“BUT I’M AN EXCEPTION!”

Bill Hybels

One evening I stopped by the church just to encourage those who were there rehearsing for the spring musical. I didn’t intend to stay long, so I parked my car next to the entrance. After a few minutes, I ran back to my car and drove home.

The next morning I found a note in my office mailbox. It read: A small thing, but Tuesday night when you came to rehearsal, you parked in the “No Parking” area. A reaction from one of my crew (who did not recognize you until after you got out of the car) was, “There’s another jerk parking in the ‘No Parking’ area!” We try hard not to allow people-even workers-to park anywhere other than the parking lots. I would appreciate your cooperation, too. It was signed by a member of our maintenance staff.

I’m sorry to report this staff member is no longer with us. He was late coming back for lunch the next day, and we had to let him go. You have to draw the line somewhere . . .

No, I’m kidding. Actually he’s still very much with us, and his stock went up in my book because he had the courage to write me about what could have been a slippage in my character.

And he was right on the mark. As I drove up that night, I had thought, I shouldn’t park here, but after all, I am the pastor. That translates: I’m an exception to the rules. But that employee wouldn’t allow me to sneak down the road labeled “I’m an exception.”

I’m not the exception to church rules, nor am I the exception to sexual rules or financial rules or any of God’s rules. As a leader, I am not an exception; I’m to be the example. According to Scripture, I am to live in such a way that I can say, “Follow me. Park where I park. Live as I live.”

That’s why we all need people like my staff member to hold us accountable in even the small matters. Because when we keep the minor matters in line, we don’t stumble over the larger ones.

Just when I was starting to think, I’m an exception, somebody on our staff cared enough to say, “Don’t do it, Bill, not even in one small area.” That’s love.

-Bill Hybels

Willow Creek Community Church

South Barrington, Illinois

Leadership Spring 1988 p. 37

- More from Bill Hybels

Pastors

What I Can and Can’t Discuss at Home

Michael E. Phillips

Candor and compassion may lead in different directions.

Shot of a relaxed couple enjoying the day at home together

My brother David, age seven, and I, age eight, were figuring ways of getting more money so we could keep up with the status quo in baseball cards. We had noticed that Cub Scouts raised money by collecting pop bottles. In our enthusiasm, we reasoned that newspapers were more plentiful than bottles and would net us a higher return.

As we began to canvass the neighborhood for papers, the response was astounding. People were overjoyed to contribute to our cause. At some houses we were given so many newspapers that we had to empty our wagons in the garage before we could go to the next house. The papers piled up like so many stacks of cash.

After a full morning, we had enough newspapers to cover half the floor space of the garage to a height of three feet. We didn't want to be greedy, so we quickly found other things to do, waiting for Dad to come home to help us exchange the newspapers for hard cash.

And sure enough, Dad came home.

The fun began when he bashed the Pontiac into Mount Gazette, which nearly toppled his workbench with a loud rattle. That was the first of many loud noises, most of which came from Dad, especially after we discovered there was no recycling center anywhere near our house. After a half-hour dressing down, the issue came around to one question: what do we do about the newspapers?

Mom suggested we take them back; Dad agreed. We marched up to each house-we with our sullen faces, Dad with his notebook for taking return orders. Somehow we weren't surprised that almost every person denied knowing us, even in the face of Dad's colorful reminders. One sweet woman, who had given us several loads, did accept one wagon load. That was the extent of the newspaper redistribution.

I learned a lesson that day: Not everything is worth bringing home. And once there, things can be mighty hard to send back.

Imagine a pastor's wife lying awake in bed. Her husband is at a board meeting, and it's getting to be the normal time of adjournment. She listens for the screen door. If it closes with a slight wisp, the meeting went well, and all will sleep soundly. If the door slams, her husband has taken a beating and will tell her all about it that night.

She hears the door slam shut. He comes to bed and replays the entire meeting, not missing a thing. He feels frustrated and betrayed. She prays for him, and he goes right to sleep. She doesn't. In the next few days, her husband will work things out emotionally. However, for months she will bear the burden of some of the things he told her.

Not a pretty picture, yet all too common. Christian marriage counselors have been talking for years about the value of open, honest communication between husbands and wives. But there are also potential dangers in openness.

