Joel Rainey is the Director of Missions at Mid-Maryland Baptist Association, an adjunct professor at Capital Bible Seminary and blogs at Themelios (Twitter – @joelrainey). This post was originally published at his site.
Nearly three years ago at this time, my wife and I were in China getting ready to meet our little girl–now over 4 years old–and complete all the in-country and American citizenship paperwork that would both make her our daughter, and an American citizen. We landed in Beijing, and spent two days touring the city while the Chinese government finalized all the details for our pending adoption.
While on tour, our guide warned us to look out for swindlers on the street who would try to sell us everything from fake Rolex watches to event tickets that had long-expired. “When they start to walk in your direction” he said, “just start waving your hand and shaking your head, and whatever you do, just keep walking away, and don’t even make eye contact. These people are nothing but mosquitoes!”
I later learned what he meant by comparing them to a blood-sucking insect. Not only will they rob you blind and take your money, but they will also take you energy and attention off of what you are there to do–in our case, to enjoy the beauty of ancient China, and bring our daughter home.
As I think about that experience, it makes me wonder how many pastors (or leaders in any other profession) are sidetracked nearly every day by a different kind of mosquito. When someone comes to you with a concern or complaint, your shepherd’s heart goes out to them, and because you love them, you want to see them walk away satisfied. But sometimes, all that happens is that you end up in a perpetual “back and forth” with someone whose mind is unlikely to change, and who is not nearly as interested in dialogue and understanding as they are their own agenda.
My office gets its share of these people as well. In fact, over the last week, we’ve had quite a persistent little devil that is demanding our attention regarding an issue that he thinks is of eternal importance. Our collective response–based on my own orders to our staff–has been absolute silence.
Is this because I have no heart? Not at all. Its because after 21 years in ministry, I’ve seen his ilk many times, and I simply don’t have time for him, nor will I waste staff and other resources entrusted to us by our churches to address his concerns, which I can almost guarantee will never be alleviated. Over the years, we’ve had several folks like this try to get us sidetracked from time to time.
So Pastor, if you are wondering how to deal with your own “mosquitoes,” let me encourage you to follow my lead, as its expressed in the following open letter:
To Whom It May Concern,
Every day, our office is inundated with phone calls, emails, social media, and various other kinds of correspondence. My own personal email count averages more than 100 each day, and that doesn’t include those that are screened by my staff. Because this level of communication can sometimes be overwhelming for an office our size, and because we give priority to those who are members of churches that are in our network it sometimes takes us a bit to respond to you if you are reaching out to us from outside that network. If you have experienced a delay in our response, I hope you will understand and bear with us. Thank you for your patience.
However, there may be a few of you out there who never get a response from us, and I suppose we at least owe you an explanation for why your letter ended up in the trash, why your phone calls were never returned, why your email landed in our spam box, or your social media messages were blocked. What follows is an attempt to explain why you never heard from us:
-To the “purpose-driven hater” who believes Rick Warren is the antiChrist, and wonders why we no longer take your call and haven’t answered your letters………
-To the Fundamentalist who leaves nasty messages about our contemporary churches, and wonders why we don’t call back to explain ourselves………
-To the denominational purist who demands to know if any of our churches also cooperate with Acts29, and wonders why we haven’t met those demands…….
-To the angry anti-Reformed guy who wonders why I don’t respond to his attempts to start a twitter direct message conversation that will identify all the evil Calvinists in this Association………
-To the group that wonders why our office refuses to hawk your“we support Israel no matter what even if they carpet bomb Turkey unprovoked” wares on our churches………
-To the out-of-state “Christian organization” leaders who question my Patriotism because, as a follower of Jesus, I’m public about hanging out with my Muslim friends, and wonders why I haven’t responded to defend said accusation……..
-To the prophecy nut who wonders why we won’t dis-fellowship churches in our Association who don’t agree fully with his own views of end time events, and can’t understand why I won’t respond to his emails.. . . .
-To anyone else I’ve missed who made the mistake of calling amissions mobilization entity in order to nit-pick a theological or political point of view and wonders why we haven’t been willing to be distracted enough by you to even respond…….
…its because I have better things to do with my time. And honestly, you do too!
Warmest Regards,
Joel
After the sermon is over and the pastor shakes hands as members leave, I am usually behind the person who wants personal counsel or wants to tell the pastor what needs to be done. I have always been conscious of my pastor’s time. The mosquitoes need to learn the hard lesson of wisdom, time management and discernment. On the other hand, all of us need mosquitoes to sharpen our skills in the area of wisdom, time management and discernment, too. One learns from the school of hard-knocks and the other from the fruit of the Spirit.
