Page 5468 – Christianity Today (2024)

Pastors

Em Griffin

One way or another, decisions always get made—but using the right method helps make sure the result is a good one.

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The material in this article is an adaptation of a chapter from Em Griffin’s book, Getting Together, published by InterVarsity Press.

You’re the chairman of the Church’s missions committee. You’ve held the post for two years, but up until now the group’s duties have been routine-recruiting speakers, corresponding with missionaries, handling the funds that go to the denomination’s mission board.

Now you’re faced with a larger responsibility. This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of your church’s founding. Your pastor wants. to celebrate by raising $50,000 for a special missions project. He’s committed to making the campaign go, but he doesn’t know what the project should be. That’s your job.

You aren’t completely in the dark. He’s given you some overall guidelines: You’re to focus on a single ministry, not a hundred different agencies. You’re to invest in people rather than things. You’re to find a project that will turn people on, a specific need that will capture their imagination.

And there’s no dearth of ideas. People can always think of ways to spend money. Already requests have surfaced and been sent to your committee for consideration:

1. Support a young couple in their work of radio evangelism behind the Iron Curtain.

2. Educate indigenous doctors for a mission hospital in Bangladesh.

3. Support a fledgling seminary for native American Indians.

4. Provide seed money to launch a combined Young Life/Youth for Christ outreach among the unchurched teenagers of your community.

5. People on the island of Haiti are the poorest of the poor. You could finance a local cannery, which would provide employment and keep the singlecrop harvest from spoiling.

6. An inner-city pastor has approached you for help in setting up a holistic ministry in an urban housing project. His plans include a food co-op, tutoring, legal aid, parenting classes, and discipleship groups.

All worthwhile projects, but you and your seven-member committee are overwhelmed. How do you decide? You obviously want God’s will. But one member has announced that it’s God’s will to support the radio evangelist, and you’re not so sure he has a pipeline to divine truth. The problem you have is typical of many faced by Christian group leaders. You want to select a project by using a decision-making process that will allow God’s will to speak through all seven of you.

Unfortunately, no decision-making process is perfect. Each has its pluses and minuses. Not surprisingly, the strengths of one are the weaknesses of another. It’s often a tradeoff. As leader of the group, you have to figure out which one leads to a good decision in your situation.

Five factors make for a good decision:

• Quality. How good a decision is it?

• Time. How long does it take to decide?

• Commitment. Will all the committee members really support it?

• Attractiveness. Did the process create an espirit de corps among committee members?

• Learning. Did the committee learn during the process?

That’s the goal: to reach a quality solution that all are committed to in a short amount of time, while still liking each other and learning in the process! Let’s look at four different methods to achieve this goal:

Voting

The process of taking a vote is almost synonymous with democracy. Virtually every club, organization, school board, and legislature in our culture conducts its business on the basis of majority rule. But there are different ways to set it up. Let’s see how this might work for the missions committee.

As chairman, you lead a discussion on the relative merits of the six proposals. You try to be impartial, giving everyone an equal chance to voice his or her opinion. After an agreed-upon period of time, you call for a vote. The project that receives four of the seven votes wins. If the first ballot totals three votes for Bangladesh doctors, two votes for the joint Young LifelYouth for Christ proposal, and one each for Soviet bloc radio evangelism and the Arizona seminary, the group would discard the losing projects and revote on the top two.

Another route to a majority decision would occur if the group discussion began to center on one of the projects—the inner-city work, for instance. One of the members could move that this be the official focus of the fund drive. At that point, all of the discussion would focus on this single proposal. When a member’s “call for the question” is supported by the others, you proceed to vote the idea up or down. In case of a three-three split among members, you, as leader, would cast the deciding vote.

Whichever route you take to get there, the final outcome is based on a one-man-one-vote principle that’s consistent with democratic ideals. On paper it looks like a good way to do it. But in practice, it’s a mixed bag:

The quality of a majority rule decision is usually better than what would be selected solely by the luck of the draw. Suppose that an all-knowing, allpowerful, beneficent ruler of the universe (God) singled out the holistic urban project as the best use of the money. The odds of hitting upon that specific solution merely by chance are one out of six. Surely your panel of reasonably intelligent men and women of good will can improve on that. To claim 100 percent certainty would be presumptuous. But it’s not unreasonable to hope for a 70 percent probability of success.

A good decision is likely because the issue has been aired in the light of day. Everyone’s had a chance to pump for his or her pet project, while poking holes in the plans that seem inferior. It’s a lot tougher to fool seven people than just one. Usually the collective wisdom of the group will be greater than the knowledge of any individual.

A relatively high-quality solution isn’t the only plus for majority rule. It’s possible to reach a final judgment within a short time span. Not all chairmen are comfortable with this feature. They’d rather talk an issue out until everyone seems happy. When the last holdout gives in, they say, “Let’s vote.” In this case, voting is a mere formality-the stamp of approval required for the minister. But the ballot process can take a decision that’s dragging on and on and bring it to an abrupt conclusion. Used this way, voting is a method of conflict resolution.

Calling the question not only moves the group to a swift decision, but it also forces individual members to make up their minds. I have a friend who has a terrible time figuring out what he thinks. Once, in a spirit of pique, I asked him if he had trouble being decisive. After a long pause, he answered, “Yes and no.” Voting cuts through the fog of ambivalence.

Of course, this time-saving feature can kick up resistance to the winning solution. You can’t expect a person who’s been voted down to be committed to a decision he or she thought second best. Even a member on the winning side may be less than happy with the choices. How many people do you know who have been truly excited about a presidential candidate over the past two decades? Sometimes it’s worse than that. A member may be drastically opposed to the will of the majority—believing they’ve done something stupid, harmful, or even sinful.

Attraction to the group follows the same pattern. We think folks who see things our way are very fine fellows indeed. “My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.” So decision by majority rule tends to draw us closer to those on our side of the issue, but alienates us from those who differ. This divisive feature is tempered by having multiple chances to cast ballots on varied issues, so that my opponent in one case is my ally in another. Overall, however, voting acts as an irritant to group cohesion.

Voting and learning go hand in hand. The push and shove of parliamentary debate is a great training ground for leadership. One can hardly survive a number of motions, seconds, amendments, calls for tabling, and calls for the question without picking up a certain sensitivity for guiding a discussion. Similarly, the airing of different viewpoints is a great way for everyone to become knowledgeable about the topic at hand. By the time the vote is cast, everyone on the missions committee should know much more than they did at the start.

Appointing an Expert

This isn’t as easy as it sounds, because it entails figuring out which expert to pick. Of course, you or the pastor could do the deed by simple fiat. But dictatorial solution is outside the spirit of group decision making. A group can give its authority to a single wise person, but it can’t duck the responsibility for making a good selection.

When it comes to selecting a competent pro, there’s rarely a lack of volunteers. Self-styled experts always come to the fore. The trouble is, you “can’t tell the players without a program.” The guy who wants to be appointed resident guru may not understand his own limitations. The woman who has the wisdom of Solomon may be too shy to put herself forward.

It’s especially hard to pick the best member from within your midst when the possibility of hurt feelings lurks just beneath the surface. I remember a time I was counseling at a high school summer camp. Kids were divided into four teams for sports competition. As coach of one of the teams, it was my job to sign them up for the big swim meet. We needed one swimmer for each event, and we didn’t have time for tryouts. “Girls’ fifty-yard backstroke! Who’d like to enter?” I shouted at the team meeting. Two girls volunteered. How was I to pick between them? I asked if either of them was on a swim team.

Both nodded. Did they remember their times for the fifty-yard backstroke? No. They even looked alike!

The only noticeable difference was that one gal was eager to do it while the other was somewhat reticent. So I picked the former—and she lost badly. Later on in the week, I saw the second girl swim. We would have been well represented. I had a Junior Olympics swimmer on the team who could have won the race wearing army boots. She hadn’t volunteered because she’d just washed her hair and didn’t want to get it wet again!

So identifying your best person is tricky. Getting him or her to volunteer is an additional hurdle to cross. But even if you identify and recruit the best person in your group, you still run up against a barrier to getting a top-quality solution. With one person—even the best person—you can’t get synergy.

You may not be familiar with the term synergy. (You’re not alone. I once had a student define it on a test as “sufficient energy to sin.”) It refers to a group solution that is better than the best idea of any one member. A prized goal in any group decision, it comes about when members pool their expertise to achieve a collective wisdom greater than anyone of them possesses on his own.

Delegating the judgment to one person looks much better when time is a crucial consideration. You may not get a good decision, but you can get it fast. Sometimes that’s just as important. All six mission projects have their strong points. It would be a shame to fritter away the golden opportunity through indecision. Besides, six committee meetings can consume eighty-four man-hours of precious time (seven members x two hours x six meetings = eighty-four hours). One quickie meeting of the committee to select the pro, plus his or her time spent in research, will probably add up to only ten or fifteen hours of work. The time efficiency is vastly superior to anything involving face-to-face interaction.

Delegating the choice to an expert does little to insure member commitment to the plan of action. Group members will usually go along with a decision made by someone else—as long as they don’t see it as central to who they are or what they are about. Should the church’s brochure be printed in four colors at Acme Press or in two colors by Ace Printers? Who cares? Let someone who knows the business decide. But if the girl who married the Russian defector is my niece, however, or I met the Lord through the ministry of Young Life, I want some part in deciding which project we pick. Even if I agree with the decision, I won’t work as hard if I wasn’t involved in the process. I’ll be apathetic or even hostile to an idea that hasn’t been shaped by my input.

Decisions by experts are a bit stronger on group cohesion. You’ll recall that one of the drawbacks of voting was that it split the group into two opposing camps. Appointment removes that source of irritation. The burden of judgment is on someone else’s shoulders, so they’re free to enjoy each other’s fellowship. It’s not the best-friend type of attraction that comes out of the crucible of common stress, but a warm, mutual appreciation can grow while members are waiting for the final word.

Appointment is a loser when it comes to learning. True, the man or woman who knew something about missions is selected and now knows more about missions. But the rest are left out in the cold. Their ignorance confirmed, they conclude that it takes a seminary degree to decipher the nuances of missiology—and quit trying.

Delphi Technique

This calls up images of an ancient Greek oracle making decisions by consulting the entrails of a pig. That is not what this method is about. The technique involves collecting the decisions of each member and subjecting these to a process of statistical averaging. It’s like averaging judges’ scores at a figure-skating competition. Here’s how it works for the missions committee problem.

As chairman, you solicit suggestions for the fiftieth anniversary project. You can do this by mail, phone, or in one-on-one interviewing. You ask committee members to rank the projects in order of their desirability. The first choice is assigned number one, and the least favored alternative is rated number six.

The next step is to feed back this material to the committee without identifying who voted for what. They can study the data and draw their own conclusions before you survey them a second time. If I were a member of the group, here’s what I’d be thinking:

-No use wasting a high choice on the cannery project. It’s a dead issue. Three people are strongly opposed.

-Radio evangelism is right up there. I just can’t see it. Sometimes I’m more sure of what I’m against than what I’m for. I think I’ll put it last on my list next time to try to keep it from moving up.

-The native American seminary doesn’t stir much interest one way or the other.

-The group’s really split on radio evangelism and education for the doctors in Bangladesh.

-There’s general, though not unanimous, support for holistic inner-city ministry.

You then ask the members to go through the rank-order process again. They can list the items the same way they did the first time, or they can rearrange their priorities in light of the initial results. It’s possible to go through this cycle six or seven times, but things usually shake down after the second ranking. The lowest total is the group’s choice—even though the group never actually meets together.

The big advantage of the Delphi technique is the equal weighing of each member’s input. Statistics are no respecter of persons. The big giver, the handsome man, or the lady who’s clever with words can’t sway the group to their side. It’s a balanced one-man-onevote system. Eccentric ideas get submerged by proposals that have general support.

I saw a perfect example of this when I assigned different methods of decision making in my group dynamics class. I asked students to indicate the order in which Christ called his disciples. Note that this is a problem with a right answer, although it takes a harmony of the Gospels to ferret it out.

The voting group was heavily influenced by a selfconfident fellow who was a Bible major. He was certain that John was first and Philip was the last one called. But he was certainly wrong and led the others astray. The group using the Delphi technique avoided the problem. There wasn’t any room for wheeling and dealing.

You’d think that any system of averaging would render a poor-quality decision. Not so. The Delphi technique seems to tap into the collective wisdom of the group. It doesn’t occur every time, but synergy is a distinct possibility. In my class, the Delphi technique came up with a better solution than any of the other groups. Of course, these students had some biblical knowledge. As long as most group members have a decent grasp of the topic at hand, the solution will be at least as good, if not better, than other methods.

In terms of time, the Delphi technique is great. It takes only a few minutes to rank-order a list of possible choices. One person can quickly tabulate the results.

But the very efficiency of the method prevents members from drawing close to each other. There’s no chance to compare ailments, swap jokes, or show pictures of the new collie pup. None of these would directly help your mission group make a decision, yet they’re the stuff that interpersonal attraction is made of. We can be a bit cynical by saying that as long as there’s no interaction, folks won’t have reason to get mad at each other. But that’s a poor reason to adopt a mechanical process.

Learning isn’t much better. I may catch a glimpse of social reality by seeing how others rank the items, but there’s no opportunity to discuss relative merits. It usually takes the public push and pull of ideas to stimulate new insights. Leadership training is also nonexistent. The biggest drawback, however, is the total lack of member commitment to the solution. Because of the statistical averaging process, you can end up with a solution that doesn’t exactly match anyone individual’s input. That doesn’t create feelings of ownership.

Consensus

When I say consensus, the picture that comes to mind is the seven members of the missions committee sitting around a table, all nodding their heads in agreement. As chairman you’ve asked, “Are we agreed, then, that our anniversary effort should be to raise funds to educate Christian doctors in Bangladesh?”

“Yes.”

“You bet.”

“Let’s do it.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Sure.”

“I’m for it.”

That would be great. If all the members can coalesce on a given project, you know that the group will break their backs to make the fund drive go. When member commitment is crucial, it makes sense for the leader to take pains to insure that everybody is behind the action.

Of course some will say, “You’re dreaming, Em. I can barely get the seven of us to agree on where to go for lunch. No way is such a diverse group going to reach unanimity on a single plan. Even if it were possible, it’d take hours of time.”

I never promised that consensus was easy. You have to be prepared for a long haul. Unless your committee is acting as a rubber stamp, it can take hours of questioning and probing to reach unanimous consent. There’s not even a guarantee you’ll get it in the end. All that time may go for naught. But it is possible.

On a twelve-member jury, one person can hold up the group if he or she has a reasonable doubt. This forces the group to talk things out along the lines of evidence. The old movie Twelve Angry Men had Henry Fonda as the one holdout against an eleven-man majority that wanted to rush to judgment. They were incensed at Fonda’s stubbornness. But the rules of law state that 11-1 isn’t good enough. They had to reach consensus. By the end of the third reel, Fonda had converted them all to a not-guilty position. This may seem far-fetched, but it’s been known to happen in real life.

Of course, a jury has a relatively simple task. Their decision is a simple guilty/not guilty. They don’t have to generate ideas to support their choice—that’s up to the prosecutor and lawyer. And, supposedly, they are free from personal bias in the case. None of these is true in our missions committee example. But perhaps the example of a jury helps to show that consensus is a possibility, and that it’s worth striving for when the stakes are high.

Can you reach consensus? There’s no ironclad guarantee. You may become a hung jury. But sticking to the following guidelines will give your group a decent shot at reaching agreement.

• Announce your intentions right from the start. Let folks know that you’re prepared to hash things out until the group reaches a decision that everyone can support. This means that a single person has veto power. One member can block a decision if he or she feels it’s taking the group down the wrong path. Obviously, this could result in total chaos if everybody lobbies hard for his top choice. So encourage a mutual forbearance, where people listen to others’ thoughts.

• Be a process person. As leader, your concern is more on how the group decides than which of the six options they pick. So be a bit suspicious of quick agreement. If you publicly check out the reason why people are in favor of a given idea, they may discover that they don’ t see eye to eye. Better for everyone to discover it now and wrestle through disagreement. You want to end up with true unity, not just a papered-over rift.

• Encourage open expression of disagreement. Conflict isn’t necessarily bad. It can be healthy. Some members have quite probably come to the group with “hidden agendas”—pet solutions they are privately committed to. If these thoughts stay beneath the surface, they’ll keep a person from honestly considering any other possibilities. Better to get all the thoughts on the table.

• Don’t mistake silence for agreement. It may seem reasonable to assume that people would speak up if they objected to the drift of the conversation. Some will. The average group has a few members that have no unspoken thoughts. But the same group typically has one or two reticent . members who are slow to voice their opinions. They may be naturally shy. Perhaps they’re intimidated by higher status or more vocal members. Whatever the reason, you need to create an environment that supports their ideas. Seek out their thoughts; encourage them to plunge into the conversation.

