Pastors
Richard Lewis
Missionary mail that ministers
- View Issue
- Subscribe
- Give a Gift
- Archives
To a missionary, mail is one of life’s treasures. If you were ever in the military and remember standing in the rain for mail call, you know what a letter from home can mean. It’s the same with missionaries. Mail can minister-if it’s thoughtfully sent. In the seven years our family has been in Kenya, some things have passed through our mailbox that meant much to us.
Reading Material: What magazines do you read? Would a missionary enjoy those magazines also? From time to time a fellow in the States air-mails me the latest issue of Sports Illustrated. Because air-mail postage is so expensive, he can’t do it often, but it’s a nice gesture when he does. It makes us feel like someone cares.
How about comic books for the kids, Good Housekeeping for the wife? Do you enjoy a subscription to LEADERSHIP? Do you think a missionary would? Would a missionary’s wife enjoy a subscription to Today’s Christian Woman or Partnership? Would the kids enjoy receiving Campus Life? What are their hobbies? Maybe they would like Mechanix Illustrated, Computer Digest, or Creative Crafts.
Recently a pastor sent me a book. He wrote, “I enjoyed this book; it was a blessing to my life. I thought I’d share it with you.” What thoughtfulness!
Cassettes: I had been in a mud hut for a week teaching national pastors. One morning, discouraged and a little lonely, I turned on a music tape I had just received from a pastor friend. The first song was “Someone Is Praying for You,” by Praise. I can’t begin to describe what that meant to me that morning.
What type of music do you enjoy? Do you think a missionary might enjoy the same? Perhaps they like classics, show music, country and western, or pop. Recently a church surprised my daughter with her own cassette recorder and some tapes.
Several pastors send a copy of their church services on tape. I have also received teaching tapes on leadership principles, finances, and motivational material. These are helpful to keep a missionary from going dry.
One year someone sent me the World Series on cassette, commercials included. As I drove my truck in the desert, I listened to Vin Scully’s play-by-play. It made a four-hour journey in 100-degree heat almost enjoyable.
Video: Sitting in his home in Odessa, Texas, watching a movie on video, Rev. Jerry Thorpe turned to me and asked, “Lewis, if our church bought you a video machine, could you use it?”
“We sure could!” I answered.
Video players are difficult to get into some countries, but I don’t know of a better morale booster. My family enjoys worshiping the Lord in English. After being in African churches, preaching in Swahili, it’s nice to watch a video-taped American worship service. Even Bible teaching courses are available on video.
Practicality aside, my wife is a movie buff, my kids are cartoon buffs, and old dad is a news and sports buff.
I realize some people feel old movies and cartoons don’t have anything to do with the Lord’s work, but if isolation is harmful to missionaries’ morale, perhaps a little Americana might be of some practical use. We won’t know till we get to heaven, but perhaps Paul would have enjoyed the Olympics, and Livingstone would have enjoyed a little cricket if they had been able to watch it via video.
Packages: The Women’s Missionary Society of Central Baptist Church in Tyler, Texas, are pros when it comes to sending packages to missionaries.
At their meetings they bring empty milk cartons and pack them with little items not available in many parts of the world. We have received such precious American products as KoolAid, cake mixes, chocolate chips, coconut, balloons, artificial sweetener, and pocket calendars. That may not sound very exciting to you, but when you’re 10,000 miles from the land of plenty, those are neat items to receive.
They aren’t expensive; the value of the contents never exceeds five dollars. They send the packages surface mail, so postage is less than two dollars.
Recently we received a box from another church. They had no idea what was available here or what we could really use, so their box was a hodgepodge of-well, junk! Soap, toothpaste, used pencils, combs, and used yarn. As much as we appreciated the thought, it looked as though they had cleaned out the closet.
The key is knowing what missionaries like to receive. Write and ask what suggestions they have.
Clothes: In a Third World country like ours, many people still wear very little clothing. We work among two backward tribes. Several churches in America regularly send us used clothing for our Christians, which is well received by the Africans. If you pack well and use surface mail, you can provide clothes for thirty naked kids for about twenty-two dollars. Our men especially like to receive trousers; the women enjoy dresses and skirts.
These are just some things we have received. I would encourage churches getting involved in this ministry to correspond with their missionary first. In some countries, customs regulations are very strict. Needs are also different. Some missionaries might not want chocolate chips but have need for soap and used pencils.
Not everyone can go to a mission field. But if you believe in world evangelism and want to do something more personal than a mission offering, the mailbag ministry is a way to “go into all the world.”
Richard Lewis is a missionary in Kitale, Kenya.
Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
- More fromRichard Lewis
- Church Finances
- Education
- Giving
- Media
- Music
- Resources
Pastors
Marshall Shelley and Dean Merrill
- View Issue
- Subscribe
- Give a Gift
- Archives
At the age of forty-seven, Roy Oswald has already endured more career shifts than many people do in a lifetime.
A Lutheran pastor for four years in Kingston, Ontario, he then became a denominational youth worker in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1966. From there he became a synod executive, working in leadership development.
After personal crises cost him his marriage and his job, he accepted a position as director of training at the Metropolitan Ecumenical Training Center in Washington, D.C., where the spiritual guidance of executive director Tilden Edwards helped Oswald rebuild his life.
Since 1977, Oswald has been director of training and field studies at Washington's Alban Institute, which provides resources for clergy and congregations. Not only does he know the upheaval of transition personally, but it's now the object of his professional research.
LEADERSHIP editors Marshall Shelley and Dean Merrill asked him to map out the pastor's passages.
A lot has been written about passages or seasons of adult life. Are there also predictable stages in a pastor's career?
Definitely, especially at the beginning. The transition from seminary to first parish is usually a major cultural shock. The relocation from one parish to another is also dramatic.
After that, the transitions are more internal-the adult life crises, for instance. Another occurs when a pastor moves to a large parish and becomes a virtual corporate manager. Still another happens in a long pastorate, where a shift in thinking is required in order to thrive over the long haul.
Then retirement, naturally, is a big one.
Let's take them one at a time. What are the pressure points in entering the first pastorate?
The biggest is role and authority. Even if pastors had an internship in seminary, they're not ready to be the resident religious authority-the community holy man or holy woman. It throws them for a loop, because it can't be learned in an academic setting.
Some people have suggested that seminary should be four years of nothing but role clarity-the rest will come easy. The role can't be learned conceptually. You have to stand in the middle of the community and handle all the transactions coming at you.
Is it possible to be a good pastor in your twenties?
Wow. I'm just now understanding the kind of spiritual depth necessary to be a pastor. That makes me question whether I had much to offer when I first got out of seminary.
Are we asking the impossible of young pastors? Should we require them, like presidents of the United States, to be thirty-five years old?
Some denominations do encourage second-career pastors. Yet how else do you get pastoral maturity unless you start, make mistakes, and learn from them?
One of the evidences of the Holy Spirit's working is that congregations are forgiving and able to nurture and help us learn. It's surprising the authority they confer on even the young and inexperienced.
Does being an associate pastor help or hinder the process of learning the authority role?
It depends on the mentor. If your senior pastor is a good model, you need to follow that person around-into hospital rooms, in counseling sessions and do lots of watching and asking, "Why did you do that?" Seminary, you see, comes in separate pieces-theology, Bible, history-and you're expected to integrate. But you can't until you see somebody actually mixing it into a lifestyle and ministry that works.
If your senior pastor isn't a good model, you'll have to find one elsewhere, preferably among your colleagues. But even someone in the next town would work.
How much time should you ask for?
One day a month would be fine-a whole day spent together, concluding with time to debrief so you can ask questions.
How do you find a good mentor? What do you look for?
Some denominations try to match up names. That doesn't work. Carl Rogers's research shows there are limits to what you will learn from someone you don't like. Personal respect-"chemistry"-is a crucial factor. So you should look for a mentor with a style of ministry you'd like to emulate.
Did you have a mentor in your first four years in Kingston?
No, and that was traumatic. A mentor would have helped greatly, but I wasn't prepared even to think in those terms. I came out of seminary thinking I was complete, wholly trained, and adequate. I felt I needed to face issues myself.
Later in my career, when I had good mentors, I realized how important they were.
How would a mentor have helped?
I spent 20 percent of my ministry trying to cure one woman, clearly neurotic, who didn't want to be cured. I was naive, totally blind to the fact that she was sexually attracted and only wanted to spend time with me. A mentor could have given me clarity.
Another example: I was so turned on by systematic theology in seminary that I thought all I needed was to begin teaching that in church. When I did . . . and the Kingdom didn't come in . . . I said, "Now what?" The whole spiral of self-doubt began. A mentor would have helped.
You mentioned a second passage-moving from one parish to another. What are the important elements here?
Learning to say good-by. Our research on termination styles of clergy shows they are typically bad, not allowing adequate opportunity for people to express their feelings, to say what this pastor has meant. Maybe pastors feel it's maudlin. Usually, however, they slip off into the night without really saying good-by, and that can undercut everything they've done up till then. People may question whether the pastor really cared for them at all.
How do you say a good farewell? One to one? You obviously can't go out to dinner with five hundred people.
We tell clergy to make a list of the people closest to them-probably between a dozen and twenty names-people who ought to get a visit because they need the closure, and you do too.
There's another list of people who should at least get a phone call. Then there are the significant groups you've worked with, and you need to spend an evening with them.
What do you talk about?
The good-bys we detest are the ones where all is sweetness and light. If you talk only about the good things, you leave knowing that wasn't reality.
But if you can agree on what was good and what wasn't good about this relationship, and celebrate that, then you're free to move on to another part of life. When those things aren't surfaced and celebrated, the unresolved tensions linger for years.
It's up to the pastor to initiate this. Most laity won't bring up negatives unless you give them permission.
Should any of this be shared in public?
Yes. In the final sermon, at the farewell party, or somewhere, you need to share what it's like to be their religious authority. That doesn't mean backing up the truck and dumping on them. But this is a teachable moment when the congregation can learn something about its corporate identity- how it comes across to a pastor. People need to know their strengths and what makes them hard to live with.
How long should you be a lame duck?
Closure takes a minimum of two or three months. In one sense, you are a lame duck, but that's good. You can stop programming and bolstering your favorite activities. Your task now is closure, and that takes time, especially if you're well liked. People's initial reaction is shock and denial. They can't say good-by on the spot. There's a subtle withdrawal, and then they come back. This can't be done in two weeks.
Good closure prevents lots of problems. Pastors don't realize that in order to start well in a new parish, they must say good-by to the old parish.
Why? How does unfinished business at the old parish affect your new ministry?
It can get you into trouble. When I left St. Mark's in Kingston, part of me genuinely wanted to try youth work, but part of me was also deeply hurt by having to leave. I didn't close well. I spent most of my time trying to prop up my programs and see that they would continue after I left.
When I arrived in Harrisburg, I had lots of unexpressed emotion. I took out that unresolved anger on my job. I became a radical. Those were the days of the Vietnam War and the race issue, and youth work was an excellent opportunity to beat up on people. If you were for kids, you were against adults. I was more biting, cynical, and controversial than I needed to be.
Eight years later, I shaved my beard and put on a three-piece suit, but I couldn't escape my radical image. I left that job as a broken person.
How you come across in the first twelve months often determines your effectiveness for your entire ministry. Communication patterns, roles, and expectations all get set. If you come in with anger, that will create a style you'll be locked into for years.
If you close well, you can get on with life, put to rest one chapter, and begin another. Both congregation and clergy feel better about themselves, and they can reach out in ministry sooner without emotional scars.
Give us an example of someone who closed well.
A friend of mine in a church near Washington recently accepted a call from Michigan. Before he left, we sat down with a tape recorder, and I asked him what was good about this ministry, what had been painful, and what things he was having to let go of. Feelings came out in that exit interview that surprised even him.
We distributed the transcript of that interview to the church board. His candid comments encouraged them to be candid, too. When he visited the key people personally, it set a healthy atmosphere.
Just before his departure, the congregation held a roast in his honor. With humor, drama, and songs, they recalled his faux pas-he was a terrible administrator, never on time, often scatterbrained. All this came out, but the tone was affirming: "It was worth it because you're a loving person, and we're going to miss you."
You mentioned the first twelve months in a parish are crucial. How can new pastors make sure they're setting good patterns?
The task of the first twelve months is to be a lover and a historian-to fully understand what has taken place here and to learn to love these people before making changes.
Most pastors arrive and make immediate changes, which says to the people, "You don't understand Christianity. I'm the expert, and you need to do it my way." It's an act of rejection, almost hostility. It undercuts lay ministry.
Some clergy cook their goose right away by too many immediate changes, especially in worship.
I know one young woman who started pastoring in a small town, and she thought it ridiculous that the pulpit Bible was a huge King James, which didn't leave room for her notes. So she put it away. The next week it appeared back on the pulpit with a note: "This Bible belongs on the pulpit. (Signed) The Management." She refused to give in and removed the Bible again. She began having major problems in that congregation, largely because she couldn't recognize what was valuable to those people.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer talks about "honoring the Christ that is present in the community," and that means discovering how the Holy Spirit has already been working. A congregation may not be doing things the way you think they should, but something is happening.
It'll take at least twelve months to find out where the power is, build credibility for yourself, and show the people you care about them.
You're saying beware of taking too much initiative early, and yet a few minutes ago you said the young pastor's biggest battle is establishing authority. How does a pastor demonstrate authority while not making changes?
That's quite a dance, isn't it? Making changes isn't the only way to gain authority. The authority that's needed comes from one's own credibility and caring. You clearly diminish your authority by not honoring what's there.
Is there a "honeymoon" with a new congregation?
That's a deceptive term. I prefer to call it a period of suspended judgment. It feels like a honeymoon, because people withhold criticism to give the new pastor a chance. But they're sizing you up. In one sense, they're giving you enough rope to hang yourself.
What then do you want to accomplish while the wolves are still at bay?
In the first twelve months, you need to establish personal authenticity. People try to see if you're genuine. They'll listen to your sermons, observe your life, and see if your head and heart are together. They want to know if you can be trusted with the deeper issues of life.
What can you do to help that happen?
Be aware that you're being tested with seemingly insignificant issues. Word spreads fast about how you manage things and whether you can be trusted.
What kinds of things are people watching for?
How you deal with chronic dependents is one. You can get sucked into spending too much time with them, like I did, and lose your credibility. People will like you for taking these dependents off their hands (after all, they had to deal with these types before you came), but they won't respect you if needy people are able to wrap you around their fingers. Somehow you've got to say no at the right time in the right way.
Other people will try maneuvering into an influential relationship with you. You've got to set boundaries, and that sometimes means conflict.
Perhaps the most traumatic transition is resignation. In some situations, of course, the actual decision is out of a pastor's hands-the denomination reassigns or the church fires. But where pastors do have a say, when should they resign, and when should they fight to the bitter end?
The history of the congregation is an important factor. If a church has perpetually solved its problems by getting rid of leadership, its welfare will not be served by pushing yet another pastor out. That just repeats the negative cycle. Sometimes clergy need to hang in there with the support of their denomination.
What about cases when you're not under heat, when no petitions are circulating? When should you stay, and when is it time to go?
That's a complicated problem, because the longer you're in a church, the harder it is to get accurate feedback. People say, "I can't be honest with Pastor Joe about his weaknesses. He sat with my mother when she was dying-I could never thank him enough. … " The more people trust him as an individual, the harder time they have talking about his professional inadequacies. And yet, pastors need that information to make decisions about resigning or changing their ministries.
How do you get that information out of reluctant parishioners?
They'll evaluate honestly when they know the comments will be handled well-likely when there's a professional around. They'll risk candor if someone with authority, integrity, and skill is available to help them if they get in trouble.
Once you get an honest evaluation, then you and the congregation must decide together the direction of the church and the cluster of skills needed to move on. Pastors must honestly decide if they have the necessary skills and energy. Some pastors go to seed because the church is too comfortable; they're not excited anymore. I call it "going native"-they've become like everyone else, and they're not willing to confront the congregation on where it needs to grow.
There needs to be a little tension. If things are too comfortable, you've got folk religion.
Suppose you miss all the warning signals-and are asked to leave. What happens to you at that point? And how do you recover?
Fired pastors are deeply wounded. Often a downward spiral begins. The divorce rate among clergy being fired is enormous. They may need counseling. They probably have been neglecting their own growth. They probably need to face some pretty painful things to turn it around. Despite the emotional shock, a pastor must seek an objective answer to the question "Do I still have a valid ministry?"
Admittedly, sometimes pastors are victims of scapegoating. Clergy may be more vulnerable to that than other professions. If the Sunday school isn't growing, if the church isn't moving, some churches assume removing the pastor will solve the problem. But even with scapegoating, pastors can learn something about what they did wrong.
Do you seek closure when you've been fired?
Absolutely. Even with the people who signed the petition against you. You can learn a lot by seeing these people and asking, "Where did this relationship get off track?" and "I'd like you to hear my point of view before I go."
And every pastor has supporters, too. These people will be upset over what the congregation did, and the pastor needs to get closure with these friends.
You mentioned internal transitions that pastors face. Describe some of these.
According to Daniel Levinson, adult life crises for males happen at the decades, give or take a few years, and the crisis at age forty is the most traumatic. These crises come when people realize their finitude-I'm forty, and I've only got half my life left. How do I want to spend it?-which catapults them into making drastic changes.
They look back and see what they're not getting out of life. Usually it has to do with marriage or work. Many get divorces. Others find their marriage relationship changes. Attitudes toward work shift dramatically.
When clergy do this, it shakes the congregation. They've had a staid ministry, and all of a sudden, they've got a hippie on their hands. Or the pastor drops out, or starts a second career.
So around age forty, most people find something has to give-or else they need outside help.
Parish ministry is especially hazardous to marriages. Why? Because the very commodities essential to marriage are the same commodities necessary to pastor: listening, giving, and caring.
Someone once defined love as "giving a person your full attention." That takes a lot of energy. When you come home from giving full attention to parishioners, and your spouse says, "Honey, we need to discuss something here," you haven't got the energy. The necessary ingredient for a good marriage has been exhausted.
The marriages of ministers require special attention; sometimes that means cutting back on the ministry.
Let's talk about another transition. Not so long ago, the first stop out of seminary was usually a rural church. Today it's more often a staff position in a large church. Describe the transition from associate to senior pastor.
I recently read that 80 percent of seminarians come from large churches, and yet 80 percent of the churches are small churches. And I don't think we fully understand how different large-church ministry is from small-church ministry.
