The cold February drizzle of the Pacific Northwest matched perfectly the atmosphere inside the church building. Between worship services, underneath a gray skylight, Jim pulled me aside as I was rushing by him. A former collegiate wrestler who stood six-three, Jim was now a banker, the father of six, a gentle man.
“May I ask you a question?” he asked politely.
“Certainly,” I responded, equally polite, fidgeting at having been slowed down.
“Do you love us?” came his unexpected query.
Suddenly I fidgeted for a different reason. What kind of question is that? I thought, before stammering back, “Why, of course I do. Why do you ask?”
“We can’t tell. We can’t tell with any of you pastors. You are so busy, it seems as if we are on our own.”
I don’t remember the rest of the conversation. I don’t remember the sermon that day. But I will never forget the haunting question “Do you love us?”
He was right to ask. My job had not been much fun lately. I was the associate pastor, watching the senior pastor become embroiled in conflict. Though I avoided much of the war, a few stray bullets found me.
I can’t remember one thing I had done up to that point to intentionally communicate my love to the people in the congregation. I purposed that day that no one would ever have to ask me that question again. I would be a lover, if nothing else. Thus began the romance with my congregation.
Almost a year from the day Jim asked me “the question,” I became the senior pastor of the church. I became keenly aware that the mark of a true shepherd is he cares for the sheep. Suddenly I had to ask myself again, Do I love them? How do I let them know?
Love for the long haul
Including interims, I was pastor number fourteen in 52 years, an average tenure of three years. I needed to stay a while. They needed to know I wouldn’t stir things up again and then leave.
To demonstrate my intentions, I asked for a sabbatical to be included in my contract. At the time no one could comprehend having a pastor still around in seven years.
We bought a home right away to communicate our commitment. Someone in the church gave us $5,000 to help. He liked the idea of having a pastor stick around for awhile. The church also gave me a portion of the down payment as a bonus. So with God’s clear blessing, both the church and our family took the opportunity to say, “We love you for the long haul.”
Dealing with the past
A church does not have a new pastor every three to four years without accumulating some scars. In the recent past especially, they had hurt and been hurt in dealing with their pastors. If I was going to love for the long haul, I needed to deal with the past.
The church thought itself a loser. They’d lost two youth pastors, one associate, two interns, and two senior pastors in four years. Three deacons had resigned within the last year. The church voted down the purchase of some strategic property. We required two worship services because the church was divided so passionately along generational lines over musical styles.
The community thought we were losers. We took a survey the summer after I began and asked people, among other things, “Have you heard of our church?” More than 80 percent had not—and the survey was done only three blocks away!
The denomination thought we were losers. One seminary professor, after encouraging me three years earlier to attend another church, asked if I was still here. Then he concluded by shaking his head and muttering, “Tough place.”
I wanted to love this church into a great place instead of a tough place.
We took more than a year to work through our painful past. We borrowed a process from Neil Anderson’s book Setting Your Church Free. It involved the church leaders, past and present, taking a personal and corporate inventory of our spiritual lives.
As a result, we held a reconciliation service to attempt to close the scorebook on the previous losses.
We invited every former pastor. We listed everyone we knew who had been hurt or disappointed by the church corporately. We invited them to come to the service, to accept our confession of guilt, and to forgive us. A few came to the service, most sent letters. I read letter after letter of emotional release. It became a wonderful time of cleansing.
Two people rededicated their lives to Christ that evening. That night, our first “great place” thoughts began to replace the soon-to-be-forgotten “tough place” image.
Eventually, every day stood on its own, no longer linked to yesterday’s failures. Each week became a new opportunity to experience God together.
We didn’t have much success the first couple years. As part of freedom from our past, I wanted to change the name of the church.
I remember our first discussion of the topic. I had good evidence on a national scale, survey results on a local level, and personal anecdotes to bolster the case. I had been the senior pastor only a short time when, in a public discussion, the question that sidetracked the name change was “Where will we get our next pastor?” Obviously, I still had a lot of loving to do.
Can you say, “I love you”?
When I began as senior pastor, my wife and I had two small children. I decided I needed to care for the church in a way that would not harm my family. I vowed to make as few evening visits as possible, so I needed to find other ways to communicate, “I love you. I care.”
To my surprise, that particular boundary enhanced the respect the congregation showed me. Most of my visitation is done on my lunch time. I visit men, and sometimes couples, for lunch. They appreciate the protection of their at-home time, too.
I frequently say from the pulpit, “I’m so glad God has led me to this church. Being your pastor is God’s blessing on my life.” Or during announcements I will slip in, “I love being your pastor.”
Some people I deeply loved left our church because they felt uncared for.
I’ve even had occasion to tell them, “I’m proud of you.” After every vacation I reaffirm my delight in worshiping with them. Like I do with my children, I verbally let them know of my joy in our relationship.
Don’t talk, listen
Still, loving words need to be proven. The number one thing that communicates love to my church is not talking but genuine, interested listening.
Preachers are by nature dedicated talkers. Most people want to know more than anything else that they are important to us. When someone comes into my office, I listen and work from their notes, not mine. I press to make them successful, and not to use them to make myself successful. I love them quietly, one person at a time.
Sometimes it means biting my lip. One of the people most dear to me now once called at 6:30 a.m., during my vacation, to give me a piece of her mind. By God’s grace I responded humbly. My gentle answer turned away her wrath.
Her fledgling ministry, the subject of the call, grew to spark more community-wide ministry over the next five years than our church may have had in the previous 50.
When my love isn’t enough
Some people I deeply loved left our church because they felt uncared for. I recognized that a number of people still felt unloved. My loving them was not enough. The issue became “How can I help them love each other?” This is a much harder question.
The answer lies in how well I model and coach love, as much as in how well I communicate love. Whether by establishing small-group ministry or teaching people how to listen attentively, love must be a priority of leadership. We experience the cascade of divine love when we receive God’s love through other people.
Three years after Jim stopped me in the hallway, I had a response. Jim and I sipped Diet Cokes while we talked in his living room. We discussed candidly some of the events of his life. “Jim, you may not even remember this, but you asked me a question one Sunday morning several years ago that changed my life.”
He gave me a big hug and with tears in his eyes replied, “Yes, I remember. It changed mine, too.”
Scott Reavely is the pastor of West Linn Baptist Church P.O. Box 5 West Linn OR 97068 RevReav@aol.com
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