Conflict in the Church: And the Clash of Biblical Ministry Styles

The email from our [Covenant Theological Seminary] graduate was all too familiar. He wrote:

“I recently had a review of my job description, and the senior pastor came down on me hard in almost every area — essentially amounting to him conveying that he thought I was totally failing at my job. I can take this, if it is true, but many (if not most) of his facts were way off or just plain wrong. This meeting lasted almost 6 hours and all of it was focusing on what I was doing wrong, with little to no attention to the things I have clearly done well or excelled at.”

The senior pastor later told him he was not called to the pastorate. I knew this graduate well from our numerous discussions during the course of his M.Div. program, and I knew he was called to the pastorate. His ministry style reminded me of Eugene Peterson — the famous author and, for many years the pastor in a small town of what I call a “Relational Church.” In contrast, the style of our grad’s senior pastor fit what some call the “tall-steeple church,” more rapid paced and accomplishment driven. His ministry preferences were quite suitable for the suburban community he was reaching and were by most measures a biblical style of ministry. Read more