Navigating Gatekeepers

Leading at Churches with Gatekeepers

The church’s roof has been leaking off and on for fifteen years. The Property Committee wants a new roof before the leaks cause serious damage. Finance is concerned about the 2022 giving drive and now a capital cost. Meanwhile, the pastor is stressing about what the Gatekeeper thinks.

The Self-Proclaimed Most Important Voice(s)

The Gatekeeper, who may be male or female¹ has been with the church for over 30 years. She has been on every committee and chaired most of them over the years. When she is on a committee things get done.

Church leaders like the Gatekeeper on their special projects for if he agrees with it he WILL get it done. Other church people hope to NEVER sit on a committee or board where the Gatekeeper is. Meetings are long, sarcasm common, and no one feels heard.

The Church Center

The Gatekeeper honestly loves her church. Her heart is in a good place. She acts like she is God’s voice at the church. She doesn’t actually think this, but she cannot keep quiet even when she is not directly involved.

The Gatekeeper cannot stop himself from making sure every major decision that the church makes is one he agrees is the right one.

The Church Board

Lots of church people put the Gatekeeper on the church board whenever she is eligible. It is just easier to have her at the table than sniping and unraveling board decisions from the adult education class she teaches on Sunday afternoon. Or from the church kitchen. Or at brunch at the Oak Diner.

The Gatekeepers and the Pastor

The Last Pastor

The last pastor served this church for ten years. He married both of the Gatekeeper’s children. The pastor buried the Gatekeeper’s father. He has spent hundreds of hours in committee meetings with the Gatekeeper.

If asked, the pastor will find all the positives about the Gatekeeper. Privately, sitting in the sixth pew on the right, where he prays on Tuesdays, the pastor prays for help. In prayer, he asks God why the Gatekeeper is so difficult and isn’t there a church where he doesn’t have to run every decision, every strategy, every idea through him?

The Last Pastor Leaves

Did God answer this pastor’s prayer, when he got the call to interview at the small, rural congregation filled with people who like to do missions, enjoy worship, and have great meals at each other’s homes?

Or did the pastor just leave because he was sick of being one of the few people willing to press against the Gatekeeper’s opinions?

The New Pastor

After serving at nine churches, including four interims, in 30 years, I have had three churches where the Gatekeeper was active and at work.² These churches often depended on the Gatekeeper to get things done.

They were universally shocked that the pastor who left or the new interim had a problem with the Gatekeeper. The church’s often held up the last pastor who stayed 5-20 years as proof that the Gatekeeper is not a problem but the new pastor is the problem.

Many Pastors Don’t Like Conflict

People go into the ministry to talk about God, teach about the Bible, and share the love of Christ. Few go into the ministry to lead through conflict. So many pastors have not been trained in dealing with the Gatekeeper.

Many pastors do learn to work through the Gatekeeper. The pastor finds workarounds. Often these workarounds are simply letting the Gatekeeper have his way.

The Worst Example

One pastor, who left the new church after less than a year, said it baffled him that the Board would completely change their minds between meetings. One time the board made a decision and by the next month, the minutes showed the complete opposite decision and no one disputed it. The Gatekeeper had reversed the decision then convinced some of the Board why they were wrong.

The Gatekeeper was not on the board. At the next election, the Gatekeeper was elected back onto the board for another term.

Some Solutions for Churches with a Gatekeeper

Psychologists can give lots of insight into why Gatekeepers see themselves as the key to the church. Sometimes it has to do with the Gatekeepers’ work environment where they are in charge so they carry it over into the church. Others have inherited it as their family is one of the founding families. Some have this role in their family and continue it at their church.

Regardless of why, for a church to become healthy again and center itself on God’s call to that congregation the church has to decide to change.

The Big Threat

In all cases of churches dealing with a Gatekeeper, the Gatekeeper’s ultimate threat to their power position is that they could leave. Churches bend over backward to keep 30 years members happy. Many times church leaders also believe that the Gatekeepers are big givers.³

Solution #1 Free Speech

The church has to be encouraged that everyone has a voice, and every opinion is worthy of being listened to and understood. The more voices that are heard, the stronger the church will grow. God speaks to churches through many voices. We need to listen.

