How evil speaking can a kill a church.
Each Spring for several years I helped lead a mentoring workshop for pastors and interns prior to their six to twelve month internship. I often spoke about triangulation, making a prediction such as the following:
“Sometime in the first three weeks of your internship,” I say, “you will be visited by a person in the congregation who wants to talk with you about the pastor, an elder or some leader in the church. He may be a leader himself and will likely preface his remarks with kind words and good intentions. Do not be fooled. If you listen you will be party to “death by triangulation.”
This usually gets their attention and introduces a simple but vital teaching that every church must take to heart. Triangulation occurs when a believer who has a problem with another believer talks to a third party (a friend, a wife, etc.) instead of or before talking to the person in question. This is always sin.
Matthew 18 clearly states that when a brother has knowledge of an offense against another he is to go to that person quickly, directly and personally. It is never right to talk to another person about a brother or sister without talking to the brother or sister first. (This includes talking to your spouse.) Talking to others first is a sin against the other person, the church and the one to whom you speak because it serves to separate, not unite; it breaks oneness and violates a trust.
The Body of Christ is called to embody forgiveness — the outworking of our oneness in Christ. Our life together is founded upon the cross – the power of forgiveness which we work out in community.
Triangulation is an affront to the cross because it robs a brother of the opportunity and privilege of reconciliation, understanding and forgiveness. Triangulation always makes the problem worse than it actually is.
Triangulation will kill a church. We have seen it destroy many pastors and leaders – both victims and perpetrators. Yet we frequently find leaders and members who have convinced themselves that their “special circumstances” make them exempt from Matthew 18.
Below are “reasons” we have heard recently for the sin of triangulation — talking to others, instead of to their brother first:
Legalism: The matter was not a sin, “so technically, Matthew 18 does not apply.” (The matter becomes sin as soon as you talk about your brother behind his back.)
Minimize: The matter was too small to bother confronting. “I thought it would go away.” (If it is not worth confronting then it should be overlooked and forgotten, never to be brought up later. But this rarely happens. Instead, most people keep record of small things that pile up into a big thing that is later dumped on someone unsuspecting. The classic, and common, example of this is the elder board that meets in secret session while the pastor is on vacation to vote for his dismissal. They assume he knows the problem because the evidence is “overwhelming,” yet often the issues were never seriously addressed with the pastor in person.)
Blame: “No one can ever talk to Joe. He won’t listen . . . poor Mrs. Smith would be intimidated, threatened or hurt going to him alone.” (Matthew 18 does not say, “go unless the brother is hard to deal with.” It says “go.”)
False humility: “I thought maybe I was the problem. I talked with my wife and a few close friends to see what they thought. They convinced me that I was right because they felt this way too!” (The best way to test your feelings is to talk with the person directly.)
False compassion: “I did not want to hurt or judge.” Often this reason is used for not confronting people who have emotional or psychological problems, as if the cross had no power over depression etc. (You are your brother’s keeper. If you cannot give and receive truth in love – especially when it hurts — than you are not participating in the Body of Christ.)
Triangulation makes two problems out of one – the present issue, and the new sin of triangulation. Worse, triangulation tends to breed more triangulation as the person you go to goes to someone else, who goes to still another and so on. Before long many people are talking about an issue that has little resemblance to the actual problem and, most often, could have been settled quietly and graciously in personal conversation, (and those that cannot usually will not because people have not been practicing Matthew 18.)
Here, as elsewhere, we take the simple but increasingly uncommon view that God knows better. If we will simply obey, that is do, what Scripture says, it works.
Imagine that.
How to avoid triangulation: When someone comes to you to talk about a problem he or she is having with another person, your response should be the following:
- Interrupt & inquire: Before they can tell you the problem, stop and ask, “Have you talked to the person yet? When? Where?
- Warn: Tell the person “I will not talk with you about this until you talk with him/her first.” Then warn the person against the sin of triangulation.
- Affirm: Encourage the person that “God will honor your desire to go and make things right.”
- Hold accountable: Then tell the person you will check back with them later to hear how the confrontation went. “It is important for your and the other person to talk this out. I’m going to ask you next Sunday how it went.”