• Don’t expect complete unanimity. That’s not really your goal—which is indeed fortunate, because it’s almost impossible to achieve this side of heaven. What you’re shooting for is a solution that can gain everybody’s approval. A lot of folks aren’t sure what’s best. But everybody has strong opinions about what’s worst. Your job is to help people discuss an alternative that all can agree to—even if it isn’t first on everyone’s list.

Consensus stacks up well against the other methods in terms of quality. It leads to synergy with impressive frequency. The last time I gave the assignment about the disciples, one fellow put Bartholomew high on his list while all other group members had him down the line with Thaddeus and Judas. They tried to force him to give in, but he stood his ground and argued well for his answer. But he was wrong in thinking John was first-and wiser heads prevailed on that one. So the group ended up with a much better answer than anyone of them had by himself. Consensus is the best route to synergy.

You can see how it also stimulates learning. After pooling and weighing everyone’s knowledge about the disciples, the group as a whole came out of the session smarter than they went in. And New Testament history was just part of the gain. The members received a short course in group dynamics. They can draw upon this interpersonal experience when tossed into another problem-solving situation.

When it comes to member attraction, I know of nothing that will pull people closer together than a common commitment to unity. The Christian song “We Are One in the Spirit” is a hymn of consensus.

I once invited, a class of sixteen students to our home for an informal evening together. I left the actual night and time up to them. I only asked that no one be scheduled out. Given night courses, jobs, family responsibilities, church work, and travel plans, this was an almost impossible assignment.

But they stuck with it. After a prolonged discussion, they finally arrived at a date that fifteen of them could make. It wasn’t easy. Many of them had to flex their schedules to accommodate the group. But still, one international student was shut out. He worked five nights a week and desperately needed the money. The two nights he was free, a number of others had ironclad conflicts.

It looked like an impasse, but the group refused to quit. They entertained a number of possible solutions, some quite bizarre. Then one girl suggested, “How about if we all chip in a buck and hire someone to replace you that night? You’ll still get paid, the work will get done, and we’ll all be together!” Everyone chimed in their agreement.

The fellow looked confused. He admitted that the plan was feasible, but he couldn’t believe they’d do this for him. When the reality sank in, he was ecstatic. So was the group, and the evening was a huge success.

Two notes of caution: If the group tries to reach consensus and fails, the resulting frustration can cause interpersonal attraction to plummet. It’s easy to find a scapegoat for the group’s problem. Everyone blames someone else.

The opposite tendency is equally dangerous. The group may become so intent on having unity that no one can afford to raise honest doubts. This desire for togetherness-at-all-costs can lead to false consensus. The phenomenon has been labeled “Groupthink.” No one wants to rock the boat or spoil the cozy feelings.

Groupthink is a special danger in Christian groups that treat all disagreement as schism. Such an atmosphere has a chilling effect on creative thinking. It’s often the result of a leader who subtly promotes the view that opposition to him is sin. I can’t help but feel that any leader so rigid deserves the second-class decisions that will come from his or her group. But it’s a shame that the followers have to suffer as well.

I find it helpful to think of the proper relation between consensus and attraction in this way. Closeness isn’t the aim of consensus; rather it’s the byproduct of true agreement.

By now you may be thoroughly confused as to which method of decision making to use with your missions committee. No method is perfect. They all have problems, but each one has something to recommend it as well. Voting is a good all-around route to go. It’s familiar, it doesn’t take long, and the decision reached is usually decent. But the losers may feel grumpy and flag in zeal when it comes time to implement the decision.

Appointing an expert is one way of handling things with dispatch. By doing it, you avoid squabbles between members. But then, there’s no guarantee the decision will be a good one. There’s also no ownership of the solution.

The Delphi technique offers the intriguing blend of a quick, high-quality decision. But it treats the human side of decision making as nonexistent. And that’s what members will be when it comes time for group effort.

Consensus promises the wisdom of Solomon together with the kind of member commitment, attraction, and learning that a leader dreams of. But remember—all these people pluses come only when consensus is actually reached. If the process is abandoned, the benefits disappear. And the time involved in reaching consensus is sometimes horrendous.

So what’s it going to be? It’s your choice. As for me, if the decision is a really big one—like a $50,000 fund raising project—I’d opt for consensus. (You could tell it was my favorite because I saved it for last.) But now it’s up to you. Different situations can call for different methods. And only you can tell which one fits your particular group and task.

- More fromEm Griffin

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Fred Smith

Answering the question will impact your teaching.

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Once you set out to teach—whether you’re a pastor or a lay leader—you need to decide whether you’re a spring or a cistern. There are very few springs in this world, as you know. People who are springs are thinkers; people who are cisterns are collectors of the information that comes from the springs.

Most people are collectors rather than thinkers. They are the folk who make A’s in school. They can take in and spit back without changing the data at all, like Jewish rabbis, who transmitted the Law for years without the slightest alteration. Collectors are extremely important, because they do not pollute the flow of knowledge. But the flow originates with a spring.

If you’re a spring, you face the danger of all who work on the creative edge—the danger of being wrong. You have to develop a certain discipline that says, Just because I have a thought doesn’t make it true. Otherwise you will become a dogmatic propagandist. You must apply your new creativity and prove whether it is true or whether it’s just new. New is not always better; change is not always an improvement. Therefore, springs have to give time and testing to their subjects.

Cisterns, on the other hand, have to constantly read and research, or their water level will get low. They must always be collecting. I have been with people who are very capable cisterns, but when I pump them very long, I start to get muddy water. Cisterns have to be connected to inflow. The gutter and the downspout have to be in place to keep filling them up.

If you determine that you are a spring, you need to know what size spring. After all, even a spring can run dry. So you must ask yourself, “How many new subjects can I handle? How many teaching assignments can I take?” The best lessons are those in which you use principles you have taught many times, simply updating the illustrations. The principles will always be old—they were old when you first discovered them. But the illustration and the language have to be updated.

One of the most damaging things we can do to another person’s thinking is to say, “Well, that’s oldfashioned.” Breathing is fairly old-fashioned, too, but that does not detract from its importance. When it comes to principles, their age is actually a value, a plus. Only their application must be fresh and new.

Are you a spring? If so, what size? Are you a cistern? If so, how large? Both springs and cisterns can be effective teachers, but they must know which they are.

And highly creative springs should not get arrogant. A spring is simply the outlet for an underground source of water—a huge cistern under pressure, if you will.

-Fred Smith

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Fred Smith

Good teaching does more than entertain or transfer information. Good teaching changes behavior.

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I never thought of myself as a teacher until an associate called me “professor” one day as he asked some questions. I began to realize that a large part of every executive’s work is to teach. I already knew, of course, that because I was the boss, I could dictate. I could use my power to change behavior. But it made a lot more sense to teach, to persuade the people who worked for me to behave in a productive way. The same holds true in the church and even the home. Teaching is far more than the private specialty of Sunday school workers. It is a much wider gift than we have ever noticed.

Preaching is something different; it’s the proclamation of concepts—and it’s a very limited gift. Only a few have been given that gift, and it would be wonderful if they were the only ones preaching. But the teaching gift is much broader.

Seven Marks of a Good Teacher

Whether we teach formally or informally, in a classroom on Sunday morning or alongside a co-worker’s desk on Thursday afternoon, we want to be effective.

What are the signs of success?

1. Good teachers personify their message. They not only say the truth; they model it. For example, a good teacher demonstrates that knowledge is meant to be used, not just stored. He or she gives usable material, things that force the listeners to apply. A person can spout interesting things and be very entertaining and still not teach. The material must be usable, and this happens most directly when it is personified.

2. Good teachers make learning exciting. Plato talked about two kinds of teachers: those who simply transfer knowledge from one head to another, and those who awaken “the student within the student,” making him or her a perpetual learner. Good teachers woo their listeners to keep on learning, because learning makes life better.

3. Good teachers draw people rather than corral them. The constant attendance contests that some Sunday schools run are a danger signal to me. The pleas to break records and come hear such-and-such a teacher tell me that the teacher really is not saying much. Great teachers will draw people. I almost think there is an inverse ratio between the need for attendance promotions and the quality of teaching.

One of the ways I judge my own teaching is by whether people bring their friends to hear me. If I were going to a strange church, I wouldn’t walk in and ask, “Where do the people my age meet?” I don’t go to church to “peer,” I go to hear! So I would say, “Where is the biggest class in the church?” Why? Because, all other things being equal, the big classes have the good teachers.

There’s no sense taking a big class and dividing it up just to fit somebody’s theory of education. I would rather see one large class with one good teacher than ten small classes with nine mediocre ones. In that case, 90 percent of the people have to put up with what I call “Saturday night specials”—teachers who dread all week to prepare the lesson and finally drag themselves on Saturday evening to scratch something together out of a quarterly or somebody else’s old notes.

It is a simple fact: good teachers draw a crowd.

4. Good teachers know their style; they know whether they are lecturers or discussion leaders. Some people can lead a great discussion but can’t lecture well at all, while others are exactly the opposite. One of the early things a teacher needs to do is to decide what his style is and then stick to it.

If, however, someone lectures simply out of fear of not being able to answer questions, this will be obvious. A lecturer has to anticipate the questions in people’s minds and actually voice them. “Now, I know that if you and I were talking individually,” the lecturer will say, “you’d probably ask me how this applies. Well, let me tell you. …” The person in the audience then relaxes and says to himself, “That’s right—that’s just what I was wondering.” What you’ve done is carry on a controlled discussion. If you cut across someone’s prejudice, or you depart from a standard interpretation or assumption, you have to recognize that and give people a chance to rethink the matter. If you close the door and go on lecturing, people will stop listening to you while they worry about what you said. But if you deal with the surprise or controversy, you can tell by the look on their faces and the general body language that they are saying, “Okay, I’m ready to move on with you again.” Even though you are a lecturer, you have the responsibility to carry on a discussion with your audience, voicing their positions as well as your own.

On the other hand, if you’re a discussion leader, you have to control the questions in order to keep the few talkers in the group from taking it away from you. Who needs meaningless tirades by those who wish they had been asked to teach but were not (for obvious reasons)? Discussion leaders control the discussion so that it accomplishes something.

5. Good teachers deal in reality, not theory; they change behavior. One of their key words is applicable. Does this material actually apply to these people? Is it right for them? Does it fit with where they are in their daily lives? All of us have areas of unreality. Sometimes teachers will stand up and air their doubts, for example. I resent that; they should not impose these on other people. If they don’t have knowledge and faith to share, then they should not be teaching. This is one of the problems of small groups; they can wallow in their collective misery and never get to answers. It may be good for friendship, but it is not what teaching is about. Unless behavior changes, I have not taught. I must do more than entertain people; I must do more than store up information—even Bible information—in their heads. What is the difference between sitting around talking about the Bible and sitting around talking about Shakespeare if we don’t do anything about what we’ve discussed? James 1 says we are to be doers of the Word and not hearers only. If teaching doesn’t result in doing, then it isn’t teaching.

During World War II we had TWI (Training Within Industry) courses, which were a total departure from standard pedagogy. Many women were coming into industry for the first time, and we had to train them very quickly. Our slogan was “If the student doesn’t learn, the teacher hasn’t taught.” People learned to operate machines in a matter of days, weeks, and months, whereas before an apprenticeship had lasted four years. Many who were not instructors learned how to impart their knowledge to others, because we were under pressure to do so.

If the people in my Sunday class do not change behavior because of my teaching, I simply have not taught. But when they do change, they like to talk about it. They come up and say, “Fred, that idea you talked about—I tried it, and it worked.” Following a discussion on family life, an executive vice president told me one day over lunch, “You know, in Sunday school I realized that I listen to my employees a whole lot better than I do my wife. And that isn’t right. I’ve started listening to my wife at least as well as I do my employees.”

When this happens, I ask the person for permission to quote him to the rest of the class in order to promote this kind of change. I say, “Would you mind my telling the class this, because I constantly want to drive home the idea of changing behavior.” The person usually is quite willing to go along with my request.

This brings several side benefits. It tells people that I like to hear about these things. It makes the class review ideas. It also puts the person on record to continue the change of behavior. It gives him a reputation to keep living up to. People start asking the fellow’s wife if this is true, and so a fortress of change is being built. A lot of human interest is sparked as well.

6. Good teachers teach people, not material. A professor was once too busy to get to a certain class, so he prepared a videotape to be shown. When he dropped in about—halfway through the class period, the tape was playing, but all the students had vanished.

The next day he chewed them out. “When the TV screen is here, I’m here,” he announced.

The next time he tried to use a videotape, he again dropped in to see what was happening. On every desk he found a tape recorder, and on the chalkboard a message: “When our tape recorders are here, we’re here!”

It is not enough to call a meeting or hand out a quarterly that gives a Sunday school teacher the main points of the lesson. Leaders of Christian education must realize that they should send out teachers, not messenger boys, because personal rapport is as important as content in teaching.

I listened to a man the other day who might as well have been talking to vacant chairs. He had worked so hard on his preparation and was so perfectly organized that he was teaching the lesson, not the class. He had no feel for people who were hearing it for the first time, who might differ with him on some points, who might need an added explanation here or there.

A good teacher is always thinking more about the class than about the lesson. He is sensitive to when their minds are open and when they are closed. To teach five minutes beyond closing time is foolish, because 90 percent of the people have already shut down. Sometimes I have stopped right in the middle of a sentence when closing time came, because I wanted to impress the audience with the fact that I quit on time. For the same reason I believe in starting on time as a way of saying, “This is important.” If you don’t start on time, you’re saying to people, “This doesn’t really matter so much,” and you’re cutting down the amount of time you have to teach.

7. Good teachers are used by the Holy Spirit. He is the teacher’s Teacher, and the student’s as well. One of the things I pray for is that moment of holy hush, when suddenly, without my manipulating or even realizing it’s happening, we are all in tune and God is using me to say something that they are hearing in the Spirit. I call them pregnancy moments, because I know something is being born in someone’s heart at that time.

I cannot develop these moments; I can’t control them. I can only recognize that this is when true teaching happens, when the Holy Spirit is the real Teacher. These have been some of the greatest moments of my Christian life.

The enjoyment of being used by God is the greatest joy that can come to a teacher. The greatest pain is the feeling that instead of being used by God, I have used God. I have used his hour to propagandize, to impress people with my knowledge, or to hint at what a good Christian I am. This brings on depression.

I’m never depressed, no matter how insignificant the results, if I feel at the end that God used me. But if I sense in my heart that I used God, the magnificent crowd and the loud applause mean nothing.

How Good Teaching Happens

A long-time friend surprised me one day by saying, “When you go to look something up in a book, and you open to a page that isn’t on the subject, you go ahead and read the page you opened to, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I replied.

The Rewards of Good Teaching

We know we are teaching well when people want to be taught by us. A class that is giving its members what they need will be a growing class. Classes don’t grow through organization; they grow through meeting needs. When we see more and more people wanting to receive our teaching, we know it is speaking to their problems.

When we really touch somebody, they want to talk to us. The more we reach their immediate needs, the more we see their eyes light up, and their questions and responses begin to flow. The longer we teach, the more chance we have to see long-term fruit from the seeds we have planted.

The excitement of teaching is in seeing people change. In a way, teaching is like fishing. Why does a fisherman go out there and put in his time? Because he loves the experience—even though it’s rare—of catching a fish. I have this same feeling every time I step in front of a crowd. Today, something is going to happen to somebody. Not everybody will change today, but somebody is going to hear something that will make a difference. Somebody is going to change an attitude. Somebody is going to discover the thrill of learning. Somebody is going to turn on to the practicality of the Bible.

And it’s my special privilege to be on the other end of the line when that happens.

- More fromFred Smith

Preaching
Teaching

Pastors

Daniel W. Pawley

Four pastors talk about what they do with their time.

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We sat with a pastor last spring who told us, “You know what I’d like to see in LEADERSHIP? I’d like to know what other pastors do with their time—how they schedule their day, plan for the week, determine their priorities for the future.” So assistant editor Dan Pawley looked closely at how four pastors spent a typical week.

We also created charts that divide their days into three periods: morning, afternoon, and evening. After reading the four accounts, you might want to ask yourself how you spend your time. As Ted Engstrom notes in this issue’s interview, if you’re working more than eighteen of the twenty-one periods, you’re not taking enough time off.

Paul Bubna

If you try to phone Paul Bubna on Monday, you’ll likely hear the high-pitched hum of a busy signal. Paul, the pastor of Long Hill Chapel (Christian and Missionary Alliance) in Chatham, New Jersey, likes to have few interruptions on his day off; he frequently takes the phone off the hook.

What he does like is to start a crackling fire in the fireplace and to join his wife and teen-age daughter—the youngest of several children-at the breakfast table. Consuming spoonfuls of Shredded Wheat, raisins, and scattered bits of All-Bran, Paul listens to his daughter talk about school, teachers, and friends.

