Frankly, it’s been a wild-but invigorating-ride. Paul Robbins and I keep using this analogy on each other: we thought we were birthing a canary, but out came this huge eagle. Here we are, clutching its talons as it flies up and up to new vistas, whereas we thought by now we’d be watching a polite little yellow thing twittering in its cage.
Our original LEADERSHIP plans were for 5000 circulation and modest beginnings. But testing and research showed intense need and interest. We soon knew we had to give it our best shot- extensive editorial work, full-time staff, major promotions. Keith Stonehocker then did magnificent work in launching circulation to 60,000 this first year. Roy Coffman, as one of the key strategists, kept the ad sales and other business aspects humming.
It’s been a delight to see the response -but the “canary/eagle” dynamics have generated a lot of pressure, especially on Paul Robbins, who also carries heavy corporate responsibilities. After the first issue, and even after the second and third, the question we heard most often was, “Well, you’ve really helped us. But is it just a flash in the pan? Will you let us down on other issues?”
Apparently Paul’s efforts to maintain quality have not been misplaced, for we continually receive comments such as these in letters: “Many of the articles hit home and became very personal. It’s almost as if they were written just for me.” “I cannot tell you how much the journal has excited, motivated, and inspired me!” “Most of the articles speak to the issues I confront daily.”
I can identify with all this enthusiasm because working with each issue stimulates me personally. The interview with Dick Halverson was a refreshing three hours, and reading and re-reading it in manuscript and galleys reinforced to me the strength of this vulnerable man. On a recent Saturday night I was working on the little article by Don Bubna on encouragement cards, and also the article on youth groups by Dave Veerman. Dave’s thought that perhaps the most essential ingredient for a youth group is leaders who love kids sparked my thoughts about the youth leaders in our church. The next morning I said a word to the husband, then talked to his wife in the foyer, trying to affirm their ministry. I knew they really cared about kids and put themselves on the line. Her response was, “The Lord must have wanted me to talk to you this morning,” indicating she needed the encouragement. The incident said to me that a lot of people might feel God led us to them if we’d get more involved in this ministry of encouragement.
Veerman’s point-that the most vital element in “programs” is love and concern-hit me also in regard to this issue’s main theme. Effective counseling? I recall reading Paul Tournier’s quoting a study made of various counseling techniques. Freudian? Jungian? The study showed the technique mattered very little-the one common factor in patients who were helped was deep interest and concern on the part of the therapist. Those counselors who really listened helped their patients far more than impersonal counselors.
In preparing LEADERSHIP, we keep hearing that what the church needs is people who will listen. Duncan Brown, chairman of our executive committee, told me last week of a man who ran an ad in the papers saying he would listen -simply listen-to anybody about anything for $6 per half hour. He was soon swamped with jobs!
One last thought, and this applies to all four editions we’ve worked on. As we’ve gone through so many manuscripts which detail pain and even devastation in the church, I sometimes feel overwhelmed by these leaders’ problems. It seems especially discouraging when I read of the pain unnecessarily inflicted by other Christians.
But Thomas a Kempis (The Imitation of Christ) has been helpful to me in this. He says, in effect, “We Christians say we’ll take up our cross, declaring ‘Whatever it is, I’ll bear it for you, Lord.’ ” But then the cross that comes along we reject. We say, “No fellow Christian has the right to impale me like that!” We do not see our terrible hurt as a cross to bear, but as an indignity God has no right to afflict us with. After all, Christian stupidity and nastiness is not what God intended!
True. But we are called to overcome evil, whatever its source. The dagger in my chest from a fellow Christian may be as emotionally and psychologically “fatal” as a Roman cross was physically fatal; but that’s a point of the analogy. When we suffer, we can either cry “Foul!” or we can say ‘yes, this too is the sort of evil Christ suffered, and I will also suffer; and I am fully capable of doing such evil myself.”
Our theology is clear on these matters, but in the heat of grinding circumstances, we squirm instead of appropriating grace. I vividly recall sitting in a Washington, D.C., cafeteria one morning a few years ago, drinking coffee and reading my New Testament. I found myself asking, “Why am I here?” Tensions and pressures were mounting. I had moved my family across the country into a situation that might explode on me at any time. “Crazy!” I thought. “How complicated-all the people and circumstances!” But then this phrase came hammering at me “For this cause are ye brought to the kingdom.” The phrase just hung in that smoke-filled cafeteria like a living thing. It lifted me. This absurd situation, yes, this one, “For this cause were ye brought to the kingdom.”
That phrase has come to me again and again. Whatever our difficulties and disappointments, we can be assured they’re the ones God intends for us to have, to bring us into completeness. If we’re embroiled in pain, that’s our cross. Do we resent it, renounce it, or grow in grace through it?
We need not be morose in all this. “For the joy that was set before him, Christ endured the cross.” Whatever my cross or yours, there is joy set before us. That’s what is possible in the midst of pain and brokenness in the church today.
Harold L. Myra President, Christianity Today, Inc.
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