Pastoring People Who Don't Trust Each Other

In this episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, Todd Rhoades discusses the impact of current societal and political divisions on church communities. The central theme is the erosion of trust within churches, paralleling trust issues in broader society. Rhoades emphasizes the importance of personal pastoral work to rebuild trust and foster connection in fractured communities. He suggests that church leaders need to engage in individual conversations and pastoral care, emphasizing listening and presence over performance and metrics. • Discussion of the recent White House Correspondents Dinner shooting and its impact. • The erosion of trust within church communities reflects wider societal divisions. • Importance of pastoral care and individual engagement to rebuild trust. • Personal encounters and connection are crucial for healing community divisions. • Rhoades encourages reaching out to congregation members with no agenda. • Advises making pastoral care the norm in church staff culture. • Emphasizes the unglamorous but essential work of connecting with individuals. • Highlights the need for consistent, genuine engagement over strategic programs.

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Transcript

Why Church Feels Different Now

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Thanks for joining me on the podcast today. We've been doing a series this week based on the events that happened almost a week ago last Saturday at the White House correspondence dinner in Washington, D.C., the shooting that took place, everything that's happened since. And the hardest part of this moment this week probably has not been the news. It's probably not the shooting. It's not the headlines. And it's not even what's coming next. The hardest part is the way, at least I think, that the way the people in your church look at each other now. It's a lot different than it was five years ago. And it's a lot different, can I say this? It's a lot different than what it was pre-pandemic. And as a pastor, as a church leader, as a church staff member, I'm guessing you can feel it. You just don't always know what to do about it. And that's how we're going to finish off, hopefully, our series today here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. My name's Todd Rhodes. I'm one of the co-founders along with Matt Steen over at chemistrystaffing.com. Okay, let's get going here today. This has been an interesting series, a different series for me. Started off by saying this is not political, political series, even though the events that happened have divided our country politically. Here's what I've noticed. Okay. Trust inside the church. This is where I want to drill down today. Trust inside the church has eroded along the same fault lines as trust outside the church. Let me recite that one more time. Trust, this is what I'm noticing. Trust inside many churches has eroded along the same fault lines as trust outside the church. You know that deacon that you used to grab coffee with? That small group leader who posted that thing, the staff member you're not sure how to read anymore, the donor who sent the email about the prayer you said, all of those things. It's just different now. And hey folks, I've been doing this, I've been doing this a long time, okay? And maybe you have too. But I've seen over the years how people have changed and how people have changed theologically. I've seen people take totally different theological stances today than they did 10 or 15 years ago. Not just minor tweaks, total. I have an acquaintance that has left Christianity and has joined Islam and is a big proponent online. You would never know that they were ever a pastor of a church. So people have changed theologically. People have changed politically, people that I thought I knew really well 10 years ago. I have people on both sides of this that have either uh you read their social media feed today, and these were pastors, these were church leaders, some still are, some are not, some are far from the church these days. Uh, but you read their social media feeds, and some of them have gone totally off on the right side of the spectrum, like far and some have gone far left. It's just different than it was. And yesterday we talked about a lot of the people that have changed are still coming to your services. And what used to be maybe 10 years ago, a church that was 70, 80, 90 percent on the same page theologically, on the same page politically, that might be 50%, 40%, 30% that think totally different than you. It's not loud most of the time, but when things like what happened last Saturday night happened, sometimes it can get loud, sometimes it's quiet, sometimes it you just feel like it's a little less warm than it used to be. And the people who feel most acutely are the ones who used to trust everyone, and now the subtle shift is that they don't know who to trust. And when you don't know who to trust, sometimes you don't trust anyone, and that is a deal breaker inside the church. Now, listen, you can't fix this with a curriculum, you can't fix this with a sermon series. You can't even fix this with a small group push. This is the kind of thing that gets fixed one-on-one, person by person, slowly pastorally, and the way pastors used to do it before we had platforms. Okay? Here's what I think the work actually looks like in 2026. Okay? I don't know who you are, maybe you're