Every Pastor Needs a Pastor by Louis McBurney Word, Inc., $5.95 Reviewed by Dennis L. Gibson, Ph.D., a practicing psychologist.
You sigh deeply. Not just once, but several times in the course of an hour alone. You can’t concentrate. You resist once again the fleeting thought of some other line of work. What is this weight on your chest?
Louis McBurney identifies such heaviness in the lives of pastors as “the burden of unrealistic expectations they have accepted.” He eloquently describes the burden with anecdotes that prompt the reader to say, “Hey, that’s me!” McBurney then shows how the burdens are unrealistic. With deft economy of language, he brings in the psychological concepts that have bearing on the choice of pastoral ministry as a career.
His key concept is that most pastors unconsciously cling to a plethora of expectations, spoken and implied, by persons to whom they have looked for approval over the years. McBurney cites five mistaken beliefs that chronically beset pastors:
I must be constantly available to meet all demands my people make upon my time.
I must be capable of meeting any need they bring to me.
I must tower as a paragon of sinless perfection.
I must have no spiritual needs of my own or chinks in my emotional armor.
I must never let on that I have anymaterial needs.
What keeps these absurdities alive in a pastor’s thinking? Of the many plausible psychological concepts McBurney could use to answer this question, he picks one cogent and straightforward one: unresolved conflicts about authority and dependency. He gives a good thumbnail sketch of ideal childhood development, and of the common parental mistakes that reverberate into the adult lives of their children.
One mistake is to demand more of a child than the child can perform, and to hinge the parents’ love and acceptance on the child’s performance. That’s rejection. So is the opposite extreme of overprotection. Doing for the child what he can do for himself broadcasts the unspoken propaganda “You don’t really have what it takes without someone who is more capable to help you.”
McBurney’s treatment of the authority- dependency relationship reflects a gentle, fatherly warmth that pervades the book. He uses his own three children as examples for the last part of his book. This fatherly heartbeat echoes as he writes about God as Father rather than as harsh, perfectiondemanding Cosmic Critic. Unlike many guides in today’s secular mental health field, McBurney does not regard authority as a dirty word. He recognizes authority as a responsibility parents exercise for the benefit of children, to fit them usefully into the kingdom of God.
The author explains four common problems originating in authority-dependency conflicts: loneliness and isolation, unexpressed hostility (including depression and anger), feelings of failure and inadequacy, and role confusion. His refreshingly simple explanations of the nature and root of these problems will probably move many readers to say, “Oh, so that’s what that feeling is. What a relief to know someone else has felt it, too!”
Having described the genesis, nature, and symptoms of the burden of expectations, McBurney proceeds to show common roadblocks to relief. They boil down to an unwillingness on the part of ministers to look in the mirror of self-awareness and see themselves as they are. Bridging into the section on cure, he seeks to allay fears of consulting a psychotherapist. Most of them, Christian or not, recognize and encourage one’s religious commitments as important strengths in the personality.
“. . . special knowledge of theology . . . is not absolutely necessary for a psychiatrist to be helpful. … Many of the techniques used . . . may be successfully employed regardless of the religious beliefs of the therapist.”
How are the shackled set free? Answer: Every pastor needs a pastor. That is, he needs someone to whom he can reveal his long-held emotional secrets. The key is to get them out of hiding. Express them, but do so in an appropriate, gradual sequence. Start with yourself; recognize your feelings. Name them; list them. Then mention them to God. Then share them with your spouse. “I want to share some feelings I’ve become aware of. Lately I’ve been really anxious, and I don’t understand why.”
Finally, be candid and diplomatic with the church board and congregation about your feelings, your humanity. Chances are this will liberate many of them. If any of these are too difficult to do on your own, begin with a professional counselor who can offer expertise and confidentiality.
The last two sections of the book deal with the pastor’s first responsibilities: his wife and family. They show that when there is a healthy balance between the priorities of work and those of family, there is no need for neurotic attempts to fulfill psychological needs by exaggerated selfsacrifices.
The book offers no panaceas, but points in the direction of answers. Its strength is in bringing the problems to light, and announcing the good news that something can be done about them. In the well-organized, short chapters, the author shows that he knows and understands the pulse of a minister’s life.
