Races aren't necessarily won by the first runner out of the blocks. Winners are determined at the finish line.
Ministry is also judged not on short bursts but the total impact of a life. As one minister confessed: "I fear lest I end badly." What are the keys to endurance, to breaking the tape after a lifetime of effective ministry?
One pastor who has maintained a vigorous ministry for twenty-three years is Ben Haden. After earning a law degree from Washington & Lee University, owning an independent gasoline distributorship, and serving in the Central Intelligence Agency during the Korean War, Haden became the general manager of a daily newspaper in Kingsport, Tennessee-until he was converted and entered Columbia Theological Seminary at age thirty-four.
At graduation, he became pastor of Key Biscayne Presbyterian Church in Miami, Florida. In 1966, he was chosen to be speaker on "The Bible Study Hour," a weekly radio program originating in Philadelphia and founded by Donald Grey Barnhouse. Two years later, he started his own radio ministry, "Changed Lives."
Since 1967, in addition to having a weekly national television and radio ministry, Haden has been pastor of the 2,400-member First Presbyterian Church in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee.
LEADERSHIP editors Marshall Shelley and Kevin Miller asked him to discuss the secrets of longevity in a demanding ministry.
How does the ministry compare with your earlier occupations? Are the demands of a pastorate easier or tougher than, say, the newspaper business or the CIA?
To be frank, the ministry is a great place for mediocrity to hide. But if you're conscientious, then the ministry is the most difficult job in our society. I say that with due deference to the difficulties of other jobs.
If you're conscientious in ministry, you never get a day's work done. You always see more needs at the end of a day than you recognized at the beginning. So much of what you know, you cannot share with anyone else without breaching confidence-and nothing destroys ministry more quickly than running off at the mouth.
The ministry is a life-and-death, heaven-or-hell matter. It's a spiritual battle every day-if you're faithful.
What do you mean by "a spiritual battle"?
In Christian circles today, I hear a lot of melodramatic references to "being under satanic attack," which usually means the person is sinning. That's not what I mean. That's a misuse of the term. When I sin, it's sin-not satanic attack.
I find my struggle with Satan usually occurs when I've made the gospel clear but individuals can't bring themselves to respond. They understand what I'm saying and know what is required, but as they weigh their willingness to make the commitment, it becomes obvious there's spiritual opposition. That's what I mean by spiritual warfare, and it's a draining experience.
Is it possible to endure in ministry without at least occasional spiritual victories?
I don't think so. I need all the encouragement I can get. Interestingly, the encouragement often comes in unexpected ways. Sometimes because of things I had little or no hand in.
One Monday morning not long ago, a woman who had struggled with alcohol for many years accosted me. "Why didn't you tell me before how to be saved?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Yesterday you explained it. You said we have to come apart. I finally understand!"
My mind was racing. I preach extemporaneously, and I can't recall every word I say, but I know what I have not said. And I never mentioned "coming apart."
"You remember," she said. "You must remember."
Then it came back to me. As I began the morning prayer, I'd said, "Lord . . . we come apart . . . to worship you." Now this woman tells me it's the first time the plan of salvation has made sense to her. She came to Christ that day.
Later she said, "Some of the people in the choir were trying to tell me that isn't even what you meant. But it is, isn't it?"
I said, "It must have been." (Laughter)
This is part of the mystery and blessing and encouragement of ministry. I don't understand how God can take an offhand phrase, an introduction to a prayer, and have a person confuse the intent and be changed. But this woman did come apart. She became new in Christ, and she's been sober ever since. I don't understand it. It's humbling, but it's also encouraging.
Pastors often experience sorrow and joy back to back. In the morning you can be grieving at a deathbed and in the afternoon celebrating a wedding. How do you survive in that constantly changing emotional climate?
I'm not given to big mood swings. Number one, I'm crisis oriented. Maybe it comes from my newspaper background, but I work best under deadlines and pressure. Crises don't scare me, and I've become accustomed to them as a pastor.