After breakfast, she leaves for school, while Paul and his wife read Oswald Chambers in the warm glow of the fire. For an hour or so, they intersperse prayers and comments between the lines. Conversation flows with a laid-back, Monday morning ease. No phones ringing, no one to see, no appointments to keep.

A walking machine and an exercise bike wait in the basem*nt. Paul, the victim of three heart attacks, exercises daily. In warm weather he walks the neighborhood, in the cold months he’s in the basem*nt.

After a while, Paul and his wife begin a leisurely circuit about town. They visit the bank, the shopping center, the dry cleaner; they browse in a bookstore, pick up eyeglasses that have received the optician’s touch and enjoy a slow salad bar lunch. Then they work their way back home, where, with a little luck, they coast through routine chores, supper, newspaper reading, television, and an enjoyable table game until bedtime.

Eleven o’ clock, lights out.

In the early morning on Tuesday, Paul’s surgical adhesions—the internal traces of open-heart surgery—wrestle him from sleep before six o’clock. But what could be a subtle daily torture to another individual is turned into a time of productivity. It’s a time for sowing seeds for the Sunday sermon.

(One Tuesday morning, for instance, in the predawn darkness of a December day, he struggled with a series he’d been preaching on the Gospels all during that month—a vivid portrait of how Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each uniquely saw Jesus. The Luke portrait wouldn’t come. Finally bits of inspiration started to form, and according to Paul, “I pictured this medical doctor going from village to village, visiting, healing, or just listening to people. Little by little I began to realize that the uniqueness of Luke’s view was that he saw the humanity of Christ with greater perception than anyone else. Then the whole sermon seemed to come together.”)

Paul finishes breakfast, leaves the house a little before eight, and arrives at church by eight. Since morning is a creative time for Paul, he deliberately arrives thirty minutes before any office staff. He positions a magnet on the check-in board to indicate he’s in. The telephone answering device stays on.

He cleans his desk, a task he sees as a visible metaphor for the uncluttered emotional frame of mind he tries to bring to the office. Letters that need to be answered go into a mail folder on one side of the desk; all sermon sources go into a book holder on the other side.

Blocking out most of the morning for sermon study, Paul continues the preparation that began before dawn. But the sermon he prepares is not next Sunday’s sermon; it is the following Sunday’s. To protect himself from emergencies, he tries to stay a week ahead on his sermons—”so I don’t get caught.”

After a light lunch with one of the church leaders, Paul is back at the office by one o’clock. Since creativity drains from him like water down a pipe, he uses the afternoon hours for overlap business from Sunday: appointments, staff encounters, visitation. He spends Tuesday night at home.

The priority on Wednesday is Wednesday night prayer meeting. He sees to it that the printed prayer list is taken care of, but most of the day gets divided between preparation for the evening’s talk and additional sermon study. Paul preaches his rough sermon into a tape recorder, has the secretary transcribe it, and uses the transcription for his notes. “Much quicker than writing it out longhand,” he says.

Since Thursday night is tennis night for Paul, he skips his basem*nt routine on Thursday morning. Instead, he lounges by the fire in the living room with a good book, the air filled with classical music, while shadows play on the beige carpet and early American furniture.

After another leisurely breakfast, he’s at the office to complete his sermon, to get the bulletin ready for printing, and to have a routine counseling appointment. Hospital visitation has been delegated to a staff member. He drops in on a shut-in and later has a satisfying yawn that seems to say, “Ah, it’s been a smooth week.”

That’s when the interruption comes. Paul’s daughter is on the phone as he steps through the doorway at five o’clock. She runs to him and says, “Dad, somebody’s just died of a heart attack!” It’s the son of one of the older women in his church.

Forget about supper. Paul and his wife jump in the car and head for the mother’s home to break the news. In the car, Paul relives his own three heart attacks—”a sharp pain in the middle of the chest that grows bigger and bigger until it feels like your chest is caving in.”

How is he going to comfort this woman? Carefully using his gift of mercy, Paul brings a compassionate spirit to the woman. He speaks gently, feeling her pain of loss.

Later, he feels absolutely wiped out. He goes to bed.

In the morning, the experience lingers with him, but he knows work can’t stop because of an emergency. His Friday frame of mind tells him to stay completely flexible in case more emergencies happen. What if the mimeograph breaks down, for instance?

Friday is staff meeting day. Paul’s goals at these meetings are relational; he wants to build a team. One member leads a devotional time that speaks to a common area of each person’s life. Everyone is called on to share something personal. Paul tries to be as open and vulnerable as he can—not an easy task for a basically shy and reserved man.

Remaining flexible, he ties up loose ends on Friday afternoon. That evening Paul and his wife go to a play.

Is it a wild imagining of some pastors that those who take time for Saturday morning men’s fellowship have fewer men who invade the pastor’s study during the week “just to talk”?

Paul thinks it works, so he takes the time. He meets an interesting mixture of businessmen, retirees, and younger guys just married. After prayer and Bible study, they laugh and cut up at a local restaurant. “All the barriers come down,” says Paul. “These guys really want to be with me, get to know me, build relationships.”

Saturday afternoon, it is understood by the staff, is flextime: a work day, but not necessarily an office day. It’s a time for finishing tasks that have been squeezed out of the weekday schedule. Otherwise, Paul encourages staff members who have not had adequate time with their families during the week to spend this time with them. He and his wife go “curb-ing.”

In New Jersey, when people want to discard an old piece of furniture, they put it out by the curb. “It’s quite respectable,” says Paul, “to drive around the neighborhoods and pick out something you like.” He finds it a relaxing activity, and his wife refinishes the furniture they find.

Edward J. Hales

At First Baptist Church in Portland, Maine, Edward J. Hales wages a frontal attack on the week’s work every Monday morning. Ed is assiduous in work and study, an embodiment of the New England Protestant work ethic.

A near-opposite personality type to Paul Bubna—though no less an effective pastor—Ed plunges into his work on Monday: “If I don’t get a jump on the week’s activity, I’ll be in trouble before the week’s over.” That he is the pastoral staff of his church prompts him to add, “A lot of things accumulate on Sunday that I have to give immediate attention to.”

He’s in the office shortly after nine o’clock. Stopping to chat for a moment with his secretary, he feels this initial, informal contact with her is important. In a few minutes he climbs a flight of stairs to his office.

A stack of visitor’s cards waits on the desk. He looks carefully through them and takes them to the secretary. She types a personal letter to each visitor, following a form letter Ed has written.

After taking care of bits of unfinished business, such as preparation of the monthly newsletter, the eleven o’clock mail comes. Monday mail is the heaviest of the week, and Ed moves into it in bulldozer fashion. He handles each piece only once.

Then, after lunch, he begins dictating letters, using what may someday be patented as “The Ed Hales Time-Saving Dictation System.” He includes good sentence punctuation as he goes along.

A few years ago, Ed had a secretary who could neither spell nor punctuate. In frustration he forced himself to learn to think grammatically as he dictated. Now, it’s become such a force of habit that he catches himself wanting to include commas, semicolons, and paragraph breaks in casual conversation with his present secretary. Wouldn’t it save even more time to have the secretary present while he’s dictating? “Absolutely not,” says Ed. “Tying two people together for dictation is one of the biggest time wasters of all. Every time the phone rings, you get interrupted. You lose your train of thought. And if you need to pause before you say something, your secretary sits idle.”

On Tuesday morning, after his daily bacon-and-eggs breakfast, he arrives at the office at half past eight. For three hours he does in-depth sermon preparation, and ‘the secretary knows he cannot be disturbed until 11:30—unless, of course, there is an emergency. “But a pastor has to come to grips with what an emergency really is,” says Ed.

A surprise premarital counseling session, for instance, is not always an emergency, according to Ed. Recently, a young girl popped in without notice, told how she was to be married in two weeks, and wanted immediate counseling. As lovingly blunt as possible, Ed told her, “Look, I’d love to do it. I want to help you. But this is going to take some time, and we need to set an appointment. We’re going to have to work at this; it can’t be done in fifteen minutes.”

But the emergency does come. It comes on Wednesday, on a bright, sunny afternoon. Ed is in the middle of preparing for the Wednesday night service. He hears a volunteer in the next room filing music for the choir. She leaves unnoticed. In a little while the phone rings, and a weeping voice says, “Pastor, I’ve just hit a man with my car. Will you come?” She has called her husband, who works nearly an hour’s drive from the accident, and he’s suggested she get the pastor immediately.

“Yes, I’ll be right there” says Ed, reassuringly.

By the time he arrives, paramedics have removed the elderly man from the hood of the car, and Ed looks at the shattered windshield. The woman is beside herself with shock. Ed suggests they pray. Then he follows the woman in his car to make sure she gets home all right. The following Sunday, in her husband’s presence, the woman gives Ed a warm hug and says, “Pastor, I just want you to know that I love you.”

Ed is back at the office working on Wednesday night’s service. He’s home for supper, then back at church, then back home again. A night person, he’s fatigued, but his mind is still churning. He reads a book.

He tried once to make Thursday his day off but he found it didn’t work. “I always seemed to have an unfinished agenda,” he says, “and never felt ready enough for Sunday when I took Thursday off.” Thus, he’s at the office hammering away on his sermon. Completing the Sunday morning sermon outline, he has it ready for the bulletin by the afternoon.

He goes to a local hospital to visit someone, but confesses, “We have a daily hospital list of six to ten patients and a shut-in list of forty to fifty. So I’ve found it necessary to put one of my retirees to work as visitation coordinator. This retired member does most of the visitation. My deaconesses make forty to fifty shut-in visits a month, and three of my deacons are actively calling on new membership prospects. I couldn’t make it without them.”

Friday does work as a day off for Ed.

It’s a day of goofing off. He and his wife leave town after their twelve-year-old son goes to school. They may take a stroll on an ocean beach and look for the quaint little cottage they’d like to invest in. Out past the colonial and raised-ranch style homes; past the old decaying buildings and row houses, steam-cleaned and refurbished in 350-year-old Portland; past the harbor and waterfront section known as The Old Port Exchange; and they’re out of the city for the day. “I’m a camera buff,” says Ed, “and we’ll stop at a camera place along the way somewhere.” They also stop for lunch at a seafood place on the ocean.

Returning in the afternoon, Ed spends the rest of the day working with his hands. He helps his son construct the model ship he’s wanted to put together for three years. Woodworking at a well-equipped workbench is also planned. “I find working with my hands to be a welcome change of pace,” he points out. “It gives my mind a chance to function on a different level.

“I solve some of my more complicated problems during these times, because my mind runs free. It doesn’t take a lot of intensive study to put a model together, build a desk, or mow the lawn. You’re not under the pressure of deadlines; you’re free to consider options and variables. I even talk to myself sometimes.”

When Saturday comes, Ed takes care of mechanical problems in the church. The parts of a typewriter are on his desk; he tries to put the machine together and get it in working order. He makes sure he has all the data for Sunday’s baby dedication and baptismal services. Ed works with lists, and he likes to have everything checked off by late Saturday.

Behind closed doors, he wraps up his sermon preparation. And like the desk he works behind during the week, his pulpit must be clean and orderly. “I am psychologically frustrated by a Sunday morning pulpit that’s cluttered with stuff underneath,” he adds.

William J. McEllroy, Jr.

It is Monday morning in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Bill McEllroy’s wife still can’t believe what her husband did the night before. To make the Twenty-third Psalm more meaningful to the youth group, Bill took a church member and his pickup truck forty-five minutes out into the country, borrowed a lamb from a local farmer, and brought it to church. Dressed in old clothes, he carried the lamb from the truck and down the church stairs to where the young people were to meet. They loved it.

Having a membership class immediately prior to the youth meeting, Bill ran home and made the quick change into his suit clothes. After the youth program, he stormed the parsonage once more to grab his old clothes. Carrying the lamb up the stairs and out to the truck, he was careful not to step on the droppings. He drove the lamb back to its owner and arrived back at the parsonage just after ten o’clock. “I’ve seen you do some strange things,” his wife says, “but that was surely the strangest!”

Anyway, it’s seven o’clock on Monday morning, and Bill, pastor of the small but vibrant Olivet Evangelical Congregational Church, is reading to his three young children. The kids quietly eat breakfast as their daddy takes them through a children’s version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Fifteen minutes later they sing choruses, and each child prays a short prayer.

After the kids are off to school, Bill steps into his jogging suit and is off into the neighborhood. More than just exercise, it’s a kind of daily ritual when he can move through the quiet residential streets, past the old homes of Bethlehem steel executives since moved, past old trees and familiar landmarks. The three-mile jog gets him ready to take on another week.

He showers, changes, and goes to the office for his morning devotions. At nine o’clock, he heads for the local hospitals to visit parishioners.

Tuesday is a busy day. Bill begins piecing his Sunday sermon together, organizes information for the weekly bulletin and monthly newsletter, prepares for the Sunday evening membership class, corrects the weekly quizzes for that class, starts the Wednesday evening youth lesson, works on the Wednesday morning men’s Bible study, and cleans up administrative detail.

The newsletter is twenty pages long, and the church people look forward to having it arrive on time in the mail. They like to see what’s going on in the church and find out whose birthday it is so they can send cards. But, since the church cannot afford a full-time secretary, Bill has to take up the slack.

He gathers all the information, types it up, runs it off, assembles and folds it, and gets it ready for mailing. The hours slip by, and it’s two o’clock in the morning before he finishes.

At 6:30 on Wednesday morning, Bill’s back at the church for the men’s breakfast and fellowship. Later, he abbreviates his time for hospital visitation and begins writing his sermon. With a break for lunch, sermon preparation takes him until supper; then he’s back at the church for youth meetings and a board meeting until ten o’clock.

He skips his personal devotions on Thursday morning because he meets with a group of parishioners for an exercise-devotional class. Led by his wife, the class provides an opportunity for people to spend time with the pastor’s family. They exercise for twenty minutes and have devotions for the same amount of time. Usually they have a discussion about foods, dieting, and activities that are good and bad for their health.

After showering, Bill returns to his study, this time to write notes of encouragement to people in the church. Writing short notes to his shut-ins, for instance, can take up a chunk of time, but it’s a lot quicker than visiting each person. He tried one year to visit each adult on his or her birthday, but the time that took was too difficult to recover later in the week. The encouragement letters have been a time saver and an effective way to maintain communication with the congregation.

Thursday night means family night to the McEllroys, and Bill lets nothing interfere. He learned this the hard way. A couple of years ago he became slack in setting aside weeknight time for his family. One night he was called to attend a meeting, and as he was leaving the house, his oldest son said, “I hate God for making daddy be out so much!” “That awakened me right away,” says Bill. Now, they have a picnic right on the living room floor—hot dogs, macaroni salad, Popsicles—and later they go to the local library so the kids can pick out some books.

Friday is another loosely structured day for visitation and tying up loose ends. “I like to have everything finished up by Friday night,” Bill says, and with good reason. Saturday finds him at Willow Grove Naval Air Station for his chaplain’s duty. He can be awfully tired when he gets home on Saturday night.

All in all, not a bad week for a pastor who is the entire staff of his church. No outrageous interruptions—that is, until early Sunday morning.

The phone rings at three o’clock in the morning. A young woman from the church is calling for help. She’s been drinking, swallowing different kinds of pills, and now she’s trying to stay awake. She lives alone.

Bill comforts her, but is stern; he tells her not to go to sleep. He wonders what to say next. His wife calls the father and tells him to meet Bill at his daughter’s apartment. They arrive a little after three o’clock.

Not being serious enough to warrant an ambulance or the hospital, Bill and the father get the girl to vomit the pills up. She feels better and rests. The father is very upset because it was just two weeks earlier that the girl had moved out of the house and into the apartment. Bill counsels him as well, and they remain at the apartment until seven o’clock.

Bill suddenly realizes he has a service to lead in just over two hours. In the early dawn, he drives home and tries to get some rest.

Arthur M. Umbach

Farther south, at the Redeemer Lutheran Church in Richmond, Virginia, Pastor Art Umbach begins the week by updating his “care list.”

The list features the names of parishioners who need the pastor’s attention during the week. All the hospitalized members are on the list, and when they leave the hospital, Art puts a yellow line through their names. This indicates that, although they’ve been released from rigid medical care, they still need attention—perhaps just a note or an encouraging phone call. Eventually they are taken off the list.

The care list saves Art the time of making repeat visits to people who can be kept in touch just as effectively by telephone or letter. He keeps a running list of about thirty names.

On Monday morning Art also does his dictation and correspondence. From 10:30 until noon he looks over the Scripture text and gathers the sources for his Sunday sermon. He goes home for a lunch of sandwiches and fruit.

In the afternoon he heads for local hospitals to see patients on his care list. A normal visit takes half an hour. However, today he has a patient facing surgery. Art serves him Communion, which, after Bible reading and a prayer for healing, takes up the better part of an hour. They come before God, unload their concerns through prayer, and confess their sins. The operation is a serious one; Art will be back to visit later in the week, perhaps more than once.