The Pastor-Preacher by William A. Quayle Baker Book House, $6.95 Reviewed by W. Thomas Younger President, Western Bible College, Salem, Ore.
William Alfred Quayle (1860-1925) was a Methodist minister in mid-America. He served as a teacher and president of his alma mater, Baker University in Baldwin, Kansas, and pastored four churches before his election as Bishop of the Methodist Church in 1908, a position he held until his death. Bishop Quayle was best known and loved for his preaching and pastoring, a reputation confirmed by reading his 1910 work, The Pastor-Preacher. This 1979 edition, edited by Warren W. Wiersbe, has eliminated five chapters and some non-essential paragraphs. Wiersbe summarizes the Bishop’s philosophy of ministry: “Love Jesus Christ supremely, study hard, love people, always work, and be yourself.”
The book is divided into four sections: The Man, The Student, The Preacher, and The Pastor. In the first part, Quayle writes poignantly of the calling of the pastor-preacher, insisting on the greater importance of the man within the preacher.
The calling is not for the weak, but only for the strongest of men. He must be willing to spend himself, not save himself. Constrained by his love for Christ, he serves God and men. On one hand, the preacher is an appreciator of his brother-ministers; on the other hand he is stirring up the gift of God within him. He is a man of prayer. His calling qualifies him to be a mystic with feet solidly planted on the ground of reality. His sense of wonder causes men to actively listen for God’s message. His awareness of the present does not block out his consciousness that he resides in all eternity.
It takes more courage to be a preacher than to be a gladiator, or a stormer of fortresses, because the preacher’s battle is ever on, never ceases, and lacks the tonic of visible conquest. My favorite chapter in the first section is “Preaching-or Preacher.”
Preaching is the art of making a sermon and delivering it? Why, no, that is not preaching. Preaching is the art of making a preacher and delivering that.
Quayle emphasizes that the preacher is in control of his time, using it in haste but never hurrying. He addresses himself to those ministries that make a difference, and instead of just putting in time, he gauges work for its comparative excellence.
He differentiates between preachers who tell us truth that we hear, and others who tell us truth that we feel. He describes preachers who have “the blessed power of crowding men over to God’s side of the road.”
Every preacher ought to ponder the chapters on “The Sin of Being Uninteresting” and “Justification of the Sermon.” It is fallacious to think that because we preach God’s Word, being interesting is not important. And preaching is not justified just because it is sermon time.
Part four of The Pastor-Preacher is devoted to “The Pastor.” All of us who are caught up with our multi-layered church staffs and our seminars on management and delegation ought to ponder the Bishop’s contention that being a preacher and a pastor are not mutually exclusive. A pastor must be both. Many pastors have become ineffective in the pulpit because they have settled for working at their desks with books or administrative duties. They’ve neglected their roles as shepherds of their flocks. Effective pulpit men know not only the truth, they also know their people.
Quayle insists, “The supposition that a man is so important that he can not afford time to make pastoral calls is a piece of irreligious conceit which is intolerable in a man who is to be a servant of all.”
Bishop Quayle was a balanced man, able to give us valuable insight on how a pastor should minister to the sick, to children, and to young people. How beautiful that this book should end with the chapter, “The Search for Souls,” imploring preachers never to lose sight of the fact that men are lost in sin and need Jesus Christ as Savior.
Contemporary Christian Communications
by James F. Engel
Thomas Nelson, Inc. $12.95
Reviewed by Daniel W. Pawley, Assistant Editor, LEADERSHIP
“The audience is sovereign,” says Engel, “with complete abilities to accept, reject, and respond to messages. Our mission is to adapt the gospel message in ways that make it relevant to contemporary audiences.”
To “adapt,” Engel explains, does not mean that we should change the message. Rather, it requires that we focus concrete, biblical truth on contemporary issues. Simply stated, we need to know our Bibles, and we need to be aware of what’s going on around us. Once we’ve mastered this concept, we can effectively lead our audiences through a “spiritual decision process.”
The first step in this process is “need activation.” Engel claims, “people will not change until change is seen as beneficial to their basic needs and desires.” Dividing human needs into five areas-physiological, safety, belongingness and love, self-esteem, and self-actualization-he points out that higher orders of need, such as self-esteem, cannot be satisfied until lower levels, such as physiological needs, are satisfied. It is pointless, consequently, to preach to a poor and starving individual that Christ has power to bolster his self-image.
