Hard to be Holy - Royal Commission Ed: From Church Crisis To Community Opportunity

By Paul Whetham and Libby Whetham

The real test for any Christian is living out our faith in truth and love in the world. Jesus’ life was a simple one, spending most of his time outside the religious institution with underprivileged people. Today it’s the opposite. Institutional church leaders spend most of their time inside the church. The danger is that church lead

• Language: English
• Publisher: Soul Food Cafe
• Release date: Jan 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9780994233097

Paul Whetham

Dr Paul Whetham is a clinical psychologist who has over 30 years' experience in mental and spiritual health. He is passionate about authentic spiritual experiences and is the co-founder of Soul Food Café.

Book preview

Paperback ISBN-13: 978-0-9942330-8-0

E-book ISBN-13: 978-0-9942330-9-7

Category: Psychology, Meaning, Religion.

Copyright © 2020 Soul Food Café. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the express permission of the publisher, Soul Food Café.

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Graphic design by Shane Waugh analogcreative.com.au

Layout by Urs Burkart www.soulfood.cafe

Cover Photograph by Karl Fredrickson

Acknowledgements

Our deep appreciation goes to the many people who have shared this journey of discovery with us. We give thanks for the Spirit of God who challenges, stretches and sustains us.

This book is dedicated to Una and Glen Gabb, who taught us how to live faithful lives in the midst of adversity.

Preface

In the western world church leaders are currently in crisis. In Australia, for example, 3 out of 4 church leaders experience significant or borderline burnout. Also, international literature suggests church leaders who have sexual intercourse with a parishioner are approximately 2 to 3 times higher than their secular counterparts (Note: these figures are for adult sexual relationships only).

In most ethical codes, burnout and dual relationships are classified as ‘impairment’. Impairment is the failure to provide competent care or violation of ethical standards. Helping professionals such as counsellors, chaplains and church workers are required to provide a duty of care and refrain from offering or accepting services when their physical, mental, or emotional problems are likely to harm a client or others. Also, they are expected to be alert to the signs of impairment, seek assistance for problems, and, if necessary, limit, suspend, or terminate their responsibilities.

Sadly, many church leaders are not alert to their personal warning signs and don’t know how to meet their needs appropriately. For these reasons, self-awareness and self-care are ethical issues, and a duty of care requirement.

In this book we’ll explore the untold stories of church leaders. Stories are important. Many of us have a story based on doubt and fear that runs (and often wrecks) the way we interact with the world and others. These stories, once stored in our minds, often stay there largely unchecked for the rest of our lives. Therefore, it is important to map and master our story and not be emotionally hijacked by our past.

We’ll discover that although church leaders know the Bible they may not know themselves or their story. This, in part, makes them potentially dangerous since they can address their unmet personal needs in inappropriate ways.

One of the worst examples of this is child sexual abuse which is of course both unethical and unlawful. In December 2017, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Australia¹ released its 17-volume final report. A total of 7049 allegations were made against faith-based institutions and of those 727 were referred to the police for possible prosecution. The final report made a total of 189 recommendations.

Pedestal effects and pastoral care

These disturbing issues are, in part, associated with the pedestal effect – separation between clergy and laity – and stereotypical notions that leaders are God-like and okay in their loneliness.

Church leaders have a unique job description that few people fully understand or appreciate. Leaders are often expected to be all things to all people and available at all times to provide pastoral care to the whole congregation. The reality is church leaders are only human; they often work alone, have few close friends and are often misunderstood.

A big issue is grappling with why we put people on pedestals in the first place.

It is far too simple to point the finger and say that it is entirely up to leaders to get their act together without looking at the system of which they are a part. In psychology we call this the ‘fundamental attribution error’. That is, we overlook or discount the institutional environment and focus on the individual as the source of the problem. In short, we ‘all’ contribute to the problem and therefore we ‘all’ have a pastoral care part to play in the life of the church.

Building knowledge & capability for the next generation of church workers

Professor Daryl Higgins⁴ recently reviewed the Royal Commission’s recommendations for psychologists and said it is essential that psychologists understand how the recommendations pertain to their services. He encouraged psychologists to play a proactive role in the capability-building for the next generation of church workers.

Psychologists can play a critical role in training and supporting the next generation of workers for youth-serving organisations in what they need to do – both to prevent sexual abuse and other forms of harm in organisations from occurring, and to better respond when concerning behaviours are observed or abuse has occurred, and children and young people need safety and therapeutic responses… Implementing cultural change to protect the most vulnerable in our community is essential and psychologists have an obligation to do their part.

It’s a challenging time in the life of the church. Trends such as church closures, aging congregations, the increase of civil marriage celebrants and the rise of alternative religions all reflect this. While the institutional church may have been appropriate in the past, its relevance today is seriously being questioned.

What is not so widely known, however, is the degree to which many people who work in this church environment are also struggling. This is evidenced by the alarming burnout, extramarital affairs and child sexual abuse rates among church leaders. Further, issues regarding women’s ordination, homosexuality and celibacy are also hotly debated.

Curiously, it is interesting to note that many of these issues involve the relationships of church leaders.

Surprisingly, however, there has been little actual research to examine and help make sense of their relationships in a meaningful and constructive way. Consequently, we set about the difficult task of exploring the untold stories of leaders and trying to unravel their roles and relationships.

The interviews in this book were conducted as part of PhD research and are focused on church leaders’ lives, particularly their relationships with both people and God. Sixty male clergy from different denominational backgrounds (Catholic, Anglican, Uniting, Pentecostal and Baptist) across New South Wales were interviewed individually on two separate occasions. These in-depth interviews provided a wealth of qualitative and quantitative data that gave the greatest insight into the loneliness faced by many church leaders and their often impoverished world of relationships with both God and others.