Admittedly, I have a narrow perspective on the subject. What I am careful not to bring home to my wife may be easy for other spouses to handle. The reverse may also be true: what I bring home to my loving mate may take to your marriage like dogs to cats. I also recognize that what I am going to say may not apply equally well to female leaders, since their mates may react differently. What a single person in church leadership says to friends and family must be thought through as well. But my problem is deciding what to bring home to my wife in order to prevent having to try to take difficult things back. Perhaps these thoughts will aid you in your own unique situation.

What I Tell My Wife

Let me begin by summarizing what my wife does hear about: almost everything that goes on in my life. From the seedling thoughts of a sermon series to the interesting details of a half dozen home visits, my wife shares my day. She relishes the high points, looks appropriately concerned over the troubled moments, and adds her observations whenever she feels it's proper. The same scenario holds true in most pastors' homes.

Therefore, it may seem superfluous to discuss what I bring home to my wife. Why not go right to discussing the danger areas? For the same reason that good theology recognizes a distinction between sins of omission and sins of commission: what I don't say may cause as much harm as what I say inadvisedly. Or to paraphrase a famous prayer of confession, "I have said what I ought not to have said and have left unsaid the things I ought to have said."

It may be just as harmful to neglect telling my wife certain things as it is to enter the area of dangerous subjects. Accordingly, let me point out two subjects I am always prepared to discuss.

Difficult Decisions

Every so often, my wife and I celebrate "Want Ads Day." It's an event that is cherished by neither of us but demands dual participation. At regular intervals, the pressure of pastoral responsibilities convinces me there must be a softer wall to beat my head against. Therefore, I tell my wife that we are going to look through the classified ads to see what other job I could pursue. Kathy's role is to convince me I really don't want to do anything else. But she has to be subtle; I feel I'm facing a tough decision.

At the end of this madness, we fold the paper, and then my wife asks me what's getting under my skin. Usually, I'm trying to decide if God is calling me to adjust my ministry, or even to change the location. It's always a difficult decision, so I share it with the one who would be directly affected by it.

Life throws up difficult decisions the way a plow digs up rocks. They seem to be always there, always annoying, and always tricky to handle by yourself.

Several months ago, I became concerned that most of the elders were not attending prayer meeting. I decided to confront the issue at the next board meeting by proposing changes in the format of the prayer time, lecturing the board, and soliciting their attendance on Wednesday nights.

With glee, I described my plan to Kathy at dinner. Her face soured, and she motioned that I should follow her to the family room. There she came right to the point: "Do you really want a prayer meeting full of guilty, shamed elders? Maybe they all have good reasons for not being there." She then left, leaving me to my decision.

I knew instantly that she was right. The beauty of her intimate counsel is that it combined objective integrity with conjugal caring. She knew me and she knew my board. And because she wasn't directly involved, she saw the problem with greater discernment than I did.

In his autobiography, The Man Who Could Do No Wrong, Charles Blair looked back on the financially troubled project that caused him the most grief as a pastor and concluded that he could have sidestepped the whole mess if he had paid attention to his wife's impressions. I have resolved in my mind not to waste this natural resource known as my wife's opinion.

Points of Growth

The movie Ishtar centers on two would-be songwriters. The opening scene sets the stage both theatrically and philosophically: they are writing a song about truth. After hours of effort, they come up with the first four lines:

Telling the truth is dangerous business.

Honest and popular don't go hand in hand.

If you tell everyone you play the accordion,

You'll never get a job in a rock and roll band.

It's putrid poetry and faulty philosophy, but it's a philosophy we often embrace. In my ministry, I take great pains to be transparently honest, showing the congregation that I'm flesh and blood, failing and burdened. I believe it has been effective in that people accept the Word of God from their sinner-pastor with a belief that if I can live it, so can they. Over the years, I have found it progressively easier to discuss intimate failures and personal points of growth.

Yet it is so hard to do the same with my wife. She even remarked to me a few years ago that if she wanted to find out what God is teaching me, she would have to pay closer attention to my sermons. It's amazing how I am an embodiment of Ishtar philosophy. I actually believed that in my marriage, honest and popular don't go hand in hand.

It's part of human nature to fear pain from our most intimate relationships. But it's part of good mental health to overcome that part of human nature.

