5 Tips for Dealing with Difficult People

Pastoral ministry is people work and people can be difficult. Some folks seem to have the spiritual gift of pointing out everything you and the church could do better. Others have impossibly high expectations that despite your good intentions you never seem to meet. Still others are just plain ornery: cantankerous old (or young) cusses that fit the profile of grumpy goats, better than cuddly sheep. And speaking of sheep, well, you’ve probably read enough about them to know it’s not a flattering metaphor. In short, churches are full of individuals with flawed personalities, irksome quirks, psychological disorders, and good old-fashioned sins. Sometimes, after discussing some difficult situation, my wife and I look knowingly at one other and say (tongue in cheek), “Everybody’s weird except us.”

So, how do you deal with difficult people?

1. Remember they are people.

That they’re people is more important than that they’re difficult. Sometimes we can get so focused on the problems people bring to us, the inconvenience those problems pose to our schedules, and the anxiety and frustration it makes us feel, that we forget they’re people.  People created imago Dei – in the image of God. People with stories to tell, feelings to understand, and hurts to heal. They are people to be loved, not problems to be fixed. And the truth is, we’ll never help them if we forget this. Don’t depersonalize difficult people.

2. Pray and listen. 

We should never presume that we help people if we will not pray for them and listen to them. Pray for them. Pray for yourself. Pray for wisdom. Pray for the ability to hear and understand. Pray James 3:13-18 into your life and theirs.

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness. (James 3:13-18)

Then sit down and talk with them, seeking first to understand, rather than be understood. This doesn’t mean every problem will be solved or every conflict avoided. But a prayerful dependence on the Lord, with a willingness to genuinely listen, and a sincere desire to understand, will always put you in a better position to love.

3. Sharpen your pastoral skills by learning from the great spiritual masters of the past.

This starts, of course, with regular reading and meditation on Scripture, but also includes the great pastors and spiritual directors of centuries gone by. There is biblical warrant for this: “Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith” (Hebrews 13:7).

It’s tempting for pastors to only read books that are hot off the press, written by successful leaders of large churches and organizations, that focus largely on strategic thinking, innovative programs, and managerial technique. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this. There’s much to learn from these kinds of books. But not the skills for soul care. For this, turn to Baxter’s Reformed Pastor and Christian Directory, or Bridges’The Christian Ministry, or Lloyd-Jones’ Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure, or the excellent pastoral series by Eugene Peterson.[1]

As an example of the kind of insight these older books can provide, consider these words from St. Gregory the Great’s classic sixth-century primer, The Book of Pastoral Rule. In Part III, Gregory warns that, “one and the same exhortation is not suited for everyone because not everyone shares the same quality of character.”

For example, what often helps some people will cause harm in others, just as herbs that are nutritious to some animals will kill others…Likewise, the medicine that cures one disease will spur another, and the bread that fortifies a grown man can kill a young child.[2]

Gregory then goes on to list over seventy different “traits” or conditions that the wise pastor should consider and differentiate between, including:

• men and women;
• young and old;
• poor and rich;
• joyful and sad;…
• the bold and the modest;…
• the impatient and the patient;
• the healthy and the sick;…
• the lazy and the hasty;…
• the obstinate and the fickle;…
• those who live in discord and those who are peaceful;…
• those who deplore sins of action and those who deplore sins of thought;
• those who bewail their sins but do not cease in committing them,
• and those who cease but do not bewail past sins… and many more! [3]

I know. That’s an overwhelming list. But the ancient pastors knew that disorders of the soul are as complex and varied as maladies of the body. No one would respect a physician who prescribes aspirin for every patient. Panaceas are an illusion. There is no medicine suited to cure all conditions. The same is true in the spiritual life.

And this means that the pastor must always…

4. Be patient and kind, remembering that God alone is the one who changes hearts. 

Hear the advice of an aged apostle to a young pastor:

And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will. (2 Timothy 2:24-26)

I can’t change people. Only God can. What I can do, by God’s grace, is cultivate a kind and gentle heart, that is ready to listen, able to teach, quick to forgive, and prepared to point difficult people to the Savior.