As Lyle Schaller says, "A large church wants a pastor who leads them; a small church wants a pastor they can lead." Often the only way small churches have survived is by ignoring their pastors. When they've had a series of two- or three-year pastorates, there's no way they could take those pastors seriously.
Taking large-church associates and placing them in small churches sets up a cross-cultural barrier as tough as any foreign mission field. Committees and programs are the assumed structure of a large church, but they don't work in a small church, which is a unified system that makes decisions as a whole. Or perhaps they're patriarchal-matriarchal churches, where two or three key figures make all the decisions. Unless pastors recognize that and work with the key figures, their ministry is doomed.
In some ways, a small church is almost a tribal ministry, isn't it? If you win the chiefs, you've won the followers.
You got it.
Tell us about the final transition-approaching retirement.
The ten years between age fifty-five and sixty-five are the period of most discouragement, lethargy, and burnout for many pastors. They know they're not going to be bishop, they begin seeing colleagues die, they feel stuck. Many churches say they don't want a pastor over fifty-five.
Often these pastors don't know what else they can do; they're just hanging on. And hanging on for ten years is devastating to a parish.
The problem is that they've not developed interests in anything but the church. Most clergy have no idea what they'll do after retirement-they're sitting ducks for a bad transition.
When they retire from being an authority and become a nobody, it hits them psychologically. That vulnerability often draws them back to pastoral acts in their church, and nothing is worse for the new pastor. It's intoxicating to be asked to do a wedding for people "who need you," but you mess up the credibility of the new minister.
What are some other directions a retired pastor can go?
Interim pastorates are an emerging profession. Experienced, credible people who can move into a crisis situation for six to eighteen months can do some very effective work.
Not every church with an empty pulpit needs an interim. But denominational executives need a handful of effective interims for certain situations. A congregation that's fired its pastor, for instance, is in no position to call someone until it has healed for eighteen months or so.
Another example is after a long pastorate. A church's identity has been so tied to that pastor, it needs an interim so it can come to terms with its own identity. Yet another instance is where there has been rapid turnover or a church split. All of these could use an interim for a couple of years.
What are some other options for those approaching retirement?
Some do counseling, others oversee training programs, and still others become volunteer administrators of homes or large churches. Some focus on visitation.
The question of retirement options can't be asked at age sixty-five. It demands planning. Arthur Bell, who recently retired as president of Ministers Life, has for the past ten years been managing a small company on the side that builds log houses. When he retired, he had something to go to.
When should a pastor start planning for retirement?
Middle forties. You need to think about where you're going to live, what the new challenge will be, and what will keep you going. That's got to be a corporate decision with a spouse, because two people will be moving.
As pastors start their careers and look ahead to all these transitions they're likely to face, what maintains emotional and spiritual health? How can you prevent transition shock?
Spiritual depth makes the difference through all the transitions. The difficulty is that we're not taught how to keep ourselves alive spiritually. In seminary, with chapel and classes every day, we don't learn the disciplines we need to overcome the vulnerability and emptiness we face when we're alone.
The difference between seminary religion and parish religion is greater than the difference between denominations. When we graduate, we want to push seminary religion on parishes-the great singing, the thoughtful liturgy, the sense of community. But we haven't developed an authentic spirituality to carry us over the long haul.
The only way to negotiate the transitions is with a deep sense that God cares for me, and that I am nurtured by grace.
Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
Pastors
Ed Gouedy
- View Issue
- Subscribe
- Give a Gift
- Archives
It’s now been a year since I came to this church, and nearly two since my predecessor left.
It’s been a good year. Attendance and giving have increased (following trends already in motion); the men’s group shows encouraging signs of life; we’re expanding our weekday program from half days to full days. And yesterday, one long-time member said she senses an attitude of caring here the likes of which she can’t remember. She even said it publicly.
Then there’s what happened at last month’s fish fry. The emcee noted I had just bought a car shortly after a rather strident sermon on pledges and tithing. The audience was delighted. Carl Dudley of McCormick Seminary says you’re accepted “when they start to tell stories on you.” By the end of the evening, I could have used a little less acceptance.
One of God’s blessings here has been a predecessor who has deliberately not “come back.” Jim, if you’re reading this from your new perch, know that I am grateful.
If a pastorate is like a marriage, then relocation is something like divorce. And if things have been going well (as they were with Jim), the congregation left behind often feels the pain of an abandoned spouse, and the aftershocks include any of the stages of grief.
Here, for instance, one family who had suffered through an agonizing death showed great anger at being left in the middle of the struggle. In others, denial showed up in one of two forms. Some insisted the old was gone, the new had come, and there was no sense looking back. They shut the door on the memories of Jim, claiming it would be easier for us all.
I made it clear that Jim’s memory did not intimidate me and, in fact, mattered a great deal. Most who wanted to “forget Jim” were only trying to protect me. When they saw nothing needed protecting, we could get on with the real new beginning, which included the past.
Another variation of denial, though, has proved more difficult. It shows itself in the member who not only remembers “how Jim did it” but who calls him once a week “just to chat.”
We ministers have to expect some of that. The pastor who followed me back in New Orleans has faced it, too; for several months, I got calls asking for pastoral advice and insight on church matters.
Clergy-parish relationships are a strange mix. On the one hand, clergy are surrogate parents: we tell our folk right from wrong, the true meaning of life, comfort them when the situation warrants, and bless their celebrations. In short, we become God’s stand-in.
To complicate things, we also serve as surrogate children/siblings. In us, older members see many of the traits they hoped for in their children. One of my former officers once told me, as we went to lunch, that of course he would get the check; after all, he was old enough to be my father, or even my grandfather. Others talk to us as they might to brothers or sisters. None of these relationships automatically ends just because the moving van rumbles over the horizon.
Ideally, they metamorphose into once-close-but-now-distant friendships. Most of them do. But some need help to make the shift. In fact, it is predictable that some former parishioners will continue to seek pastoral attention as surely as Faye Furillo on Hill Street Blues keeps popping in at her ex-husband’s precinct office.
How do we handle that? Carefully, gently, remembering that while those problems once laid claim on our lives, they now belong to someone else, even if the new pastor has yet to arrive.
And we handle it with pain. When I got word that the flock I left wanted to blow a lot of money on an unnecessary capital expense, I could hardly contain myself. I wanted to respond pastorally when the president of the women’s group died. The idea of performing a friend’s wedding made my mouth water, even though I knew I could not.
I had to stay out of things.
Somewhere in the Midwest, according to Lyle Schaller, a pastor retired after years in a parish and stayed in town. When his successor came, board meetings continued on the first Monday of every month at 7:30.
It was not until several months had passed that the new minister learned quite by accident that board members were gathering in the former pastor’s home that same night at 6:30. Those meetings, of course, were “just a time of fellowship.”
Would you like to guess which meeting was the real board meeting?
Or, take the case of a minister who had been serving a church for about a year when some discussion arose about the physical plant. When she asked about the architectural drawings, her board chair responded, “Dan’s got them,” referring to the former minister, who had been gone nearly three years. Ellen, the pastor, wondered why the church would leave the plans with a minister now some eighty miles away.
“He always takes care of those things,” came the reply. Notice the present tense.
When a pastor keeps the old ties after moving, bad things happen, no matter what the intent. Obviously, the authority of the next minister is undermined. If the former pastor comes back for weddings or funerals, it leads the new pastor to the almost inescapable conclusion of being unworthy to handle the “important” pastoral duties.
It also confuses everyone: the new pastor about his or her role, the people of the church about who to turn to, the former minister about his or her real task (the new work), and the new church-if it knows-about the whole situation.
I’m not suggesting that phone calls, Christmas cards, and even occasional visits are in and of themselves destructive. But we need to take care that they remain positive.
One of our families recently spent a weekend with Jim and his family; they chose to rendezvous at a resort about 100 miles from here. When we went back to New Orleans for a visit, we stayed with non-church friends across the river and limited our contact with former parishioners. Surprisingly little discussion about the former church occurred, except for updates on people we could not see.
It is possible to maintain friendships over the years. The trick is to do so without submarining the work of the people who follow us.
-Ed Gouedy
First Presbyterian Church
Alexander City, Alabama
Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
- More fromEd Gouedy
- Change
- Relationships
Pastors
Em Griffin
An inside look at the church’s most clandestine operation — the pastoral search.
- View Issue
- Subscribe
- Give a Gift
- Archives
No two pulpit committees function alike. Some generate mounds of paperwork; others rely mainly on memory. Some view their work as essentially a talent search. Some spend long hours on their knees seeking divine direction. Some push through the process as quickly as possible (and sometimes regret it), while others leave no stone unturned.
The following chronicle includes almost all the elements of finding a new pastor. Some readers will question spending this much time (twenty-six months) on the process. LEADERSHIP’S point in publishing it is not to say, “This is the way to do it,” but rather to showcase the various factors and procedures, giving other churches a planning guide for when a vacancy occurs.
A song in the play Fiddler on the Roof starts out: “Matchmaker, Matchmaker, make me a match; find me a find, catch me a catch.”
More than two years ago, I stood with fourteen others and received a charge from our congregation to do just that. We were to discover the most qualified and eligible suitor, convince him he couldn’t possibly be happy without us, and then deliver him already in tuxedo to the congregation. Of course we were to proceed every step of the way with full assurance that God was smiling on our efforts.
Twenty-six months later I stood with tears streaming down my cheeks as our new pastor and his wife walked down the sanctuary aisle to the thunderous applause of a membership that had voted 311-0 to consummate the marriage.
Those were tears of joy. I am convinced God was not only pleased with the decision but had nudged us in that direction.
Those were also tears of relief. I had spent over six hundred hours in the process-the equivalent of seventy-five eight-hour work days. That includes reading dossiers, discussing them, listening to taped sermons every Tuesday night for three hours, calling references, traveling to hear pastors in their home churches, and interviewing candidates during extended meals. The weekends, however, were the killers. I made eight overnight trips to see people on their turf and was involved in an equal number of visits when they came to ours.
And they were tears of sadness. I will miss this group. During the life of the Pastoral Nominating Committee (PNC), fifteen disparate-and sometimes desperate-individuals became organically bonded to one another. We and our families experienced the evolution of life together, including birth, death, falling in love, loss of job, retirement, honors and promotions, home buying, alcoholism, attempted suicide, marriage, and finding faith.
We also learned much about how to search for a pastor. We learned even more how not to do it.
The Way We Were
One crucial factor was beyond our control. The size and makeup of the PNC was set by an ad hoc selection panel, later confirmed by the membership. We had to live with each other’s strengths and foibles for the duration. There were times when we were amazed at our collective wisdom; at other moments, we would have cheerfully strangled our appointers for their shortsightedness.
The group was loaded with experience. Some had served on previous search committees for associate pastors. All but one had been an elder or deacon. When candidates asked specific questions about our church, these present and past officers could give detailed and authoritative answers. Our ranks included a man who headed the current stewardship campaign, an elder who was immersed in presbytery governance, two folks who had seminary training and understood theological subtleties, a magazine editor who could compose turn-down letters that left the recipient feeling good, a private pilot who could fly us to other cities, the head of our session’s personnel committee who was responsible for seeing that the pulpit was filled in the interim.
In one sense the group was a microcosm of our church, a broad spectrum of theological and social positions. It wouldn’t have been hard to find two people who disagreed on everything but the divinity of Christ. That diversity made it tougher to agree on a pastor, but it also decreased the chances of a significant element of the church feeling grumpy when the candidate was finally presented.
In another sense, the group was different. Our commitment to the church was higher than you would expect from the average member. I don’t think any of us realized how long it would take-yet in over two years of frustrating search, no one quit. We laughed that the only way to get off the committee was feet first. The joke had the hollow ring of truth.
A PNC quest affects job performance, places a strain on family relationships, and cuts deeply into social time. At least it does if the job is done right. Yet I cannot think of anything I could do for the church that would have a greater impact in shaping its direction. So when asked, I swallowed hard and did an Isaiah: “Here I am, Lord, send me.”
Incidentally, toward the end of our labors one minister expressed surprise that we didn’t have any youth on the committee. We just smiled and said that we did when we began-but now they were grown, married, and had kids. Of course the real reason was that it would have been unfair to expect the time/energy/travel commitment from a high school student. It’s a thorny issue, but I think our decision was right.
We weren’t a cross section of the congregation in another way. The committee was hand-picked to put the church’s best foot forward. How do I write this without sounding like a snob? But it’s true-the PNC was chosen with an eye to physical attractiveness, social skills, and intelligence as well as spiritual commitment. This was in recognition of our dual role: not only were we selecting a pastor, but we had to sell the pastor on our church. We were the only people he or she would know before making a decision.
There were some real minuses in the way we were constituted. The chief one was size. There were too many of us-fifteen. The original ad hoc selection body feared that economic necessity, job transfer, or family needs might cause members to drop out. They wanted to guarantee enough people to keep the load manageable. I fear they increased it. We got even bigger when one person was nominated and elected from the floor.
So what’s an optimum size? I’d opt for twelve committed members for a large diverse congregation, nine or ten for a small homogeneous fellowship.
One other major problem with our composition-we were eleven men and four women. Surprisingly this doesn’t reflect chauvinistic bias in our church, since the selection committee was mostly women. But the end result put us at risk in at least three ways. A pastoral search team desperately needs some workers who are free during the day to meet candidates at the airport, take them to lunch, and give tours. This typically means retirees or nonemployed women. We were fortunate that two of our ladies were free to take on these chores, and they performed superbly, but if they’d been less personable, less competent, or less committed, we would have wallowed in good intentions but poor performance. Besides, it wasn’t fair to them.
A second problem created by the imbalance was the emotional tone of the group. This was a committee of racehorses. Put a dozen or so of these high-performance types together, and the sparks fly. We needed the gentle hand of some who were relationally sensitive in order to keep things cool and give perspective. At the risk of stereotyping, I will say that women in our culture are more likely to display and evoke the human warmth necessary to keep a group cohesive. We could have used a few more.
Finally, the sexual imbalance sent a message to prospective pastors. The overload of men was a stumbling block to some candidates.
Will the Real Leader Please Stand Up?
You might imagine the difficulty for one person to ride herd over such a group of fast-track thoroughbreds. Actually it proved impossible. Yet over the first year, a leadership team evolved that served us well.
We started out traditionally, electing a chairman. Don seemed a natural, possessing a vibrant faith, affable personality, and up-front ability before the congregation. The other four or five likely candidates pleaded lack of time or special circumstances, so Don was selected unanimously. As an apparent afterthought, Bill and Barb were elected as vice-chairpersons. In retrospect, I see God’s hand in that decision.
It soon became apparent that Don was unable to lead the group. Business reverses and family tragedy sapped him of time and energy. An understandable aversion to conflict rendered him incapable of making tough decisions. I’m not sure what would have happened if he had been the solitary leader. Our two vice-chairs took the reins without embarrassment or public announcement. We ended up with a leadership troika-three leaders pulling in the same direction.
As we entered our second year, Barb clearly became first among equals. Why? She was willing to grasp the power, even eager. (I have yet to see an honest-to-goodness leadership draft. Barb’s rise to the top was no exception.)
She was also willing to hold others accountable. Barb understood that people vote with their presence, and the mission disintegrates if absenteeism goes unchecked. One certain way of arousing her wrath was to not show up without clearing it ahead of time. She was capable of leveling you with a stare that made you realize it was your turn to go on a trip, call a reference, or host a dinner. Members would refer to her as “The Sergeant Major” or “Mother Superior.” I thought of her as a velvet-covered brick.
Yet another factor was even more important: she had an unswerving commitment to the unity of the PNC. More than once Barb exhorted the group to love and care for one another. She backed this up publicly by insisting that not only should everybody have a say, but others should listen and respect the opinion. This was one reason why our meetings went so long, but it’s also a reason why we finally reached unanimity.
The listening ear extended past the meetings. I was on the phone to Barb two or three times a week. PNC business and private life merged in those conversations. (My wife decided two years was long enough when I once called home and absentmindedly said, “Hi, Barb.”) Her willingness to get involved in the lives of individuals was a catalyst in drawing the group together. It also gave her the behind-the-scenes intelligence necessary to tiptoe the committee through emotional minefields of hidden agendas.
All three leaders recognized the importance of forging warm emotional bonds within the committee. They scheduled parties with spouses to bring us together in nontask situations. Times of prayer were interspersed with moments of laughter.
The lesson here for other groups: Don’t get locked into a leadership structure too early. Select a leader for the first few months to get you through the organizational phase. By then everyone will have a good idea of each other’s capabilities and personality quirks, and the true leader will naturally emerge. Or select dual leadership. One person can shepherd the group in its task while the other can focus on the emotional needs of members.
Narrowing the Field
We started slowly. The Presbyterian Church places a premium on order. It’s sometimes a strength, sometimes a weakness, always maddening. Before we could interview candidates or even peek at their credentials, we had to prepare our own Church Information Form. The CIF is an exhaustive document that gives the prospective pastor a handle on who we are.
The statistical data was quickly researched-size of membership, annual budget, average Sunday worship attendance, number of churches in the community, nearest hospital, etc. The goals and long-range plans took more thought. Did we want to grow? What form of ministry to the community had priority? The page that gave us most pause was the one that asked us to rank twenty-two emphases in ministry. Preaching, hospital visitation, community service, counseling, evangelism, laity training, Christian education-they all sounded good, yet we had to choose. It forced us to concentrate on the characteristics we felt a person had to have in order to be eligible.
Pastors were impressed with our CIF. An 1,800 member church with a $500,000 budget, a going youth program, large well-trained choirs, founding church of a Christian counseling center-it was almost too good to be true. It hurt us in the long run. Successful pastors in large churches read this glowing report and saw no challenge. Some in less ambitious situations were intimidated. Only later did we share the soft underbelly of the operation. Although we were loaded with lay people of unquestionable talent, on the whole we were biblically illiterate. We had fine programs but little sharing of faith between members. Our weaknesses attracted the desired kind of leader as much, if not more, than our strengths.
A friend who’s a corporate headhunter tells me that matching an executive with a firm is a question of what you can get with what you have to offer. The good match is one that clicks between equally attractive parties. We spent the first year aiming too high, looking for the forty- to fifty-year-old superstar with a proven track record at a large church. I firmly believe God can call someone to step down the status ladder, but we saw nothing to indicate that would happen in our case. So in the second year, we concentrated on younger pastors who were looking to make the jump from a smaller successful situation. It was fun to talk with people who wanted us rather than trying to kindle a lukewarm interest. But I’m getting ahead of the story.
After the CIF was submitted to church headquarters, we received a flock of dossiers. Some of these we requested because they had been recommended by members or outside friends. Others came from pastors who knew of the vacancy and submitted their own names. A final group was generated by a computer that compared our desires with a minister’s stated strengths. (Based on the quality of this material, I’d never recommend a computer dating service.)