It seems all the mosquito are from one side of the theological spectrum. Is it really the case that the blood suckers are all from that side of the fence? Really? Or was this just hyperbole to start a conversation with the “nut jobs” not accounting in your examples of course the “nut jobs” on the other extreme. Churches and Associations are diverse – I would think we would want a conversation with all our folks – understanding of course that your examples you were careful to say you deal with your membership as a priority.
Rob
Rob,
You talkin’ ta me?
No sir – just placed on the wrong level 🙂
Rob
Purpose driven hating, fundamentalist, contemporary worship hating, anti-Acts29, anti-Calvinist, pro-Israel no matter what, muslim-hating prophecy nuts are all a single side of the theological spectrum? Which side is that?
Brother Joel, That is definitely one way to handle the situation, and illustrates well the perils of well marketed mission giving programs. Since these folks, all not so well meaning in your mind, have supported the mission fund in some way through cooperative giving….maybe they don’t deserve a response? But, they probably still believe they do even after being rebuked,…and will tell their neighbors and pastor/s just how nasty the ole Director of Missions is, probably creating more time wasting for the pastor. Couple of thoughts: 1. Publish this as a policy statement, but stay away from naming specific events…because… Read more »
Thanks Chris. For clarity, nearly 100% of the “inside” calls we get are positive. The correspondence I reference above is related to those who call from outside our network–usually because they walked into one of our churches with an agenda, and when the pastor couldn’t satisfy them, they turned on us. Hope that clarifies things a bit, and your steps above would be very, very helpful to pastors I think.
I am discouraged that a DOM would consider Christians with concerns as analogous to mosquitoes. They are people, not pests. You may not always agree with them, which is certainly fair, but if you have no time for them, do not be surprised if one day they no longer have time for you.
Personally, I recommend a more accommodating approach.
I would rather be called a mosquito than an alien or a terrorist., which are both descriptions that you have used in past posts.
Scott, To be fair, in that very same post, I made patently clear that I was merely speaking of the MANNER in which the aliens in the movies or the terrorists in sleeper cells secretly infiltrate societies without the knowledge of the people in that society. Properly speaking, I was not comparing Acts 29 members THEMSELVES to terrorists or aliens. I was comparing their rather undetected method of infiltration among a variety of different denominations to the manner in which terrorists and aliens ignore the boundaries that divide us into nations and penetrate all of them at once unannounced. I… Read more »
Rick, How incredibly gracious of you! 😉
Thanks, Joel. I do attempt to show grace to all God’s children. One sentence of yours above caused me to wonder if I might be a “mosquito” in your eyes: “-To the denominational purist who demands to know if any of our churches also cooperate with Acts29, and wonders why we haven’t met those demands…….” Is it WRONG for me to desire information about the Non-SBC church planting networks with whom, unbeknownst to me, I may be partnering? These outside networks may very well be influencing the work, doctrine and direction of a church plant with which I am involved.… Read more »
Rick, there are an awful lot of erroneous assumptions in your statements. Perhaps you should read the post again to see precisely who I was addressing.
I read it again. Don’t see any erroneous assumptions. But then again, you asserted an erroneous assumption on my part without helping me identify any of them. Still doesn’t make you a mosquito.
Rick, Sorry for the belated reply. To clarify, most of what I’m talking about are the complaints that come from outside our association. Every one of the scenarios in this post are “real-life” situations in which someone walked into one of our churches, tried to start trouble, then turned toward us. We don’t answer that kind of nonsense. If you are a pastor in this network and call me with a question, I’ll answer it. Same thing if you are a member of one of our churches. That said, if you ask for the Association’s “position” on Calvinism, end times… Read more »
Joel, Thanks for explaining you were not talking about church members and pastors who have concerns, but outsiders who really have no business wasting your time in this way. I had no idea there were so many people who fit in this category. I generally agree with you, and would add one more category to this list of “outside the church” time wasters…people who call you on the phone to sell videos, music groups, church products, etc. Why can’t they understand that we NEVER purchase anything on the basis of a telemarketing phone call, but if we are going to… Read more »
Yep… I can only imagine what you run into on a daily basis. The first part of the last sentence might make a good lyric for a song 🙂
Blessings,
Chris
We, as pastors and leaders, must make a distinction between the mosquitoes that Joel writes so well about and just people who have a problem.
If a member of my church (regular attender, whatever) has a serious problem, I have to be there. The mosquito is more the kind of guy who visits the church and wants to rearrange everything. It’s an art form to tell them apart.