5. Finally, remember that you, too, are a difficult person to someone! 

C. S. Lewis wrote an incisive essay called “The Trouble with X,” in which he describes the struggles we all have with certain people who have a “fatal flaw” in their character that causes us difficulty and frustration. But by the end of the essay, Lewis turns the tables on you, with the reminder that, “you also are just that sort of person. You also have a fatal flaw in your character.”

All the hopes and plans of others have again and again shipwrecked on your character just as your hopes and plans have shipwrecked on theirs…It is important to realize that there is some really fatal flaw in you: something which gives others the same feeling of despair which their flaws give you.[4] 

The day that sinks in is sobering and humbling. But unless we are growing in this kind of self-awareness, we will always tend to point out splinters in the eyes of difficult church members, while ignoring the Redwood trees in our own.

This post was originally written for ChurchPastor.com. 

Notes

[1] There are four volumes in this series, all published by Eerdmans: Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity (1989); Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work (1992); The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction (1993); and Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocational Holiness (1994).  

[2] St Gregory the Great, The Book of Pastoral Rule, George E. Demacopoulos, transl. (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2007) p. 87.

[3] Ibid., pp. 88-89.

[4] C. S. Lewis, “The Trouble with X…” in God in the Dock: Essays in Theology and Ethics (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1972) p. 153.

Prepare Your Public Prayers: Helpful Advice from D. A. Carson

D. A. Carson's helpful advice for people who lead in public prayer:

"If you are in any form of spiritual leadership, work at your public prayers. It does not matter whether the form of spiritual leadership you exercise is the teaching of a Sunday school class, pastoral ministry, small-group evangelism, or anything else: if at any point you pray in public as a leader, then work at your public prayers.

Some people think this advice distinctly corrupt.  It smells too much of public relations, of concern for public image.  After all, whether we are praying in private or in public, we are praying to God: Surely he is the one we should be thinking about, no one else.

This objection misses the point.  Certainly if we must choose between trying to please God in prayer, and trying to please our fellow creatures, we must unhesitatingly opt for the former.  But that is not the issue.  It is not a question of pleasing our human hearers, but of instructing them and edifying them.

The ultimate sanction for this approach is none less than Jesus himself.  At the tomb of Lazarus, after the stone has been removed, Jesus looks to heaven and prays, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me.  I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me” (John 11:41-42).  Here, then, is a prayer of Jesus himself that is shaped in part by his awareness of what his human hearers need to hear.

The point is that although public prayer is addressed to God, it is addressed to God while others are overhearing it.  Of course, if the one who is praying is more concerned to impress these human hearers than to pray to God, then rank hypocrisy takes over.  That is why Jesus so roundly condemns much of the public praying of his day and insists on the primacy of private prayer (Matt. 6:5-8).  But that does not mean that there is no place at all for public prayer.  Rather, it means that public prayer ought to be the overflow of one’s private praying.  And then, judging by the example of Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus, there is ample reason to reflect on just what my prayer, rightly directed to God, is saying to the people who hear me.

In  brief, public praying is a pedagogical opportunity.  It provides the one who is praying with an opportunity to instruct or encourage or edify all who hear the prayer.  In liturgical churches, many of the prayers are well-crafted, but to some ears they lack spontaneity.  In nonliturgical churches, many of the prayers are so predictable that they are scarcely any more spontaneous than written prayers, and most of them are not nearly as well-crafted.  The answer to both situations is to provide more prayers that are carefully and freshly prepared.  That does not necessarily mean writing them out verbatim (though that can be a good thing to do).  At the least, it means thinking through in advance and in some detail just where the prayer is going, preparing, perhaps, some notes, and memorizing them.

Public praying is a responsibility as well as a privilege.  In the last century, the great English preacher Charles Spurgeon did not mind sharing his pulpit: others sometimes preached in his home church even when he was present.  But when he came to the “pastoral prayer,” if he was present, he reserved that part of the service for himself.  This decision did not arise out of any priestly conviction that his prayers were more efficacious than those of others.  Rather, it arose from his love for his people, his high view of prayer, his conviction that public praying should not only intercede with God but also instruct and edify and encourage the saints.

