Political Capital in the Church
Political capital is a powerful force in churches. Probably people will say we do not play politics in church. All people are equal. And there are a ton of other good saying to state. Well, the reality is that political capital is a powerful force in a congregation. It can come from various sources like family tenure, giving, position, respect, and personality. All people have some level of it in a congregation. A member that is a large giver can use some of his political capital to get his way. Lets say that he wants to have a special day of prayer. Well, the elders might not be that excited about it, but hey, Fred is a good guy, and we like him, and he gives a lot, so lets do it. The elders get behind this work because of the political capital that the member has. But lets say, Joe wants a prayer day, he approaches the elders, and they are not opposed to it, just nothing happens. He did not carry enough capital to push the elders to action. But if Fred, next month make another demand, and then another, after a while, the elders will say, we are done with this. He is trying to rule the church or some other statement that writes this member off. What happened, the member spent his political capital. In churches, all leaders, ministers and state holders have political capital. Preachers do, and you see them create issues in a congregation when they push too much, too fast, without making investments into the lives of people to establish capital. If you have loved people, been there for them, they will allow you to spend some of your influence to move a congregation forward. But if you have developed none, than people will resist that individuals ideas. Elders can do this, as well as members, they can outspend their budgets. It is not that people are totally opposed to the idea or the direction, it is that they are just being pushed too much and too far. And the pusher is losing respect in the congregation. Not that he is a bad man, it is that he is going into debt in political capital. This causes people to shutdown serving that individual. Some problems exist with this as well. Sometimes people think they have it, but really do not. This could be from having just one group of friends in the congregation. Of course, all the people you hang out with think it is a great idea, because well, you have it with them. But the rest of the congregation, you have not invested in, therefore will not support the person’s ideas. We hate talking about this, and maybe this is not the way it should be, but reality is, often this is how congregation work. There is always this balance of gaining and spending political capital for leaders.
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Interesting thoughts.
So, every time you ask someone to do something you spend “political capital.”
And every time you preach, teach, or write — of you do it right — you’re asking someone to do something.
Clearly it is not possible to operate on a perpetual political deficit. So, the question is how many such messages can a preacher put “out there” before his capital is spent?
At what point does the very act of getting in the pulpit create a diminishing return, to the point that folks are less likely to take a sermon seriously because they have heard from the same person too often?
Ben,
Good thoughts. And certainly do not have all the answers. Mostly, as a minister, you can call people to do stuff from the Gospel. This is the authority, but sometimes when you call people to do some things that are uncomfortable, you are using political influence. People might not feel comfortable but if they trust you, they will go for it, if it does not contradict the Bible. So each time you teach or preach, you are no using political influence, but every now and then, you preach a strong sermon, you used some. It is kind of asking people to go beyond the call or out of the comfort zone.
As for the second question, yes, a preacher can so spend that he loses all influence in the church. So often people invest in your message because you invest in them. Of course they should just listen because it is from God’s word, but often the ethos is involved with the mind. Sometimes it is best to leave, you are so in debt that it would be hard to get out of it.