The other night, just prior to our anniversary, we were talking about the positive changes we have seen in one another. I decided at that point of camaraderie to reveal a deep, dark side of me. I told her she was changing me. Her interest piqued, she requested I tell her more. So I began to recite some incidents in which I had mistreated the women I had dated. However, when I first met my wife, I knew she was special, for she demanded that I respect her. She never said this in so many words, but she demanded it through every nuance of her personality.

That night, I let her know God was, through her, changing my actions, not only toward her, but toward everyone else as well.

Since that night, she has been acutely aware of this side of me. As a result, she lovingly warns me when I start slipping into my old disrespectful patterns. It's like having a dual conscience, sort of a branch office of the soul.

A caution: it's essential to understand our problems prior to laying them out before anyone else. We need to be sure we can describe things accurately before we alarm our loved ones. Can you imagine a company's telling its stockholders every conceivable problem in the firm? The stock would be worth zero, even if the company had very little the matter with it.

Before a recent board retreat, I sensed some tension building between several church members and myself. As I spent time in prayer, I developed a growing sense of my own shortcomings. The evening before the retreat, I felt like telling my wife all I was feeling. But because I wasn't sure, I left things unsaid for the time being.

I'm so glad I did; it saved a lot of backtracking.

At the weekend time together, I brought up my concern. The board agreed with some aspects, but not with others. The personality flaw I had noticed was real, but it wasn't the whole story. I was enlightened and relieved as we ended the weekend. I was corrected and ready to fight with more fervor against the Enemy's schemes. That Saturday night, after getting a better perspective, I discussed my problem with Kathy, enlisting her to help me cope. She has done so with gladness and strength.

What I Don't Tell My Wife

At times, however, it's best for both of us if I keep my mouth shut. I no longer point out ring around the collar or another woman wearing the same dress as hers. This kind of tongue restraint is simply what I call "peace in the parsonage." Everyone's list will contain a different assortment of no-nos.

There are also aspects of my calling that my wife is not called to bear. God lays upon each person a different yoke. Let me describe the line I draw between unwise conversation and callous clamming up.

Others’ Attacks on Me

I once asked my wife to describe the one thing I had told her that was harder to handle than any other. Without hesitation she said, "The letters you showed me last fall."

The previous autumn, I had received a series of nasty notes from a former member of our congregation. Clothed as prophetic words, they were vindictive slanders and generally throw-away advice. After a while, they were laughable. Without thinking, I showed them to Kathy one night. It took her a long time to go to sleep that evening. All she could think about was the dirt this person had thrown my way.

She was much more upset than I was. Her protective feelings were creating a whirlwind of emotions, alternating between bitterness and anger. Thus I learned that it's a major mistake for us to unload second-hand attacks on our wives.

What I do now with a situation like that is simple. If I have to tell someone, I tell my prayer partner. He's a good friend, has broad shoulders, and never gets upset at attacks on me. He thought the letters were funny; he even got me laughing over them. Kathy still doesn't laugh when she sees the letter writer and his wife downtown. She has, however, worked her facial muscles up to a smile, bless her protective heart!

My Attacks on Others

"Blondie" continues as one of my favorite comic strips. In one memorable scene, the Woodleys from next door are visiting Dagwood and Blondie. While the wives are in the kitchen, Herb and Dagwood get into a shouting match over a forgotten debt. The wives come out to break up the fight. The men settle down until several minutes later, when they hear the women fighting in the kitchen over the same debt. Dagwood breaks them up and states with pontifical pride, "You women are always fighting over meaningless things."

When one person in a family lets off steam, pressure begins to build up in those who are listening, especially in a pastor's home, where spiritual warfare is unusually intense. Inevitably, I will have opinions on various members of the flock I pastor, some of them negative at times. This doesn't mean I don't love them and desire the best for them, and God is able to adjust my opinions in the course of time, too. But if I voice my personal misgivings about others to my wife or children, I no longer have any control over what those careless words will produce. Understand that my wife is not a gossip and is certainly not vindictive. My comments will taint her viewpoint, however, even if only slightly.

Several years ago, we had a young Sunday school superintendent who I felt was not getting the job done. I told my wife about his mistakes, and I told her on numerous occasions how upset I was with him. Finally, God convicted me of being the one in the wrong, for I had not spent any time praying for and training the man. As I rectified this, he showed smooth progress in his ministry.

My wife was not aware of this turnaround, however, and I noticed over a year later that she still had a critical attitude toward the man. The blame lay firmly on my shoulders. I apologized to her and asked her to forgive me for tainting this young man in her eyes. I also vowed inwardly to keep my most vindictive vents of steam to myself.