Many facets of Christian discipleship, not least prayer, are rather more effectively passed on by modeling than by formal teaching.  Good praying is more easily caught than taught.  If it is right to say that we should choose models from whom we can learn, then the obverse truth is that we ourselves become responsible to become models for others.  So whether you are leading a service or family prayers, whether you are praying in a small-group Bible study or at a convention, work at your public prayers."

D. A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers (Baker, 1992), 34-35.

A Biblical Prescription for Healthy Body Life

"Community" is one of the current buzzwords in Christian circles today. And for good reason. The power of the gospel both creates and sustains a new community. 

But what does biblical community actually look like? We get the answer from the many “one another” commands given in the New Testament. These commands, which have been called the “house rules for God’s family,”^[1] guide us in two ways. They highlight how relationships are central to healthy spiritual growth, and they show us in practical ways how to promote such growth.

I will summarize the “one another” commands in five broad categories that together offer a well-balanced prescription for healthy body life. Remember, these commands are reciprocal—we should all be on both the giving and receiving ends.

1. Get Together

At the most basic level, we must begin by getting together! This is implicit in the commands to greet one another (Rom 16:1-16, 1 Cor. 16:20, 2 Cor. 13:12, 1 Pet. 5:14) and show hospitality to one another (1 Pet. 4:9). You cannot get to know someone deeply if you don’t know them at all! The process begins with greeting. Saying hello. Having a conversation.

After conversation, the New Testament envisions something more meaningful: inviting other believers into your home and into your life. Of course, showing hospitality often requires self-denial and hard work, which may be one reason Peter says “show hospitality to one another without grumbling” (1 Pet. 4:9). Most of us only welcome into our homes and lives people who are like us, those with whom we are naturally most comfortable. While it is fine for Christian hospitality to begin more or less inside our comfort zone, the idea is to push beyond it, welcoming fellow believers who may be very different from us.

We see this in Romans 14-15, where Paul exhorts the believers in Rome to extend the love of Christ to one another in spite of their different perspectives and practices in dietary matters.

May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God (Rom. 15:5-7).

Here, at the height of his argument for Christian unity, Paul points the Romans to the power, the model, and the reason for welcoming one another into their lives.

• The power for welcoming one another and living in harmony comes from God himself, “the God of endurance and encouragement” (v. 5), again acknowledging that hospitality and openness are not always easy.

• The model is Christ: “Live in harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus . . . therefore welcome another as Christ has welcomed you” (v. 7).

• The reason is the glory of God: “live in harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus, that you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 6) and “Welcome one another . . . for the glory of God” (v. 7).

Greeting one another. Showing hospitality to one another. Welcoming one another. These are the first steps to community. To build transforming relationships with others, we have to get together. 

2. Show Love

The most often repeated command regarding Christian relationships is simply, “love one another” (Jn. 13:34-35; 15:12, 17; 1 Thess. 4:9; 1 Jn. 3:11, 16, 23; 4:7, 11-12; 2 Jn. 1:5). “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (Jn. 13:34). Paul teaches that we fulfill the law through loving one another (Rom. 13:8). And Peter says that we are to “love one another earnestly from a pure heart” (1 Pet. 1:22).

But, of course, love is not just a sweet, sentimental feeling. Loving one another requires treating one another with the same grace and kindness, forgiveness and forbearance that Christ has extended to us. In other words, loving others is often costly and painful. But it is in the very costliness of loving others that we become more like Jesus. In fact, as the following passages of Scripture indicate, God intends our relationships to be the primary contexts for learning to follow Jesus in the path of costly love.

