“Whaddaya mean you want a month’s vacation! In the trades here you start out with two weeks. Hell, it took me thirty-five years to get a month’s vacation. What’s wrong with you, anyhow?”
When I heard the voice crackling at the other end of the line, I should have known the pastorate I was about to accept was going to be a rough go. I did receive the standard month’s vacation, but not until a denominational executive intervened. The previous two pastors of this working-class church had been asked to resign. What equipped me-a young minister raised in an affluent suburb and Harvard educated-to lead these blue-collar people?
Expectations
My first morning at the church was an awakening. Several retired men from the church had developed the habit of dropping by the church office to see if there was any work they could do. But mainly they sat all morning shooting the breeze because they wanted to get out of the house, and except for the gas station and barbershop, there was nowhere else in town to go.
I soon learned the life stories of these men, and they learned mine, all thirty-three years. I told them about my first job cleaning trailers and laying gravel not far from the church, and my summer job in the bindery in the city, but for the most part I was Ivy League and affluence to them.
That first day, the church financial officer-a man twice my age-said, “You know, everyone wants a leader to follow, and you’re the leader!” I was pleased at the thought, but I was used to a team approach with a certain equality between clergy and laity. In this church, however, it was clear I was “Herr Pastor”-the boss. That is a hard role to fulfill when you’re young and not familiar with the blue-collar lifestyles of your parishioners.
Tex Sample, in his book, Blue-Collar Ministry, says America has a definite working-class subculture that is hard for those in the upper-middle class to understand. I felt alien in this community of tiny identical ranch homes in neighborhoods cut through by streets of factories and surrounded by strips of go-go clubs.
Listening
I began to listen to the people. A tough printer who had fought in the Battle of the Bulge often came by the office-always in a T-shirt, or on hot days, with no shirt. I wondered, What do we have in common? We soon learned that we both had been captains of our high school football teams. Football became a subject we could talk about endlessly. His wife and son had both died, and he knew my father had died when I was sixteen, so we each respected the role of tragedy in the other’s life.
I observed the local mores, kept the parsonage grass cut to the rigid standards of the small but tidy lawns all around us, went bowling, played softball and dart ball, and visited in one hundred homes, where I rarely saw any books and where the color TV console was always the centerpiece of the living room.
I learned a lot from my people. Their uppermost concern was their children and families. A respect for law and order dominates the community which, in my case, was predominantly Roman Catholic. A denominational executive visited our church and told me later he was impressed by the “grasp of reality” of our church members. Our members, including women, generally worked in area factories, and it is safe to say they were physical people, wary of abstractions they could not see or touch.
Closing the gap
Tex Sample says that working-class people will give a new minister a grace period in which they support him with great enthusiasm. When this period is over-usually after a year or two-they expect the pastor will have gained their trust by getting to know them and by participating in their culture.
I found a culture gap does indeed exist between a white-collar pastor and a working-class congregation. But beneath the hard-talking facade and inside the houses that seem too small to accommodate a family are people very much like myself. And so the gap can be bridged. Here are some practical ways I discovered.
First, I kept regular office hours. A time-clock mentality characterized church members’ attitudes toward work. Since they punched a clock at 8 A.M., I was in the office at a set time. They had a half-hour lunch; I kept my lunch to the same thirty minutes. I learned that when I wasn’t in the office, it was assumed I wasn’t working. So I kept a record of time spent out of the office and voluntarily reported it to the church council, which helped free me from this suspicion. I also tried to ensure that meetings at night began early and ended early because members worked long, hard hours during the day, and many needed to get up at five or six the following morning.
I soon learned my parishioners didn’t want to follow a man in a three-piece suit. I started wearing sweaters and slacks to church only to be told, “Pastor, why aren’t you dressed for your job?” I finally tried casual suits, and this combination of being dressed-up but down-to-earth seemed to work.
The building was very important to members. I was informed I was night watchman, and for four years I made a nightly check. Our seventy-seven-year-old custodian decorated it as once he had decorated department-store windows-Easter bunnies, Santa Clauses, and Valentine’s Day cupids. It wasn’t my taste, but I learned to be flexible and appreciate his care for the church.
Working-class people can feel victimized living in a society in which the decisions are made by others. I tried to allow church members to make important decisions regarding the life of the parish. Admittedly, this was difficult, as our council members tended to toss items on the agenda into my lap with, “What do you think we should do, Pastor?”
I also respected the intelligence of my flock. The church was in many cases the one place where our members’ minds were stretched by deeper issues. I only had to watch that the stretching came in the right way. I was used to sermons on ideas and politics and theological subtleties. I soon learned stories and humor were the best way to communicate biblical truth.
I found in my grace period I was becoming a more physical person. My weightlifting hobby continued. In my preaching and visitation I emphasized the Christ who was a rugged carpenter, who called fishermen to be his disciples and whose shoulders can bear a heavy burden.
Lastly, I reread the Gospels and looked for Jesus’ attitude toward the common folk of his day. The cardinal sin of white-collar pastors in a blue-collar church is to consider themselves better than the parishioners. I confess the few college graduates in the church became our best friends, and at times we fell into the trap of mutually dreaming of where we’d like to live. But the Gospels reminded me the Jews of first-century Palestine worked with their hands and had little to say in the councils of the mighty. Jesus never adopted a lofty attitude. I got the feeling he would have been content in our neighborhood.
The culture gap was overcome when I realized I didn’t have to be a working-class hero to gain their respect. When I was genuinely interested in their lives, they sensed it. I found that through prayer and participation in their culture I, a white-collar pastor, could minister in a blue-collar world.
-Frederick Newenhuyse
Wheaton, Illinois
Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
