Chapter 8

True Leaders Are Patient And Forbearing

By Dr. Lester Hutson

Colossians 3:12-15

"Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful."

A proper balance of tolerance is a big part of the make-up of every true leader. Its absence in so many churches and its vitality to successful leaders and churches requires that it be given fuller treatment.

The imperfect church member

In many a church, there's really no place for imperfect people. The more idealistic people are, (and church leaders, especially pastors, tend to be very idealistic) the more they expect out of those around them. In many struggling or dying churches, the leadership usually expects the membership to be very near perfect. The leadership isn't, but it expects the membership to be. When many pastors visit among themselves, they talk long about the poor state of their people. They are very critical of this one or that one. Their people just aren't living up to their expectations. They have a mental mind-set about how poor their people are, and about how great they should be.

This idealistic mind-set is the seed bed of legalism. Leaders often perceive themselves as charged with keeping everybody in line and with making them nearly perfect. When that happens, the church takes on more and more of a superficial "keep the surface right" spirit. Like the Pharisees of Matthew 23, those who go there fit rigid visible roles. They've learned to use the right terms, project the right image and keep quiet about the things they do and feel which are unaccepted by the pastor and other brethren. Others, particularly new and weaker members and those who are not so skilled at putting on a good front, soon see that if a member falls very short of these expectations, he'll be very much out of vogue. The picture that comes through is "fit the mold and you'll do great here, but if you don't fit this near perfect mold, you'll be the object of much scorn, and there just won't be much of a place for you around here."

It's the attitude that "as long as you are up, coming regularly, tithing, and staying out of trouble, you'll fit, but if you ever fall, get unfaithful, and mess up, you're bad and you'd better shape up or ship out." When you get to the bottom line, in many churches, and with many pastors, there's no place for spiritual babies, elementary children, or spiritual teens. Oh yes, there's a physical nursery, and classes for kids all the way through high school, but there are not spiritual counterparts. No, with them, you're expected to go directly from the spiritual delivery room to at least a high school diploma. You're supposed to know immediately how to dress and wear your hair. Your bad habits and bad language are to change immediately to faithful service to God and a heavenly, wholesome language. You are to instantly know the doctrine, and use only the right words in expressing only true beliefs. You're to be instantly faithful, a tither and in love with all spiritual things, and to be the enemy of everything bad which you were doing the day before you got saved.

If you don't you'll very soon feel the scorn of the older brethren. Just miss a Sunday or two, especially for the wrong reasons, and "zap". Let them hear that you took a drink, and you're in trouble. A foul word or the expression of a worldly wish, and guess what? "You're just not fitting around here." In too many churches and church leaders, there's not much room for less than perfection (at least external perfection). There's no time allotted for growth. While people are struggling to get from the cradle through spiritual high school, the leadership and older brethren put so much heat on them to conform immediately that they drive them away or run them off. The imperfect Christian, who hasn't kept up an acceptable exterior, faces a steady barrage of critical works, cool to cold expressions, isolation, pulpit denunciations and lots of other signals that he's not doing like he should be doing.

Ironically, the leadership and older brethren can have plenty of imperfections of a more grievous sort, but they're "in like flint" because they keep them hidden behind their exterior. In the leadership and older brethren, there is often an over-abundance of legalism, a negative, critical spirit, deep-seated prejudices, rank pride and self-exaltation, no true spirit of forgiveness, judgmental spirits, stinginess, lack of cooperation, materialism, worldly values, lack of true humility and love, plus many other asinine, God-dishonoring flaws, but they're hidden behind the nasty-nice mask. These people are there when the doors open, they "know the doctrine," they put the tithe in religiously, they serve in the church offices, they speak up and dominate what goes on, they dress and look right and they act very piously. Yes, they have their imperfections too, big cancers down in the gear-box, but they keep them well-masked behind a parade of external self-righteousness.

Yet, these people are notorious for putting the criticism, judgment and scorn on the spiritual "babes" and "kids" who haven't yet learned how to mask their evils. The kids make promises they don't keep, they miss church, they're not faithful on their jobs, they're too honest and open with their flaws and mistakes, they don't get as involved as they should, they do things and say things that embarrass the church, they have too many of the wrong kind of problems, and the leadership and older brethren lets them know about it, not in the spirit of meekness, restoration and help, but by scorn, gossip, criticism and extreme disfavor. The result is that a good many of these babes and imperfect people never grow up. The church runs them off before they have time.

People are being won and are joining the church, but few of them stay unto spiritual adulthood and become a true part of the church core. They come and go while the basic core-group of the church remains in firm control, and ever pious and very critical of these people who come and don't stay.

