A colleague accosted me in the Monday morning pastors meeting after Bob and Kay joined our church the day before. He told me he’d invested many hours in marital counseling leading to their recommitment, and he was disturbed to hear they’d presented themselves for membership in our church. He believed I’d “courted” and persuaded them to leave his church.
I’m still unsure how he knew this so quickly in days before social media.
Actually, I was surprised when the couple presented themselves for membership since we’d not talked about this beforehand. It was natural to have them with us occasionally since Kay’s mother and father attended our church.
In that day, most churches “voted in” new members immediately, though this practice has declined in favor of further conversation and perhaps new member classes.
My fellow pastor and I talked later. I convinced him of our church’s innocence in this purported “sheep stealing”--the term that we used more often in years past to describe the practice of encouraging “sheep” from another church to unite with our church, often done with criticism of the home church or pastor.
Pastoral ethicists long decried this practice. Gaylord Noyce in his book, “Pastoral Ethics,” wrote, “It is unethical aggressively to woo [members] away from a congregation in which there are not clear reasons for their inactivity or alienation. We are not to demean the gospel and the church by hawking our wares like competitive salespeople after their private commissions. Least of all should we belittle other congregations and their clergy.”
No pastor enjoys losing sheep to other folds, though sometimes this is understandable. A divorce can lead couples to find other churches. Sometimes Christians feel called to participate in specific ministries that their own churches may not offer. And some members have purposely committed to leave their mother church to help start new churches.
But there should never be overt criticism of other congregations in an effort to pry members away.
Some pastors have learned to play down perceived church rivalries by not announcing the church new members come from with words like, “John Doe comes to us today from a sister church and wants to join us in our work.”
Ministers and lay leaders can assist in the biblical ministry of reconciliation if they learn of needs or brokenness that the home church might not be aware of. A simple phone call can alert a neighbor pastor about a situation requiring attention and give opportunity to reach out in compassion.
The desire for unity expressed in Jesus’ prayer in John 17 is reflected, at least in part, when we build connections with fellow ministers and congregations and treat them as teammates, not competitors.
