Page 3592 – Christianity Today (2024)

Pastors

Charles L. Yarborough

Leadership BooksMay 19, 2004

It was in the church’s history that we found hope for the future.
—Charles L. Yarborough

Growth in this little church seemed impossible.

The First Christian Church in Albany, Kentucky, was started by sixteen people in 1834. Descendants from two of the original families are still members. The original church building was destroyed by fire on March 20, 1926. The congregation, broke and in despair, made their own bricks, built a new church, and moved into it November 6, 1927. Today that same building is in use.

The church suffered a split in the late 1950s. By the late 1980s, attendance had dropped to an average of twenty. The Sunday school was in the low teens. The youth program had two members (a twelve-year-old girl and a five-week-old boy). Most members were retired.

This small church is located in a non-growth town. Albany (pop.: 2,500) is in south central Kentucky. While the scenery is breathtakingly beautiful, there is little industry, and unemployment runs high. The nearest medium-size city is fifty-five miles away. Almost all our young people leave town when they graduate from Clinton County High School.

I asked church members how long it had been since the last family moved into the area, and no one could remember. This church was only two or three funerals away from closing.

My assessment of this church’s potential, however, needed to factor in the power of the Spirit of God. That power touched the small group of mostly senior citizens left in the Albany church. They decided enough was enough. They decided to grow.

Ours is not a rags-to-riches story of church growth. It is a story of a small church that struggled to stay alive under the leadership of a new but aged pastor who should have been thinking about retiring instead of leading a small church in a no-growth town.

In our first four years of effort, we added fifty-seven members. Now, we keep struggling to maintain our growth, hoping and praying for just one more new member. They keep coming from somewhere. It’s not a mad rush, but growth is steady. Sunday worship attendance is now in the fifties rather than at twenty. There are twenty youth active today. The congregation purchased a new Allen organ and new choir robes. An old garage next to the church was purchased, and renovation is planned to connect it to the church building.

For what they’re worth, I’d like to pass along the simple ideas that put our church into action and broke the bonds that held us back.

Draw on history

Three weeks after I arrived, I was looking through some church files when I found some old record books. I read that “Raccoon” John Smith, one of the founding fathers of our denomination, preached in this church. He and fifteen others founded the church. His grandson helped make the Communion table and pulpit, which are still used every Sunday.

I could not believe this great church, a house of worship and a community landmark since 1834, was so close to closing its doors. Yet I wasn’t certain I had the energy to lead the people in a church growth program, or sure the congregation was up to it.

It just doesn’t seem right that this church should close its doors, I thought. If it is closed, who will have the dubious honor? Me? One of the relatives of the founders?

Throughout an afternoon of tears and prayer, I came up with the sermon I needed. That Sunday I preached on, “Who’s going to turn off the lights in The First Christian Church?”

During the sermon, I read this statement from the display case downstairs: “From the beginning it was a church of vision, a church that tried and succeeded in living out the gospel set forth by Jesus. They lived through some of the toughest times in American history. They survived. Their flames may have flickered as the winds of the Civil War blew around them, but the light remained bright, and has continued to burn.”

Then I said, “We will not say to our children, ‘The last one out, blow out the lamp and sell the building. It’s all over.’ Let us never let that happen. Instead, let us say to them, ‘Take this lamp and handle it well, because it will light your way as it has for those before you.’ Let history record these words, ‘In 1989, a small group of servants known as The First Christian Church in Albany, Kentucky, fought back. Because of them, the flame of the lamp glows brighter than ever!'”

When we sang the hymn of commitment, “O Jesus, I Have Promised to Serve Thee to the End,” nine people came forward, saying, “We shall never close this church.” The first to come forward were the descendants of our founders.

It was in the church’s history that we found hope for the future.

Most small congregations feel threatened by growth. They may lose their identity: “Do we want these new people coming in here and taking over?” Or they fear, “If we grow, I may have to give more money and do more work.” Some people are just opposed to change. Change is difficult for many, and we do what we can to not hurt them, but we still must build Christ’s church.

I tried to help people see what would be reality if they didn’t grow. I told people, “Don’t be afraid to become involved in church growth! Instead, be afraid of a declining church. Church growth is a lot more fun than turning off the lights in your church.”

Build friendliness

I’ve used a modern retelling of Luke 5:17-20 to encourage people: “Be like the four friends who brought their neighbor on a stretcher to Jesus.” I tried to help people see the positive motivation for church growth—to bring others to have an encounter with Christ. This has become our theme.

Before growth can occur, you must have prospects, and you cannot get prospects if you don’t have a friendly and receptive church. Visitors who come to a cold, unfriendly church are not likely to return.

Most small churches are quick to tell you, “Why, we’re the friendliest little church in town.” Most actually are friendly to their own members, but in truth, they often ignore the lonely visitor. They’re so busy being neighborly to their neighbor, they pay no attention to others. For some reason, many small-church members are afraid they are going to bother the guests.

To break the ice, we began having people greet others during worship. Following the opening hymn, I’d say, “Would you please remain standing and greet those around you, especially our guests.”

The first Sunday I tried this, people looked at one another and no one moved. So I stepped down from the pulpit and greeted two people in the second row (my mother-in-law and father-in-law, who were visiting with us).

The next Sunday I again asked people to greet each other, particularly guests. My wife, Linda, greeted someone, and then two choir members and two from the congregation joined in, and we were off and running. Now people look forward to this time of greeting.

I’ve also learned that if you don’t have a record of your visitors, you can’t follow up your best church-growth possibility. Many small churches use a guest register, which is a great idea for funerals and weddings but a total failure in churches. I know how beautiful the gold-lettered guest book is, and it was given in memory of Aunt Ada, but many guests walk past the register and never see it. Those who do sign it usually list only their name and city.

We began having deacons or ushers pass out visitor cards, along with pencils, during the time of welcome. The cards give our guests’ full address, ages of children, and more.

We follow up with what we call “pie evangelism”—taking a pie, cake, cookies, or home-baked bread to the person. We don’t, though, let the person who baked the pie take it to the prospect.

For instance, the delivery people say, “Hi, we’re John and Kathy from First Christian Church. We just wanted to stop by and tell you how happy we are to have you visit our church. We keep saying we’re the friendliest church in the world, and to prove it, we brought you a delicious apple pie.” People say thank you, and then our delivery people have their opening. They say, “I’m just the delivery person. Mrs. So-and-so baked this pie for you. I’ll be happy to point her out to you this Sunday.” That way, the prospect meets two church members rather than one.

For us, this has been the best way to reach prospects who visit our church more than once. And it has helped us to build friendliness, which is the foundation for growth.

Hold special events

Anytime you have a crowd in a small-town church, it’s a big deal. It gives you a positive appearance in the community.

One event that helped us was Friend Day. We used the program from Church Growth Institute (800-553-GROW). At first, I had my doubts about the program, but that one day (and the follow-up) did more for our growth than any other single event.

A committee of our best workers met every Monday night for eight weeks prior to the target day of April 1. After the first meeting, I announced to the congregation that we were going to have a Friend Day on April 1. They all smiled; they had heard this kind of thing before. The next week, I said that our goal for Friend Day was ninety people. One lady said, “You’ll never get ninety people in here.” I agreed with her that we should change the goal; we made it 110.

Then, every Sunday I began to read letters from the town’s VIPs—the mayor, county judge, school principal, and bank vice-president—who were accepting invitations to Friend Day. The program began to gain credibility. On that Sunday, after having twenty-nine people Sunday after Sunday for nine months, 151 showed up! We followed up Friend Day by making seven contacts with each prospect within seven days.

Teach members how to reach neighbors

Most people don’t feel comfortable evangelizing their neighbors. I’m often told, “Pastor, he’s my neighbor, and he’s definitely not interested in being a member of our church.”

So we have tried to relieve that pressure by teaching people how to bring their neighbor to an encounter with Christ.

We tell our members: “Bring people you know. You will be most effective in reaching your mother, father, brother, sister, son, daughter, cousin, co-worker, or friend. No one in the world can reach this group as well as you.”

The process takes time. We have found that it takes an average of thirteen months for a visitor to unite with our church. In these old foothills, people are slow about making commitments.

Then we teach members to ask a simple but specific question: “Do you attend any particular church on a regular basis?” The last four words are key. We don’t ask, “Do you belong to a church?” or “Do you go to church anywhere?” Most people belong to some church, even if they haven’t attended in the past forty years. If a person responds, “On a regular basis? No, we don’t attend church very much,” you can talk about your church.

Minister to young people

On my first Sunday evening service at First Christian Church, I asked our congregation, “What changes do you want to see in this church?”

The majority said, “We want a lot of young people.”

I then asked, “Who will work with them?”

The excitement came to a crashing halt. No one, including the preacher, wanted to take on the role of youth leader. I had served a large church as minister of music and youth, but that had been twenty-two years ago, and there’s a great difference between being a thirty-six-year-old youth worker and a fifty-eight-year-old youth worker.

I finally realized, Our problem is not a lack of leadership. Our real problem is finding young people.

There is one sure way to attract young people: take them on a trip. Albany is about five hours from the beautiful Smoky Mountains, so we decided to hold a youth retreat in the Smokies. I’m still not sure where they came from, but we found six teenagers for our retreat. Following the retreat, all six were baptized and received into the church.

In addition, we incorporated a children’s sermon into the worship service. Parents go to a church where their children are happiest.

Reaching young people has been our most difficult task. But over time, things have happened. We now have youth activities, three children’s Sunday school classes, and a nursery.

Improve the music

A well-prepared organist truly lifts the spirit of worship. Yet so often we try to get by with a person who can’t play adequately, and the music program is stuck until he or she is replaced.

We often continue to use incompetent musicians because of relationships. “Aunt Ada has played for us for sixty-five years. She was good enough for us in the past when nobody else would help us, so why not now? She would never think of charging us to play. Now you want to spend all this money by paying an outsider when we could continue using Aunt Ada for free.”

Aunt Ada has been a dedicated servant to her church music program, and we need more like her. And a servant should never be hurt and made to feel unwanted. Still, sometimes a pianist or organist is simply not musically or physically able to continue.

Hiring a pianist could solve the problem. Use organ and piano together. Select choral music that will challenge the older musician to work harder. One of two things will happen, and both are good. Either the extra practicing will make her a better musician, or she will decide it’s time to retire. If she makes that decision, host a church-wide retirement dinner in her honor. Award her with a certificate of appreciation and a nice gift. If she has played free for many years, the church owes her a great debt of gratitude.

Here are some ways to make a small choir sound great:

  • Start singing simple unison music, if need be.
  • Hold an optional music school to teach people to read music. This could be held immediately following each choir rehearsal for about six weeks running.
  • When the music calls for a soprano solo, and you don’t have a soloist, use all the sopranos, or all the women, to sing it.
  • Select music that employs a big sound. It’s easier to sing out on “Onward Christian Soldiers” than on “Nearer My God to Thee.”

Motivation for growth

Our growth committees are diverse: some people are in their eighties, some in their fifties, and a few are younger. But all are dedicated to one goal: “Bringing others to have an encounter with Christ.” Although some people are opposed to change, almost everyone has enjoyed seeing our church come alive and grow—even those who might have originally been opposed to it. An unusual thing has happened in our community: even people from other churches are enthusiastic about our growth. The talk around Albany is, “First Christian is really on the move.” That gave our congregation a lift. It’s a pretty encouraging statement for a small church in a no-growth town.

Copyright © 1997

    • More fromCharles L. Yarborough

Pastors

Joel C. Hunter

Leadership BooksMay 19, 2004

The most compelling reason I have for going away to pray is to find what God is saying to our congregation in the context of the larger church.
—Joel C. Hunter

When I first came to my present pastorate, I wanted a vision à la Proverbs 29:18 (“Where there is no vision, the people perish,” KJV). I wondered, What does God have in mind for our church?

For several months, though, I concentrated on building relationships, establishing credibility, and hearing the leaders’ ideas about the church. Before long my days were spent in disjointed attempts to repair programs or solve people-problems. I became bogged down in routine. My hope of finding a vision, a long-term goal for the church, never materialized.

I looked to the elders for leadership, but they spent all their time, like me, solving problems instead of providing vision.

In the midst of my frustration, however, I had two hit-yourself-in-the-head realizations.

First, in twenty years of ministry I had never seen a committee receive a vision. Committees had offered wonderful methods to accomplish a vision or reach a goal. They had confirmed and refined an individual’s insights. But I had never seen vision originate in group process—not in the Bible, not in the church.

Second, the problem was not my inability to discover and articulate a vision. My problem was more basic: interruptions and distractions hindered me from seeing where God was leading.

These distractions were good and necessary elements of ministry—daily devotions, sermon research, pastoral care, and administration. But they hindered me from discovering God’s larger purpose for this church.

Like most pastors, I enjoy being accessible. It makes me feel useful, almost indispensable. And after years of experience, I’m pretty good at overseeing the operation of the church. But there is a downside. Always being available drains me. When I’m drained, I lose perspective. I begin to think God’s kingdom is our local church, and our church is one problem after another! Then vision is hard to come by.

Also, the more I’m available to people, curiously enough, the less they seem to respect me, mainly because I’m not taking care of a crucial element of my calling. Years ago a man said to me: “Why are you always here when I call? Haven’t you got anything more important to do than hang around the office? If we had wanted a crisis manager, we would have hired a fireman.”

The itch I sensed in me and my congregation was twofold: (1) we wanted a long-term goal larger than our routine, and (2) we wanted our purpose to go beyond our local church.

Unspoken plea

Though they may not be able to articulate it, church members sense a need for long-range planning. Like the second law of thermodynamics, congregations tend to unwind and break down. I’ve found that the typical way to get a congregation jump-started and focused toward the future is to begin another building program. But I’ve also found building programs can be divisive, costly, and a poor substitute for a deeper vision. We need vision that does not rely on facilities, additional staffing, or a new program.

The most compelling reason I have for going away to pray is to find what God is saying to our congregation in the context of the larger church. Local church projects are fine, but they often don’t fulfill our highest priorities. New church program emphases are good, but so often they lack a sense of the eternal. Even emergency projects leave laypeople wondering, Is there a broader point to all this?

After five years as pastor here, I still hear questions such as: “Where are we going? What vision do the leaders see for our church?” Such specific questions cannot be answered by our mission statement: “The mission of Northland Community Church is to bring people to maturity in Christ.” We have to offer more than that, because people need specific answers to these questions before they are willing to fully commit themselves to the congregation.

It’s natural for the congregation’s most immediate needs to capture our attention. I could not escape the emergencies. In sermon planning I thought about what people needed to hear now. In program planning I thought about what activities people needed now. Even though many were concerned with the next stage of their lives, I focused on what they needed from Sunday to Sunday.

But the immediate frustrated my attempts to find the eternal. Until I learned to get away, I struggled to reconcile the immediate needs with a larger vision.

These insights culminated in a decision to simply get away from the church and its routine, even if only for a few days, to do what I—and no one else in the congregation—am called to: gaining vision for the future.

Risky retreats

Moses heard God on the mountain, but I had trouble taking time to separate myself as he did to be with God. Besides my busyness, I recognized that getting away entailed some risks. Here are some concerns I faced:

Something traumatic will happen in the church while I am gone. If so, people will be angry with me for not being available, or they will breeze through the problems and discover they don’t need me as much as they thought they did!

I will be misunderstood. “Yeah, I wish I had a job where I could just go and dream all day,” parishioners may say. Or the staff might ask, “Wait a minute—you get paid more than we do; why are we left to hold the church together while you go off to a condo?”

I will go away and come back empty. What if I think, pray, and wait, and the Spirit says nothing?

My vision may get vetoed. What if the church leadership says no to the vision I come back with? How could I handle the embarrassment and disappointment?

Nonetheless, by not setting aside time for envisioning, I became increasingly frustrated, a CEO (Consumed by Everyday Objectives) who fell far short of my potential as a leader. I could not tell the congregation where the church was going because I did not know.

I went ahead with my plans to get away. I felt if I didn’t take such risks, I’d never gain a vision for the congregation.

My first attempts to hear from God were neither long nor far away. I wanted to see whether a day in a library or a walk on the beach would benefit me. Through those early experiences, God confirmed two things to me.

First, I sensed that we were not too far from the mark. God used the quiet to give comfort and peace about the church. I began to appreciate the good things: the congregation’s earnest desire to love God more, our outstanding staff, our very adequate facilities, and our people’s desire for vision, rather than being satisfied with just fixing problems.

Second, I began to see that the work of the kingdom is not left to us alone. The Baptist church is literally the friendliest church in town—it’s not just their slogan, it’s their gift! The Assemblies church focuses on healing and confidence, restoring bruised people. The Presbyterian church concentrates on a rich heritage of Reformed theology and distinguished tradition. God offers all of these churches to our community. Our church need not try to imitate any of them. We can simply add another facet to the diamond.

These came to me not as staggering revelations to the mind, but as balm to my spirit.

A number of these brief times away convinced me that God was involved in the present. I could then begin to concentrate more on the future.

On a trip to a lake house, I outlined three months of sermons. Later, I perceived a theme we should develop through an entire year. In addition to monthly goals, I plotted each week’s sermon topic for the entire year.