Engel advises Christians to “uncover” the needs of their audiences. For mass-evangelization he recommends distribution of questionnaires that effectively pull people’s deepest needs out. For personal evangelization he urges us to “feel around the rim of a life” until we come to points of need and hurt. This requires “building bridges of trust and friendship” and avoidance of “cold-call evangelism.” Finally, he warns that people have no interest in Jesus Christ until they see that he can be relevant to their life-styles and strivings-no matter how simple or how complex.
According to Engel, once a need for Christ is activated in an individual there’s an immediate search for information to satisfy that need. People go to the media-books, magazines, television-searching for relevant answers. As a media expert, Engel urges Christians to make better use of media in presenting the gospel. The book provides examples of effective, evangelistic media thrusts. For instance, a group of evangelical students thoughtfully marketed an evangelistic magazine, Breakthrough, to reach a segment of unbelievers in Hong Kong. A Chinese editorial staff was selected, and by applying their cultural knowledge to the basic gospel message, Breakthrough became one of the most successful Christian endeavors in Hong Kong’s history. Leaders of community outreach projects should pay close attention to this section: Engel tells what works and what doesn’t.
Later, the author deals with the formation and alteration of beliefs and attitudes-the final step in the spiritual decision process. He makes the point that all means of self-change, apart from Christianity, are ultimately fruitless. He urges pastors and lay people to constantly stress the uniqueness of self-change when it is accomplished by the Lord. About preaching evangelistic messages, Engel claims, “Certainly the historic facts about Christ and his life must be established, but it is more important to show how he and he alone is relevant to people’s needs.”
In a section dealing with evangelistic persuasion, the author warns about “manipulation,” which he defines as “any persuasive effort which restricts another’s freedom to choose for or against Jesus Christ.” His illustration is one of a pastor shouting out the altar-call while the choir sings “Just As I Am” for the fourteenth time. “This may be the last chance you have,” says the pastor. Counselors rise in large numbers giving the impression of a mass movement, and unbelievers are induced to act-not out of a decision for Christ but because of subtle pressure on them.
The book completes the evangelization process with in-depth discussions of freedom in Christ, the cultivation of new believers, and cross-cultural communications.
Engel, director of the Billy Graham program in communications at Wheaton Graduate School, applies impressive scientific research to the study of evangelism, and this may seem incongruous to some. However, as Engel argues, “The communicator is obligated to proclaim a message that has both biblical fidelity and audience sensitivity.”
Engel’s sources range from media theorist Marshall McLuhan to anthropologist Margaret Mead, and from Billy Graham to Bill Gothard. The book is easy reading, and contains many functional models and diagrams that illustrate the author’s theses.
Making the Small Church Effective by Carl S. Dudley Abingdon Press, $4.95 pb Reviewed by William G. Enright, Pastor, First Presbyterian Church, Glen Ellyn, 111.
Color me envious. In this book of Carl Dudley’s he writes, “Small churches can’t thrive where people keep moving. But there is a place for small churches in a world where people plant their own trees.”
Ah, to be able to sit and be, relax and enjoy, have people call me by my first name, and forget church growth statistics.
What is the small church? It’s the largest representation of Christian experience in the world. Small churches have always outnumbered large churches from Paul to present times. Small churches are people. But, according to Dudley, at the bottom line the small church is money-strapped budgets, burdensome mortgages, anemic benevolences, and underpaid pastors.
Feisty is the word for the small church. It doesn’t know when to quit. It’s tough, durable, resilient, even obstinate. It’s a unique breed.
Dudley is no geneticist. He does not offer a formula for the cloning of an effective small church. He is a sociologist with gifts of hard-nosed analysis and savvy insight who writes, “The small congregation can be best understood as a primary group.” Like a family, personal relationships can be “hot, cruel, petty, and irrational.” And in these primary groups people care! The small church is like a single cell where everyone knows and cares about everyone else in the cell.
Small churches are the most abused and misunderstood segment of the Christian faith. They exist to care, not grow; yet pastors are trained to make churches grow. Consequently, small churches have a tendency for short pastorates. They don’t need magnetic preachers or competent administrators; they simply want pastors who care.