Sensitive Issues

My college physics professor was a joy. It was common knowledge that if you asked him a question about black holes, even if it were only remotely connected to the topic at hand, he would wax eloquent on the subject, and the rest of the class would be history. We used to call him "Black Hole Rollie." We knew the topics that set him going.

In the same way, I know the kinds of discussions that set my wife's mind abuzzing. Each person, and each pastorate, has a different set of these terrible topics. For some of us, it may be learning of a church member's financial irresponsibility or doctrinal deviation. For others, hearing about even long-past sexual misconduct may create only unhealthy agitation. For still others, talking about how other people discipline their children gets the blood boiling.

So Kathy and I have discovered that there are some issues too sensitive to discuss—unless we've got a long, uninterrupted time together to fully process the topic together. Ours are so sensitive I'm not even going to tell you what they are. But you've likely discovered your sensitive issues when you uncover a topic that:

1. Contributes to obvious feelings of dis-ease in your spouse;

2. The two of you cannot constructively deal with;

3. You yourself feel uncomfortable discussing;

4. Leads to conversations whose long-term effect is only negative.

Unfortunately, it takes time and mistakes to discover what these "don't tell me" issues are-for yourself and for your spouse.

The "Blurt Threshold"

There is one other problem with regard to what I tell my wife. It's what I call the "blurt threshold." Our minds are like steaming pots, with a myriad of mumblings and grumblings boiling around inside. After days and days of stress and tension, the amount of information and emotions carried around can reach the boiling over, or blurt, point. That's when I blurt out the first thing I think of when I get home.

In other words, the things we have decided to put a lid on come spilling over the side anyway. In reality, I have said many things to my wife that have hurt her, made her uncomfortable, or left her feeling angry or frustrated. Each of these times I had already decided to say nothing about the matter, but it slipped over the edge of my brain.

I have only one solution for the blurt threshold: pray heavily before going home. It sounds super-spiritual, but it gives the Lord a chance to say which ideas will do the least harm if spilled.

Beyond that, recognize that you will inevitably say things you shouldn't. A recent United Press International report stated that surgeons in Northern Ireland have become leaders in the field of knee and foot surgery. It seems that a favorite tactic of the Irish Republican Army is to intimidate people by shooting them in the leg or foot. Thus, by necessity, the surgeons of that troubled land have gained a proficiency in treating leg wounds.

The only reason I can write about what to say and what not to say at home is that many times I have shot myself (and my wife) in the foot with verbal miscues. The medical regimen I have described here is the result of making many errors. But my wife, at least, doesn't have a garage full of newspapers or, if I screen what I bring home, a mind full of trash.

Michael E. Phillips is pastor of Lake Windermere Alliance Church, Invermere, British Columbia.

- More from Michael E. Phillips

Pastors

The Double Danger of Earthly Delights

John Calvin

If we are to live, we have to use those helps necessary for living. And we cannot avoid those things that seem to serve delight more than necessity. Therefore, we must hold to a standard so as to use them with a clear conscience.

By his Word, the Lord teaches that the present life is, for his people, like a pilgrimage on which they are hastening toward the heavenly kingdom. If we must pass through this world, there is no doubt we ought to use its good things insofar as they help rather than hinder our course. Thus Paul rightly persuades us to use this world as if not using it (1 Cor. 7:30, 31).

But because this topic is a slippery one and slopes on both sides into error, let us try to plant our feet where we may safely stand. There were some otherwise good and holy men who, when they saw intemperance and wantonness raging with unbridled excess, desired to correct this dangerous evil. One plan occurred to them: to use physical goods only insofar as necessity required. A godly counsel indeed, but they were far too severe. They fettered consciences more tightly than does the Word of the Lord-a very dangerous thing. To them necessity means to abstain from all things they could do without. To them, it would scarcely be permitted to add any food at all to plain bread and water.

On the other hand, many today seek an excuse for intemperance. In their licentious indulgence, they take for granted what I do not at all concede: that this freedom is not to be restrained by any limitation but is to be left to every man’s conscience.

Certainly I admit that consciences neither ought to nor can be bound here to definite and precise legal formulas. But inasmuch as Scripture gives general rules for lawful use, we ought surely to limit our use in accordance with them.