After my third long-range planning trip, almost three weeks in Colorado, I was ready to offer the church leadership a way to fulfill our mission of bringing people to maturity in Christ. It would be a ten-year process toward Christian maturity. Rather than accumulate biblical principles for specific problems, the process would spend a year weaving one major biblical theme (purpose, faith, reason and revelation, holiness, witness, worship, among others) into people’s character.

What changed

As a result of my times away, both the church and I have changed the way we approach ministry. The elders, for instance, are now asking practical and helpful questions about the long-range plans of the church: “If this ten-year process is progressive, what will happen to those joining us in years to come? Will they understand the foundation we laid at the beginning?”

The other pastors and staff are working on the implications for their areas. For instance, in youth ministry, we’re asking, “Should we write a curriculum to take teenagers through the process?” In pastoral care, we’re asking, “How does our home group ministry change in light of a long-term church focus?” In the area of leadership development, we’re discussing, “What kind of congregational leadership will we need for such a process?”

In addition, my preaching and planning now are markedly different. They are, I trust, still relevant to current issues, but they also paint with a broader stroke. People have a sense of anticipation as well as a sense of history. Planning around a larger theme allows latitude even as it insures consistency.

For example, I will begin the emphasis on maturity with a series on “Paying Off the Past,” exhorting people to reduce their debts—whether financial, emotional, or spiritual—so they can be free to move into the future. I know the messages will have specific application, given the current consumer debt load in this nation and knowing how unresolved emotional problems cause most counseling needs. At the same time, the broader perspective of what we can become serves as our primary motivation.

Long-range planning, then, is more than practical; it is inspirational. It does more than fix; it fulfills.

On another level, three things in particular have amazed me about my times away. First, I found that prayer never diminishes the amount of work I can do; it multiplies my accomplishments. Sometimes I return with so much for my secretary to type that it seems I haven’t taken time to pray. On the contrary, it was because I had time to pray that the ideas flowed.

Second, my time away has also increased my pastoral effectiveness. I used to be easily distracted from conversations, thinking about work I wanted to do elsewhere. When I take time now to chart progress and direction, I can give more undivided attention to people as I meet with them.

Finally, instead of resenting my going away, the church leadership and staff appreciate someone taking the time needed to consider our future. They know they will have input without having to create vision in committee.

In the details

I’ve noticed that if I pay attention to certain details, my time away is more productive. To help me concentrate, I try to eliminate distractions beforehand. I need to know the church is covered, my family is secure, and that no one is overburdened. My secretary reminds me in advance of any such details.

The setting where I go can distract me if I don’t select it carefully. It helps if I know no one there, if there is no TV, and if food and reading—two of my favorite activities—are kept to a minimum. I usually take only a Bible, a writing tablet, and several mechanical pencils.

Studying and praying before I leave on a trip probably prepares me for my time away better than anything else. Faith seems to come more easily when I assume in advance that God wants to reveal his plans for our lives.

While I’m away, I try to call home every night. Calls earlier in the day would tempt me to think about church routine or my family. My wife, Becky, fills me in on messages or events. I have not yet been brave enough to go somewhere without a phone. Besides, because I miss my family, a nightly call helps me sleep and concentrate on the next day.

Also the very way I pray while I’m away makes a difference. For instance, I find it more productive not to pray about a specific agenda but simply to pray for a sense of God’s love and leading in my life. For me, thinking things through in the presence of God prepares me to discover his agenda.

Some years ago, I had a disagreement with one of my denominational officials. At the same time, a man in our congregation verbally attacked me and my wife. After weeks of trying in vain to put this experience behind me, my wife scraped together enough money for me to get away to pray.

During those days away, God began healing me, showing his love to me. I began to see the incidents in perspective and realized what God could build in the future. I was able to come back, submit willingly to the denominational officials, and love the man who had attacked us.

I am grateful my wife saw a need in me I could not perceive. That time away not only gave me perspective on the future, it was a time of healing.

Another added benefit of getting away is that it allows my creative juices to flow. My weekly routine is not creative. Study time, smallgroup meetings, counseling, calling, and administration comprise routine in my ministry. I enjoy these activities; they all add something valuable to my life and ministry. Yet they do not provide much chance for creativity.

I find it necessary to pray and fast in order to be creative. I must fast from conversation. I must fast from normality. I must fast even from religious activity.

During a recent planning retreat I found myself writing ideas for dramas in worship. I’ve never done that in my life! Whether these dramas are performed is beside the point. I realized that even after years of established patterns, completely new aspects of ministry can be born within me during planning retreats.

For years I pastored churches by problem-solving rather than planning. No matter how many problems were solved, however, I never felt we made progress. The size and number of the problems set the pace of the church and the pastor. I remember leaving church board meetings knowing that the church was afloat but somehow adrift.

My perspective has changed. Immediate problems are opportunities to adjust our long-range course, a destiny we eagerly anticipate. More important, we’re no longer in a hurry. Our goals are not emergencies. So we don’t worry. We have heard from God, and we will, in time, get to his goal for us.

Copyright © 1997

    • More fromJoel C. Hunter
  • Joel C. Hunter

Pastors

David Hansen

Leadership BooksMay 19, 2004

Ideal churches and visions for ministry often look and feel the same. Both consist of mental pictures, or images, of good churches—except one is a projection of the ego and the other is the product of the indwelling Spirit of God.
—David Hansen

The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams. —Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Each member of the board was a friend. Confident they would understand, I planned to tell them the truth. As their pastor I had listened to their pain in time of need; I knew they would listen to me in mine. After the business part of my pastor’s report, I shared my situation.

“I’m really tired,” I began. “The doctor says I have pneumonia. My load here is hardly bearable at times.”

I went on about my problems. One board member began fidgeting. His face reddened and wrinkled. He held his thoughts as long as he could (which wasn’t very long).

“We’re all tired,” he said. “We’re all stretched to the limit. Your job is no more difficult than ours.…”

His comments, which began civilly, degenerated into acid.

“I’m offended,” he continued, “that you think you work so much harder than we do. You need to understand us. You don’t know what we face out there.”

I defended myself by attempting to describe my unique responsibilities. Pretty soon I realized I was playing into his hand. The other board members were becoming offended by my defense. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I just wanted to tell them how tired I was. I didn’t mean to imply that I worked harder than they did. How did this turn out so badly?

During a lapse in his volley, I turned from the member who was first offended and said to the board, “I have spent many hours with each of you in private, listening to you express your frustrations and tiredness. Have I judged any of you or your work as you poured out your heart to me? Why are you attacking me now? All I expected tonight is that you would listen to me as I have listened to you.”

That sort of ended it. The board and I exchanged perfunctory, conciliatory remarks, and the meeting went on as if nothing had happened.

I didn’t sleep much that night.

The next day I chopped wood. The meeting was still hot in my mind. Internally I alternated between tirades at the board, well-practiced I’m-quitting-this-stupid-job soliloquies, attempts to think through the whole thing with prayer, and a mental game of assembling the ideal church that I wished I pastored. In this mythical church, the board supports me through my insecurities; my happiness is their mission.

When I’m mad at the church and my feelings are hurt, I like to crawl into a spot in my brain reserved for my ideal church. This imaginary church masks the parish I serve, correcting the faults in my present situation. I pretend it’s Jesus’ church.

Jesus vs. Barney

The process reminds me of a kids’ show designed to introduce children to the solace that imagination can provide. Its hero is a purple velvet dancing dinosaur. Barney teaches children how to withdraw into an imaginary world in which waistline-challenged reptiles are adored, everyone has fun, and everyone follows the rules. Barney’s rules, of course.

Sometimes I want Jesus to be like Barney. I want him to lead me to an imaginary church where everyone loves everyone, everyone has fun, and everyone follows the rules. My rules.

The fact is, Jesus dwells in the church that actually exists, not in the ideal church that exists in my mind.

The actual church is made up of sinful people and served by a sinful pastor. The actual church is where Jesus lives, the church that Jesus is building, the church that Jesus died for. We have no reason to believe that Jesus cares about our ideal church at all.

Vision or fantasy?

Ideal churches and visions for ministry often look and feel the same. Both consist of mental pictures, or images, of good churches—except one is a projection of the ego and the other is the product of the indwelling Spirit of God.

How can we tell the difference?

There is no sure way. Real visions do not come with holographcertification seals; ideal churches don’t come with purple velvet dancing dinosaurs. In this realm, we all stumble through, making mistakes along the way.

But as I’m trying to sort through the myriad pictures, ideas, and leadings, I pay attention to some warning signs.

If an image of an ideal church comes when your feelings are hurt, don’t give it the time of day. The debacle with my church board hurt my feelings, and it set my mind to wandering. If I just had a board that understood my needs, I would thrive in pastoral ministry.

This is a lie.

Even given the fact that the board didn’t handle my exhaustion well, my mental retreat to a church that would care for me was nothing more than a projection of an insecure ego. After the pain was gone, I was able to think and pray through the situation and I realized most of the board members were hurting as badly as I was. Christ was in the middle of the meeting the whole time. He wanted us to see that it wasn’t my board, it was his board that exists for all of us.

Seeing it as our board is a lot more complicated. That means that everyone’s feelings count, not just mine. It means that bad board meetings will happen again. That’s the real church. That’s the church in which Christ dwells.

If an image seems too good to be true, it probably is. An ideal image works in a perfect world; a vision works in a sinful, unpredictable world. The test comes when we’re shooting the breeze with friends and we spill our plans and dreams.

I’ve never heard a pastor describe an ideal church that didn’t sound biblical, that didn’t sound like it would do great ministry, and that wouldn’t be a great church to pastor. But I get skeptical when all the pieces seem to fit. When in theory the church should run like a Swiss watch, I can never believe it’s watertight. Sin can always leak in. It doesn’t take a Charles Manson in your church to goof up your best ideas. Sweet old Aunt Bertha on a bad day can trash a sure-fire plan to build the ideal church, even if it is backed up by the best-thinking church experts in America.

Vision, on the other hand, never comes with all the answers. It doesn’t promise to fix anything. Vision is, by definition, seeing something beyond the present possibilities, so it never seems as if it’s going to work. But vision works in the sinful church. It has a way of working in and through disparate personalities, theologies, and indigestion.

When the failure of an image threatens your call to ministry, be glad it failed. An ideal emerges from a self-established call to ministry; a vision emerges from prayer.

It is a big problem when our ideal church gets fused with our call to ministry. It’s something like a Cartesian perversion of the pastor’s call. Rene Descartes’ famous proof of self-existence was “I think, therefore I am.” (My favorite form of the proof comes from a fisherman’s T-shirt someone gave me: “I fish, therefore I am.”) The pastor’s twist goes something like this: “I know my call, therefore I am a pastor.” It’s a common way to view the call to ministry, and so is its corollary: “If God has called me to pastor a church, then the church I am called to pastor must exist.”

Naturally, the church that we assume must exist, since we are called into ministry specifically to pastor it, is our ideal church.

When reality smacks us in the face that our ideal church does not exist, this logically affects our sense of call: If our ideal church does not exist, then perhaps our ideal call does not exist. The argument sounds far-fetched, until you ask yourself if you know any pastors who have left the ministry because they could never find the church of their dreams. They wanted the church in Acts, but all they ever got was the church in Corinth.

Our call to ministry, however, is not based on specters in our head; our call is based on the Word in our ears. When we hear Jesus say, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34), and we know that he is calling us, then we realize that our supposed call to an ideal church is silly.

If an image comes from a previous ministry, make it do fifty push-ups at a council meeting. My first church staff position was at a large Presbyterian church in Southern California. We pulled off a junior high ministry that was bigger than some of the churches I’ve served. We built it on some simple concepts of ministry: love the kids, have fun with them, teach them the Word of God, and pray for them. Not too complicated. Of course, it had to have a structure too.

In the twenty years since, every time I have tried to conduct ministry on those principles, that ministry has succeeded; every time I have tried to duplicate the specific programs we used, that ministry has failed. The insight is not difficult: Churches are different. Things that work in one place don’t work in another. But scratch a little deeper, and we discover that our ideal church is often filled with images of our past successes.

If we want to try something in a new ministry that worked in an old ministry, we should submit it to the ruling board. They may affirm it, or they may send us back to the (mental) drawing board.

Whereas an ideal church is a myth, a vision for ministry is an incarnation of the will of God in a particular place. God often wants to do something new, and that can’t happen if we bog down everything with past successes.

If an image carries even the slightest scent of envy, let it bleach in the sun until it looks like a valley of dry bones. Then see if it rises again. Much of what we call “vision” today is nothing more than envy. It’s worth remembering that the apostle Paul lists envy—as common as corn flakes among pastors—among abhorant sins: “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like” (Galatians 5:19-21).

We visit successful churches and listen to tall-steeple gurus. Do we come away with an influx of inspiration or an adrenaline rush of covetousness? There’s a big difference between “I can do that,” and “I can do that.” We need to glean ideas from others who are conducting unique, productive ministries. The question is, how do we harvest vision and remove the taint of the sin of Cain?

Samuel Rutherford tells us: “Our pride must have winter weather to rot it.”

Instead of implementing mental images, we must abuse them. Lean them up against the fence in the backyard, expose them to sun and rain and frost, and when they are good and weathered, look them over to see their real skeletal structure. Frequently there’s nothing left. But sometimes it’s like Ezekiel 37. We see the bones, clues to a solid idea. We pray, and the bones begin to rattle.

An ideal church is an idol; a vision for ministry is a prophecy.

Communion of the (real) saints

The council meeting meltdown happened a long time ago. But things like that still happen. I still dream about the perfect church when my feelings are hurt. In weak moments, I’m positive I know the system that will solve the church’s problems. When my ideas get drubbed, I wonder if I’m really called into ministry. That I still envy goes without saying. But I’ve learned to see my church differently, and that helps me sort things out.

A few Sundays ago I was serving Communion. Standing behind the table, I speak a few sentences before the sacrament, my eyes scanning the congregation. As my mind gathers each face and forms them into a congregation, I see the communion of the saints; but this time my efforts fail at a few sets of eyes. My spirit gets stuck on some people who are mad at me, and some people who are bickering.

That kind of thing aggravates me. It irritates me that I fixate on the dumb little things in life, the inevitable things, the quirkiness and crankiness that seem to go hand in hand with being human. My first reaction is, How can I fix this? Whom should I call on? What should I say? How can I solve this?

I realize there is nothing I can do now, or probably ever, so I continue the liturgy and return to my seat as the elders serve the elements.

During the deliciously spiritual minutes in the service when the elders are administering the broken body of our Lord and I am all alone in my seat waiting and praying, it flashes through me that I have been granted the extreme privilege of serving a real church. The church isn’t splitting. It isn’t collapsing. The ups and downs and rights and lefts of our fellowship of the Spirit are as old as the New Testament and as contemporary as Uncle Grump and his oversensitive pastor. With joy and with love, I see what we really are—a real church, united not in my dream but in Christ’s plan, not in my work but in the body and blood of Jesus of Nazareth.

Sitting up there in my big chair during these solemn moments, I see the servers, who have finished administering the elements, returning up the aisle to the table. They will arrive soon (our aisles aren’t very long), and I need to get up and walk to the table to meet them. But I force myself to sit a little longer and take a moment to be grateful for the fact that the work is really finished—the church is one in Christ.

The irony makes me smile. The whiners are living proof that I pastor a real church. The fact that there isn’t a whole lot I can do about the problems points to the fact that Christ is in charge. This makes me relax because, to be honest, it takes a monstrous amount of mental effort to continually re-imagine the church. Barney really is a slave driver.

Copyright © 1997

    • More fromDavid Hansen

Pastors

Max De Pree

Leadership BooksMay 19, 2004

Rarely does too much vision tire a church out.
—Max De Pree

Many years ago at Herman Miller, Inc., we invented a product that revolutionized the office world—the open office. When we were ready to introduce it in 1968, however, our sales department said, “We can’t sell that. That’s a dumb product. Nobody will want that.”

To get that product to market, we had to bypass our own sales department!

One key person in the sales department, Joe Schwartz, thought the open office was a work of genius. He said, “I can sell it. This is absolutely needed.”

Joe invited facility managers from major corporations to come together for two days of meetings, and he asked them on the first day what problems they faced.

When they arrived for the second day of meetings, he restated the problems they had talked about the day before. Then he showed them how this new system could create solutions to their problems. They began to buy the product directly from him—bypassing the normal sales process. Joe is retired now, but his ability to capture a vision helped change the office furniture industry worldwide.

Most of us tend to see life the way it is, not the way it could be. It’s somehow simpler to see life as though we were looking into a mirror. Seeing reality is difficult day by day, and it’s even more difficult to see it five years from now. How can we be leaders of vision, and how can we help those in our churches become followers of that vision?

Carrying a vision

Some people have a gift for being visionary, but most of us don’t. A leader, however, doesn’t have to have a gift for vision or be the author of the vision. Vision can come from a number of sources. But the leader should be the carrier of the vision—explaining and illustrating it. Leadership, in some ways, is like teaching third grade—the significant things need to be repeated.

A demanding vision energizes people. But it’s not unusual in the church that we’ll call up somebody at the last minute and say, “Sorry we’re so late with this, but we wonder if you would like to teach the eighth grade Sunday school class? It doesn’t take much preparation. It’s not a lot of hard work. You can do it. We know you can.”

Believe me, there are better ways to help people reach their potential. It’s lazy leadership to offer people easy work. Few things in life are more insulting than to be offered an easy job.

