“I’m not getting in the middle of that!” Wiser words never crossed my lips.
This article is intended to simplify and pacify churches, homes, and workplaces across the street and across the sea. For approximately the last twenty years of the more than thirty I have been in full time ministry, I have discretely employed a pain-saving strategy. It has spared me untold grief and sleepless nights. Now, I am going to let the cat out of the bag.
A fancy sounding word needs to be employed, “Triangulation”. I owe the thesis of this argument to Dr. Archibald Hart of Fuller Theological Seminary. When I heard him present this paradigm in a Honolulu seminar, the light went on in my cavernous cranium. Simplistically put, “Don’t get in the middle between two people, parties, or conflicting ideologies.” It happens too often in church. Let’s flesh this out. When two individuals can’t see eye to eye, often one tries to suck in a third party to leverage the other. It doesn’t work. If “A” has a beef with “B”, only “A” can effect “B”, not when they seek to employ “C”.
The theory goes on to state that in such cases, “C” (meaning me...or you, the neutral party) should maintain an “unimpassioned presence” and offer only to directly facilitate “A” meeting with “B” so they can work it out. Get this: most times, they will abruptly refuse. The last thing they wish to be is above board! Frankly, they were looking for you to do the dirty work and give them an easy ride, getting the results from the other they wanted. (Or, if said effort failed; to blame you as the convenient scapegoat!)
Now to get specific and turn the screws. Pastors are prime targets of Triangulation. I repeat: pastors. Numerous times in my previous pastoral life, folks tried to get me to lean on someone else, to “fix” them, to smooth someone’s perceived hurt feelings, or to go the microphone and announce what they wanted me to say. I persistently resisted. Always, the instigator was unhappy...with me. Tuff! (p.s. Easy for me to bluster now that I no longer serve a local church but rather blow through town as an evangelist, huh?)
Now you know my secret. If you’re wise, it will become yours, too. The more it is used, the less it needs be!