Lessons from the Outside: "Open Door"

It has been over 15 years since I have been “outside” the church. I don’t mean outside Christianity, I mean outside the workings of a local body. I began leading worship for my youth group when I was about 16, and then in May of this year God called me to step out of my church and into a new calling of coaching and consulting.

During these last two months my wife and I have taken the opportunity to visit many local churches, meeting pastors and staff when we can. It has been a great experience as we worship and learn from so many expressions of God’s body.

It has also revealed a few things that have caused me to look back on my time on staff and ask a couple of questions. The first question I asked is, “Was I as approachable as I thought I was?”

Pastors are busy people. I knew that when I was one, but I see it even more clearly from the outside. One of the things I wanted to do when I arrived in Austin, TX was to meet with local pastors to hear about what God is doing in the city and share the vision He has put on my heart.

I envisioned days filled with meetings. Morning coffee, lunch, perhaps an afternoon frappuccino or two. I have had many of those meetings, and they have been just as meaningful as I hoped.

What struck me was that the people I was attempting to meet often had to look weeks, or even months, out to find a free hour.

That is not necessarily a bad thing when it comes to these pastors meeting with me. As far as they know I could be a complete waste of their time, and time is precious as they focus on the vision God has given them.

What got my attention is that as I spend more time with the laity I am hearing similar comments from them. There is a general feeling among many lay people that “their” staff person is difficult to reach, or does not have the answers and support that they are looking for.

As an associate pastor I was responsible for communicating to the leadership of many of our teams. I needed to communicate on a weekly basis to small group leaders, guest services, and worship leaders. I felt like I had a pretty “open door” policy with my leaders, but I wonder now if they felt the same way.

I wonder because I can remember times when members of those teams were uninformed or misinformed about important details. It was all too easy for me to blame these volunteers for not “hearing correctly”. I would console myself with thoughts like, “It was in the program”, “We announced it in church,” or even worse, “It is on the pre-service announcement scroll.”

I am even more ashamed of my tendency to scold my leaders for not “telling correctly”. I would question their communication methods and frequency. I was as nice as possible on the outside, but on the inside I was often shaking my head as if to say, “this is really not that hard.”

Too seldom did I look at myself and ask the question, “What does Joe-the-greeter’s confusion reveal about my communication with my leaders?” That question led me to consider my leaders more carefully, leading to another set of questions, such as:

1. Am I answering the questions my leaders are asking?
2. Am I talking in a way that they enjoy listening?
3. Do they believe we have conversations, or just mini lectures?
4. Who is the first person they call when they have a struggle in their ministry?

I have a feeling many of their answers would reveal that my door was not quite as open as I believed, or that they needed me to walk through their door more often.