Tuesday, after a breakfast of various seeds and honey (a nutritional cereal his wife makes), he goes to the office and cleans his desk of unnecessary distractions. He leaves his office door open, but instructs the secretary that he would rather not be disturbed. She does her best but doesn’t realize the church’s property chairman is in the building taking care of necessary odds and ends.

While Art penetrates the sermon texts he’s chosen, the property chairman wanders into the office. He’s a fine fellow, Art says; they have a good relationship, and the man just wants to chat. With honesty and firmness, though, Art says, “I’d really love to talk with you, but I’m in the middle of preparing my sermon. Can I call you a little later?” The property chairman respects his honest gesture and leaves while Art still has his train of thought for the sermon. No harm is done.

Another time, however, a man comes in off the street and tells Art that he needs some food. Thinking about the church’s food closet, Art offers food to the man but discovers what he really wants is money. Art stands up, remembering how physical movements can move people toward the door, but it doesn’t work this time. The man tries intimidation and even threatens physical violence. It takes more than half an hour just to get him to leave. Meanwhile, Art has lost his train of thought.

At eleven o’clock, he counsels an alcoholic. After lunch, he’s back at the church for a time loosely structured for counseling or additional sermon preparation. He goes home for supper and returns to church for the weekly membership class.

Art patiently walks through his care list on Wednesday morning, makes a few caring phone calls, and writes some notes of encouragement.

Wednesday’s also the time to determine all the tasks, administratively speaking, that require Art’s immediate attention. He keeps an accordion folder close at hand that has three individual pockets. The top slot contains information about tasks that need to be taken care of immediately; the middle slot is for tasks that are a bit longer in range; the bottom is for long-term tasks. He consults his folder frequently. Furthermore, since he cannot possibly attend all the church’s board and committee meetings, he reviews the monthly board report at this time. To effectively keep him up to date, the reports answer two fundamental questions: What have we done this month to accomplish our board’s goals? What do we plan to do next month to accomplish our board’s goals? By reading the answers to these questions, Art can make quick, concise evaluations of progress in different areas.

Preparation for a Wednesday afternoon youth class that Art teaches, and more sermon work, dominate a loosely structured pace during the early afternoon hours. One activity, though, that Art never spends a lot of time on is the search for sermon illustrations. He likes to glean illustrations on the run, and today he has to run out to a hardware store. As he walks along a store aisle, he notices something unusual. It’s a flawed screw without a slot in the top. He buys it. On Sunday he will work it into his sermon, which deals with God’s love for our useless, defective souls.

He takes Wednesday evening off to be with his family.

He uses all of Thursday morning to write out his sermon. At lunch he meets with a support group of professional people from his church and community, who, in his words, “provide the kind of listening ears I can tell anything to.” Often the group will be the major crutch that helps him hobble through all the crises and interruptions a week in the pastorate can offer.

One week, for instance, besides bearing the emotional drain of ministering to a couple going through an ugly separation, a forty-year-old man who discovered he had a brain tumor, and a young man who nearly died on the hospital operating table, Art had a couple in the church who lost twins in the seventh month of pregnancy. The woman had previously gone through three miscarriages. Now she was having to carry her twins for a whole week before they could be delivered, and Art was trying to comfort her and the husband.

“I can be very honest with my share group,” Art confesses. “1 tell them when I’m down or under extreme pressure.” Being able to dump these things on this group of men helps Art get through the week. “I never miss attending,” he adds, “except, of course, in emergencies.”

He tries to leave Thursday afternoon and evening flexible, and if possible he takes them off.

Friday stays guarded; neither Art nor his wife schedules a single appointment. They have breakfast together, and for lunch they go to a local park for a picnic in the mild Virginia weather. Taking a long walk around the lake, they talk about pressures and in this way unburden themselves before the week-end comes.

In the afternoon they head home, and Art feels his hands itching to work with wood. He goes to his workshop, where for a year he’s been building a cherry writing desk for his wife, and puts a coat of finish on it.

He turns and says, “You know, I wonder if there’s any profession in the whole world that’s as difficult to evaluate as the pastoral ministry?”

Building things out of wood, however, gives Art something to evaluate. He stands at a contemplative distance and studies the cherry-wood desk that came out of joyful sweat and toil; he sits in his recently completed family room and looks with pride on the cupboards and bookcases, the chair and crown moldings that are the by-product of many hours in the workshop.

But for days, weeks, and months at a time, the only visible evaluation of his real job manifests itself in a few growth statistics, a slightly raised salary, and a few generalized comments about how nice last week’s sermon was. Deep inside he knows God is using him to reap great heavenly rewards in his people, but these things too often lack visibility, and Art finds himself staring blankly at a wall or out the window thinking, “What good am I really doing? Is my life making a difference?”

On Saturday he remains in a flexible frame of mind. He runs the sermon once more through his mind, makes a last-minute visit, and returns home.

Conclusions

Interruptions. Crises. Emergencies. As shown by our four pastors, they roost in every pastor’s schedule.

“But it has to be that way,” says Ed Hales. “The crisis visit is one of the greatest opportunities God gives us to become close to our people.”

To illustrate, Ed shares the following experience. “Recently, a ninety-six-year-old woman in our church prepared to take a bath, but she forgot to turn on the cold water. As she got into the tub, she was severely burned. Doctors tried to do skin grafting on the woman, but at ninety-six years old, the skin doesn’t regenerate rapidly. I’m afraid she’s going to need a lot more skin than she’s able to produce.

“She’s a fine lady, and when I heard about the accident, I willingly rushed to her side. I sat next to her, prayed, and when I looked up, her eyes were still closed. I thought she had drifted off to sleep. But after a moment, she began to pray for me, that God would be with me as I went about my daily tasks. She prays for me each time I go to visit her now.”

No one disputes the momentousness of rushing to a parishioner in a time of crisis. Yet, still, the other side remains—the routine functions of the pastorate. Routines aren’t the answer to every scheduling problem, but they can help control a schedule that must contain a good measure of looseness and flexibility.

Perhaps in the final analysis, the answers lie in what Ed Hales cautiously refers to as “a theology of interruption”—the constant awareness that even in the most interrupted weeks, the Lord provides the grace, as the right priorities are set, to carry pastors to the end of the week with their houses and ministries in order.

- More fromDaniel W. Pawley

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Time Management

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Ben Patterson

The Christian’s response to time is quite different from the non-Christian’s.

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I should begin with a disclaimer. I am not against time management … I think. I make out schedules and keep to them fairly steadily. I own a pocket Day-Timer, one page per day, complete with little yellow insert pages headed TO BE DONE TODAY. Last year I even got around to reading that book on time management I had no time to read for so long. You could even say that time management changed my life. As a sophom*ore in high school, I had been placed in an accelerated academic program on the basis of my aptitude test scores. Within a few months of being involved in this more rigorous academic regime, along with interscholastic sports and church activities, I found myself on the verge of flunking out. I just couldn’t seem to find time to get everything done. A teacher suggested that I make out a schedule and plan my time in blocks for study, sports, church, sleep, meals, recreation, and whatever else. It worked. Who knows, I may never have gone to college and then to seminary had I not learned about time management. Instead of writing this article, I might now be sitting in front of a television set with a beer in my hand, at the end of an eight-hour day on a garbage truck.

So I am not against time management … I think. What follows is more a long sigh about the whole worthy enterprise than anything else.

The place to begin is with two pictures that hang side by side in the hallway of my home. One is of a little boy with a round face and high forehead. He’s wearing overalls and sitting on a chair. Beside the chair is a table with a large birthday cake. The cake has one candle. The picture was taken December 22, 1943. The boy is me.

The other picture is also of a little boy with a round face sitting on a stool beside a table that bears a birthday cake with one candle. The picture was taken September 22, 1977. The boy is my first son.

In one deft stroke those two black and white photographs sum up thirty-four years of time: who I was, what I’ve become, and where I hope to be. They are filled with meaning. They are literally joy, tears, dreams, disappointments, success, and failure caught within two frames.

The passage of time: what does it mean? The Greeks had two slogans posted over the temple at Delphi. One is very familiar to us. It was “Know thyself.” The other is much more significant for us, living as we do in a narcissistic culture. It was “Know thy moment.” It is also more biblical. Jesus chided the Pharisees for their blindness to the “signs of the times” (Matt. 16:1-3). He wept over Jerusalem because she did not know the time of her visitation (Luke 19:41-44). That lack would mean the city’s destruction. To know what time it is and to be appropriately obedient to God within the context of that knowledge means the difference between life and death!

In both cases, the word Jesus used for time is the Greek word kairos. Its meaning is best understood in contrast to another word in the Greek language for time, chronos. Chronos signifies time as an interval; kairos refers to the features of that interval. Chronos is a period, a quantity; kairos is the quality, the meaning of that period. Chronos is abstract dimension; kairos is concrete circ*mstances. Chronos is a date: November 26, 1981. kairos is a season: Fall, Thanksgiving.

These two words signify two overlapping, yet different universes of meaning. Chronos is time to be controlled, managed, and used. Kairos is time to be understood and responded to in order to obey God. The evening my third son was born, my wife and I had just sat down to eat dinner with some friends in the church. Her water broke, and labor began before we finished the soup. Our time, our kairos had come. What chronos it was was only marginally relevant. All we could do was understand and respond. To control it would be folly.

When time is viewed predominantly as chronos, there is a tendency to see it as determined, as abstract, even as having no meaning in itself. The kairos perspective sees time as given by God, as meaningful, going somewhere, and open ended. In 1895 the chancellor exchequer of England had lunch with a fledgling young politician. He told him, “The experiences of a long life have convinced me that nothing ever happens.” Chronos. The young man’s name was Winston Churchill. His lifetime of ninety years demonstrated the opposite: practically everything happens. Kairos.

It is not hard to see which view of time prevails in our culture. We are a people obsessed with chronos; how to get more of it, how to control it, how to manage it. A few years ago a young man named Mark Mabry was arrested for the murder of his mother. A search of his room turned up a list headed THINGS TO DO: (1) buy shells, (2) shoot father, (3) shoot mother. Life gets so busy sometimes it’s easy to forget.

Os Guinness has observed that we are conditioned by the social experience of possessing wrist watches. This is so much the case that quantities can equal qualities. Nine to five, the twelfth hour, forty hours, the twenty-five-hour day, and overtime are but a few examples.

Perhaps now you can see why I said I am not against time management … I think. The Christian’s first question should not be, “How much time do I have, and what should I do with it?” It should be, “Do I see the moment presented to me by God, and how should I respond to it?” Paul reminded the Christians at Rome that they knew what kairos it was and should therefore “cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light” and conduct themselves “becomingly as in the day” (Rom. 13:11-13). The word translated “becomingly” is a word that means elegantly, gracefully, with class. There is no technique to be used to do this. Elegance and grace are the fruit of harmony with God. They are not skills but gifts.

Somehow all of us time managers with our furrowed brows, set jaws, and priority lists miss the bill here. We are to reading the signs of the kairos what a child’s somersault is to the pirouettes of an Olympic figure skater.

There is a frantically preposterous dimension to the very idea of time management, whether the time be chronos or kairos. Who do we think we are anyway, attempting to subdue time? Inexorable chronos cannot be slowed down or speeded up. And kairos! Do we really propose to manage the moments presented to us by God? Change your term to “life management” and it gets worse. Life is messy. People are messy. Death is messier than both, and will not be managed. There is a sense in which God himself is the messiest of all. Life, death, God—all are management-denying. Our culture’s denial of death is, in part, a denial of death’s and life’s and God’s denial of our management.

I’m not against time management, honest … I think. Given the opportunity and time (heh heh), I may even take another seminar or read another book. And I sincerely hope you will benefit from all the things in this issue on time management. But while we read the books, peruse this issue, and take the seminars, we would do well to wink at one another as we do, maybe even grin sardonically, and sigh.

When I’m in the midst of all this talk about time management, I think of how I felt as I drove to work the morning after I got engaged to the girl who became my wife. I was caught up in the midst of rush hour traffic, and a song by the group Chicago came on the radio. The song was “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” It was about people rushing here and there with their wrist watches on, not knowing what time it was. “Does anybody really care?” they sang. “We’ve all got time enough to die.”

As I listened, I thought of how no one with me on the freeway had the faintest notion of the wonderful thing that had happened to me the night before. I wanted to get out of my car, go to each of their cars, and tell them. But neither they nor I had the time.

- More fromBen Patterson

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Jack Wald, with Ann Wald

The unique problems and opportunities of pastoring rural, yoked churches.

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The country road was hilly and winding as Idrove to candidate at two rural churches/ The scenery was beautiful, with only an occasional house to break up the pastoral landscape. There were no shopping malls, no closely built housing developments. On this quiet Sunday morning I passed only one other car.

I did however expect to see some indication that I was re-entering civilization before I got to the first church. But there were no gas stations, no stores, no side streets. Suddenly the church appeared. It sat off by itself, surrounded by tall trees and a spacious lawn. Cars were parked around the dirt driveway. The building was quaint and small, very different from any church I had attended.

The service went well, and eventually I accepted the call to pastor this country church and its yoked neighbor five miles away. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. But I was not overly concerned, since I had a varied church background. I had actively participated in a large multi-staff city church. I had worked in a medium sized small town church. So I thought two small rural churches would not present any problems I had not already encountered.

“Who’s in Charge?”

A year after I arrived, as the honeymoon period drew to a close, the first major conflict arose. The church that owned the manse received some inheritance money, and decided to put it toward renovating the manse. Besides a new kitchen, bathroom, and carpet, the possibility of installing a wood-coal stove in the useless fireplace was discussed. Since the church was responsible for paying the heating bills, it seemed to be a simple and prudent way to cut down on rising fuel costs. The idea was especially attractive because of the abundant supply of wood and coal in the area.

The various improvements were presented well ahead of the congregational meeting, and no one voiced any opposition. At the meeting, each improvement was explained. There was little discussion, just a few questions about the budget figures. The entire list of improvements was unanimously approved.

The next week, however, I received a phone call from a member. Could I please come over and talk? When I arrived, she sat me down and politely explained that some women in the church thought it would be a shame to ruin a carpet with a wood-coal stove. Would I please cancel the stove and prevent any unnecessary commotion?

I was a bit taken back by this request and explained that a congregational vote had been taken, no dissent had been registered, and I had neither the authority nor the desire to alter a congregational decision.

I continued to receive phone calls from other members throughout the week. Each one had heard that Mrs. So-and-So was very upset about the stove. I offered to meet with anyone who wanted to discuss the matter after church the next Sunday. I explained again, to the seven who stayed, that I could not change anything. Proper church channels would have to be used to reverse the decision. Still, they repeated their objections to the stove. When I asked them why they had been silent at the congregational meeting, they replied, “No one likes to get up in front of everyone and make a fuss.”

The phone calls continued after this meeting, and the pressure increased. Finally, the session decided to put the money for the stove into additional kitchen improvements, and a crisis was averted.

The furor over the wood-coal stove initiated me into the way decisions are often made in a small rural church. The majority of members have belonged to the church for most of their lives; consequently they have a strong sense of ownership. Members who do not approve of something feel free to take matters into their own hands. In a larger church, the vocal minority is not as powerful. Three vocal members are less noticeable in a congregation of 200 than in a congregation of 50.

I was familiar from my other church situations with chronic questioners. But I was not prepared for the effect they can have in a small church. In two or three phone calls, the church government can be brought to a standstill. The issue of who controls the church—the dissenters or the pastor and the church board—becomes a tug of war.

The war becomes intensified because rural churches simply cannot afford to lose members. I discovered this when the sessions of both my churches decided, at my suggestion, to use a modern version of the Lord’s Prayer. Many people commented favorably on the change. One member, however, suddenly refused to come to church. He let it be known that he would not return until the traditional version was restored. I received the usual phone calls informing me of the member’s disapproval, urging me to change the prayer. The session then took a preference poll to gauge congregational opinion. Several people told me they preferred the modem version but voted for the traditional version because the member had threatened to leave. The traditional version was reinstated, and the next Sunday the delinquent member was back in church.

At another time I approached the church about trimming the rolls. The idea met great resistance. Mr. Smith might never come to church or contribute in any way, they reasoned, but if the church was in a real pinch he might help out if he were still a member. The limited resources of a yoked church can make otherwise efficient plans of action unthinkable. Even replacing an old church sign was resisted for fear of creating hard feelings in the people who built it thirty years ago.

“That Won’t Work Here.”

When a rural, yoked church looks in the mirror, it sees a church that is always struggling to meet the budget, frequently without a pastor, and perennially worried about declining membership. From this picture crippling feelings of low self-worth can arise, sometimes strangling inherent strengths. At these low points the church fears it will never amount to anything. Consequently, low expectations take the place of dreams and goals. The difficulty of finding and keeping a good minister underscores this fear, and the constant shortage of money gives further evidence. “We barely meet our yearly budget now. How could we ever afford a part-time secretary, or a dependable organist, or a vital youth program?”

