A Time to Speak

By Phil Cooke

No matter how small, when a crisis starts brewing in a business, organization or church, when is the best time to intervene? Now. At that moment. And quickly. A crisis has a way of escalating. Momentum happens, and before long, it’s completely out of control. And remember, it’s not about facts, it’s about perception.

Don’t take anything for granted or ignore the situation. As soon as you see, hear or smell something going south, step in. I can’t count the number of times church staff members have said, “Well, now that I think of it, there were some red flags.”

I wonder how much grief, devastation and destruction could have been avoided had they acted back when they started seeing red flags. The earlier you intervene, the easier it will be to change perceptions, correct errors and, in some cases, change the direction of a life.

Let’s begin with some umbrella principles that will help you set the stage for a proper response to a crisis of any kind. I discuss most of these points in detail in my book Church on Trial, but consider this a 30,000-foot outline of the mindset you need during a crisis. Knowing these principles will help you have a running start in managing whatever fallout comes your way:

1. It’s not if you’ll have a crisis; it’s when.

There are simply too many variables for a leader or management team to control in our world today. So, don’t live in fear, but keep your eyes open. The key is to be ready and develop a plan long before anything happens. Depending on the issue, when a crisis unfolds, panic often happens. The phone starts ringing, reporters may show up and your team, elders or congregation start pounding on the door.

People simply want answers.

You may not have all the answers, particularly as the crisis is revealed. Still, as a leader, you need to convey the kind of confidence that tells your team, congregation or supporters that you’re taking it seriously and will respond appropriately.

Whenever I think of that type of leader, I often think of Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas. While I’ve had the incredible opportunity to work with Jack and his PowerPoint Ministries team for many years, when it comes to leadership, there’s one memory of Jack that I will never forget.

Years ago, there was a crisis at the church. It involved a new staff member, and it was serious. It was so serious that a press conference had to be called, and the local police were conducting an investigation. The issue had nothing to do with the church, but since it was a new staff member, the church was obviously pulled into the news reports.

When it happened, Jack was speaking at a conference in Israel, and after being notified, he took the first flight back home from Tel Aviv. I was asked to come in from Los Angeles to help Jack and his leadership team craft a strategy for responding. So I flew in and landed a few hours before Jack’s overseas flight. Once he arrived at DFW Airport, he immediately drove to the church—no shower or change of clothes—and when he arrived, members of the press were all assembled.

But before he responded to the waiting reporters, he first spoke privately to the entire church staff, and this moment is what I’ll never forget. The staff had been waiting, obviously nervous and unsure of what would happen next. After all, the press were outside, ready to pounce. But when Jack walked into the room, you could actually see and hear a sigh of relief from everyone on the team. It was palpable, and it was significant. It was as if those employees all felt, OK. Now Jack’s here. Everything is going to be all right.

I will never forget that moment.

As I looked at the response from those employees, I thought, I want to be that kind of leader. I want to inspire such confidence in my team that they feel everything will work out. Jack had led that church through challenges before. They knew his walk with God, had seen him in action, had seen his composure and trusted his judgment.

And it did work out. We responded in a truthful way that averted a crisis, we supported the investigation and Prestonwood continues to make a positive impact in the Dallas area and around the world.

During a crisis, leaders don’t have to be perfect and don’t have to know everything, but they need to inspire confidence. When that happens, your team becomes inspired, and it makes a dramatic difference in your organization’s ability to respond and overcome the challenge.

2. In today’s social media world, chances are great that one of your leaders or employees will do or say something inappropriate.

Spend time with your team—especially leaders identified with your church or organization. Help them understand that what they say (even innocently) on social media—including their personal social media platforms—can reflect in a positive or negative way on the church or ministry. It’s ultimately about perception. Even with all the disclaimers in the world, if an employee’s social media followers know they work at your church or ministry, they’ll associate their comments with you.

In most of these cases, it has nothing to do with the church or ministry itself, but proximity matters. Perhaps it’s a youth leader making a joke about getting drunk, a worship leader lashing out on social media about politics or someone on the church staff making a scene at a local high school football game. Nobody is perfect, but you can bet the minute someone acts up, someone else will be listening and reporting it on social media or, worse, filming the incident on their phone.

In other cases, it’s perfectly innocent but can be just as embarrassing. While I was writing this book, a pastor friend was preaching a sermon emphasizing that when Mary became pregnant with Jesus, it wasn’t a natural event, it was supernatural. He was trying to make the point that because Mary listened and obeyed the angel, the incarnation happened. It was a good point, but he was so intent on the fact that Mary listened to God that he made the awkward statement, “She became pregnant through her ears.”

That unwise choice of words was completely innocent but called up all kinds of pornographic images in the congregation’s mind. Naturally, some took to social media to call him out or make fun. He called me, terribly embarrassed, and fortunately, it blew over (but only after the clip on YouTube received hundreds of thousands of views).

Social media is a wonderful thing—if you have the knowledge and skills to control it. Say what you like, but most people don’t have those skills, and we’re seeing the deterioration happening in our culture every day.