Number two, I do experience highs and lows, but I've found I can't swing way up and down and be of much help to people. I've got to keep a balance.
Is emotional equilibrium a virtue for pastors?
I've seen the Lord use people of every emotional make-up. Some people who wring me out just being around them are highly blessed by God. I wouldn't say pastors have to be of a certain temperament to be successful.
But as a pastor, your emotions can't be determined by the emotions of the people to whom you're ministering. If some poor soul is falling to pieces, it certainly is not a time for me to do the same.
The Bible says to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice, but you seem to be saying there are times, when a person is coming apart emotionally, that your job is not to join in the weeping but to bring some emotional stability to the situation.
I don't want to be misunderstood. It isn't that I don't feel for people who are hurting. But I can empathize yet still offer a clearer perspective. My job is to encourage and to remind people of God's promises-even when they're fresh out of faith and the circumstances are against them.
For instance, I find most funerals, far from being draining experiences, actually strengthen me. You get an audience you wouldn't get any other way. People are very silent, very open. The world has a gurgle in its throat when it comes to death, but the Christian can speak with total confidence.
I had a dear friend who was dying of emphysema, which is a horrible death, and between breaths you could hear a block away he said, "Ben, you've been kind to me. Is there anything I can do for you?"
I said, "Yeah. Look up my mother and tell her I love her."
He said, "I will."
I think the most overlooked portion of Scripture is the phrase right after "Whoever believes in me shall live even if he dies" in John 11. It continues, "Whoever believes in me shall never die." We forget that Christians are incapable of being dead for even one moment. When we pass from this life, we're alive! Since that's my conviction, I can share that. You can have a powerful ministry at times like that.
When was the time you came closest to quitting the ministry?
For twenty-six years, I've had back problems-a ruptured disk. At times it has been so bad I've literally had to crawl. At times I've been unable to get out of a car. Once I almost fell off the platform into the front pew.
In 1983, however, it became so bad I was on my back around the clock except for Sunday morning. When I would hobble to the bathroom, I was afraid I would fall and crack my skull. I felt like a one-legged rabbit.
One day I was literally flat on my back on the floor of my church office. I'd experienced pain for years, but I finally realized that in fairness to the church, I couldn't continue this way.
In walked a visitor, a man who was not a member of our church but who attended once in a while, a man who had never been in my office before. He saw me lying there and said, "Ben, I understand you're having some trouble with your back. There are a couple of exercises I want to show you."
"There's only one hitch," I said. "I hurt too much to do them."
"How bad is it?"
"Bad enough that I'm not sure I shouldn't quit the ministry."
"Don't do that," he said, and he proceeded to tell me to stay.
I took it as a word from the Lord. It was too unusual for this "outsider" to show up at that time with the right word of encouragement. So I eventually went to Mayo Clinic, underwent a fairly radical treatment, and it worked. I'm even able to play tennis now. And I'm still in the ministry.
Besides physical pain, are there spiritual or emotional pressures that discourage you?
Sure. Sometimes when people disappoint you or use spiritual language to con you, you wonder if it's all worthwhile.
I also get discouraged when otherwise mature Christians lack discernment. One example: Some individuals are zealously anti-abortion, but they don't like anyone to preach sexual morality. To me, that's a lack of integrity. They want to outlaw floods, but they won't build dams! I'm against abortion, too, but my primary focus is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I find tangents, anything that distracts us from the gospel, can be a real detriment to staying power.
Recently a friend, whom I led to the Lord several years ago, called and was all excited because a favorite Bible teacher of his had been preaching about a group of witches down in Atlanta.
"The coven is seeking his death through witchcraft!" he said. "We've got to get everybody to pray about this!"
"Come off it," I said. "That's malarkey. Christ is far stronger than the witches. Christ will protect him, and if Christ isn't protecting him, then witches are the least of his worries. Anything can get him! You've gotten everybody excited about the witches rather than Jesus Christ. That's a tangent. Don't make this a substitute for the gospel."
Whether the issue is abortion, witches, communism, or prayer in the public schools, the temptation is to avoid the gospel. We point the finger away from my need for God and point it at somebody else.
