According to Greek legend, Homer, nearly blind, wandered from city to city most of his life inspiring people with his magnificent poetry.
I’m no Homer, far from it. But I’ve often identified with that romantic picture of the nomadic life. I’ve been nearly blind since my birth in 1916, and in my thirty-eight-year ministry, I’ve served thirty-five different churches as interim pastor. I haven’t inspired those churches with magnificent poetry, but I discovered that God heals sick and suffering churches, and he’s used me in some of those healings.
I don’t know why he’s used me in this way. I didn’t choose the life of a church doctor. From a natural standpoint, I just stumbled into it. After seminary, I had two regular pastorates in 1944-46 and 1948-49. Like all young pastors, I was inexperienced and fearful. But I liked to preach, did it fairly well, and always had a love for people that made me a natural counselor.
Still, something was lacking. Was my poor eyesight too much for the people to overcome? It’s hard to say. I could see enough out of one eye (20/200 vision) to read with powerful glasses, and I could use the bus system to visit people in their homes. I had wonderful rapport with the members and left each of those early churches with cordial feelings. But something was missing, and at that time I couldn’t pinpoint what it was.
It wasn’t doubts about my call to ministry. Since I was nine years old I knew I wanted to preach. My mother encouraged me, too. I remember telling her one day I wanted to do something great. Quietly she replied, “Be a minister.”
I planned to, despite early obstacles. Repeated surgeries on my eyes (the first at four years of age) often left me discouraged and depressed. And I had a tremendous temper that took a long time to overcome. But from my point of view, those things weren’t going to keep me from the pastorate.
Yet God had another plan for my ministry. Perhaps he used my personal problems to make me more sensitive to the problems of others. I don’t know. But I discovered churches are looking for temporary leaders to help solve problems.
It shouldn’t surprise us that churches have problems. Just as a hospital treats sick people, a church houses sinners of all shapes and sizes. It’s worse for a church, because even the “doctors” are sinners. In a sense, every member is both doctor and patient, all mediating God’s love to one another.
Sometimes, though, things get overbalanced on the patient side. It can take the form of an unfocused ministry goal, a personality disagreement where people take sides, a financial crisis, or even a corporate depression where for one reason or another the church doesn’t feel good about itself. When things get overbalanced, it’s time for a specialist.
As an interim pastor, I’ve served many churches in desperate need. I haven’t always met their needs, but God has many times. I’d like to share some of the lessons I’ve learned through these healings. But let me emphasize that each church is unique. One overarching lesson I’ve learned is that each new problem must be dealt with uniquely-but past experience does help.
Lack of Goals
Many churches lose their direction when they lose their pastor. They may not have had much direction before, but what they had leaves with the U-Haul behind the pastor’s aging Ford. A leadership vacuum remains. Two or three deacons usually try to take up the slack, but they do so almost by default. Because they’ve been the most vocal members in the past, other people listen, thinking their own ideas aren’t worth expressing.
Problems arise because (1) the new leaders don’t really want to lead, or (2) they want to lead too much. And unfortunately, their ideas often originate in their vocal cords, not their brains. The church lurches and jerks along with goals everyone thinks everyone else agrees with, but only a minority believe in. What’s needed is some stock taking.
First, I try and get the facts straight. Facts stop indiscriminate fighting and demand action. One of my longer interim pastorates was a year and a half at Clear Lake Baptist in Gibbon, Minnesota. This young church had always had part-time student pastors and couldn’t decide whether to hire one full time. Immediately, I learned that the church was already serving many teenagers and young adults of reachable age. They were ripe for evangelism, and a full-time harvester was needed.
I waited six months before I reported these two “findings” at a quarterly business meeting. In the meantime, I backed up my intuitional observations with visits to church homes, during which we talked about the church’s goals. When given a chance to talk, the people verbalized the same two things I saw. I could report from a neutral stance, an essential for an interim pastor.
Second, I get the people to express their feelings about the facts. At another church in Stratford, Iowa, the point of contention was whether or not to build a new parsonage. The one we were using had a bathroom my mother, bless her heart, described to some church women as “vintage Abraham Lincoln.” As I sat in the church office wondering how to get the church to see this need, I spotted a folder in the church file marked “Parsonage Questionnaire.” The congregation had been polled a year earlier, and three-fourths of them favored building a new parsonage. But the results had never been made known to the entire congregation. I brought the written feelings to light at an all-church business meeting.
In another case in Washington state, I made the members vocalize the feelings themselves. A dishonest pastor had recently left, one who had real evangelistic gifts but couldn’t keep people involved in the church once he preached them in. As soon as they discovered how he did business, they left.
