When Henry was elected a deacon, his family was elated. When he was ordained, they were proud. But when his phone rang late one evening with a church member on the other end of the line complaining about the pastor, no one but he knew it. When he was cornered after church by a sister with a complaint about church finances, Henry felt ambushed. When he received an anonymous letter from someone claiming to be a member of the church with a serious charge against the youth minister, he was completely bamboozled.

Henry was completely unprepared.

He was learning that church members often see the deacons as a conduit to the “powers that be,” as a safe way to register discontent, as a means of getting their concerns addressed without their having to go public.

But no one had told Henry to expect this or how to handle it.

In teaching churchmanship to deacons and other leaders, pastors should prepare them for the unexpected barrage that will be coming their way. They should expect it, learn to recognize it, and know how to deal with it. In time, with a little experience, they may even come to welcome the criticism, the phone calls, the anonymous letters.

Here is my list of unexpected developments leaders should be prepared to deal with. You’ll think of others.

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We pastors make many mistakes in our dealings with deacons, which is probably understandable.

In a lifetime of ministy, a pastor might log a half century leading as many as ten churches. That means he will encoiunter ten different arrangements of deacons–one per church–some good, some not so good, and hundreds of deacons of all kinds. The pastor who does this and emerges unscathed is a rarity.

Most pastors sooner or later find themselves facing one or more deacons for whom “servanthood” and “servant-mindedness” are not found in their lexicons. They are all about power and control, and right now this pastor is in their crosshairs and has been identified as the enemy.

Deal with a few of those and you will walk gently into all future gatherings of deacons.

I know they are few and far between. Most deacons are good and honorable men (and yes, women too, in some churches; but in our SBC they are relatively rare) who want only to bless and serve. But it just takes a few to create havoc.

One of the greatest mistakes we pastors make is to assume either that our deacons already know all they need to, or that they do not want to learn more. My experience is that a right-spirited servant of the Lord–deacon or not–wants to learn more, to grow more, to serve better.

Pastors should create opportunities to teach their deacons good churchmanship. Here’s what that means.

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There were some 20 or 25 deacons in the room, men of all ages and backgrounds, some professional, some blue-collar. I was privileged to serve as their pastor and over a pastorate of nearly thirteen years, had only a great working relationship with them.

One night, a young deacon stood in the meeting. Something was bothering him.

“I’m wondering if anyone noticed what happened in the last church business meeting.”

Silence.

“One of the members–I won’t say who–made a motion that the landscaping committee be asked to spend up to $3,000 to redo the lawn in front of the children’s building.”

More silence.

“That’s not right. That should not have happened.”

The chairman said, “We’re not quite following you, Tommy.”

Tommy stood back up and said, “She should have brought that to the deacons before taking it to the church. That’s what deacons are for. She was out of order.”

In the stunned silence that followed, one of the older deacons, a storeowner downtown, a man with a heart as big as the state, said very quietly, “My brother. This is a Baptist church. The church can do anything it feels God wants it to do, and does not have to run anything by the deacons.”

That’s all he said. He said it sweetly and softly and solidly.

There were no more questions, and not one time in my remaining years in that church did a deacon try that little power play.

Older, wiser, veteran deacons have so much to offer the young, incoming men.

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Larry expects to be elected a deacon of the church he and Eloise recently joined. After all, why shouldn’t he? He owns the paper mill at the edge of town and employs a third of the men in the church. His tithe is probably twice that of any other contributor. In any assembly of men, his voice is the strongest, his persona the firmest, and his authority unquestioned.

A word to Larry’s church: Do not elect this man to anything.

Nothing disqualifies a Christian from being chosen for service more than a sense of entitlement: “I deserve this. I expect it. I’ll be disappointed if I don’t get it.”

I’m no prophet, but I know what will happen if Larry is made deacon. Five things will soon begin to occur:

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