180: When Dysfunction Becomes the Culture—and No One Talks About It

Church should be a place of growth and healing—but too often, dysfunction gets disguised as “unity” or “God’s will.”

In this episode of our anniversary series, we’re naming the unhealthy systems churches cling to and calling for leadership that reflects Jesus’ heart.

We’ll talk about:

1. True unity vs. fear-based “togetherness”
2. The damage of avoiding hard conversations
3. How power imbalances keep people silent
4. Why dysfunction isn’t spiritual maturity
5. What it takes to build an emotionally healthy church culture

It’s time for small churches to lead with empathy, curiosity, and respect.

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Transcript

Laurie Graham: 0:01

Hey, welcome to the small church ministry podcast, where we help volunteers and ministry leaders experience less stress, more joy and greater impact as we share strategies that actually do work in smaller churches. I'm your host. Laurie Graham, let's dive in. You. Laurie, hey, hey, welcome back to the small church ministry Podcast. I'm Laurie, and we are jumping into the second episode of our special five year anniversary series called off script, five years of saying what needs to be said, and today we're going there. We are talking about the kind of dysfunction that churches dress up in spiritual language, and why we need to stop. The title of this episode is when dysfunction becomes the culture, and no one talks about it, because I have seen it too many times. And if you have been in small church ministry long enough, I'm guessing you have too so let's start here. Have you ever sat in a church meeting where someone said something hurtful or crossed a line and everyone just sort of pretended it didn't happen? Or worse yet, maybe someone spiritualized it. Maybe you've heard things like we just need to move on, or it's not honoring to talk about that. Or one of my favorites, or should I say least favorites is, let's not stir up division. It sounds spiritual, doesn't it? But what's really going on is fear, avoidance and sometimes control. I call it dressed up dysfunction. It is clear and straight up emotional unhealth in a Sunday morning outfit. We've got to quit dressing up dysfunction in a Sunday morning outfit. So let's get something straight. There is a big difference between unity and uniformity. There is a big difference between peace making and peace faking. When healthy churches pursue real unity, they create space for hard conversations. They don't silence them. They let people disagree without labeling them difficult, and they teach peaceful, beautiful ways to have disagreement, healthy churches that are looking for to create real unity also build trust through honesty, not silence, but dysfunctional churches, they often confuse control with order. They confuse silence with peace. This is not the kind of unity Jesus prayed for in John 17. And I just want to say I believe there are more dysfunctional churches out there than emotionally healthy churches. I had a conversation with my friend Kristen not too long ago. I'm like, how do we find emotionally healthy churches? How do we help people find them? And you know what, we both kind of boiled it down to, we need to create them. We need to create more healthy churches. We need to help churches become healthy so that people can find them. Because the reality is, there is so much unhealth in churches today, and it's rather normal Now, throughout this series of off script talking about the hard things that most people don't talk about, I'm really am confronting a lot of things that feel normal, and I want everyone to keep in mind, self included, that normal doesn't have to continue. Normal is not always good. Just because it's the way things are does not mean it's the way things should be or could be. Sometimes we've stopped fighting for what we know should be, what God put out there is this is the way people should function. We stop fighting for it because it's just been so hard. But let's not let's hang on to the ideal that God puts in front of us, that God calls us to. Okay, let's talk about power, because whether we like it or not, it is always in the room. In small churches, power dynamics can get really complicated, like maybe the pastor's family has held leadership roles for decades. Maybe most of the church is family. Maybe there's a gatekeeper in the church who people tend to defer. To whether it's an authority issue or just a like a loud the voice that talks the loudest in the room. How about this? Maybe a lot of decisions are made behind closed doors and then announced like it was a group effort, but really very few people had input. Now, these things don't just happen. They are symptoms of a culture that avoids transparency and discourages questions. Let me say that again, power dynamics, the things we just talked about, these things don't just happen. They're symptoms of a culture that avoids transparency and discourages questions. Please keep that in mind. Discourages questions, not a good thing, not an emotionally healthy thing. We cannot have emotionally healthy churches if we're afraid