Brethren, I'll tell you where the real problem is. It is not in the imperfect people who come but don't stay. It's in the leadership which knows little, if anything of patience and forbearance, which makes almost no provisions for the development of these spiritual children. The leadership shouldn't be sitting around critical of those whom they can't keep. It ought to be facing itself and acknowledging its own incompetence and failure in rearing spiritual children.

All church members have flaws of one sort or another and new babes or untrained and untaught church members will generally have even more flaws than older ones. That's to be expected. Any church leader in his right mind ought to be able to see that. Growth is a slow process and takes time. The Bible says, "All we like sheep have gone astray..." in Isaiah 53:6. That's not talking just of lost people. "Verily, every man at his best state is altogether vanity," Psalms 39:5 says. Even the oldest, most mature church member must admit that about his own self. How can we possibly think that people who've just been born into the family of God or who are only a few months old can possibly be astute and virtually flawless? The answer is obvious. We can't. Yet, many sincere, older people in church leadership think all church members, even babes, should act almost without flaws. Praise God for good church leaders who have the good sense to believe what God says about the weakness of all believers, and the wisdom to realize mistakes are coming, especially in baby believers. True leaders are not really surprised, angered, or highly reactionary when church members fail. They're not happy about it, nor approving, but they are not surprised. They expect mistakes will come. They know it's a part of that growing which Peter mentioned in I Peter 2:2. I'm talking about a simple acceptance of reality, and an approach to life based on that acceptance. Accepting Imperfections Acceptance of this reality is the basis of patience and forbearance.

Beloved brethren, if babes and weak people are ever going to grow to any degree of maturity and usefulness to God, they're going to have to have patience and forbearance extended to them by somebody who cares. Their leadership can't jump on them with a whip or shut them out every time they fall down. They're going to have to be corrected, encouraged to try again, loved and know that they're just as much a part as ever, in spite of the weakness or mistake. Listen to the Bible plead with leaders to act in this way in Colossians 3:12-15:

"Put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful."

Note the spirit of patience, bonding, healing and harmony in this beautiful admonition. Listen to the apostle Paul state it in Ephesians 4:1-3: "I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."

"Forbear" is a beautiful word. It means to put up with some things, to hold back, to bear with a person. True church leaders do it. They know that it is only "faith which worketh by love" that avails with God according to Galatians 5:6. They know that all service and separation to God must come out of a free, voluntary heart. I Corinthians 13:1-3 describes it. They don't try to force even right things on anyone. They try to help that one see right things for himself. They don't want him to smoke or drink, but they want him to quit those evils because he sees it for himself, not because leadership is demanding he do so. They want him to be faithful to the services, to tithe, to dress and talk right, but all because his own heart moves him, in light of God's word, to do so.

When Mr. New or even older brother doesn't do all these things the way they should be done, leadership doesn't blow up and get ugly. True leaders wait. They forbear. They teach and encourage the weaker brother or sister to grow and overcome the flaw. They keep the pressure on, but they do not alienate him because he doesn't immediately shape up. They love him anyway and stand with him while they wait and pray for his change and growth. They've learned what Jesus meant when he said in Luke 21:19, "In your patience possess ye your souls." In one of his letters addressed specifically to pastors, Paul wrote, "But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness," in I Timothy 6:11. The pastor who fails to learn and obey this exhortation is going to have a mighty hard time leading a church and seeing it build and prosper.

All of the good and prospering churches you know are made up of imperfect people. Their leaders do not expect that it will ever be otherwise. So, they take what they have, and by the grace of God, keep working with it, molding, urging, encouraging and trying to shape it ever into a more useful assembly of the living God. They don't push too hard. They give people time to come around. They do it with the people collectively, and with the people individually. The little weak ones are just as important as the big strong ones. Everyone knows he's accepted, and that there's a place of love and care for him, in spite of his weaknesses.

I'm telling you that in a good, prospering church, there's a place for the strong and the weak. There's a spiritual nursery, elementary school, junior high and high school. The people in these churches don't go from the spiritual delivery room straight into college. No. In these churches, the older brothers help the younger brothers with guidance, patience and forbearance. They believe with Paul in Romans 15:1-2 that,

"We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification."

They've learned to love, and I Corinthians 13:4-8 says love "suffereth long...is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil...beareth all things...endureth all things." Love conquers many barriers and the leaders who learn to love and forbear imperfect people are the ones God can use to mold those imperfect people into great and prosperous churches. The attitude of the leadership invariably becomes the attitude of the church. Amazingly, when older brethren learn to treat younger brethren with forbearance and patience, younger brethren become more patient and forbearing of the imperfect pastor and church.

If a church is ever to become patient and forbearing, the leadership, starting with the pastor, must learn tolerance, patience and forbearance. Good leaders do it, and teach their churches to do it too. Other leaders don't. This is another difference between true leaders and those who aren't, and between churches which are prospering to the glory of God and those which aren't.

"It Does Make a Difference What You Believe"