A Lack of Trust?
Thursday, June 16, 2011 at 11:41AM In his report to the Synod, President Don Poest diagnosed one of the diseases in the RCA to be a lack of trust in its leaders, something which could certainly said about most of the world in which we live. It seems like everyday we see in the news other leaders who have violated the trust that their followers have put in them. We have been burned so many times by our leaders that it is hard for us to trust. Instead of trusting until trust is broken, we now feel as if trust must be earned ahead of time.
Unfortunately, this lack of trust has spilled over into the church, into this church, the church that we love, the RCA. We don't trust that our leaders have the best interest of the church in mind. We believe that they have hidden agendas that would advance the things that they care about, without keeping in mind the whole church. We are afraid that we will be forgotten, that we will be left out of the decision-making process, and that is somehow scary for us.
What will it take to invest our trust in our leaders? They are us. We are leaders. Ministers, elders, deacons, congregation members. Each of us has a role to play. When we trust, there is a chance that we might get hurt.
Ultimately, there is only one who we can put our complete trust in, and that is the God who loves us, cares for us, and is the head of the church that we love.
Many thanks to our President for a great report!
Reader Comments (2)
A big part of trust is having leaders who are trustworthy.
I did a report on this for an organizational communication class that I took at Central, lo those 30 years ago. What Poest describes is nothing new. The decentralization of the RCA hasn't helped it. It is what it is. Can we Calvinists allow that sin creeps into our relationships with one another? Sure, "it ought not be so among you" (to pull out of context) but it's not going away, this side of the second coming, either. Unless, of course we get rid of sin. Don't think that's gonna happen any time soon.