The Unfortunate Need for Stealth
“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” Matthew 10:16
Consider the power of silence. Until someone speaks, no one but God knows what they’re thinking. Keeping quiet is a great discipline, but what if God is asking you to hold your tongue for a long period of time, even years, for the sake of love, unity, and mission?
I grew in leadership as a junior officer in the US Army. If a senior officer said something I disagreed with, no matter how unwise I considered their opinion or orders, I learned early on to be quiet. Nothing good comes from a Lieutenant confronting a Colonel.
Another leadership lesson I learned from the Army is that mission comes first. Mission mattered, and everything else was secondary. Whatever else happened, strained leadership relationships, scarcity of resources, challenges that changed the plans, or the happiness of the soldiers, the only question that counted was, “Did we accomplish the mission?” If someone forgot that priority and started making excuses, they were quickly silenced.
As the excuse-offerer spoke, the rest of us thought: “Shut up. Now is not the time to bring this up. I might even agree with you, but wait for a more appropriate opportunity when you’re not standing in front of this senior officer.”
These powerful Army lessons protected me later when I encountered some of the most obstinate leaders, stakeholders, and entitled people in the churches I led. (I found myself talking less as I was writing this chapter!)
As pastors, we hold two truths in balance:
1) Relationships between leaders should be relationships of grace where the truth is spoken in love and trust is built.
2) The necessity of the mission–the church exists to make disciples around the world. It would be ideal if every interaction with others could be characterized by authentic relationships. Still, there are times when the necessity of a mission creates the unfortunate need for stealth.
Stealth is a cautious and surreptitious action or movement. I chose the word because sometimes, no matter how loving, speaking the truth puts the broader mission at risk, and you have to hold your tongue. Sometimes, you stay quiet because you love the other person, you know they won’t understand, and you don’t want to create disunity. Disunity threatens the mission far more than not getting your way.
In my early years at the Church of the Open Door, we had a Sunday evening service. I wasn’t a fan of it for many reasons. I knew that stacking up Bible knowledge through two sermons a week wasn’t that effective in helping people grow in Christ. Few young people attended the evening service. Many who did attend had told me the only reason was to support me. I felt our Sunday evenings could become more effective if we dedicated them to discipleship and leadership development.
However, when one of our older elders, whom I loved dearly, said, “As long as I’m an elder at Church of the Open Door, we will have an evening service, only liberal churches drop their evening service.” I kept silent. I could have taught the true history of the evening service, proving that it has nothing to do with conservative vs. liberal. I could have made my point that we were woefully short of leadership development, and our schedule was so busy that we had zero time for discipleship. Finally, I could have proven that more Bible knowledge coming from experts behind a pulpit does not equal more spiritual maturity. Yet, I held my tongue because we had more pressing problems to address. Most importantly, there were about fifty others who also held his opinion, and dropping the evening service could have been extremely disunifying.
Stealthily, without speaking against the Sunday evening service, I concentrated on building a disciple-making culture involving the elders so that they would experience the power and joy of personal discipleship. We moved our primary children’s ministry to Sunday evenings so that more young people could attend, and that freed up Wednesday evenings for small groups. We moved the adult service to a smaller venue to facilitate the new time for the large children’s ministry. I began using the evening service for topical series like marriage and parenting to meet more specific needs that I could not fully address through expository preaching on Sunday mornings. As the elders experienced the effectiveness of personal discipleship and realized the need for topical teaching as well, we finally stopped thinking of Sunday evening in terms of me in the pulpit preaching one more time.
It took us six years to finally replace the evening service with a vibrant array of discipleship offerings, and my wife, Judy, and I were able to dedicate Sunday evenings to equipping future leaders. The price was worth it because we loved sincere leaders well and maintained unity.
Moving with stealth as an act of love and to preserve unity is the easy call. Moving with stealth in the face of an inappropriate person or a bully to move the mission forward is far more difficult and messy.
In my ministry at Recentered Group, I’ve worked with numerous pastors and elders who deal with fellow leaders who have a lot of clout in the church. These leaders are terribly difficult to deal with and use their clout to hinder the mission of the local church.
One young pastor who called me for advice was dealing with an unfortunate but typical situation, an outright bully on the elder board. This man had run the church for years, and nothing could happen without his approval. Mind you, no one ever put him in charge or voted on it; it was just the way it was. This is far too common in churches. Bullies and passive-aggressive controllers try to run everything, and everyone knows that if you cross them, it gets ugly.
I asked this young man if he had any problems with becoming stealthy. I took him to Luke 20:19, where Jesus stealthily answers the probing questions of the Pharisees. Then we looked up Matthew 13:13-14 where Jesus explained the necessity of speaking in parables to His disciples. Finally, turning him to Matthew 10:16, I asked what he felt Jesus meant when he said, “Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves,” and if that might apply to his situation.
I could tell he was still uneasy with the word stealth, so I explained further. “You’ve been telling me about your arguments with this man and the points you made. I agree with everything you told him, and your points are all biblical. However, if you want to stay at that church and accomplish the mission of making disciples, you’re going to have to be stealthy. You need to start discipling other leaders, praying for breakthroughs, and asking God to either change this man’s heart or expose his bullying to others so that you can bring about changes.”
I went on to tell this young pastor that my ultimate desire for this bully would be for him to grow in receiving and giving the love of God in Christ Jesus so that he would humble himself and listen to others.
I also warned that it wasn’t likely to happen in the near future. His reality was that there was a bully on the board, and God already knew that, but his mission to make disciples remained. I encouraged him that completing this mission was possible, even when he wasn’t making progress against the bully in the elder meetings. I suggested a few ways he could do the effective work of making disciples and equipping some upcoming leaders that the bully (like most bullies) would never notice because they don’t care about the mission of making disciples. They only care about getting their way.
In John 2:23-25 we learn that Jesus would not entrust Himself to the Judeans desiring to follow Him because He knew what was in their hearts. You must decide carefully when and to whom you give access to your inner convictions concerning the direction of the ministry. There are some you can’t invite into your deepest desires to make a difference for Christ in this broken world. When they expose themselves as someone who insists on molding your ministry according to their needs and desires, believe that they are who they are.
Now that you know what is in their hearts, demonstrated by their behavior, do not entrust your ministry to them.
You might think you are being authentic by sharing with those who have proven themselves untrustworthy, but you will soon find yourself losing your joy in leading. As you build a team to move forward with, you will rediscover the deep satisfaction of leading authentically, openly, and honestly.
Until then, be kind, never lie, and be wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove. It’s an unfortunate circumstance, but it’s your reality. Be stealthy, trust God, and believe that you will discover new joy and peace in your heart and, by His grace, be able to share that joy and peace with a healthy leadership team.