We had signed the required pledge that we would consider candidates of either gender. But in the end, only one woman’s name came our way, and by the time we made contact, she had taken a church in California.
The dossiers were long, running from six to ten pages. In an effort to save time and money, we made only four copies of each and farmed them out to a subgroup. If those folks liked what they read, the papers were sent on to another subgroup, and so on until they’d made the rounds. It was false economy. Over a three-month period, forty resumes entered the pipeline, but nothing ever came out. On the advice of a wise pastoral adviser from another congregation, we bit the bullet and duplicated fifteen copies of each vita. Everyone was assigned to read the same dossiers for a given week, and the system began to flow.
We devised a plan for giving zero to three points to each of the top six areas we had selected. This was fine in theory, but I found myself short-circuiting the system. To me, preaching was more important than administration. If I liked what I read about sermon preparation, I’d rate the person high in everything to hype the score. If I didn’t approve of the theology, I’d mark him low, even though there was no doctrinal category to check. Others fudged in the direction of their interest, so we finally scrapped the system and went to a zero-to-eighteen scale based on whatever the rater desired. Form should follow substance.
Each meeting we’d list all the candidates and plot members’ scores on a grid for all to see. Then we’d talk about the candidates one at a time. It was a tedious practice, but well worth it. Not only did we get a better handle on the candidates, but we learned even more about our own tastes and attitudes. This was an essential part of the jelling process.
An average score of twelve or more was usually enough to cause us to pursue someone further. But if anyone had a “tingle”-a strong emotional response at the base of the spine-we’d pursue no matter how low the score. It was part of the respect we had for each other’s views.
It’s tough to say what earned high marks. After reading over two hundred dossiers, I’m still not able to spot a magic formula. A plain-language summary of educational training, previous pastorates, present accomplishments, plus strengths and places for growth worked best. We were irritated whenever someone tried to get too cute. We also got suspicious when a resume ducked questions on theology, never mentioned family relationships, or showed a history of job hopping. We didn’t want a shepherd who would soon itch for a new flock.
Within the Presbyterian Church, dossiers include the salary range a person expects. In some cases, that lets you know immediately if a candidate is out of the ballpark. In the case of the pastor we eventually called, his stated salary needs were much less than we had been paying his predecessor. So salary was not a major consideration in his decision to come.
All of this validates the traditional wisdom that a resume will never get you hired but is often a reason to turn you down. Some of our best candidates barely cleared the dossier hurdle. The one we called received a score of seven from the PNC member who later became his biggest booster. The moral of this story: Don’t put too much weight on the dossier. If you’ve got a good reason to believe a person is a prime prospect, go and meet him.
We learned the hard way on this last piece of advice, because we persisted in one-way communication. If we liked what we read, we sent for a taped sermon. This was the most discouraging part of our search. Our previous pastor had an imposing presence in the pulpit. Our first-year pulpit supply was even better, using rich imagery to make Scripture come alive. Most of the stuff we heard on tape was pallid by comparison.
I admit it’s not fair to judge a sermon without getting the visual impact. But to a committee planning on using tapes I’d recommend the following: Request copies of sermons given on specific dates. That increases the chance of a representative sample rather than having a person select one sure-fire spellbinder. Insist that they be recorded live. We groaned every time we heard a message recorded in a study.
If you hear solid content but are put off by the mood and manner of delivery, have someone see the speaker in person before you write him off. If you respond to both the words and the style on tape-run don’t walk to see him in his own church. He’s an endangered species.
The advantages of seeing a pastor on home turf are:
1. You see the whole person, not a truncated version. He’s interacting with real people. The way he greets folks as they leave is as telling as what he does during the service.
2. You can get an idea of the type of people he attracts. One of the winsome factors about our candidate was the warmth of his congregation. We hit another church that seemed more loyal to the American flag than the cause of Christ. We wouldn’t have spotted that without traveling.
3. It shows the pastor you are seriously interested. If he’s a reluctant candidate, it provides a watershed where he has to decide if he’s serious about relocating or just playing games because the interest is flattering.
4. The travel is a catalyst in drawing PNC members together. We were often at each other’s throats until we sat together on a Sunday morning in Milwaukee eating bratwurst or got lost trying to find a church in Cleveland.
The toughest part about visiting another church is the inner knowledge that you may soon want to steal their pastor. That induces guilt when the woman next to you in the pew welcomes you warmly as a visitor and even raves about their minister. More than once I felt like a spy whose cover was about to be blown.
Although we began to get a good composite image of a candidate from the dossier, tapes, and visits to the church, we found it wise not to trust our own judgment solely. We worked hard to contact people who’d seen the person in action. As might be expected, stated references were always laudatory. If a man can’t find five people to put in a good word for him, he’s in big trouble. But we wanted candid appraisals of strengths and weaknesses, the nuances of personality that don’t come through with a simple “He’s great.”
Here are some of the lessons we learned: Check references after you already have a decent handle on the person. You’ll be able to ask intelligent questions and zero in on particular problem areas.
If you’re just going through the motions, write a letter. If you really care, pick up the phone. Someone who’s sold on the person will be willing to take twenty minutes to be specific. If you catch him or her at a bad time, set up a specific hour to call back.
Take copious notes. You think you’ll be able to remember details, but unless you have a verbatim account of key phrases, all you’ll retain is a general impression to share with the committee.
Give the references an opportunity to rave about their colleague, but also give them permission to be critical. The more you tell about your church, the more specific they’ll be. I happened upon a closing question that often provided a wealth of insight: “Thanks so much for your time. You’ve answered every question I had concerning John. But I’m afraid I may not have known what to ask. What question should I have raised that would help us understand the essence of who John is if I’d only known more?” Then I’d just shut up and wait for a reply. Sometimes there was an awkward silence for up to thirty seconds, but the response usually made the wait worthwhile. It also turned out to be a good question to ask the candidate himself at the end of an extensive interview.
Getting Serious
An invitation to meet with the entire committee wasn’t given lightly. It usually meant gearing up for a two-day visit involving food, lodging, preaching in a neutral pulpit, a tour of the community, and six hours or so of discussion. We did it ten times.
I had heard it was unwise to ask a prime candidate for our first such weekend. Good advice. In fact, we botched the first few. We’d pick up the man, whisk him to the church, and start asking about his theology. Dumb. It had all the grace of a bulldozer. One candidate scolded us for setting up an inquisition. He wanted some positive strokes for his track record in the ministry. While we rationalized his comments as springing from a bruised ego, I think his criticism was valid. We did learn from our mistakes.
A typical visit involved both the man and his wife. We found it essential to view the interplay between the two. Our church has low expectations for the woman’s involvement in congregational life. (The last two pastors’ wives had careers of their own.) But we wanted to call a senior pastor who would be able to walk away from the pressures of ministry into a warm home, a safe haven.
The obvious tension between one pair raised all sorts of warning signals. Conversely, the spontaneity between the man we called and his wife confirmed our view that we had an effective people person.
We’d pick them up at the airport on Friday and get them established in a nice motel. There are pros and cons to the motel versus home issue. A home conveys warmth, but it also means having to be “on stage” the whole time. We opted for privacy. They discovered flowers and a basket full of items tailor-made for their interests. If he was a jogger, there was a map of all the jogging trails in the county. A classical music buff received a brochure of upcoming concerts. Women from rural areas appreciated news on shopping centers. Of course we included the usual Chamber of Commerce maps and blurbs on the community. Some couples liked to take these and scout on their own, so we put a car at their disposal. A guided tour of the church followed by a dinner with the whole committee in a member’s home rounded out Friday. We were careful to rotate seating at meals so everyone had personal exposure to the couple over the weekend.
Saturday was a day of discussion at the church. Various committee members would lead off on certain topics. We tried to block out time frames for theology, mission, worship, preaching, Christian education, stewardship, and evangelism. But we also gave the candidate equal opportunity to ask us questions.
The mood and manner were as informative as the content. One man talked himself out of a job by giving fifteen-minute answers to fifteen-second questions. Multiple coffee breaks and lunch gave everyone a chance to shift mood as well as body position. Sometimes wives were in on these discussions-sometimes not. Their choice.
Saturday night was a time for the couple to relax by themselves. We figured there was a lot of pillow talk about us.
On Sunday we would go to another church in our area where we had arranged for our visitor to preach. This reflected our concern for confidentiality. He wasn’t speaking at a church that was “looking for a pastor,” so his crowd wasn’t suspicious. If our congregation were to hear that we were considering a certain person, the inevitable pro-and-con polarization would weaken his chances. We learned from the dictum that treaties are best arrived at in secret and then openly announced. Even our spouses were not privy to the names involved.
Some thought we went overboard on secrecy. They accused us of being paranoid about information leaks. But as the saying goes, “You aren’t paranoid if they’re really after you.” And many members and staff were really after us-to glean inside information or to influence the outcome.
One of the rumors going the rounds claimed we were too picky. Our final test for a prospective pastor-so the joke ran-was to take him to the nearby lake and see if he could walk across. Fears like this could have been quelled by periodic announcements as to the number of candidates we were actively pursuing. But I firmly believe a tight-lipped policy about the actual person involved is the only way to go.
Following the service, we would meet for a final time. If he had no further questions and if we hadn’t done so earlier at his request, we’d go around and share our individual visions for the church. It was at these times I felt particularly proud of our congregation. Our excitement and commitment to each other came through clearly.
Although I’ve outlined the typical visit, things were a bit different in the case of the couple we called. We sent a delegation of four people to visit their church. They met with the pastor and his wife for a three-hour discussion over a meal. He had just lost his associate and was unable to get away for a weekend, so we arranged for a midweek visit, knowing we’d be unable to hear him preach. Most of us were comfortable with that, since his tapes had been so fine and the four-person team had raved about his sermon.
However, he volunteered to conduct a worship service just for the committee. It had everything going against it. We met in a cold chapel at dusk on a bleak day-fifteen people sitting in a sanctuary that could hold a few hundred, and without any of the usual trappings of worship. But his prayer, reading of Scripture, and message made the sanctuary come alive with light and warmth. It was one of those magic moments.
Popping the Question
We had adopted ground rules for the final decision making early, before any personalities were known. As it turned out, we needed the protection. We had some stormy sessions. On more than one occasion, individuals walked out of a meeting. Shouts of accusation and protest were not unknown. The same candidate could generate praise and scorn from different members. But our standard was simply this: No one would receive a call who had four or more no votes, even if the other eleven thought he was the greatest pastor since the apostle Paul.
Since abstentions were allowed, it was theoretically possible that a bland personality who didn’t arouse anyone’s ire might slide through even though no one was strongly for him. To counter this possibility, we stipulated that a candidate had to receive eleven positive votes. Although we held only two formal votes to call, the bylaw colored all of our deliberations. Each member had to deal with the question “If it comes to a vote, which way will I go?”
There was an added complication at the end. After two years of diligent work, we were confronted by an embarrassment of riches. We had three excellent prospects, each with their champions on the PNC. In other pulpit committees this has led to each member staunchly defending his own choice and knocking the others. The result is a fractured committee and loss of all candidates. To counter this, we set up an elaborate preliminary polling procedure. It may seem cumbersome, but it served us well.
On the fateful night we took an initial straw vote in which each member had fifteen points to spread among the three. We couldn’t give more than eight or less than two votes to any candidate. A typical distribution might run:
Pastor A 8
Pastor B 5
Pastor C 2
15
The results were tabulated, and we began discussing the candidate with the least votes. Every member had up to five minutes to comment on that candidate. This was followed by similar rounds for the middle vote getter and finally for the top choice. We then took a second straw poll using the same fifteen-point forced-choice system.
Finally after a time of prayer, we took a call vote on the person receiving the highest total.
The genius of our system was that the leading candidate emerged before the official vote. Through the discussion and straw poll every member could see which way the wind was blowing. And we’re fully convinced that part of it was the breath of the Holy Spirit. Much to everyone’s surprise, one man’s total was almost as high as the other two combined. He increased that lead on the second straw poll following discussion. When the official vote was taken, there wasn’t a negative vote. After twenty-six months, we sat in awed silence. We had unanimous agreement on a match.
Would he agree? Even though it was past midnight, we phoned long distance to extend our call. At most we expected him to say, “Fine, let’s get together and talk about the financial specifics,” but without hesitation he said simply, “I accept.” God had been working on him as well. How glorious it was to have someone we wanted want us.
Would the congregation agree? We still had work to do. We hammered out a financial package including housing expenses, study leave, and moving costs. We prepared a brochure introducing the entire family to the church. We scheduled a Saturday coffee for members to meet our couple, and on the following day he preached to a packed church. At three o’clock that afternoon, all fifteen of us stood before the congregation and made our report. This was no formality. One after another, each of us gave his or her reasons for recommending a yes vote.
Three hundred eleven to zero says it all.
Would I do it all again? Consider the benefits. I had a significant say in choosing the leader who will affect the spiritual lives of my family and friends. As a student of human behavior, I got to be a participant/observer in a fascinating group. And I’ve established a firm friendship with three or four new people-one of them our new pastor. I trust he’ll be with us many years. But if he leaves, knowing what I know now, would I like to be part of the matchmaking business again? All I can say is I hope I don’t get left out.
Emory A. Griffin is an elder at First Presbyterian Church, Glen Ellyn, Illinois.
Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
- More fromEm Griffin
- Career
- Change
- Church Finances
- Financial Stewardship
- Prayer
- Preaching
- Relationships
- Research
- Surveys
- Theology
- Work and Workplace
Pastors
Bill Flanagan
A veteran shares what he’s learned on the job with the churche’s newest specialty group.
- View Issue
- Subscribe
- Give a Gift
- Archives
By now, you have probably read that close to 40 percent, or 55 million, of the adults in America are single. You have no doubt been drummed over the head with the fact that only 7 percent of American families are the traditional model: husband and wife with two to three children where the father works and the mother stays home.
You have also probably been confronted by single adults in your own congregation who want their own particular needs met but also want to be more integrated into the total life of the church. Christian single adults are tired of being looked upon, in Joe Bayly’s words, as “single, saved, and second-class.” They are up to their eyeballs with being stereotyped as losers or social misfits with little to offer the Christian community.
For twelve years, I have been listening to and working with single people in two congregations. During that time, I’ve also been in touch with large numbers of singles across the country. From these relationships, I have tried to develop and coordinate strong, meaningful programs that meet the needs of single adults and also lead to balance and wholeness in the church. Along the way, I’ve learned a lot. I hope some of the following will prove helpful to those who are somewhat overwhelmed.
The Context
Understanding the numbers game. Single adults are mobile. They move from church to church, trying on for size a variety of organizations, clubs, and classes. In every single-adult program, there is incredible turnover. Most pastors who work with singles say their groups turn over 50 percent every six months.
One quickly becomes aware that a program must grow at a fantastic rate just to stay even. Singles ministries must be set up and geared to grow, or they will quickly die from the normal attrition.
The older the age group, the more females will outnumber males. Those who work with singles need to work as hard as possible to reverse this, but at the same time they should be prepared for limited success.
Single people like large groups with lots of relational possibilities but also small groups where there is authentic intimacy. Growing, healthy singles ministries are always a combination of large events that attract significant numbers and small groups that provide close-in sharing.
Developing leadership. No one ever led a successful single-adult ministry alone. It always takes a team of committed leaders. And one must be continually developing new leaders. Often, I have stopped to take a breath, turned around-and wondered where everybody went. There is no substitute for spending an extravagant amount of time with a few key people and additional time with others in groups who are either elected or appointed to carry out the program.
I have found that up-front male leadership is absolutely essential to a growing single-adult ministry. This does not exclude women in leadership positions; in fact, the most successful officer groups are equally divided between men and women. Nonetheless, be prepared for the fact that you will have to work harder to attract males. I have discovered over the years that, programmatically, women do not draw men, but the reverse is usually true. Consequently, I spend a great deal of effort contacting, spending time, sharing a vision, and developing male leaders. When this is effective, there is no difficulty involving capable female leadership as well.
Overcoming stereotypes. Married people in the church, particularly those in their thirties and beyond, are swimming in stereotypes. Their vision and understanding need to be gently raised. Singleness is not a disease for which the only known cure is marriage. One is a whole number. I have sought invitations to speak to all the couples groups in our church, and this has proven to be an excellent opportunity to shatter the myths and open a fresh, new understanding of who singles are and how they feel about themselves and the church.
Some of the half-truths that plague single adults are:
They have more money and time than couples.
Something is wrong with them, or they’d get married.
They’re almost always “swingers” with an abnormal sex drive.
Children from single-parent families are usually undisciplined, maladjusted, and doomed to failure.
I remember greeting a married woman one Sunday who said, “Reverend Flanagan, what a wonderful thing you’re doing with ‘those people.’ ” The ignorance and insensitivity that slips from the lips of well-meaning people has cut like cold steel into the hearts of many vulnerable singles.
The importance of ministry structure. Many churches make the mistake of developing a singles ministry on a youth ministry model, which means the first thing they think of is finding couples to be advisers or sponsors. Adults are not interested in being directed in ministry. They want to take responsibility for themselves. I have often expressed my relationship as being chairman of the board with the singles as the only stockholders. They must own the ministry. They’re not interested in programs being done for them.
In my church, my title is not minister to singles or even minister of singles but rather minister with single adults. They have been the primary determiners of the program, the age delineations, and the written job descriptions that go with each office in our ministry cabinet.
I have also discovered that while most church terms are a minimum of one year, six months is much more advisable with single adults (remember the turnover factor). It is also vital that these leaders be integrated into the whole life of the church. What a congregation is doing with its single adults must never turn into a satellite operation, much less a leper colony. I know churches that totally isolate their singles from the rest of congregational activities. Single-adult ministry structure needs to be compatible with the rest of the church’s life, and singles should be plugged into decision making in the whole congregation.
Most singles ministries that attempt to be comprehensive need to have at least three separate groups, divided by age. I suggest twenty-one to thirty-five, thirty to fifty, and over fifty. The overlap is intentional, and obviously, no one should be “checking I.D.’s at the door.” People need to feel comfortable with folks their own age, and there can be regular interface between the different singles groups as well as the whole church.
It is never a good idea to separate people by their status of singleness, i.e., whether they are “career,” divorced, or widowed. Age delineations help people discover the right group for them and also guard against older adults seeking unhealthy relationships with those far younger.
