Speaking Before the Community

I will never again assume that quasi has to describe my declaration of the gospel at religious gatherings in the community.
Cal LeMon

One of my fears in seminary was that the watching world would peg me as “Mr. Mush Minister.” You know the type — in commercials when the script calls for a little sanctimonious sentimentality, they drag out this middle-aged, balding wimp with wire-rimmed glasses and a benign smile.

Well that’s not me. I may be middle-aged and balding, but I can’t be sold to the highest bidder who needs a little God for an otherwise undivine life. I can’t see straight when I get the impression someone wants to use me.

That means I have a problem: “being used” is part of the job description of the ministry.

Let me explain. I’m convinced that everyone, sinner or saint, thinks he needs a little of God. Even to many unchurched, the mention of God, by someone who speaks for God, can usher in great comfort. And comfort is part of our portfolio. As much as I loathe the implications, in my community I’m probably viewed by some as God, Jr.

And as God, Jr., I am often invited to say some God words at community functions so people will feel better about their eating, voting, football playing, graduating, or grocery store opening.

Though my pride may protest this apparent prostituting of piety, I have to realize that people have asked to hear God through me. Even though our communities often see us as pallid stand-ins for an absentee God, we can seize these public platforms to play out grace. Grace will get a hearing, not because of our black suits or FM “easy listening” voices, but because grace is God’s line — and everyone knows that.

So bring on God, Jr. Even as a stand-in, I get to recite the original script.

Designated Prayer

In my ministry, one of the first places I was asked to stand in for God was saying grace at a Kiwanis luncheon. There I was, standing behind a beer-stained podium in a basement restaurant that smelled like low tide at Coney Island. The Kiwanis president rang the bell, told an off-color joke, and slapped me on the back, saying, “Okay, Reverend, give us a good one.” The hush that came over the crowd was anything but holy.

“Lord,” I started, “it’s been a busy day for most of us, and we have to admit we are just a little taken aback to be talking to you right now. As a matter of fact, Lord, most of us haven’t thought about you in a long, long time.…” I decided to go for broke, putting my money on honesty. When the traditional amen sounded in the smoke-filled air, for at least ten seconds, no one moved or spoke. It was then I realized people actually could hear God’s voice when mine had spoken.

That Kiwanis grace has established for me some specific principles that I follow when praying in public settings:

First, I never use Elizabethan English, religious jargon, or biblical references. That shoptalk only alienates people and reinforces unbelievers’ worst fear: the faithful are a holy club.

Second, I specifically mention the personality of the audience. If I’m praying at a Thanksgiving assembly for school-age children, I may say, “Lord, you know how hard it will be for us to wait to pray before we dig in on Thursday.”

Third, I keep prayers short. When people start counting the tiles around their chairs, I have prayed too long. The spiritual attention span of a nonchurch audience is profoundly short, so I limit the length of my prayers.

Fourth, if I write out a prayer before the event, I memorize it. When the audience sees a printed prayer unfolding from my pocket, they assume they’re going to get a speech with heads bowed. I want people to know I’m talking to God, and I fear that won’t come through if I’m looking at a crib sheet.

Fifth, above all else, I direct my prayer to God. If prayer is used as a bulletin board for tacking some direct messages to my audience, my spiritual credibility is undermined.

People see us for who we are, but they will also see more in us than we, in ourselves, have to offer. I have to remind myself constantly that prayer is intimate, face-to-face communication with Divinity. I’m convinced that if I’m honest with God speaking on behalf of the audience, sincerity is picked up by my listeners. They are witnessing a divine-human dialogue. No one will count linoleum tiles when that dynamic transpires.

Special Events

Another setting where God, Jr., is often invited to make an appearance is the national quasireligious event. Memorial Day, Martin Luther King’s birthday, Veterans Day, Brotherhood Week, and high school baccalaureate services all call for large doses of clergy.