Now you might think that lonely church leaders would simply turn to people in their own congregation for support. Fact is, they typically don’t!

This, in part, is because there is a historic and unspoken rule in church denominations and theological seminaries that church leaders should avoid reciprocal relationships with congregational members (for fear of setting up special relationships and favouring some people over others, etc.). Whilst secular organisations would agree with avoiding dual relationships and advocating strict boundaries, roles and professionalism– this is largely a professional or business model that is at odds with the Biblical ‘servant-leader’ model.

The ‘servant-leader’ model is based on the life of Jesus and it means surrendering power and journeying with the poor and marginalized. So, in theory, the church’s aim is to not just topple the pedestal but tip it upside down! That is, uphold people who often have little or no voice in society by giving them a special place in church proceedings.

As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way - the ‘lower’ the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary.... You give it dignity and honour just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. - 1 Cor. 12: 26-7, The Message

Jesus’ lifestyle was a simple one; he spent most of his time outside the religious institution with under-privileged people in the community. The real test for any Christian is living out our faith in truth and love in the world outside. Jesus shared everyday life with others around him, often in small groups of 2 or 3 people.

Interestingly, the PhD research predicted and supported the importance of church leaders turning to the congregation for help. That is, out of all the subgroupings that leaders nominated for support, turning to congregational members was the ONLY group to be associated with significantly less loneliness.

These least lonely leaders were vulnerable about their struggles with the people around them and challenged traditional stereotypes of being Godlike and needing no-one. By losing power and stepping down from the pedestal to operationalise the servant-leader model these leaders were found to thrive, not just survive.

In general, our research findings overwhelmingly supported the clergy research conducted by the National Church Life Survey (NCLS) Leader Survey. This research surveyed 4,500 church leaders across all denominations and is the most comprehensive clergy research ever to be undertaken in Australia. The results were published in a book titled Burnout in Church Leaders² and it was launched with the first edition of Hard to be Holy³ as a national leadership kit for Australian churches in 2000.

Further, as clearly shown in the following two graphics, our Post-Christian western world now questions the importance and relevance of the institutional church. In the United States, for example, for every one person joining the Catholic Church, 6.5 people are leaving. Further, 50% of Catholics 30 years old and younger have left the church and 1 in 6 millennials is now a former Catholic. Bishop Barron said, the paradigm of parish membership does not work for millennials who are on the move⁴.

Source: PEW Research Center - Survey 2017¹⁰⁹

From Church Crisis to Community Opportunity

Hard to be Holy was first released in 2000. However, this new and expanded Royal Commission Edition was written 20 years later to further explore the church crisis and redefine the church leader role in an era of lay empowerment. The new ‘community opportunity’ section points to possible ways for church leaders AND congregations to journey more intentionally together, both within and outside the four walls of church.

Australian research (2018) has found that SBNRs are half the size of practicing religious and spiritual believers

Source: NCLS Research - Australian Community Survey 2018 ¹¹⁶

Part I Church Crisis

In order to have a solution, you must have a problem and this one is far from easy. The first four chapters look at a range of complex issues facing church leaders today. Using the findings from the PhD research, the National Church Life Survey (NCLS) and Royal Commission we navigate you through their unique role and its associated pedestal effects.

Part II Community Opportunity

In accordance with the Royal Commission, we explore organisational change and capability-building for the next generation of church workers. We also examine the importance of authentic relationships in spiritual meaning making and how congregations can share the pastoral care load with pastors.

Needless to say, it is not only clergy and the church who are in crisis. The western world is facing a mental and spiritual health crisis with unprecedented levels of loneliness at the forefront. However, rather than despair, we examine how the ‘transformational church’ can embrace this unique challenge. We explore possibilities to move outside the four walls of church to set up ongoing support and training for people in the community.

Lastly, we propose Soul Food Cafe’s coach-the-coach program as a cost-effective model to train future generations of church leaders and laity in the community. Soul Food Café aims to address the growing mental and spiritual health crisis by taking people on a ‘Journey of Discovery’. It’s a journey that takes people inside AND outside the church on a path of personal growth, discovery of the soul and deeper relationships.

For more information, visit www.soulfood.cafe.

Foreword (2000)

By Rev Tim Costello AO, Lawyer & Baptist Minister

I first met Paul and Libby Whetham when they were members of the congregation of St Kilda Baptist Church. As a minister I greatly appreciated their involvement, especially as Paul worked during that time at Machaseh House, established as a haven for homeless young people. Since then both of them have enriched their understanding of the way we find God in the midst of our relationships.

I cannot think of two people better placed to talk to us ministers about how ‘hard’ it is to be ‘holy’ without the sustenance of open and reciprocal friendships with the people of our congregations.

For that is what they very cogently argue in this excellent book. The candour with which the ministers respond to Paul as interviewer is a tribute to his art in fostering open and vulnerable relationships, and many of my colleagues will recognize their own high and low moments reflected in the responses quoted here.

I found their analysis of the stages of this struggle particularly good. I can highly recommend their description of the loosening/tightening cycle which can deepen our view of God. It is inspired and cleverly worked from the story of Peter and Cornelius in Acts, and it is one of those mysterious serendipities that my own congregation has chosen the very same text for this Sunday’s services as I write this foreword.

I had to laugh, reading about leaders as coming in three sorts: caretakers, undertakers and risk takers.

It’s a relief to me that Paul and Libby are strong advocates of the last sort. As a veteran risk taker, I can vouch for their view. True, we risk takers make some colossal mistakes, but somehow God just seems to dust us down after a contrite apology, and on we go to face another day.

The authors wisely advise that there