NDAs (Non-disclosure agreements) can constitute a significant blockage in getting better outcomes for bullied or unfairly dismissed assistant ministers. At a meeting this week for Uphold, a Sydney-based group seeking to support vulnerable ministers, a typical NDA scenario was discussed: An assistant minister who has been bullied and is facing losing their job with their senior minister insisting they did nothing wrong is offered money to keep quiet, and not complain to diocesan offices such as Sydney’s Professional Standards unit. Needing the money to find a new place to live and for a family to survive a period of unemployment, the temptation to sign is overwhelming.
Uphold’s chair, Mike Doyle explained that NDAs had “seeped into the church from the corporate world.” Getting rid of NDAs used to restrict discussion of people leaving jobs is one change Uphold would like to see immediately. Uphold does not oppose NDA’s used to protect intellectual property.
Uphold would like to see Assistant ministers regarded as employees. This fits within their principal aim to support Gospel Workers who have been bullied, mistreated or unfairly dismissed. “A major step in helping these Gospel Workers would be to get them the protections that normal employees are provided,” Doyle told The Other Cheek.
The Sydney Anglican Diocese and some other church networks or denominations continue with the idea that they hold “offices,” which rule out the protections of the Fair Work Act. Uphold has a legal opinion that Assistant Ministers are employees and expects (or hopes) that could be tested in court.
With the upcoming Sydney Anglican Synod in mind, Doyle pointed to two other reforms:
- Updating the Ministry Standards Ordinance (church law) to deal with patterns of behaviour. (This could allow a pattern of abusing staff to be grounds for disciplining a senior minister.)
- A register of complaints, whether upheld or not, could assist churches in hiring staff, staff seeking a new job, nominators (the committees that select ministers) and parish councils.
Pointing out that Uphold has helped people as far afield as the UK and Aotearoa New Zealand, and bullying occurs in all denominations, Doyle insisted, “We are not here to put the boot into Sydney Anglicans.” But the ability of the Diocese to be a prominent provider of gospel workers, training them at Moore College and employing them in churches – and the location of Uphold – meant that Uphold was aware of what was happening locally.
In an Uphold survey, 152 people said they had been bullied or unfairly dismissed in the Sydney Anglican diocese. Only 18 per cent of them had reported it to the Professional Standards Unit. Of the 150 people in Doyle’s year at Moore Theological College, “30 brothers and sisters have left ministry after being bullied.”
Dolyle gave examples that The Other Cheek is not reporting, respecting a request to maintain the Uphold meeting as a safe place and because some people might be easily identified.
“Many senior ministers, Wardens and Parish Councillors bend over backwards to assist gospel workers, we have manty good people in our Diocese,” Doyle said. “But we have bullies in our diocese.” He described the dynamics of ministers passionate about the gospel who “see things in black and white, who are highly anxious , who tend see all things in theoogical terms.” Who find it difficult when they are challenged.
“Bullying is unacceptable. Its not the standard we set as a diocese. Its not the standard the gospel sets.”
Keynote speaker Stephen McAlpine, a high-profile blogger and an evangelical minister from WA, pointed to his experience of being bullied at Crowded House, a big UK church and in another setting. McAlpine was key to uncovering the bullying of the Crowded House leader, who had moved on to become CEO of the Acts 29 movement, in a front-page story in Christianity Today. His experience is covered in greater detail on his blog.
“I was 39, theologically trained and a bit gnarly,” McAlpine said of his joining Crowded House, which at the time was seen as a bright star in the evangelical universe, pointing out that he was no pushover. But his wife saw danger ahead: “There’s something about this place – if you fall out with them, they will crush you,” she told him. McAlpine noted of bullying leaders, “women always pick it first.”
He pointed to a similarity between sexual abuse and spiritual abuse: “both get to the core of who you are.”
Analysing the dynamics between rainmaker leaders of churches and their staff, he recalled a story from when he was a boy. After losing his prized big tombola marble to a girl, he traded all his other smaller marbles to get his prized marble back. Churches do the same thing, prizing their leader over the right of staff to fair treatment.
“A light is being shown in this cultural moment – and the church is no exception,” he said.
“A broken leader is a powerful thing. A brittle leader is a bad thing. It’s always like a vase on the edge of the mantlepiece, ready to smash.
“Someone who has been broken and put back togther again has a super power – they minister out of their weakness, not their strengths.”
“If we ask what the church in Australia needs, to reach people smashed in our [wider] culture, they don’t need more harsh leadership.”
Later in the talk, he made it personal – speaking of the time he hit “rock bottom.” “I felt I could minister well [before], but now I minister out of my weakness. We need leaders who have been broken, and God has put them back together.”
He pointed to a lack of theological reflection by leaders. “There is a gap between our idea that we should be like Jesus and our being like Diotrephes who wanted to be first (3 John 9-11).”
Being theologically correct is not enough: “We think that if a person has the Gospel right he is a good leader.” McAlpine’s time at Crowded House had shown that to be false. Then he localised it. “We have a culture in middle class Australian Reformed Evangelicalism that thinks that if we have our theology right it puts boundaries around our worst behaviours.”
“A key factor is leaders who take the glory but deflect blame. We have not done a lot of work on personal brokeness, people don’t know who they are.”
“We have also seen ‘he’s a ratbag, but he’s our ratbag.’ We should not accept that.”
McAlpine pointed to a broader cultural issue. “There’s a lot of pressure on the church, so we close ranks. [Thinking] it’s bad enough having The Sydney Morning Herald say this school is homophobic – so let us not have these other things out there.”
“Church systems say, ‘We have to move on from this.’ That is why the Catholic church was exposed by The Boston Globe.
“We don’t want to air our dirty laundry. What we need in the church is surgeons who say ‘We won’t put a band-aid on that.'”
Uphold is looking for those surgeons.