Many years ago my wife and I attended a church that was having some special problems with a high school class. Those kids were tough to handle. The Sunday school superintendent asked a capable, experienced woman in the church to help. “Mary,” she said, “we’d like you to take this class. They’re unmanageable, and we don’t know what can be done with them.” The superintendent challenged her in a wonderful way.

Mary replied, “I’ll take the job on one condition: that you ask Max De Pree to teach it with me.” “Why don’t you ask him?” the superintendent suggested. So Mary did—and caught me completely by surprise. She impressed me when she said, “This is the toughest job in the church. I’ve agreed to do it only if you’ll help.” She created the right environment, and I accepted her challenge. We put together a program for those kids. She had a lot of good ideas, and we did a number of things that turned out beautifully.

Rarely does too much vision tire a church out. When a church is worn out, it may be that it’s not being renewed. When people work in second gear all the time, never getting into overdrive, dealing with random trivia year in and year out, they get tired. But usually we’re not worn out by tackling meaningful challenges. As a matter of fact, a leader ought to give high-performing people tougher challenges. Keep nudging them toward their potential. What makes us weary is the lack of satisfaction from work well done and well rewarded, followed by new challenges.

Developing vision

If I were the new pastor of a church, I’d start the process of developing vision by going to a few faithful area ministers and asking what they do in ministry. I’d ask for their thoughts about the church I’d been called to, about the community and what I needed to know about it.

I might invite three or four people for coffee and dessert and say, “I’ve got this thing on my mind. Give me some help. I want to run the risk of saying some foolish things, but give me your reactions.”

One of the great failures of leadership is the inability to ask for advice. Many people know a great deal, but we have to ask them to tell us what they know. Generally, people are not going to volunteer advice on how you can save your hide.

When I was young I was transferred into the sales department. One day I had lunch with a friend who had been running the New York sales office for years. As we walked back to the showroom, he took me by the arm and said, “You’re off to a good start, Max. But one thing you have to keep in mind: If you want help, you’re going to have to ask for it.”

Our culture sees asking for help as a sign of weakness, but it’s not. It’s a sign of strength.

Pastors can take several steps to improve their ability to understand and mold vision. Books and education can help, but in the game of leadership, you learn best when you’re out there actually risking something. Talking to peers who share the same kind of risks helps connect you to vision, not just to ideas. If a pastor links up with other pastors who have similar problems, they can help one another evaluate what they plan to do.

Focusing on a vision

A church’s vision should be both general and specific. There are general, overriding visions. For instance, the congregation of which I am a member has a motto: “To know Christ and to make him known.” That’s a wonderfully broad, overarching vision. We will never fully achieve it, but that’s okay.

On the other hand, significant parts of a vision should be achievable. A company may have a vision for a specific product—something that can be manufactured within a certain time. Likewise, a congregation may decide to build an orphanage in Albania or Romania, for instance—a marvelously specific vision. Part of the vision ought to be achievable, within budget and on time.

There are, thank goodness, different kinds of visions.

My wife and I recently attended an evening service at a megachurch. They were receiving into membership more than a hundred people. There was a crowd there, and the event was led by three pastors—very efficient.

Some time later, we had several people join our own church: the teenage son of our senior pastor, two people who had just returned from lifelong missionary service in Japan, two widows aged seventy-plus who had recently moved into town, and a family from Kenya. Our pastor introduced each person—including his son—talked about each one’s family background, and helped us get to know all of them.

The lesson is that there’s more than one way to skin a cat, and there’s more than one cat to be skinned. The great thing about diversity in the church is that there’s a place for all of us.

Avoiding myths about vision

There are several myths about vision.

One is that a good idea makes a vision. If risk isn’t connected with it, you probably just have an idea. Risk, like inconvenience, is a standard part of vision.

A second myth is that having a vision makes it possible to do anything. Believing such a thing can lead to serious consequences. One immediate consequence is feeling frustrated when you can’t achieve your dream. No one has the talent, the budget, or the time to do everything.

The discipline to stick with a game plan is crucial. If we stray, a big percentage of our work can be thrown away. Usually we get trapped because somebody told us we had to answer our mail within two or three days and pay attention to what everybody sends us. But just because people send it to us doesn’t mean we have to do it.

Since we can’t do everything, we need to stay focused on the vision at hand. Leaders need to understand who and what is presently important, because not everything is. Vision says: “We are going to do some things well.” But this implies that we are not going to do certain other worthy things, or we’re going to bypass other worthy people. To resolve the tension between “focused vision” and “ministry to all,” we need to acknowledge that we can’t do everything. We have to decide what it is we’re going to do.

Pastors may find this difficult because, in a sense, the parishioners are helping pay their salaries; parishioners have some right to assign work to their pastors. Even if pastors find it difficult to delegate work, there are still ways to tell people to get somebody else for the job when what they are suggesting is not on your list.

Suppose a member says, “I really want you to get behind this community prayer breakfast.” It would be good to say, “Great idea. Let’s talk about it a minute.” Then you’d ask about that person’s hopes for the prayer breakfast: “What would you like to achieve? What are your expectations?” Together you’d discuss who might be the best persons to deal with those things. Maybe you’d end up with three names—people who would be really good at it.

As long as you work with them through that process, people usually don’t feel snubbed—they feel involved. You’re helping them find the help they need to succeed.

The moral of the story is that not everybody has the right to assign work to you. Examine carefully all the well-meaning requests for help. Sticking with priorities is a choice for which we are all accountable. We can also learn to recognize the great deal of junk in our lives—junk phone calls, junk advertising, junk meetings. Junk will sap our energy.

Implementing a vision

In some organizations, people feel they have more to gain by following a visionary leader. But in other organizations, people seem to think vision will make things harder. In some churches we find many non-participators—people who like to remain anonymous. One thing that draws some people to large churches is that they can remain unknown. It’s more difficult to challenge them with a vision. They are less inclined to identify with it and take ownership of it.

But church leaders need a critical mass of people to become advocates. There’s a simple two-step path to that: First, everybody has to understand the vision. Second, they need to accept it.

When you’re making your vision understood, you start by taking everyone seriously. Treat people as adults by making both the benefits and the costs clear. We can’t have a great vision unless there are risks. A vision is going to be hard work. It’s going to cost us something. It’s going to take some time. We’re going to make mistakes.

At the second step, we can fall into a trap: We think we need to have agreement on everything. We don’t. What we need is acceptance. We adults do many things we don’t agree with but do accept. Leaders need to recognize that.

If pastors meet initial resistance to their ideas, they need to find out if there’s anyone in the church who feels a compelling need for change. If the general attitude of the congregation is that their programs are fine, they’re doing okay, maybe working on a vision is not the thing to do. It’s hard to effect change in an organization unless people feel a compelling need for change. If you’re a pastor who works best out of vision, perhaps you should not accept an invitation to a church that has no soil for change. Find a church that relates to your strengths, interests, and goals.

But if you’re already in a church with a long history, it’s still possible to cultivate the soil, turning it over a little bit—almost creating a desire for change. You start by asking questions that help people see different horizons. What would people like? What do they wish for? What legacy do they desire to leave? Instead of telling them, you simply ask enough questions so they’ll discover for themselves that they have some problems. If you get enough signals that there’s room for something more, then, with a lot of participation, you can start to develop a vision.

When implementing a vision, leaders can make several critical mistakes. One is not being vulnerable. If I feel my position as a leader means I don’t need help, it’s going to be difficult for me to implement a vision. If we protect ourselves because we’re afraid of the creative person or afraid of change and innovation, we can’t really lead.

Another problem arises when we can’t separate our egos from an issue. If I identify too strongly with a project or a church, I can’t be objective about it. Everything that comes up touches who I am, affirming or threatening me. We have to learn how to separate ourselves from the issues of the church; some things happen that don’t involve us.

But even good leaders with good visions sometimes fail. Sometimes nothing can help a vision. When the leader or the people lack resources or are untrained or incompetent, then they’re not the right people to implement that vision. Sometimes the organization’s structure cannot contain the vision, and it has to go outside the organization.

Right-sizing a vision

My brother-in-law came off an Iowa farm and went to seminary when he was around thirty-five. He pastored middle-class Protestant churches until he moved to Bushwick, New York, where he pastored an inner-city church for many years. Then he retired and moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he bought a church building in the heart of a poor black community.

The primary thrust of this church is the after-school program for the children of the neighborhood. More than 100 children show up. He recruits people to teach sewing, accounting, remedial reading—whatever is needed. Then in the summer, he leads an all-day, six-week course concluding with graduation exercises. He’s doing all this—even the janitorial work—though he’s now in his seventies.

But every Sunday he holds a service and preaches a sermon. At the most, eight people attend. One day somebody asked him, “Isn’t that kind of hard, preaching to only eight people?”

“Nothing hard about that,” he said. “The Lord called me to preach. He never said anything about how many.”

It takes a lot of maturity and grace to have that sense of calling and that kind of vision. Sometimes those of us with big vision can act as though we’re on the moral high ground, while everyone without a vision is teetering on the edge. Yet for a pastor keeping forty families together in South Dakota, perhaps the most wonderful vision is doing just that. Great visions come in all sizes.

Copyright © 1997

    • More fromMax De Pree

Pastors

Leith Anderson

Leadership BooksMay 19, 2004

Pastors who lead effectively must be willing to risk the ship repeatedly for the sake of the gospel.
—Leith Anderson

It was May of 1969. I had just crammed three years of seminary into two and couldn’t wait to reap the rewards of surviving my education: full-time ministry. The church I had been serving part time asked me to become their associate pastor. My wife, Charleen, and I were ecstatic.

By the end of that summer, the senior pastor had resigned, and I was named his successor. At age twenty-four, I was handed the reins of a local church.

Most of my training prepared me for the one hour on Sunday morning. The first few months, I studied and planned until lunch. After lunch I headed for home. With my parishioners working during the day, I had nobody to visit, so at first I took afternoon naps or caught up on the soap operas! I returned to work in the evenings, visiting or attending church meetings.

A lot has changed since then—I now work afternoons. But regularly I’m faced with the same question: as a leader, exactly what am I supposed to do? This is especially relevant for the first days of a new pastorate (or during the transition into a new chapter of church life). What should I do with my time? Where exactly should I lead the church? And what are the first steps I should take to lead them into the future, whatever that might represent?

Recognize your swirling emotions

I enjoyed baseball as a boy. Once while playing catcher, I stood up to grab a wild pitch. As I stretched for the ball, the batter swung, hitting me on the back of my head and laying me out across home plate. After that, I became a reluctant catcher.

Pastors can also feel reluctant to stretch in a new direction, fearful of risking their neck in the process. Many emotions swirl within us as we begin a new ministry. These emotions are neither good nor bad. But we are wise to monitor them so they don’t undermine our work.

First, we may begin to wonder if we’re using our time wisely. I felt guilty for not working afternoons during the early days of my first pastorate, even though I studied at the office until noon and attended church meetings in the evenings. It never dawned on me that I didn’t have to work from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.

We are wise to be aware of the emotional tug to be busy, making sure our emotions don’t pressure us into patterns of ministry that will raise false expectations. Some pastors, especially in smaller communities, feel the pull to visit every family in their congregation during the first year. This can have enormous value for pastors’ immediate credibility, but it also raises expectations that can destroy them later.

People will expect to be visited regularly and have a special friendship with the pastor. When that doesn’t happen—and it can’t over the long haul—pockets of dissension about not being nurtured surface. Relationships with members, important though they may be, can consume an inordinate amount of our energies. This can undermine our ability to lead the church effectively.

I wound up filling many afternoons by reading biographies of famous Christians such as Robert Murray McCheyne, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, and David Brainerd. I gleaned much from the trials and successes of these great people.

Another powerful emotion is the desire to be accepted by the members. When Patti Hearst, a member of a wealthy California family, was kidnapped in the 1970s by the Symbionese Liberation Army and held for ransom, no one suspected she would surface with a submachine gun, robbing banks in Northern California alongside her captors. Through her long ordeal, she was sucked into acting like them. She became one of them.

The Patti Hearst syndrome can also affect pastors. Wanting to be accepted and liked by our congregations, we can become too much like those we’re trying to lead.

One Saturday morning, while I was standing in my Colorado church parking lot, a man walked up to me and handed me a copy of the church constitution. Pointing to the section regarding pastor’s responsibilities, he had highlighted my duty to do pastoral care.

“I think you’re neglecting the elderly in our church,” he said. What he really meant was “I want my own elderly parents to be visited more.”

“Visitation is only one of my many duties, Bob,” I replied, “and I believe the bases are being covered.” I, too, felt pastoral care was important, but I refused to let it become the driving force of my ministry—it isn’t what I’d been called to emphasize.

I also felt the pressure to offer altar calls at the end of each church service. But I believed it to be counterproductive to evangelism, making it more difficult for the people in our community to believe.

I wanted to be liked, but I resisted the temptation to blend in with the members’ ways of doing things just to please them.

A third strong emotion is our eagerness to succeed. I am the son of a successful pastor. Thirty years ago, few Protestant congregations could boast a thousand Sunday morning worshipers. The church my father pastored, located near New York City, could. It bore many of the external trappings of success, including a sizable staff and a large budget. This became to me an unwritten standard of success.

Financial considerations intensify the pressure to be successful. When Charleen and I left seminary, we needed a washer and dryer, so we drove to Sears and charged them. We also needed a new car, so we obligated ourselves to car payments for three years. In short, I couldn’t afford to lose my job.

Tangled up in the emotion of wanting to succeed is the fear of failure. I still feel this fear. I sometimes wonder if a reason I’m still at Wooddale is my fear of not being able to repeat success in another church. Ultimately, I’m convinced Wooddale is where God has called me, and frankly I’m excited about what He is doing in this church. But periodically, a subtle fear of failure lets itself be known.

Finally, there is the fear of inadequacy. Even though I had grown up in a parsonage, I wasn’t prepared for the emotions that stirred within me when I dealt with people’s problems. When I was a young pastor, a woman came to see me about her difficult marriage. In addition to her marital struggles, she had physical and financial problems. Her list of maladies seemed to be endless. I helped her as best I could. I prayed with her and even called a local physician to make an appointment for her.

One afternoon, after hearing about her tragic life again, I drove home, laid down on my bed, and wept. I felt so inadequate to deal with her problems.

Entering a new phase of ministry can raise latent fears about our capabilities. When we’ve admitted these emotions, we’re ready to tackle the tasks of leadership.

Do first things first

When entering a new ministry, we’ve got to do some things, and that means not doing other things. But of the multitude of possibilities that exist, what are the essentials, the wisest investments that will yield the greatest return?

First, I do the things that the culture of the particular church demands.

A pediatrician in our church completed a short-term mission service in Africa. She was the only physician on duty in the African hospital where she worked. On one occasion, she admitted a woman who couldn’t deliver a baby normally and needed a Caesarean section. Though the pediatrician wasn’t skilled in delivering babies, much less by Caesarean section, she performed the operation, saving the lives of both the mother and child. The doctor did what she had to do.

The same holds true for pastors. There are certain things that pastors must do—whether we are experts at them or not, and whether or not we like them.

Some pastors might say, “I’m not a morning person.” But if they are ministering in communities where people rise early for work, they too must turn on their office lights at 8:00 a.m. Otherwise, they will be perceived as lazy, even if they work late into the evenings. The church culture demands that only after their credibility as hard workers has been established can they revert to their preferred routine.

When I became a full-time pastor, I recognized that something needed to be done about evangelism. Although my father was a pastor and I a seminary graduate, I didn’t know much about evangelism. So I started reading books on the subject until I thought I had the principles down pat. One of these was training laypeople. So I found a layperson, dragged him with me for my first evangelistic visit, and made a complete fool of myself.

Evangelism wasn’t—and still isn’t—my gift. But it needed to be done. The context dictated that I begin a program, even if evangelism wasn’t maximizing my own personal giftedness.

Doing what has to be done initially runs counter with today’s emphasis of focusing on one’s gifts. I also subscribe to Peter Drucker’s principle of going with our strengths, not our weaknesses. Beginning a new chapter of ministry, though, requires us to do what needs to be done, priming the engine and then fueling it later with someone who is gifted and much better at it than we are.

We must resist the temptation to build a twenty-year strategy based on our weaknesses. Still, we must be driven by mission and purpose rather than personality.

Second, I try to get some successes under my belt. Success will give us credibility we’ll need later. One way to success is visiting revered, elderly people in the congregation. Another may be asking a beloved predecessor to speak some Sunday, validating the church tradition that preceded you.

Planning and executing church programs with a high probability of success is also important. During my first summer of full-time pastoring, I proposed a four-week series of evening films called “August in the Park.” We gathered at sunset in a nearby city park and showed Christian films on a large screen. Hundreds came from the church and community. The effort multiplied Sunday evening church attendance, communicated that we were interested in outreach, made parishioners feel good about their church, and bolstered my pastoral credibility. Everyone was a winner.

Preparing for the long haul

As I take care of these two essentials, I’m already beginning to think about how I want to lead for the next few years. That to me is what it means to be a leader on day one, day two, and the rest of my ministry at that church.

To lead, the pastor must create vision for the local church. Vision has to start with someone, and that someone is often the pastor. Years ago, when Wooddale relocated to our present facility, no one believed it could be done. As a leader at Wooddale, I was responsible to voice the vision to build a facility.

