Uncommunicated Expectations: A Major Source of Church Conflict
by Les Puryear
Everyone has expectations. We may not even be aware that we have expectations but we do. Some of the expectations we harbor have to do with our pastors, teachers, and churches. Most of us have an idea of how we expect our leaders to behave and how they will do things. We have expectations but the problem is we rarely communicate our expectations. When expectations are not communicated, then there is a high probability that you will experience the hurt of unmet expectations. In my experience, unmet expectations are responsible for a large part of church conflict.
In order to demonstrate how difficult it is for someone to meet uncommunicated expectations, I took a poll of 125 people on my email list. Out of 125 emails, I received 108 responses. In the email I asked two questions. Here are the questions and the results of the survey:
1. If you were in the hospital for three weeks, how often would you expect your pastor to visit you?
Responses:
Once per week: 59%
Once total: 18%
Twice per week: 14%
No visit: 7%
Once per day: 1%
Three times per week: 1%
2. How often do you expect your pastor to visit you in your home? Once per week, month, quarter, year, every 2 years, every 3 years?
Responses:
Only when invited: 53%
Once per year: 24%
Once every 2 years: 8%
Once every 6 months: 7%
Once every 3 years: 4%
Once per quarter: 3%
Once per month: 1%
As you can see from the responses there are at least six or seven different expectations from various people. The highest percentage of any one response was 59%. If I was lucky enough to guess the same expectation as those 59%, and that became my regular method of doing that part of ministry, I would not meet the expectations of 41% of the people. If 41% of your church has experienced unmet expectations with you as pastor, your tenure in that church is going to be rocky at best and brief at worst.
I was surprised that "once total" was the second highest expectation for question one. For question two, I would have guessed "once per year" would have been most people's expectations, but I was surprised to see that "only when invited" was the highest expectation.
You might be interested to know the age demographic of the survey. Here's the breakdown for age ranges of survey participants:
18-35: 11%
36-45: 32%
46-60: 39%
60+: 14%
The major lesson I take from this survey is that uncommunicated expectations will lead to unmet expectations and that is not good for the church or its leaders.
How can the problem of uncommunicated expectations be resolved? I have three suggestions:
1. Preach on the issue of unmet expectations.
The story of Naaman and Elishah in 2 Kings 5:1-19 is an excellent example of an adverse reaction to unmet expectations (vv 11-12). Naaman almost missed being healed of leprosy because Elishah did not meet his expectations.
2. Ask people what are their expectations.
I don't think a lot of people will volunteer their expectations as they think it might be construed as aggressive and impolite. Sometimes cultural manners can be a huge roadblock to clear communication. I have found that most people are happy to share their expectations of me if I ask them in a loving and compassionate manner.
3. Model how to communicate expectations.
Since we had a huge issue in my church regarding uncommunicated and unmet expectations, I now try to model how to communicate my own expectations. I am careful to lovingly and gently let people know what I expect of them. In my experience, I have found that most people appreciate knowing what is expected of them.
In conclusion, let me say that my little survey is not in any way scientific or statistically valid. I did this survey on my own to answer my own questions. Perhaps you have a different experience in regard to communicating expectations. If so, I would enjoy hearing your view.