of naming what's real. Now I know in some church settings, we hear things like emotions are evil, or our heart, you know, leads us to deception and things like that. I just want to remind you that every time I say emotionally intelligent or emotionally healthy, church God created us with emotions, emotional intelligence, emotional awareness, emotional responsiveness is modeled through out scripture. Jesus had emotions. Emotions are an invitation to bring God into the picture. They give us information. Emotions in themselves are not evil. So when you hear me say emotionally intelligent, emotionally aware churches, it's a good thing. It's a good thing. Now, let me say something a little difficult. Some of the most spiritually sounding phrases in churches are used to cover dysfunction one more time, some of the most spiritually sounding phrases in churches are used to cover dysfunction. Now I'm going to go through a few of them, and I want you to keep this in mind. I'm not sure if every phrase, most of the phrases I speak, there is some truth in them. So don't just throw them all away, but they are often used to cover dysfunction, and we need to be aware of these and have some discernment when we hear these things, or when we even catch our things, ourselves saying these things. So here's just a few. Okay, there's a lot more, but here's a few. God told me using the spiritually sounding phrase God told me as a way to shut down conversation, or this phrase you shouldn't speak against a pastor or a leader when the purpose of that phrase is to void accountability. Or, how about this one? We've always done it this way when we're just scared of change, or let's not gossip. There's truth in this. But sometimes the phrase let's not gossip is used to weaponize like silence, like to silence valid concerns or prevent truth telling about abuse or mistreatment or injustice. That's not what gossiping. When God says, Let's not gossip, God says, Do not gossip, that's not the spirit of that we should be speaking when there is necessary truth telling that leads us to better. How about this phrase? You need to die to yourself, please stop misusing that phrase. We misuse that phrase to discourage healthy boundaries, to discourage emotional needs, or even saying No, I already mentioned this phrase earlier, about not causing division. This is often used to label dissenters or truth tellers or people that are bringing up things that need to actually be addressed. Another really dangerous phrase that can be used to disguise dysfunction is sometimes God puts us in hard situations to grow us. Or maybe God is using this to humble you when this is said to people who are being mistreated, wrong, damaging, hurtful, not Christ like or this is a spiritual attack when we blame everything on Satan to avoid actually taking human responsibility for toxic repetitive behavior. So please hear this God is not threatened by our questions. Healthy leadership welcomes input and often difficult conversations and. Keeping the peace at the expense of people's well being is not actually peace. It's compliance, it's control, it's misplaced power. But we are oftentimes scared to name dysfunction, to call it out, because of spiritual phrases that have been used for us in front of us, things that feel normal. But what happens when we don't name dysfunction? And tell me if you've seen this happening in the modern church today, this is what happens when we avoid naming dysfunction. People burn out. Good leaders, leave good people. Leave. People stop trusting the church, and the real mission of the church gets lost in self protection. Have you seen it? I have. This is what happens when we don't name dysfunction. If we want emotionally healthy churches, I can take the word out emotionally. If we want healthy churches that includes emotional health, you cannot remove one part of it. If we want healthy churches, we have to start being honest, even when it's awkward, even when it's messy, even when it costs us something and we also need to learn this together. Most of us are on this journey, whether we're just starting out, we're just becoming aware, or maybe we're a few steps in. For the vast majority of churches, this is not normal. It's not what has been modeled the health that I'm talking about. But again, what's always been done is not always the way that it should be done, and it's worth learning this together, getting out of the dysfunction, speaking when things need to be spoken, having difficult conversations, calling out the toxic reaction of silence and quiet when difficult things need to be talked about, because Jesus didn't avoid conflict. Jesus didn't tolerate abusive systems. He was in the midst of it. So what's the way forward? Okay, this is not about chaos or confrontation. For the sake of it, I'm not telling you to go into your church and start flipping tables. Okay? It's about creating cultures, church cultures, and it takes a while to shift a culture. Turning a ship is is slow. It's it's growth, but this is about emotional honesty. It's about being spiritually grounded. It's about relational safety, and it's about a willingness to change. I