One Thing Leaders Must Never Avoid

He came into our weekly meeting wearing all black and rolling a duffel bag. It was shortly after the Virginia Tech shootings, and one of our staff came up to me on high alert saying, “Did you see that guy who just walked in? What’s in the duffel bag? I think it might be ticking!” (okay, my mind added that last part about the ticking…) I looked around, trying to see where the campus director was so he could deal with the situation…Sadly, he was standing in my shoes. Bummer for me.

This man in black, who identified himself only as “Natron” continued to come to our weekly meetings even though he was not a college student and had made it clear he was not in agreement with some of our doctrine (e.g. we didn’t only use the King James Bible). He wasn’t causing trouble…yet. Then one day I heard from multiple students that he was making some of the women in our movement uncomfortable. That’s not cool. Again, I looked around for the campus director to do something…and again, it was me.

I knew we needed to have a grace and truth conversation. We talked for quite a while, and the bottom line of our conversation was, “You don’t agree with our doctrine…you aren’t a college student…and you are making some of our students very uncomfortable…Natron, I just don’t think this is the best place for you anymore.”

I hate hard conversations like that. I want to avoid them. But avoidance leads to bigger problems down the road. The greatest leader who ever lived modeled the need for leaders to not avoid the hard conversation. Check it out:

“On hearing it, many of His disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” (John 6:60)
“From this time, many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.” (John 6:66)

Bummer for Jesus. I mean, how is the movement going to grow with talk like that? Why not avoid the hard conversation and let people do as they please? Sadly, that’s happened far too often in ministry. Do we as leaders avoid the hard conversations, or do we have them, albeit with grace and mercy and love?

Hard conversations take many forms: You may be dealing with your own version of “Natron,” you may have some leaders who need to be called out on sin, or you may have people involved who want to lead, but don’t want to be involved in evangelism and discipleship. You may have to have a hard conversation with some people who have good hearts but who want to take the movement in a different direction that’s off-mission. And it just may be that some of you are dealing with divisive doctrinal issues.

As a leader, do you avoid the hard conversation or do you embrace that as part of your role? Is there some aspect of your movement that’s a bit “rogue” that could use a firm hand right now? Bummer for you. Maybe it’s time to find the campus leader and ask him or her to do something about it…