The church seems to be wired to lay most if not all of its dysfunctions at the feet of the pastor. It makes sense. “The buck stops here” Harry Trueman famously claimed. Because of this, many pastors seem predisposed to believe that every failing in the church is somehow their fault. If the staff stages a “palace coup” then, it is usually assumed, there must be something wrong with pastor. Perhaps. But what if this is not the case? What if a church is truly experiencing a mutiny on staff? 
In which I ask some questions of elders…

Every organization has leaders and followers. While this structure is sometimes informal, normally it is a deliberate arrangement. Because of this, not everyone is or can be a leader. Organizations are as dependent upon good followers as they are upon good leaders. In an organization, if everyone is the leader then no one is. This is certainly true for the church. God gave his people a structure of leaders and followers and accountability for both. The church is to be led by a plurality of elders with those who labor in preaching and teaching (pastors) being given “double honor” (1Tim 5:17). These God-called, congregationally-recognized leaders are to be followed obediently (Heb 13:17).

It seems obligatory at this point to mention that men like Hitler, Jim Jones, and Willy Wonka (the creepy factor) ought to not be followed obediently. But we must be careful to not disobey the biblical command by killing it with a thousand qualifications. Certainly, churches ought to have proper accountability for their elders in order to keep wicked or unqualified men out of that office. This is yet another way in which proper denominations and well-functioning presbyteries serve the church well. But I digress.

Much ink has been spilt examining what happens when pastors fail to lead, lead poorly, or behave wickedly as leaders. So much has been made of the failure of pastors that I fear an assumption of pastoral guilt has been established to explain every problem in a church. What is easily forgotten is just how influential followers are within the church.

The authors of the helpful book Handbook for Battered Leaders, which I’ve previously referred to in this series of posts, identify the sorts of problems that arise when followers become toxic. In chapter three they refer to six assumptions about followers taken from Barbara Kellerman’s book Followership:
1. Followers constitute a group that, although amorphous, nevertheless has members with interests in common.
2. While followers by definition lack authority, at least in relation to their superiors, they do not by definition lack power and influence.
3. Followers can be agents of change.
4. Followers ought to support good leadership and thwart bad leadership.
5. Followers who do something are nearly always preferred to followers who do nothing.
6. Followers can create change by circumventing their leaders and joining with other followers instead.  (52-53)

All of this means that followers are quite powerful. I suggest that this is particularly true in a church. The leadership of pastors and elders is highly contingent upon the willingness of the followers to follow. Certainly, there are times when dissent is necessary. Leaders within the church must understand that theirs is not an autocracy. Sometimes needed change can be delayed or missed entirely when good followers fail to confront poor or ungodly leaders. But, as the Balda’s point out, there are times when followers “simply act in a contradictory manner, frequently without considering the impact of their misplaced loyalty and misguided behaviors” (p. 53). This is when followers become toxic and pastors are battered.

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