One of the many terrific things I have discovered since being a pastor is that everything one does is probably wrong. Nothing quite brings it to the fore more than something-must-be-done syndrome. SMBD is usually the refrain you hear when somebody has identified and issue, and it may well be a real and live issue, but doesn’t want to do anything about it themselves. What SMBD typically means is the pastor should be called in to do the something that nobody else wants to do.

A fair question at this point might be, why exactly don’t you want to do anything? The answer is usually pretty obvious. Either the conversation required is a particularly awkward, and therefore unpleasant one, and nobody wants to have that sort of conversation. Otherwise, though someone might be willing to have that awkward conversation – for the sake of the gospel, no doubt – they suspect that everyone else, who see the issue but are unwilling to address it themselves, will have lots of opinions on the particular solution one lands upon. Whilst someone might be willing to have the immediate conversation, awkward as it may be, they are not prepared to face the inevitable pile on that will ensue afterwards as the world and their wife determine whatever you did about it was definitely the wrong thing to do.

For this reason, almost nobody – despite what your church covenant might say and people affirmed they were committed to doing when they become members of your church – puts their hand up to do anything. So, the assumption goes, the lot must fall to the elders, and usually the pastor for the stated reason that he has time though often the unstated reason that he’s the one that gets paid to put up with this nonsense.

So, the pastor goes and has the awkward conversation about whatever it might be and what ensues is totally predictable. I have variously been told that I was being heavy-handed by going and having a conversation with someone and, at the same time, slack and uncaring by having not had a conversation sooner. I have been told before that church discipline needs to happen but nobody, including the person saying it, is willing to vote to enact anything. I have been told that SMBD countless times but whatever something you happen to land on, it is definitely wrong and when you lay out all the possible options (even clearly wrong ones), none of the actual, possible options in front of us – ranging from doing nothing at all about serious sin right the way through to removal from membership and everything in between – all are deemed inappropriate whilst remaining adamant something must be done.

In the end, if something really does have to be done, someone has to do something. But when people are adamant something must be done but they refuse to see any of the possible somethings that can be done as acceptable, it is unavoidable that you will come in for criticism when you inevitably end up doing something. When you also factor in a church full of people with their own opinions on the most appropriate somethings to be done, you are liable to come in for some considerable flack.

Of course, the lesson to be drawn here isn’t that you shouldn’t bother doing anything. Sometimes, something really must be done. Nor is the lesson to be drawn that there must be some way you can escape unreasonable criticism. Experience tells me you can’t and if you are a pastor anywhere, it will come your way soon enough. So what is the lesson to be drawn here? I think there are at least two.

First, if your church takes membership at all seriously, the response to SMBD should be a clear and direct: yes so what will you do about it? If elders exist to equip the saints for works of service, that must presumably include equipping them to take their role as functioning church members seriously. The pastor is not the sole guardian of the church. The elders are not the first line of defence. The church belongs to Christ and is made up of all its members who all have a role to play in protecting it and building it up. Elders are not the trouble shooters who come in to resolve the sticky issues nobody wants to touch. They are the men gifted to the church to equip the members for works of service including their service in the church, discipling one another and building up the saints also. If something must be done, members need to take seriously their responsibility to also consider doing something.

Second, if the church does default to expecting the pastor to resolve all the difficult situations – quite apart from there being some work that he might need to do to equip the members to take responsibility for the state of the church themselves – the members must learn if that is the model they insist upon, they cannot readily complain when the something that is done is not what they wanted. Churches cannot have it both ways. They cannot simultaneously wash their hands of all responsibility, piling it onto their pastor and/or elders, whilst at the same time having strong and vociferous views about whatever they do. Members either need to step up and take responsibility, accepting that they may need to be the ones to do something, or they need to suck up the fact that those they pass the buck to might not operate in the way they want.