Pastoral support. The total support and consistent encouragement of the head of staff is fundamental. Any single-adult ministry is in trouble without it. That is because a singles program on the growing edge will not be without controversy. So many times, I have been asked by the pillars of the church, “What are we going to do with all these divorced people? Remember what the Bible says about divorce!” A few years ago, I received an angry letter from one of our prominent leaders who was having dinner in a local restaurant with his wife and heard some of our singles in the bar next door, singing loudly the praises of our church and its singles ministry. At that moment, it was good to have a senior colleague who understood that many non-Christian singles in our group did not yet grasp all the principles of church etiquette and public behavior. He was able to lend support in a situation that could have damaged our outreach.
We must learn to accept people where they are, not where we want them to be. Unmarried couples living together, the “swinging singles” scene, and how the church incorporates divorced persons raise serious moral and biblical questions. The church of Jesus Christ cannot bury its corporate head in the sand; neither can it stand in self-righteous judgment. It is crucial that we incorporate a compassionate view of realities such as divorce with a high view of marriage as commanded by Scripture. We must struggle to find the healthy tension between God’s law and his forgiving love.
The value of a network. Interdenominational groups of both professional and lay single-adult leaders are springing up everywhere. In Southern California, over 50 singles leaders from a wide variety of churches meet quarterly to share resources and develop new skills. Many of these leaders, both pastors and lay persons, travel long distances to these meetings.
Get on as many mailing lists as you can, and seek out resources and relationships that can enhance your understanding and implementation of the ministry.
Marketing the ministry. Singles ministries grow only when congregations see the larger community as their marketplace. They must have a vision to reach people who are out there and utilize creative means to do so. Clear, attractive publicity works. Single adults read newspapers and are responsive to clear and creative ads. Just remember, however, that you have to fulfill your promises of an exciting, quality program.
The Content
A Christian focus. Some singles are so afraid of turning non-Christians off that they compromise conviction and soon become just like the other secular organizations in the community. I have watched the demise of single-adult ministries that forgot who they were and why they were in business. Successful singles ministries always revolve around a class or group where biblical study and Christian growth is emphasized.
A singles ministry should never exist solely to meet its own needs. Single adults are a mission field, largely unreached by the institutional church, but single adults must also have a mission. I have watched so many serve beautifully as “wounded healers.” I have often found the most honest, generous, sensitive group in any congregation is its singles fellowship.
They seem to understand the beautiful balance between our Lord’s commands to come and to go. We come to the church to get our needs met, meet new people, participate in events that offer stimulating opportunities for personal growth; then we go into our world of work and play to be disciples and witnesses of Jesus Christ. If all the church says is “Come,” it soon stagnates and dies.
The importance of special events. Single people respond to seminars, workshops, and programs that meet felt needs. It takes only nominal effort to draw them to quality seminars on issues like sex, marriage, loneliness, stress reduction, self-esteem, single parenting, and divorce recovery.
Speakers and people with special skills in your church can be important resources. A concerned auto mechanic in our congregation recently put on a basic car maintenance and repair seminar for forty-five women.
In addition to this, weekend conferences, trips, and service projects are a part of the make-up of a successful singles ministry. These events require time, energy, and planning, but over the long haul they are the “grease in the gears” of a thriving, ongoing program.
It’s true that not all churches can provide all this. Congregations under 300 members need to recognize both their possibilities and limitations. While some churches should not have a single-adult minister, all churches can minister to single adults. They can pool resources, leadership, and facilities with other churches in the community. A joint singles ministry, in fact, may lower the barriers of competition, jealousy, and suspicion.
Pastors should not let large, successful programs intimidate them, but at the same time they should not bite off more than they can chew. Many single adults participate in larger churches’ singles programs and still remain loyal to their own smaller congregation.
Financing. It goes without saying that any ministry costs money. A ministry with single people usually pays for itself and can ultimately produce revenue for the church as a whole as it attracts new members. But in the beginning, it needs help from the general budget.
If assigning a staff member to single-adult ministry, even part-time, is unrealistic, single people at least deserve someone on the professional staff who will coordinate and oversee what they are doing. Although adults are perfectly capable of assuming responsibility and developing meaningful programs, they want and need pastoral leadership.
Outside resources. Singles groups are constantly bombarded by professional opportunists who only want to use your ministry for their profit, seeking to capitalize on your success. Beware of them. Find counselors to whom you can refer with confidence.
Gearing for the newcomer. We are called to be shepherds, not ranchers. A shepherd knows the flock by name. A rancher only knows how many head are in the herd. The personal touch is crucial, no matter how large or small a group may be. The welcome mat must always be out, with committed singles warmly welcoming, integrating, and following up visitors. Name tags are essential. Coffee and “finger food” are necessary ingredients for nervous people who have thought about coming for a long time and finally gotten up the courage.
Acts 2:42 indicates that “the breaking of bread” was a key dimension in the growth of the early church, along with teaching, fellowship, and prayer.
This is particularly true in a ministry with singles. We never have an activity without food. Food facilitates fellowship and the building of authentic relationships. Simply holding a cup of coffee in your hands eases nervousness and helps create a spirit of warmth.
I remember a young single named Dave who came to our group several years ago and wasn’t sure whether he would return. A member of our social committee roped him into bringing mashed potatoes to the potluck the following Friday. Dave reluctantly accepted and, being a responsible person, decided the group was depending on him for mashed potatoes. It gave him a reason to show up. It also gave him an opening line as he went into a house full of strangers. Suddenly the group became “his group” because he was making a contribution to it.
Incidentally, Dave later met June. They fell in love and got married. Months later, Dave shared with me how it all started with a bowl of mashed potatoes.
Programs and personhood. An effective program is an umbrella under which the real ministry takes place. Wholesome single-adult ministries are microcosms of the Christian life in that they include Christian growth, study, music, laughter, food, social activities, prayer, and service. This makes for very busy pastors, and I’m still learning how to prioritize, to do only what I can do successfully. There’s always someone saying, “How about a group for left-handed basket weavers?” My response is always, “If you can find three or four who want to work on that, let’s get together and talk about it.” That helps sort out the worth of the proposal.
But through the years, I have discovered how honest and open single people are. They come, many of them, with incomplete or broken families and want to build new ones. They’re not interested in dog-and-pony shows. They want a meaningful place to heal, grow, and involve their children.
They are calling to the whole church to include them, to show that the church is young and old, black and white, handicapped and healthy, male and female, educated and ignorant, rich and poor, married and single.
Single people have kept me on the growing edge of the Christian life. They have forced me to think, to constantly develop new avenues of ministry. The work is intensive and emotionally draining, but the rewards are incredible. I wouldn’t trade jobs with anyone in the world.
Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
- More fromBill Flanagan
- Church Finances
- Fellowship and Community
- Financial Stewardship
- Relationships
- Singleness
- Singles
- Singles Ministry
- Spiritual Formation
- Spiritual Growth
Pastors
Dennis L. Wayman
Discovering spiritual illness must precede the cure.
- View Issue
- Subscribe
- Give a Gift
- Archives
How do you identify the spiritual needs of people? Do you wait until tragedy strikes and then give counsel? Do you hope that the sermon and education program will cover the bases? Do you try to keep in touch with every person through visitation?
When I started at my church seven years ago, forty people attended worship. I could visit every home at least once a month, visit shut-ins every week, and follow up visitors within the first week. Pastoral care was immediate and fulfilling.
But then things began to change. More people started attending worship, more weekday ministries were added, and a building program was begun. In short, the church came alive. Along with the excitement of growth came a growing sense of frustration. I didn’t have enough time to do pastoral care the way I knew it should be done.
Since I’d once tasted the sweetness of pastoral care, the in-depth, unhurried equipping ministry of the pastorate, all the other things I did in the church seemed shallow and unsatisfying. I discovered that my deepest desire was to provide spiritual care. My ministry gift was to mend brokenness and help people become whole.
But could I do that in the modern, chief-executive-officer pastorate to which we are all sentenced? It takes time to oversee staff, property, and programs. Those cannot be neglected. Further, could any one person really pastor a group of 300 or more?
Pastoring takes time with individuals. What could I reasonably expect of myself, remembering family and my own spiritual growth? I could just try to keep the fires out, responding only to the immediate and urgent. Or I could forget pastoral care and focus on the pulpit ministry. But if I really dealt with the reality that spiritual care takes time, would that mean I must forget study and preparation and give myself to the people?
I still struggle with this. I suppose I always will. But I am getting a handle on some of it, and I present the following idea simply as a help to anyone who would like to use it.
First, I came to grip with some realities. I asked my congregation to provide an administrator to care for property and programs. They agreed. And since the size of the congregation made it difficult for one person to provide all the personal contact needed, we began a Bible Study Training Group to train leaders in the art of leading small home Bible studies.
But that still left me with the desire to do in-depth spiritual care of my people. I thought how useful it would be if people made an appointment with me to talk only about their spiritual lives-not about marriage, children, or current crises, but the current state of their spiritual health.
The idea of health made me think of doctors’ checkups. You don’t go in and tell the doctor what’s wrong and how to treat you. You go in, have some lab work done, and then let the doctor listen, poke, and probe. Then he gives his counsel.
When I compared that with my own approaches to spiritual care of my people, I realized how infrequently I probed into some of the most important questions of spiritual life:
their personal time with God;
their struggles with temptation;
their dependence on money and possessions;
their gifts and whether our church was utilizing them.
Did my people understand my role in their life-that a pastor is not a free psychologist but a spiritual shepherd responsible for them before God? I knew part of the problem was how difficult it is for people to express themselves. And the inexpressible nature of one’s own spiritual walk makes this doubly difficult. Would the analogy of a checkup help?
As my thoughts began to jell, I began to write. I ended up with “A Confidential Spiritual-Life Checkup.” I decided to request an appointment with my people. The purpose of the appointment would be to talk over their spiritual lives. To prepare for this appointment, each individual was asked to do some “lab work.”
As you read the instrument, you will see how I’ve taken the basic functions of blood within the human body and made them analogous to the nurturing, cleansing, helping, and serving aspects of spiritual living. I end the lab report with two questions about tired blood due to imbalanced diet or imbalanced lifestyle, giving a more expanded explanation of my goal in each person’s life.
I had the instrument printed and, during a series on body life three years ago, distributed to my people.
That first spring, I had conversations with some of my people that I had never had in all our years together. It changed my relationship to them in many ways, enhancing the level of sharing and understanding my kind of help. It was beautiful-and it was effective for many.
After about six weeks of seeing persons every day, the appointments slowed down, and I sat down to tally the responses. About 30 percent of my people had come to see me. Many others said they were filling out the lab report, but by the end of summer, all appointments ended.
At first I was disappointed. But then as I reflected, I identified several dynamics at work:
1. Some people never have physical checkups either. I don’t know whether they are afraid they will find out something, or whether they figure that as long as they aren’t in pain they’re not going to worry. Perhaps some people don’t want to know what needs to be changed so they won’t be held accountable. Whatever the reason, some people avoid all checkups.
2. Several people mentioned to me that they wanted to get it all together before they came in. I took that to mean that as they did their lab work, they recognized their areas of need and didn’t really need for me to voice them, or perhaps were even too embarrassed to reveal them.
3. I have not established a pastoral relationship with all my people. I am the preacher to some, the reverend to others, and to still others, I am probably just a nice guy. But there has never been a trust relationship that could carry the weight of such a checkup.
4. Last, and I suspect one of the largest groups, are people who think it is a great idea but just never quite get around to the checkup. They procrastinate.
Over the last three years, I have distributed this instrument to the entire congregation two times. Both times I got about a 30 percent response of people actually going through the appointment. I estimate that 50 or 60 percent actually have done the lab work. The remainder do nothing with it.
For the ones who do use it, it seems to help. And for me as a pastor, there are few experiences as meaningful and fulfilling as pastoring a person through a spiritual-life checkup.
Dennis L. Wayman is pastor of the Free Methodist Church of Santa Barbara, California.
Permission is hereby granted to reproduce the following three pages for use in your local church. Alterations are also permissible. For wider use, please contact LEADERSHIP for authorization.
* * *
A CONFIDENTIAL SPIRITUAL-LIFE CHECKUP
As your pastor, I am responsible for your spiritual health in much the same way as your doctor is responsible for your physical health. Both of us must be allowed the privilege of helping you. Often, unless a disease so overcomes us that our doctor or pastor is made painfully aware of it, there is no regular time when I can sit down with you and discuss the health of your spiritual life.
Therefore I am requesting an appointment with you. I am requesting that you do the following “lab work” not as a test, but as a tool for diagnosis, so that we might know your “blood count” and decide together on a proper diet and exercise program that will bring about your best spiritual health.
Since pastors (or doctors) can help only if we allow them, this is entirely voluntary, but I am suggesting that you:
1. Set aside an hour of uninterrupted time in which to thoughtfully answer these questions.
2. Keep your answers only to yourself, to be shared with me and God alone.
3. Make an appointment with me for a one-hour spiritual check-up.
4. Get your “lab work” answers to me a week in advance for my preparation.
5. Prayerfully and openly meet with me, trusting God to use this experience for you.
I. Blood Type: Are you now a Christian? _____ Comment on your answer:
Have you been baptized? _____ When? __________ Where?
II. Red Blood Cells (oxygen carriers that prevent anemia)
A. Devotional life
1. How meaningful is Sunday morning worship to you?
2. How meaningful is private worship to you?
3. Do you feel you are becoming more acquainted with God? _____ In what ways?
4. Is meditation a part of your spiritual walk? _____ Describe:
B. Intellectual life
1. Are your doubts and questions being answered? _____ If yes, how?
2. Do you feel you know the Bible? _____ What help do you need?
3. Do you understand basic concepts of theology-justification, regeneration, sanctification, gifts of the Spirit, etc.? _____ What help do you need?
4. In what areas of intellectual life (explaining your faith; theology; practical applications; Bible knowledge; body life; etc.) are you strong, and in which are you weak?
III. White Blood Cells (disease fighters for inner spiritual cleansing and renewing)
A. Do you feel you are a more accepting, forgiving, loving person than you have been?
Expand:
B. Do you feel you are stronger against temptations (to be impatient, angry, greedy, lustful, etc.)?
Expand:
C. Do you feel your self-esteem is healthy? _____
Expand:
D. Do you see yourself becoming more pure in motive, thoughts, and lifestyle?
Expand:
E. Do you find yourself usually encouraging others or competing with others?
Expand:
F. Do you occasionally tear another person down in jest or anger?
What triggers this?
G. How is the Holy Spirit helping you become whole?
IV. Platelets (blood clotters that stanch the wounds of living in a hurting world)
A. Have you found someone to help bear the burdens of life?
Expand:
B. Do you find you can share your inner joys, hopes, and dreams?
Expand:
C. When someone in jest or in anger tears you down, how do you handle it?
D. When you fail, what happens within you?
E. When you succeed, what happens within you?
V. Blood Pressure (hypertension and exercise)
A. Are you able to turn your finances over to God and tithe, trusting him to supply?
Expand:
B. Are you able to turn your vocation over to God to use you how and where he wants?
Expand:
C. Are you learning to let go of the desire for things?
Expand:
D. Are you able to exercise your gifts within the body of Christ?
What do you see as your gift(s)?
E. Are you able to explain to others in the community why you are a Christian?
Any problems here?
F. How much are you concerned for those who are less fortunate, wanting to share with them the gospel and the helping hand?
G. How concerned are you with injustices and other social evils?
VI. Tired Blood (from imbalanced spiritual diet)
A. Is you life balanced? How do you deal with pressure? Do you have regular time for family, recreation, personal growth, etc.?
B. Do you feel you have a balance of worship, study, and service to stay in shape?
Expand:
Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
- More fromDennis L. Wayman
- Church Finances
- Church Growth
- Fear
- Honesty
- Pastoral Care
- Prayer and Spirituality
- Relationships
- Resources
- Spiritual Formation
- Spiritual Growth
- Spirituality
- Visitation
Pastors
Leadership Forum
- View Issue
- Subscribe
- Give a Gift
- Archives
What does it take to minister effectively to one congregation for thirty years? Are there secrets that could enable thousands of pastors to dismiss forever the thought of packing up and moving on? How can lay leaders stop worrying about the next pulpit vacancy?
To discuss these questions, LEADERSHIP brought together four veterans who have served their present congregations for twenty-seven, twenty-nine, thirty-one, and forty-one years respectively:
Bartlett Hess, pastor of Ward Presbyterian Church, Livonia, Michigan, since 1956.
Jacob Eppinga, pastor of LaGrave Avenue Christian Reformed Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan, since 1954.
C. Philip Hinerman, pastor of Park Avenue United Methodist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 1952.
Wendell Boyer, soon-to-retire pastor of People’s Church in Beloit, Wisconsin, where he began in 1942.
Leadership: When you came to your current pastorate-who was president of the United States, and what kind of car were you driving?
Bartlett Hess: Eisenhower was president, and we arrived in a 1950 Chevrolet.
Jake Eppinga: Eisenhower . . . and we came in a green ’47 Studebaker. The first week I was there, I had the funeral of a rather well-to-do person, which meant the procession to the cemetery was mostly Cadillacs. We got about three blocks from the church when my old Studebaker, right behind the hearse, died. We had to push it into a side street and then continue. So my beginning at this church was hardly impressive.
Phil Hinerman: I’ve always driven Chevys, and in those days I could trade for a new one for $1,600. When I arrived in Minneapolis in the summer of 1952. Harry Truman was still in office.
Wendell Boyer: I came to Beloit on June 29, 1942, driving a ’41 Studebaker, what we called a “double-date coupe,” Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House, and the war was going badly for the Allies.
We had thirty-five people the first Sunday in a two-story rented building. On Sunday mornings we could use the whole place, but on Sunday evenings they often rented out the ground level to other groups, particularly for dances. There were big, wide heating ducts that came up through the floor . . . I must be the only preacher who’s ever given an invitation to the strains of “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.”
To start our building fund, we tried to raise $18.75 each week to buy a war bond until we were ready to use the money.
Leadership: Fascinating. What would you say are the benefits of long-term ministry in a place? What happens now that could never have happened in your first five years at the church?
Hess: New ventures come easier because of the pastor’s long track record. We’re now preparing to start our second branch church, and people have caught the vision-whereas when I first came to Detroit, I could only persuade the session to buy the land where our church now stands by saying, “My wife and I will forgo the manse you promised.” We had to continue with four children in a small, one-bathroom house in order to get the church to look to the future.
Boyer: The bankers warm up to you the longer you stay. When we tried to borrow $30,000 for that first building, we had real problems especially being an independent church, with no denominational backing. Since then, we’ve been through five building programs, and the bankers now say, “Whatever you need, just let us know.” That’s because we’ve always paid off our loans early. One of them asked me if we had a lot of tithers in our church. When I said yes, he replied, “That’s a program you can’t beat. It’s very effective.”
