Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
In this episode of the Lead On podcast, Jeff Iorg, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's executive committee, discusses the importance of handling difficult conversations in ministry leadership. He emphasizes that such conversations, whether with coworkers, church leaders, family members, or others, require careful consideration of both the immediate issue and the overarching mission of discipleship and gospel sharing. Iorg highlights the need to consider the other person's perspective, including age, emotional and spiritual maturity, cultural background, and experiences. He also stresses the importance of choosing the right setting and timing, engaging in active listening, and avoiding the misuse of scripture. Prayer and the thoughtful use of biblical principles can support these conversations, ensuring they are conducted with integrity and compassion.
Creators & Guests
What is Lead On Podcast?
Ready to hone your leadership skills and unlock your full potential? Tune in to the Lead On Podcast, where Jeff Iorg dives deep into Biblical leadership.
Hosted by SBC Executive Committee President Jeff Iorg, this dynamic podcast provides insight for seasoned executives, aspiring leaders, or those in ministry who are simply passionate about personal growth. The Lead On Podcast offers actionable, practical tips to help you navigate the complexities of ministry leadership in today's ever-changing world.
From effective communication and team building to strategic decision-making and fostering innovation, each episode is packed with valuable lessons and inspiring stories to empower you on your leadership journey.
Put these principles into practice and Lead On!
Welcome to the lead on podcast. This is Jeff Iorg, the president of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, continuing our conversation about practical issues related to ministry leadership. On this podcast, we talk about the daily work of ministry leaders, pastors, missionaries, other Christian workers, and what it means to continually do the challenging work that God has given us and to do it well. Today, I wanna talk about having difficult conversations. Ministry leaders sometimes have to have difficult conversations, where we sit down with a person and initiate a conversation about a challenging issue.
Jeff Iorg:Let me give you some examples. Perhaps, you may need to do this with a coworker.
Jeff Iorg:You observe their behavior. You see them doing something that troubles you, and you need
Jeff Iorg:to sit down and talk with them about what you're experiencing. Perhaps you need to have a difficult conversation with a deacon or an elder, someone whose behavior you've become concerned about because, they're drifting into areas that you think are concerning, and you know that as a ministry leader, you have a responsibility to have a conversation and bring up the issue and try to resolve it.
Jeff Iorg:Maybe your difficult conversation is with a sibling. You have aging parents, and you have
Jeff Iorg:to sit down with a brother or a sister or maybe a group and say, we have to confront the situation and deal with what's happening with our parents. And there are all kinds of layers of that conversation that could make it very difficult. Whether you're dealing with a teenager who's struggling, with a church leader who needs a conversation with a coworker, with a sibling, all of us as ministry leaders, from time to time, will have to have what I call difficult conversations. So let's talk today about some things to keep in mind when we're having to have one of those difficult conversations, one of those tough talks that sometimes we need to have in ministry leadership context. First of
Jeff Iorg:all, when you're going to have one
Jeff Iorg:of these conversations, you need to keep both your ultimate mission in mind and also your immediate goal before you. When you're having one of these conversations, your ultimate mission, if the person you're talking with is not yet a Christian, is to gain the opportunity to share the gospel with them and hopefully, someday, in some context, lead them to faith in Jesus Christ. That puts a perspective on the conversation, doesn't it? Because now you're not just talking with them, selfishly trying to solve the immediate need to satisfy you, but you're trying to have a conversation with a person, helping them to understand the greater need they have for Jesus Christ and setting the context for this conversation in the context of the larger conversation that you hope to someday have with them. If the person you're having this difficult conversation with is already
Jeff Iorg:a Christian, then your goal as
Jeff Iorg:a ministry leader is always discipleship. It's helping them to grow a little bit more in their relationship with God and become a little bit more like Jesus Christ in the moment. So your ultimate goal in these difficult conversations is not necessarily solving the presenting issue, although that's what you're going to sit down to talk about. It's keeping in mind that your ultimate goal for this difficult conversation, if the person is not yet a Christian, is setting the context for a conversation about the gospel and preserving the relationship so that you can have those conversations perhaps down the road. And if the person is already a Christian, your goal for a difficult conversation is to challenge them to spiritual growth and to help them understand how this particular conversation can spur them on, help shape them, and and and ultimately result in them becoming more like Jesus Christ.
Jeff Iorg:Now those are lofty, long term goals of the relationship that you have and the conversations you're having with different kinds of persons. But what's the immediate goal? Well, the immediate goal is twofold. The first and obvious immediate goal is to address the issue at hand. So you have a teenager that's drifting into some behavior that's concerning you.