These occasions provide us some distinct advantages over, say, offering the invocation at the grand opening of a convenience store. The public comes relatively primed for some piety; part of the purpose of these special events is to be culturally religious.

I have had both good and bad experiences with the high school baccalaureate service. I’ll begin with the bad.

It was a rural high school on a very hot Sunday afternoon in early June. The kids marched in to Vivaldi, but it was obvious that Madonna and Mr. Mister were beating out some silent refrain in their brains. The parents were perched in bleacher seats preparing their spines for the chiropractor on Monday morning. That stuffy gymnasium contained all the makings for a religious bomb, and I turned out to be the main ingredient.

I winged my remarks. “You are the future leaders of America,” I began. “America, a country crying out for moral giants …” It got worse from there, I must confess. The students fidgeted and giggled over the creative uses they devised for their bulletins. The parents nodded off into a sweaty slumber. I realized I was a dud with more fizzle than sizzle. I had not anticipated how hard I would have to work to capture this audience.

Long before they arrived, I later realized, the kids had decided the only reason they were there was for their parents. The parents had hauled their kids before me, it seems, to fill some desperate, guilt-assuaging need to “give them everything I can afford.” God is affordable, so religious services at commencement time are, in my opinion, religious barbiturates that parents gulp down to handle another stage of separation anxiety.

Well, after receiving the pleasant smiles of assuaged parents and the yawns of their children, I vowed, if ever given the chance again, to alter drastically my approach to baccalaureate services. Two years later I got that second chance.

As I considered the previous disaster, I decided I had to invest in either the kids or the parents. I failed the last time partially because I had tried to hit both and ended up hitting neither. So for this message, I chose the kids.

After my introduction, I strode briskly to the front of the stage (I had the podium removed before the service started) and said, “In 1983 your world staggered under the weight of war in the Middle East and famine in Ethiopia, but you swayed to the happiness of ‘Footloose.'” Under these opening lines rose the narcotic music of Bonnie Tyler’s “I Need a Hero” from the movie’s hit album. I stopped speaking for about a minute while the sound technician brought up the music to teeth-rattling volume.

I had them.

For the next twenty minutes, I spoke to those teenagers about their world — filled with pastel “jams,” Donkey Kong video games, and the riches of Lionel Richie. I talked about the need for heroes and the haunts where we search for them. Then I zeroed in on Tyler’s lyrics, “I need a hero, bigger than life … straight from the fight.” The Christ-figure had been set up for me.

The beat of the song crescendoed to end the presentation — but not the thoughts. I have been astounded that two years later I’m still running into people at restaurants and grocery stores who remember the theme of that short message.

I will never again assume that quasi has to describe my declaration of the gospel at religious gatherings in the community. I’m not looking for decisions, but I can expect responses to grace, regardless of the spiritual history of the audience. I’ve found I have to approach these events with more prayer and study than I do preaching on Sunday. I have to work as hard knowing the world in my audience as I do the Word in my study. Then I have to commit my presentation to memory so that all my body is focused on the listener as I try to communicate sacred truth to secular minds.

I try beforehand to talk with people who normally attend these yearly functions to update my character sketch of the audience. I arrange a short tour of the auditorium, gymnasium, or amphitheater to get a feel for the physical setting from several different directions. That allows me to visualize myself from the audience’s perspective.

Finally, I work to be specific, with myself and my audience, about what I hope to accomplish when I leave my seat on the platform and command their attention. Since I don’t want to waste anybody’s time or my opportunity, the extra time I take to make an occasion work is well spent.

The Media Man

Probably the most threatening appearance for God, Jr., is with the media. Each statement is so public and final.

I write on a word processor. My computer, next to God and my dog, is the most forgiving entity in my life. With the press of a Control W, I can wipe out a word, sentence, or paragraph. If I’m nauseated with the whole composition, I can hit Control N to erase everything and start with a blank screen. Control N is my favorite key.