Eppinga: The longer I stay, the better I understand the people. I’m now baptizing children whose grandparents I married. I understand the students in my catechism classes better as I see their family roots showing through.
Another thing: somewhere along the line I’ve acquired a greater freedom to just be myself. New pastors are on their best behavior for a while, but as the years go by, you let down the facade, and people become your family.
It’s getting harder and harder to bury people now-they’re my brothers, my sisters.
Leadership: How long does it take a congregation and a pastor to get comfortable with each other? Five years? Seven years?
Eppinga: So much depends on the personalities involved. At first I didn’t rock the boat at all, but I suppose I started moving around with a bit more authority in about five years.
Boyer: For me, things began to jell after about ten years, when we moved into our new building. You have to pastor ten years or so before you really enjoy it. Only then do you begin to know your people: which ones need their hands held through a crisis, which ones will come through it on their own, and so forth.
Hess: On the other hand, sometimes you make a lot of dust in the beginning if you and the church have an advance understanding. When I was called to Cicero, Illinois, early in my ministry, I said, “I can’t come unless there are some radical changes.” The youth program had been nothing but Sunday evening dances; the women’s program was all bazaars and suppers; there was no clear presentation of the gospel. The congregation re-voted to accept my program, and we had no problem. But ordinarily, you don’t sweep in like that.
Leadership: Are there signs that indicate you’ve won your spurs and now you can move ahead with changes?
Hinerman: I don’t know, because my case was unusual. As a Southerner, I felt a lot of Scandinavian restraint when I went to Minnesota. I don’t know whether the problem was mine or theirs, but I would preach my great, powerful sermons, and nobody told me how great and powerful they were. Then came the death of my first wife. When I lived through that and didn’t collapse, something changed. From then on I felt more wanted, more accepted, more appreciated.
I had been at Park Avenue five years by that time, which was already a full term by Methodist standards. But we were just beginning to hit our stride, so I stayed . . . never expecting to remain this long, of course.
Eppinga: In my first church, when I went to buy Communion wine at the age of twenty-four, the storekeeper wouldn’t sell it to me. I said, “I’m the pastor of the church down the street.”
He looked at me and said in a tired voice, “I thought I’d heard all the excuses, but this is the worst!” (Laughter)
When I came to my present church, I was thirty-five but looked much younger, and the median age of the congregation was fairly high. I’m sure it was a good five years before anyone in a discussion said, “Well, what does dominie (pastor) think?”
Leadership: Bartlett, you were forty-five when you came to Ward Church. Did acceptance come more quickly as a result?
Hess: Not necessarily, because I followed Evan Welsh-a tremendous, lovable pastor. I remember a full twelve years after I came: some people would still greet me at the door and say, “That was a good sermon, Dr. Welsh.” And he’d been there only nine years.
But by then most of the people had made the switch. They would say, “Dr. Welsh came when we needed him, and now you have come when we need you.”
Hinerman: When I came to Park Avenue, a predecessor who had led the church for forty-two years was still living across the street. I was the fourth man in ten years to try and follow that act. It wasn’t easy.
Those of us who stay a long time have to think about this dynamic, too: someday somebody is going to have to follow us.
Eppinga: I had a very respected predecessor, too, who moved only about five miles away. So for the first two years we shared a lot of funerals. But we had a good relationship.
I remember one lady in the congregation who was one of his most fervent fans. She would shake my hand every Sunday but say nothing. Finally after five years or so she volunteered her first comment: “You’re getting better.” (Laughter)
Hinerman: Bishop Colaw was pastor of Hyde Park Church in Cincinnati for eighteen years before his election, and he used to tell about one man who never accepted him, fought everything he proposed, never had a good word for anything. But on the farewell Sunday, as a long line of people were coming up to say good-bye, many of them weeping, here was this fellow. He took Bishop Colaw by the hand, looked him straight in the eye, and said: “Don’t sing so loud when you’re standing near the mike!”
Leadership: Some denominations have legislated terms of service. How does this affect the dynamics of pastoral tenure?
Hinerman: The Methodist tradition is four years in one place, particularly in the South. It goes back to Francis Asbury and the early circuit riders who spent six weeks or six months building a church and then moved on. After a while, preachers stayed a whole year, and then, two years. By the turn of this century, that had evolved into four-year appointments.
It still prevails under certain bishops, who enforce it selectively. It’s called a “connectional itinerant system,” which in reality means “Keep your bags packed, and never unpack your books.”
Leadership: Are there weaknesses to such a system, and if so, what?
Hinerman: I’ll try to be candid-yes, there are. You never solve the problems. The chance to grow, to work through hostilities, to reconcile is forfeited. The local committee votes on the pastor every year if it wishes, and if the vote is no, then they go to the district superintendent and tell him how bad things are, how greatly they need a change. Over time, a small coterie, a power clique begins to rule that congregation, killing the preacher whenever the preacher doesn’t suit their fancy. It’s so sad.
Eppinga: It’s interesting to hear you say that, Phil, because in the Reformed tradition we have no such mechanism, and many wish we did. I wrote an article not long ago for our church paper saying I favored the bishop system, provided I could be the bishop. (Laughter) But we do have many ministers who wish they could move; the only way is by getting a call from another church, and they’re frustrated. There’s no one to move them.
We’ve always had a high view of calling, but I can’t believe some of the changes in the last ten years. Now congregations are actually advertising for ministers in the denominational paper-something that would have been highly frowned upon in the past. We’ve also had a rule that no one should be called to another church during the first two years in a charge. That’s also being forgotten occasionally.
Hess: In Presbyterianism, the life pastorate was certainly the old Scottish tradition. When the minister was installed, they used to say he was “married to the kirk,” which meant that only under the most unusual circumstances would he ever move to another parish. Times have altered that as well.
Leadership: Give us an independent-church perspective, Wendell.
Boyer: Well, when we started writing our constitution in Beloit, I wanted so much to be fair with the congregation that I insisted on an every-year vote on the pastor. We followed that for eighteen or twenty years, until the official board finally did away with it.
By then I wasn’t sure it was such a good idea. I remember the one year there were four votes against me-that was the “worst” it ever got-I spent the whole next year wondering in the back of my mind, Who are those four? I worried about that for twelve months. But the next year, all the same people were at the business meeting, and they approved me unanimously. That taught me a lesson: if someone gets a little unhappy with you over some circumstance, they’ll vote against you-but it doesn’t mean total alienation. I had done a lot of worrying for nothing.
Leadership: How have we gotten to the place in America where the pastorate is generally assumed to be only a four-to-six year thing? When you ask P.K.s where they grew up, they often just smile and say, “My father was a pastor”-that says it all.
Hess: The population as a whole is moving more often. We’re in a shifting society, with family life changing, more and more singles, and all the rest-which means the church must change to minister to real needs. If it won’t, for whatever reason, either congregational or ministerial, then voices will begin to say, “We need a change in leadership.”
In many congregations, morale is low. In some, there’s also division over theology or other matters. People have so many problems in their everyday lives that when they come to church, they don’t want to face still more problems. It’s just easier to try a new pastor.
Leadership: How have you four been able to stay so long? What has kept you fresh over the years, flexible to the times?
Boyer: Perhaps I’ve been fortunate, but from that first day in 1942 until I announced my resignation a couple of months ago, I have felt all the way that I was in the center of the Lord’s will. Beloit has been my town; it’s where the Lord wanted me to invest my life. The church has been happy and growing steadily, and now at the age of sixty-nine, I’ve said to myself, What better time to step down than when no one has suggested it?
One thing that has kept us on track has been our decision, from the very first, to make missions number one. We made “Tithes” the second listing on our offering envelopes so we could give “Missions” top billing. I remember the time we didn’t even have a building of our own, and there was a challenge to build a church in Cuba. We shelved our building program and spent the next year paying for that mission church. The amazing thing was that whereas we had projected ten years to complete our own building, we occupied it a year and a half later. This kind of emphasis has kept both me and the congregation alive and stretching.
Hinerman: Wendell, how large is People’s Church now?
Boyer: On Sunday morning, we’ll have about 600 in two services. This is in a town of about 35,000 people.
Leadership: How about the rest of you? What is the secret of freshness?
Eppinga: To be honest, I think the first building program at LaGrave Avenue sapped some of my freshness. I was going to so many committee meetings I didn’t have enough time to read, study, and pray. If you spread yourself too thin, it will eventually show up in the sermons. And the discerning listeners will sense it.
Even Spurgeon couldn’t just stand up and shake it out of his sleeve.
I remember that in my first charge, I felt completely preached out after six months. I’d already covered the whole Bible-what else was left? Now that I see retirement on the horizon, I wonder how I’m going to find time to say everything I want to say. The feeling is exactly opposite from the beginning.
But in between, there have been dry spots. I’ve felt more imaginative and productive at some times than others, and part of that relates to how much I was trying to keep my finger in everything.
Leadership: Is there a trap here, that the more one’s ministry is blessed and the larger the church grows, the more administration is required . . . which eats away at what caused the growth in the first place?
Boyer: Usually what happens is that growth comes as you get older and more experienced-but less energetic. It’s too bad growth can’t happen when you’re younger, before you get weary.
A. W. Tozer once said it’s almost impossible to be a good preacher and a good pastor. You have to choose between the two. That’s debatable, I suppose, but I know that had it not been for certain men in my congregation who carried the ball on the building programs, I wouldn’t have lasted forty-one years.
Eppinga: In another sense, though, the pastoring work feeds the sermon preparation. You face the needs out there, you work with people’s hurts, and then you try to preach to those needs.
Leadership: Your church’s summer brochure, Phil, looks like a whirlwind of activity. And you’ve done this kind of thing for ten years or more. Does it exhaust you?
Hinerman: Well, when you’re in the inner city as we are, you don’t dare take a vacation in the summer. June, July, and August are when we really make it happen, because that’s when the neighborhood is in turmoil and all the sociological and domestic problems boil to the surface. We go for seventy straight days with about forty people on the payroll, trained to do everything from sports clinics to canoe trips to backyard clubs.
But obviously, I don’t do it all. I oversee it, like a chairman of the board.
Freshness depends on whether you want to stay fresh. After all, we all have the same number of hours to work with. Underneath all my activism, I’m really a pietist. The quest for freshness, to me, means getting up at five every morning and spending two hours cultivating the inner life before I go down to the church. The rest of the day may be a blur of administration, counseling, and all the rest, but I can discipline the day if I discipline when I get up.
Leadership: What do you do in those two hours?
Hinerman: Drink enough coffee to make sure I’m awake, and then get into Bible study and waiting before God. The interior life is of the essence for me; I can’t function without it.
The two-hour slot is a devotional/creative package; I don’t try to separate my own growth from sermon preparation here. I pray, I study, I write sermons, I prepare myself for the totality of ministry.
Hess: I once heard E. Stanley Jones say, “Most of us are half-full vessels trying to run over.”
Eppinga: I admire your discipline, Phil, and would only add that other people can do the same thing at night. My most productive time, for example, is between eight and one in the morning, when the telephone quiets down and I can concentrate on the Word.
Another key to freshness is the stimulation of conferences. Part of my longevity, I’m sure, is due to the fact that after the first seven years, the church gave me a six-month sabbatical, which I spent at Union Seminary in Virginia. Seven years later they sent me to Cambridge, England, where I wrote a book and recharged my batteries.
Congregations must realize that ministers cannot go nonstop. I met a colleague from Iowa at a conference once who had had to ask his consistory twice for permission to attend. They had finally said, “OK, you may go, but we expect you back here in the pulpit on Sunday.” So there he was in Grand Rapids, Michigan, sitting up nights in the hotel room working on a sermon. I was angry. That’s why we have so many people leaving the ministry.
Hess: For me, expository preaching has been a well of freshness. I determined from the beginning to expound the Word verse by verse, section by section, and I find it feeds my soul as well as builds people up in the faith. It also saves me the wondering of what to preach about.
Another thing is wide reading. I’ve read both The Christian Century and Christianity Today from the start as well as a spectrum of current books and various magazines.
Eppinga: I agree with your point about expository preaching; it keeps you fresh and also keeps you close to the Word. Sometimes I look back at “the barrel”-my sermons from the past, especially the first five years-and say, “Oh, no! I preached that?”
It is true that some of the great sermons of history were topical-Thomas Chalmers’s “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection,” for example, or some of Jonathan Edwards’s masterpieces. But that is not the way for the long term.
Preaching at summer Bible conferences has been invigorating for me, too. It has reminded me of the church universal, which I need.
Hess: Sometimes we pastors simply push our program, our ideas too hard. I remember back in Cicero coming home from a terrible session meeting, and the Lord saying to me, “Bart-this is not the way you are to do my work.” About that time Norman Grubb came to our church, and his message on the surrender of the will-“Not I, but Christ”-spoke deeply to me. I learned to go and apologize to people for pressing too much.
I can’t say I’ve always stayed in this place of surrender, but I know what it is, just like a musician knows when he’s on pitch and when he’s not. When I exert too much effort of the flesh, I’m in trouble. When I stand aside and let God work, things go entirely differently.
As someone recently wrote in The Presbyterian Journal, Jesus didn’t say, “I will build your church” or even “You will build my church.” He said, “I will build my church.”
Leadership: Over the years, how seriously have you thought about relocating?
Boyer: I’ve always known I was supposed to be in Beloit. Once I was invited to a church of 800 when we were running only about 75. But after I spoke there on a Sunday, I still knew in my heart that God wanted me to stay put.
Eppinga: I’ve been tempted many times-usually after coming back from a visit to a mission field.
I’ve also had a running fantasy of being a small-town pastor . . . sitting on a park bench with folks . . . going down Main Street in the mornings, stopping in at the stores to say good morning, knowing everyone in the village. … Something about that attracts me.
But when the Lord places you somewhere, you have to go to work there and ignore the grass on the other side of the fence. This is “where it’s at.” This is where, in his providence, he keeps challenging you.
I’m not saying it is wrong to move. I believe the Lord has all kinds of ministers-some starters, some relievers, some sprinters, some milers. So the right length for one is not necessarily the right length for another. But all of us have to meet the challenge where we are instead of leaving it unresolved.
Hess: In my first church out of seminary (it’s now extinct, so I can tell this story!), I never saw such a collection of difficult people. (The man who followed me, in fact, finally called the session together and gave one woman a letter of transfer addressed “To any evangelical church” because she’d been such a problem.) I wanted to get away every day, I think.
About then I read an article about a minister who badly wanted to leave his church. But the Lord showed him that what was needed was not a new church, but rather a minister with a new attitude in the old church.
At that point, I was being considered for an executive position. We waited eagerly for the letter to arrive. Finally it came . . . informing me that I was too conservative theologically for the situation. My wife and I knelt down at our secondhand sofa that day and said, “Lord, if you want us to stay here all our ministry, we’ll stay. Our future is in your hands.”
Immediately, that little church began to blossom. The whole experience was invaluable to my entire ministry.
Eppinga: I stayed at my second charge only two years. I left because I felt we were not quite right for each other. Maybe I was wrong to leave. It is a good church, but I thought they would be better served by a different type of minister.
The short pastorate was right for me in that situation, I believe. And it didn’t mean I was a quitter. I went to the next church . . . and have now stayed almost thirty years.
Leadership: How have you handled the times when people have given subtle (or not-so-subtle) hints that maybe you ought to be moving along now? How have you responded to those who were upset with you?
Hess: If you feel the Lord wants you to stay, you ignore the hints and you keep treating the people kindly. I had a wonderful experience just yesterday: a woman who had given me all kinds of trouble and had gone elsewhere came back to say, “We want to join your church again.” Consistent love and kindness paid off.
Boyer: I learned early in my ministry never to answer a nasty letter with a nasty letter. Some of the best people in my church today are those who once thought I should have left town, and said so. I never quit loving them and always left the door open for them to return.
I’ve preached from the pulpit that for those of us beyond the Cross, there may be differences, but these are family matters. We can talk about them, work them through-but we forgive and forget in the end, because we’re family.
Hinerman: My experience is quite different from the two of you, because I’ve been in a thirty-year fight to stay alive in the inner city-and have lost about 3,000 members along the way! The neighborhood was changing even before I arrived, but there were no blacks in the membership, and as an old Southern boy, I knew that wasn’t Christian. One of the first questions I raised was “Will it be all right if your pastors bring into membership anyone who has faith in Jesus Christ?” The debate went on till midnight, because they knew exactly what the code language meant.
The curious thing is that race was never mentioned. There are no racists in Minnesota, you see; this is the land of Hubert Humphrey. I’d grown up next to people who were rednecks and proud of it, but the denial of racist feelings even as church members exited for the suburbs was new to me. Over the first twenty years, we basically lost my entire generation, the forty-to-sixty crowd. Some of them would have moved out anyway, but my ministry at Park Avenue didn’t help to hold them.
What were the reasons given? Well, they didn’t like this program or that program; they didn’t appreciate the way so-and-so was leading. The youth program has been the bane of my existence, because it reflects the neighborhood-about fifty/fifty black and white. So if you had three or four daughters, you really didn’t want to raise them in Park Avenue United Methodist Church. People would never come up to me and say, “I don’t want my daughters growing up here”-they’d say instead, “That’s a lousy youth pastor you’ve got, and if you don’t get him out of here, we’re going to move, and we’ll be taking our money with us.”
There has never been a move to oust me personally. But the pursuit of my conviction that the church ought to reflect the demographics of the neighborhood has been one unbelievable fight.
Leadership: How have you survived? Why have you stuck it out for thirty-one years?
Hinerman: Well, sometimes I just say I’ve stayed because the bishop can’t find anybody else to go to Park Avenue. When I plead with him for relief, he says, “Well, stay one more year,” because he doesn’t want to move me and have me wreck some other good Methodist church somewhere.
Seriously, in the midst of all the pain, there has been the joy of seeing a truly multiracial church come into existence. We had 700 people there yesterday, 70 percent of them under thirty-five. We’re just shoving the doors out trying to accommodate Christian education. The church experts have looked at us and said, “You can’t be doing this. You don’t fulfill any of the guidelines for church growth-no parking, no homogeneity. This is impossible.” The fun is trying to grow where you’re not supposed to. It’s exciting to have 1,500 to 2,000 people out on our black top in the summertime for a weeklong festival. It’s fun to try to be the church in the middle of the world.