Jeff Iorg:You want to address those behavioral drifts and talk about what they mean. You have a deacon or an elder who's doing things that you think are undermining their credibility or maybe contributing to potential, loss of of stature in your church. You you wanna confront and deal with those issues. You're talking about the siblings that I met mentioned at the beginning of the podcast where you're dealing with an aging parent. You wanna talk about the issue at hand, but your second goal in the conversation besides dealing with
Jeff Iorg:the issue at hand is
Jeff Iorg:to make sure that you're able to have another conversation someday. You wanna lay the groundwork and have this conversation, even though it's difficult, in such a way that you can then have continued conversation with the person going forward. You don't wanna have a conversation that ends your relationship. You wanna have a conversation that extends or facilitates your relationship. So with these overarching long term goals in mind and these immediate goals of addressing the issue and doing so in such a way that you facilitate continued conversation.
Jeff Iorg:With this in mind, let's now talk about some specific things to consider when you're planning to have one of these difficult conversations. The first thing I want you to do is to consider the perspective of the person that you're gonna be talking with when deciding how best to interact with them. Now the person's perspective is shaped by many different factors. Let me just give you a few. First of all, their age.
Jeff Iorg:Children, one perspective. Teenagers, a different one. Adults, certainly a different one. Teenagers, for example, are very idealistic and also experts at deflecting anything that threatens them or threatens their view of themselves in the moment. As you sit down to have a difficult conversation with a teenager, keep in mind their idealism and their deflection mechanisms, and recognize that these are 2 things that are very strong in teenagers, maybe not so present yet in children, and adults may be grown through them or maybe become more sophisticated in expressing them.
Jeff Iorg:But with teenagers, for example, you're gonna wanna deal with those two issues as you're thinking about how to have a difficult conversation with them. Another perspective on the person you're dealing with is your appraisal of their emotional maturity. And corresponding to that, your appraisal of their spiritual maturity. You're looking to go into a difficult conversation, and you're thinking, I would have a different conversation built an elder maybe for a decade than I would a person who's been a Christian for maybe a week. There's different levels of spiritual maturity.
Jeff Iorg:Same thing with different levels of emotional maturity in the context of the
Jeff Iorg:conversation. Then a 4th factor in considering the perspective of the person that you're going to have this conversation with is their racial or ethnic or cultural background and how that may, shape how they would be willing to have a difficult conversation with you. Let me
Jeff Iorg:give you an example. When I was working as a seminary president, one of our significant donors at our school was, Asian. And in that context, he had a difficult time saying no to me as a president because it would not be appropriate for him to deny the request of a president because of the steam they place in on that office. And it would also be a face losing, moment for him to have to say in front of me no to a request that I extended to him. Now, as an Anglo person and a very direct person and shaped to be that by my West Texas cultural upbringing, I had no difficulty asking this particular person direct questions about how they could support our school and what they might be willing to support and would they specifically give financial support to certain projects.
Jeff Iorg:He, on the other hand, because of his, Asian background, his, in ingrained cultural expectation of respect for people who were in authority and respect for elders, particularly, and then respect for the presidency as a whole. He had a difficult time responding to my direct kind of conversation, without losing face or feeling like he had disappointed me or himself in the moment. After some unproductive conversations, one day, his financial planner called and said, hey, I'd like to come by and have a conversation with you. And I didn't know it, but from his perspective, he was coming to have a difficult conversation with me.
Jeff Iorg:He came to me and said, look, I've been asked by my client to talk
Jeff Iorg:with you and say that it's very difficult for him to tell you no. It's very difficult because he respects you. You're a president. You're a you're an elder. You're a person that he looks up to.
Jeff Iorg:Very difficult for him to say no to you. But he can't say yes to every one of your request. And I said, well, of course, he can't. I'm not expecting him to. I'm just laying out options and possibilities.
Jeff Iorg:He said, I
Jeff Iorg:know that and you know that, but
Jeff Iorg:it's different for him because he perceives it through a different cultural lens than you
Jeff Iorg:and I have. Then he said, what I think would be best and what he's requested is that you come to me
Jeff Iorg:with your request. I'll pass them along to him. He'll make a response through me and back to you. Well, at first, I thought, why would I wanna do that? Why can't we just be direct about these things?
