Churches cannot have it both ways. They cannot simultaneously wash their hands of all responsibility, piling it onto their pastor and/or elders, whilst at the same time having strong and vociferous views about whatever they do.

One of the many terrific things I have discovered since being a pastor is that everything one does is probably wrong. Nothing quite brings it to the fore more than something-must-be-done syndrome. SMBD is usually the refrain you hear when somebody has identified and issue, and it may well be a real and live issue, but doesn’t want to do anything about it themselves. What SMBD typically means is the pastor should be called in to do the something that nobody else wants to do.

A fair question at this point might be, why exactly don’t you want to do anything? The answer is usually pretty obvious. Either the conversation required is a particularly awkward, and therefore unpleasant one, and nobody wants to have that sort of conversation. Otherwise, though someone might be willing to have that awkward conversation—for the sake of the gospel, no doubt—they suspect that everyone else, who see the issue but are unwilling to address it themselves, will have lots of opinions on the particular solution one lands upon. Whilst someone might be willing to have the immediate conversation, awkward as it may be, they are not prepared to face the inevitable pile on that will ensue afterwards as the world and their wife determine whatever you did about it was definitely the wrong thing to do.

For this reason, almost nobody—despite what your church covenant might say and people affirmed they were committed to doing when they become members of your church—puts their hand up to do anything. So, the assumption goes, the lot must fall to the elders, and usually the pastor for the stated reason that he has time though often the unstated reason that he’s the one that gets paid to put up with this nonsense.

So, the pastor goes and has the awkward conversation about whatever it might be and what ensues is totally predictable. I have variously been told that I was being heavy-handed by going and having a conversation with someone and, at the same time, slack and uncaring by having not had a conversation sooner. I have been told before that church discipline needs to happen but nobody, including the person saying it, is willing to vote to enact anything. I have been told that SMBD countless times but whatever something you happen to land on, it is definitely wrong and when you lay out all the possible options (even clearly wrong ones), none of the actual, possible options in front of us—ranging from doing nothing at all about serious sin right the way through to removal from membership and everything in between—all are deemed inappropriate whilst remaining adamant something must be done.

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