By Dan Reiland

Bob wanted pews in the new sanctuary, and the pastor, board, staff and building committee wanted chairs. Easy right? Wrong. Bob was a founding member, influential and rich. The pastor met with him on several occasions pleading his case in favor of chairs in the new sanctuary. If you are wondering “What about Bob” is causing all the fuss, he threatened to pull his huge commitment to the building fund if they didn’t put pews in the new church. Before you say this is an easy one, the pastor should buck up and tell Bob to take a hike, you know it’s never that easy. Under the intense financial pressure of a new building, the leaders needed and wanted Bob’s check.

Bob had dozens of people convinced that this was a critical issue and central to the future success of the church. The church was about fifty years old and always had pews. People had come to Christ in pews, hundreds of them. God cared about pews. Pews represented unity and chairs individualism. Don’t laugh, if I came to your church I’ll bet I could find a sacred cow or two! Before long, Bob had made it a theological issue of passionate proportion. And it didn’t matter that pews were more expensive than chairs, and sat less people.

This caused a division in the church. Soon, as is often the case, the issue wasn’t the issue. The case of pews vs. chairs began to fade for church politics and who was whose friend. This sounded like, “I don’t really care about pews and chairs, but I’m Bob’s friend, so I guess I want pews.” Bob’s grandson was the youth pastor at the church. And there you have church politics in full bloom. This is not the subtle variety, but nonetheless common. Most political issues start slow, quiet and subtle, and then turn into a “crazy” story like this one. (The story slightly modified to protect the church, and the person’s name is not Bob.)

The next several paragraphs comprise a summary review of the central thoughts of Part I of this article on Church Politics. I enthusiastically encourage you to read Part 1 in its entirety if you haven’t. (See previous issues for Part 1.)

Church politics has taken on its own contemporary definition, pertaining specifically to the local church. We instinctively know what we’re talking about when someone says “church politics.”

Politics is agenda driven. Somebody wants something. The major complication is that the issues at the core (personal and selfish desires), get communicated as if they are the cause of Christ. This is not new. Holy Wars have been fought with the same dynamics in play. This is further complicated because it’s rarely malice that drives the personal agenda. It’s more often good people who really believe that what they are doing (what they want) is right. The problem is that good people who are attempting to do good things lose sight of the big picture and begin to justify their part of the mission as The Mission.