Jeff Iorg:But I realized in the moment that I was misreading the cultural and, racial and ethnic components of our relationship and of our dialogue, and that I needed to be sensitive to those in having these challenging and sometimes difficult conversations which led which involved large sums of money. And so I agreed to do that. It turned out to be a wonderful solution. Because now, I could be as direct as I wanted to be, that then could be communicated through an intermediary, the financial planner, back to the other person who then could give honest dialogue because he was now talking with someone he employed to help him with these matters. And they could have a frank conversation, which which included some yeses and some noes over the years, which were then relayed back to me.
Jeff Iorg:I learned through having this difficult conversation how I could have better conversations with a person going forward. Now all I'm trying to point out today is that when you're thinking about having a difficult conversation with an employee, with a coworker, with a church member, recognize that there are sometimes racial, ethnic, and cultural components that need to be brought into the situation in order to have meaningful conversation. I saw this again, in one of my last consulting opportunities, before I left California. A prominent Chinese church reached out to me and asked me for some consultation on a matter of concern. Several of their leaders came to meet with me, and they were asking for my input, and for my, guidance as they dealt with this difficulty in their church.
Jeff Iorg:As I listened to the problem, it frankly didn't seem to
Jeff Iorg:be that complicated to me. And so I gave them my response and laid out the reasons for my response, and they all nodded and said, yes. We see that. I then asked this very penetrating, but frankly important question. Well, if you see that and you seem to have already kind of come to
Jeff Iorg:this conclusion before you came to talk to me, then why haven't you been willing to follow through on implementing this? And then it became clear. They said, well, because if we have this difficult conversation with this person, we will lose face and they perhaps will lose face, meaning be embarrassed, And we talked a good deal about that for the rest of our meeting time because the issue at hand was not they didn't know what to say in the difficult conversation. The issue was cultural factors were making the difficult conversation even more challenging because they didn't know how to navigate it in their cultural context. Another part of planning a difficult conversation is considering the experiences of the person you're going to be talking with.
Jeff Iorg:Now, you obviously can't know all the life experiences that a person has had, but it would be helpful if you had some context of their experience related to the issue at hand. For example, a few years ago, I was having a conversation about some racial issues in our culture with a person who's a very good friend of mine. He happens to be African American. We've been friends for, many years. We have a very close relationship and frankly have had the opportunity to have many, many conversations over the years that were, very meaningful on these very crucial issues.
Jeff Iorg:This particular issue that, arose in our context, he and I were talking again about racial issues and racial overtones to different cultural and different community situations. We both have adult sons, And he said to me in the context of that conversation, Jeff, I'll bet there's a conversation I've had with my sons that you never had with yours. I said, well, what would that be? He said, I'll bet you never had a conversation with your sons about what to do if they were driving through a neighborhood and were stopped by the police for being in for driving through the wrong place at
Jeff Iorg:the wrong time. I said, no. I never had that conversation.
Jeff Iorg:He said, every black father has that conversation with his sons to help them understand how you handle yourself when you're stopped by the police just simply for driving through a neighborhood where it's suspicious that you're present. Well, that opened up to me some understanding of how I would need to approach talking with young African American men about racial issues because their experience of them is dramatically different than mine. And I'm not talking about, the broad issues of racism. Of course, they're different, but I'm talking about the specific issues of what's it like to be in a neighborhood where you stand out and be singled out because of that. Now that's just one example of what I mean.
Jeff Iorg:But what I'm saying is that when you're thinking about having a difficult conversation with someone, be it a sibling or a child or a coworker or a deacon or a leader in your church or a church member,
Jeff Iorg:when you're thinking about a difficult conversation, you have to
Jeff Iorg:think about, when we have this conversation and I think about how I'm going to approach it, what I'm going to say in it, and what it's going to how it's gonna be received by the other person. In preparing for that conversation, you have to think about the perspective the other person is bringing to the meeting. What is their age, their emotional maturity, their spiritual maturity, their racial, ethnic, and cultural background? And what are some of their experiences that may relate specifically to the issue at hand that you need to be thinking about as you're going into this contact this meeting, with this particular context. Now let me hasten to say, you can't be immobilized by overly being overly concerned about all these issues.
Jeff Iorg:In other words, don't say, well, I can't have a difficult conversation with anyone because there's no way that I can understand all of this that's coming to into the into the context.