When I arrived, people still hurt from the experience and didn’t like to discuss it. But I drew them out and made them tell me about the situation, both in private meetings and public gatherings. This served to clear the air of rumors, suspicions, and, surprisingly, judgmental feelings. Once everyone knew the whole truth and how awful everyone else felt about it, they could go on from there.
Third, I try and get effective leadership to take the reins. Churches usually don’t have enough people leading. The talent is there, but it stays hidden, snug in the comfort of the silent majority. It takes time to get it out. You must get close to the people and encourage them in their problems, so they’ll trust you enough to give leadership a try.
That’s what others did for me back in the early days when I was still struggling to prove I was physically sound for ministry. I took an interim pastorate at Calvary Church in Fort Dodge, Iowa. As I got to know the people through preaching and visitation, I felt a warm response.
People there didn’t know I had an eyesight problem before I came. Even after observing me, nobody mentioned my visual limitations, and as they saw how rapidly I learned to use the city bus system to visit their homes, I felt their love grow. I lived with a young couple from the church. One night we were talking about a young boy in the church who was going into the State School for the Blind. It prompted me to start talking about my own handicap. This young wife spoke right up: “Why, Rev. Sherwick, you’re not handicapped, and don’t let anyone tell you you are. “
I can’t describe the joy I felt. I slipped away to my room and cried. A weight flew from my shoulders, and I never again doubted my ability to serve. That night unlocked my freedom to minister, and I’ve never forgotten how that simple affirmation from someone who cared led me to a lifetime of church leadership.
Personality Conflicts
The most common problem I run into is personality conflict. It leads to split churches or warring congregations that can’t get anything accomplished. Usually I arrive after the damage is done; only once has a church split while I was on the scene.
Now this may sound odd, but in most cases of personality conflict, the best thing to do is nothing. The worst thing is to take sides before you get a chance to see what’s going on. One skill I have developed- call it my gift if you want-is the ability to pick up interpersonal currents in a church. My ears are finely tuned to hear the voices of dissension. One fine church lady told me, “You’ve got ears on the back of your head.”
My first order of business is to get a true picture of what’s going on in a church. Many times that’s all that’s required. After listening, sympathizing, and encouraging, I can feel people begin to trust me, and a spirit of unity is knitted stitch by stitch.
One church in Cambridge, Nebraska, was evenly split on whether to dismiss their pastor. He quietly took another call and avoided a church split, but ill feelings persisted between the two factions left behind. I waited. I listened. I prayed. Soon one of the most vocal dissenters came to my apartment one night and said, “I’ve been harboring hatred. I’d like to ask forgiveness.” Her attitude set off a chain reaction of reconciliation that swept the whole church.
Another church in Westport, Washington, was fighting over whether or not to call a pastor who had spoken in tongues. Again I felt the need to remain neutral. When the pulpit committee asked for a discussion of 1 Corinthians 12-14 in a Wednesday night service, I asked a neighboring pastor to come and lead it-I went to his church and preached on 1 Corinthians 13. Getting a substitute referee seemed the right thing to do in that case. And it worked. A lot of fireworks ensued, but the meeting ended up with all the parties asking one another for forgiveness. The candidate lost a close vote, but another pastor was called unanimously.
Let’s not kid one another, though. Sometimes you have to take a stand. At a church in Grand Marais, Minnesota, I recommended that a dissenting family be disciplined by the deacon board. Why face the issue in this case? Because in my listening and probing I learned the family had tormented (and that’s not too strong a word) several pastors before. They were a chronic sore in an otherwise healthy church. It took a lot of late-night phone calls and deacons meetings, but the congregation finally agreed by an 80 percent vote to carry out New Testament discipline. I don’t regret what we had to do, but my prayer is, “Lord, if it’s all the same to you, don’t let me go through that again.”
Let them all be as simple as explaining a couple of difficult passages of Scripture in prayer meeting like I did at Dannebrog, Nebraska. Or overcoming a judgmental spirit (against a girl with a baby born out of wedlock) by displaying an irenic spirit myself. You’d be surprised how far a little patience and love will go. When they try and finagle you, don’t be finagled-but don’t be a finagler yourself.
Financial Crisis
I don’t want to leave the impression that my work always requires the combined skills of a Florence Nightingale, Clara Barton, and the staff of Walter Reed Hospital. Some of it requires the hardheaded business savvy of a J. D. Rockefeller.
I’ve come up against several financial crises in churches where I was out of my depth. From such experiences, I’ve formulated two basic rules for handling church finance: institute a decent bookkeeping system, and call an expert when in the slightest doubt.
