Spiritual Leadership – The Battle of Best Friends

One of the hardest things that I have ever encountered is firing some of my best friends. I have fired a few of them over the years because our church is so close, so real and so servant driven. We are big on promoting from within but that means that your friends now follow your leadership. In comes the competing demands of loving and living together versus highly accountable leadership. It is like working with your spouse. If she fails to uphold her end of the business with the highest standards, do you approach her and deal with it or do you value a good evening at home. The only hope that you have is that your spouse values success in the business as much as you do and is willing to listen, discuss, change and know that you are married and love one another no matter what challenges you face in having a successful business.

Challenge a friend, a church fellow who is a leader with accountability to the task and God’s standard for whatever you are doing spiritually and you will quickly find out if they are indeed a “fellow.” Such confrontations are never easy and never desired but friend or no friend they are necessary because the spiritual goal of spiritual leadership exceeds personal relationships. That is not to say that personal relationships should be put aside but rather to say that we are accountable as leaders to hold our leaders and our followers to Christ’s standards and to the ministry work. We cannot have “favorites” or bend the standards because they are our friends or because we don’t want conflict with our friends.

In fact, I can hear my dad saying right now, “If they are really your friend then they will realize the situation and will not play the friendship card. In fact, they will remain your friend even if you disagree or have to displace them. If they are your friends, they won’t even put you in the position of having to hold them accountable, fire them or discipline them.”

He is right in the perfect world but when you promote from within or work in a volunteer environment, it can be very hard to face the conflicts that can come with leading friends and family. The Elders at our church asked me sternly when I was getting ready to employ 2 younger men who were my friends, “Are you willing to hold them accountable even to the point of firing them and are they willing to stay here at church if you have to?” What a great question! Are they of the class of people that will choose the better of the whole over themselves and reconcile friendships and adjust to see the individual relationships and the organization succeed? Better, are you willing to do what is difficult even if they don’t?

Brad didn’t make it through the firing. Boy did he blow it! He really messed up by choosing a personal sin from the past and involving someone else in it. He should have fessed up and should have thought more of the body of Christ but alas he had to be caught. When we graciously said, “You cannot serve in that position, must repent and be restored, but don’t leave we are family,” he said, “I understand.” However much he would tell us that he knew he was wrong, he would tell others that he just didn’t understand our actions. We should have gone public to the Body with the facts and forced Brad into a spiritual crisis but we did not trust the people. We felt like it would be just too much and allowed him to resign. We didn’t want to face our friends and fire a friend publicly even though I fired him privately. He should have quit, confessed and stayed. He did none of the above but forced our hand and then left. We are all on speaking terms but he still struggles and the Church overall is weaker because he is not strong.

Eric realized that something wasn’t right with him – he wasn’t sure what it was. Eric quit because he could not do the job any longer. His heart was not in it and he did not feel spiritually empowered to continue. I accepted his resignation and did not try to make him stay to avoid conflict. We announced his resignation, we remained friends, and he worked through his issues. He was at church last week.

I could go on and on. This scenario has played itself out again and again over the years. We have found greater success by not reflecting upon friendships but the work given to us by God and the accountability that was willingly accepted by those who signed on to do that work. We can neither stay because we are friends nor can we keep others on because we are friends. The call is from God to do God’s work. We must face the tough facts and the tough conflicts of friendship despite our friendships and worries for the impact on our friendships. We have found that in holding one another accountable early on and not avoiding being “straight with our friends” that we retain and deepen friendships and leaders.

Yes, some people leave but that is their choice and the work we are called to must go on. Spiritual leadership was not guaranteed to be easy but we are more accountable to God than to our friends. We must win the Battle of Being Willing to Fire our Friends if we intend to be Spiritual Leaders for God.