Does the Bible speak about social media? Of course not. But there are plenty of things pastors discuss from the pulpit that aren’t mentioned in the Bible. All I’m asking is for pastors to consider having someone come in and teach parents how to help their kids navigate the social media world—or pastors can do it themselves if they have the knowledge. While they’re at it, they can teach the rest of us how to be wise when it comes to using those platforms.

The dramatic rise in misinformation, polarization, criticism, stalking and overall “snark” can be traced to social media. So before it completely takes over our lives, let’s learn how to harness it for good.

3. Always seek the advice of two key people in a crisis: an attorney for the legal aspects of the issue and a public relations or communication professional for advice on how to respond.

An attorney understands the legal ramifications of the crisis and how you should respond from that perspective. A communication professional can help save your reputation and perception in the eyes of the community or the general public.

I can’t overemphasize the importance of bringing in a good attorney with crisis experience from the start. In fact, in most cases, it would be my first call. In today’s litigious world, lawsuits can happen over anything, and it’s always wise to have solid legal counsel in your corner.

In one case, a staff member attempted to sexually assault a minor in a church stairwell. The pastor thought he could handle it—especially when the girl’s family asked him not to report the incident to the police. But the incident did eventually leak out, and when the police became involved, the pastor was threatened with jail time because he didn’t report it to authorities in a timely manner. Although he wasn’t the perpetrator, he nearly went to prison for not reporting what happened. Good legal counsel would have helped avoid that mistake.

In a different way, a communication professional can help when it comes to the perception of the crisis, the church and the leadership team involved. It’s not about deflecting or denying; it’s about getting the true story out there—which is more difficult than ever in today’s 24/7 cable news and social media world.

4. Sometimes, it’s better not to respond right away.

Particularly when it comes to criticism on social media, there are times when it’s better not to jump into the fray. Whenever you’re criticized, start by considering the source, thinking about your options and getting advice from an expert before you step into the firing line. In many situations, you are under no obligation to respond, especially to online critics, or even the press.

That’s largely because of something we call the “news cycle.” Today, with multiple 24/7 cable news channels, constant online news breaking and nearly unlimited social media feeds from news organizations, only the biggest stories last for more than a day or two. Whatever police chase, political exposé or sports scandal that’s popular today will probably disappear (or at least go on the back burner) within 24-48 hours.

As Wesley Donehue describes it in his book Under Fire, it was even happening all the way back in the three-channel universe. In 1969, Senator Ted Kennedy drove his car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts, and it overturned in a pond. We learned shortly thereafter that a young woman named Mary Jo Kopechne, a member of Kennedy’s staff, was killed in that accident. According to reports at the time, Kennedy left a party at 11:15 p.m., but the accident and was not reported, and Kopechne’s body was not recovered, until the next morning, about nine to ten hours later.

Think about it, because that’s a massive story. A United States senator had driven off a bridge around midnight, and a woman from his staff (who wasn’t his wife) was killed in the process, and he didn’t even report it until the next day.

But while critics tried their best to uncover “the truth,” conspiracy theories abounded and it may have derailed his chances to become president, the story received less coverage than it should have at the time—because of what happened the next day.

Apollo 11 landed on the moon. That event took over the news cycle long enough for Kennedy and his team to mount a defense. As a result, he went on to a long career in politics and was hailed as the “Lion of the Senate.”

News cycles matter.

Now, consider how much news is cycled through every hour today. Thousands of stories come and go on a wide range of media platforms, so the chances of yours reaching a fever pitch are pretty small. That’s not to say a crisis isn’t something that can bring down a church or ministry, but it does mean that panicking and speaking out too soon could be a mistake.

I had an interesting conversation recently with the social media director for a Fortune 500 company. A few years ago they had a disastrous PR situation when their advertising agency released a TV commercial that apparently wasn’t vetted well, and their customers—and the general public—hated it.

In fact, they hated it so much that social media lit up to the point that the company needed 40 to 50 people to monitor their social media accounts 24/7. The social media director told me the flare-up lasted about two weeks, and then everything went pretty much back to normal.

In spite of that experience, I asked for his opinion about dealing with critics online, and he was surprisingly calm. He told me any time you have a controversial message, take a bold stand or deal with the culture at large, you’ll get online criticism.

His advice?

Accept it. Understand that it will happen, and don’t feel obligated to respond to everyone. Certainly, there are posts that should be responded to, and some conversations can be taken offline so you can talk directly to the critic (and out of the public eye). On the other hand, there are also a lot of jerks and trolls out there who will dedicate an enormous amount of time to trying to destroy your reputation online. But as awful as it feels to see wrong information, lies and misinformation about your church, ministry or you, you shouldn’t always or automatically respond.

Monitor it, and keep aware of what’s happening. But to obsess over it—especially to the extent you neglect your future—is to let the enemy win.

This excerpt was taken from Phil Cooke's latest book Church on Trial. Order it here.