Baptist churches are places of life and hope for millions across the world. It is through and within our churches that people hear the Gospel, encounter God, experience forgiveness and reconciliation. It is within our churches that they hear the Word of God and grow, encouraged and nurtured by others. It is within our churches that they experience love, care and support and themselves extend that to others.

It is also within our churches that they get hurt, disappointed, and even worse, traumatised and abused (physically and spiritually). Every church system has its upsides and downsides, no matter what type of church polity you choose. Our particular polity model that features autonomy and congregational governance is both a liberating feature and one that has a dark side. If we are honest enough to recognise the dark side of our unique culture, we can mitigate against it, and put policies and strategies in place to respond when inevitably, people get hurt and traumatised. If we don’t, we are complicit in it.

So that we are clear on what I mean by trauma, I prefer to work with the definition from SAMHSA:

Individual trauma results from an event, series of events, or set of circumstance that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or life threatening and that has lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being.

We simply have to face the fact that it is a regular feature of Baptist life that pastors are traumatised (and cause trauma themselves), where church conflict leads to splits that cause trauma in pastors and their families, and church members. Our denominational leadership is well aware of this (in particular our church health directors), but it is not something we feel we can or are currently prepared to address at a wider cultural level. This is partly due to the unique features of Baptist polity but also a lack of will. It’s also due to the fact that it is a truth that dare not speak its name, because it is embarrassing and shameful. To talk about this would feel like an attack on all things Baptist.

It is true of course that no matter what church polity model you choose, at the heart of it is people, and people are often the problem. No system can guarantee against the abuse of it by people. But there are characteristics of systems that provide opportunity for trauma. There will always be bad faith actors, but where there are systemic weaknesses that we know about we are duty bound to be trauma informed.

Heart Attack

The doctor jumped from his desk and called the nurse as he ushered me into the nursing station of the local GP clinic. He had a worried look on his face and an urgency in his voice. Within minutes I was lying down on a bed with ECG electrodes being attached. I had presented to the clinic with heart attack symptoms. The doctor was worried because he knew I was both exceptionally fit and that I had just completed an ultra-marathon. There was nothing in my lifestyle to suggest cause for a heart attack, other than over exertion in an ultra marathon.

When the test was over to doctor ushered me back into his office and closed the door, and then fixed a long pensive stare at me. I braced myself for the bad news. The news was actually good, I was not about to have a heart attack, but rather, I was having an anxiety attack. It didn’t make sense as at that period of time at work (senior pastor in a Baptist church) I wasn’t experiencing any issues. However, historically I had experienced plenty of conflict and dealing with malevolent people within the leadership group who were trying their best to get rid of me through means both foul and fair, but mostly foul.

The eventual diagnosis was PTSD, which was triggered by a return to a scene of previous, repeated trauma. My sub-conscious was flipping the switch into protective mode. I could write a book about the traumatic events but they would read like fiction, they were that incredulous. Back in the doctors office I was embarrassed, firstly for myself in that as a pastor I was supposed to have it all together, and secondly that I had to reveal that there were things in my workplace (the Bride of Christ), that were bad enough to cause the effects of trauma. I was exposing the church’s dark side to the doctor.

This was the beginning for me of realising that the body keeps count, and that being in ministry meant that I was exposing myself and my family to repeated traumas. I will live with the guilt of the price my family has paid until my final breath.

Characteristics of Baptist Polity That Cause Trauma

1. Autonomy

The first characteristic of Baptist church polity that can lead to trauma is one of our biggest selling points: autonomy. Baptists guard their autonomy like Melbournians guard their status as the coffee capital of Australia – jealously, although erroneously. Essentially every Baptist church is an autonomous entity that exists separately from the Baptist denomination or ‘movement’ as we call ourselves here in Queensland (don’t ask, it’s just Queensland ok?).

Baptist churches belong voluntarily to the Union of churches (hence Baptist Union). Furthermore, every State Union belongs voluntarily to the national Union. To be honest the primary benefit is realised in benefits such as insurance, banking and recognition for registration in terms of marriages and other necessary benefits of belonging as required from time to time by government authorities.

No Baptist figure from the State or national Union can instruct any church what to do. There is limited power in that churches can be disfellowshipped if they do not adhere to the requirements of the Union in relation to statements of faith and church constitutions. Pastors also have to meet certain requirements in order to be accredited, registered and ordained.