The first rule seems obvious, but you’d be surprised how often it’s a problem. I saw a church literally revive both its finances and morale when I changed treasurers. A very nice, trustworthy lady was keeping the books, but she didn’t know the first thing about it. She hated the work, but no one knew that-she was afraid to resign, and no one was brave enough to ask her to. I did, and I replaced her with a bank teller who loved the job. The whole church breathed a collective sigh of relief.
The second rule is often followed out of necessity. One church I served had just fired a dictatorpastor who was caught stealing from the church. He had founded the church and written the constitution so that the church property was in his name and he had hire-and-fire power over the deacons. His downfall came as a result of a building fund. People dropped money for the fund in the slot of a padlocked box at the rear of the church. One day a member, the local barber, visited the church unexpectedly at midday and caught the pastor bent over the box with a pair of tweezers. The church used the incident to force the pastor out.
It was left to me, however, to solve the problem of gaining title to the church, rewriting the constitution, and negotiating some loan settlements (the former pastor had borrowed some money for the church, and one of the members had allowed his farms to be used as collateral). What a mess. Although I knew nothing about the legal aspects of the church’s woes, I had the good sense to consult experts. I relied on our denomination’s legal advisers and local attorneys to sort through everything. It took a while, but again with patience, it was eventually worked out.
Depression
Churches, like people, have personalities, and I’ve gone to several that were simply depressed. Sometimes the cause was clear-declining membership, lack of money, a bad experience. Sometimes, though, churches get depressed for no apparent reason. On the surface everything is going well, but the mood is still despairing.
I can understand depression. In finance I’m ignorant; in depression I have a Ph.D. My personal experiences with depression have taught me how futile it is to sit and mope under Elijah’s juniper tree. Action is called for, and I’ve developed a three-point plan of action for depressed churches: recruit, replace, reassess.
Nothing brings a church out of the doldrums faster than growth in membership. Immediately upon arriving in a new church I start calling on people: members, former members, and new prospects. I’m convinced nothing replaces the hard work of visitation in small, struggling churches. It’s effective in bringing in new people, but even more important is what it does for the depressed church’s sense of worth. The great Scottish preacher Alexander Maclaren said, “The best antidote to fear is action.” A pastor who acts inspires others to action. Remember the old Charlie Chan quip: “Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt man doing it.”
The second thing I do for a depressed church is make sure it is making progress in its pastoral search. I don’t rush this, but I do set up a long-range timetable. One church I served had approached and rejected (or been rejected by) seventeen candidates. They were beginning to ask, “What’s wrong with us?” A mood of pessimism, almost panic, had settled in.
Finally, I reassure the church. That means getting close to the members and reassessing their gifts. One church had an extremely lackadaisical spirit-a sure cover for corporate depression. In one of my early calls to a member’s home, she summed up the church’s feelings by saying, “We get tired of looking into one another’s faces.” Pretty soon I could feel that attitude rubbing off on me.
I called an all-church meeting. I placed a large blackboard in front of them with two columns labeled “strengths” and “weaknesses” and invited the members to fill up the columns. We couldn’t write fast enough to keep up with their suggestions. They interrupted one another with contributions and soon had all the space filled with two lists of fairly equal length. The church was surprised by how strong it really was and began to build on its strengths.
I painted a romantic picture of Homer’s nomadic life at the beginning. But in reality the road is not easy. Challenging, yes. Full of adventure, yes. Easy, no.
I’d choose to live it again, though. We need interim pastors, and I still see many works of compassion to do. It’s a satisfying life with lots of fond memories and lifelong friendships.
I read the following in one of Oswald Chambers’s devotional books: “It is difficult to define the call of God-it is an implicit thing, like the call of the sea or of the mountains. Not everyone hears the call of the sea and of the mountains but only those who have the nature of the sea and the mountains in them.”
As I reflect on my ministry, I realize I have always had the nature of this life in me. God put it there. When things got tough, he kept me going. The highlights of my ministry are the toughest churches God gave me. The church that split when I was there turned out to be a highlight because I saw so much healing take place. I still feel warm about the way one church pulled together after a tough discipline case. I had some of the warmest interpersonal relationships with the people from a church where we never did solve their problem (to this day they’re affiliated with two different denominations).
On one of my first Sunday mornings in an interim pastorate at Gering, Nebraska, I delivered a sermon that has become a favorite. I call it “Christ Walks Among His Churches,” and the text is Revelation 2:1: “These are the words of the One who . . . walks among the seven lamps of gold.” I assert that Christ still walks among his churches today and sees them precisely as they are. He sees their problems. He sees their faithfulness. And he helps them work out their ministry in a world that desperately needs salvation.
Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