One of the neat things about this ordeal has been that we’ve kept getting a new congregation. When Bruce Larson asked the rector of Church of the Redeemer in Houston why he had to stay twenty years before renewal took place, the man said, “I had to stay long enough to get rid of everyone who didn’t want renewal.” That’s a lesson for many churches. Most of us come out of seminary geared to holding the faithful at all costs; nobody ever tells us that sometimes it’s important to lose some people before an awakening can occur.
Hess: That’s true. Many people subconsciously prefer a church of a certain size, and so as a church grows, their ceiling is gradually passed. Sometimes people leave for the wrong motives, but sometimes they really need to move on for their own spiritual benefit.
Eppinga: I haven’t faced the racial problem, but I, like the rest of you, have stayed long enough in one place to live through a social revolution. When the disestablishmentarians began taking over in the late sixties and early seventies, wanting to scrap the monologic sermon, wanting to sit in circles on the floor with a guitar-that was a rough time in my ministry. No one actually asked me to leave, but I’m sure some thought it would be a good idea.
I’d never thought of myself as rigid. In our circles, I was known as a progressive. And suddenly, I was a conservative. It wasn’t I who had changed, but rather the context. I tried not to be rigid, to allow some of these things and still keep the church on an even keel.
Leadership: What are the dangers of staying at one church a long time?
Hess: If the minister goes dead, then the congregation dies, and the longer the minister coasts toward retirement, the lower the church drops. To me, that’s dishonest.
Every year my session appeals to the presbytery, “Even though Bart is past seventy, we’d like to have him continue his ministry.” But when I see that the Lord is not continuing to bless, then I’m going to retire.
Eppinga: Yes, it’s easy to grow comfortable and coast. It’s also easy to identify more and more, as the years go by, with a certain clique. You have to remember you’re the pastor of everyone, not just the kindred spirits.
Another danger lies in coming to think it’s your church. People sometimes look at the Roman Catholic steeple on the other end of our block and say, “That’s Saint Andrew’s,” and then look at our tower and say, “That’s Saint Jacob’s.” But it really isn’t.
There are a lot of long pastorates these days that are really personality cults. In fact, one of the greatest dangers of a long pastorate is pride. When you’ve lasted in a church for a while, and things are going well, the Devil loves to heap up the credit in your direction. He wants you to forget that even Jesus did not come to be served, but to serve. If you’re a proud pastor, you’re a contradiction in terms.
Hinerman: If you stay long enough, you become the resident historian, don’t you?
Eppinga: Yes. For example, when the board is contemplating something, it’s a temptation for me to say, “No, that’s not the way we did it fifteen years ago. … ” Sometimes you have to be silent and let them work through a problem all over again.
It’s a funny feeling: our treasurer was once my catechumen. I used to make him get in line; now he signs my checks. I have to constantly adjust to changes like this.
Leadership: Can you have personal friends in a congregation and remain long?
Boyer: When I started the church, I told the people I would not be able to make personal friends in the congregation. We would gladly be their guests for dinner or any kind of event, and we have. But we’ve refrained from taking the initiative-having them over to our house and so forth.
This has made for a lonely life sometimes, especially after church on Sunday night when you’d just like someone to be with. But the congregation has never been able to say, “Well, so-and-so is his buddy.” Still, there’s a warmth in the church; visitors often comment on it.
Hinerman: I probably agree with your goal but have taken the opposite route to get there. My dearest personal friends are at Park Avenue. My staff is closer to me than anyone in this world except my own flesh. I’ll socialize with parishioners like crazy and even call them at two in the morning if I need help.
Hess: I’m glad you mentioned staff closeness. It’s sad when a church and a pastorate is built at the expense of staff relationships. It ought not to be as Phillips Brooks (the Episcopal bishop who wrote “O Little Town of Bethlehem”) once said when a woman asked him how to become a good Christian. He replied, “Believe in Christ, be confirmed, be faithful in attending worship, reading your Bible, praying-and find out as little as possible about the inner workings of the church.”
Leadership: What would you four like to say to young pastors just starting their careers?
Hess: Work as if everything depended on you, and trust as if everything depended on the Lord.
Eppinga: Despite what you may have heard about the glories of specialization, there is no more satisfying work than the parish ministry. Parish pastors are getting to be like general practitioners in medicine-an endangered species. But there is marvelous variety and challenge in serving the local church. I’m sorry I’m not twenty years old; I’d love to start all over again.
My second word would be enthusiasm. On one of my sabbaticals, I sat down one night and read Paul’s writings straight through, from Romans to Philemon. It was so intriguing I did it again the next night. I kept it up for two weeks. His personality began to come alive, and I noticed something: Paul never writes with moderation. He’s about the most enthusiastic fellow you can find. When he wants to describe Christ’s power, he calls it dunamis. When in Philippians 3 he describes what he gave up to follow Christ, his language becomes downright crude. “Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ,” he says in Romans 8, and he’s off into an extravaganza of comparisons. You almost feel like saying, “Take it easy, Paul-you’re going to have a heart attack.”
We need enthusiastic people in the ministry today, good replacements for those of us who are soon tiring out.
Boyer: I would ask young pastors to realize how much we Christians need each other. I would urge them to preach and teach a family spirit of loving and praying for one another’s hurts. More than at any time in my ministry I sense the need to rejoice with the joyful and weep with the distressed.
Hinerman: I think we need to caution seminarians, however. We’re not always honest about what the pastorate is really like. I say to young people, “Don’t even think about going into the ministry if you can get out of it. It’s the worst job in America, the most overtrained and underpaid professional group there is. The only rewards you get are internalized, at least during the early years.”
Don’t misunderstand me-I’m happy in my work, especially now that I’m reaping a harvest I never expected. And I pray that some young men and women will find the ministry unavoidable. But I want them to have a sense of “Woe is me if I preach not the gospel” burning inside to carry them through.
Leadership: Now let’s turn the clock forward a dozen years or so. What would you like to say to the mid-thirties pastor-let’s say a man with a wife and two children in school, who’s now in his third parish, and he’s feeling like it’s time to move, and his wife is saying, “Oh, please, not again.” How would you counsel him?
Hess: My father was a man like that; we moved every eighteen months, it seemed. My mother said he was an evangelist in the pastorate. In his case, it was legitimate. The Lord had called him to do certain things in a series of churches.
But there are many who keep running from themselves and their problems, and they really should come to terms.
Boyer: A lot of times something happens in a church that involves maybe five people-and the pastor assumes the whole congregation is against him, so he takes off. The whole congregation doesn’t feel that way at all. A conflict with even ten out of a hundred is not impossible to overcome; in the next church there might be twenty.
You don’t help anything by moving in such cases; instead, you must get on your face before God and work through the problem. You talk with the persons involved, pray with them, reconcile if possible, and keep ministering regardless.
Eppinga: We have a new mentoring system in our denomination that assigns seminary graduates going into parish ministry to older, experienced ministers who meet with them monthly. We hope this will stem the dropout rate we’ve been seeing in recent years.
The fellow who is burned out at thirty or thirty-five perhaps needs the same kind of help. Sometimes you can be so despondent you can’t even pray. You need a friend in the ministry to guide you through, help you think straight, and seek God’s direction for your life.
To my shame, I must say I’ve been so busy I’ve often failed to notice someone who was struggling, and all of a sudden, I hear he’s out of the ministry. I should have talked with him.
It’s a two-way street: the young pastors should seek help when they need it, and the rest of us should keep our eyes open.
Leadership: What has changed during your years in the ministry and what has remained the same?
Eppinga: Ever since I was ordained, the world has been going downhill, and I hope there’s no connection! (Laughter)
Hess: I’m seeing the unsaved come to church like never in the past. A man sitting by my wife in a Sunday evening service not long ago said, “I can’t believe I’m here. I’m an alcoholic; I lost my job as well as my family; I was in a tavern when I heard about Single Point” (our ministry to singles) “and so I came. Then I tried the church services, came to know the Lord, and now my whole life is changed. I’m even working again.”
In years past we were scared to death of singles groups, forgetting how our Lord associated with all types of people. I’ve never seen such spiritual hunger as there is today. People are looking for answers to their needs, and the Word of God is the only thing that will satisfy them.
We hold a divorce recovery workshop three times a year, and over 200 people show up-90 percent of whom I’ve never seen before. They’re bleeding, they’re hurting. The Sunday morning singles class runs up to 400.
Boyer: A lot of churches have come and gone in our town over the years. But among the survivors, closer fellowship has come as we’ve worked on joint projects. We’ve held a united county crusade thirty-one years in a row, for example. This morning, two busloads of teenagers from not only our church but the Congregational church around the corner left for camp.
The youth music has created some problems at times, but I see the young people there in church every Sunday morning and Sunday night, and I’m encouraged overall. More of them are going to Christian colleges than in the past. They’re very serious about doing something significant with their lives-often, missionary work.
Hinerman: Paul Rees’s book Don’t Sleep through the Revolution was to me a powerful word to the church. At first we tried to ignore the social upheaval that began in the sixties; we hoped it would go away. Only belatedly have we faced into it.
And we’re still the most racist institution in America. This is one of the most tragic failures of Christendom. The judgment of God is going to shake us eventually for playing games while the revolution roars on.
Leadership: How has your attitude toward that failure changed over the years? Are you angrier now, or less angry?
Hinerman: I don’t know. I’m just a journeyman pastor who works every day in the trenches. People say to me, “What’s your five-year plan?” I say, “Hey, we were torched three times in one year-I don’t have any five-year plan.” I’m just trying to survive and grow in the midst of difficulty, and I hope others will join me in that pursuit.
Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
- Calling
- Community Impact
- Fellowship and Community
- Generations
- Perseverance
- Relationships
- Vocation
Pastors
Paul Borthwick
- View Issue
- Subscribe
- Give a Gift
- Archives
Since the 1977 release of Gail Sheehy’s book Passages, people are aware of the phases of adult life. The pastor’s life also has its phases. The following books deal with various stages of the ministry.
Arnold, Oren. Guide Yourself through Old Age. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976. Step-by-step help to making the most of the senior years.
Bolles, Richard Nelson. The Three Boxes of Life. Berkeley, Calif.: Ten Speed Press, 1978. Making the transition from one stage of life to another without getting boxed in.
Brister, C. W., James L. Cooper, and J. David Fite. Beginning Your Ministry. Nashville: Abingdon, 1981. Designed to help new pastors with the adjustments and tensions.
Calian, Carnegie Samuel. Today’s Pastor in Tomorrow’s World. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1982. How pastors can adapt themselves and their ministries to changing times.
Carlson, Dwight L. Run and Not Be Weary. Old Tappan, N.J.: Revell, 1974. Helpful reading for the rundown leader who wants to quit and move on to greener grass.
Clifford, Paul Rowntree. The Pastoral Calling. Great Neck, N.Y.: Channel 1961. One of the few books available on the subject of the initial call to ministry.
Clinebell, Howard J. Growth Counseling for Mid-Years Couples. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977. Thought-provoking for the middle-aged minister and spouse to read together.
Conway, Jim. Men in Mid-Life Crisis. Elgin, Ill.: Cook, 1978. A Christian perspective on issues facing men aged thirty-five to sixty.
Engstrom, Ted. The Pursuit of Excellence. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982. Overview of the process of being all God wants us to be. Especially useful in rebounding from failure.
Gillaspie, Gerald Whiteman. The Restless Pastor. Chicago: Moody, 1974. The pros and cons of longevity, when to resign, and how to start fresh.
Green, Michael. Called to Serve. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981. A frank discussion of the servant orientation needed for effective church ministry.
Grider, Edgar M. Can I Make It One More Year? Atlanta: Knox, 1980. A penetrating look at the issues that make ministers want to leave their churches.
Hahn, Celia A. The Minister Is Leaving. New York: Seabury, 1974. The effect of pastoral termination upon the parish and the minister.
Harris, John C. The Minister Looks for a Job. Washington: Alban Institute, 1977. Covers the special factors a pastor must take into account in a job search.
Kemper, Robert G. Beginning a New Pastorate. Nashville: Abingdon, 1978. Discusses termination from one pastorate and the interviewing, candidating, deciding, and planning involved in starting a new one.
Kirk, Richard J. The Pastor and Church Face Retirement. Washington: Alban Institute, 1979. Planning for the final passage out of full-time ministry.
Miller, Arthur F. and Ralph T. Mattson, eds. The Truth about You. Old Tappan, N.J.: Revell, 1977. “What you should be doing with your life.” Helpful resource regarding career changes.
Ortlund, Raymond C. Intersections. Waco, Texas: Word, 1979. Meeting Christ at all of life’s junctions.
Oswald, Roy M. The Pastor as Newcomer. Washington: Alban Institute, 1977. Discusses the stages of enthusiasm, frustration, and stability experienced by pastor and parish.
Paul, Cecil R. Passages of a Pastor. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981. “Coping with yourself and God’s people” from initial ministry to retirement.
Ragsdale, Ray W. The Mid-Life Crisis of a Minister. Waco, Texas: Word, 1978. Covers stages of various crises with a positive emphasis on making the most of the middle years.
Rand, William J. Jr. The Probationers Handbook. Burlingame, Calif.: Burlingame Press, 1981. Forty-eight questions often asked by United Methodist ministers in their first appointments.
Sanford, John A. Ministry Burnout. New York: Paulist, 1982. Help for the minister who feels ready to wear out.
Segler, Franklin M. Alive and Past Sixty-Five. Nashville: Broadman, 1975. Aging as it confronts the church.
Sheehy, Gail. Passages. New York: Bantam, 1977. The popular work on predictable crises of the adult life.
Smith, Oswald J. The Man God Uses. London: Marshall, Morgan, and Scott, 1932. A classic regarding the call to the Christian ministry.
Tournier, Paul. The Adventure of Living. New York: Harper & Row, 1976. Perspectives on facing challenges of life directed by God.
Tournier, Paul. Learn to Grow Old. New York: Harper & Row, 1973. A candid look at the ways to age with grace.
Whiston, Lionel A. Enjoy the Journey. Waco, Texas: Word, 1972. Learning to live life to the fullest amid all its transitions.
Zeluff, Daniel. There’s Algae in the Baptismal ‘Fount.’ Nashville: Abingdon, 1978. A counselor of pastors identifies and discusses the most common syndromes that discourage ministers.
Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
- More fromPaul Borthwick
- Calling
- Career
- Change
- Discouragement
- Retirement
- Vocation
- Work and Workplace
Pastors
Marshall Shelley
The unique struggles and joys of pastoring a congregation of less than a hundred.
- View Issue
- Subscribe
- Give a Gift
- Archives
Pastoring a small church, like driving a subcompact, can make you feel inferior.
You’re buffeted by passing eighteen-wheelers, the turbulence making control difficult. Luxury cars cut you off, and their drivers never look back. You feel fragile, unnoticed, insignificant-until you start looking around. Then you realize how many smaller models there are. They’re everywhere.
Small churches, too, are actually a majority. Well over half the churches in the United States are ecclesiastical subcompacts. Of United Methodist churches, 69 percent have an average Sunday morning attendance of less than 100. The Assemblies of God, perhaps the fastest growing denomination, reports a full 70 percent of their churches with membership of less than 100. Southern Baptists report that 59 percent of their churches have a Sunday school enrollment of less than 150.
Despite lip service to “small is beautiful,” the unique struggles and joys of small-church ministry don’t get much attention. Larger churches often claim that they “maintain the small-church feel,” and they’re referring, of course, to a warm sense of belonging, intimacy, and acceptance. Is that an accurate picture? Or a stereotype?
What are the things small-church pastors think about?
LEADERSHIP assigned assistant editor Marshall Shelley to find out. Initial contacts came from the LEADERSHIP subscription list, but as Marshall phoned readers to ask, “What small churches in your area are doing a good job?” the list quickly grew. Then Marshall and his wife, Susan, spent ten days in New York and Vermont visiting a dozen of the pastors recommended. Each of the churches has an average attendance of less than one hundred.
Here’s his report.
Garden City, New York, has one problem other cities wish they had. It’s rich. But that doesn’t make pastoring any easier for George Vanderpoel. His congregation, The Church in the Garden, faces a situation familiar to many small churches in far less affluent areas-it has been unable to grow. During the twelve years Vanderpoel, a retired Navy chaplain, has been with the Long Island congregation, Sunday morning attendance has held steady around thirty.
In some ways, Garden City’s wealth adds to the problem. According to a national women’s magazine, Garden City is among the ten most desirable places to live in the United States. Only two streets are zoned commercial. The rest are tree-lined parkways that shelter the manicured lawns and $150,000 homes of executives and academics who ride the Long Island Railroad to their offices in Brooklyn or Manhattan.
These sociological realities make church growth an uphill battle. Outreach is difficult in an affluent area. People tend to protect their privacy. Bank presidents don’t throw block parties. Door-to-door visitation is outright intrusion.
“The only people our members know are their business contacts,” said Vanderpoel. “And these contacts are made downtown-they don’t live anywhere near Garden City. And people involved in these kinds of professions don’t chat with neighbors over the back fence.”
Garden City’s population is aging, its homes priced out of reach for young families. Most of the houses that are sold are going to Italian Catholics and Jews moving away from New York City.
“A few years ago we subscribed to the list of new mortgage buyers in town,” said Vanderpoel, as we sat in the study/family room of the parsonage, sipping his homemade fruit punch. “We sent a letter to each new resident and followed that up with a phone call. That gained us no new members. But I did get a call from one of the rabbis in town saying that one of his new members had gotten our letter, and he thought it was such a good idea he wanted to borrow our list. So for the next several months, we shared the cost of the list. Eventually we pulled out because the list simply wasn’t fruitful.”
The Church in the Garden was begun in 1946, when members of the American Baptist national office, then in Brooklyn, decided Garden City needed a Baptist church, despite the largely Catholic population. The church has never been large.
When visitors do drop in, they see thirty adults, no children, and no program for young people. This usually means that young families, when they do come, come only once.
“We have a number of visitors,” said Vanderpoel, “But most come looking for a full program. Singles expect a lot of other singles; we have three. Young families expect age-graded classes. In this sense, the Sunday school movement has performed a disservice. Now everyone assumes that a fully age-graded family ministry is an essential for a church. Less and less emphasis has been put on the public worship of God, and instead people are intent on meeting social needs and educating their children.
“If the people who visited our church and went elsewhere just for that reason-I’m not talking about those who left because they couldn’t stand my preaching or something else-if those who left simply because of our size had stayed, our membership would have mushroomed.”
Achieving that critical mass necessary for growth has yet to happen at The Church in the Garden, and the vicious cycle of being unable to grow because the church is too small is a frustration.
