People-Pleasing Bites Back

I was talking with a pastor friend of mine about how servant leadership is not people-pleasing (the talk sound byte I posted the other day) and my own struggles to keep those clear and separate. He told me that many years ago he was going through a tough season of ministry where he was getting a lot of flack from folks in his congregation. At one point he took stock and he realized that he didn't like his congregation. In fact, he considered them the enemy.

It was tempting to place the blame squarely on them. After all, they were the difficult ones. But he realized that the root of his deep-seated angst was not the people. It was him. He was a people-pleaser and this congregation was impossible to please--it was impossible to please several hundred people all at the same time. And so he was exhausted. And he no longer loved or served the people he had been called to love and serve. They were the enemy.

What had begun with all the best intentions and sounded good at the outset ("I just want to care for people and make sure they're happy!") actually ended up doing severe damage to his ability to genuinely care for folks.

It struck me that this is how idolotary always is. C.S. Lewis talked about putting first things first. When we put first things first, we get second things thrown in. When we put second things first, we lose both first and second things. This pastor's story was a classic example of putting second things first and losing all of it.

The response, then, is not over-reaction to dismissing people or hardening of hearts (as tempting as this is for me sometimes...why is it that we are always so prone to over-correction from past mistakes!) but to a right engagement with them. This up-right relating is neither manipulative or dismissive or over-eager to please. People are image-bearers. We are to treat one another as no more (not 'gods' but image-beares) and no less (Lewis again: "there are no ordinary people") than that.

It seems to me that much of the history of the world, littered with exploitations and abominations, derives from falling off the wrong side of this equasion on one side or the other.