Someone with vision lives in the future. I “lived” in our new building at Wooddale for years before the church actually moved in. The pastor, as a visionary, is like an architect who intimately knows each room in the building he or she is designing long before it’s actually constructed.

Though the pastor takes initiative, the vision is honed and further developed by others. The others may be talented staff members or gifted lay leaders who make real the dream God has given, giving it sophistication, expanding and developing it in ways the pastor never could.

Tailoring the dream

A visionary pastor faces a big challenge: creating a dream that is rooted in the timeless truth of Scripture and then tailoring it to reach the local community for Christ. Here is a framework to begin:

Develop a theology of ministry. My basis for local church vision is grounded in the birth of Christ. By invading time, the Son of God risked all, inaugurating the recovery of paradise lost by coming to do the work of the Father. Christ is our model, the prototype for taking risks and planning to reach our community to do God’s work in our locale.

This transcends New Jersey, Minnesota, or California. The vision for a Colorado community corralled by sugar beet fields and cattle will look different than one for downtown Minneapolis, which is inhabited by universities, corporations, and hospitals. But the underlying theology is the same: to do the work of the Father.

Discover the church’s values. In addition to rooting our vision theologically, we also must understand the community where we live. The pastor must function like a physician diagnosing a patient’s condition. Often this requires digging into the past.

One of the first things I did in Colorado was read the minutes of the various boards and committees covering the entire history of the church. I also visited families in the congregation to hear their perceptions about the church. Such research pays rich dividends.

Recently I talked to a pastor who ministers in a 140-year-old congregation. Flipping through the church’s minutes from over a hundred years ago, he discovered that the last names of those making and seconding motions were often identical to those making and seconding motions on his present board. The grandparents and great-grandparents of his congregation dealt with the same issues the same way their children and grandchildren were dealing with them. The church’s problems, he realized, had less to do with the issues and more to do with the families who dominated the church.

Discovering the values of a local church is usually learned the hard way—through experience. Wooddale’s previous pastor was a gifted musician who led the church successfully for nineteen years. I, on the other hand, took piano lessons for eight years as a child but never finished the second lesson book. So when I arrived at Wooddale, I couldn’t match my predecessor in many areas. Even though I had carefully researched my compatibility with Wooddale, I endured criticism for my inabilities.

Become an ethnologist. Several years ago, a California church pursued me to be their senior pastor. I discovered later that they had hired an FBI-type person to research me. I also was surprised to find out that he knew so much about me. That church was committed to matching someone to their specific culture.

I had this same commitment coming to Wooddale—only I did a background check on a church, not an individual. In a library, I scanned the history of Minneapolis. I familiarized myself with the local schools as well as the local economy.

I also found another candidate whom Wooddale had previously interviewed, and I talked with him at length. Before I ever agreed to a first interview, I had a general picture of the church and the community in which it was located.

Begin studying the local subculture. While construction was underway for our worship center at Wooddale, a visiting church consultant, leading a group from his local seminar, walked through our partially completed building and remarked, “Here is a good example of how not to build a church. It looks like a church—a turnoff to today’s generation.”

He assumed what worked in Southern California would work in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In our research, though, we discovered that people in our subculture wanted a church to look like a church, a value embedded in the heritage of the community.

As a new pastor I studied and analyzed the local subculture immediately. During the candidating process, this cannot be done in depth. But it is essential in the early phase of a new ministry. We cannot discover our church’s priorities without understanding the culture in which we minister.

Put it all together. As I think about my theology of ministry, the church’s values, and the culture of the community, I ask myself: what would the church look like if these three elements were combined?

The vision for a church includes imaginary people (who they are and how they relate to each other), imaginary programs that touch the community with the gospel, and imaginary facilities that allow the ministry of the gospel to penetrate the local subculture. Long before we relocated and became a church that reaches out, we “saw” ourselves reaching new people through a new program of support groups. To some it was an idea on a list. To those of us with the vision, we could almost see the faces, hear the voices, and watch people pull up chairs in a room.

Investing in momentum

Actually, putting those three ingredients together doesn’t solve my problems. It probably produces more ideas than can possibly be accomplished in a three-, five-, or even ten-year plan. Next is to decide which idea should be tackled first.

Go with your strengths, individually and corporately. Too often, churches invest heavily in weak programs, never developing the momentum needed for growth. If a church is strong in worship and weak in Sunday school, the worship must be promoted and expanded first. Later the Sunday school can be nurtured, fed by the resources of a healthy worship service.

Not long after I arrived at Wooddale, we inaugurated a smallgroup ministry and various social activities, emphasizing our strength in fellowship. Our people were good at relationships, and so focusing on their gifts became an effective means of incorporating new people.

Often right choices run counter to peer pressure. Designated gifts to bolster weak areas, for example, can undermine this strategy. It’s tempting to accept these gifts. But just because someone donated $1,000 for refurbishing Sunday school rooms doesn’t mean the church should make plans for renovation.

Find the quickest return. One year we faced the important decision of whom to add to the staff. One faction in the church lobbied heavily for a counseling pastor.

But our counseling program was weak. Our singles ministry, however, was already up and running. In addition, the Minneapolis metropolitan area provided many resources for Christian counseling, while a largely unreached singles population existed in our community. So we went with a singles pastor. As a result, our singles ministry exploded, reaching many unchurched singles in the community and adding excitement to a growing congregation.

In American culture, most suburban and urban churches need a critical mass of people to develop growth momentum. To reach that critical mass, which hovers near three hundred worshipers in most suburban settings, pastors must invest in programs with quick returns, targeting ministries with high impact and immediate results. Churches today need an irreducible minimum of resources—people and money—to attract newcomers. Basic programs like children’s and youth ministries are needed to draw the people that will enable the church to grow.

Shifting gears

Creating a local church vision is one thing. Implementing that vision is another. Small churches function on a hub-and-spoke model of operation. The pastor is the hub, and the church members are the spokes, relating directly to the pastor.

One frazzled pastor was at the end of his rope. He had led his church to exciting new growth—700 attenders filled the sanctuary on Sunday mornings—but now he couldn’t keep up the pace. During our long conversation, he complained about his unmotivated congregation and the problems on his elder board.

“There’s nothing wrong with your church,” I said, when I finally got a word in. “The best solution may be for you to leave, to hand the reins of leadership to someone who can lead a church of that size.”

As his church grew, I discovered, this pastor wasn’t able to change his leadership style. He started working harder, still trying to operate on the hub-and-spoke model. He ended up logging eighty-hour workweeks.

When I pastored a small church, I frequently stopped by the hospital on my way home from work, just in case someone I knew was there. When a baby arrived, I was the first to know, even if it was 2:00 a.m. “It’s a girl” or “It’s a boy,” I’d often hear as I’d pick up the phone in the middle of the night.

Few call me today. I had to relinquish close relationships with a majority of the congregation so that their needs could be met by someone else and the kingdom of God could be expanded. I had to move from being the hub of the wheel to being the axle, moving from a direct to a more indirect relationship to the congregation. New systems of leadership had to be developed, distributing relationships and power to other pastors and leaders in the church.

Risking the ship

In 1990, when Wooddale was building its worship center, I was convinced we should be planting churches to reach the community for Christ. If we were serious about evangelism, then we needed to grow new churches, one of the most effective means of evangelism. A church building was merely a means to an end, not the end itself.

Some thought I was crazy. They argued that we’d be committing financial suicide by planting a church in the middle of a building project—we needed all the money and bodies we could muster.

“Wait until we have more people,” I heard over and over again. “Plant a church after we move into our new worship center.”

By planting a new congregation, I felt we would make a powerful statement about our purpose: we were willing to risk crippling a major church project to reach people for Christ. The leadership got on board, and finally the congregation voted to plant the church, which in the end didn’t sabotage our building project.

Recently, while sitting on an airplane, I glanced at the aeronautics magazine the passenger next to me was reading. A picture of a Boeing 777 accompanied the article. The headline read, “Boeing Risks the Company Again.”

I discovered Boeing had risked the company in 1957 when it unveiled the first commercial jet aircraft—the 707. Boeing gambled again in the late sixties by producing the first wide-body plane—the 747. Now they were planning to do it again with the 777.

I realize there will never be a time when I’m not carrying out these principles. While these issues are most acute in a new situation, new situations never really go away. Pastors who lead effectively must be willing to risk the ship repeatedly for the sake of the gospel. In one sense, we’ll never stop asking, “I’m the leader, now what?”

Copyright © 1997

    • More fromLeith Anderson
  • Leith Anderson

Pastors

Michael Phillips

Leadership BooksMay 19, 2004

I must raise the church’s sights to how mighty God is, while lowering their view of the problems.
—Michael Phillips

Only one week after I had candidated and been accepted as the new pastor of a different church, my future congregants began to call. Our conversations were not happy talk, not effusions of “Things are going to be great.” Rather, they dealt with the near, dark past and the frightening future.

“Pastor, we heard so-and-so is leaving.”

“Pastor, the church is going to fall apart.”

After the first frantic call, I said to my wife, “We made a big mistake.” In the days to come, two dozen more people called, intensifying my regret and foreboding.

In my ministry, I have begun more than one pastorate on a scarred battlefield. As new pastor in a civil-war-torn church, you face a frightening task. Though you gallop on the scene like a hero, with backslapping and cheers and words of encouragement, when you sit behind the desk the first week, the reality sets in—this church really has been at bayonet points. Casualties litter the field. Snipers are still firing. Many combatants remain mortal enemies. Morale is low. The church’s reputation is in rags. Soldiers are slinking off in the night.

Each time I find myself facing the same questions: How can I lead this people into a new day? Will they follow? Will I fail and not only stain the church’s name but soil the lives of good people?

In each setting, I’ve not only drawn increasingly on my experience, but I’ve sought the advice of battle-scarred but victorious pastors to help me bring healing to a war-torn situation. Here are a few things I’ve learned.

Reconnaissance patrols

In a war-torn church, I first must appraise the situation. My first question is What skirmishes are still begin fought?

In one church, I did reconnaissance by arriving in town before my family and staying with some of the families in the church. I had asked the board to recommend some of the families of younger Christians—they wouldn’t be so inclined to coat the past with pious veneer. They talked to me straight, telling me some of the whos, wheres, whens, whys, and hows of the battle.

The gathering of such information, though, requires diplomacy. In one situation a young mother spoke fondly of the former pastor’s wife—and then unleashed a broadside against her.

In such awkward moments, I try to sympathize with the pain they feel, while showing neither approval nor disapproval of the cause. I responded, “Sounds like you feel confused. You sound loving and yet angry.”

My approach seemed to help this woman. When we prayed, she voiced both her hurt and her love. In the months to follow, she played a central role in our church’s recovery. The peace that resulted from her healing served as an antidote for others.

I generally tried to bring issues into the open. I decided if this church was going to get back on its feet, we couldn’t play “Isn’t Everything Rosy.” People needed to know that I knew what went on. At one person’s home I casually said, “I understand you used to be Sunday school superintendent. Is there a reason you aren’t now?”

He wasn’t offended by my question. “Yes, I would like to tell you why I resigned,” he said. It turned out they were close to leaving the church because they were so devastated by a relatively minor problem.

I just listened, yet afterward he said, “I just needed to talk to somebody about this,” and within a year he was back serving in leadership.

At one meal with the leaders I said, “I want to hear the stuff you probably decided never to tell me.” They looked shocked for a few seconds, but then the board chairman mentioned two or three problems. Others filled in details that he didn’t know. We talked till one in the morning.

This had a profound effect. It pulled down the “Aren’t we the best congregation in the world” facade. Also it cleared the air—and made me a confidant. After that night they treated me as if I had been there for ten years, as if I had gone through this with them and could be a part of the solution.

I followed that evening up by going to individuals and saying, “I’m not here to condemn you or anything, but do you want to talk about what happened?” Generally they would. I didn’t give them any answers; I just let them know I was aware.

Often a pastor can go two or three years before he knows all these things. I wanted to know them all in the first couple of months. I wanted to be armed with the past so I could deal with present reality.

The second question I want to answer during this early reconnaissance is Who needs immediate rescue?

By the time I arrived at my present church, most people were no longer in crisis. Some combatants had fled to other congregations; others had decided to stick it out. Most crucial to me, then, were those who were undecided where they stood with any church or even with God.

“Pastor,” an elder confided one afternoon, “Mary and Bob are such fine people, but this has really confused them. Although they never used to miss services, I haven’t seen them for three weeks.”

This elder’s concern was justified. I invited Mary and Bob to my house for dessert and learned they were looking at other churches. But they still loved the people at our church. We talked further, and I shared my vision for the days to come. Eventually they decided to stay with us.

In this phase of the church’s recovery, I’ve also learned the necessity of dealing with those whom the church sinned against during the war. It was my conviction that if we were to receive God’s blessing, the biblical patterns of confession, repentance, and reconciliation had to be followed.

During the time I pastored our church, a man I’ll call Tom had never attended, but I knew his name well. His relatives and friends brought it up repeatedly.

Tom and members of his extended family had joined the church at the same time. Soon Tom’s brother and sister-in-law became close friends with the senior pastor, and Tom’s son with the youth pastor. But Tom, a widower, felt increasingly left out. The pastor would invite members of Tom’s family to his home, yet leave him out. On one occasion the pastor called the rest of the family to the platform and honored them, while Tom sat unmentioned in the pew.

One day he beefed to an elder. “Am I really on the outs? Does the senior pastor hate me? Am I a problem to him? Maybe I should just leave the church:” The elder informed the senior pastor. The pastor resented Tom’s comments and began to talk him down to other leaders. Attendance, due to friction between the pastor and the church, began to decline.

Several leaders suggested that Tom had an evil spirit that caused division among members. Word filtered back to Tom. When he tried to confirm the rumor with the pastor, he was told, “You ought to leave the church if you aren’t willing to change your attitude.”

He left. But the tension between the church and the pastor escalated, and eventually the pastor himself marched off the battlefield.

After the dust had settled, most people in the church realized that Tom had been mistreated. He was simply a lonely fellow who perhaps had said the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time.

I decided that even though I was not the pastor involved, I was now the church’s representative and had a responsibility to approach him. After gaining approval from our ruling board, I went to Tom, confessed our sin, and asked forgiveness. We talked long into the afternoon, trying to piece together what had happened. We both wept. Later that week, several leaders went to Tom and confessed their part in the debacle. In the end, over thirty people did the same. Although he never did return to the church, I believe this set our church free for the future.

My third question is How healthy are we? And no matter the diagnosis, I have learned that the crucial tonics are teaching and preaching: I must raise the church’s sights to how mighty God is, while lowering their view of the problems.

Certain themes are vital. In each church I have pastored, the first year of my preaching is devoted to the Gospel of Mark. It is perfect for a war-torn church; it emphasizes healing and deliverance, showing the magnificence of Jesus’ miracle-working power. Several pastors who have successfully brought about major changes after a church disaster have told me they follow the same pattern: consistent preaching on healing themes, consistent teaching on God’s power.

Also, the more pastors I observe during this crucial first year of recovery, the more the word consistency comes up. Major shifts in procedures or policies create an imbroglio of emotions that fuel the inferno. My policy is to honor the old maxim: change only what must be changed for practicality’s sake. With one exception: let in wisps of creativity. Small innovations can open the window, if only a crack, and give that hint of fresh air that suggests a better future.

In one stagnant setting, I added a time in worship when individuals could talk and pray with another person.

In another church, we chose a triumphant theme hymn—”All Hail the Power of Jesus Name”—and sang it at the high point of every worship service.

Although none of these changes were monumental, they were all disproportionately effective. They eased people into thinking that more consequential changes were coming.

To raise the church’s hopes, I’ve also developed slogans or theme verses to summarize the church’s mission. In my present setting our watchword is “We Are a Hospital for the Soul.” It has helped us to shake an old perception in town (“If you want to get beat up, go to that church”).

In my experience, this early stage of reconnaissance and initial treatment has lasted a few months, sometimes up to a year. Then I move into a second phase of healing operations: getting the troops back into action.

Victory gardens

During World War II, one of the more inspiring innovations for the home front was the Victory Garden. In order to supply food needs both at home and the battlefield, people began to grow plots of corn, peas, potatoes, onions, with some turning their entire backyards into Victory Gardens.

The results were nothing short of miraculous. Older men and young children who felt left out of the crusade against evil could now support the cause in a tangible way. It boosted morale.

I have learned that Victory Gardens can also flourish in the wartorn church.

One hectic Friday afternoon, I received a call and soon wished I had left the receiver alone. “Pastor, I have a great idea,” the caller began. “Can I come over and share it with you?”

On my pastoral radar, the blips in our conversation showed a familiar pattern. All I could think was What do you want me to do, and how much time will it cost me? Reluctantly I agreed to meet.

Was I in for a pleasant surprise.

“Pastor Mike, every year just south of town,” the young woman began, “there is a rock festival, with drugs and alcohol everywhere. Sex and violence are common. God is telling me I should do something about it.”

This already sounded like a lot of work. I began thinking of ways to let her down gently. But when I mentioned my time constraints, she interrupted, “Wait a minute, Pastor. Did I ask you to do anything?”

“Well … no. But I thought you were going to.”

“No,” she said. “I simply want to know if you think it’s a good idea. I want to get a prayer team together. If you want to be a part of that, you are more than welcome.”