There are no Control Ns in media. In parish ministry, if we create yawns one Sunday, we know the faithful will be back next week to give us another crack. With the media, however, our words, gestures, emotions, and theology cannot be retrieved, scrubbed, and tried again.

This finality of media often intimidates us, but I don’t want to forfeit a useful channel for the communication of truth. I do have misgivings about the electronic church and what it may be saying to the watching world, and I don’t recommend establishing another college, amusement park, or forest of satellite dishes. But I believe the media can communicate spiritual life.

Radio. Here is a medium that television was supposed to have buried long ago. Instead, statistics prove that almost 85 percent of the American public listens to the radio at least once every day. For clergy, radio offers several options.

First, the news departments of many radio stations are scrambling to find suitable community leaders to give responses to social and ethical issues. Pastors who introduce themselves to the station managers are mentally logged for future reference.

Second, radio is interested in audience participation. Since radio activates the imagination, the forum format is still very popular. It is not overly forward to call and offer yourself as a guest on a “talk radio” station. Radio producers are constantly scratching for new ideas and people.

While pastoring in Boston, I was a guest on a talk show that reached half a million people. The agnostic host pressed me on the question, “What does it mean to be born again?” We received such a visceral response from the listening audience that our one-hour segment ran three. Back home in my living room after the broadcast was over, I realized all the things I didn’t say or said wrong, but I took great comfort in knowing I had said something. Being there, I believe, is what God is asking of us in the use of this medium.

A third way to utilize radio is through “on-air commentaries.” Because both radio and television are required by the Federal Communications Commission to provide a certain amount of “public service time,” stations are looking for competent writers who are able to make a point succinctly.

Television. With the advent of cable television, there are myriad possibilities for our communities to know us and to know what we believe, but they will not come looking for us. It will take an aggressive communicator of the Word to find these free and open opportunities on television. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, with only twenty-four people in our church, we produced a television show with a “video magazine” format that the Boston station liked so much they offered us a weekly time slot — and paid me to produce it! It can be done by an ordinary church.

My only word of caution is: Don’t allow the medium to corrupt your motives. When we see our likenesses on that screen, personal kingdom building easily becomes a lust. But we shouldn’t turn off to the idea of God using this medium because of that face on the screen.

Newspapers. Ever since Johann Gutenberg imprinted that first piece of paper, the world has never been the same. Those who think what is lying on the front lawn at 6 a.m. is only good for lining shelves haven’t fully understood the power of print. Millions of people, even in an age when satellites dish up the news with microsecond speed, carefully turn every page, foraging for the right words — words that cajole, excite, and inform. The black smudges of printers’ ink still tattoo the hands of many.

Newspapers are looking for people — not to join their staff, but to write well. Most papers don’t care as much about the position we take as our effectiveness in communicating it. I’ve regularly written for our local paper’s opinion section. I write and rewrite and rewrite again until I can sleep with my words. I am astounded by the many people in my community who forage through my syntax looking for truth.

Most newspapers have a religion editor. I suggest making an appointment with this person. Make it nothing more than a courtesy call. In that conversation you will establish yourself as a resource when he or she writes a local story on the religious community. You may find this editor calling you from time to time for some quotable quotes on a particular subject like the political clout of the Religious Right, or faith healing. If you don’t think fast on your receiver, ask to call back in a few moments with a response after you have had time to think. Most editors don’t work on “hold the presses” margins. They will be happy to have your input.

It may seem egotistical, but pastors can make an impact on their communities by sending out press releases listing the places they serve outside their churches. If they chair a committee to restore low-income housing or are speaking at a district gathering, the community should know. That information may give unchurched people the freedom to trust them, and that trust may extend someday into accepting His story through your story.

If we are content to cloister ourselves in our kingdoms and Kittels, we haven’t yet proclaimed the Good News of the gospel. Sure, the congregation pays the salary, but the community is our parish. And special occasions in our communities become prime occasions to interject a timely word for God.