Jeff Iorg:I'm not asking you to understand all of it. I'm just asking you
Jeff Iorg:to be aware that people come to a meeting about a difficult issue with a different perspective than you have, and it's good to think through what might their perspective be as they come into this conversation that would help me to understand how to approach it in the healthiest way possible? So consider the perspective of the person as you're preparing for a difficult conversation. A second thing is to consider the setting and the timing for the conversation. Now I learned this from a older pastor many years ago. One day, he was telling me about a conflict that he had been working on, and he told me about how he had set up a meeting and worked it through with 1 of the men of his church, and they had come to a good
Jeff Iorg:solution. As I was listening to
Jeff Iorg:him describe this and teach me about it in a mentoring context, I stopped him and said, well, it's interesting to me that you didn't just deal with it when it came up, but you actually waited a few days and then asked the person to have lunch with you, and you, went by and picked them up from their place of business and took them to a a a location near there and and and had that conversation in that way. He said, yeah, Jeff. I did. And then he smiled and said, you know, Jeff, when you're thinking about having a romantic dinner with your wife, you pick the restaurant carefully so that you can set the tone for the kind of conversation you hope to have with her as you celebrate your anniversary or her birthday or whatever it is that you're trying to make special for her, you choose an environment that will be meaningful to her, where she'll be relaxed, and you can communicate what you really hope to in that in that, conversation. I thought, man, that's true.
Jeff Iorg:And then he said, you know, you do the same thing when
Jeff Iorg:you wanna have a difficult conversation with someone in a church contact.
Jeff Iorg:He said, when this incident happened, I I didn't immediately call him out on what had occurred in front of other people or even in that context when people were agitated in the moment. I I I let it go for a little while, and, then I called him back and said, hey, listen. I wonder if we could get together and talk about what happened, earlier today. Maybe lunch tomorrow, maybe lunch the next day. Would that work for you?
Jeff Iorg:And he said, yeah. I I think that would be good. And I took him to lunch at a place I know he likes, so he'd feel comfortable in that context.
Jeff Iorg:And I said, hey, listen. What happened in that meeting? That wasn't acceptable. Have you thought more about that, and could we talk about what happened there? And he said, because I helped set the context and the place and the comfort level, we were have able to have a better conversation.
Jeff Iorg:Man, I learned so
Jeff Iorg:much from that mentoring moment when this older pastor was saying to me that when you're gonna have a difficult conversation with someone, the setting and the timing are very important. Man, I made this mistake so many times with my children growing up where I would just jump on the moment and try to solve something while everyone was still agitated, while tempers were still, flaring, while emotions were still running high. It took me a while, but over the years, I've learned that sometimes sometimes it's better to say, hey, can we get together and talk about this tomorrow? Or how about lunch in a couple of days? And that's a better way to set the context and the timing than having in the moment conversations that are difficult when things are already tense.
Jeff Iorg:You know, in a ministry context, the place to have one of these difficult conversations is not the church parking lot, and it's definitely not, in on
Jeff Iorg:the front pew right after a service. It's
Jeff Iorg:definitely not in front of
Jeff Iorg:a lot of other people or, if possible, not in a public contact. Difficult
Jeff Iorg:conversations are better when you can say to someone, let's sit down and let's talk about this. And this has become such a pattern for me that I've become accustomed to it, but I still see this over and over again. And that is, oftentimes, the next day or 2 days later, when I'm having lunch or breakfast or coffee or just sitting down in my office with someone and having this difficult conversation, it's amazing how much the emotions have calmed, some reflection has already taken place, and how much more productive conversation we can have when we set a context or a place and a timing that's more conducive to a conversation than trying to have it in the moment of the difficulty. The setting and the timing are important whether you're talking to one of your teenage children, your wife, your husband, your sibling, your church member, your colleague, your coworker. The setting and timing are important
Jeff Iorg:for having these difficult conversation. Now, the 3rd big idea
Jeff Iorg:I wanna communicate is when you have one of these encounters,
Jeff Iorg:try to have a conversation. Don't just make a speech.
Jeff Iorg:When you're having a difficult conversation, you do have something you need to communicate. No question about it. But in the context of getting your message delivered, also practice active intense listening so that you're hearing what's coming back to you from this message that you're delivering, and you're really picking up on the nuances of what's being said so that you make sure that true communication is taking place, that you're really communicating what needs to be communicated and responding to the, to what you're seeing and hearing in terms of a a feedback and making sure that the real message you want delivered is communicated and embraced. In order to do that, you're not only going to have to listen to the words that are said back to you in a difficult conversation, but you're gonna have to pay attention to emotional cues the person may be giving you and to body language feedback that's coming as a person is talking to you. So while you may say something to one of your teenagers, in the context of a difficult conversation, and they cross their arms and and, pout their lips and say, alright.
