Confidentiality: Always Helpful or Not?

By Tim Woodroof and Leland Vickers

You are serving as an elder (or minister, volunteer leader, Bible class teacher, or pastor) for your local congregation and you are approached on Sunday by a longtime member””let”s call her Susan””who says she would like to talk with you about a “personal problem.”

You agree to meet her for coffee, but Susan prefaces her discussion with a request, “This must stay only between the two of us. Can we agree that our discussion be completely confidential?”

What is your response?

The current church culture leads people to assume they have the right to absolute confidentiality when approaching a church leader with a problem. That assumption isolates leaders, forces us to make solitary decisions that may have churchwide implications, and cuts us off from some of the most significant resources and safeguards God gives us as leaders of his church.

This article intends to challenge that assumption. We will propose it is valuable to have a written policy that applies to elders, ministerial staff, and designated counseling volunteers who are approached by members of your church family during times of marriage, family, and personal stress.

This policy would give guidance and set expectations for how we, as church leaders, interact with people (particularly our own members) who come to us with spiritual, emotional, or relational needs.

To what extent are leaders bound by the expectation of confidentiality? Let”s start with a theological background, and then we will propose the wording of a policy statement.

Background

The church is a transformational community, powered by the Holy Spirit, equipping people to live holy lives. That requires the church to be involved not only with teaching and training for godliness, but in walking redemptively with people in their failure and brokenness. As leaders, we welcome the opportunity to help those who are struggling spiritually, emotionally, or relationally. Failure and crisis are our best opportunities for effecting real and lasting changes in the lives of disciples.

That said, the church is not a counseling clinic or a support group or a crisis hotline. We operate differently. We have different tools and resources to bring to bear.

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, our weapons have divine power to demolish strongholds. We destroy arguments and every pretense that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

Community

First, the church is an organic community, not a loose-knit collection of individuals. We are intimately involved with one another, with interwoven responsibilities and roles, and a network of relationships that impact us on many levels.

The church does not have the luxury (or the liability) of practicing only flat, two-dimensional relationships. While “therapist/client” may be adequate to describe a counseling association, in the church our relationships are multidimensional and encompass friendships, mentoring interactions, brother/sister contacts, ministerial involvement, etc. The principle of “community” means that individual actions have impact on the whole, that what each of us does or says or thinks affects the wider body.

Because we are so connected, personal failings and struggles have communal implications. As leaders, our interactions with individuals are seen through the lens of the community.

Accountability

Second, accountability is a necessary dynamic to healthy church life. Again, however, this is a multidimensional thing in the context of the church. Accountability is something we practice with peers, mentors, church leaders, and””ultimately””with Christ. And, as Jesus” teaching in Matthew 18 demonstrates, accountability (and the resulting transformation) is more important for church life than confidentiality:

If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that “every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.” If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector (Matthew 18:15-17).

The whole notion of “church discipline” is rooted in the idea that individual members are not free to behave as they please, that personal struggles can (and should) be addressed by the community, and that each of us is accountable to (and should be held accountable by) the church as a whole. Accountability is not the antithesis of freedom, but is rather a biblical way to deal with true versus false freedom. In the Christian context the whole person is addressed, not just behavior. As leaders, our first responsibility is not to keep others” secrets, but to do whatever leads to repentance, change, and release from enslavement to sin.

Plurality

Third, the biblical norm for wise and effective decision making involves a plurality rather than the individual.

“For lack of guidance a nation falls, but many advisers make victory sure. . . . Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed. . . . For waging war you need guidance, and for victory many advisers” (Proverbs 11:14; 15:22; 24:6).

This was true for Israel and it is also true for the church. God ordained that churches be governed by several individuals wearing several different hats (elders, evangelists, servants). The benefits of several heads extend also to more personal matters. It is in the context of personal sin and estrangement (the Matthew 18 passage quoted above) that the following words are given:

I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them (Matthew 18:18-20).

As leaders, we work best and most wisely when we work with the advice and consent of other leaders.

Finally, some of the best resources of the church (prayer, support, similar experiences of other members, mentoring, teaching, etc.) can only be brought to bear when we are permitted to move beyond the bounds of secrecy and confidentiality to recruit resources available in the wider community. As leaders, we cannot afford to let ourselves be cut off from the most significant resources we have to bring healing and growth.

Infringing on the Principles

The assumption and expectation of confidentiality infringes on each of the above principles. If we cannot speak to others about the struggles and sins of those who come to us, we cannot (1) put the needs of the community first, (2) use the community to effect repentance and change, (3) consult with one another about the best course of action, and (4) use the resources God has given the church to bring healing and growth. When both the community and the individual are committed to the highest good of transformation to glorify God, there is no conflict between an individual”s needs and the needs of the community.

 

 

Tim Woodroof is senior minister with the Otter Creek Church of Christ in Brentwood, Tennessee. He has a ministry of teaching, preaching, and writing. He earned his bachelor”s degree in psychology and Bible, his master”s degree in clinical psychology, and his doctorate in community and human resources. Leland Vickers served as an elder with the Otter Creek church prior to a recent corporate relocation to the Kansas City area. His educational background includes a bachelor”s degree in chemistry and a doctorate in biophysics. He works in pharmaceutical research.

 

 

SEE RELATED ARTICLES:

“Policy on Confidentiality (a Proposal)”

“Your Church’s Confidentiality Policy,” by Douglas A. Spears

“Confidentiality in a Counseling Setting,” by Doug McCulley