As I've thought back over some hurtful experiences, I've been thinking lately about important qualities that make ministry more successful. One of those I think it central to a fruitful and edifying ministry is genuine humility.
I suspect most people go into forms of ministry to help people. They believe they have something to offer others and want to give back to people. Yet I think along the way these same people become so confident in their training or experiences that they lose sight of a couple important facts.
1- There is a need to balance truth and grace. A person may need to hear a very hard truth. It doesn't mean you need to speak harshly to get it across. In fact, speaking harshly will often alienate the person so that they don't hear what comes next. The counselors, pastors or other church leaders, sunday school teachers and so on need to be trained in firm but gracious delivery when they are trying to help someone flee from temptation or face difficult circumstances.
2 - Think from the standpoint of a person struggling with a circumstance who is in front of a ministry person....They will automatically have a sense of being inferior to the ministry person. Do they need you to come alongside and tell them how confident you are in all of your actions concerning them? Maybe what they need is the sympathy that either you understand because you've been there or that you can't fathom going through the painful circumstance that they are now or did face in the past.
(I'm trying to speak for a respect of the intensity of the situation and the depth of pain the person is facing.) I've seen two things here that can BOTH end in a lack of humility.
1 - You have faced something similar. This can be a good thing when viewed with humility and a biblical understanding that God often brings a person who's come through a trial to help someone else. However you must be careful in this situation...Please don't assume this person is exactly like you. This is where a ministry person can lose humility. (Thinking - I've been there...I've got this person figured out....) There may have been similar events, similar consequences, similar reactions, similar pains, similar sins / responses to all those things....YET everyone's journey is different. They don't necessarily need the exact same practical help or exhortations and encouragements that you needed. You MUST carefully ask them questions to understand THEM. Making assumptions based on your experiences likely won't help you understand the best ways to help them. It can be encouraging to have a group of people who have gone through the same thing gather together and share. Yet the result and the path of each one will not be exactly the same because there are many facets to a problem that may or may not be in play in a given person's life.
If you are in this situation and have tried to help someone but things have gone south in the relationship I would encourage you to think back over assumptions you may have made out of your past and not from things they shared. I would encourage you to understand that though you may have come through a rough experience that there are still lingering scars. Being aware of those can help keep you from reacting too strongly when a wounded person has messed up yet again. A humble person knows that while God has delivered them from a situation that they are still working out the effects of the situation. They will acknowledge their pain and scars. They will admit they still have struggles and will not look down on the person in a manner of "I USED to be where you are, BUT I'm better now and it's MY job to make you better so you can be like ME." This betrays an attitude of superiority and it knocks the wounded person down in shock that someone who should compassionately understand their pain has judged them to be damaged and unworthy unless they change into a better person. A biblical attitude reflects Jesus, who approaches the suffering person and says, "I've come not just to help you, but to suffer with you. I will never leave you, no matter what." That's the person I hope to be, who can hang out with people who've struggled like I have and not try to make them turn into another version of me who can go do good in the world.
2 - You haven't faced something similar. This can also be a good thing when you humbly recognize a person is trusting you with their painful experiences. God is giving you the opportunity to learn something from this other person. This is often where a ministry person loses humility. A ministry person has in the back of their mind the training they have received. What I have noticed is that often the person who feels inadequate to help in a given situation handles the person better and more carefully then the one who thinks he knows the answers! This person feels confident and ready to tackle any problem. And they often don't believe they've made any missteps along the way. If a hurting person tells them they felt dismissed or judged or unfairly responded too, this type of person will often not respond favorably. They will often bring up their training and how they've dealt with people like you before. You can be labeled oversensitive or non-compliant if you try to ask to be treated differently. If you ask this ministry person if he or she thinks she's perfect they will often say no. Yet if you ask them about their counsel, help or behaviors in a certain situation often the ministry person has lost sight of their imperfection and will respond that they couldn't have done any better in this situation. Can you imagine how hurtful it is for a struggling person to be getting the message that they have nothing good to offer the other person?! It keeps the struggling person down low while elevating the ministry person even higher, since they clearly have no need of anything from the sufferer. This is damaging to both people!
Could this by why there are so many people in churches (and who've stopped going to churches) who've been hurt by leaders? Some people would say that a leader or counselor or teacher who admits to being less then perfect will be viewed as weak. There may be some people who would think that. But to the struggling, depressed and weary people, a leader like this will be a light in the dark. Hope that getting through a difficult time is possible. Hope that God can still use the "weak" people and difficult circumstances in our lives. Many people worry that their past or current struggles could disqualify them from ministry. But what better ministers could there be then people who know the depth of their struggles - and that without God's graciousness they could slip back into it at any moment? Sure over time of turning to God certain struggles may lessen and not have as big a hold on us as they used to. Yet we will all still struggle until the end. So why do we feel the need to pretend we have arrived and have it all figured out?
Humility needs to be seen as an important trait to develop, but who really wants to do this? Jesus said the one who wants to be greater needs to strive to be lesser. A life of service doesn't mean we should advertise the wonderful things we do for others and look down on those who are struggling too much to be able to serve others. We should strive to minister to others while admitting we're not perfect and that each day we need God to grant us life!
Is there anything we can we do about leaders who seem to lack humility?
Many seminaries spend a lot of time dealing with teaching their students theology, management / leadership styles but neglect getting into the essential qualities ministry people need to learn to develop in their lives. I personally believe that every person who enrolls at a seminary needs at least one course focusing in developing traits of humility, forgiveness, patience, forbearance, and so on. I hope that one day that will happen.
The only thing I can say is that we can certainly thank leaders for being humble when we see it and we can try to demonstrate it in our own lives. We can tell our leaders this is what we want from them and hope and pray that they will listen when we have felt let down. We all need to be people of compassion who view others as precious people that God loves. We should treat people with dignity, strive to work through differences, admit our mistakes and seek to learn and grow from them. I think we are afraid to be humble people, but it is actually freeing to realize that you can only start moving past relationship struggles when you seek to develop and practice humility.
I, for one, hope that when I'm helping and counseling others that I will remain humble and compassionate with the people God puts in my path.
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