“I’d say the key to the survival of this congregation is attracting lapsed Catholics,” said Vanderpoel. “Many are unhappy with the Catholic church over such issues as divorce and birth control. If we could get five families from a Catholic background, we’d get a bunch more because they’re around. Getting those first five, however, is tough. But if we don’t, I don’t know how long the church will survive. … “
What keeps a pastor motivated in a church that hasn’t reached critical mass, that’s hanging on for survival? What keeps him going when for twelve years there’s been no numerical growth?
“I’m a Calvinist,” says Vanderpoel. “I believe in God’s sovereignty and that I must wait on the Lord. I must faithfully teach the Word until he brings the increase.
“But on a more human level, I remind myself that good things happen in small groups. In 1943 I was student body president at Westminster Seminary when, because of the war, we had only twenty-one students. It seemed like an insignificant number for a seminary. Yet I was personally tutored by such professors as John Murray; I gained things in a class of five that you can’t get in larger classes. I saw how Westminster hung on and now is recognized as one of the leading seminaries in the country. I’m committed to small-group ministry; I’m obligated to personally tutor those who want to learn, just as I was tutored.
“More important, you never know who you’ll touch, even in a small ministry. As a Navy chaplain, I was on Okinawa in 1957 ministering to the Third Marine Division. Our week-night Bible study of Romans had maybe fifteen regular attenders. It didn’t seem like much, but one of them was a fellow named Charles Swindoll. Recently I heard Swindoll say over the radio that it was a Bible study in Romans while he was in the Marines where he first sensed a call to the ministry. You never know what God will do-even in a small group.”
* * *
Four hours north of New York City on Interstate 87-the “Northway,” as residents call it-is the town of Glens Falls, named for a picturesque waterfall on the Hudson River. It’s also the site of Cooper’s Cave, a location made famous in James Fenimore Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans. Just over the ridge is Lake George, 32 miles long and still boasting water clean enough to drink.
Like many rural counties throughout the nation, Warren County is depressed, hit by unemployment, but Glens Falls itself has remained largely unaffected. Its retirees still venture to Florida in the winter, and the pulp mills along the Hudson still roll out products for giants like Scott and International paper companies.
When Dick Bird accepted the pastorate of Bay Road United Presbyterian Church, five miles north of Glens Falls, he and his wife, Shirley, knew the people would be like folks in other small churches-slow to change, fearful of anything drastically new.
Two years ago, Bay Road had twenty-one active members when the Birds were called.
“Basically it was one extended family,” said Dick. “Everyone seemed to be related, at least by marriage. We knew that an influx of new people would be a major adjustment.”
Dick had been minister of Christian education at another church in Glens Falls and left following a transition of senior pastors. He and Shirley opened a Christian counseling practice in Glens Falls and continued to lead small-group Bible study and prayer cells until the call came from Bay Road.
“We were careful not to try to pull people away from the church where we’d been previously,” said Bird. “I wouldn’t want to do that, but at the same time, Shirley and I were realistic enough to know that some of the people from our small groups would wind up following us to the new church.”
Any small church can find new members threatening, especially when people have become used to a comfortable routine. Some people choose a small church precisely because of its smallness, its familiarity, its steady rhythms. Dick and Shirley, who earn pocket change by selling cabbages and tomatoes from their garden to a local deli, realized some careful cultivation would be needed to prepare the Bay Road soil for potential growth. Even though members might think they’re welcoming visitors, the slightest hesitation, any subconscious reluctance will be communicated, and newcomers will know they’re not really wanted.
“From our counseling background,” said Dick, who still sees clients since he’s only three-quarter time at the church, “we knew that any change can be traumatic. Not recognizing all the faces at the worship service-having to learn new names-can be frustrating. Knowing everyone at the coffee hour is a different experience from being jammed elbow-to-elbow with newcomers.
“With twenty people who are family, you know what to talk about. There’s a sense of belonging. As new people come in, suddenly you have to start from ground zero in your conversations. That can be threatening for people unaccustomed to making friends quickly.”
Even before they accepted the call, Dick and Shirley began preparing the people at Bay Road for these changes at least intellectually. They asked, more than once and in as many ways as they could think of, “Are you ready to have new people join this church?” The people agreed that, yes, they were ready; they wanted to grow.
“Of course,” said Dick, “knowing intellectually that you’re ready and being ready emotionally are two different things.”
That’s why Dick and Shirley began taking some low-key, practical steps as soon as the new faces began to appear.
Their large home became an open house where they frequently would have small groups of people over for meals-two or three of the original congregation together with two or three newcomers.
“Mixing them in our home gave us a head start toward blending at church,” said Shirley.
In individual conversations, Dick and Shirley also tried to engender an appreciation for the “other” group.
“With the people from our small group, we’d point out that the folks at Bay Road haven’t had the same opportunity to meet lots of new people. We were sure to express how grateful we were that they’d invited us to come to Bay Road,” said Dick.
“On the other hand, with the original Bay Road folks, we made sure to affirm their history, to point out how we appreciated their strong Sunday school program, for instance, and how it was great to be able to build on a solid foundation.”
Publicly, the Birds haven’t made an issue of the changing makeup of the congregation: no sermons on integrating the two groups, no prayer-requests for unity, no pleas from the pulpit to beware of cliquishness. What they have done is more subtle: each Sunday morning includes time when Dick asks, “Are there any joys you have to share?”
As people tell about the excitement of Grandma’s visit or the birth of a niece, there’s a growing acceptance of one another as individuals.
No, the struggle to adjust hasn’t been easy, nor is it over after two years.
“Back before we came, the weekly offering was about $8,” said Shirley. “And the Women’s Association would have a monthly project to raise funds to keep the church open. Now that we have seventy members and a $30,000 budget, the Women’s Association is feeling left out.”
Dick admits the church still has traces of being “closed in on ourselves.” People are still uneasy about evangelism or giving to overseas missions.
Recently the Birds’ son David, who is preparing to work with Wycliffe Bible Translators, wanted to go door-to-door, inviting people in the community to the church. When the idea was presented to the session, it was turned down.
“People felt that ‘we know our neighbors, and they know the churches,’ ” said Dick. “They didn’t want to be associated with the Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses. So we backed off on this approach.”
Instead, the church does visit new residents and take food to needy families contacted through a woman member who works in the school district. And recently the church voted to support Youth for Christ, a development Bird sees as a major step forward.
“I pray we will dream God’s dream for us, both individually and as a church. He didn’t create us to be comfortable, but to love people,” said Dick. “Part of counseling, as I see it, is to get people into a healing community. That’s my goal for our body-to be a healing community, and the church has all the resources to be exactly that.”
* * *
Pastors of large churches sometimes long for the simple joys of a small church-knowing everyone by name, dealing with individuals instead of committees, not having a complex budget, and on and on.
Those “simple joys” nearly caused Dennis Marquardt a breakdown. Yes, there are advantages to small-church ministry, but the hidden pressures can be devastating. The worst is over for Marquardt now; he no longer spends hours wondering if he should leave the ministry, but he still endures a migraine headache that hasn’t let up in four years.
In 1978 Marquardt was youth pastor of the 700-member Assembly of God in Arlington, Virginia, when he began thinking about planting a new church. Two young couples from his ministry were moving to Vermont to work in an IBM plant near Burlington. Since they would be eighteen miles from the nearest Assembly of God, they asked Dennis and Bevie Jo Marquardt if they would help them start a church closer to home. After consulting with the denomination’s Northern New England District, the Marquardts agreed.
“We left the security of the large church without really knowing what we were getting in for,” said Marquardt. “But we knew we’d have to live by faith.”
Together with the denomination, the core group decided to plant the church in Vergennes, twenty miles south of Burlington, an area dotted with dairy farms and roadside stands selling pure Vermont maple syrup.
Vergennes claims the title of “smallest city in America”-1.8 square miles-a distinction earned largely because the dreams of Vermont’s legendary hero Ethan Allen never materialized. Allen envisioned a bustling metropolis on the shores of Lake Champlain and established the city charter in 1788. The metropolis (“Thank heaven,” say the locals) never came about.
Now the city of 2,300 is home for Simmons Precision, which makes instrument panels for the Defense Department, and Kennedy Brothers wood products, a regular stop for the busloads of tourists heading to the Green Mountains.
The slower pace of the small city, however, didn’t translate into time to relax. If anything, the deliberate nature of Vermonters made Marquardt’s work harder.
When Dennis, Bevie Jo, and two-year-old Christel arrived in Vergennes with their U-Haul in October, 1978, they stayed with the Adamses, one of the two couples who’d urged them to come, for two months until they found a house.
While they were still house hunting, another young couple from Arlington, Steve and Helen Markiss, decided they too would move to Vermont to help plant the new church. Steve, a carpenter, figured he could find enough work to live on. So for over a month, three families-the Adamses, the Markisses, and the Marquardts-lived under one roof amid two truckloads of boxes.
“We were sure the Vermonters suspected we were a cult,” said Marquardt. “Here we were, nine people with Virginia license plates, two of us with beards, trying to start a church.”
Early in November, Marquardt secured permission to use Vergennes Elementary School for Sunday services. Even though the school board charged nothing, the new congregation voted to pay $25 a month for use of the building.
Services began the Sunday after Thanksgiving, with three locals attending besides the nine transplanted Virginians. Within nine months the church grew to thirty-five, slipped down to eighteen after a year and a half, and by March, 1983, had reached fifty. The uncertainty about attendance was a constant source of stress.
“You always worry about someone not showing up,” said Marquardt. “If the person responsible for the nursery suddenly isn’t in the mood to come, you’re stuck. That’s a problem in a small church we never had to face in Arlington.
“Our spirits rode up and down with the weekly attendance. I know you’re not supposed to be numbers conscious, but numbers do represent people. And when we were ministering to people, we felt our sacrifice was paying off; when no one was there, I wondered if it all was a waste and asked myself where I would go after I failed here.”
The sheer number of details that fall on a pastor in a small church also began to weigh on him.
“All I wanted to do was teach and preach (and play the piano if I couldn’t find anyone else),” said Marquardt. “But I continually had to decide on things like what to use for a pulpit, who had the songbooks, how many chairs to set up-would forty be too many or not enough?-and who would lead what.”
Finances were another source of tension. The denominational district set Marquardt’s salary at $100 a week plus whatever the church could do. As a step of faith the initial three couples pledged to give an additional $100 a week.
“Amazingly enough,” said Marquardt, “they never missed a check. But, of course, I didn’t know if the money would be there or not. There were times when I had to calm Bevie Jo’s fears about our personal finances. It began to get me down.
“Even my sermon preparation was suffering,” he said. “When you go from preaching to seven hundred, as I’d done in Virginia, to preaching to seven, you wonder if the hours of study are worth it. And when four or five daydream through the service, your motivation vanishes.”
The following year a glimmer of hope appeared. At the town’s ecumenical Good Friday service, Dennis was asked to speak. “That invitation gave us our public acceptance,” said Marquardt. “With the other clergy in town accepting me, people finally realized we weren’t a cult. But we still didn’t have a building of our own, and among Vermonters, a church without a building is suspect. People keep wondering, How long will these guys be around? I knew we wouldn’t grow much larger until we had a building to show we were permanent.”
A few months later, Dennis began to get headaches. Soon they were an everyday occurrence. Doctors treated him for allergies and hay fever, without success. Dennis compensated by working harder, not taking a vacation, and using powerful prescription pain pills to control the headaches, up to twenty-four pills a day.
“One day the pharmacist handed me my pills and said, ‘Reverend, if you took this bottle out on the street, you could be a rich man.’ I told him, ‘Don’t worry, I need these things.’ “
Eventually, with the help of the denomination, the church was able to buy ten acres north of Vergennes, and with much of the labor provided by members, the Assembly of God Christian Center began worshiping in its own building in March, 1983. Attendance quickly rose to ninety, then one hundred. But Dennis Marquardt was exhausted.
In May, he finally checked into a headache clinic in Boston that specialized in undiagnosed causes. It wasn’t long before they identified the problem as emotional burnout.
“I’d been sweeping the floor, typing bulletins, cutting stencils, everything-it was easier to do them myself than to try to get someone else to do them. Plus I was internalizing the people problems I dealt with-there really weren’t other ministers around for me to open up to,” he said.
At that point, the congregation held a business meeting without Marquardt present. As one of the elders there said, “We’ve got to do something for our pastor. We’ve got to get him well.”
That was when the people took virtually full responsibility for administering the church ministries. “Essentially they freed me to do nothing but prepare sermons,” said Marquardt. “It’s been healthy not only for me, but for the church, too. Now the elders are doing a good job of leading worship, and when our family vacations this summer, they’ll preach, too.”
The headache remains, though he’s down from twenty-four to six pills a day. “I’m learning to live with the headache and not let it affect me,” he says. “I don’t remember what normal feels like. But the five years of building this church have been worth it all. At last, now I’m able to sit back and begin to enjoy the fruit of all that labor.”
* * *
Appearances in Woodstock, Vermont, can be deceiving. It looks like a Currier and Ives woodcut come to life. The classic New England atmosphere in the mountain town is no accident; the town fathers work hard to maintain its quaint brick shops with the small signs outside done in gold-leaf British pub lettering. Its covered bridges are authentic, dating back to days when their builders worried about skittish horses refusing to cross rickety open bridges.
Though the town caters to tourists, no garish billboards assault your eyes with directions to the nearest miniature golf course or trinket shop.
No, the town square is reserved, dignified, aloof. An outsider naturally assumes the people are stereo-typically New Englandish also-just as reserved and aloof as the eighteenth-century brick. But David Waugh has found that reserved exteriors often house people eager to be loved. People have responded to his warm, unassuming ministry.
Waugh’s church, Woodstock Baptist Fellowship, meets just west of town in a renovated Grange hall, where eighty to one hundred people attend each Sunday. The congregation includes dairy farmers, shopkeepers, young people working summer jobs at Woodstock Inn to support their winter ski habit, and men released from the nearby state correctional facility.
“Recently we had a guest speaker who preached on the need to love the unlovely,” said Waugh. “He didn’t know our congregation very well, and he asked rhetorically, ‘What would you do if a convicted rapist or murderer visited this service?’ What he didn’t know was that he had both sitting in the pews before him. They’d been given passes to attend regularly.”
Like the tidy looks of Woodstock, the makeup of Waugh’s congregation is no accident. Waugh consciously works to create an atmosphere where everyone, no matter how unlikely a churchgoer, can feel welcome. His effort requires a different set of tools than most pastors use.
“One of the unique features of small-town ministry is that you’re called not just for spiritual needs,” he said. As he spoke he brushed his hair into place after taking off his motorcycle helmet. He’d loaned his car to college students working with the community’s youth for the summer, and now he was commuting on two wheels between church and home. “I’ve been called to help shingle a roof, to dig up a septic tank, and to watch someone’s kids while Mom’s in labor. Preacher-boys who don’t get their hands dirty will never make it in a small town.”
While doing visitation, Waugh has found himself walking through manure on a dairy farm and wrestling with pipes, wrenches, and clogged drains in someone’s kitchen. It’s his style of pastoring.
“Even in a small town, people are busy,” he said. “They can’t just stop what they’re doing to talk to the preacher. So when I arrive, I tell people not to stop what they’re doing. I’ll help.”
That means that Waugh’s wardrobe isn’t all coat and tie. If he’s visiting someone in town, he’ll wear his tie, but if he’s seeing a farmer, he wears jeans so he can be ready to pick up a hoe, paintbrush, or help with the milking machine.
David’s wife, Becky, enjoys telling about the day he was leaving home dressed in blue jeans, sport coat, and tie. “What are you doing?” she asked. His reply: “Today I’m prepared for anything.”
His car, when not loaned out, always carries overalls, a spare shirt, old shoes, a hammer, and a carpenter’s apron.
“One of the greatest compliments I ever heard a pastor receive was given to a seminary prof of mine down in Kentucky,” Waugh said. “A farmer in his congregation described him by saying, ‘He doesn’t mind getting manure on his shoes.’ He knew what it took in a small town.”
Waugh’s commitment to identify with people has at times been stretched, but it has proven effective.
For instance, one Sunday, Charles and Gretchen visited the church. They were unmarried, cohabitating, working together as masseur and masseuse, and after recently moving to Woodstock were “just trying out every church in town.” Charles, a former lawyer, had given up law because “I was a defense attorney and I kept getting guilty people off.” He’d worked as a truck driver before meeting Gretchen and learning to give massages.
When Waugh visited Charles after their second time at Woodstock Baptist, Charles asked if he’d ever had a deep muscle massage.
“No, but I’d like to sometime.”
“How about right now?”
“Are you serious?” Waugh said, suddenly wondering if his commitment to identify was really so necessary after all. “Aw, you don’t have your equipment here at home, and I wouldn’t want you to open your shop.”
“No problem at all,” said Charles, as he quickly unfolded a portable table.
“I suppose I’ll have to take off my shirt?” Waugh asked tentatively.
“You’ll have to take off more than that,” said Charles, handing him a towel.
As Waugh recalled the episode, he said, “Here I was, wearing nothing but a towel, in the house of a stranger as he pounded and prodded my back. All I could think was What do you say to a naked preacher? It’s amazing what a person has to do in evangelism.”
Charles and Gretchen kept coming to Woodstock Baptist Fellowship, eventually committed themselves to Christ, and asked to be baptized.
“At that point, I knew it was time to confront them about their living arrangement. So we talked about it for several months. A year later I married them in their cabbage patch, and subsequently they were baptized and joined the church.”
Charles and Gretchen are now part of a group from Woodstock Baptist that’s launching a satellite church in Bridgewater Center, eight miles west.
“Small towns require a patient ministry,” said Waugh. “It takes time to get through to people, and even then, sometimes the only way you can get through is by letting them see that just because you’re a pastor, you’re really no different than they are.”
* * *
Fifteen years ago, Dean Ryder’s shoulder-length hair, beads, and sandals made him an unlikely prospect to pastor a small country church. They certainly set him apart from the clean-shaven majority at Denver Conservative Baptist Seminary.
In the years during and after seminary, Ryder directed Help House, an inner-city facility for runaways, delinquents, and those with drug problems. It was a ministry of continual crisis counseling, irregular hours, and constant financial worries.
“Many times we’d empty our pockets of change to see if we had enough to buy a package of spaghetti,” said Ryder. But he preferred the direct caring ministry to what he considered a more insulated ministry in the church.
When The Denver Post ran a feature on the halfway house, Ryder’s picture appeared above the caption “I would feel confined as a pastor.”
For the past eight years, however, Dean has been serving First Baptist Church in Newfane, New York, a community of fruit growers and small manufacturers forty-five minutes north of Buffalo.