Prayer is something I can easily commit to, so I gladly signed on. By the third meeting, a quarter of the church was on their knees in travail over the horrors of this festival. And soon an idea was born: Why not plant a rescue mission right in the center of the din and throng?

At first the idea sounded ludicrous. How could we expect to do any good with such evil around? But the more we thought about the scene, the more convinced we were that this was our calling. So began our Victory Garden.

The entire church got involved. People cooked food for the workers and for anyone who wandered into our camp. One man built a forty-foot cross to hang over our tent. We trained many in evangelism techniques and deliverance ministry. Others gathered first-aid supplies. We arranged a schedule so that six people could be at the camp at all times.

When the party began, however, we felt like a balloon at a porcupine reunion. Motorcycle gangs cruised through our plot of ground. Drugs were everywhere. A man in a Winnebago parked right by our tent and turned up his Led Zeppelin and Def Leppard so loud that we couldn’t even hear ourselves talk. No one paid any attention as we attempted to hand out literature and strike up conversation. It seemed we were wasting our time.

So we prayed harder. Then about 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, some people carried a young man into our tent. He had fallen off his cycle and hit a tree. He was dead.

A crowd gathered. As friends and even strangers mourned, people from our church began to pray individually with them and talk about the Lord. In the hours to come, we led twenty people to Jesus. Our ministry to the rock festival had begun.

We have continued that outreach for the last six years, with significant results. More than two hundred have given their lives to Christ. At last count, seven of these have gone to Bible school, and most of the others are attending churches somewhere. It has also revolutionized our church, bringing spiritual excitement and a conviction that God’s power is working through us.

Recovery signs

Improved morale is the first sign of recovery, but morale alone is not sufficient foundation to conclude recovery is complete. I also look for signs of maturity.

I am not a gardener nor the son of a gardener, but I do grow tomatoes for our salads. With minimal weeding and fertilizer, I’ve had pretty good success. Until last spring. The leaves of my plants were yellowing and falling off. Four of the ten plants withered and died. So I fertilized and watered like crazy, only to have two more plants turn critical.

Meanwhile, at the supermarket I overheard two ladies discussing their tomatoes. One remarked how wet the spring had been and how her tomatoes were suffering. She added, “But if I don’t water them for a few weeks, they’ll be fine.”

I went home and turned off the sprinkler. Within a month, every plant greened. They doubled in height, and my mouth watered.

Similarly, after the congregation has begun to heal, I find that if I push people too hard for overly ambitious undertakings, they begin to yellow and fall away. Although a church has recovered its enthusiasm, it hasn’t necessarily regained full maturity. I look for three signs that suggest maturity is keeping pace with morale.

The ability to overcome adversity. One of our church member’s was arrested for sexually abusing his foster daughter. Reeling over this man’s wrongdoing, many in the church wondered, “How can we love him? What do we do now?”

The man’s sentence allowed him to occasionally attend our services, and I carefully watched to see how people reacted. Many hugged him tearfully; some maintained a cool distance. He had sought forgiveness from us for his crime, and many granted it personally. The elders each invited him over to their homes to talk and have prayer.

In short, there was love and grace and healthy caution—three grown-up reactions for a sprouting church. Their warmth and willingness to forgive showed me they had what it took to keep growing.

Spontaneous discipleship. In our ministry to those in the drug culture, I soon developed a wait-and-see attitude regarding the depth of a convert’s commitment. One young woman, whom we’ll call Laura, a new Christian of but a few months, concerned me. Laura phoned me one day to say that an old boyfriend, also an addict, had reentered her life. She requested prayer for him.

Then she missed three or four Sundays in a row. Unfortunately, because of a host of new attenders, I overlooked her absence. When I finally noticed, I arranged a visit.

When I arrived, a young woman opened the door. “Pastor, this is a great surprise!”

I, too, was surprised, for the person who had greeted me was one of our deaconesses. She and Laura were in the middle of prayer. I learned that they had been meeting three times a week to pray together, and just that week the old boyfriend had left for California. The crisis had passed, and she has been in church ever since. That kind of initiative at tracking fellow believers also signals maturity.

Concern beyond our four walls. After being sick, I can always tell when I’m getting better: the needs of others get as much attention as my own pain. This is also a sign that a church has recovered from the welter of war.

Before I came to one previously embattled church, another nearby church had made efforts to bring peace to our congregation. Instead, opinions and feelings were expressed between the churches, creating a brittle relationship. When I arrived, the other church remained aloof from me and the congregation.

I ignored the problem until several years later. Through no fault of their own, their church came under mammoth financial strain. Member churches in our denomination rallied to help—and we joined them. When I totaled our contribution, it exceeded one month of our budget.

This willingness to sacrifice continued in other ways. That year our missionary giving almost doubled. One whole service was devoted to intercession for the son of a pastor who lived hundreds of miles away. The church even volunteered to help in the program of a local church of another denomination.

First-love recovery

Recently I received a note from a member: “Pastor, I don’t know what’s happening in everyone else’s life,” it said, “but I sure feel safe and loved here.” With her permission I read the letter to the congregation, and many others rose and reaffirmed her words.

That night signaled something else to me. Our grim civil war was history.

Some time ago, I read about a woman who discovered something remarkable while digging in her flower garden. With her trowel she jabbed what she thought was a piece of plastic. Then she realized it was a ring. She brought it into the house and polished it. It was her wedding ring, lost twenty years earlier.

The timing of her find was remarkable, coming the day before her fortieth wedding anniversary. That evening when her husband came home, she presented it to him. He picked it up, shed a few tears, and placed it on her finger, reciting again his marriage vows.

In many ways, as I’ve pastored war-torn churches, I feel as if I have had the privilege of helping them find long-lost rings.

Copyright © 1997

    • More fromMichael Phillips

Pastors

Jim Amandus with Bob Moeller

Leadership BooksMay 19, 2004

Sometimes it is the shepherd, not the sheep, who needs to be returned to the fold.
—Jim Amandus with Bob Moeller

Iwas putting away my sermon notes one night after the evening service when I noticed a light under the door of an elder’s office. I wasn’t surprised. As a volunteer staff member, this elder often put in long hours. I decided to pop my head in to say good-night.

When I opened the door, there sat the entire elder board, meeting in an unscheduled, secret session.

“Uh, hi,” I said, groping for words.

Equally unnerved by my chance discovery of the meeting, the elders’ faces blanched, conveying both embarrassment and guilt. After a few moments of awkward small talk, I excused myself and hurried out of the church. I knew my days in that church, and maybe in ministry, were coming to an end.

Straying sheep

I had accepted the call to this church with zeal and optimism. Recovering from the devastation of a pastor’s moral lapse, this church, by the time I arrived, had shrunk from 800 to 175 members.

I threw myself into the work. My wife and I soon fell in love with the people. I was on an emotional high. The church began to reverse its course. Within four years, attendance reached 400, and the past wounds appeared to be healing.

About this time, two families began visiting from another church. They were candid about the fact that the board of their previous church had asked them to leave. I didn’t ask any questions. Looking back now, however, I wish I had.

At first the new families were supportive and enthusiastic. They seemed overjoyed to have found a church home that would love and accept them. They quickly volunteered to serve. Within one year both men were elected to the elder board.

I had felt a vague discomfort with each family. They seemed to have trouble accepting others’ shortcomings. They displayed little patience or tolerance with those not meeting their standards.

One of the men in particular seemed to have trouble staying in the same job. A pattern of conflict seemed to appear with each of his employers. He would have an initial confrontation with a supervisor over what he claimed were ethical shortcuts or compromises. Refusing to yield to his boss’s authority or company policy, he would eventually resign and move on. It was always their fault he left the company, never his.

As these men gained influence, the church atmosphere seemed to be marked by suspicion and tension. My wife was the first to see the implications of the rigidity creeping into the congregation.

“Jim, we’re not going to last very long in this climate,” she observed.

I shrugged off her comment, believing I could work out any problem that might arise. After all, we were all reasonable people committed to doing God’s work in God’s way.

During this time, a couple from our church had separated and, despite our efforts to bring reconciliation, filed for divorce. The wife left the church; the husband stayed on. Hurting and in need of fellowship, he turned to our singles group.

Immediately, one of the new elders objected.

“Our singles ministry is for people who have never married or are widowed,” he argued, “not for people going through a divorce.

“Furthermore, I don’t think he should be allowed to sing in the choir. If we expect God to bless our church, we’ve got to maintain our standards.”

“Frank,” I replied, “this person neither committed adultery nor deserted his spouse. I don’t believe in divorce any more than you do. But he’s a member of the body, and we need to reach out to him at this critical point in his life.”

The elder was unyielding. He received support for his hard-line policy from the other new elder. The divorced man had to leave the singles group and the choir.

“I’m concerned about the purity of our church, aren’t you, Pastor?” the second elder asked.

From that day forward, a hairline fracture emerged between those two elders and myself. It would eventually grow into a San Andreas Fault of distrust and acrimony.

These two men managed to convince the rest of the elders. I was instructed to relay the news to the divorced man that he could no longer attend the singles group or sing in the choir.

I felt caught in the middle. I had been spending significant time with the man trying to encourage him. But I also was accountable to the elder board. I balked at the thought of hitting him with such hard news with no warning. When I did meet with him, I softened the news by telling him that, due to his divorce, there were concerns about his church involvement. But I stopped short of saying he was forbidden from taking part in the two groups.

When I reported on my conversation, the two elders were upset. They insisted I meet with him again and tell him exactly what had been decided. I apologized for failing to communicate the elders’ decision clearly.

“Forgiveness granted,” one of them said.

At a nearby restaurant, I met the divorced man for coffee. I told him the elders’ decision.

“They’re saying I’m unclean,” he said, his head bowed. “That hurts, Jim. I’m crushed.”

I wished I had some words to say. After a long silence, he said, “Maybe it would be better if I attended another church.”

“I hope you stay with us,” I said, “but I can understand why you’d feel otherwise.”

He did stop coming to our church, but my wife and I continued to invite him over to our house.

All appeared to be fine with the elders until three months later. During a meeting, one of the two men looked straight at me and said, “Jim, I’m concerned that you have a character problem.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“I think you’re a habitual liar,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice. “Not only that, I think your eight-year-old son may be picking it up from you.”

I was flabbergasted. Though I didn’t react outwardly, several minutes elapsed before I recovered my inner composure. I had never considered myself perfect, but this was the first time anyone had questioned my basic integrity.

I thought the situation three months earlier was resolved. But I could see it wasn’t. While forgiveness had been granted, trust had not. I could understand the basis of the criticism against me, but the charge against my son was unfounded.

The seriousness of the situation began to sink in. These men were true to “the letter of the law,” but knew nothing of grace, forgiveness, and love. I began to fear the future.

Parish prisoner

Only a few weeks after this traumatic confrontation, I stumbled onto a secret session of the elders. When we met for a scheduled meeting a week later, I expressed to them my deep hurt and disappointment over their action.

“Gentlemen,” I began, “I’ve always believed that we could work out problems openly and honestly. Having a meeting without me lacked integrity.”

The elders apologized. But our relationship became increasingly strained. I found myself analyzing my every word, whether in private conversation or from the pulpit. I documented everything from memos to announcements to telephone calls. Rightly or wrongly, I felt like a prisoner in my own church.

Sadly, the congregation knew little or nothing of this. And as tensions mounted, my passion for preaching diminished. I was too emotionally distracted to give my best to the congregation. I found it demeaning to sit in my office like a lonely soldier entrenched in hostile territory, keeping logs and checking records. The struggle to survive sapped my energy. Trying to protect myself from the next surprise attack on my character consumed my working and waking hours.

The siege mentality was taking its toll. I was losing my self-confidence and my desire to be a pastor.

My wife’s response was blunt. “Jim, put your resumé together.” Furious at the treatment I was receiving, and livid at the accusations made against our children, she was ready to pack our bags and leave. I stumbled on, though, hoping to find my way out of the stalemate.

The hammerblow

Though everyone agreed we should work through the problem, we were unable to find a solution. The trust level reached lows of Depression-era proportions when the elders requested I take a sabbatical—immediately.

The next Sunday one of the elders stood before the congregation and simply announced I would be taking a leave of absence. No further explanations were offered. No questions from the membership were allowed. One Sunday I was in the pulpit; the next Sunday I wasn’t.

I remember thinking, I’m being treated exactly like my divorced friend. It hurts to feel like an impurity.

The next Saturday, sitting in the living room, the terrible reality struck. Turning to my wife, I said, “Lori, tomorrow’s Sunday. Where are we going to go to church?”

Our forced exile had driven us from our spiritual home. We were no longer welcome among the people to whom we had given our lives for almost six years. We held each other and cried.

When individuals from the church would call and ask, “What’s going on?” all I could say was, “A situation has arisen between the elders and me that we’re trying to resolve. If you want more specifics, call them.”

I didn’t want to open myself to the charge I was talking behind the elders’ backs.

Those who did call the elders were given little information. As a matter of policy, the elders had decided not to comment on the situation. If not for the Psalms, the stress of the situation would have crushed me. Those emotionally poetic words were my lifeline to God during those dark days. I grew in my empathy and understanding of David as I memorized many of his songs.

My pain was sometimes so intense I would repeat a particular Psalm at five-minute intervals throughout the entire day. That discipline kept me from giving in to the overpowering desire to retaliate, to vindicate myself.

In one last attempt to save the situation, we approached the leaders of a large and influential church that had ties to our congregation. We asked if they would be willing to act as mediators. They readily agreed and sent two men from their staff to meet with the elders and myself.

The two elders promptly listed their grievances. I didn’t challenge their accusations but opted instead to take an open and conciliatory stance. I admitted I had mishandled the divorce controversy. I confessed that I had failed to follow the elders’ instructions on my first visit. I asked for their forgiveness.

By approaching the situation with humility and openness, I had hoped a similar response from my antagonists would follow. I was wrong. After listening to both sides, the mediators promised to return with their recommendations in a few days. But when they handed down their verdict, I was stunned. They recommended I enter a probationary period for a year or so. They thought this would allow the elders to continue to observe me in order to rebuild trust. After the “cooling-off period,” the elders and I could work together to decide my future at the church. Their decision was a crushing hammerblow. It felt as if they were swatting flies with two-by-fours.

I weighed my options. None appeared good. Either I could accept the probationary period and try staying on at the church, which meant submitting to the control of the two elders, or I could resign. Even if I did submit, there was no guarantee I could stay on. They had already warned me that my reinstatement would require a long period of observation before making a decision about my future at the church.

I responded by saying, “Gentlemen, I don’t think there’s anything I could do in a reasonable period of time to rebuild your trust in me. I’ve acknowledged my shortcomings, I’ve confessed my sins, and I’ve asked for forgiveness. I will honor your recommendation. But if we were going to turn a corner, I believe we would have done so by now. Even with a leave of absence, I don’t sense there’s any willingness from you to move on and rebuild the relationships.”

I knew then that my ministry there was finished. At that point, I didn’t really care. My wife, my children, and I were all out of gas. The gauge measuring our desire to remain in ministry was on empty.

As the “sabbatical” neared its end, I notified the elder board of my intention to resign. Their response surprised me. They asked me not to leave, which I thought strange, considering their lack of confidence in my ministry and character. The mediators also encouraged me not to leave. But my family and had had enough. We simply couldn’t go on. I went ahead and gave official notice of my resignation.

In leaving I experienced the same emotions often felt at a funeral—loss, confusion, sorrow. Except in my case, no service was ever allowed for either ourselves or our friends to grieve. The elders refused my last request to share a farewell message with the congregation. They told me they couldn’t take a chance on what I might say from the pulpit. So with little or no explanation, I disappeared from the congregation.

I lost more than a job. I had lost my place of worship, my friends, and my identity as a pastor all at once. It was a low point, perhaps the lowest of my entire life.

Our first decision after resigning was to put our house on the market. It sold the first day. Knowing that our time in the area was coming to an end, I decided to lift the news blackout. Meeting with close friends and supporters from the church, we relayed our ordeal. I made an attempt to be as objective as I could about what had gone on. I admitted that I was partially to blame. I shared that I had blind spots and weaknesses in my life. But I couldn’t say I was a habitual liar. Deep in my soul, I knew it wasn’t so.

See-saw

Now that I had resigned, I felt ripped down the middle. On the one hand, I still loved the people, I loved the congregation, and I loved God. But on the other hand, I couldn’t stand the local church. In all the confusion and hurt that followed, I told myself I never wanted to pastor another church. My ambivalence became obvious in my search for a new job.

Though I would send out my resumé, as soon as I received a letter of interest, I would trash it. I just couldn’t bring myself to fill out a questionnaire or return a telephone call from any search committee. I wasn’t about to give anyone the right to scrutinize my life again. I painted all church leaders with one broad brush: pseudo-pious, judgmental, uncaring, hypocritical.

God continued to work in my life, however. My first, crucial step back to ministry was a heart-to-heart conversation with my father. We had moved in temporarily with my parents until we could locate new employment and housing.

“Jim, I know you’ve been hurt badly,” he said. “But don’t leave the ministry just yet. God has his hand on you. Your gifts, education, and talents are too great to be discarded. Give it some more time before you make a final decision.”

I had always respected my father. His advice that day touched a responsive chord in my heart, broken as it was. Although apprehensive, I decided to give God a few more weeks to change my mind. If nothing happened, I would say goodbye to ministry.