So one of the secrets of staying power is recognizing what the gospel is and avoiding the wrong crusades, or at least putting them in perspective.
That's correct. Even theology can be a tangent. Majoring on the minors can sap your strength. My prayer is to major on the majors. That's a big enough task for anyone.
Is there a sense in which personal discouragement and weakness can be used for benefit in ministry?
Absolutely. I wasn't converted until I was almost thirty. At no time have I ever wanted to be in the ministry. Even when I went to seminary, I didn't have the slightest desire to be a pastor. I was interested in evangelism. I didn't like Christians! In fact, I think Christians are an acquired taste. You learn to like them. But for me, it didn't come naturally.
This could have been a fatal weakness for a pastor. But God used my background as a plus. My first church, in Key Biscayne, was founded above a bar, and then moved into a kindergarten, and then into the cafeteria of a public school. The previous pastor, Lane Adams, was converted reading a Gideon Bible while on the nightclub singing circuit. That church was filled with people of wild pasts. Practically every person was a book waiting to be written-nobody came from a "normal" background. The church in Corinth was dull compared to Key Biscayne.
In fact, one night while I was teaching, I broke down laughing. Everyone looked at me because the Bible verse I was on wasn't especially funny.
I explained, "It just hit me that we are a most unlikely group of people. Only the Lord could have gotten us together." And they joined in the laughter.
My background, which could have been a detriment in another congregation, was actually an asset there.
Are there certain lessons pastors have to learn that can come only through pain?
Oh, yes. I was asked once, "How do you choose your staff?"
I replied, "I call only men whose hearts have been broken."
"You mean you don't listen to them preach?"
"Not usually," I said. "I listen to them talk about Christ in private conversation. If they can articulate their faith sitting across a table, I see no reason why they can't do it on their feet."
The ability to communicate can be developed, but a broken heart is essential to effective ministry because pastors constantly deal with people in their low moments, their anxious moments, their extreme moments.
How can you tell when a person's heart has been broken?
I listen to him talk about his life, talk about himself. It surfaces.
It also shows up in the way he relates to people. If you haven't been hurt, you tend to be insensitive, except to those people you like. Pastors, of course, have to love people they don't necessarily like-and love people who don't always like them. That's hard to do unless your own heart has been broken and you can identify with their hurt.
In what ways have you been shaped by your hurts?
As a child, I had delicate health, and I also had a speech impediment. I didn't go alone to the store until I was seven because nobody could understand me. I think that kind of experience automatically matures you and helps you understand loneliness and aloneness.
I've also had migraines since I was ten years old. For fifteen years, from 1963 to 1978, every time I preached I thought my head was coming off. Fortunately, since 1978, they haven't been so severe. They're only occasional now-not five days a week as they had been. But when people come up and say, "I can tell you really like to preach," I think of the times I was so nauseated by the pain I had to step off the platform to vomit before I could return to preach.
My parents married later in life, and both died in their forties. I had just turned thirteen when my dad died, and a few years later I saw my mother choke to death with cancer.
Those kinds of experiences, I think, help me identify with others who hurt.
How do you put that identification to use in ministry?
I remember when my sister, one year after becoming a Christian, was diagnosed as having Multiple Sclerosis. She phoned me, almost frantic, and asked, "Ben, do you think it's possible that I have MS?"
In most cases, I answer that kind of question, "Yes." Then the person cries and says, "Do you really think so?" And I say, "Let's assume you do. If you don't, there's no problem-but let's face the possibility and take it from there."
But when my sister asked, I said, "Now let's get it straight, Lynn. Whether you do or not, I don't know. But nothing has changed about Jesus Christ."
She said, "I knew you'd say that. That's why I called."
"You know I love you," I said. "And you know I hope you don't have MS. But if you do, nothing has changed."
She lived for twenty years, ten of them as a widow, with MS, and in that time, I never heard her complain about it. She died two years ago. She was my only family, and I loved her. I still do.