After I had been at the two churches for a month, one elder’s relatives came for a visit and attended church. The elder mentioned during the next session meeting that one relative had commented, “That new minister won’t last long here. He’s too good.”

That remark was made by an outsider, but a year later at my ordination, a member presented me with a gift in front of both congregations. “We know you won’t stay here long,” he said, “but when you move on, remember us.” In one way these comments are very flattering to hear, but the attitude behind them hinders my ministry. If the church believes that I will not stay for more than two or three years, then it is a waste of time to start a new program, because I won’t be around to help see it through.

On top of this, I realized I was going through culture shock. Without being overseas, I was reaching across my middle-class suburban boundaries into another culture. Instead of station wagons and sports cars, people drove vans and pickup trucks. Instead of tennis and symphonies, they enjoyed hunting and country music. Instead of businessmen and lawyers, I was dealing with farmers and steelworkers. I was the only jogger in town. I dressed differently, and I talked differently.

These distinctions are not necessarily major stumbling blocks. But they can contribute to the quiet politeness of “You just don’t understand.” Being perceived as an outsider can bog down the process of building trust between the pastor and the people. It can increase resistance to new ideas. It can prevent an open relationship between the church board and the minister.

Another difference I had to cope with was the rate of change. A static rural community does not have the rapid change often experienced in the suburbs or city. The roots of people run deep, interlaced with those of their families, neighbors, and friends. Through marriage, everyone is related to someone, whether as a sister, cousin, or brother-in-law. If you were to make a genealogical chart of a small-town family, you’d end up with a briar patch instead of a tree.

It is common in a rural area to be born, get married, and die in the same town. Many church members have known each other since childhood. They have grown up and grown old together. The tradition and permanence people experience in their personal lives is naturally transferred onto the church. They expect the church to stay the same, just as other parts of their lives have.

I became aware of how deep the roots in a person’s life can be when I went to visit a farmer and his family. As we sat in his living room, he proudly related that the house had been built by his greatgrandfather before the Civil War. This farmer also worked the family farm that had been passed down from generation to generation. I was struck by the contrast with my own life. I had moved three times before graduating from high school and every year for the next ten years. I had experienced change of locale, of friends, of interests. For the farmer, change was much slower, much less obvious, like the growth of the large oak tree in the front yard.

In a transient urban culture, change is accepted, for the most part, as a way of life. In the rural community, change is basically distrusted. It is human to prefer things to stay the same, but in a rural church this tendency is accentuated because things have remained the same. Traditions are the anchors of church life. People depend on them. They know they can count on a community-wide Thanksgiving service. They can trust that at six o’clock on Easter morning there will be a sunrise service.

When I began preaching at the two churches, I emphasized the need each Christian has to grow in Christ. I expected them to come and ask how they could begin to change. Instead, the challenge sank like the proverbial lead balloon. People told me they liked my biblical sermons, and they appreciated my focus on Christ. But their comments baffled me when I did not see any desire for spiritual growth.

In reflecting upon it, I realized that they did not feel the need for inward change when their outward lives had remained so constant. The college students with whom I had worked in the city were confronted with a changing world. They were more apt to respond to the call for spiritual change.

Other topics, such as loneliness, alienation, and lack of purpose, met with little response because they did not address the felt needs of the people in church. The agonizing struggle by members of the rat race to find meaning in life is absent. People in a rural community have a calm acceptance about the purpose of their life.

“Why Don’t They Just Merge?”

A small town means a small church, a church that often cannot afford a full-time pastor. When I tell people I pastor two churches that are five miles apart, their response is usually, “Well, for heaven’s sake, why don’t they just merge?” I confess this is exactly what I thought until I saw how different two rural churches can be. In one sermon, I mentioned the difficulties of being a servant when it came to changing my daughter’s diaper. The first church interrupted me, breaking into laughter. At the next church, I said the same thing and paused, waiting for the laughter. There was hardly a smile to be found. A bit flustered, I continued.

From that point on, I began to understand the uniqueness of each church. One is warm and spontaneous, the other is reserved and formal. One is close-knit, the other is casual. One church is open to new ideas, the other church is convinced any idea will fail. Ministering to these two distinct churches means that I cannot totally meet the needs of either church.

With time to prepare only one sermon, I have to aim somewhere in the middle. I cannot tailor the sermon to the needs and problems of one church. I was not fully aware of this drawback until, one Sunday, I had to preach only at the first church. What a sense of freedom to address the particular strengths and weaknesses of that church!

Preaching is not the only area that is limited in a yoked-church situation. Though one church pays two-thirds of my salary, both churches expect the same amount of concern and time. The churches also try to give me identical treatment. Our first Christmas, one church gave us a dinner and presented us with a cash gift. Two weeks later, after hearing about the gift, the other church handed me a check.

Twice as many meetings and twice as many programs mean less time and decreased effectiveness. Every minister struggles with having enough time. Serving a yoked parish, however, is like having twins. The demands on the pastor’s schedule are doubled. I thought combining the churches for special programs would solve part of this problem—until I tried it. At a combined church picnic, 95 percent of the people were from one church.

The result of an overcrowded schedule is the frustration of doing a little bit of everything, but nothing very well. A yoked ministry works best when one church is much larger than the other. Then, the smaller church does not expect much attention. A minister I know has this kind of situation. At the smaller church he preaches and does nothing else. During the week he is free to concentrate fully on the large church.

What To Do?

• I slowly developed some ways of dealing with these unique problems. I’m learning, for instance, to distinguish between significant and insignificant control issues. Conflicts that do not have deep theological implications, like what color should the new sanctuary carpet be, are not worth fighting over. When I suggested cutting down some unwieldy bushes around the church, one member was adamantly opposed to the idea. Rather than create a conflict over such a trivial matter, I quietly let the suggestion drop.

But on important issues, the pastor needs to be firm if he is going to be a strong leader. When I discussed trimming the church rolls with the session, several members were against the idea. This was in spite of the fact that a sizable number of “active” members had not come to any church activity for five or six years. Because I believe church membership must be taken seriously, I persisted. Eventually the rolls were trimmed.

Distinguishing between what is worth fighting for and what is not conserves emotional strength. And now people know that when I do take a stand, it is not because of a personal whim but because of conviction.

• Counteracting the crippling effects of the rural church’s self-image takes more than the wave of a magic wand. A pat on the back is not enough to change an attitude that has not only been present for twenty years but also reinforced by other people. While looking for a minister, the pulpit committee of one yoked church encountered a church official who suggested they give up the search and close the doors. Simply telling that church once that it does have something to offer is not going to erase the belief that it doesn’t.

Over and over, I tell my churches in sermons, in committee meetings, and in individual conversations that I am glad to be their pastor. I take every opportunity to emphasize the potential of the church. I do not hide my enjoyment of the positive aspects of rural living-the close friendships, the deep loyalty to the church, the down-to-earth people. By taking an active part in family celebrations and community activities, I let them know I don’t feel as if I’ve been sentenced to Siberia.

I’ve tried to build their sense of self-worth by encouraging them to take risks. One church needed to put siding on their building immediately. They were used to spending only the cash they had on hand, partly because of a nagging fear they wouldn’t be able to meet the budget. Since they didn’t have enough to cover the expense of siding, they assumed they would have to let the woodpeckers continue their job of destroying the wood frame.

The presbytery offered a loan, and I urged them to accept it. After several heated debates, they finally agreed. Without much effort, the church paid off the loan within the interest-free year. This was amazing, because the sum represented 60 percent of their normal operating budget. This experience, more than verbal compliments, has begun to convince them they have a strong church.

• Taking community involvement seriously is another key to a successful rural pastorate. In a small town, the pastor who does nothing but church work excludes himself from some excellent opportunities to be with people. My ministry has been enlarged by joining the local emergency squad. One of the benefits of this has been meeting people in the community who don’t go to church. It has also given me a chance to work with church members in a nonreligious situation. I’ve gotten to understand the concerns of the town, which has helped me be accepted by the people as one of them. Our family has also taken advantage of an honorary membership at a nearby sports club. Home visitation cannot build the friendships that result from mingling with people on a casual and informal basis.

As for sharing the gospel, incarnational evangelism has proven more effective than a shotgun approach. People who have lived all their lives in one place are skeptical of someone coming in and “dumping” a message on them. But they do respond to a patient example. To do this, I’ve helped renovate a house, assisted a neighbor in stocking his woodpile, and enlisted another man to go jogging with me. While working together, I can communicate to them by actions, rather than just words, that the Christian faith makes a difference in daily life. One person was taken aback by my offer to help him paint his house. “No minister has ever volunteered to help me work before,” he commented.

The hardest thing for a rural pastor can be changing his expectations for church growth. I had been programmed to expect the rapid numerical and spiritual growth often found in suburban churches. I discovered through painful frustration that an eager response to evangelism and discipleship is not as likely to take place in a rural setting. I am slowly learning to accept the churches and their needs for what they are, instead of what I wish they were.

A swedish ivy grows rapidly; you can see it rise month by month. A rubber plant, on the other hand, grows steadily but much more slowly. Ministering in a slow-growing congregation can be difficult because the fruit of the ministry is not immediately visible.

Tact and Patience

Pastoring a yoked church requires the tact and sensitivity of a diplomat. To avoid jealousy and resentment, I’ve tried to care for both churches in the same way. When I plan a special fellowship dinner at one church, I plan one for the other church. I make sure I spend appropriate amounts of time with both churches and don’t play favorites. This does not mean that everything is identical. But outside of normal church routine, the programs for each church are equivalent.

I wasn’t sure if the churches noticed this, or really cared, until one Sunday I preached a particularly exhortative sermon. Afterwards, a member came up and asked, “Did you preach this sermon at the other church?” I could see the wheels turning in her mind like a sibling who hopes her piece of the cake is the same size as her sister’s.

The rural pastor also needs patience. Don’t give up. Ministering in a different culture to two separate churches is a learning experience. Weeding out the workable programs from the duds can only be done through trial and error. If one program doesn’t work, try another way to accomplish the same thing. A weekly Bible study did not work in my churches. The idea of a midweek Sunday school was discouraged by the session. Now I’m going to the women’s group and leading a bimonthly Bible study. It’s the same idea in a different form—but this one works here.

Finding the right ideas takes time. And the impact of one’s ministry may not be visible for several years. I’ve learned that some impatience is inevitable, but prayer helps me deal with that. In this regard, small-church pastors are no different from anyone else engaged in the work of the Kingdom. We pray for revival, for insight, for God’s will. And we pray that the rural church will continue to reach people for Christ.

- More fromJack Wald, with Ann Wald

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Pastors

An Interview with Raymond Bakke

Ministry happens best when we study the world along with the Word, says this veteran pastor and urban strategist.

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It’s ironic that Raymond Bakke, who grew up in the remote timber country north of Seattle, should find his ministry home in the boiling inner city of Chicago. But his educational journey from a rural high school to Moody Bible Institute to Seattle Pacific University to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School to McCormick Theological Seminary to inner-city ministry taught him some important lessons about the effects of culture on leadership style.

From 1969 to 1979 he pastored Fairfield Avenue Baptist Church, an old Swedish church that found itself surrounded by Spanish and Polish groups struggling for identity. He realized that in order for this church to minister to its community, he had to learn all he could about the people in the neighborhood and retool his pastoral style to fit their needs.

In the process he helped start a Spanish radio program, a Spanish-language seminary, and, with Bill Leslie and Bill Ipema, the Seminary Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education (SCUPE), which currently draws students from ten seminaries. In 1979 he left to teach urban ministries at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary.

He’s a man full of energy and ideas for leading churches. As LEADERSHIP editors Dean Merrill and Terry Muck spoke to Ray, they could feel in every sentence the commitment to making local church ministry work.

In order to minister, what does a person need to know besides the gospel?

A person has to know a call to ministry. And a person needs to know how to preach the gospel. But a person also needs to understand the environment in which he’s called to preach the Word. We teach young ministers how to exegete the Word quite well, but we don’t teach them how to exegete the world. The pastor is called to preach in many different environments, some of them unique to modern society.

Can you give us an example?

We call Chicago an urban place. But urbanization as a process has pushed everywhere. For example, a student of mine took a church in Warrenville, Illinois, a town of 7,000 people. It’s about forty miles from Chicago and was founded in the same year—1834. Warrenville was planted, like many prairie towns, where the river and the railroad track met. My student wanted to know how to minister to these people.

So we exegeted the environment. We went to the cemetery. We checked the names, found the oldest graves, and followed families since 1834. Those families still live in Warrenville and form a core of traditionalists. But all around Warrenville these days are redeveloped corn fields; developers have transformed them into housing units, from tidy-tacky townhouses to quarter-million-dollar mansions. If you analyze these newcomers, you’ll notice that they are not incorporated—they’re atomized. They are not identified with old families but more by vocations. They are on a vocational fast track, so their identity is professional. Ask them “Who are you?” and they tell you what they do, not who they are. They are future-oriented rather than past-oriented. So urbanization has come to Warrenville. It’s happening everywhere. But the rural element is still there, too. The pastor has to exegete this. He has to understand that his task is to pastor a town in which the memory tradition and the family networks are the meaning systems for some of the people while, at the same time, vocational networks are the meaning system for others.

What are the hazards if you don’t take time to understand the environment of your ministry?

The danger is franchising. Too many seminaries today have bought into the McDonald’s philosophy. We learn how to make one kind of hamburger and then seek out the market that will buy that hamburger. The rest of the people go hungry—or make do with whatever they can devise. We teach programs at seminary that certain people will buy (usually people like us). But we don’t have anything for the rest. We need to teach pastors how to custom-build ministry; that is, how to move into a community, exegete the context, exegete the Scripture, and scratch where people itch.

You sound like you’re recommending a kind of pastoral choreography.

Yes. Do you remember John Wooden, the basketball coach at UCLA for many years? I admired him for many reasons. When he began his “ministry” of coaching, if I may use that analogy, he won a national championship with a team whose tallest member was only 6′ 5″. He had a fast-guard offense, a high post, and a lot of backdoor plays and quick screens, with players all over the court. Then he was fortunate enough to recruit a couple of seven-foot centers, so he totally changed his system. He went to a lowpost and strong forward system. And he kept winning championships. The goal was to win, not to run a particular offense. Wooden changed to incorporate the gifts of his players.

That is an example of a person who has pastoral skills. He doesn’t insist on preaching the same way everywhere. He doesn’t try to run the same church program in every context.

Can you teach that kind of flexibility?

I think it can be taught. Some personal skills are required. But if pastors feel good about themselves and their call, then they can let ministry happen. They can become aware that their role is not to do ministry but enable ministry to be done.

You pastored ten years in inner-city Chicago. Tell us how you exegeted Humboldt Park.

The first thing I did was get to know the loyal core that had kept that church alive over the years. Their urban church was now declining. It was losing touch with its community and was heavily programmatic, priding itself on programs that ran every night whether anybody needed them or not. Meanwhile, houses on the block were burning and the neighborhood was up for grabs. .

So I turned away from programs. That wasn’t easy for me to do. I had been an associate pastor in three churches during college and seminary and had been a master of programming. I was even given the Christian education director-of-the-year award by the local Sunday school association. I knew how to run programs. But if you’re going to catch fish, you have to change the bait and go where the fish are.

So although you object to franchising in the local church context, you like the idea of market analysis?

The thing that really taught me this lesson was reading the story of Henry Ford in Amitai Etzioni’s book Modern Organizations. He made a perfect car, the Model T, that ended the need for any other car. He was totally product-oriented. He wanted to fill the world with Model T cars. But when people started coming to him and saying, “Mr. Ford, we’d like a different color car,” he remarked, “You can have any color you want as long as it’s black.” And that’s when the decline started.

Back in Humboldt Park, I saw churches doing the same thing. Seminaries cranked out students with M.Div. degrees programmed to program the same thing everywhere. We have gotten into program franchising rather than the opposite skill: teaching people to go in and do what an anthropologist does in the jungle—learn the language, listen to people talk, and begin to communicate Jesus with concepts people already understand.

Did you try to run unsuccessful programs at Fairfield Avenue Baptist before you learned what would work?

I tried to run youth retreats at out-of-town camps. But I found out that when I invited some Spanish kids and black kids from the neighborhood to go, some white parents resisted. The camp retreat program didn’t work here.

So I went back to the basics. Eleven people ran the Fairfield church, the youngest of whom was fiftyfour. They provided 90 percent of the funds. I spent an evening with each one. I asked them three questions: “How did you become a Christian? What is your history with this church? If you could wave a magic wand and bring about a future for the church, what would it look like?” On the way home, I dictated my responses to those interviews and studied the transcriptions.

