Customer Reviews

Well-Intentioned Dragons: Ministering to Problem People in the Church

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Shelly's book ought to be assigned reading for anyone considering ministry or church leadership. The reality of conflict in churches is too often treated as a family secret of which Christians should be ashamed. Ministers who go into ministry unprepared for the difficult behavior may be devastated by it. Shelly's book shows you how truly bizarre and painful church conflicts can be. Furthermore, most church conflict resources are focused on problem driven conflict, rather than personality driven conflict. These types of conflicts call for different approaches and skills. If there is a weakness in Shelly's book, it is that it offers fewer solutions than might be desired. However, the vividness and reality of the situations, and the strength of the writing more than make up for this. A good companion book would be: Never Call Them Jerks: Healthy Responses to Difficult Behavior by Arthur Paul Boers.

I read this book when it was first published years ago, and have just finished reading it again. After twenty years of pastoral ministry, I find the conflict stories of well-intentioned dragons to ring true with my own experience. I can also see how the insights gained from reading this book the first time have helped me in dealing with many difficult church members I have encountered.

Shelley's theme is found in one of his introductory remarks:
"The rest of this book deals with various kinds of dragons, their tactics, and the ways to handle them. But from the beginning a premise stands clear: the goal in handling dragons is not to destroy them, not merely to disassociate, but to make them disciples. Even when that seems an unlikely prospect" (p. 34).

This book is directed towards pastors, but contains helpful lessons for all church leaders. I can't think of a better, more insightful title on church conflict. This one is essential reading for everyone who even occasionally has to respond to conflict within a congregation.

Shelley includes actual situations from pastors and how they dealt with the well-intentioned dragons from their congregations. It helped to see that we weren't the only people struggling. The book also helped me to see that sometimes I'm the dragon! The author also included instances where the situation didn't work out and have a happy ending. I recommend this book to anyone in any sort of leadership role within the church.

Every Christian leader must deal with those in the Church who simply believe God has called them to clean up the Church or be the believer who fights changes. Every pastor I know of (including myself) has had to deal with angry, bitter members who seem to fight with every person in the Church and fight any changes the church wants to make even if the changes are for the good of the church (such as evangelism of minorities). This book offers insights into these well intentioned dragons.

The book explores various accounts of pastors and church leaders in their almost daily struggles with dragons. These dragons have ruined pastors lives without knowing it and many have ruined entire ministries. Some of the stories end with a truce but many end with pastors leaving the church and the dragons continuing to tear down lives.

Over all, this book is great. It offers practical advice on how to deal with dragons and when is it time to go. The book is not a cure for dragons (I know because I gave this book to a dragon and he simply said, "Yes, we need to watch out for these types of people in the church") but it does give a leader comfort to know that their battle is not alone and that many other leaders are in the same struggle with well intentioned dragons.

This was a good book. Easy reading and easy to understand. The book was written to "alert" pastors about "well-intentioned saint" who pose problems that can be detrimental to a pastor and the congregation. Shelly (the author) provides in-sights as to the "dragons" and how you might deal with such persons. This is good reading regarding conflict management.

Have you wondered why an organization founded by the prince of peace and having one of its primary purposes the building and encouraging of believers can be so full of strife and outright contention? This very well thought out book comes to us addressing this issue. It comes to us from both sound Biblical exegesis and years of experience.

In a nutshell, very well meaning people can believe something strongly. Sometimes their perception is about a problem. They will then fight to solve this problem with the intensity of a martyr who was handed a message directly from God. Problems arise and churches get "burned down" when these well meaning and intense people go outside of Biblical principles in how they approach their perceived problem or when this perceived problem is only in their heads and they are fighting against the very people who have the best in mind for them and the church.

This wonderful book addresses how to deal constructively with these people and understand their intentionality.

This book will help not only the pastor but the leadership of the church to better understand and then deal with "Well Intetioned Dragons" that all churches seem to have. The visual is not the problem. I would recommend it.
Pastor Rhoads

I liked this book. It really showed how church folk act in the church. I was shocked to read some of the testimonies of the pastors, but I believe every word they said because I have seen some church folk and had to deal with some church folk like those the pastors in the book had to deal with. This book is very interesting and I would highly recommend it.

The writer of James speaks of trials and tribulations in this way: "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4, emphasis added) Marshall Shelley, however, tells pastors to just brace for the worst and ride out the storm when confronted with so-called "dragons". That is not Biblical reconciliation.

The very premise of Marshall Shelley's Dragons causes me to shudder now having read it. It is very true you cannot judge a book by its cover. When I picked up the book to begin reading it, I was hoping that the book would help me to work through some of those "well-intentioned" dragons with which I had been dealing. The book seems to be a nice addition to The Peacemaker: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict and Peacemaking Pastor, The: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Church Conflict by offering Biblical insight to the issue of difficult reconciliation cases within the church. The book appeared, from the outside, to be a specialized discussion of so-called "dragons".

The fundamental problem with this book is that it strays away from God's Word from the very beginning. Although this book touts itself as a book about difficult scoffers, mockers and fools - those who cannot be rebuked without heaping abuse on the one rebuking. (Proverbs 9:7-9) It is really a book about conflict within the church with a pious and judgmental attitude. (It is my attempt to critique this book without having the same attitude which I accuse those in the book of taking.)To be clear, the judgmental attitude to which I am referring is the labeling of these so-called "dragons". Whatever happened to sinners, scoffers, mockers, or fools? (the descriptive terms in the Proverbs, God's book of wisdom) The problem is, though it is not necessarily unbiblical to be descriptive and take creative liberties with a book in order to make a point, when one strays from scripture, even in descriptive terms, the result could be that more than just the terms stray from the Word of God.

By way of example, on page 127, when Shelley finally discusses confronting the person, he references Matthew 18 (a very good verse for reconciliation), however, the reference draws a distinction between how one may "confront a brother" and how to confront a "dragon", indicating that Matthew 18 is "also a good order to follow with dragons." The problem with this sentence, which is but one example of many, is that it walks away from the very foundation of the book that "well-intentioned dragons" are often "sincere, well-meaning saints". If that were the case, why would Matthew 18 be "also a good order" rather than the Biblical mandate for reconciliation with a "well-meaning saint"?

Another example is in the section entitled "Learn Firm Forgiveness" (140-146). This section recounts the story of Walter Gregg and Fred Ackerman. Fred Ackerman (the church treasurer) makes a very foolish mistake with the church's money, which causes the church to lose all of its money. The Church banded together to cover a past due debt and decided to "forgive" Fred. The problem with this forgiveness is that Fred was not repentant. Although Fred did tell the church what had happened, he never even offered to make restitution. The church discussed at length that they should forgive him, even though he did not offer to repay the debt. Shelley goes on to explain that forgiveness is "letting go", while continuing to keep in mind past sins. That is not true forgiveness! Where would we be if that were how God forgave us? Neither should we forgive in such a self-righteous, feel-good sort of way.

These are but two examples of how Shelley moves away from Biblical mandates and offers a microwave solution to the problem of church "dragons". Perhaps it would be better to look at ourselves as the "dragons" (sinners separated from a loving God) and seek to reconcile with our fellow "dragons". The bible does offer advice on how to deal with scoffers, mockers, idolaters, fools and other types we will encounter in the church and in the world, but the Bible never discusses "dragons". Shelley veered away from the Bible to develop a creative term for his book, and he never made it back. A handful of Biblical references and real life anecdotes of sinful responses to sin problems a Christian reconciliation book does not make. It would have behooved Shelley to test his thesis against the inerrancy of God's word.