Taking residence

A few days later, a close friend contacted me with a surprising proposal. His pastor, Chuck Wickman, was initiating a new program in their church—a “Pastor in Residence.” It was targeted at restoring pastors who were disillusioned and hurting because of a bad church experience.

I wanted to know more, and within a few days Pastor Wickman called, inviting me to lunch. Chuck’s easygoing, soft-spoken manner immediately resonated in my soul. Over lunch I learned that his interest in wounded pastors was more than theoretical. He himself had twice left the ministry after difficult parish experiences. His spirit, though, had been tenderized by those hard encounters. As we talked, I couldn’t help but recall my father’s prediction that God might still have a place for me in ministry.

Besides wanting to empathize with hurting pastors, however, Chuck had another motive. It grew out of one overriding conviction: A pastor is a terrible thing to waste.

He was grieved by crisis experiences, such as the one I endured, that drove so many ministers from the local church permanently.

“It’s a tragic squandering of the resources of the kingdom of God,” he said.

He had done extensive research in exploring the reasons why pastors leave the ministry. “My goal is to find a way to stop the hemorrhaging of talent, experience, and ability from the local church,” he said. “I’m determined to reclaim highly trained, competent, and caring individuals for ministry.” His invitation to enter the Pastor-in-Residence program was like oil poured on my wounds.

Less than three months after I had left my church—humiliated and bitter—I was preparing to reenter the ministry as a Pastor in Residence. I was, by no means, agreeing to accept another church if offered one, but I was taking the first step in that direction.

The way before me

I was nervous about visiting Chuck’s church, Christ Community Church in Monrovia, California, for the first time. What would I say if people asked why I was there? Would I have to tell them about my past? Would I still be welcome if they knew the whole story?

Chuck had anticipated these questions. He assured me he would make the proper introductions and explanations. If any contact had to be made with my prior church, he promised to be the liaison between the two groups.

I had expected a church initiating a Pastor-in-Residence program to be much larger. But on a good Sunday, Christ Community ran no more than 150 people. They didn’t own their own building; they rented the local YMCA.

My initial fears were unjustified. The whole atmosphere of the church, including the worship service, was casual and easygoing, like Chuck. After he introduced me that morning, the entire congregation broke out in spontaneous applause. The sound of their clapping overwhelmed me. Standing there, fighting back tears, I absorbed the love and acceptance I needed so badly. It was another significant healing moment.

Chuck did one more thing to prepare my way. He told the elder board they had only one responsibility toward me—to be my friend. I chose to share with them the circumstances behind my resignation. I discovered how therapeutic it was to articulate my pain to a group that accepted me. Most of them had come out of a church where they had witnessed conflict and infighting. They understood my sorrow and, without having to say so, gave me permission to grieve in their presence.

Snapping chains

The structure of the Pastor-in-Residence program was simple. I was asked to make a six-month to one-year commitment to the church. In addition, I was instructed to raise my own financial support. Chuck would assist me in sending out a fund-raising letter to my friends and family. Finally, I would serve as a member of the staff and meet with Chuck once a week.

Beyond that, I was not expected to carry any formal ministry responsibilities. My time was my own. If I needed help or counseling in any particular area, the church promised to match me with the appropriate resources. I was free to do as much or as little as I wished.

Because I had previous training in Christian education, I began by helping the Sunday school superintendent arrange classes and curriculum. Besides keeping me busy, it quietly reminded me that I still had something to offer the local church. But I realized I needed to deal with the unresolved anger I carried. Throwing resumés in the trash can was no long-term solution.

I sought the help of an individual in the church who was finishing his master’s degree in counseling at a local seminary. He graciously took me on without charge. The fiery outrage still rumbling within slowly died out. The highest hurdle was forgiving the men who had hurt me. Part of me wanted to forgive them; another part wanted revenge. But over time, I released, bit by bit, the bitterness. As I did, the chains of resentment snapped. Jesus’ words about pardoning someone seventy times seven took on special meaning. It was my duty to forgive my tormentors, even those who had labeled me a liar.

Heavyweight title

The Pastor-in-Residence program returned to me several things I had lost. First, and perhaps most important, was the integrity that goes with the title “pastor.” When a pastor is stripped of office and forced to pursue other work, he can face a credibility problem. If a search committee asks, “What are you currently doing?” it’s awkward to respond by saying, “I’m selling insurance,” or, “I don’t have a job.” The title “Pastor in Residence” restored some dignity. I was a pastor applying for another pastorate, not an outcast trying to get a foot in the door.

Second, the Pastor-in-Residence program offered me a safe place to sort out my feelings toward the ministry. Chuck said, “Jim, I want to give you time to make a good decision about future local church ministry, not a decision based on financial pressures, isolation, or a sense that no one cares.”

By sending out approximately forty letters, including a cover letter from Chuck, our financial needs were met. The support poured in. Each letter, each check, each note of encouragement was more than a financial gift. It was a vote that I should stay in the ministry. These votes felt like a landslide victory. The gifts from members of our former church meant the most to us. They affirmed that our ministry there had not been in vain. Since we had never had an official goodbye, it gave many people an opportunity to express their affection.

Christ Community also helped restore my sense of self-esteem. Little by little, I quit berating myself. People came alongside and said, “Jim, you are a pastor. You have a pastor’s heart. You can do it.”

After six months at Christ Community, I boarded a plane for a job interview. Because of my unique role at Christ Community Church, I was able to say to the search committee, “I’ll be as open as you wish about my past situation. But if you feel you need more information, call Chuck Wickman. He knows the whole story, and he’ll be glad to discuss any aspect of it with you.” With nothing to hide and a strong reservoir of supporters back at the church, my confidence level rose dramatically.

Though that church proved not to be the right place for us, my wife and I, as we were flying home, looked at each other and said, “We did it. We actually went and interviewed for a church.”

I likened the experience to having a cast removed from your arm after a football injury. Your first hit on the line tells you whether or not you’re back in the game. After that first interview, I knew I was ready to play again. It felt good.

The final benefit of the Pastor-in-Residence program was the opportunity to improve my conflict-management skills. One day I said to Chuck, “I’m still an angry person. I believe part of it is that I’ve never been taught how to resolve conflict. I internalize problems and blame myself way too much.”

Chuck directed me to a series of tapes on church conflict by the Alban Institute, with material prepared by Norman Shawchuck. I devoured the tapes. What was meant to take months to study, I completed in a week. The tapes showed me alternative ways to handle conflict, each of which has its own unique consequences.

Wounded healer

The day came when I was ready to leave the program. I accepted the call to my present church with newfound confidence. About a year after I was settled in, I realized there might be other ministers who had left the ministry who needed the Pastor-in-Residence program. When I met a pastor in the area whose story sounded remarkably similar to mine, I knew it was time to repay the favor that Chuck had done for me.

Not feeling the need to be original, I took Chuck’s ideas and implemented them here.

When a skeptical board member asked, “How much is this Pastor-in-Residence program going to set us back?” the answer was, “Not a penny.” And like Chuck’s program, individuals can do as little or as much as they wish. We make available a number of personality inventories and tests to help them identify the emotional problems with which they may be struggling. If they feel the need for a counselor, we make certain they are matched with a caring, competent therapist. In addition, we make retreat centers available to a husband and wife where they can be alone with God and sort out the big questions.

The first man to go through our program decided to enter a different vocation. That was fine with me. I rejoiced that he was able to make that decision in a safe, caring environment. He’s an evangelist at heart with incredible gifts in that area. His future plans may include bi-vocational ministry, and learning a trade is a first step in that direction.

While you can’t program love, you can communicate love through a program. That’s what the Pastor in Residency does. One fascinating, unforeseen side-effect of the program is that we now have five former pastors in our congregation. The word has gotten out that we are a safe place for hurting ministers to hang out and recover.

It took time for our board to learn why bad church experiences leave pastors devastated. They were accustomed to the business world, where losing and finding jobs are a way of life. I’ve helped them to see when a pastor loses his church, he loses more than a job. He loses his ministry, his identity, and his support system all at once. Our board members now have a sensitivity and compassion for pastors who go through that awful experience.

A Christianity Today Gallup poll revealed 30 percent of Protestant clergy think often about leaving the ministry. In his doctoral research, Chuck Wickman found that 48 percent of those who do leave the ministry want to return to it. My bottom line for continuing the program is this: it costs a church very little to restore a pastor who has so much already invested in him. He is the product of literally thousands of dollars spent on education, years in training, and invaluable years of experience.

Like Chuck, I too believe it is a terrible squandering of divine resources to waste a trained, gifted, and talented pastor. Sometimes it is the shepherd, not the sheep, who needs to be returned to the fold.

Copyright © 1997

    • More fromJim Amandus with Bob Moeller

Pastors

Douglas Rumford

Leadership BooksMay 19, 2004

Combatants may win occasional battles or achieve some gains as heroic martyrs, but they seldom motivate lasting change.
—Douglas Rumford

Some differences—between snowflakes, for instance, or symphony instruments—make us delight in diversity. Other differences, however, like those between vinegar and baking soda, combine to set off a furious reaction.

I learned the volatile nature of diversity in a church during an allcommittee night. I had been pastor of the church for about a year and a half. The congregation was growing in its understanding and practice of Christian discipleship, but the growth was not without discord.

One committee was discussing spiritual qualifications for leadership. A young man was telling his fellow committee members that our increasing emphasis on a personal relationship with Jesus Christ was making us too narrow and restrictive.

“Look,” said Jim, “none of us is a saint. If you don’t have room for people who doubt and struggle and don’t speak perfect theology, I won’t be part of it.”

A long, strained dialogue began. Over an hour later, we realized Jim was hearing one message—not intended by the others—and would not be convinced otherwise.

Meanwhile, in another committee, an older woman named Janice, who was new to our congregation, was calling for more evangelistic zeal. Later that night I learned she had said, “This church isn’t really preaching the Bible. We’re being too timid. The gospel is demanding!”

Others on the committee appreciated her desire to trumpet the high cost of discipleship a la Bonhoeffer. But they did not agree that our church wasn’t preaching the gospel, and they differed on how to reach the goal of deeper commitment. The committee discussed the need to balance the demands of the gospel with the grace of the gospel—to meet people where they are. Janice felt they were soft-pedaling the gospel’s demands.

I went home that night heartsick. I respected both Jim and Janice, yet now they were pulling hard in opposite directions. I visited each of them, but both concluded they could not continue as members.

The pain from that kind of conflict opens questions, challenges assumptions, and teaches lessons. I began to wrestle with the nature and expression of diverse opinion within the church. What is unity? When is total agreement in belief and practice essential? How can a diverse congregation move forward with harmony?

From my own limited experience and perspective, I have formulated some basic principles that are guiding me on my pastoral journey. I do not claim the authority of an expert. I simply offer my best reflections as an apprentice.

Kaleidoscopic ministry

Believers usually react negatively to the word plurality. We suppose that if we really love the Lord and each other, we will all agree. But do we always agree with our parents? Our spouse? Our best friend? Ourselves?

Differences and disagreements are part of the business of living. Common sense tells us these do not have to mean antagonism or division, yet many churches and individuals fear diversity is an evidence of disunity and even unfaithfulness.

Scripture supports the notion of diversity in the church. In Luke 9, for instance, the disciples wanted to forbid a man from casting out demons in Christ’s name because he wasn’t part of their group. But Jesus gently rebuked their intolerance and exclusivism: “He that is not against you is for you.” We are left to speculate about the man’s relationship to Jesus, but it is clear Jesus did not demand everyone meet a rigid set of external criteria.

Diversity is a fact of life for us pastors. The mobility of society means constant relocation of church members. Many cross denominational lines to join the church that most appeals to them. They bring to their new church different ideas and practices.

People coming to our church from a background of adult baptism, for example, struggle with our baptism of infants. Others never had women in leadership and find they must work through their theology and understanding of Paul’s teaching. Some come to New England from regions of the country where churches are often more influential; they expect the church to take stronger stands in the community. Others come from churches where the style of worship is different, and they want that style here.

The tensions created by this diversity often make us uncomfortable. We desire to serve God in a pure, orderly way, and when diversity stirs disagreement, it’s difficult to remind ourselves of its benefits.

But we need each person’s viewpoint. We need those who reflect and those who act. We need the advocates of biblical literacy and those who hold forth compassion for the elderly, the poor, and the imprisoned as taught in Mattew 25.

The joy comes as we listen to, appreciate, and affirm each other. Yes, diversity causes friction, but that friction produces warmth.

Boiled-down basics

Does acceptance of diversity mean you open the door to any viewpoint of theology or ethics?

Certainly not!

In any object or activity we find a mixture of essentials and nonessentials. In church history, debate over what was adiaphora, or “indifferent and tolerable,” frequently shook the church. Just as maple sap is boiled and reboiled to produce the delicacy of maple syrup, it’s critical to distill the essential in order to set priorities and values. Certain central beliefs must be shared as the basis for a working relationship.

On one occasion a woman named Mary came to me to discuss church membership. She had served as a lay worker on several church staffs in other cities before moving to this area. She wanted to explore my view of Scripture and the historical Jesus. It soon became clear that our presuppositions were widely divergent on these central issues. At the risk of being simplistic, let me say that Mary’s theology was much more liberal than mine. After more than forty-five minutes of intense, stimulating, and unsettling discussion, Mary made an insightful observation: “We speak all the same languages except for the mother tongue. We don’t read or understand in common ways the one Book that was written to bind us together in living for God.”

Mary then asked the critical question, “Is there room for this broad range of theological opinion in this church?” Neither of us wanted to say no, but we both knew the chasm was too wide. We parted as friends, yet did not begin a pastor/parishioner relationship. Because Mary and I knew the need for agreement in the basics, we saved ourselves the ongoing anguish that likely would have resulted had she and her family joined the church.

In addition to personal conversations with the pastor, a new-members class helps prospective members understand the basic viewpoint of a congregation. We call our class the “Explorations Class,” with the understanding that participants are exploring what it means to be a Christian and a member of this congregation. The six-week class is required for membership, but people take the class with no obligation to join. We have found this an invaluable means of building a solid relational and theological foundation for church life.

Open channels

The leader’s task in handling diversity can be likened to taking a picture. Two technical factors contribute to the taking of a fine photograph: light and focus. Too little light means the image will not register on the film. Incorrect focus produces a blurry image.

A primary means of bringing light and focus to a situation is conversation. When challenged, most people avoid a problem or react aggressively. Neither means resolves the problem. The leaders of the church need to open channels for communication, especially on highly charged issues.

At Session (church board) meetings, we regularly discuss letters and comments from the congregation. Congregational forums, group discussion, retreats, and newsletters also enable the dialogue that keeps diversity constructive.

One congregation had existed as a diverse, healthy congregation for many years under the leadership of its pastor. Following that pastor’s call to another church, the newly called pastor ran into difficulties. People began taking sides, and close friendships were strained. Within a year, the new pastor left, and the congregation found it needed to work through some basic issues before it could call another pastor. The people held a series of congregation-wide forums on specific topics, and I was asked to lead one. After teaching on diversity, I asked them to do these things:

— List three to five primary beliefs you think ought to be central to the life of this church.

— List three to five issues you know are currently discussed that you personally consider less than central to your life in this fellowship.

— List three to five areas of belief and/or practice in which you are unsure. What would help you resolve your uncertainty?

When the people answered these questions, they began to see their differences were not as great as they’d seemed, nor were they rooted in the essentials of the faith. As the study closed, one man said, “One of the gifts God has given me in this church is its diversity. It’s helped me stretch further than I ever thought I would. Let’s not lose it.”

Appreciated experience

Many conflicts are aggravated because people fail to take seriously the emotions involved. Emotions arise from our experiences.

Following a special service one evening, Geri told me she objected to “guitar and campfire” songs in church. We fell into a good, hearty conversation. She was honest and caring enough to tell me her experience as a child at church summer camps had been rigid and emotionally manipulative. Contemporary praise choruses transported her back to those uncomfortable, frustrating days. The painful emotions of her experience clouded her view of nontraditional music.

I shared with her one principle that helped me keep an open mind about worship styles: in worship, God is the audience. The incident of Jesus blessing the children came to mind, perhaps because our children’s choir had just sung.

“Geri,” I said, “when we clapped for the children this evening, I thought of Jesus laying hands on the children. We appreciated the children’s enthusiasm and overlooked the less-than-perfect presentation. Instinctively, we know that our Lord is honored by the gift of the heart, regardless of the sophistication of the form. After all, music is an offering to God, not entertainment for the congregation.”

Geri smiled. “I guess the Lord likes all our songs,” she replied, “as long as they’re from the heart. But don’t forget about those of us who’ve been burned.”

We both grew from our conversation: I was reminded again of the need for sensitivity, and Geri learned she could praise God with six-string guitars as well as pipe organs.

Style and substance

Too often we mistake style for substance, rejecting or accepting both without distinguishing the two. Evangelism is a frequent victim of this. I often encounter resistance to evangelism based on a person’s unpleasant experience with a particular evangelistic method. The way to soften resistance is to focus clearly on the substance of evangelism and be creative in the style it might take in a particular situation.

After three years at my present church, I wanted to provide the opportunity for people to respond publicly to a call to commitment. I discussed the idea with our worship committee. They were concerned that we not create a situation in which people would feel judged if they didn’t respond in a certain way, and they gave helpful counsel on the most appropriate way to present the call and the mode of response. We agreed that I would precede the call with a careful explanation in order to avoid misunderstanding. On the worship committee’s recommendation, the Session unanimously approved the plan.