I was profoundly moved by those eleven people and their commitment to this church. At the same time, I realized they didn’t really want to change. Because the world outside their doors was fluctuating so dramatically, they wanted to grab the church and say, “I dare you to change it!” It wasn’t because they were inflexible people—as young people they had gone through a dramatic Swedish-to-English language change. But now, because they were proud of what their church had been, they were resisting another major change to make their church more relevant to a Spanish-speaking neighborhood. They had come full circle; now they were the group resisting the change.

So their expectations of what the church should be were different from yours.

Yes. They wanted a shepherd to feed the sheep. I was up there saying, “Onward, Christian soldiers!” That’s what you call a conflict of images, of expectations. Both are biblical—in fact, there are almost a hundred different images of the church in the New Testament. The context a church finds itself in decides which models are appropriate. I decided that if the church was going to survive, I was going to commit myself to discipling one new board member per year to replace the ones who would be moving away. It would take at least five years before the board was convinced and committed to change. And that’s what it took.

So you were in effect replacing backward-looking people with forward-looking ones?

To some extent. But you need both. Robert Gordis says that much of the Hebrew literature of the Old Testament is written for the meantime. The meantime is the period between the great acts of God in the past and the great acts of God in the future. The task of the preacher is remembering that until Christ comes, the past is a present memory and the future is a present possibility. In terms of practical pastoral work, this means taking the ethos of a group of people—the great memories and traditions of the church—and showing how they can be translated into present-day deeds that best serve the future.

One way we did this at Fairfield Church was to hold monthly memory dinners, during which we could remember how God had blessed us. I began to lift up their memory. I had an old Swedish lady tell me stories by the hour of the great acts of God in the church’s past. Then when I was preaching about something contemporary, I could say, “Now, of course what I’m asking you to do is not new; this church did this back in 1902.” I became a broker of their memory, rather than somebody who was trying to take away the church and make them do things they didn’t want to do.

How did you draw in the neighborhood?

I spent one day a week “networking.” I went to all the pastors in the neighborhood, introduced myself, and asked them, “What is the most important lesson you have learned about being a pastor in this neighborhood?” Some of them took me by the hand and showed me the community—where kids hang out, where drugs get dropped, where things happen.

I also visited all the agencies in the community. At the police station, I asked, “What kinds of arrests do you make in this neighborhood?” I went to the schools and asked the principals, “What kinds of school problems do you have?” I went to the publicaid office and the legal-aid clinic. I went to forty-four agencies the first year.

I also visited businesses. I met presidents and personnel managers. They told me the history of their businesses, the way they related to the community, the problems they had doing business here. The barber, the gas station attendant, the person who runs the fruit market—these people can tell you better than anyone what makes the neighborhood tick.

Besides giving you a good feel for the neighborhood, did this networking lead to any other contacts with people?

In one case, the owner of a little factory with eighty employees told me he needed people who could run machines. Over the years, I sent him a number of people. In another case, someone walked in the office in desperate financial trouble because his social security checks weren’t coming. Well, I had been to the social security office and knew who to call there. So I cut through a lot of red tape very quickly.

Networking also made me street-wise to the con games people try to play on churches, especially young ministers. Because I understood that, I could say to a public-aid mother playing a rip-off game, “You know, I really admire you. You’re like a mother in the Bible, Moses’ mother. During a hard time, she let her baby son float down the river to a princess who eventually hired her to mother her own child. I have a feeling you’re a little like that.” There’s always a way to affirm a person without getting conned.

How else did you educate yourself about the people you were pastoring?

I studied ethnic backgrounds and cultural units. I was a country boy surrounded by strange people. I identified at least five groups I needed to study: youth gangs, Swedes, Appalachians, Puerto Ricans, and Poles.

The youth in the neighborhood all belonged to gangs, so I studied gang structure and how you should work with them. I learned these groups miss certain things in the mainline culture, such as a feeling of belonging to something. But when they try to create these things on their own they sometimes exaggerate them—and the gang becomes deviant.

I came to a church pastored by old Swedes, so I studied Viking history. I learned that it took 1,000 years for German missionaries to make Swedish Baptists out of violent Vikings. I studied the missions strategy used to bring about that conversion. And I preached about that on a day after two Puerto Rican kids were killed in our neighborhood and we had a riot. I said, “Who better than a Swedish Baptist church should be in the middle of this violent community? We’ve been through this before—on the other side. Maybe it will only take 500 years for us to convert Puerto Ricans.” That’s how I used people’s history in my preaching.

I also studied the Appalachians. I had a problem with them: If their kids got too involved in the church, very often the parents would pull them out. I couldn’t understand what was happening until I learned about clan structure. In the hills of Kentucky, the patriarch of a clan is very powerful. But in the inner city, he loses much of his power. I began to realize that as pastor I was competing with the father, who was feeling emasculated. So I changed the way I dealt with them.

When you pastor a clan culture, the significant events are weddings, funerals, fires, and fishing seasons—these get the clan together. I stopped seeing people as individuals and began ministering to a whole clan as much as possible.

So instead of picking off an occasional clan member, you hoped to bring the whole group into the church.

Yes. Our missionary strategy shouldn’t be to look around the fringes of a group for some disaffected person who is being disciplined by the tribe. If we set up house in the disaffected substructure of a cultural group, we never will touch the core of the people. We need to properly exegete the meaning system in the context of each people group so we can reach them all.

I studied the Puerto Ricans and began to understand their feelings of being used. Five European nations conquered Puerto Rico in a period of 300 years, using it as a military colony while they plundered South American gold. In the first year of their independence in 1898, we became the sixth outside power to occupy them. Now there are more Puerto Ricans on the U.S. mainland than in Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, Puerto Rico itself is about 65 percent public aid. No wonder the Puerto Rican culture is schizophrenic. Learning all this made me far more sensitive to their feelings of disenfranchisem*nt.

Learning the formal side of their history really affirmed them, when I could tell the great stories of Puerto Rico from the pulpit. The same with the Polish and the Irish. It built a great sense of identification with the church.

You don’t sound like you worry too much about hom*ogeneous units.

No, I don’t although in some cases it’s a useful principle. I had a student last year named Craig Burton who started a church in Chicago’s Loop. Before he started, he asked, “Who is unreached in the Loop?” He profiled a twenty-five-to forty-year-old bar-hopping, wine-and-cheese party, vocationally identified professional. After getting a feel for these people, he asked himself, “What would a church have to look like to reach them, and how would I have to pastor it?”

That’s using the hom*ogeneous principle to good advantage. I have trouble, however, when the principle is misused to resegregate the body of Christ. I’ve seen pastors work in just the opposite way Craig did. They say, “I’m going to find out what I’m comfortable with and then build a church out of those people.” That cuts the nerve of any sense of mission into the world. This country is internationalizing, and our churches have to deal with that. At such a time we can’t afford to cater to a seige mentality.

This has become especially real to me since we adopted a black son. One of my other sons brought him home one day, and Brian stayed. Eventually we went to court and made it legal. It was electric in the Fairfield Avenue church for the pastor to have a son who was not white. It affirmed a lot of things about our ministry. A church with a racially mixed membership roll can model care in a world of prejudice.

How would you translate the ministry model you used at Fairfield Avenue Baptist to the Loop church Craig Burton started?

I might take a group of them on a retreat and lead them through an exercise of designing a logo for their church. I’d give them four ground rules: First, the logo must be biblically and theologically sound. We’d see who they were spiritually, what they considered central to their beliefs. Second, the logo must have some sense of history. As I mentioned before, these people see themselves not as cultural or ethnic groups but as vocational groups. But even then, they bring their own historical baggage to any situation, and that will show up in various subtle ways. They may have been the protesters of the sixties, or involved with the Jesus people. Those experiences still affect their lives. Third, the logo must communicate God’s concern for people, the pastoral dimension. Fourth, it must be intelligible to the unchurched as well as to members.

After agreeing on a logo, we would discuss it. “Does this capture who we are? Is this really us?” If the answer is yes, then I would suggest using the logo to identify Loop Church in the future.

So exegeting the culture in this case means studying the tradition not of an ethnic group but a cultural one. A big part of the task seems to be making members aware of what they are.

People’s expectations are the givens of any ministry.

You must discover them for two reasons: so you can effectively speak to them and so you can make the people aware of them, if they aren’t already. You study the church’s history, read the annual reports, find out where they spent their money—all of which may or may not contradict what they say they want to do. You don’t even have to be in total agreement with them. In the hard churches, you might not be. But that’s where you have to start.

I want to train ministers who will pick the hard church, the unwanted church, the old church, the church that, without intervention, is going to die. This means we need to specialize on diagnostic skills—not prescriptions, but diagnosis, which is an art, not a science. I’m looking for students who will learn two skills: how to start churches where they don’t exist, and how to renew churches that nobody else wants.

Are some pastors better suited for this than others?

I don’t think so; you need to understand that you bring your own baggage with you. Very quickly you discover which of your values are cultural. It’s a struggle to discover that, but I assume it’s a good one.

Every pastor needs a support system, and for many young pastors, the support system they’ve grown accustomed to is impossible , to maintain. They must construct a new one. I’m part of a support group of ten people that meets every month for many hours, and about three times a year we go on an overnight retreat. We do an inward journey, pray with each other, talk, share intimately, and strategize for each of our ministries. That support group has helped me tremendously. I’m accountable to them, and they to me. I wouldn’t move from Chicago without discussing it thoroughly with them; we’re like family.

What if you are ministering in a place that is totally different from anything you’ve ever known; you’re called to Poplar Creek, Missouri, for example, and you’re from Boston. You’ve done your cultural exegesis, you understand the people and what they need. How much of a chameleon should you be? Should you buy a pickup truck and listen to country music?

It’s a missionary problem, isn’t it? You have clearly crossed a culture to minister, and you’re doing just what a missionary is doing. You’re stammering in a new language, trying to understand how people think, and trying to keep from thinking that your culture is superior. Yes, you may want to buy a pickup. Try out the culture. You may come to love it.

But what if you don’t come to love it? What if you hate it? Is something wrong?

Maybe the ability to be bicultural is a gift. So if you don’t have it, that’s God’s will. But I think it’s a more widely distributed gift than people allow for. It’s one I covet for myself and others. As Americans we need to be freed up from our monolingual style. We are a very parochial people. Pastors need to really give a church a good shot before they decide it’s not for them.

It must be difficult for a pastor to know when enough is enough, that he or she isn’t in sync with the church. What were some of the things you personally fought before resigning?

The success syndrome was one. I spent ten years at Fairfield Avenue, and the neighborhood looked worse when I left than when I came. I found that I needed a meaning system bigger than my experience. I came out of seminary with a very pragmatic, local-church theology, but I did not have the feeling that I was part of the worldwide kingdom of God. One day I read in James Glasse’s Putting It Together in the Parish: “I have learned how to exegete global significance out of the trivia of daily pastoral existence.” That helped me. I began to see a larger meaning system in my work. I saw that if I reached a mother through her son, and five years later he married a Christian, I had broken the cycle of a non-Christian family. That delivered me from needing to see immediate gratification and large numbers. It enabled me to work with integrity with a person, knowing that just one person discipled is extremely significant.

Every year we had some problems, so there were other struggles. It wasn’t the struggles that made me leave after ten years. I just felt God was telling me to move on.

Describe Fairfield Church in 1969 and 1979.

In 1969 we had about 100 members on the roll, mostly poor families. We had a fairly significant youth group but no middle class and no middle age. It was traditional Swedish Baptist. Sunday attendance averaged between 110 and 120. The neighborhood was just starting to change; we had a turnover rate of 70 percent on the block that first year. Many of the white people moved away, so the bottom dropped out of our traditional “market.”

Still we managed to survive, even grow a little. When I left, we had about 140 members. We had helped spawn seven Spanish daughter churches. If you added up all the ministry of Fairfield Church, we were touching at least 200 families a week. We had many ways of reaching out and touching people but never tried to pull it all into one building. Our theory was that in a diverse neighborhood like ours, smaller, multiple churches were the way to go.

In your chapter in Metro-Ministry, you wrote, “The cultural heterogeneity is so great that one must think small rather than big if one is going to reach the big city.” How should a pastor think small?

In one sense, every Christian needs to be part of a Billy Graham rally and join a whole stadium of folk in singing “How Great Thou Art.” I love it. But there’s also a familyness about Christianity that I strongly affirm. People desperately need to dialogue and talk back. So I would say thinking small is a way of becoming more human. Bible studies, prayer circles, support groups, and service organizations are very important today. Rather than becoming single issue preachers, we need to organize and minister to targeted groups of people doing specific tasks.

A pastor can’t meet all the needs in a church; a pastor can organize smaller special-interest groups to meet those needs. The way up for the church is to affirm a whole range of leadership styles and to allow smallness to create the intimacy where ministry can happen.

- More fromAn Interview with Raymond Bakke

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Rickey Short

Help for the youth minister who faces an irrational, unjustified, or just plain unexpected confrontation.

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It was early Sunday morning, and the furthest thing from my mind was what waited for me in my office. Two parents sat looking at me. “What are you doing with our teens?” It was an accusation, not a question. “What do you mean?”

“We’re talking about the two boys drunk at the young people’s picnic Saturday afternoon who got arrested!” “What? There wasn’t anybody drunk at that picnic.”

“You might as well begin packing, because after the board meeting tonight you won’t have a job here!”

And with that they both walked out. Talk about being astounded. A little checking in the high school department produced a different story. After we had split up, two of the senior high students went into another area of the state park and began throwing rocks at beer bottles. A park ranger came by and made them pick up the bottles and put them in his pickup. Then he escorted the boys out of the park. Somewhere in all of this, a parent saw the boys with beer bottles in their hands and the ranger “arresting” them.

Armed with this information, I faced the board meeting confident that all I had to do was explain things and be on my way. Was I ever surprised.

One parent in particular repeatedly attacked me and the youth program. With a shock I realized this guy wanted me fired. It was all the more unbelievable because his daughter had run away from home some time before, and I had spent hours talking her into going back. What was the matter with him?

Didn’t he know I was trying to help his daughter and his family?

Finally when the board decided I had somehow acted unwisely but didn’t need to be fired, he announced he was resigning, then walked out.

That was my first serious conflict as a youth minister. This year a young colleague called me late on a Saturday night and wondered if I had time for coffee.

He had been working at Grace Church about five months in youth and music. That evening had been his dress rehearsal for an hour-long Sunday morning presentation by his youth choir prior to leaving on a tour.

One of the more popular boys who had several important parts had arrived thirty-five minutes late. During the ensuing discussion, my friend told the teen he had wasted everybody else’s time by being late. “In fact,” he stated, “you have just cost us about fifteen hours of practice.”

The teen’s reply was less than reticent: “How would you like to lose fifteen more?”

There was a confrontation on the platform, and verbal abuse turned into a nose-to-nose stare. The youth minister was pushed, and he pushed back. Then he physically escorted the teen out of the church. When he walked back in moments later, his youth choir had picked up their things and walked by him without so much as a word. Several of the girls were crying.

A serious conflict in the youth group can evolve over a number of things, but the potential cost of the crisis is always about the same: one’s job and future seem suddenly on the line.

During this crisis a division arises about what should be done. Several parents and some teens feel the youth minister needs to be replaced. Several families think about quitting the church. And some strongly support the youth minister’s actions and program.

I call this kind of conflict a fracturing crisis. The issue fractures the youth group into segments and damages it to the extent that the future life of the group and the career of the youth minister appear to hang on just this one issue.

Fracturing crises are usually generated over three main areas:

Conflict over goals.
Conflict over programs.
Conflict over leadership.

Positive Aspects of the Crisis

Fracturing crises are not abnormal in youth ministry. While I was working on this article, several youth ministers told me about early flare-ups.

One had sent a teenage girl home to dress more appropriately for an all-day outing. He felt her blouse was too revealing. Her board-member father did not. The youth minister lost.

During an all-night lock-in, two boys had a fight over an insult to one boy’s girlfriend. Before the youth minister even knew what was going on, he had to rush a teen to the hospital for emergency stitches. The church lost one family and a youth group member who showed real promise.

The crisis does not mean that the group is bad, nor does it mean that the youth minister has failed. Sooner or later a crisis comes to everyone, and the youth minister does not need to feel that he or she is unqualified to lead young people.

In fact, the resistance, the hours of discussion, and the debate about “The Problem” can actually be a strategy for self-organization by the youth group. On a deep level the group is growing up and learning how to deal realistically with its problems. Unless it can learn to work together and resolve conflict, it will never develop an effective ministry. What play does for children, conflict seems to do for teens.

The long-term fruit of weathering a fracturing crisis is not a near-defeat but something to build upon. The youth group has proven that it will now be able to accommodate itself to unusual stresses it might face on the way to some of its ultimate goals.

The best aspects of crisis are summed up by this statement: Every crisis has within it the seed of spiritual growth and maturity. An experimental attitude and good leadership can bring fruit out of the conflict.

Anticipating the Crisis

If fracturing crisis is a normal part of youth ministry, then there should be some signs that announce its coming.

