Chuck De Groat of City Church SF is doing a helpful series on “dealing with difficult people” where he gives some thumbnail sketches of some personality disorders and how they impact the church and the pastor. It’s a good read. Here are some links:

http://www.drchuckdegroat.com/2011/02/dealing-with-difficult-people-dependents/

http://www.drchuckdegroat.com/2011/01/dealing-with-difficult-people-obsessive-compulsives/

http://www.drchuckdegroat.com/2011/01/ealing-with-difficult-people-the-borderline/

http://www.drchuckdegroat.com/2011/01/dealing-with-difficult-people-histrionics/

http://www.drchuckdegroat.com/2011/01/dealing-with-difficult-people-narcissists/

http://www.drchuckdegroat.com/2011/01/part-2-dealing-with-difficult-people-narcissists/

He may do some more but I’m sure you can find new ones from the old ones. One of of the helpful things he notes is that we have some of these in all of us. “Difficult people” are usually a matter of extremes.

Chuck is a professional counselor and so he has experience treating individuals in a clinical situation. Most of us who are not mental health professionals don’t treat people, we pastor them. As church leaders we are responsible for establishing a context and a culture whereby personality disorders don’t become normative in the culture (which happens in churches) and where there is a culture of healthy boundaries by which all of us in a non-clinical setting can learn good, healthy patterns of behavior. Pastors aren’t mental health professionals but some awareness of how these things work is pretty important.