Who is the Pastor’s Boss?

 

One of the questions that came up when I asked for topics related to the Renewed Lutheran Church, was the question “Who is the Pastor’s Boss?” as a way to talk about authority, transparency, and accountability.

On one hand, there are a few different places you can point regarding who an ELCA pastor is accountable to and supported by. Firstly, we have our baptismal vocation (I have a hunch many clergy struggle with prioritizing our baptismal vocation, I know I do) like all other Christians. Additionally, we have various commitments we make in the candidacy process, and our ordination vows, most of those are channeled through the Synod. Hopefully those commitments do not just function as Law, but also Gospel, we find both accountability and support in living out those vows and commitments. Then, with call and installation, commitments of support and accountability are made with the calling congregation(s). So, in a sense, a Pastor is in relationship with multiple expressions of this church, and they have multiple bosses.

On the other hand, all those commitments and relationship kind of obscure what the average person is really asking when they ask, “Who is the Pastor’s Boss?” The above description can feel like a lack of transparency. If a clergyperson has hundreds of bosses, it can sound like they really have no boss. This means they are accountable to no one and supported by no one. Now some folk would like that to be true, but it isn’t. So, let’s look at that question from a slightly different angle—power and efficacy.

I took a Political Science course in college called Theories of Power, it was a 300-level course and I wasn’t a polisci major, so I was a bit out of my depth, but here’s what I took away from the course and how it might speak to the question, “Who is the Pastor’s Boss?” There are three paradigms for interpreting power relationships:

Dictator-Person in charge causes the changes in the system.

Empty Suit-The Person in charge is a conduit or vessel for grass roots change.

Negotiated Leadership-There is a web of interconnection between all parties that regularly shifts.

These three descriptors can easily be applied to being a Pastor and to the question at hand.

In the dictator model the Pastor is in charge. In the Lutheran tradition we even have a funny name for this phenomena—Herr Pastor. The Pastor is the authority, what she or he says, goes. Full stop. The congregation is an extension of Herr Pastor’s will.

At the other extreme is the situation where the identity and will of the Pastor is practically irrelevant to the running of the congregation; the behavior of the congregation won’t change no matter who is installed as pastor; it could be Jesus Christ himself or a tail-less salamander leading them, and there would be no discernable behavior change. The Pastor will bow to the will of the congregation, or break.

Then there is the third way, authority is given and earned, relationships deepen or wane as situations develop. Often the Pastor is installed and is given enough political capital to do one big thing, there is a honeymoon period. After folk have kicked the tires for a while, the pastor buries someone, they weather a crisis, etc, more authority is given. At the same time the pastor learns who is worthy of trust in the congregation, who are the informal leaders, and tries to discern what the consensus of the congregation is regarding a vision. It is a dance.

Now, where all this gets tricky is when expectations and assumptions about who the Pastor’s boss is come into play. If a Pastor comes in hoping to be a Herr Pastor, and the congregation is used to negotiated leadership, there is going to be friction. Similarly, a Pastor coming in seeking consensus can look an awful lot like they are offering an empty suit and a power vacuum to a congregation that has experienced a Herr Pastor or has a history of running roughshod over the Pastor.

 

What does all this have to do with a Renewed Lutheran Church?

-It points to a need for both support and accountability throughout a pastor’s journey. Any change in how the ELCA does things ought to maintain and/or improve support and accountability.

-It touches on the informal nature of congregational systems. There is a reason they teach pastors systems theory, so they can exegete their particular congregation, and behave accordingly.

-This also touches on a lay/clergy divide. The Pastoral vocation is strange and doesn’t exactly have good secular analogies. This can lead to distrust between people and pastor, and that can be deadly to a congregation.

 

Note to readers—I intend to participate in National Novel Writing Month, as such, my morning writing time will be devoted to that instead of blogging for the month of November. That said, I intend to read A Journey of Grace and High Expectations, and re-read Anatomy of a Merger, all to think though the background of the ELCA merger. So expect a big blogpost about that sometime in December.