I’m Done Doing Your Dirty Work!

Getting involved in other people’s problems sometimes lands you in a sticky situation. Most of the time people come to you with problems that include another person. Their quandary may involve a grudge, a quarrel, or a miscommunication with this other person. The most difficult times I have had in ministry was when I stepped right in the middle of these two people and tried to be the hero. I found that rarely did they need me to intervene, they just wanted someone to hide behind.

Here I am making the confrontation, taking all the bullets, and once the shock and awe stops, I am left emotionally wrung out. The two parties “make up” and I think they are never going to be friends again after all the nastiness that was said in our meeting I facilitated. My personality stresses out over people being at odds with one another. For the next few days, I have a knot in my stomach because my leaders or saints are not being peaceable with one another. Little do I know it, that they have had each other over for dinner and are best of friends again, and guess who they didn’t inform….ME!

Then there are those who come to you “anonymously” and tell you a hard truth about someone, and they want you to confront that person without naming them as the source. When you go into the meeting, the person being confronted wants to know who told you these things and they become upset when you won’t name the source.? Things become sticky for you, and you lose trust with that leader or saint.

Frankly, I’m done taking the bullets for cowardly, passive people. The Bible gives us clear direction for this so we don’t find ourselves in these dreadful situations.? Matthew 18:15-17 describes the process of confrontation.? Simply put, if you have a problem with someone, go to them personally.? If they refuse to respond, then you get two or three witnesses from the church.? Finally, if they still don’t respond, you take them before the church.? The problem is, most people don’t get past step one. They want us to do it for them because they are scared to do it themselves.? As ministers and leaders we are not purposed to do everyone’s dirty work.?? Their dirty work is step one, our dirty work is steps two and three.

I submit that we do a grave disservice to people by taking up their responsibilities for them.? Confrontation is a part of the maturing process.? We never take the training wheels off if we never force people to confront each other.?? People will always rely on us to take care of what is most difficult if we never train them to handle problems Biblically.

My new mode of operation is that if people have not taken care of step one by confronting that person in private, I’m not willing to get involved in the situation yet. I’m done doing people’s dirty work.