Old style sheep stealing between churches involved congregation members. That’s so 80’s now. Forget your common or garden variety congregation member. When churches are competing against one another they need to be a lot more specific about who they poach. These-days premier league sheep stealers are snagging anything from good pastors to great guitarists.

The practise of targeted sheep stealing has been going on for decades when it comes to the acquisition of new pastors. Here’s how it works:

1. Pastor John Smith enjoys a growing reputation and the envy of other churches.

2. Pastor Smith’s name steadily rises up the list kept informally by people who matter around the traps.

3. Somewheresville Baptist Church are going to without a pastor after the last one they poached announces he is moving on.

4. Somewheresville arrange for an intermediary to contact Pastor Smith to see if he is ‘interested in exploring God’s call to minister in Somewheresville’.

5. Pastor Smith enjoys the feeling of being wanted, and in a moment of weakness agrees to explore the issue further.

6. The more Pastor Smith explores his potential ‘new call’ the more his current call seems tatty in comparison. All the things that annoy him now really annoy him.

7. Pastor Smith take a ‘weekend off’ to ‘get away with his wife’ and travel to the new church to ‘preach with a view’.

8. Shortly afterwards the deal is done and Pastor Smith’s church now embark on the same process.

9. Soon an unsuspecting church somewhere will find itself without a pastor.

OK the above cannot serve as a generalisation, but it happens, and much worse. There is a perception out there [in Australia] at least that high calibre pastors occupy a very small gene pool and many churches may spend up to 2 years ‘looking’ for another. Larger churches have better transition planning in place and often recruit from within and keep their existing leader for around 15 years.

I think the issue needs a lot of reflection and perhaps a voluntary code of conduct that churches observe between each other to avoid the inevitable white-anting that this causes. I have a policy of ringing a pastor once I know someone from their church is visiting ours. It serves a number of purposes:

1. Courtesy.

2. Honesty.

3. To determine what we are letting ourselve in for!

4. To determine if there’s anything that needs to be sorted out between these people and their last church before moving on.

There are a few pastors who share these values in common with me and others who don’t. I’m thankful and appreciative of those who do.

I’ve recently seen a similar poaching phenomenon starting to happen with musicians. Having good musicians in critical for churches who want to ‘compete’ with others. Having great musicians and top notch worship is at the very top of the consumer list for church hoppers and shoppers. All the more critical if they are young, hip, have moppish faux styled hair and a looks that could get them a gig as a photo model for a surf-wear catalogue.

These young men, worth their weight in gold, can be convinced by other churches that they aren’t appreciated enough, and that they will be able to have more ‘input’ into ‘creative direction’ were they to make a move. I can’t help but feel that a lot of them end up being ‘guitar whores’ who are used and discarded by the mega-churches when an even more attractive option comes along. They work phenomenal hours with little remuneration, they don’t share the royalties of album sales, and they aren’t really given any career track. They are pawns in a high stakes competition.

I guess any good ministry leader is also a ‘potential target’ when churches compete with one another.

On a final note, if there is anyone out there who worships at a large, successful, harmonious, generous church located in a beach-side suburb on the Sunshine or Gold Coast, that remunerates its pastors ridiculously well, only has one service on Sunday, expects its pastor to build relationships with local surfers as a part of his daily routine - I may well be being led in this direction. Drop me a line…..I may be the person God is calling to help you reach your destiny.