Perhaps it was a feeling or an intuition, but when I walked into my office and saw those parents, I was not surprised that it was those two. The youth leader who took his teen to the hospital after the fight told me the two boys had been vying for leadership positions at school and in the youth group. The teen who walked out of the choir had just broken up with a girl he was supposed to sing a duet with.

Although the intensiveness of the fracturing crisis may make it appear sudden and unpredictable, there are usually some warnings.

• One of the early indicators is unexpected sarcasm or passive disobedience on the part of a teen. Later there is a selective withdrawal from youth activities. I have had teens attempt to get others not to come and go so far as to plan an alternate activity to draw a portion of the youth away from the church activity.

• A troubled teen may seek out other staff members. Without revealing confidences, these colleagues can then alert you to potential trouble. Open lines of communication with other leaders in the church, both professional and lay, are important.

• The youth group may begin to take sides on an issue, and more and more time will be devoted to dealing with it. Several teens, parents, and the pastor will want to discuss it with the youth minister. People who have no contact with the teens whatsoever will be upset and concerned. Some of their comments are the ones I have found hardest to take.

• And for those who need a two-by-four over the head (which I occasionally do), the group life and program might become centered around one problem. Communication becomes issue-oriented, and discussion is charged with emotion. Sometimes that emotion seems aimed right between the eyes or just a little left of center in the middle of the back.

It is at this point of the conflict that many youth ministers consider resigning in an effort to resolve a conflict that does not seem Christian. They may hope that if they leave, the church will resolve the issue and get back to being a church. This is a false hope. The conflict and its intensiveness is nervewracking, but it needs to run full course for the youth group to profit from it. Quitting (or being fired) during the first serious conflict short-circuits the growth process.

Leadership in a Crisis

The youth minister may be tempted to do two things to reduce conflict:

Approach One: place the planning of youth activities into the hands of the hostile clique, hoping to appease them.

Approach Two: retreat, taking what remains of the youth group and freezing the hostile clique out of activities.

Both approaches will usually fail. The first is not what the teens and any hostile parents really want or need. No matter how loud they have complained about the program or its leadership, sudden responsibility for the success or failure of the youth program will immobilize them. The loss of face through failure to get anything going in a hostile environment will probably terminate future participation—and the youth suffer.

The second approach is also destructive. All teens need to share responsibility for the youth program. When teens have no way to meet such psychological drives as the need to be liked, the need to do something important, or the need to win, the result is anxiety.

The anxiety of teens being left out of youth activities will express itself destructively at the youth leader. A teen who appears to be the instigator of the fracturing crisis needs to be loved and wanted in spite of what he or she has said or done.

When we were leaving our second youth position in Missouri, I had spent most of a day packing the truck and thinking about various teens. I had made very little progress with one in particular and, as near as I could tell, had failed to impress him at all. He had been a constant source of irritation.

Just as I finished packing, he called.

“Rick, this is Steve. I want you to know that I’m sorry I was so much trouble to you. You’ve been more help to me than you know. I’ll miss you.” CLICK.

That call made me vow never to give up on a teen. I must go out of my way to communicate about youth activities that are open to him or her, keeping the doors open.

Obviously, it is never smart to discuss one teen’s problem with another teen. Any negative comments that a youth leader makes “in confidence” to a teen are invariably repeated throughout the youth group. A label such as “troublemaker” will find its way into the next board meeting, and the youth minister may be called on to explain it

Sources of Potential Conflict-and How to Deal with Them

1. Parents. Fathers and mothers need to be constantly informed about what the youth group is doing. They want to know how much the activity will cost, how it helps the family unit, and when their teens will be home.

Don’t depend on your teens to tell their parents this information. They’ll forget or just not do it. If parents don’t know when an event ends, for example, you’ll get the blame when the teens aren’t home. I have been called twice in the early morning hours by parents wanting to know why their teen was not home from the church activity. In each case the activity had been over for hours and I thought their teen was at home. Since then I clearly communicate to parents when things will wrap up.

2. New members. A new teen introduces new problems and new relationships into the social structure of the youth group. Sudden infatuation by a member of the opposite sex may break up two friends, leaving one out in the cold. The new teen may present a leadership threat to someone insecure in his or her position. When new teens walk into a group in conflict, they are forced to choose a side or else withdraw from the group almost without knowing what is going on. Carefully integrate new members into your group and be especially alert for relational problems.

3. Prejudice. The best way I know to reduce prejudice within a youth group is to stress the value system expressed by Christ in racial and social areas.

4. Budget. Youth programs should not become so expensive that they set up artificial barriers. Any program that requires a series of fund raisers should be structured so that every teen who is going participates in the fund raising. When it becomes evident that an elite group can afford anything without having to work for it, the lines have been drawn for a future fracturing crisis between the haves and the have-nots.

5. Courtship. When couples break up, the ripple effect lasts several weeks. Parents tend to stay out of this sort of conflict, but the youth minister finds that impossible. Both sides want to tell their side of the breakup, and if it is over a third party, they want you to decide who’s right and who’s wrong. Remain supportive but neutral.

Achieving Group Unity

Unity within the youth group is an outgrowth of the decision to do fun and spiritually rewarding activities together. A warm atmosphere can be promoted by group-centered and goal-oriented leadership. Group leadership results in more involvement by all members of the group and a greater chance of common consent in ultimate matters. Moving away from an authoritarian position also reduces the potential for fracturing crisis.

An overnight or three-day retreat can be used to build the bonds of fellowship. Structure activities with this goal in mind. Choir trips and mission service trips are less likely to help a youth group resolve a fracturing crisis. In fact, the trip can become a center stage for the crisis to be reviewed and intensified. Wouldn’t you just die if you and your group were at another church to sing, and one of the teens stood up to preface a song with something like “Some of the kids in this choir have really never liked me,” (insert long look at one particular teen) “but this song really helped me ….”

Here are the seven golden steps to group unity:

Be willing to listen to the other side—and compromise.
Eliminate, or at least reduce, status differences.
Avoid excessive leadership control.
Clearly define group goals.
Praise, thank, and take notice of contributions and work.
Be positive.
Be dependable.

The Youth Leader’s Devotional Life

The devotional life must be maintained. Youth leaders who find themselves involved in fracturing crises suddenly find out a lot about what their faith really means to them and to how they live. Prayer and Bible study become supportive, uplifting experiences. Christ is a rich example of how to live with pressure and stress. The leader who remains faithful and teachable finds Christ meeting personal needs.

Conflict is written into the message of Christ. In church history, the call for total commitment has always brought the deepening of Christians and the departure of those who turn away and follow him no more. In my front desk drawer is a three-by-five card with a pair of quotations. One side says, “When it gets dark, the stars come out.” On the other side is a quote from Norman Vincent Peale: “It is the individual who has a deep faith and gut courage who comes through life’s tough battles with a victory instead of a defeat.” Youth leaders who abide in the Word experience personal spiritual growth during their own times of crisis.

- More fromRickey Short

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Crisis
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Pastors

Harold Glen Brown

What to do when the church has always done it that way.

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Old Way or New Way on blackboard

In this series: Deciding What to Change

Leaders are often in situations of never done that before. Innovation is expected. Keeping things fresh is the difference between thriving and stagnating. Its usually not difficult to identify things that need changing. Its far more difficult to identify what should change first.

The articles below focus on the leaders ongoing role of bringing freshness and energy to the task. That means choosing what to change and what to keep the same (for now). Revelation 21:5 says that he who was seated on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new. When you serve that kind of King, you get used to saying, Never done that before.

Church Renovation Blind Spots

James Rodgers

Making Change With Zero Body Count

Adam Stadtmiller

Hints on Making Changes

Harold Glen Brown

The senior minister of a large church asserted that the most trying, heated conflict he had experienced in more than two decades as that church's pastor was about changing the light fixtures in the sanctuary.

That large, vital congregation was not known to be quarrelsome. It was comprised of people considerably above average in educational background, breadth of experience, and economic status who often relied on their outstanding staff and lay leadership in decision making. However, they would not allow changes in their traditional décor.

Pope, in his Essay on Criticism, wrote: Be not the first by whom the new are tried. Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

In your church you will likely have those who seem determined to be the last to lay the old aside. On the other hand, there may be some who, although not avant-garde, are out front in their willingness to change when they feel change is for the better. The issue at which these two groups find themselves at odds may be no more crucial than moving a picture on the wall of the narthex or slightly altering the order of worship; yet such trivia may produce serious discord and strife and may even result in alienation and schism if left unchecked.

Difficult Changes

To be sure, some changes are extremely difficult to bring about in almost any setting. Church leaders should be conscious of the magnitude and ramifications of such changes before attempting them, however essential and justified they may be.

Moving a church from one location to another. Many members will be attached to the old building and site, regardless of the rationale for moving. Memorials, stained-glass windows, and other objects about which people are particularly sentimental only compound the problem. Members sentimentally attached to an edifice have been known to stick with the building even though their own congregation had moved out and a congregation affiliated with a radically different denomination had occupied the old building.

Merging with another congregation. A merger is difficult to accomplish even if it involves two congregations of the same denomination; it is particularly intricate and exacting if congregations of different denominations are considering union. Mergers may involve radical changes in name, location, building, organizational structure, leadership, and program.

A building program. Any building program by a congregation requires consummate management skill to avoid disruptive conflicts. The decision to build, the method of financing, the choice of the architect and the architecture, the letting of contracts, and the selection of furnishings and colors are just some of the decisions that may cause serious problems if not handled skillfully.

Redecorating or refurbishing the sanctuary. Redecorating an existing sanctuary may pose as many problems as building a new church. The acceptance of a change in the color of the walls may be trying enough, but the rearrangement of chancel furniture or changes in the pews can be traumatic for many.

One church changed the color of the walls in spite of strenuous objections; later when they changed the walls back to the original color, the same people objected again. Such objectors may simply find it difficult to accept change in almost any form.

Displacing a volunteer who has served in one spot for many years. Removing from office a volunteer of long standing can be a perilous action. The worker may be a greeter, a Sunday school superintendent, or a Sunday school teacher. One dare not assume that a volunteer worker, particularly of long tenure, wants to be replaced, even if she or he volunteers to step aside.

Changing the schedule of the worship services or the Sunday school hour. Any change in the Sunday morning schedule will prove disruptive for some. One proposed change may be advantageous for parents and disadvantageous for couples without children, or vice versa. Another proposed change may be attractive for those interested only in worship on Sunday morning. Some families may prefer Sunday school and worship scheduled simultaneously so that the parents can be in church while their children are in Sunday school, but others may find such a schedule objectionable because the parents want to attend Sunday school as well as worship, and they want their children to do both.

Revising the liturgy of the worship service. People grow accustomed to an order of worship. One church in my city hasn't made a perceptible change in its liturgy for twenty-five years. Another congregation, seeking to "get with it" a few years ago, decided to overhaul its order of worship to achieve freshness and make it more appealing, but after a short time it went back to the old way because the congregation felt uncomfortable with the changes. Innovative happenings can make worship more exciting. Nevertheless, worshipers tend to feel more secure when surrounded by the familiar, and changes in liturgy are usually hard to bring about without unrest and strenuous opposition.

Replacing any items that have been given by particular families in the church. Items such as an organ, piano, cross, picture, communion trays, or paraments are difficult to replace without destructive conflict if they have been donated by particular church members or families, even if replacement is badly needed. The donors, their families, and their friends are likely to oppose any change that would replace any article with which they are historically or emotionally identified.

The list could be almost endless, but the above changes are among those most difficult to make. I list them not to discourage you from seeking change if change is needed, but to emphasize how difficult such changes are to bring about. If you try, do it with your eyes wide open and with every skill you can command.

Here are several things you can do that might help facilitate change:

Know the Local Tradition

Whenever a new minister is called to a pulpit, traditions are inevitably upset. Even if the new minister resolves to make no changes in the church for some time, members may sense the uprooting of tradition because the new leader differs from previous ministers. For this reason it is vitally important for a minister to be informed about his or her predecessors.

A minister may find out what style of leadership has been embraced and employed in the church. Did any predecessors have a personality cult, relying largely upon charisma and charm? Were they guardians of traditions and preservers of the status quo? Were they autocratic, insistent upon calling the signals and "running" the church? Did they involve staff and laypeople in the decision-making process?

Of course a new minister can give too much attention to a church's history. One should not evaluate people on the basis of how they related to previous ministers. The vigorous opponents of one minister may be staunch supporters of another. The peripheral members of one administration may become a part of the church's nucleus under different leadership. One should never allow oneself to be victimized into inaction by old feuds, old scars, and old problems.

Because traditions are difficult to break without stubborn resistance and travail, ministers and laypersons are sometimes attracted to embryonic congregations in order to avoid the idolatry of sacred cows and the stifling words "We've never done it that way before." It is true that starting from scratch can more likely satisfy the itch of pioneer spirits to be daring and innovative. But even though churches with virtually no history are not as bound by the past as old ones, the new churches are far from entirely free from the restraints of tradition. Members can bring prejudices and traditions into the newly created fellowship. Some will want to do it the way it was done in their old home church, however inept that church may have been.

Evaluate the Congregation

Make the church aware through an educational process that other churches do it differently (if this is the case) and that a change, therefore, would not be as radical as some might surmise. To accomplish this, one might survey other churches by means of a questionnaire. Or one might suggest that members visit other churches to see for themselves how well new approaches have worked. The educational approach will not work in every instance. Sometimes the reluctance to change has such an emotional basis that members will not even be open to an educational process. Nevertheless, it can prove helpful in some circ*mstances or in concert with other strategies.

Change in Stages

If possible, make the change slowly or on a temporary basis at first. For example, if a church has been accustomed to having business suits in the pulpit, and the new minister prefers to wear a robe, the minister is likely to provoke substantial opposition if he or she simply begins wearing a robe at each worship service. However, if the minister begins wearing a robe at weddings and funerals held in the church's chapel, and then wears it in the sanctuary only at the worship service on Higher Education Sunday, the changes may produce little opposition or controversy. The minister may be able to make the transition so gradually that the congregation is scarcely aware. Business firms under new management often use such a strategy. The old name of the firm gets smaller and smaller as time passes while the new name looms ever larger. The public may be scarcely aware that a change in ownership and name is being made until it is a fait accompli. By then the public may have thoroughly accepted the new name.

Cultivate the Traditionalists

Be sure to give special attention to those whose egos are wrapped up in the status quo or who are particularly resistant to change. If your church has an old organ that needs to be replaced, don't assume that the donation of a new organ by some generous family or group will cause all the faithful to rise and sing the doxology as one. Some may be offended, even if changing from a small electronic organ to a four-manual pipe organ. They would be offended because they gave some or all of the money that bought the old organ in honor of their late husband.

If someone in your church wants to give a large sum of money for a cross to be designed by an outstanding artist to replace a wooden cross made by a retired carpenter, don't assume that the congregation will welcome that change. The retired carpenter may be much beloved, and many may have grown accustomed to the simplicity and starkness of that wooden cross.

A thoughtful visit may cause those who would otherwise oppose a change to be cooperative and supportive because their feelings were considered and heard prior to a decision. At the least such a visit may prevent their vigorous opposition; it may even elicit their enthusiastic support by involving them in the process for change.

If those who are likely to object to a change are persuaded in advance of the vote to support it, who then will block or oppose the change?

A minister became convinced that additional educational space was essential to the continued growth of the church he was serving. He felt that the congregation would for the most part enthusiastically support the program. He could think of only two board members who would be likely to oppose the building project. He did not foresee their opposition as hard-line or intransigent, but he did believe that the immediate reaction of these two conservatives in board meeting, when the building committee made its report, would be "I'm against it; we can't afford it. "

The minister decided to call on the two men to brief them on developments to that point. The two viewed the plans with keen interest. When the board meeting was held to vote on the question of erecting additional educational space, these two men vied for the floor to make a motion to approve the building project.

The longer a church goes without making any changes in policy, program, facilities, accouterments, or tradition, the more difficult it is to make changes. It's like creasing a hat. When a hat is relatively new, it is easy to change the location of the crease, but after that crease has been in place for months, it is difficult to create a new one.

If you are in a church that has not been innovative, concentrate at first on changes that are least likely to provoke heated opposition. Don't make changes just for change's sake, but recognize that the more you are able to change, the more you are likely to be able to change.

- More fromHarold Glen Brown

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Criticism
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Where Is Wisdom To Be Found?

Old Testament Wisdom: An Introduction, by James L. Crenshaw (John Knox, 1981, 285 pp., $9.95), is reviewed by Robert K. Johnston, associate professor of religion, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Kentucky.

There has been wide scholarly interest shown in Israel’s wisdom literature in the last 20 years. A number of significant studies have been produced (von Rad, Brueggemann, Murphy, Scott, for example), but no generally accepted introduction has surfaced. James Crenshaw, a professor of Old Testament at Vanderbilt and one of America’s leading wisdom scholars, has attempted to fill the gap with this volume. But despite its usefulness, the book has sufficient problems to make unlikely its widescale adoption as a textbook, particularly among evangelicals.