Jeff Iorg:I'll do it. But you know that the emotional cues and the body language you're receiving are telling you that the words are not really reflective of what's happening in this moment. It's in those context that you have to have the courage to practice active listening and make sure that you continue the conversation until it
Jeff Iorg:turns into a true dialogue, where the person actually begins to
Jeff Iorg:reflect with you about what's being discussed and talk with you honestly about what they're hearing and about what you're saying, so that real conversation takes place. And even though it's difficult, it becomes productive. Now because you're having these conversations in the context of being a Christian leader, let me say 2 or 3 other things that might be helpful along the way. Use the Bible very carefully in these conversations. Don't weaponize scripture.
Jeff Iorg:Don't trot out the God's judgment passages just to make your point. Now the person you're talking with may be risking god's judgment, and you may need to say that. But just be careful that you say that in the appropriate context and in a way that legitimately uses scripture rather than weaponizes it in the moment just to make your point. And as a as a part of this also, don't proof text scripture or use it out of balance. Again, it's appropriate to say, I'm having this difficult conversation with you because I observe this behavior or this attitude or this practice or this, this, direction that I see you going.
Jeff Iorg:And the Bible warns us about this, and it's appropriate to use the Bible in these conversations, but just make sure that you're using it appropriately, that you're not weaponizing it or using it out of context just to make your point. And then, don't use the Bible to make presumptive applications about how you see the situation without any dialogue or conversation before you truly understand. I am very concerned these days for people who use verses in the Bible about justice to basically validate whatever position they take politically about any kind of issue in our culture. I also want justice, but I wanna be careful that I don't equate justice with my own opinions every single time. So just be careful about these things.
Jeff Iorg:Be careful that you don't weaponize scripture or proof text it to to, you and use it out of balance or that you don't use scripture to justify your presumptive assumptions that scripture always lines up with your opinion. Now having said that, it is always appropriate to use the Bible in conversation and to use it appropriately and with, with integrity and to help people to see why the course of the conversation is going the way it's going because you really are trying to honor the word of God and what it's saying about the situation at hand. And then I would also go on to say that prayer can be a part of all of these conversations. You certainly pray about them before you go into them. I often find myself in the context of a difficult conversation, praying in that conversation while I'm even having the conversation.
Jeff Iorg:But it's also appropriate to say as you've continued a dialogue and you've come to a place, where you're coming to some kind of agreement about how to move forward from this conversation to say, you know, it would be really helpful today for both of us, I think, if we prayed and ask God
Jeff Iorg:to help us with this situation. And then to do that now, again, let me check person to pray who doesn't want to pray. Don't force a
Jeff Iorg:person to pray in a way that they're uncomfortable in praying. But it is always appropriate in a difficult conversation to say, you know, we've had a difficult conversation today, and I wonder if you'd like to end by talking to God with me about it and see if he could help us to move forward together or if he could help you to respond in the ways we've described today or in the ways we've discussed and mutually agreed that he would help both of us to move forward together. Prayer can be a part of one of these conversations, but just make sure it's not a weaponized prayer where you're using your prayer to make a speech to a person and you know what I'm talking about. But that you honestly are bringing a person with you before God, where the both of you are saying, God, we've had a difficult conversation. We've agreed to make some change.
Jeff Iorg:We've agreed to go a new direction. Help us to put that into practice, Lord. And help us to do that well together. The word of God and prayer are always appropriate in difficult conversations. I'm just appealing to you to use them wisely with integrity, and to use them in ways that are healthy and reflective of good pastoral care in the moment.
Jeff Iorg:Having difficult conversations is a part of ministry leadership. It's also a part of family life, a part of neighborhood relationships, and even a part of public dialogue. Having difficult conversations from a Christian perspective, and certainly by a Christian leader's initiative, ought to be different than what's experienced in the culture. I tried to give you some insight today that's helped me along the way as I've had to initiate these kind of conversations. Some of what I've taught you today comes out of mistakes I've made, real mistakes I've made in the past with my children, with my wife, in our family, and certainly in my church and ministry leadership context.
Jeff Iorg:I've done these things over the years and made some real mistakes, But learning from them has helped me to do it better, and I hope that I've shared some of that insight with you today on the podcast. Having difficult conversations is a part of ministry leadership. You can do it even when it's difficult as you lead on.