When someone who has known hurt can say, "Nothing has changed between you and Jesus Christ," that carries a lot more weight.
I think so. It's like having a miscarriage. We've had three. I understand how that can hit you, but life goes on. We all need to be reminded what is the end of the world and what isn't.
I know what has encouraged me in the difficult times. And I try to do the same for others. Frankly, the people who are my greatest encouragers in this church are those who have gone through some of the deepest water.
One example is a woman named Dolores, who has a son with Down's syndrome. She came into my office one day and said, "Do you know what 2 Corinthians chapter 1 means-the part about 'comforting others with the same comfort we have received'?"
I said, "I think I'm about to find out!" (Laughter)
She told me about visiting another young woman who had just given birth to a Down's syndrome child and was having trouble accepting the fact. Dolores had been able to say, "We have three children, and I can honestly say the greatest blessing in our lives is little Johnny." She went on to explain that children with Down's syndrome are capable of affection but don't know hate. "You don't know how you've been blessed."
She turned to me, "I was able to encourage her with the same encouragement I had received. Don't you think that's what 2 Corinthians is about?"
"Dolores," I said, "I've never understood it before, but I do now!"
When a person has been through a valley and come out the other side, when God's strength and faithfulness sustain a person when he or she would not have had the strength-that is one of the strongest testimonies I know.
What gives you more strength-being with people or being alone?
I enjoy both. If I had to choose, I'd say I draw most of my strength from being with people. When I'm discouraged, the first thing I do as personal therapy is visit people in the hospital. I've never gone to the hospital and not come away encouraged. It's gotten to the point now that if my wife detects I'm discouraged, she says, "Ben, why don't you go to the hospital?"
Do you find you must be alone sometimes to prepare yourself to be with people?
Yes.
How do you know when that time has come?
If I cut somebody short in a conversation, or if I'm inadvertently rude or too blunt, I say to myself, "You'd better take some time off if you want to be effective."
One of the dangers of being a "people person" is that the numbers of people coming to see you become overwhelming. How do you maintain a pastor's heart when more needy people seek your attention than you can possibly see?
You have to come to terms with that.
I am first of all a pastor; that's my priority. The moment I cease to be concerned about a person who comes to me for help, there's something spiritually wrong. Each person hurts and needs help just as much as the last one.
Yet every opportunity the Lord gives tends to add more stress. For instance, adding the weekly TV and radio program to the pastorate terrifically increases the work load and pressure. We receive over 100,000 letters a year. At the moment I'm fifteen hundred letters behind in dictating responses to specific problems or questions. You either worry about that and lose sleep, or you say, "Well, maybe tomorrow I'll be even more hopelessly behind."
You learn to live with it because I've never finished a day in the pastorate when I'd done everything I wanted to do.
Do you pace yourself?
Not at all. The ministry is not a career to me. Somebody in Miami asked me, "How long do you plan to stay here? What kind of church do you plan to go to next?"
I said, "The Lord called me here. The minute he calls me to another place, I assume he'll tell me."
So you don't consciously monitor your energy and endurance gauges?
No, I try just to keep my eye on the goal and press on. You see, I'm expendable. I'm only a messenger. The important thing is Jesus Christ, not me. I could easily die tomorrow. So I don't worry about the church remaining the way I've shaped it The next pastor of this church will cast it in a different mold anyway, which is as it should be.
This church dates back to 1840 and is the oldest continually existing organization in Chattanooga. In the hundred years before I arrived, the church had had only three pastors, and my immediate predecessor had been here forty years. He was a wonderful and gifted man and he retired just the week before I arrived-and continued to live in the community for the next eleven years.
He was circumspect in his relationship with me, but if you know anything about the ministry, which I didn't, the person following such a long-term pastor doesn't last more than eighteen months. The second pastor doesn't last over three years. The third pastor may have a chance.
I didn't know any better, so I came to First Presbyterian, and I've been here almost nineteen years. My goal has remained the same: to reach as many people as possible with the gospel in whatever time remains before Jesus returns.
Copyright © 1986 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
