team and had their own perspective on the dynamics in question. We all appealed to our denomination’s highest court, that the lower court’s judgement was too severe – especially in light of the steps of repentance I’d already been taking – and that the process by which they had arrived at their decision had been unjust. It was painful. Church courts are not a place of healing for anyone involved.

The appeal took over a year because of COVID delays, but the higher court eventually found unanimously in our favor. They removed the censure from me and recommended that my time away be considered “time served.” They admonished the lower court publicly and restored me as a minister in good standing. 

Two Things Can Be True 

Meanwhile, my family and I had left Los Angeles and moved to a farm in the Midwest, where I was eventually hired by a local church at which I’ve been gratefully serving until this new opportunity arose with Broom Tree and Relational Wisdom 360.  A big part of my own healing has been the ability to say, “two things can be true.” Mine is the story of an emotionally unhealthy leader. And I’m grateful for the growing awareness of the urgent need for emotional health among leaders. The culture that ultimately undid our staff team – of avoiding conflict, not being vulnerable, emotional triangulation – is the culture I modeled and built. As leaders we sew our own emotional dysfunction into the foundation of whatever organziaiton we are leading, and sooner or later the bill will come due. One reason I’m joining the team of Relational Wisdom 360 is because I’m convinced that most church leaders need so much more help than we realize.

At the same time, mine is also the story of a leader in way over his head, terribly afraid, not aware, misunderstood, and then cast out. That’s a story that needs to be told too, because there are more than a few leaders out there who aren’t malicious or sinister, but who are overwhelmed with anxiety, terrified of asking for help or letting ourselves be seen, fearing what it might mean for our reputations and livelihoods. 

Yes, we need a culture of justice, accountability, and transparency. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. As church leaders, our lives should be open books. Appropriate consequences for actions can be an important part of making amends. But if and when broken leaders are contrite and repentant, we need a clear path toward restoration. 

Churches have a lot to learn from the recovery community about creating spaces for confession and healing. We believe that one of the unique gifts that the gospel of Jesus Christ has to offer our cultural moment is to model what forgiveness and reconciliation can look like. If the church won’t embody this possibility, where else can we hope to find redemption, freedom from our pasts, and restored community? 

People Are Complex, Nuance Is Needed 

We are living in a highly polarized time, where we get trapped in either/or, all-or-nothing, good-guys-vs-bad-guys thinking, that does not allow for complexity or nuance. The Bible reminds us even the best of us are what Paul Tournier called “a mass of contraditions.” What might it look like to give our leaders “permission to be human?” (Parker Palmer). Today I tell every leadership board to which I speak: invest in professional counseling for your pastors. In order to become wounded healers, every helper needs help. Those who resist it are often the ones who need it the most. 

The way forward is to remember what the gospel tells each one of us: two things can be true. John Newton’s final recorded words were, “My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior.” In my experience, it’s one thing to say what Newton said, but another thing altogether to mean it. And the extent to which we do mean it will be revealed more than anywhere else in how we walk through conflict as an opportunity to glorify God. 

I hope one leader reading my story might be moved to go to someone and say, “I don’t know. I need help. I’m sorry. And I was wrong.” Conflicts can’t survive when people are willing to say those things and mean them. It’s hard. You will feel like you are dying, because part of you is (John 12:24-25). But on the other side of that public death can be a new life. If you’re interested in learning more about what wholehearted faith can look like, we hope Broom Tree will be a resource for you. 

Rankin Wilbourne
Easter Sunday 2023