His appearance has changed-somewhat. The hair is shorter, and the beads are gone, but the beard remains.
His attitude toward the church has changed, too, but his direct caring ministry has not. In fact, the same caring skills he developed in the halfway house have helped overcome a problem haunting many small churches: bad memories.
Memories linger in a small church. That fact is an advantage when the history is pleasant, and the recollections of births, baptisms, and special events help bond members together. But if the past has been rocky, history can be divisive and memories destructive.
“When I first came to Newfane,” said Ryder, “it seemed like every conversation included something about ‘those people who left.’ They spoke as if it happened last month. A group had split off and started another church-but it was twenty years ago!”
Ryder decided to concentrate his ministry on caring and finding creative ways to meet needs, not concentrating on past hurts. The effort has taken time, but it’s worked.
“It’s been a couple years since I’ve heard anything disparaging about the other church,” said Ryder. As attendance has gradually increased from thirty-five to nearly eighty, those who felt deserted and rejected have been able to erase their resentment.
What happened? Much of it, to be sure, is Ryder’s personality. He enjoys trying something new and doesn’t mind when people laugh at him.
“I try to preach a couple of first-person sermons each year, dressed as a character from the Bible. But I may not have the nerve again after last time,” he says with a grin.
In his last pulpit appearance in costume, the heavy-set Ryder entered the sanctuary as King Herod. A little girl, seeing the bearded man with robe and crown, whispered to her mother in a voice that carried throughout the small sanctuary: “Look, Mommy, it’s the Burger King!”
“We just about had to end the service right there,” said Ryder. But the laughter helps create an atmosphere where malignant memories can be replaced by healthy ones.
Ryder also takes advantage of the small-town opportunities. He coaches a boys’ baseball team each summer and serves as chaplain at Boy Scout camp each year. He and the other five pastors in town arranged with Newfane Intercommunity Hospital to get the name and religious background of every person who’s admitted, and they make sure everyone is visited. He invests time in individuals.
“There’s more program at a large church,” said Ryder. “But there’s more pastoring at a small church.”
Ryder’s pastoral style is patient, unhurried. One woman asked Ryder to talk with her husband. “He needs to go to the doctor for his prostate problem, but he pretends there’s nothing wrong,” she said.
Ryder dropped by that week and eventually turned the conversation around to Ray’s health.
“When’s the last time you went to the doctor, Ray?”
Ray admitted it had been years and agreed he ought to set an appointment. But a week later, when Ryder checked, Ray hadn’t called. Ryder gave him another chance, but when Ray still didn’t act, Ryder found out the doctor’s name, made an appointment, and arranged a time when Ray could come right in, rather than enduring a long sit in the waiting room. Then Ryder called Ray.
“I happened to be in the doctor’s office,” he said. “And I set up an appointment for you. And don’t worry, he’ll see you as soon as you arrive.”
The day of the appointment, Ryder stopped by Ray’s home to make sure he kept the appointment. Ray had his suitcase packed; he knew the condition was serious. Ryder drove him to the hospital. Within a week Ray had surgery, and the problem was taken care of.
“In a large church, I wouldn’t have time to invest in individuals like that,” said Ryder. “But in a small church I can, and that kind of caring is contagious.
Recently we had a man hospitalized, and he got 125 cards from our church! Some people sent three or four. He was overwhelmed.”
Despite his earlier feelings, Ryder has not found the pastorate confining. “I spend three nights a week with my family and go to Scout camp with my son. With a small church, it’s easier to keep those family priorities straight.
“I couldn’t be happier than I am here,” he said. “You couldn’t get me to take a larger church with all the hassles. The only way I’d pastor a large church is if First Baptist grows into one.”
Reflections
These are only five stories of small churches. They could be multiplied thousands of times, for they represent some of the struggles faced by little churches everywhere.
But many stories remain untold. Many questions remain unanswered, such as these asked by other small-church pastors:
“How can you have a youth ministry when there are only three teens in the church?”
“What can you do when everyone in the church works for the same company-some in management, some in labor-and the union calls a strike? Suddenly company tensions become church tensions.”
“What does evangelism mean in a small town where everyone knows everyone else, and people have pretty much made up their minds about spiritual things?”
“In the last five years, my district superintendent has spent exactly an hour and a half with me. Where can I go for guidance with pastoral problems?”
“How do you handle one stubborn individual when he makes up 5 percent of the congregation?”
One pastor enjoys reciting a line from Alan Redpath. He says it gives him the strength to go on. “If you’re a Christian pastor, you’re always in a crisis-either in the middle of one, coming out of one, or going into one.”
No, discouragement and problems aren’t unique to small churches even though they seem to arrive there frequently. Time and time again, however, after reviewing the troubles of the church, the pastor would look at me, smile, and say, “But you know, I love these people. We may not have a youth ministry, but I went to Carla’s volleyball game last week, and I’m taking the two junior high guys camping next week. Sure small churches have problems, but you’ll never get away from those. I belong here. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
A week after returning from the Northeast, Susan and I survived a hit-and-run accident that totaled our Datsun 210. At fifty miles an hour, we hit the rear of a pickup truck that had run a stop sign and sped directly into our path. The engine of our little 210 collapsed like an accordion, but the windshield didn’t shatter, nor was the passenger compartment penetrated. We walked away unhurt except for Susan’s bruised knees.
That experience, and the experiences of the previous week, taught us something about both small cars and small churches. They may not get much respect from the bigger models, but they manage to fit in all the necessary equipment. In a collision-whether fender to fender or person to person-they sustain a lot of damage, but the pounding can be survived. I’m impressed with their durability. Both small cars and small churches are here to stay.
Marshall Shelley is assistant editor of LEADERSHIP.
Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
Pastors
Mark R. Littleton
A young pastor owns up to the realities of personal devotion, and explores for solutions.
- View Issue
- Subscribe
- Give a Gift
- Archives
Parishioners would never dream it, but there is a segment of the ecclesiastical nobility-myself included-for whom personal worship (a.k.a. “devotions,” “quiet time,” “QT”) has been a struggle. First, it’s finding the minutes. Those phone calls in the morning always seem to foul up your communion with God. Or maybe it’s the kids. Or the sweet smell of coffee wafting from the kitchen.
Next, there’s how long you spend. Reading about John Wesley awakening at 4 A.M. and praying for two hours is exhilarating, but it nearly wipes you out. As holy as David Brainerd was, you get a bit tired of him lying in the snow, praying for six hours, and getting up wet. Not from the snow, though. From the sweat.
Once QT gets a beachhead in your life, it’s the lightning bolts of guilt that shoot through you every time you miss. Remember the day you cracked up the car? What was the first thing you muttered? “Why didn’t I have my prayer time this morning?”
Then there are the dry periods. The Bible puts you right out. You kneel by the couch and promptly fall asleep as you mumble, “And bless the deacons and the trustees and Luke Skywalker. … “
Finally, there’s simply sticking with it, through sick and sin. You try it with the television on. With the television off. At home. At your office. Under the beech trees in the park. In bed. Out of bed. You go for a week straight and don’t miss once. The next week you miss seven for seven.
Believe me, I’ve been there. I’ve been lectured to, preached at, cajoled, and excoriated. I have also lectured to, preached at, cajoled, and excoriated others about having a personal life of devotion.
Please understand at the outset that I do not write to put anyone into another guilt epoch. However, I would like to discuss some basic principles about personal worship and then speak rather specifically about ways I’ve implemented them in my life. The goal is to help pastors become consistent and make devotions enjoyable, not annoying.
Some Basic Principles
Let me begin by saying that I know of no verses in Scripture that command us to have devotions … la the twentieth-century American recipes. We have, unfortunately, separated life into various boxes: “devotions,” “church,” “family,” and so on. I suspect devotions are more a matter of lifestyle than a five- to fifty-minute bracket of time in which we follow some quickie scheme, deliver to the Lord a few spiritual creme donuts, and figure we’ve properly induced him to bless us for the day. With that in mind, consider these principles.
First, men and women of God have always sought quiet, deep communion with God at regular times and places. The sons of Korah wrote, “In the morning my prayer comes before you” (Ps. 88:13). David also said, “Morning by morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; morning by morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation” (Ps. 5:3). Daniel had the habit of praying three times a day with his windows open (Dan. 6:10), and Jesus appears to have gone out regularly in the mornings to commune with his Father (Mark 1:35).
It was taking time to commune with God that made these spiritual giants. They prayed regularly, sometimes for long periods, sometimes for short. But they prayed and studied just the same.
The biographies of people God has used in history hold few common elements in terms of evangelistic methods, preaching styles, or church growth principles. But one thread runs throughout: they all prayed; they all studied the Word for their own edification; they all sought God with fervor and fire. They were fulfillments of Psalm 42:1 “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.” Read a book like Dick Eastman’s No Easy Road, and you can’t help but catch the vision. He speaks of John “Praying” Hyde, whose heart was twisted out of its cavity because of his soul-wrenching hours in intercession. Samuel Rutherford rose at 3 A.M. to pray. John Welch of Scotland remarked that a day was ill-spent if he did not commit eight to ten hours to communion with God.
These kinds of stories both thrill and devastate me as a struggling pastor. But I have to ask myself the question: Are all the activities that scream for my time and attention in twentieth-century America really essential? Am I missing the burning bush for trying to keep the lawn cut? There must be priorities in our lives, and one of them ought to be heart-to-heart communion with God. God moved through these men to move the world. Perhaps the lack of spiritual power for many of us is not a lack of books, principles, or exhortations but a lack of keeping this one priority.
Second, while there is nothing more spiritual about having longer devotions, and nothing less spiritual about short devotions, there is much to be said for a balance of both. I’ve read about Martin Luther saying, “I have so much to do today I will have to spend the first three hours in prayer, or the Devil will get the victory.” I am not sure whether such stories are preachers’ illustrations or whether I am totally carnal. But the idea of three or more straight hours in prayer every morning bowls me over. Yet, I have to ask myself: Do I ever spend lengthy times in prayer, personal study, and communion?
We can get into such a groove of slicing out twenty minutes a day for prayer and Bible reading that we begin to think it’s enough. Especially if the church is growing and everyone is happy. Yet, Jesus prayed a whole night before he chose the twelve disciples. Shouldn’t we consider that big decisions call for big prayer? Such things must also be planned and made a priority.
Still, the primary consideration is an overall walk with God. It is not the quantity of nouns and verbs thrust into the Lord’s ears that counts. Much of my own time in prayer is between activities-in bathrooms, on walks, while driving. I believe those prayers are just as important, fervent, and effective as those with folded hands and closed eyes on my knees in a preaching robe.
Third, the Bible does not legislate any set patterns for devotions. Each individual makes up his own. But again there must be a balance of both planned and spontaneous worship. I have met those who scorned anyone who woke up at the same time and went through the same routine each day. I have also met those who ridiculed people who always “wing it,” taking their communion with the Lord in snips and snaps.
A real friendship with God involves both. Can you imagine a friendship made up of a fifteen-minute shot each morning, from 6:45 to 7:00, in which I say, “Sit down, friend-I’m gonna talk to you now and ask you to bless me.” In the same way I can’t believe the Lord relishes a daily queue of ACTS-users (ACTS = Adore, Confess, Thank, Supplicate). While it’s a nice acrostic, I always imagine someone coming to the Lord and saying, “Well, I’ve adored you for thirty seconds-now here’s some confession.” What if the Lord suddenly booms, “Look, kid, you better hit me with another thirty seconds of adoration. I’ve had a bad night.” It’s a little like using a quickie evangelistic method on people. They begin to feel like slot machines.
At the same time, I have found that all spontaneity and no planning makes Jack a disorganized boy. There must be a plan to follow even when we don’t feel like it. Having certain patterns in my life of Bible study, Bible memory, and prayer is an anchor that holds me in the harbor while at the same time giving me just enough play in the line to move about on the breezes of the Spirit.
Fourth, a devotional life ought to involve Bible reading, prayer, Bible memorization, study, singing, and worship, but not necessarily in that order, every day, or at the same time every day. No pastor can question the need to store up God’s Word in his heart (Col. 3:16). There can be no argument about spending time in prayer (1 Thess. 5:17) or Bible study (2 Tim. 2:15). All these ingredients should be abundantly apparent.
However, I am not sure one has to be doing these things every day, in the same amount, at the same times, with the same fervor and determination. Certainly it is wise to schedule time for them. That’s the only way they will get done. But if devotions become a chore, we are in danger of becoming legalists rather than lovers. If we feel guilty because we “missed,” are we genuinely guilty or just putting ourselves on?
Our worship must be from the heart. But it must also be structured, intelligent, and consistent.
Cracking the Devotional Padlock
Every pastor is pressed for time. If you aren’t, maybe you’re not pastoring. Still, how can a minister have a guilt-free personal walk with God, live a Spirit-filled life, and continue to grow?
Here are some past and present ways I have found to bring satisfaction, joy, and love into my own relationship with the Lord.
Let’s start with prayer. I have at times spent several hours in prayer, alone and with others. In general, though, I find it hard to kneel that long. Prayer can be particularly life-giving and refreshing as well as effective in the following environments:
While walking. On my feet I think of things that don’t normally occur to me in a closed room. There is an “on-the-road-with-him” quality that I love.
Furthermore, I meet people on the way. This provides a break in prayer (if I need it) and often leads to witnessing opportunities. I can also pray for people I pass along the way, for homes, streets, and businesses I would miss in the quiet of my study.
There is also time to meditate. I carry a memory pack of cards to use in learning new Scriptures. I discuss them with the Lord, and it seems he fills my mind with his thoughts. Many times problems have been solved, sermons hatched, and processes begun on such prayer excursions.
In addition, they give me much-needed exercise, a change of pace, a breath of fresh air, and contact with nature. It is easier to worship and adore the Lord when I’m beholding his beautiful creation instead of a hot room. Thus, I plan much of my prayer time for my daily walk.
While driving. This again is a rich time to be mined for prayer and meditation. I have to travel anyway, so why not make the most of it?
During dead time. Dead time is standing in lines, walking from place to place, in the bathtub, washing dishes, cooking, falling to sleep. All those periods of useless time become moments when we can talk to the Lord. Why not plan to use dead time for this purpose?
Scheduled time. Any person who knows the Lord knows that prayer is an essential as well as an elixir. That’s why I must plan for long periods of prayer, whether I feel like it or not. I find that if I plan to pray with another person for an extended period, it gets done. Not only do we gain a blessing together, but the Lord works mightily through it.
Other occasions. One of the perennial bugaboos in a pastor’s life is all the people who solicit your prayers. Whenever someone greets me at the church door with a request for prayer, I always nod and assure them I will. Then I promptly forget about it until they tell me how God answered, and I feel guilty for not playing a part.
What’s the answer? If I can remember the request just until a break occurs (often, right after the solicitation), I can pray on the spot. Stonewall Jackson, they say, had the habit of praying every time he sealed a letter, began a meal, met a friend, or issued an order. Quickly asking the Lord to work in such situations is useful.
A prayer file. One of the greatest tools I have ever used is a simple prayer filing system using three-by-five cards. I put each request on a card and file it under one of several headings: Non-Christians, Members of the Church, Family, Personal, Missions, World, United States, etc. When I go for my prayer walk, for a drive, or just to pray in my office, I often pull out those cards and pray through them. When an answer comes, I record it on the card and file it away in “Answered Prayers.” A great joy is to pull this file out and review what the Lord has done.
Bible Study
A second area is Bible reading and study. I do not regard myself as too “spiritual” to use a devotional aid. Timeless Insights, published by Walk Thru the Bible Ministries, takes you through the New Testament in a year’s time and includes quotes from the greats in every reading. The Daily Walk goes through the whole Bible in a year and includes an outline of the passage, several insights and highlights on the passage, and some ideas about application. Both are excellent tools.
Another method I’ve used with great effect is to read the same passage for a week straight. (Some even suggest doing this for a whole month.) I have worked out a schedule of reading six to eight chapters a day for a week that covers the whole New Testament and the Minor Prophets in a year’s time. Thus I read through these books seven times each year.
Our Daily Bread is an excellent source not only of insight but of sermon illustrations. I read one whole volume at a time and cut out the material I want to use in sermons, filing it away on three-by-five cards.
Beyond reading, though, comes meditation. This can be done on walks, while driving, and during dead time as well, but it should also be planned. I once heard Henry Brandt say he schedules time just to “sit and stare.” Often I plan to spend a whole two-hour walk meditating on a passage I am studying for sermon preparation.
I had professors in seminary who warned against using sermon preparation as devotional time. I still can’t understand such thinking. If a sermon is meant to meet others’ needs, why not your own? All heavy study should include personal nourishment as much as any purely “devotional time.”
Bible Memory
I am appalled at the number of “men of God” who spend no time memorizing Bible passages, from verses to whole books. In my own life, the primary motivation came when a friend introduced me to a system for retaining the verses I’d memorized. It is easy to use and not at all time-consuming. I can presently keep nearly 2,500 verses memorized (wording and reference) with only fifteen minutes of review a day.
Most adults think memorizing Scripture is terribly hard. However, books by Jerry Lucas and Harry Lorayne such as The Memory Book give anyone quick insight into the easy way to memorize. They provide all kinds of association and numerical devices that take the pain out of Bible memory.
Other Disciplines
Singing. Devotional time, for me, was dry until I began singing regularly. A person can memorize many hymns just by singing several each day during a devotional period.
Listening to tapes. I subscribe to several tape libraries that provide rich spiritual meat for digesting while driving and elsewhere. This is a great source of edification, illustrations, and helpful sermon notes.
Devotional books, biographies, and general spiritual reading. At times I have included in my devotional habits the reading of books on prayer, preaching, and worship-usually, one chapter a day. This can also be done with books of sermons. (A friend of mine in seminary even read Robertson’s Grammar of the Greek New Testament during his personal worship time. Now that was devotion.)
Exploring God’s creation with a devotional purpose. It isn’t impossible to have your devotions by going to the zoo, an art museum, aquarium, or some beauty spot. This appeals to our spiritual nature and can enhance the moment of worship.
Communing with the Lord is a constantly growing, challenging, fulfilling aspect of Christian ministry. It is really what our lives are all about. Find a vacant life, and you’ll usually discover one who has put God on a back lot. But if the devotional life is a priority, he will gladly fill everything else with blessing.
Mark Littleton is pastor of Berea Baptist Church, Glen Burnie, Maryland.
Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
- More fromMark R. Littleton
- Devotional Life
- Guilt
- Planning
- Prayer
- Priorities
- Spiritual Formation
- Time
- Time Management
- Worship