Rising from a Glorious Past - Christianity Today

Descending the steps from the platform, I sighed in relief. My first Sunday as the heir to a history was over. As I made my way to the door, I again took in my new surroundings. The imposing Victorian preaching house, the three-quarter gallery, the labyrinth of narrow corridors and stone stairwells were daunting. Beyond all that, the 125 years of accumulated evangelical witness was intimidating. Many denominational worthies had preceded me as pastor.

Not the least of my spiritual ancestors was the founder of the church, James Archer Spurgeon, whose china bust had looked on stoically while I prayed before the service with church leaders. James Archer was also associate pastor at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, pastored by his more famous brother, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

My first weekend as Spurgeon’s heir had been hectic. A welcome service the previous day (complete with a busload of friends from our former church), our homesick young children, and a full slate of Sunday preaching activities made me eager to get home so I could enjoy a cup of tea.

At the door I said farewell to the last worshiper and then stepped back into the sanctuary. What would the future hold? I wondered. I had no ideas, no schemes, no ten-point plan for growth in a downtown church. I knew God had called me to this place, but the inexorable decline in numbers for the past seventy years had left the church a shadow of its former self.

The last upsurge had been in the 1950s under the ministry of a pulpit giant, whose preaching had begun to fill the gallery again. But those days were gone. The area around the church had changed as well. Large-scale immigration had seen many West Indian families move into the area. To the credit of the church, the immigrants had been welcomed, and they now made up around a third of the congregation. Indeed, the members’ roll contained two dozen nationalities.

The challenge was not to recapture the past, but to move into the future. But how? That was too big a question to answer after such a heavy weekend. I chose instead to go home to tea and football.

SEEKING A VISION

My questions returned later that week, however, when I recalled my Sunday evening sermon. I had preached from Habakkuk on the importance of having a vision–a theme I had used frequently during my days of hit-and-run itinerant ministry. Now, with a fresh set of pastoral responsibilities, I needed to find appropriate and practical ways to express a vision.

I knew that a new pastor couldn’t make any grand pronouncements of a newly discovered vision. I couldn’t impose my agenda on this church. They had lived with the fruit of the initial vision long before I had come on the scene. I wondered what I could say to our church leaders.

At my first deacons’ meeting, I told how my sermon had affected me and how I longed to discover what God wanted for the future of the church. (What Mr. Spurgeon would have thought, I do not know. The china bust was as impassive as ever.) Our leaders, though, listened with interest. Before I accepted their call, they had impressed me with their openness to change. But now our discussions were no longer abstract. They could lead to major shifts in the life of the church.

I had determined to lead by consensus: the leaders would have to agree that changes were needed. I soon found that this approach, coupled with their desire to halt the decline, made them receptive. They had seen better days, and they did not want to continue the way they had been. They offered constructive suggestions and encouraged me to give it a go.

Gradually and together, we found several things that helped us implement a new vision for our historical church.

GRASSROOTS GROWTH

The church leaders and I decided that if the people in our older church were going to own a new vision, they would have to help discover it. This would have to be a grassroots vision. Some members, however, found it hard to comprehend that we would give them a central part in this planning effort, called “Catching the Vision.” Repeatedly I explained that, like Habakkuk, we wanted to put ourselves in a position to hear what the Lord might say: “I will keep watch to see what he will say to me” (Hab. 2:1, NRSV).

I preached a series about vision in the New Testament. During the evening services we studied the seven churches in Revelation, to see what God had said to other churches. Our midweek fellowship groups were assigned topics related to vision. We asked people to pray about the future of the church: What is the Lord saying to the congregation? Where is he leading us?

We printed a small brochure outlining our quest for a vision. The back page was a response sheet for people to submit their ideas of what God was saying about the direction for the church. Gradually, people became convinced we seriously wanted their input. Even more important, they sensed they were involved in hearing from God for the direction of the church.

EXPECT TO BE SIFTED

Progress seldom comes without setbacks or obstacles to overcome. Even as our hope and expectations rose, we began to encounter challenges.

One day a member asked to see me immediately. Distraught and confused, he spilled out that his wife was involved in a three-year adulterous relationship with the previous associate pastor. Worse, she was unwilling to end the relationship.

A somber atmosphere fell over the congregation the following Sunday as they heard the news that their former associate pastor was resigning from his new church. Still, despite the sadness, we sensed God’s holiness among us. “See what happens when we invite the Lord to take charge of our future,” someone said later. “He starts to get us sorted out.” That word proved to be more than an observation; it was a prophecy.

We gathered around the Lord’s Table and sang Luther’s A Safe Stronghold Is Our God Still. And though the song speaks of the Devil’s “watching to devour us,” it affirms the sovereignty of God. As the deep bass tones of the organ reverberated through the sanctuary, our hearts stirred with determination to face whatever lay ahead.

Realizing we were in a spiritual battle seemed to raise the stakes. A sense of momentum gathered, and the members began to make the process their own: This new vision would be one the Lord had given to us, not just another bright idea from the pastor. We placed a “Vision Box” at the rear of the sanctuary, and it began to fill with responses.

THE THREAD OF GOD’S WILL

In January I met with a small group of leaders to begin sorting the written responses. Our buildings can be imposing and dark on a cold winter night, but we felt light in our spirits as we picked through the replies. Some people had submitted extensive, detailed plans. Others offered simply a Bible verse that had spoken to them. A few had drawn pictures they saw while in prayer. Still others shared tentative impressions they had felt.

