A number of years ago, I was involved in an exceptionally tense season at one of the churches I pastored. I brought my DS into the situation and we had a couple of discussions about what was going on. In the days following, some church folks set up appointments with him and gave him their opinion of what was happening as well. A word of it leaked, a number of those who were trying to bring about a certain outcome set up appointments with him where they could air their grievances. It came to a head on an afternoon when he called me and said the level of uneasiness was such that and he believed a meeting with the church board where both of us were present would be advisable. That call came at a time when I was about to go into a meeting with an individual, so we agreed that I’d notify the church board as soon as I got out of that meeting and try to see if they could come together that evening.
While in that meeting, that individual shared with me some new news regarding the situation that led me to believe that gathering the church board was premature and not the best next step. So, I decided to contact my DS as soon as I got home and let him know I’d changed my mind. I opened my laptop, checked my email, and was mortified to see that he’d sent an email to my board members and called a meeting. This immediately put me in a difficult place, as doing what I believed was best would require I go against my denominational superior who had publicly communicated his belief that we needed to come together.
I felt betrayed, as we had clearly agreed I would contact the board members. I felt like, as the pastor, that was my job … and only my job. Not only had he gone behind my back, but it felt like he didn’t trust me to do what I’d said I’d so. When I talked to him about it later, he characterized the situation as an innocent and correctable mistake … one that could have been rectified had I gone to him with my change of mind in light of the new information I’d received.
One of the real challenges of ministry is learning how to tell the difference between an innocent mistake and a breach of trust. Everyone makes mistakes—in fact, we should make mistakes—we can’t move forward without them. Mistakes come with the territory of moving into uncharted waters; they are part of the terrain of initiating change. If we’re not making mistakes, then we’re not stretching and growing. One of the key things a leader needs to provide is an environment where it’s permissible to make mistakes … as long as we’re willing to own them and learn from them to where we don’t keep repeating them.
We all make mistakes for a variety of reasons—because we miscalculated … because we’re operating on the basis of some misinformation … because we’re inexperienced or trying to function in an arena that doesn’t naturally align with our innate gifts and/or strengths. But making a mistake is qualitatively different from breaching trust. A mistake creates some embarrassment and may require some damage control, but a breach of trust ruptures a relationship and stains the soul of the others involved.
No one likes to be accused of breaching trust. But, at the same time, for a leader to chalk up what is a breach of trust as being an innocent mistake is both naïve and dangerous. The person who doesn’t recognize a breach of trust when it happens and charts everything up to being a mistake can become like General Custer when he rode into Little Big Horn.
As a leader, you obviously don’t want to be paranoid and jump to false conclusions. And conversely, no one likes to feel like they come up short they are scrutinized and dissected every time they goof up. Nor do they want to have the past offenses of others projected on to them. So—how do you tell the difference between a mistake and a breach of trust? The issue boils down to a single word—intent. When someone breaks your trust, there’s intent … not necessarily to break your trust, but to do what’s best for, or most palatable to, them as opposed to what’s best for the organization. When someone makes a mistake, they did it while pursuing the well-being and best interests of the organization. And when you talk to them about what happened, they’ll react differently. The person that made a mistake will own it—there will be apologies and a ready expression of remorse. But the person that breached your trust tends to react defensively and launch into a discourse designed to justify their actions and convince you that you misread them.
Am I saying that my DS intended to breach my trust? No! But that brings about a second part of the equation—namely that looking at the whole, and the pattern, of the person’s life helps when it comes to determining intent. While none of us wants to be judged by an isolated mistake, all of us have established patterns and ways of behaving we naturally default to. I know, in my DS’s case, while he never intended to undercut or sabotage my ministry, he had a penchant for micromanaging and inserting himself in situations where it would have been best to monitor things but let those involved work matters out—I’d seen it before and others, who had worked with him over the years, had told me it was a pattern in his life. So, when he went against the plan we’d agreed to and prematurely initiated contact with my board, I perceived it as a breach of trust as opposed to a well-intentioned mistake.
Ministry is laden with the opportunity for us to make mistakes. And well-intentioned mistakes that we’re willing to own and assume responsibility for—that we willfully acknowledge and do what we can to both learn from and correct—are the seedbed of personal growth. But breaches in trust are a different matter—they tarnish rapport, fracture the sense of connection between two people, and ultimately erode relationships. Even though the latter are hopefully rare, it serves us well when we’re able to discern such and differentiate between the two.