Solution #2 Direct Address

The church’s elected leaders have to be willing to stand up to the Gatekeeper. This usually involves 2-3 church leaders going to the Gatekeeper and asking them to trust the leadership of the church to the board. This can include two or three things the Gatekeeper can do.

Clear Communication

With one Gatekeeper, we learned that the Gatekeeper could stay out of matters if they felt like they knew what was going on and that they had someone to talk to about church matters. So we sent all minutes to the Gatekeeper and encouraged them to email a particular board member and the pastor with any questions. This allowed them to be in the know, while they worked on giving up their need to control.

The particular board member and the pastor could work together to make sure the Gatekeeper wasn’t reversing back to manipulative behavior.

Solution #3 Church Captains

Like a baseball team’s player captains, the church’s board sometimes has to act like a team’s captains. Instead of leaving any interpersonal conflict to the Coach/Pastor, they handle it in the locker room with direct communication with an explanation of consequences if the behaviors don’t change.

Pastors come and go. Leaving all conflict to the pastor sets the pastor up for failure. Sometimes a peer correction works better coming from peers. The Gatekeeper will sometimes change when their church leader peers come and ask them to change their behavior.

Solution #4 Rotation of Church Committee Members

Sometimes a Gatekeeper gains and keeps their power because they have been on one or two church committees for years. A worship Gatekeeper may be on the Worship Committee for twenty years and all changes to worship must be approved by the Gatekeeper. Or a Gatekeeper on Finance gives them a say on every major expenditure.

A church board can institute rotating committee members. Three years on, in 3 staggered classes. Three years on, 2 years off for churches with a long history of stuck committees. Or one year off if that makes more sense for your congregation.

Gatekeepers will fight hard against this change. They may also promise to leave and then deny it. Make sure promises are made in writing.

Solution #5 Cease and Desist

If a Gatekeeper cannot change their manipulative behavior it might become necessary for a church board to ask them to take a three-month break from the church.

This is dangerous because the Gatekeeper will not go without talking to everyone they know about the harmful, unChristian behavior of the church board.

The board will want to have clear communication with the congregation about why this is going on. Often the promise of honest communication with the congregation is enough to change the behavior of the Gatekeeper.

Gatekeepers like secrets veiled in terms like confidential and private. Clear behavior change requests shared with the congregation will help shine a light on what is happening.

Solution #6 Consultants

Church denominational judicatories often recommend a consultant when asked. Sadly it is often the Gatekeeper who calls the judicatory first framing the problem as with the pastor. Pastors are often blindsided by the Gatekeeper complaining about them to the church’s judicatory.

The church board needs to be out in front of this by keeping both the congregation and the judicatory updated. Otherwise, a conflict with a Gatekeeper is soon reframed by them as a pastor conflict.

Consultants

Gatekeepers are smooth and quick to be first in line to meet with the consultants. They have often lined up other people to support their view of the issue. Good church consultants are ready for this. This is a great question to ask consultants during the vetting process. Also, make sure you talk to at least three churches that had the consultants work with them at least two years previously. Did the changes the consultants recommend work?

In Summary

Gatekeepers hurt church vitality. But churches often prefer to use their energy to keep the Gatekeeper happy regardless of what this does to the health of the church. Church boards need to identify Gatekeepers and work to form plans to make sure that everyone has a voice and NO ONE has sole veto power. Free speech, leadership rotation, direct communication, and peer captains are great ways for a church to address any Gatekeeper problems they are having.

1. Gender pronouns will alternate by paragraph to help us not see this as a gender issue.

2. At the 2,000 member church where I served for 11 years, some of the ministry areas had their own Gatekeepers, but the church as a whole had built a system that kept a Gatekeeper away from having churchwide control.

3. This is rarely true. Usually, the biggest givers are the most faithful, humble people.