Over the last to years in Queensland we had a show down between the Union and a rump of conservatives who took exception to the new requirement for pastors to have pastoral supervision. This stemmed from the findings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The objections were on the grounds of autonomy: the Union was now requiring, as a condition of ongoing registration, that pastors commit to a minimum number of pastoral supervision counselling sessions every year. This in the view of the objectors, violated the sacred Baptist distinctive of autonomy.

For the most part though, churches are able to run their own governance and ministry systems in glorious isolation from any outside interference. There is a big downside to that upside though:

• The quality of the governance structure and practises from church to church is a lottery. Unlike systems found in more hierarchical structures that have been developed and refined over generations and have developed a considerable body of policy, Baptist churches only benefit from any development from within – which is usually minimal.
• The professionalism and ethics of their human resource management practises is another complete lottery. It is common to find a Baptist church with an anachronistic cobbled together shambles of amateur proportions when it comes to handling staff. Typically larger churches that have developed a Carver governance policy model (and therefore a Board) have more contemporary systems, but that up side can be nullified by the feature of an all powerful senior pastor who gets to call the shots either way on staff. If the anointed one wants you gone you may as well pack your bags sonny boy.
• Many Baptist churches have a secondary (and more powerful) governance structure, and that consists of the people who really have their hands on the levers of power and influence. A mature Baptist church has a strongly interconnected system of founding families who are now related to one another thanks to their young adults matching and hatching within the lifespan of the church to form a ubiquitous octopusian network, the tentacles of which reach everywhere. Get off-side with this cosa nostra familia and you are toast. If they love you, you are a made man, until you aren’t.

So what’s the problem then you ask? The problem is that without the guarantee of tried and tested systems, policies, standards and practises, churches can completely hash things up, without any capacity for outside involvement, advice, or protection.

A system that is not connected to a wider body of policy and experience is one where autonomy leads to amateurism, where churches make up their own systems and policies and reinvent the ecclesiastical wheels, which can eventually fall off. When wheels fall off, people get hurt.

They may get it right, they may get it wrong, and they may get it disastrously wrong. And that’s where people get hurt and traumatised. I have watched churches go from overflowing to empty, whilst all along ignoring offers of help from outside, and from more experienced minds in the denomination. Glorious isolation is not all that it is cracked up to be.

2. Lack of Lay Leadership Training

As I referenced in this article, the majority of people involved in leadership responsibilities within Baptist churches (diaconates, elderships and Boards) are ‘lay leaders’. By ‘lay’, I mean that they do that voluntarily, and do not receive any remuneration for that. They typically have other jobs and fit leadership responsibilities around evening meetings and time on the weekend. You will have either one or a few pastors on a typical eldership but the majority are usually ‘lay’ members.

They receive no training at any official level for the responsibilities they assume. If Johnny Appleseed gets voted into being an elder at a church meeting this weekend there is no text book, no course to enrol in, no online training, no weekend training, nada. He just has to pick it up as he goes along, hopefully getting shown the ropes by a more experienced campaigner.

The first ever Baptist church service in Australia was in April 1831 some 193 years ago, but still, nothing has been developed to resource and train the bulk of our leaders. I have done research into this with every Stare leader and church health director. There has never been much in the way of training and equipping resources for lay leadership, there isn’t any currently, and there are no plans for in the future. This is despite the capacity of our denominational staff and our related theological and ministry training colleges. New elders [or deacons and Board members) are left to their own devices.

This is an indictment on our culture and a deficiency that leads to perpetual suffering in our churches through division, traumas, splits, controversies and bad health – much of which can be remedied through providing training and equipping for the bulk of our leadership community. Leaving the skills, arts and responsibilities of leadership up to chance is a foolish and impoverished way of running a movement. The people at the highest denominational positions who are able to make a difference in this regard choose not to, or perhaps it never occurs to them.

3. Human Resource Management Processes

How churches find, employ and where necessary terminate pastors and staff, is a lottery. Our autonomous set up ensures no consistency and does not guarantee fairness or professionalism.

It’s not necessarily that people have bad intentions, rather that bad processes that are lacking in natural justice often lead to bad outcomes, as those processes can be used by certain people to prosecute agendas.