Research by the Bible Society shows that, on average, only 16 percent of the people in any congregation in the U.K. are forwardlooking. We received 55 responses out of about 150 active members, double that percentage.

It would not be easy to find the thread of thought winding through the responses. We decided to follow God’s instructions to Habakkuk: “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets” (2:2). We pulled all the thoughts together into a nine-page summary for the leaders, which was further condensed for public distribution. The process clarified our understanding and made the vision accessible to everyone, rather than just a select inner circle.

Talking about our process later, somebody said to me, “You took a big risk.” No doubt. But it would have been a greater risk to do nothing.

Still, asking the entire congregation to seek a vision from God posed two major risks:

1. We might follow a faulty vision. We would have to sort through many, perhaps conflicting, ideas. Would we be able to discern God’s leading?

2. We might stir up division by rejecting an individual’s personal vision. No one wants to hear that others judged his insights to be out of touch with what God is saying. We would have to be sensitive to people.

We sought to avoid such problems by establishing some ground rules at the outset. For example, we were not to think of our individual ideas as the vision for the church; rather we were offering provisional thoughts, our impressions of what God might do. We were to see our individual contributions as part of the process that would help the whole discover vision for the future. While we as individuals might see things a certain way, none of us could claim to be infallible. But we all could add color to the picture; the outcome would be a blending of hues. And even if one idea might run contrary to the others, it still would help us get closer to what the Lord wanted for us.

Despite such precautions, some lively discussions could not be avoided. One idea, for example, posed an extraordinary challenge. Our church sits on an unusual site–a large traffic island in the middle of a major intersection. Though we own just part of it, somebody saw a vision of the whole island with a banner around it that said, GOD’S ISLAND. Several people interpreted this to mean we were going to buy up all the real estate on the island. The idea caught the imagination of a number of people.

Pursuing that angle, however, it became apparent the cost to implement such a vision would be several million pounds. Others balked: “Even if God helps us raise those funds, is that really the best way to spend the money? Just think of all the ministry we could accomplish with that amount.”

Eventually, someone pointed out that while the vision could be genuine, our interpretation might be wrong. We came to see that if we faithfully served God on our corner of the island, our ministry, rather than our property, could give the traffic island the reputation that it belonged to God.

MOP-UP OPERATIONS

Even after our vision was written, we faced challenges. Greater numbers had joined the church than had for decades, including many new believers, and many new opportunities for ministry had appeared, yet complaints still surfaced.

The church had had a history of poor conflict management. It had never handled differences of opinion well, often avoiding the problems rather than dealing with them. Prior to my arrival, some had been bruised by destructive leadership styles. People were still tripping over issues that had been swept under the carpet. Though I continued to work at building trust and understanding, a few key people withdrew from the fellowship.

One day another complaint came, this time from a friend and supporter. “It’s twelve months that we’ve had this vision, Pastor,” said this person. “But we’ve gone nowhere, and we’re going nowhere. What are you going to do about it?”

I found my stomach tying itself in knots. I now had to defend myself to friends. Was there something wrong with me?

At times I could hardly bring myself to preach and lead worship. Long-standing differences of opinion over music and worship style intensified the pressure I felt. The vision to “grow and go” had not changed people’s feelings about classical organ music or guitars and drums.

To my comments about quitting or moving on, my wife, Marion, listened patiently and pointed me back to the Lord. She prayed with me and refocused my attention. I also sought the counsel of respected leaders outside of our situation, and their support and insight encouraged me to go on. God sent blessings at just the right time to lift my spirits: a conversion here, a healing there.

I was convinced I was where God wanted me to be, but “Catching the Vision” turned out to be tougher than I had imagined. Patience was critical. Instead of waiting for situations I felt were wrong to be resolved overnight, I’ve learned to wait for the Lord. I learned that waiting for the vision to unfold is a normal part of the process. “If it seems to tarry,” the Lord told Habakkuk, “wait for it; it will surely come” (2:3). Dealing with problems in the Lord’s time is an essential part of the process of implementing a vision.

Two years after we introduced the vision, a middle-aged couple spoke to me. “We want you to know,” they said, “we thought that ‘the vision’ was one of those schemes that we’d have for a season. We had actually put it out of our minds. But now we see that everything has fallen into place, and we’re excited by what the Lord is doing among us.”

MEASURING PROGRESS

One danger when you’re seeking to move forward is that slow progress can appear to be no progress. Failing to see movement led me to frustration and impatience when, in fact, we were moving in the right direction. Now, when I look over the past three-and-a-half short years, I am amazed to realize just how many things have happened.

One big change has been in the leadership team. We’ve gained trust in one another and learned to listen to each other’s differing viewpoints. We have found personal acceptance even when our ideas are not always accepted. And we’ve developed a unity of spirit about where we are and what steps we’re to take. These changes have occurred even though our leadership team includes both young and old members and has both traditional and contemporary views.

Not long ago, a lady in her 60s said to me, “Roger, I’ve been coming to this church for many years. This used to be a white church, but now it’s a black church.” Florence felt a spontaneity, sense of rhythm, and congregational participation that made her, a West Indian, feel at home–even though we’re still two-thirds white and quite British. It’s clear that we’ve all gained some flexibility and tolerance, necessary if we want to continue catching God’s vision for our historic church.

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Roger Standing is senior minister at West Croydon Baptist Church in London, England.