His book brought back memories for me because I grew up in a small church. But more important, Dudley has reminded me that many of the strengths of the small church should be present in my own larger church.
“In a big world, the small church has remained intimate.
In a fast world, the small church has been steady.
In an expensive world, the small church has remained plain.
In a complex world, the small church has remained simple.
In a rational world, the small church has kept feeling.
In a mobile world, the small church has been an anchor.
In an anonymous world, the small church calls us by name.”
A stimulating book like this makes my mind explode, and Dudley is a potpourri of ideas. Worship, personal study, the church kitchen, the custodian’s closet, the stewardship drive, the new members’ class, the long-range planning committee-now all look different to me.
Pastoral Care in the Black Church by Edward P. Wimberly
Abingdon Press,
$3.95
Reviewed by Marvin A. McMickle
Senior Pastor, St. Paul Baptist Church, Montclair, N.J.
Some of the most challenging and demanding forms of ministry fall to black pastors whose task and talent is to bring hope and encouragement to people living in the face of racism and on the periphery of society. Every facet of life for black Americans is conditioned by the realities of racism and discrimination. In his book, Pastoral Care In The Black Church, Edward Wimberly explores the methods and resources employed by black pastors to minister in the name of Jesus to those whom society has demeaned and excluded.
The book begins with a reference to the classical functions of pastoral care as presented by William Clebsch and Charles Jaekle in their book, Pastoral Care in Historical Perspective. These classical functions are healing, sustaining, guiding, and reconciling. These four pastoral functions serve as the backdrop against which Wimberly describes the approach to ministry employed by black pastors.
He contends that the main functions of black pastoral care have been only two of those four: sustaining and guiding. Wimberly rightly says that healing cannot be a function of black pastoral care because “racism and oppression have produced wounds in the black community that can be healed only to the extent that healing takes place in the structure of the total society.” Hence, because healing was not possible, in accordance with the Clebsch and Jaekle theory, sustaining methods were employed.
Wimberly then places the work of reconciliation under the methodology of sustaining. However, he does not approach reconciliation from the traditional theological basis in which reconciliation reunites man and God who have been separated due to man’s sinfulness. Instead, he says that “reconciliation must be viewed in the context of the oppression and powerlessness of black people. Because of oppression, union with God has meant uniting with the source of the power of the universe for the purposes of being supported and sustained in life. “
This forging of a relationship between a powerless people and an all-powerful God has been the major source of hope and comfort for black people in America. However, Wimberly commits a theological error when he refers to this forging process as reconciliation. First of all, the biblical understanding of the doctrine of reconciliation has always been believed in black churches. Second, liberation theology, which Wimberly employs as the theological base for all pastoral care, contends that God acts not in response to our sins, but in response to our oppression. This use of the doctrine of reconciliation in seeking to describe the relationship between God and black people could blind many of us to what is a critical component of religious faith among black Christians.
Another insight made by Wirnberly is that “pastoral care is a communal concept.” It is the task not only of the pastor but of the whole church: “Pastoral care is defined as the bringing to bear upon persons and families in crisis the total caring resources of the church.”
This is an important point because, as he suggests, many of the economic, educational, and socio-political resources of American society have historically been inaccessible to black Americans. As a result of this exclusion, a multitude of groups, programs, policies, and church offices were created within black churches. These aided black people in facing problems, gaining job skills, using their natural talents, and becoming members of a well-defined, social structure regulated by values and moral principles. Wimberly is correct when he says, “It is precisely in the mobilization of its support systems resources that the genius of the black church can be exploited.” Apart from the style of worship, the most distinctive feature of most black churches is the large number of clubs, choirs, and other organizations. Whatever their contribution to the local church may be, they serve primarily to bring a sense of belonging and identity to persons long excluded by society.
Wimberly is at his best setting the scene in which black pastoral care occurs. The weakness of this book is that in every case study employed to show the unique ways black pastors approach their work, the methodologies highlighted could just as easily be those used by any caring pastor of any color. Indeed, the whole book limps between what is common rnethodology for any pastor and what is unique to black pastors. However, since the historical analysis and the tips on proper pastoral care are both so carefully presented, this book is profitable for black or white readers alike.
Copyright © 1980 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