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Eph. 4:31-5:2)

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. (Col. 3:12-13)

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. (1 John 3:16-18)

Have you recognized how impossible it would be to imitate Christ in his love without relationships? There is simply no way to become like Jesus without following him in the path of love. And that requires people to love. Without relationships we will not grow in Christlikeness. As John Wesley said, “There is nothing more unchristian than a solitary Christian.”[2]

3. Share Truth

While “speaking the truth in love” need not always include the direct quotation of Scripture, when rightly practiced it will always orbit tightly around Scripture, bringing the truth of God’s Word to bear in one another’s lives. Indeed, Scripture itself commands us to instruct one another (Rom. 15:14), admonish one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (Col. 3:16), and edify (or build up) one another (1 Thess. 5:11). The clear implication is that 1) we must begin from Scripture, and 2) God has so arranged his church that we need others to help us better see, understand, and apply the truth of the gospel to our lives.

A similar point was made by C. S. Lewis in his book The Four Loves. In an allusion to his good friends Charles Williams (deceased at the time Lewis wrote this) and J. R. R. Tolkien, Lewis wrote,

In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets. Now that Charles is dead, I shall never again see Ronald’s reaction to a specifically Caroline joke. Far from having more of Ronald, having him “to myself” now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald. Hence true friendship is the least jealous of loves. Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth… we possess each friend not less but more as the number of those with whom we share him increases. In this, Friendship exhibits a glorious “nearness by resemblance” to Heaven… for every soul, seeing Him in her own way, communicates that unique vision to all the rest . . . The more we share the Heavenly Bread between us, the more we shall all have.[3]

The more we share . . . the more we shall all have. To put it as simply as possible, you and I should pursue relationships with others because our vision of Christ and his glory will be impoverished to whatever degree we are disengaged from relationships with others.

When we are in meaningful relationships with one another, we each bring a unique perspective and experience to our knowledge of Christ’s love. One person has been rescued from a menacing addiction. Another has been brought through deep suffering. Still another has been sustained by God’s grace in a difficult marriage. The list goes on. When we gather to share our stories, we see a different aspect of the diamond that is the love of Christ.[4]

4. Confront Sin

Not only do I need the help of others to see more of Christ and his glory. I also need their help to see the sinfulness of my own heart more clearly.

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. (Heb. 3:12-14)

This is a serious warning that both diagnoses the problem of sin (the hardening of heart in unbelief) and prescribes the cure (exhorting one another every day). The writer warns us that an evil, unbelieving heart can lead us to fall away from the living God. This is the danger for those whose hearts are hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. And the scary thing is that because sin is so insidiously deceitful, we may not even recognize the hardening process at work in our souls. But the passage also prescribes the cure: community. “Exhort one another every day . . . that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” We can’t see ourselves very well by ourselves! As Tripp writes,

Personal insight is the product of community. I need you in order to really see and know myself. Otherwise, I will listen to my own arguments, believe my own lies, and buy into my own delusions. My self-perception is as accurate as a carnival mirror. If I am going to see myself clearly, I need you to hold the mirror of God’s Word in front of me.[5]

The warning from Hebrews might feel unsettling to some. Does it imply that you could lose your salvation? Or, is this is passage actually addressed to false professors of faith, to unbelievers? The answer to both questions is No. The author is clearly addressing Christians, because he calls them “brothers” in verse 12 and in verse 14 confirms that “we share in Christ.” So, this is not a warning to unbelievers. But neither is he suggesting that a true believer can lose salvation.[6]The warning is intended not to frighten us into thinking that we are unbelievers or can lose our salvation, but rather to keep us walking in faith, to keep us holding to Christ, to keep us using the means of grace God has provided for us – including community. As John Piper says, “Eternal security is a community project.”[7] 

5. Stir Up

Finally, we help one another become more like Jesus by considering one another in order to stir up love and good works. As the dying embers of a fire need to be stoked and stirred into flame again, so our hearts need to be stirred into action by the encouragement of others.

And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching. (Heb. 10:24-25, NKJV).

Notice that stirring up love and good works requires that we “consider one another.”[8] I need people in my life who consider me, who study my soul, who look deeply into the patterns of my thinking, the ways of my heart. I need people who know me so well, that they know how to effectively motivate me into obedient action. So do you.

