Like the taut string of an archer's bow, a bow with 50-pound pull, pastors repeatedly feel tension from two directions when it comes to outreach. The church tends the world and tends the household of faith. It reaches out to evangelize and reaches in to nurture.

There is the inevitable tension between budgeting for church maintenance and budgeting for outreach, between time spent with churchgoers and time spent with church non-goers, between targeting the uninvolved and targeting the faithful.

LEADERSHIP editors Brian Larson and Marshall Shelley invited four pastors to discuss the pull they've experienced.

-Wayne Gordon pastors Lawndale Community Church, a mostly black congregation in urban Chicago.

-Mike Marcey pastors Naperville Presbyterian Church in the mushrooming white-collar suburb of Naperville, Illinois.

-Doug Murren pastors Eastside Foursquare Church, a seeker-sensitive congregation in Kirkland, Washington.

-Bob Thune pastors Christ Community Church (formerly Omaha Gospel Tabernacle) ...