On Easter Sunday as the sermon concluded, I prefaced the call to commitment and recommitment with a careful explanation. Nearly 10 percent of the congregation stood in response. Later, many expressed appreciation for the opportunity. One woman said, “I’m usually totally turned-off by something like an ‘altar call,’ but your explanation helped me see the value of a public response.”

At our next Session meeting I learned that a few members expressed concern that this activity was “un-Presbyterian.” In conversation, I learned that “un-Presbyterian” meant it was outside their experience in Presbyterian churches. Our Presbyterian Book of Order, however, says that during the worship service the people “should have an opportunity to give themselves to the Lord. An invitation may be given to individuals to respond … by making a personal profession of faith in Jesus Christ.”

This experience reminded me that biblical and theological education of the laity reduces the strains of diversity by helping people better understand the substance of their faith. The teaching of church history and tradition can broaden people’s outlook and help them accept others’ viewpoints and practices.

Combatants may win occasional battles or achieve some gains as heroic martyrs, but they seldom motivate lasting change. The critical need in situations of diversity is to reason clearly through issues and to care lovingly for people. Above all, we need to hang in there.

To use the photographic analogy, we must discern the individual’s and the congregation’s “speed” (i.e., sensitivity to light). Some are ASA 100, slow to absorb but still capable of giving a good picture. Others are ASA 400, quick to accept new things. We must be faithful with what we are given.

Copyright © 1997

    • More fromDouglas Rumford
  • Douglas Rumford

Pastors

Doug Jackson

Leadership BooksMay 19, 2004

When forced to accept the reality of my preaching, I managed to find some good in it.
—Doug Jackson

And you have never heard a worse preacher!—2 Corinthians 10:10 (TLB)

Those caustic Corinthians found preachers they preferred to Paul, and they let Paul know it.

We pastors often deal with similar attacks but without Paul’s track record to bolster us. How do we respond when people turn sour and assault our preaching? Two recent experiences taught me that such an onslaught brings pain but also benefits.

Our church property backs up to the Fort McDowell Indian Reservation. One morning, as I took a stroll through the desert, the issue of criticism crystallized.

Two Gambel’s quail, a male and his mate, skittered among the scrubby bushes before me, picking their way through the appaloosa sunlight of early morning. I studied the male especially. Larger than his partner, he strutted out front by half a length. His James Dean crest flopped over a Lou Costello face, an absurd specimen of gray-feathered aristocracy.

“Do you know how silly you look?” I snorted to him. He didn’t.

I scrutinized his mate a moment, a modest thing in hausfrau gray and brown. Unliberated, she kept demurely tailfeatherward of her companion.

“He probably tells you he stays out front to protect you,” I mused. “Fact is, he only means to get to the chow first. Why not deflate the clown?”

Then something spooked the pair. As predicted, Sir Quail made no move to tilt a lance for this lady. Both exploded in fury, pounding skyward. The female fluttered easily, while her mate tried to shatter the hold of gravity in short, shuddering strokes. But what grace he stole as he hit airspeed! He swept the wind on outstretched wings to land softly among the neon thorns of a paloverde tree.

I returned to my study and squared off against a dry pile of books and notes that were refusing to become a sermon. The image of Sir Quail lingered in my mind. He was a picture of my preaching.

How my self-image had changed! Only a few months earlier, I would hungrily enter my study, convinced I had found the preacher’s motherlode that eluded Spurgeon. Confident of my abilities, I found myself strutting along, self-important in my stuffy calling. Come Sundays, I flew on word-wings, barnstorming truth to the awed congregation, then settling gently at the back door to receive their coos of admiration.

But now I was awkwardly walking through a wasteland of facts, awaiting the terror of Sunday morning to give me wings—wings that no longer seemed able to get past the shuddering strokes to the graceful flight.

What had happened?

Church sociologists say that most honeymoons last about three years. I had been in my present pulpit just shy of thirty-six months when two of my most faithful members came to see me. They respectfully addressed me as “Pastor.” They never raised their voices, but these two men came to tell me, in essence, “You look ridiculous.”

One talked about “too much secondary application.” I had to ask what that meant. He said I should deal with “just what the text said” without so many digressions into what people should do about it. He offered me an out, noting that it must be hard for a preacher not to want to tell people, “Now get with it!” a phrase that to him, I suppose, summed up my applications.

I responded as best I could, saying it sounded like what he wanted was a lecture, not a sermon. (I remembered my preaching professor at seminary had said that dispensing textual background was “exegeting in public,” and although it wasn’t illegal, it should be.) If I wanted to lecture, I said, I would get a college teaching position. That during most of my sermon preparation I thought about the text from the practical side. He seemed unimpressed.

Another criticism focused on my illustrations. One of the men had been keeping score and had noted that the bulk of my illustrations were not from the Bible but from “secular sources,” his term for the newspaper articles, personal anecdotes, and literary quotes I used. He unsheathed the Reformation phrase “comparing Scripture with Scripture” and aimed its point at me.

I parried by saying that illustrating a Bible verse with a Bible verse was like using a red crayon on red paper. I pointed out that many people, especially the large number of new converts in our congregation, had told me how much they appreciated the stories, which provided a contact point between the Bible and daily life. However, I did admit I probably focused too much on the sermon text, ignoring parallel references.

Then I heard that I was not “fiery” enough. As near as I could tell, this was a call for more volume and insults. I responded that I had to preach as I felt led and in keeping with my own personality. I pointed to some instances of fairly stern exhortation in recent messages.

Finally, they left, and I crawled away to lick my wounds.

What were these men really saying? From the vantage point of time, I see that both came to our church from large congregations with sharply chiseled preaching traditions. “Good” preaching was the kind they were used to, but each used different criteria for “good.” They did agree, however, that my preaching was way off the beam.

In the words of Anne Limburgh, hours of gold turned to hours of lead. The elastic texture of my preaching went wooden. Texts that had glittered like gemstones faded into dull Hebrew roots. I began to do more visiting, holding at bay sermon preparation until as late in the week as possible.

What to do? I wanted to flee to another congregation, but no invitation materialized. I would have quit outright, but the call of God tyrannized my cowardice.

I thought of the quail. Covered with dust, I again tried to fly. Though my solution often leaves me somewhere between the fuss and the feathers, it has kept me preaching, and I offer my reflections as encouragement for the sick at heart.

Crash-landing

Until my encounter with the critics, I had blissfully assumed that my preaching was fine. My fall from this illusion brought a crash-landing into reality. In many ways, I wish I could have continued living in fantasy.

Our illusions serve a purpose. When I was four years old, a realtor told me a hippopotamus lived in the attic of our new home. He shared a graphic account of the missing digits of naughty boys who ventured beyond the trapdoor in the storage room ceiling.

I bought the whole thing. A couple of years later, I learned that the salesman’s story was a ruse designed to keep me out of a dangerous part of the house. I was not happy. Staying out of the attic just to be good was no fun compared to staying out to avoid a chomping hippopotamus.

Life runs more smoothly and with more zest when greased with illusion. For that reason, I never assume the superiority of reality over daydreams. As David Morrison of the Menninger Clinic says, “Fantasy, not reality, will determine what you and I do.” I may have preached better—or at least with more zest and energy—before my pulpit bubble burst. I enthusiastically gave myself to creative study and application, and entered the pulpit with confidence.

Still, reality blesses us with objectivity, even longevity. When forced to accept reality, I managed to find some good in it. For me, reality brought humility, better relationships, and a renewed appreciation for people in the pews.

Humility’s gift. One Sunday I thundered forth in power, my blue pinstripe suit looking remarkably like camel hair. Every eye focused on me. I had them this time, and not a single Philistine would escape with his paganism intact. Another instant showed me the reality behind their absorption. From the front pew, my wife held aloft a rapidly lettered sign reading, ZIPPER. The words of Isaiah took on a new meaning as I lamented, “Woe is me, for I am undone.”

It helps (though it hurts) to hear the truth about the fly in the ointment, even when that fly is unzipped.

After the interview with my critical church members, I realized I had cherished the proud and false idea that people came each week with a burning desire to hear my sermon. I now saw that their motives were mixed. Some came to church in spite of my preaching; many preferred the style of previous pastors or famous television and radio ministers. Some came out of religious duty and did not care about preaching one way or another.

If this was the case, better that I know so. Worse than being washed up is being washed up and not knowing it. Tolstoy, in Anna Karenina, sculpts the image of obliviousness:

At almost the same time that his wife left Alexei Alexandrovich, there had come to him that bitterest moment in the life of an official—the moment when his upward career comes to a full stop. This full stop had been arrived at and everyone perceived it, but Alexei Alexandrovich himself was not yet aware that his career was over.

Then comes the most chilling moment:

Alexei Alexandrovich did not merely fail to observe his hopeless position in the official world, he was not merely free from anxiety on this head—he was positively more satisfied than ever with his own activity.

Better Relationships. I also ended up with a better relationship with my members. When the Shekinah draped my pulpit, I had excused my social reticence as devotion to a noble calling. Since my preaching was to lift people to exalted heights, I had good reason for being absent when they needed to chat. In short, in the name of eloquence, I had withdrawn.

When my tower of oratory caved in, I tumbled down smack into their living rooms and offices and backyards. Fearing that I was losing touch with them as a preacher, I decided to reach them as a person.

Yet these new relationships resulted in better preaching. Topics for sermons bombarded me, and application became as easy as taking inventory on the week’s conversations.

Renewed appreciation. I had pouted that no one celebrated my efforts, until one blunt friend reminded me that most people are never celebrated. The people in the pews toil daily. Come quitting time, they get a paycheck and maybe a handshake, but no brass band plays for them.

My bout with discontent also introduced me to what Calvin Miller calls the “back door” of life. Everyone has a back door, where all the unfinished and imperfect work of our life piles up. The occasional Sunday visitor sees only the front parlor and may even compliment us on it. Real friends, however, are those who have entered our lives through the clutter of the back door. Those who kindly ignore the negative reality may prove more genuine friends than those who praise positive illusion.

I learned to appreciate even more those real friends who saw me for what I was and didn’t mention it.

Redemptive criticism

After my painful interview I realized that some people wanted different preaching. I knew I couldn’t satisfy everyone, but as I reviewed my previous months of preaching, I had to admit I had become a formula expositor.

Not long ago, a TV commercial for a particular brand of clothing portrayed a fashion show behind the old Iron Curtain. The announcer drones, “Swimwear,” as a cruiser-weight model appears in a green smock and carries a beach ball. Ham-faced men in gray suits respond with Pavlovian applause. The announcer says, “Next, eveningwear,” as the same Medusa returns, draped in the same green smock, now carrying a flashlight.

I shuddered to admit that my pulpit ministry had the same lack of variety, and that the congregation’s response, even when positive, was perfunctory, Politburo-like applause.

I opened each sermon with some sort of story or object lesson and plugged in one illustration for each point. I also closed with one story or example, no matter how much I had to shoe-horn it to fit the message.

My weekly study began, always, with a translation of the text from the original language, followed by word studies, followed by commentary work. Bang, bang, bang, and I could be through with the examination without ever truly engaging in the text.

I blushed when I reviewed my applications. I exhorted them to be faithful in church attendance, to avoid my denomination’s cardinal sins (drinking, fornication, failure to vote Republican), and to be earnest in daily Bible reading. I realized any Pharisee in Jesus’ day could have passed one of my sermons with an A +.

I thought of a veterinarian who once described to me his disappointment when, after months of studying diagrams of the insides of a cat, it came his turn to operate. The textbook kitty presented clear lines and labeled organs set off in various colors. The animal stayed still, there was no blood, and the whole thing was shaped by symmetry. When he performed his first actual surgery, the real cat behaved quite badly. It was full of bits of life that wriggled and bulged. It bled and squirmed. He could not objectively study the situation because the subject’s mortality made time a factor. Still, he knew no one wanted a vet who could operate only on a picture of a cat.

I had to admit I had been preaching pictures of sermons rather than sermons, reducing my efforts to energetic but lifeless diagrams. Thanks to the criticism, I had to open up the slipper inside of a living craft.

“Except a man’s reach exceed his grasp,” asks Browning, “what’s a heaven for?” My preaching had spoken of heaven, but my attitude had left little need for it. The loss of my illusions forced me once again to take up the preacher’s burden of improved technique.

I varied my study habits by varying my genres. A straight expositional style allowed me to choose small portions of Scripture and study them in the same in-depth manner. When I began choosing longer passages, I had trouble outlining and studying them. That forced me to think about what I was doing. I ventured into topical sermons, which required an array of cross-references. I took a shot at my personal nemesis, the overhead-projector sermon, complete with a printed study sheet for the listeners. Some of it did not work, but some of it did.

I tried to use more personal anecdotes and fewer literary quotes. I swore off Barlett’s Quotations for a short while. If I had two brief word-pictures that fit a given point, I used them both. If I had none, I used none. I tested each illustration by a simple criterion: Did it illustrate? If not, I left it out.

As I stated above, application improved as relationships improved. I would simply take a few moments at the end of my study time to think of certain members of my congregation. What were their needs? What did this passage say to them?

My pastor father once told me, “The only bad kind of preaching is the kind we do all the time.” His wise counsel launched me into new methods.

Vexing value

In our church, we have three weekly preaching services: Sunday morning, and Sunday and Wednesday nights. I played it safe with the larger Sunday morning crowd, but I began to experiment with the evening services, when smaller crowds made the risks less formidable. These changes may have appeared subtle, perhaps unnoticeable. To me, however, they seemed daring. They demanded of me a new attention that worked toward curing my staleness and helped me regain the challenge of preaching.

Some of my flock disliked even the small changes I made. One man fondly remembers my first sermon at the church, which set the standard for him: a standard which should never be violated, world without end.

Others felt the changes had not gone far enough. I soon noticed, however, that those in this class simply hoped I would adopt their favorite style as “the” style. They had no clear use for variety, but preferred the tyranny of their form of monotony.

Dick Vermeil, when head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, once told the rowdy sports writers’ establishment that he had no intention of letting the press pick his starting quarterback. I learned that I could not let the pews control the pulpit, and that most people respond well to variations of style, so long as doctrine remains uncompromised.

Discipline’s flair

A boy lost an arm-wrestling match to the neighbor’s daughter. His dad reproached him for this breach of “machismo,” wanting to know how he could lose to a mere girl.

“But Dad,” the boy protested, “girls aren’t as ‘mere’ as they used to be!” Forced to realize that some of my sermons were more mere than majestic, I found liberation in the thought that “mere” preaching may not be so mere after all.

Style, elan, panache, flair—whatever the name, most of us covet it and feel apologetic if our preaching lacks it. Still, preaching, when it cannot soar, should at least walk, or even crawl.

Real preaching gets somewhere, or at least heads toward somewhere. Even preaching that is pedestrian still holds value. Content is ever the key. Prosaic preaching, as only as it remains biblical, at least gets its message out.

Spurgeon deals wisdom when he advises,

Better far to give the people masses of unprepared truth in the rough, like pieces of meat from the butcher’s block, chopped off anyhow, bone and all, and even dropped down in the sawdust, than ostentatiously and delicately hand them out upon a china dish a delicious slice of nothing at all.

Prosaic preaching also liberates the preacher from his heavy servitude to the goddess of inspired preparation. We all like to prepare under the Spirit’s inspiration, for study is not fun without it.

Author Stephen King takes exception to the common conception of “the Muse” as some ethereal fairy who dusts writers with a magic wand. His own sprite, he says, is a little guy in overalls and a crewcut who smacks him on the side of the head each morning and orders him to work. Clearly, King has the better muse.

Yes, I like inspiration. I covet and court it. I find I cannot, however, keep it in stock. Discipline is a more stable element. When the weeks slip by and no sacred fire falls from heaven to ignite my gray-bound volume of The Pulpit Commentary, I still can search out and express truth. It is not nearly as enjoyable as the white-heat of genius, but it steadily yields content.

Quail preaching

A year after my crisis, as I evaluate my reevaluation, I find another truth: it’s always possible that everybody else may be wrong, and that I may be right.

I can still recall the fateful interview with my parishioners. I walked through the house to my bedroom and slumped into my easy chair. Looking up, I saw my two-year-old son toddle into the room. He didn’t comprehend the details but knew that “someone had been mean to Daddy.” He pulled my hands away from my face and solemnly intoned, “Daddy, don’t listen to the hooty people!”

I’m uncertain where he got the adjective, but I know what he meant. There are some hooty people in this world, some congenital malcontents, who laugh at quails for not being hawks. I must listen to criticism, but if my critics threaten to steal what is truly best in me, I must steel myself to fight for what is uniquely mine.

In all this, I’ve learned that survival may be the greatest virtue. Whether the critics are on-target or off-base (and especially while we’re trying to decide which is the case), my best response is faithful perseverance.

Even in the depths, I didn’t quit preaching. I have delivered sermons that I knew were unworthy. I have left the pulpit frustrated and embarrassed. But I know the only thing worse than bad preaching is no preaching at all.

Copyright © 1997

    • More fromDoug Jackson
  • Doug Jackson

Pastors

Fred Smith

Leadership BooksMay 19, 2004

Every leader has to develop a plan for handling criticism, because criticism will come in any dynamic organization.
—Fred Smith

Having been the head of several organizations, I’ve had my share of critics. So when Leadership asked me to write about the care and feeding of critics, one word came to mind: arsenic.