think that's one of the hardest things, is we have to, we have to name it, and we have to decide we want difference, and then we need to be willing to change when needed. And I have to say, being a healthy, functioning, relational, emotionally healthy church. This is where small churches can actually shine, because we don't need the same levels of bureaucracy. We are already relational. If we're willing to lead with empathy and curiosity and courage, we could actually be setting the pace. We could be the example. Let's be the kind of churches where dysfunction doesn't get dressed up because it gets addressed. And say that one more time, let's be the kind of churches where dysfunction doesn't get dressed up or covered up because it gets addressed with grace, with humility and also with hope. Let's be the people that can picture a church that's different than many of the churches we have seen and been part of, where we've been quiet when we've seen dysfunction, where we've actually been silent when we've seen people mistreated, where we have the courage to ask questions, when before it would have been met with, be silent. Be quiet. Don't cause division. So here's my invitation to you this week, reflect on where you have seen dysfunction that's gone unaddressed in your church. If you are a part of a church that is, that is like formed with human people, which we all are, there is dysfunction that goes unaddressed. No church is immune from that. Us, because we're made up of humans. Okay, so reflect on where you've seen dysfunction go unaddressed in your church, whether it's current, whether it's recent, whether it's in your past, just reflect on it. Invite God into the conversation, into the thought that, wow, maybe that's an example of that. And the second thing I want to invite you to do is to ask God to show you where courage and compassion are needed. Where is courage needed, where is compassion needed. And the third thing I want to invite you to do is just start one honest conversation with one person that has the potential to move things forward. I believe we can have honest conversations with grace and gentleness and curiosity. This is not about calling out. This is not about creating chaos. This is about just starting an honest, gentle conversation that just might have the potential to move things forward, because this is how we become healthier churches, one brave step at a time. If you're listening and you're like, I'm not the pastor, I'm not the leader, I'm not the council member, I'm not the elder, I'm not on session. This does not have to be done with a position. We are all called to influence. We are all called to lead, because we're impacting everyone around us whenever we walk into a room. So again, I really don't believe this needs to be top down, although I think it's great when it can be i Our responsibility is not to micromanage and control people around us and call out the leaders and tell them to do it is our responsibility to speak when we see things going wrong, but we're not in charge of their change. We are in charge of our own change. So let's start the lens with where we are, with what we've seen, with where we can be courageous, where we can show compassion, no matter what position or no position. Because I'm going to tell you, if you walk into your church on a Sunday morning, you've got no position, you're not on coffee, you're not on worship, you're not the one running the slides. You are literally just walking in and sitting in a pew or in a chair. You have so much power to influence the people around you. I honestly think I've had more influence when I'm not in a position on a Sunday morning, because I get to greet people. I get to just talk to people around me, not because I'm officially a greeter, but because I care, because I love, because I can see people as Jesus sees them just walking in. If every single one of us in a position or not in a position could embrace who we are, authentic, real, human, and really embrace our own influence. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? That's how we become healthier churches, by becoming healthier individuals and calling each other to more health and less dysfunction, by bringing up questions, by having conversations, and sometimes I believe we need to say it softer. But let's reflect on where we've seen dysfunction go unaddressed. Let's ask God to show us where courage and compassion are needed, and let's just start one honest conversation that has the potential to move forward. Thanks for being here for this five year anniversary series, as we are tackling some pretty big topics that often go unspoken, unsaid and covered up until next week. Keep showing up with heart, with soul, with honesty, you are doing holy work. You are not just the pastor, not just the ministry leader, not just. The person, person in a position, but you you are. Thank you for listening to the small church ministry podcast. Don't forget to subscribe. Leave a review. Drop in some stars. Share this episode with one volunteer, one ministry leader, one pastor, one person. You are not alone, and this work matters until next week. Be alike you.