This passage also shows us that one of the motives for considering and exhorting one another is the approaching Day of the Lord. If we are tempted to give short shrift to the importance of relationships, it’s because we have adopted a mentality more characterized by this age than the age to come. This grounds our relationships in an eternal perspective, reminding us that we are all headed for an eternal destiny.

In The Weight of Glory, C. S. Lewis clarifies what is at stake:

It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.[9]

Relationships matter because you and I, to some degree, are helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. We will either help one another move toward increasing Christlikeness and everlasting glory, or we will further the progressive disintegration and corruption of our souls.

The stakes are high! The people in your life will last forever. Keep an eternal perspective and, under God’s grace, do everything in your power to use relationships for both your own and your friends’ progressive conformity to the character of Christ.

This post is a lightly edited excerpt from chapter 12 of Christ Formed in You: The Power of the Gospel for Personal Change.

End Notes

---

[1] John Loftness in C. J. Mahaney, ed., Why Small Groups? Together Toward Maturity (Gaithersburg, MD: Sovereign Grace Ministries, 1996) 26. A good book length study of the “one another” commands is Wayne Jacobsen and Clay Jacobsen, Authentic Relationships: Discover the Lost Art of “One Anothering” (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2001).

[2] Quoted in Whitney, 159.

[3] C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves (New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1960, 1988) 61-62.

[4] Tripp and Lane, How People Change, 85

[5] Paul David Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2002) 54.

[6] If this is neither a warning for unbelievers or implying that Christians can lose their salvation, you might still be wondering what the “if” is there for. “For we share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.” In a sermon on a related passage, entitled “Final Perseverance,” Charles Spurgeon helpfully explained the role of these kinds of “if” statements. Spurgeon said,

What is the use of putting this “if” in, like a bugbear to frighten children, or like a ghost that can have no existence? My learned friend, “Who art thou that repliest against God?” If God has put it in, he has put it in for wise reasons and for excellent purposes. Let me show you why. First, O Christian, it is put in to keep thee from falling away. God preserves his children from falling away; but he keeps them by the use of means; and one of these is, the terrors of the law, showing them what would happen if they were to fall away. There is a deep precipice: what is the best way to keep any one from going down there? Why, to tell him that if he did he would inevitably be dashed to pieces. In some old castle there is a deep cellar, where there is a vast amount of fixed air and gas, which would kill anybody who went down. What does the guide say? “If you go down you will never come up alive.” Who thinks of going down? The very fact of the guide telling us what the consequences would be, keeps us from it. Our friend puts away from us a cup of arsenic; he does not want us to drink it, but he says, “If you drink it, it will kill you.” Does he suppose for a moment that we should drink it. No; he tells us the consequences, and he is sure we will not do it. So God says, “My child, if you fall over this precipice you will be dashed to pieces.” What does the child do? He says, “Father, keep me; hold thou me up, and I shall be safe.” It leads the believer to greater dependence on God, to a holy fear and caution, because he knows that if he were to fall away he could not be renewed, and he stands far away from that great gulf, because he know that if he were to fall into it there would be no salvation for him.” Charles H. Spurgeon, “Final Perseverance,” in The New Park Street Pulpit, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1856, 1994 reprint) 169.

I discovered this passage from Spurgeon in Thomas R. Schreiner & Ardel B. Caneday, The Race Set Before Us: A Biblical Theology of Perseverance and Assurance (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), a thoughtful, yet accessible, exploration of the doctrines of perseverance and assurance and the role of the warning passages in Scripture.

[7] John Piper, “Eternal Security is a Community Project,” (Minneapolis, MN: Bethlehem Baptist Church, August 18, 1996), available online at: http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/1996/964_Eternal_Security_Is_a_Community_Project/. Accessed March 15, 2010.

[8] I’m using the NKJV because it rightly shows that “one another” is the direct object of “consider.”

[9] C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (New York, NY: HarperOne, 1949, 1976 revised) 45-46.