Then I remembered three occasions when friends cared enough to confront me. At the moment, their criticism stung, but it has been a blessing for a lifetime. Criticism properly given and properly received accounts for much of the progress in a person or an organization.

Every leader has to develop a plan for handling criticism, because criticism will come in any dynamic organization. Capable people bring out friction and difference of opinion. In fact, if an organization is completely placid, I have found it’s generally not very productive.

Expect criticism whenever one or more of the following is true (unless, of course, the church is made up exclusively of other saints):

  • The change costs money.
  • The change causes inconvenience.
  • There is a shift in power or recognition.

You can also count on criticism when you have an “inspirational program”—one that comes suddenly, that sends you into an emotional high. Criticism will likely come from those who have not had that thrill.

Therefore, the leader must expect criticism much as an Olympian would expect and plan for pain. I listened to Bob Richards, the Olympic gold medalist, interview younger Olympic winners of the gold. He asked them, “What did you do when you began to hurt?”

None of these Olympians was surprised by the question; all had a specific way of handling the pain—some even prayed.

After the interviews, I asked Bob why he had asked about handling pain, and he said matter-of-factly, “You never win the gold without hurting.”

A leader must accept the challenge of criticism rather than let it become a threat. When criticism is a threat, a leader becomes defensive, but when it is viewed as a challenge, he or she can handle it constructively.

Let me share some of the positive approaches I have learned in handling criticism.

Classify your critics

Critics come in many shapes and sizes. Some are overt, and some are covert. Some hit you in the nose, and others stab you in the back. I have found classifying my critics helpful; it helps me anticipate what a person may say.

I’m sure you’ll have no trouble putting people’s names with these types (but be sure to classify according to people’s performance, not your personal feelings for them).

1. People who resent authority per se. These critics have never outgrown their disrespect for any authority but their own. As children they rebelled against their parents, as employees against their bosses, and as adults against leaders in whatever groups they joined. They adhere to the bumper-sticker slogan, “Question all authority.”

Such critics can be worked only in a loose harness. They must be given permission to rebel, which is almost an oxymoron … but practical.

2. People with natural leadership qualities who are not part of the majority. As a result, they become leaders of the minority, and they feel they have to be in opposition to serve their function. The more capable they are, the more difficult they are for a leader to deal with.

In my place of work, I looked for this type of critic. We even kept a list of the young, unofficial leaders—those whom other people listened to. Unless we utilized their natural leadership qualities constructively, these critics would become destructive. So I tried to move many of them into management, often with good results.

3.People who criticize to show their superior knowledge. Those who consider themselves good in a particular area will criticize others not so good. For example, a great dresser will criticize others’ clothes.

Sometimes these critics can be turned into coaches if they genuinely have an area of expertise. (More on how to do that later.)

4. “Natural howlers.” Most organizations have people who are like the hound dog lying on a cockleburr: he would rather howl than move. Every new idea becomes another cockleburr.

5. People who use criticism to exorcise internal conflicts. As a friend says of these critics, “They are a fight going somewhere to happen.” Generally their criticism is perpetual and petulant. In fact, most bitter criticism is personal, not organizational; it’s not over doctrine but ego.

I’ve found I can use such criticism as a way of identifying those who are hurting. A person dissatisfied with himself or herself will generally show that in some way, and as a pastor, knowing who is hurting goes with the job. Criticism might be an invitation to meet someone at a place of deep need.

6. Genuine, honest, interested critics. Finally, there are some who feel responsible for the welfare of the organization. I must treat these critics with respect, attention, and courtesy. They are not my enemies but, ultimately, my friends. Good critics are like buoys in the river: they keep you in the channel.

Sorting through your critics is not always easy. Sometimes we have to take the approach Solomon did: recommend cutting the baby to find out who is cause-oriented and who is vindictiveness-oriented.

Turn critics into coaches

A good critic and a good coach both see what is wrong. They see for different reasons, however. The critic sees the problem to point it out and establish his authority or expertise, while the coach sees the problem in order to work on it and improve it. I believe that with proper care most critics can be turned into coaches. What we normally think of as liabilities then become assets.

A few months after I became an executive with Genesco, I grew concerned about all the things that were wrong with the organization. I felt it my undiluted responsibility to talk about these to Maxey Jarman, the president, for fear the company might go out of business (regardless of the fact it had risen from a tiny start to become the fifth largest firm in the apparel industry). Fortified with my list, I went to see the president, even without an appointment.

Maxey was gracious and asked me to sit down and recite the list, which I started to do. About halfway through, he commented that I was right on target with several of my observations (immediately he became one of the smartest executives I’d ever met). When I finished the list, he asked me what I was doing for the next three weeks. He wanted me to take on, in addition to my regular job, writing a better way of doing everything I had criticized. As I walked toward the door, he gave me a faint smile and asked my permission to continue operating in the way we were, since it was the best he knew. I gave him my permission and headed for my office.

Three weeks later, I didn’t call Maxey—he called me. He wanted to see my write-up of better ways. I had to face him and say, “I’ve been here only a short time, and I don’t know a better way of doing everything I criticized.”

With unusual firmness for this Christian gentleman, he said, “Fred, we’re glad to have you with this company. We want your suggestions, even your criticisms. But don’t ever criticize another thing in this outfit until you’ve got a better way of doing it worked out on paper—and you’re willing to risk your reputation as an executive on its workability.”

In Tennessee we say, “He learnt me that,” and as far as I know, I did not make that mistake again. Maxey taught me an invaluable lesson: always to be positive when looking for the negative. I had been a critic; Maxey taught me how much better it is to be a coach.

The first step in turning a critic into a coach is to define his or her area of responsibility. I don’t believe in saying, “If you see something wrong, tell me about it.” That’s too general. That fails to define his or her area of responsibility.

I’m careful to use people at their point of strength, so they will be good coaches. For example, if someone has been critical about matters of finance, and I believe he or she genuinely knows about finance, I will invite that person to coach me in that area. Or I might invite someone to coach me in the areas of personal relationships or theology.

For many years I was alternate teacher of a large Sunday school class. I chose three people to be my coaches.

My wife, Mary Alice, was responsible to be sure that when we got in the car I had my notes and my glasses and that I had the right attitude. If I was negative or judgmental, my attitude soured the milk of the Word.

I also recruited an executive and a doctor, both of whom I respect intellectually and spiritually, to be responsible for telling me if the lesson hung together well, if it was practical and clear. I also wanted to know if there was “too much me and not enough He.”

These three coaches kept me on course.

When turning a critic into a coach, it’s important not to argue with the person’s honest opinion or to try to make him or her defend it. The only thing coaches are responsible for is to give me their considered opinion in a designated area. I’m not obligated to agree, but I must listen with appreciation.

Sometimes if a person is naturally critical, you can make him a constructive coach by letting him know. “I expect you to criticize in this particular area, but you are responsible for giving high-quality criticisms as an outgrowth of your talent.” That tells the person to refine their numerous criticisms into the best few and pass along only those.

When a coach criticizes you, after listening, get the person to repeat it and write down the specific criticisms.

If it’s a weak criticism, the more the person repeats it, the weaker it will get.

But if it’s a valid criticism, it will grow stronger, and you will have a record of it to act on.

Anticipate specific criticisms

A naval officer told me that one time the brass in Washington wanted to find a submarine captain who would volunteer for a dangerous experiment under the ice cap. They talked to one particularly capable captain, but he asked for permission to talk to his crew before he volunteered their services. He wanted to take on the mission, but he knew it was dangerous.

The captain took the offensive. He called the crew together and started listing on a sheet why they should tell the brass the mission was too dangerous. He put up the first criticism, and immediately a crew member spoke up, “That’s true, but not in every case.” Then the crew suggested how that objection could be overcome.

By the time the captain got through the list of negatives, his crew had convinced each other that the negatives could be overcome. The captain concluded, “I take it, then, that you want to attempt this mission.” They agreed, and they did the mission, successfully. The captain won their support because he anticipated their criticisms and defused them.

Some leaders bring a program into a group without proper planning, hoping to get an approving vote. They may get the vote, but criticism is likely to follow. People don’t like to be surprised: surprises give the impression of a manipulated agenda.

Every capable leader knows the “thought leaders” in a group and often talks to them ahead of time, enlisting their support or listening to their criticisms before a meeting. You can’t go into a meeting without knowing how the voting will go.

Assume criticism is logical

It’s usually best to assume that a person’s criticism is sincere. Given the base from which the person is working, the criticism will be entirely logical. The key is to understand where the person is coming from.

For example, my wife criticizes my sports-car style of driving, because her premise is, “Anybody who drives like that will eventually have a wreck.” With that base, her criticism of my driving is entirely logical. My perspective is different, but to me just as logical: “The more I drive like this, the more experience I get, and the less likely I am to have a wreck.”

In church votes on finances, for example, a business executive may feel that the economy is going down and that church debt is a dangerous thing. Another business leader in the church may have an entirely different base: inflation is on the way, and therefore, church debt is sensible. Another person may hold a theological opinion that churches should never go into debt.

Thus, to work with people’s criticisms, we must know their deep beliefs, biases, experiences, theological positions, and especially their ego levels. There’s generally a majority and minority group on any board (just as there is in the legislature), and someone in the minority will generally be an obstructionist simply by virtue of his or her position.

When you understand the person’s internal logic, you can show respect for the criticism without being namby-pamby.

Limit the criticism you’ll accept

A leader must know how to limit the criticism he or she accepts. I learned this from a day laborer who wanted to be a success in life. Many years ago he spent the day with me in Chicago and went over a simple plan he had written out, and he gave me a copy.

Recently I read in the newspaper that this man had contributed $6 million to higher education. I immediately went back over the points of his program and saw how he had followed them so successfully. One of his points was, “I will accept criticism only from someone who has something to gain from my success.” To him, those people were his family, his superiors, and his friends. By limiting his acceptable criticism, he no doubt missed some that might have been helpful, but he missed a great deal that would have been harmful. As he told me, “People think you ought to keep an open mind, but if you keep it too open, people throw garbage in.”

Many times I have let one critical person keep me from recognizing the strength of the hundred who are in agreement. When I’m speaking, for example, if I sense a critical person, he or she can distract me.

I’ve learned not to over-credit criticism. It’s possible to turn a cold into a cancer. Some criticisms sting more than they damage, and every bee sting is not a snake bite. Remember the old philosophical adage, “This, too, shall pass.”

Those of us who have known Billy Graham for many years have admired the way he has not answered his critics. Sometimes if a racehorse pays too much attention to a horsefly, it makes the fly too important. Some people’s only taste of success is the bite they take out of someone whom they perceive is doing more than they are.

It’s helpful to have a friend or two who can help you sort the minor criticisms from the major ones. Then you can treat minor criticisms in a minor way—such as ignore them. But you can also take seriously major criticisms that will grow and can’t be ignored. Honest people with a fresh perspective can help you recognize what is a deep and powerful current and what is just a surface wave.

One way I limit the criticism I accept is to refuse any that distracts from the organization’s main purpose.

Bill Waugh, owner of a restaurant chain, was asked to become chairman of The Salvation Army. He chose as his theme “Keep the main thing the main thing.” By that he meant, “Keep the purpose of the organization clearly in mind and do not get diverted from it.”

Make constructive criticism part of the culture

Since criticism is going to come, it pays to make constructive criticism a part of the church culture. Every well-led organization needs to have an established, stated, understood, and agreed-upon culture. Why not make it part of the ongoing definition of the organization that criticism, when offered constructively, is welcomed.

For this to happen, the people must hear you as leader—over and over and in different ways—say you value it.

The statement can come in the form of a sermon, for example. David’s life would not have turned around if it had not been for Nathan. That’s an excellent passage to point out the value of a loyal opposition. Lift up the responsibility of people to keep leaders from serious mistakes, to make sure we look at alternative solutions, and to keep us conscious of our responsibilities rather than our rights.

Often I’ve heard a capable speaker say on a sensitive point, “Now here’s something that I haven’t always believed—in fact, I used to oppose it vehemently. But some people have helped me rethink this position.” Such a speaker is making constructive criticism acceptable.

List the times that critics have been helpful to you. After all, even the mule was helpful to the prophet. Then, if you preach about criticism, you can illustrate from your list the type of criticism that is appreciated.

Give strokes for good criticism. In a meeting, you might say, “You are the lighthouse that will keep us off the rocks.” Or point out that a constructive critic is the tail to the kite: the kite may feel it’s a tremendous drag, but the kite would dart all over without it.

My mentor, Maxey Jarman, felt that every organization needed a perceptive and persistent cockleburr. Lou was a great one. Once we were developing a golf course for employees. As usual, he saw the other side and said we should be developing fishing facilities because so many more employees fished than played golf. As a side remark, I told him, “I don’t like to fish, because I never seem to catch any.”

He replied, “I can understand that, because in order to catch anything you have to be smarter than it.”

Lou was a valuable member of the team, though at times irritating. He kept us from “slumber in Zion.” Maxey didn’t squelch that quality but instead encouraged Lou to use it responsibly for the common good.

If we make constructive criticism an accepted part of the culture, we won’t increase the amount of criticism; instead, we will channel the existing criticism so that it accomplishes something valuable.

Don’t turn criticism into a personal contest

Some leaders have gotten sidetracked into depending on their popularity for agreement. This can later develop into a contest between those who are for the leader and those who are against the leader. Making your popularity the issue gives the opposition a firm base from which to work. So often we make criticism into a personal contest, when, if left alone, it will die of its own lack of meaning.

My dear late father was constantly in fights: first, because he thought he was right, and then, because he thought that right was always in a fight. Every opposition was an attack of the devil. Too often, the purification of the faith is much more an ego matter than a spiritual one.

Recently, I led a leadership retreat with a successful retiring pastor. I asked him about the early days of his ministry, and he told me that as a seminary student he offered $100 to several leading pastors to simply let him sit and ask them some questions. (I don’t think a single one refused the interview, though I don’t think they took the money.)

One of his questions was, “How do you handle critics?”

Each one had a plan that varied greatly according to the individual. One had the spirit of inquisition: “Get them out.” That is one way, but I doubt it’s the Christian way. Critics are not heretics, and we can’t take the position that wrong has no rights.

In one church that was having difficulty, for example, the pastor determined he was not going to take sides on the theological question at hand. He told the people he had been called to be their pastor, not to dictate their policies. The lay people worked out the matter amicably, and the pastor ended up with little criticism.

Learn to lose a battle in order to win a war

When Charlton Heston was asked how he enjoyed such a long marriage, he gave credit to “those three little words”—not the ones we think of, but “I was wrong.”

I have found I can sometimes make a friend of a critic by adding three more words as a preface: “You are right … I was wrong.”

I try to look on every reasonable criticism as a chance to review my position. It just might be that I am wrong. While the Scripture might be inerrant, those of us who lead are not infallible. I had a friend who often confessed that he had been wrong in the past, but I could never get him to admit to being wrong in the present.

It helps me a little bit, when I’m being criticized, just to realize that I, too, have done some criticizing in the past that was dead wrong. Through the years I have developed a “humility list” of criticisms I made of situations, programs, investments, and people that turned out to be totally wrong.

I still blush when I think how cocksure I was that the “Tiger in the Tank” advertising program wouldn’t work. I couldn’t believe people would hang miniature tiger tails out of their gas tanks. Yet that program went down as one of the longest and most successful advertising campaigns ever.

In the give-and-take of criticism, it’s a warning sign when we fail to see humor in the situation. In the longest study of successful executives done by Harvard, one of the four qualities they identified in these leaders was a sense of humor. There are many times in leadership when we can either laugh or develop high blood pressure, and the laughing keeps us human.

Once I was coming out of the factory during a snowstorm, and several of the employees were standing at the door waiting for their rides. As I passed them and started down the steps I said, “God put skis on me,” referring to my size-fifteen shoes. After I had gone down a couple of steps, I heard one of the employees say, “And from where I’m standing, he gave you a pillow to fall on, too.”

All I could do was turn around, smile, and say, “You’re so right, my friend.”

Don’t take revenge

It’s difficult to stay objective about critics. Sometimes we feel they’re a needle in a balloon factory. Still, leaders must take a firm stand without a vindictive spirit.

If someone criticizes you publicly, you can use your critic to show that you’re a reasonable person. “I know that some people here whom I admire the most will be the first to be against this idea. If I didn’t think they were fair-minded enough to consider the things that I have considered and to realize that I have thought long and hard about this, then I would have been skeptical about proposing the idea myself.”

It’s so important to personify tolerance and avoid all retribution. “‘Vengeance is mine,’ says the Lord.” That means, for example, not using the pulpit to answer your critics; in doing so, you are riding a horse and hitting somebody who’s walking.

We must also be careful to avoid answering critics in our public prayers. Prayers are directed to God, not to the board.

Gerry-rigging a meeting to have certain questions asked—to me—is unethical. So is promising answers and then not giving any in hopes the issue will die.

Effectual prayer is one of the appropriate armaments against criticism. A dear friend was being emotionally crucified by his critics. These people had profited from him and owed him gratitude rather than criticism, but still they bitterly fought him.

When he died, I found a prayer list in his Bible. At the top of his list were these simple yet powerful words: “Pray for those who are lying about me.”

Copyright © 1997

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