Crenshaw begins by tackling the difficult problems of definition. How is wisdom’s multifaceted nature to be characterized? For Crenshaw, wisdom distinguishes itself in its “conviction that men and woman possess the means of securing their well-being—that they do not need and cannot expect divine assistance” (p. 24). Instead, “the Creator [has] left human survival to its own devices” (p. 19).

This secular characterization of wisdom leads Crenshaw to adopt several questionable conclusions. First, rather than creation theology being understood as basic to wisdom’s posture, the perceived focus on the Creator within wisdom literature is viewed as an intrusion upon wisdom’s self-sufficiency. That intrusion increases until Yahwism and wisdom are finally joined.

Second, having understood wisdom as the search for order that would assure well-being, Crenshaw sees skepticism as an inevitable result wherever reality is faced honestly and the limits of human reason recognized. Such skepticism arose early in Israel’s history, according to Crenshaw, and became a viable alternative to Yahwism, particularly among “those who failed to discern evidence that God actually controlled history” (p. 208). But surely the questioning of God in Old Testament wisdom literature is far from the skepticism that Crenshaw posits. Goethe and Rousseau, rather than Job and Qoheleth, seem ultimately to be Crenshaw’s sources.

Third, the biblical traditions about Solomon’s wisdom are judged by Crenshaw to be “fantasy” (p. 44): “Every account teems with material typical of popular legend and folklore” (p. 49). Aside from raising important issues concerning biblical authority and inspiration, such a conclusion seems unwarranted given the data. The description of Solomon’s nature wisdom, for example, is consistent with an early date, as is the linking of wisdom and riches. Furthermore, the text’s clear intention seems historical.

Finally, in an effort to divorce wisdom from Yahwism, Crenshaw downplays any influence by wisdom on the law and prophets. While correct in doubting whether Isaiah and Amos were formerly sages, he fails to deal adequately with the clear interaction that does exist.

Although Crenshaw’s skeptical conclusions seem unwarranted by the biblical texts, his discussion nevertheless has much to offer the discerning reader. Particularly helpful are his discussions of the individual wisdom books (although Song of Songs is omitted). Proverbs is understood as enabling the Israelites to cope with life; Job and Ecclesiastes as empowering them to face sickness and death; Sirach as integrating sacred history and worship into sapiential discourse; and Wisdom of Solomon as preserving the wisdom heritage by transmitting it in a new Hellenistic world view.

Crenshaw’s notes are extensive and his selected bibliography extremely useful. This book will challenge your thinking. Even when you disagree you will find yourself being stretched.

The Modern Cop-Out

The Interruption of Eternity: Modern Gnosticism and the Origins of the New Religious Consciousness, by Carl A. Raschke (Nelson-Hall, 1980, 271 pp., $18.95), is reviewed by George W. Jones, director, religious programs, and professor of higher education, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.

Gnosticism, that heresy against which the ancient church struggled and largely triumphed, has been reincarnated in the new religions of our day. Carl Raschke, professor of religious studies at the University of Denver, argues this thesis comprehensively and persuasively by applying philosophical and theological analysis in order to understand Eastern-oriented and psychotherapeutic cults.

Taking seriously the content of the new religions, as well as their function in human society and personality, Raschke holds that Westerners “are all becoming Gnostics of a sort” (p. 243). Especially does he see Gnosticism as a very attractive alternative for the intellectual community with its declining faith in rationality, historical progress, a benevolent and understandable universe, and a perfectable world society. Even among mainline liberal churches, Gnosticism seems to have a special appeal, probably for the same reasons. Idealism, certainty, and a kind of spirituality can, thereby, be maintained apart from a return to Christian orthodoxy.

Raschke identifies the common Gnostic threads in some 50 philosophical/religious thinkers and movements over the last two millennia. These are as varied as alchemy, Christian Science, kabbalism, nazism, and the new narcissism. He finds in each at least one of the common threads or basic presuppositions that make up the skein of his Gnostic hypothesis. (1) They have “a preference for ‘cosmic insight’ over empirical caution and scrutiny.” (2) They follow a “recourse to elitist notions of self-salvation.” (3) They look “to the occult wisdom of the past for inspiration.” (4) They have “a prepossession with the evil of the existing order, with the fatality of life in the present” (p. 24). Thus, saving oneself from a doomed order through a hidden wisdom into a new state marked by timelessness and changelessness becomes Raschke’s working definition of Gnosticism.

Raschke is better at diagnosis than at prescribing solution. However, he closes his book by sounding an alarm: the Gnostic trends in our day are dangerous. A retreat from “the ambiguities, contingencies and incalculable factors of human existence” (p. 243) are not only a Christian heresy but also social treason. He calls on people of faith to correct the Gnostic mistranslation, “the Kingdom of God is in you,” to the textually accurate one, “the Kingdom of God is in your midst.”

Raschke is writing for a scholarly audience, albeit one that needs not share his disciplinary specialties. Many ministers and faculty, who are trying to understand the significance of the cults and the occult in this latter quarter of the twentieth century, will find this book a valuable tool. To be aware of an opponent is the first step in preparing to engage him.

The Reality Of Reconciliation

The Ministry of Reconciliation: A Study of Two Corinthians, by French L. Arrington (Baker, 1980, 1978 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Paul Elbert, postgraduate student in New Testament in the University of London, King’s College.

At the beginning of this century the British theologian James Denney described 2 Corinthians 5:14–21 as the locus classicus on the death of Christ in Paul’s writing. Denney was sure that wherever one began in the gospel story, he would inevitably be led to the Cross.

He thought substitutionary atonement was the most obvious teaching of the New Testament, believing that God’s offer of assurance of salvation to sinners was an assurance rooted in experience and the best constraint to discipleship.

In his last book Denney noted, “Just because the experience of reconciliation is the central and fundamental experience of the Christian religion, the doctrine of reconciliation is not so much one doctrine as the inspiration and focus of all.”

In citing this quotation as a key to the church’s life and witness (p. 27), French Arrington, the gifted American New Testament scholar who teaches at the new Church of God School of Theology, takes up the theme of reconciliation in a popular and practical exposition of II Corinthians. The concept of reunion of the separated is applied to every level of our personal relationships, displaying a deep understanding of Paul’s pastoral agony as he attempted to restore genuine fellowship in that most spiritual of his letters.

Those reconciled to God are themselves to be reconcilers in that faith does not keep silent. But this testimony should be strictly honest and free of exaggeration. Truthful speech is one of God’s graces (6:6–7a). Any superficial testimony that disregards the real nature of sin and minimizes the Cross is not the gospel of Jesus and Paul. Since Christianity then is a religion of relationships, Paul’s feelings for the Corinthians can serve as a model for us when alienating experiences arise.

The sympathy with which the author handles the motif of power in weakness is a tonic for faith. Paul’s hardships and sufferings did not at all indicate a lack of ministerial success. In fact, he boasted in weakness. How strange that is to our modern values! “God cannot help or use self-sufficient people but only those who have a deep dependence on Him. Where there is weakness and openness to divine grace His mighty power comes clearly in view” (p. 167).

Yet more deference could have been given to the painful physical ailment or thorn (12:1–10) as the means of making God’s power evident in weakness. It would have been helpful to state explicitly that it can be God’s will for a believer to experience physical illness. Resignation and obedience can then set one free to love God and others.

This is a serious book for serious times, but it is vibrant and alive. Its short, clear sentences are penetrating and easy to read. I believe it is the best lay person’s commentary on II Corinthians in print. In its contemporary relevance, it may even surpass the older (1958) entry in the Tyndale series. The attractive topical format holds the reader’s attention, and the bonus of its numerous grammatical insights strengthens the discussion. Pastors looking for study material for Sunday schools or house groups will certainly be well served.

What Is Christian Art?

Signs of Our Times, by George S. Heyer (Eerdmans, 1980, $5.95, 98 pp.), is reviewed by Calvin Seerveld, senior member in philosophical aesthetics, Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

This book contains the Gunning Lectures given at the University of Edinburgh in 1975; each lecture takes about 10 modest pages of print. The style is engaging, and Heyer selects specific artists for comment. He makes limited points, and does not pontificate through easy generalizations.

Humans are created by God to need images as well as ideas (p. 9), but modern man has turned images into idols to satisfy his senses (p. 4), or to have art serve as a religion that has no creed but the secular salvation of our technological society (p. 21). However, when the premillennial ideology of the Russian constructivists and U.S. artists of the 1930s ran amuck (p. 25), says Heyer, the exhibitionist art of “action paints” and the gnostic culture of happenings and “conceptual art” became the introverted, substitute rationale. “Consequently, our culture has bred an elite, a cadre of gnostic priests, the elect, who dispense to the masses the arcane wisdom embodied in art. Most of the wisdom is foolishness, of course, in perfect fidelity to its subject matter, but it is spoken and heard in an awesome aura of authority” (pp. 31–2).

Heyer wishes to correct the Protestant tradition that usually has disfavored art (pp. 3, 60), by developing John Calvin’s passing comment that “sculpture and painting are gifts of God” (Institutes, I, xi, 12). His basic thesis is that “beauty always gleams in the creation, and we can find it” (p. 41).

Heyer calls himself a Calvinist, but the fabric of his reflection is basically structured, it seems to me, by the Beauty theology of Thomas Aquinas, with an updated bow to Maritain, and especially to Gilson. The positive half of the book, as I understand it, is an apology for secular modern artists who have used “the resources that their Maker has provided … ‘fittingly’ in their efforts to add to our world objects whose beauty I, at any rate, see no need to defend” (p. 54). In spite of their ideology, Heyer means, when Léger or the cubists produce beautiful art, they are crypto-servants of God. “The beautiful objects that men make bear their own testimony to Jesus Christ” (pp. 53, 42).

I think this position and line of argument will find favor with many evangelicals who are reassessing the stance of the (Protestant) church toward art.

Since Heyer says his statement is tentative, perhaps the following problems could engage us all in discussion:

1. Can aesthetic theory resting on the traditional concept of beauty (which, incidentially, inclines one to be partial to classical Greek statuary as the artistic norm [pp. 43–4]) ever escape a natural theology of sorts, where art and artists by nature witness to the beauty of God (p. 46)?

If one adopts a covert natural theology, certainly his Calvinism is gone. But more important, I think, one misleads people in their understanding of what is going on historically in modern art.

2. Can we Christians find ways to recognize that Matisse and other gifted artists have been used, perhaps, as God used Cyrus (cf. Isaiah 45) to face Christ believers and disbelievers with ways God would have us know, without making Matisse and Picasso naturaliter Christians, whom Heyer says prefigure the new earth in their art (p. 58)?

Heyer’s indictment of mainline modern art as a gnostic idolatry may be largely correct. But if that is true, then his conversation with it is curiously uncritical and congenial.

Thomas says correctly somewhere, I recall, that bad arguments for a good thesis really undercut the truth. For us to have a sound base and perspective from which to assess secular art, and to motivate and understand art that will be truly sensitive to the lordship of Jesus Christ we will need, I believe, not theological essays on modern art (which speculate on Jesus’ beauty), but a down-to-creaturely-earth, Christian philosophical aesthetic theory.

Muddle In The Middle

The Forty to Sixty-Year-Old Male, by Michael E. McGill (Simon and Schuster, 1980, 298 pp., $11.95), is reviewed by Creath Davis, executive director, Christian Concern Foundation, Dallas, Texas.

Michael E. McGill’s book is based on the results of a four-year major research effort focusing on middle-aged men and their crises. Male midlife crisis literally means changes in a man’s personality in midlife. These are substantive and occur rapidly, giving them a dramatic and even traumatic character. Such personality changes alter the way a man views his world and the way he behaves toward it and the people in it—wife, children, friends, employer, employees. Powerful spin-off consequences affect everyone related to the male in midlife crisis, and the author deals with these in excellent fashion.

Out of his research, McGill describes the shortcomings he sees in many contemporary treatments of the subject. He then attempts to present the current knowledge and information about midlife crisis and its causes and effects, both positive and negative. There are firsthand reports in each chapter of men who experienced a midlife crisis. The stories of the people who were affected by the changes these men underwent are told. McGill then discusses what someone going through a crisis period should do, and what steps can be taken to prevent a midlife crisis. The author also describes the kind of supportive action that can be taken by individuals involved in one form or another with a man undergoing a midlife change.

An example of the practicality of McGill’s book are the five steps found in every case where resolution of the crisis was successful: (1) recognition; (2) acknowledgement; (3) consideration of the consequences; (4) choosing to change; and (5) integration of the change.

Interestingly enough, the author states that it is estimated that nearly two-thirds of all men between the ages of 40 and 60 will never experience a midlife crisis. A common characteristic of these men is that their identity is not threatened by the events of midlife. They have multiple sources of identity and are therefore less vulnerable to loss of identity in midlife. The author suggests that to help prevent a serious midlife crisis, a man should find multiple ways to define who he is.

Briefly Noted

The following is a pot pourri of church history, drawn mainly from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. These centuries yet speak for those who have ears to hear.

The Continent. Forerunners of the Reformation (Fortress), by Heiko Oberman, illustrates the shape of late medieval thought from key documents. Helpful introductions begin each section. An excellent treatise, certain to be discussed, is The Church in the Theology of the Reformers (John Knox), by Paul D. L. Avis. Three Luther studies are: Martin Luther (John Knox), a standard work by James Atkinson, with a new introduction and now in paperback; Luther: On Ministerial Office & Congregational Function (Fortress), by Gert Haendler; and Luther & His Mother (Fortress), by Ian Siggins. The Best of John Calvin (Baker), compiled by Samuel Duran, is a topical survey of Calvin’s ideas, finally in paperback.

A sadly encouraging, yet highly instructive, book is The French Huguenots: Anatomy of Courage (Baker), by Janet Glenn Gray. Challenging in a different way is The Autobiography of Madame Guyon (Keats), edited by Warner A. Hutchinson. Puritans and Libertines (Univ. of Calif.), by Hugh M. Richmond, looks at Anglo-French literary relations during the Reformation. It is a learned and very interesting book. On the Glaubenslehre (Scholars Press) is F. D. E. Schleiermacher’s two important letters, newly translated, analyzed, and explained by James Duke and Francis Fiorenza.

Great Britain. A massive and definitive study is Society and Religion in Elizabethan England (Univ. of Minn.), by Richard L. Greaves. It is hard to imagine how this book could be improved on. The Banner of Truth continues its Works of Richard Sibbes with Volume 3 on 2 Corinthians 1. Martin Lloyd-Jones said of this author, “I shall never cease to be grateful to Sibbes who was a balm to my soul.” The Call of God (Cowley), by Robert B. Shaw, looks at the theme of vocation in the poetry of Donne and Herbert, and provides a nice introduction to these poets. Two helpful reprints are Out of the Depths: The Autobiography of John Newton and The Heart of Wesley’s Journal, both by Keats Publishing.

Introduction to Puritan Theology (Baker) edited by Edward Hindson, a valuable reader of mainly British writers, is now in paperback. Scottish Methodism in the Early Victorian Period (Edinburgh Univ./Columbia Univ.), edited by A. J. Hayes and D. A. Gowland, is the correspondence of the Rev. Jabez Bunting (1800–57). Here is firsthand insight on a neglected subject.

The United States. An absolutely fascinating study is Moral Philosophy at Seventeenth-Century Harvard (Univ. of N.C.), by Norman Fiering; it is a penetrating look at Puritan thought. Jonathan Edwards to Aaron Burr, Jr. (Edwin Mellen), by Suzanne Geissler, traces the development of thought from the Great Awakening to Burr, providing the religious and intellectual context needed to understand the enigmatic Burr. Samuel Hopkins & the New Divinity Movement (Christian Univ./Eerdmans), by Joseph A. Conforti, is a first-rate study of a complex phenomenon.

Page 5468 – Christianity Today (2024)

Voting

Appointing an Expert

Delphi Technique

Consensus

Seven Marks of a Good Teacher

How Good Teaching Happens

The Rewards of Good Teaching

Paul Bubna

Edward J. Hales

William J. McEllroy, Jr.

Arthur M. Umbach

Conclusions

“Who’s in Charge?”

“That Won’t Work Here.”

“Why Don’t They Just Merge?”

What To Do?

Tact and Patience

Positive Aspects of the Crisis

Anticipating the Crisis

Leadership in a Crisis

Sources of Potential Conflict-and How to Deal with Them

Achieving Group Unity

The Youth Leader’s Devotional Life

In this series: Deciding What to Change

Difficult Changes

Know the Local Tradition

Evaluate the Congregation

Change in Stages

Cultivate the Traditionalists

Where Is Wisdom To Be Found?

The Modern Cop-Out

The Reality Of Reconciliation

What Is Christian Art?

Muddle In The Middle

Briefly Noted

References