THE AUTO: HERE TO STAY
At a retirement celebration, well-known church consultant Lyle Schaller was asked what his career failings had been. The question seemed inappropriate; but as Schaller thought about it later, he came up with four. One that stood out: Not convincing church leaders that the automobile is here to stay.
Many churches still assume a small, village-parish model in which people hear the church bells and walk from their farms to church. Yet today, most people drive by several churches before they reach their congregation of choice. What does that reality mean for your church?
CASTING OUT FEAR
Tom Osborne, longtime football coach at the University of Nebraska, writes, “Fear is a tremendous detriment in coaching or any other endeavor. So many times coaches think of all the bad things that can happen. We fret about the reaction of the public if we lose. Pretty soon we get stilted in what we’re doing as a coach.
“But if my primary goal is to serve and honor God, I’m able to do what I think I need to do and then accept the consequences in relatively good grace by knowing I have served him. Then I measure success by how faithful I’ve been in honoring and serving God, not by wins and losses. A very freeing attitude!”
D.MIN. DOMINANCE
The number of students enrolled in Doctor of Ministry programs has mushroomed in the past twenty-five years: from 325 (in 1969) to 6,738 (in 1990). One board member of a prominent seminary told Leadership he envisions a two-year M.Div. degree—give people the theological basics and plunge them into ministry—and then the D.Min. as a degree essential for most positions.
MAINTAINING SPIRITUAL VITALITY
Leadership recently asked contributing editor Fred Smith: How do you maintain the spiritual vitality of a group or organization?
In response, Fred offered probing questions to discuss at a board meeting or retreat: How are we compromising our message? (Philosopher Peter Kreeft says that whenever we water down the bad news, we water down the good news.) What do we need to return to? Are we serving the members’ interests or the Lord’s interests?
WORSHIP UP, PREACHING DOWN?
John Piper, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, raised this provocative question in a lecture at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School:
“In the last twenty years or so there’s been a phenomenal explosion of worship singing that is good—Jack Hayford’s ‘Majesty,’ Graham Hendricks’s ‘Shine, Jesus, Shine,’ and hundreds of worship songs that if I were to start singing, you could all finish.
“Now, some of the songs are poetically, grammatically, musically deplorable (which we should not make too much of if we grew up on ‘Do, Lord’). But one thing is unmistakable as a trend in these songs: by and large, they are Godward. They are addressed directly to God—not sung about God but to God.
“I find that preaching is moving in exactly the opposite direction. While the worship songs have moved Godward, preaching has moved manward. While worship songs focus our attention again and again on the character of God, the great works of God, the glory of God, preaching focuses again and again on contemporary issues, personal problems, relationships.
“My question is why.”
TOUGH LOVE
While preparing (with Baker Book House) a book of great quotations for preachers, we ran across this counsel from Augustine:
“Disturbers are to be rebuked, the low-spirited to be encouraged, the infirm to be supported, objectors confuted, the treacherous guarded against, the unskilled taught, the lazy aroused, the contentious restrained, the haughty repressed, litigants pacified, the poor relieved, the oppressed liberated, the good approved, the evil borne with, and all are to be loved.”
QUOTABLE QUOTES
At the Promise Keepers Clergy Conference in Atlanta in February, several lines stuck in the memory:
- “God’s love is too good to be true, too great to be missed” (Max Lucado).
- “Breakthrough happened around me when breakup happened within me” (Jack Hayford, on being humbled by God).
- “Jesus already died for your congregation. If that isn’t good enough for them, ain’t no point in you dying, too” (Tony Evans).
- “Vision consists of the ability to see, the faith to believe, the courage to do, and the hope to endure” (James Ryle).
- “Racism is the Goliath that has never lost a battle” (Bill McCartney).
- “If two or three of you will ever get together on anything, I’ll show up to see it for myself” (Joseph Garlington, paraphrasing (Matt. 18:20).
1996 Christianity Today/LEADERSHIP Journal