a senior pastor, maybe you're a worship pastor, maybe you're a children's pastor. Maybe you're not even on staff. But this is what I think this looks like. No matter where you're seat on the bus, no matter how you're leading. It looks like coffee with somebody you've been avoiding just because that conversation might be hard. Okay, it could look like a phone call to a member whose Facebook posts have made you a little bit uncomfortable. And yeah, this, it could be a meeting with a staff member whose Facebook posts have made you a little bit uncomfortable. It looks like a pastoral visit to somebody who went quiet six months ago. It looks like asking with no agenda repeat that, no agenda. How are you doing? How are you really doing? And then listening for ten minutes without trying to fix anything. It's not glamorous work. This is not the work that will show up on your monthly board report in a nice little metric and a nice little graph that's got an arrow that's going up and to the right. It probably won't grow your church next quarter, but it's the work. And here's the truth: your staff is watching. The way you handle this with one or two members will set the tone for your whole staff. If you model curiosity instead of judgment, your staff will too. If you model patience instead of urgency, your staff will too. If you model presence instead of performance, your staff will too. This stuff is caught more than it's taught. And your team will pastor your people the way that you they watch you pastor your people. Okay? Let me be really honest with you, okay? I don't know how the season ends. I don't think anybody does. Our country is more divided, our culture is more divided, everybody takes a stand, we don't know who to believe in, and chances are you have a congregation that meets on Sundays that is much more fractured than they've ever been theologically, culturally, politically, ethnically, all across the board. So I don't know how this season ends, but I do know this. The churches that come out on the other side of this doing really well and with their souls intact are gonna be the ones that have leaders and pastors that do the slow, quiet, unsexy work of pastoring individuals during a season when all this loud stuff was going on. So that's the assignment. It's not new. It's the same assignment you had last year, it's the same assignment you had five years ago before things got like they are today. It's the same assignment you had pre-COVID, it's the same assignment that I had when I started in ministry back in 1986. The way through this moment is not another strategy. It's coffee and another coffee and another one after that, which is really difficult for somebody like me that doesn't do coffee. It's a Dr. Pepper and another Dr. Pepper and another Dr. Pepper, okay? You can't program your way out of a trust problem. So here's what I'd love for you to do. If this is something that, you know, Todd, this is really resonating with me, and I've not heard anybody really talk about this. Here's something I think you can do this week. Make a list of three people in your church that you haven't really talked to in six months. And the reason you haven't talked to them in six months is because it just might be there's just a little distance there. And you're not sure if it's a trust thing, if it's a political thing, if it's a theological thing. But they name pastored. Reach out to one of them. Just one. Just a check-in. No agenda. Maybe in your next staff meeting, ask each person to name one person, maybe not even out loud, maybe just in their head, that they're having a real conversation with this month. Make it normal. Make it the work because it's work. Alright, that's the series. Five episodes this week. If you missed any of them, you can go back and listen to them. I hope you will. I think it's one of the hardest pastoral seasons that most of us have led through. But let me end with this. It's probably the hardest season to lead churches, but it's also, I think, one of the most exciting. I thank God every day for as many problems as we have in the world, and for as many problems as we have in the church, and a lot of those break my heart. For all of those problems, what a great time in history to serve. What a great God we serve, and what a great church we have to be a part of. I'd love to hear from you maybe how this series resonated, or maybe how it didn't resonate with you. You can reach out to me, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. Let me give one more plug this week for my new email newsletter. It comes out every Monday through Friday. I read about 50 different sources of church information and news, things that I think you should know about. I put in the newsletter every day. I think it's great for staff people to be able to read and keep up on what's going on, and there's just not enough time in the day to do it. So you can get this email newsletter. It talks about a lot of things we don't have time to talk about here on the podcast. You can get it absolutely free. Just head over to churchleadershipradar.com. There's information there on how you can get that newsletter if you're interested. All right. I hope you have a great weekend here in Ohio. The weather's getting nice, all the trees are budding, it's beautiful outside. So I hope you take some time. Go on a walk, touch some grants, as the kids are saying these days, and I'll talk to you right back here again on Monday on the podcast.