Herein lies the problem expressed in bullet point:

• Baptist churches are autonomous and are able to run their own affairs without the intervention of the Baptist Union (denomination).
• The overwhelming majority of lay leaders in Baptist churches have no training or expertise in human resource management. They are sincere, but sincerely under trained in this area.
• Often the most egregious examples of pastor abuse are linked to people who have plenty of experience in contemporary human resource management standards but use the lack of acceptable policy in churches to achieve their own nefarious ends.
• The processes used often are not fit for purpose, and in particular, are devoid of natural justice.
• The processes used in church human resource management would not survive scrutiny in a normal workplace. Other than politicians you will hard pressed to find a profession where your clients effectively pass judgment on you in order for you to keep your job.
• The result is often that the process causes trauma for the pastor and family, even if they are successful in winning their vote to be appointed for another 5 year term.
• There is no process in place with the denomination to respond to potential or actual trauma experienced by the pastor and family, and other church members.
• Pastors who become victims of bad processes simply move on, and many never return to ministry, and many eventually lose their faith. There is no process to identify and provide care for them. Broken pastors are soon forgotten.

These features of Baptist human resource management are exacerbated here in Queensland thanks to our denominational leadership (Queensland Baptists), promoting a Dickensian employment policy to churches fatuously called ‘Spiritual Agreements’ which have the following features:

• Pastors are placed outside the protections provided to all other Australians via the Fair Work legislation.
• Churches can unfairly dismiss pastors without intervention from an outside body (this was sold as an advantage in the initial documentation provided to churches).
• Salaries are replaced with ‘acts of grace’ by churches in the form of money so to help with living expenses.
• No automatic right for sick leave or superannuation.

To understand the method behind the madness you can read the whole sorry story here.

4. The Baptist church meeting

The way we do meetings in the Baptist church is deeply problematic. We commonly use a format called Formal Business Meeting procedure, which is primarily designed for what the title suggests, but it for the most part not fit for purpose when it comes to providing a vehicle by which we can achieve the stated aim of the meeting: ‘to discern the mind of Christ’.

We have turned what is meant to be a meeting of the body into a debating format replete with confusing and complex rules around motions, amendments, substantive motions, resolutions, etc. You will go a long way to find in a Baptist church a book, pamphlet, brochure, or any resource whatsoever, that explains the labyrinthine process involved and helps Baptist church members understand the process to participate meaningfully. How Baptist church members come to understand effective participation in church meetings is a mystery. Most don’t.

I vividly remember a crunch church meeting where a well-educated young married professional who was a scientist rose to make a contribution. “Are you speaking to the motion on the floor?!!!” bellowed someone. Dazed and confused the young professional tried to speak but became flustered and gave up, and took his seat. He simply wanted to make a contribution, but he was forced into an adversarial process of either supporting the motion ‘on the floor’, opposing it, or ‘moving’ an amendment.

Writing for the Baptist Churches of New Zealand, John Tucker summarises the worst aspects of our meeting format:

 We have allowed the practice of voting to produce meetings marred by power blocs and bitter debates. This is tragic. Our Baptist forbears did not begin to use voting until the early nineteenth century. At that time the English parliament permitted only the wealthiest five percent of men to vote. Baptists, by contrast, when they adopted this practice of voting in church meetings, chose to open the ballot to all church members – male and female, rich and poor, old and young. Voting was our way of declaring that every voice matters when we gather together to seek Christ’s will. Over time, this practice has tended to produce bitter debates between different groups trying to win a vote. But the practice of congregational discernment does not have to mean bitter formal debates decided by a majority vote. The church is not a democracy. It is a Christocracy. The goal when we gather together is not to win a vote and impose our will, but to listen to the voice of Christ and submit to his will. 

Put simply, Baptist church meetings are all too often a place of trauma for pastors, their families, church staff, church leadership and church members. Nobody escapes the fallout, other than the rusted-on malcontents that live for the battle and will rather stay and fight long after they have lost interest in being a genuine member.

Summary

The above features of Baptist life create fertile ground for incidents of trauma. We can carry on regardless or we at the very least can become aware of when people do get hurt, and respond to their needs. There is plenty we need to question, some things that need refining, and some things we simply need to stop doing.

In Part 2 we will look at what it means for churches to be trauma informed and how that can shape our governance, worship and pastoral care systems.

*Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. SAMHSA’s Concept  of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach. HHS Publication No. (SMA) 14-4884. Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2014.