Keeping God’s purpose in mind

Let this be our principle: that we remember the end to which the Author himself created these gifts-for our good, not for our ruin.

If we ponder to what end God created food, we find that he meant not only to provide for necessity, but also for delight and good cheer. The purpose of clothing, apart from necessity, was comeliness and decency. In grasses, trees, and fruits, apart from their various uses, there is beauty of appearance and pleasantness of odor. Thus the prophet reckoned among the benefits of God, “wine that gladdens the heart of man, oil that makes his face shine” (Ps. 104:15). Away, then, with that inhuman philosophy that concedes only a necessary use of God’s creation and not only malignantly deprives us of the lawful fruit of God’s beneficence, but also cannot be practiced unless it robs a man of all his senses and degrades him to a block.

But no less diligently, we must resist the lust of the flesh. For unless it is kept in order, it overflows without measure. Its advocates, under the pretext of the freedom conceded by God, permit everything. One bridle is put upon it if we determine that all things were created for us so that we might recognize the Author and give thanks for his kindness toward us. Where is our thanksgiving if we so gorge ourselves that we become stupid or are rendered useless for the duties of piety and of our calling?

Aspiration to eternal life

There is no surer course than that we receive from contempt of the present life and meditation upon heavenly immortality. Two rules follow: those who use this world should be so affected as if they did not use it, as Paul enjoins. The other rule is that they should know how to bear poverty patiently, as well as how to bear abundance moderately.

Though the freedom of believers in external matters is not to be restricted to a fixed formula, yet it is surely subject to this law: to indulge oneself as little as possible, and to insist upon cutting off all show of superfluous wealth, not to mention licentiousness, and diligently to guard against turning helps into hindrances.

Those of slender resources should know how to go without things patiently, lest they be troubled by an immoderate desire for them. If they keep this rule, they will make considerable progress in the Lord’s school. Besides the fact that most other vices accompany the desire for earthly things, he who bears poverty impatiently will also, when in prosperity, commonly betray the contrary disease. He who is ashamed of mean clothing will boast of costly clothing if they fall to his lot. He who bears with a troubled mind his humble condition, will by no means abstain from arrogance if he be advanced to honors. To this end, then, let all those for whom the pursuit of piety is not a pretense strive to learn, by the apostle’s example, how to be filled and to hunger, to abound and to suffer want.

-John Calvin

- More from John Calvin

Pastors

To Illustrate…

SPIRITUAL STATURE

The growth chart had slipped from the playroom wall because the tape on its comers had become dry and brittle. Five-year-old Jordan hung it up again, meticulously working to get it straight. Then he stood his sister against the wall to measure her height.

“Mommy! Mommy! Anneke is forty inches tall!” he shouted as he burst into the kitchen. “I measured her.”

His mom replied, “That’s impossible. Sweetheart. She’s only 3 years old. Lets go see.” They walked back into the playroom, where the mother’s suspicions were confirmed. Despite his efforts to hang the chart straight, Jordan had failed to set it at the proper height. It was several inches low.

We easily make Jordan’s mistake in gauging our spiritual growth or importance. Compared to a shortened scale, we may appear better than we are. Only when we stand against the Cross, that “great leveler of men” as A. T. Robertson called it, can we not think of ourselves “more highly than we ought to think.” Christ, himself, must be our standard.

– Robert H. Heijermans

Yarmouth, Nova Scotia

CHILDLIKENESS

Robert Fulghum wrote in the Kansas City Times, “Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school.

“These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. . . . When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.”

This writer has captured part of what Jesus meant when he said, “Unless you become like little children, you won’t enter the kingdom of heaven.”

– Hugh Duncan

Moses Lake, Washington

JUDGING OTHERS

The following story appeared in the newsletter Our America:

“Dodie Gadient, a schoolteacher for thirteen years, decided to travel across America and see the sights she had taught about. Traveling alone in a truck with camper in tow, she launched out. One afternoon rounding a curve on I-5 near Sacramento in rush-hour traffic, a water pump blew on her truck. She was tired, exasperated, scared, and alone. In spite of the traffic jam she caused, no one seemed interested in helping.

“Leaning up against the trailer, she prayed, ‘Please God, send me an angel . . . preferably one with mechanical experience.’ Within four minutes, a huge Harley drove up, ridden by an enormous man sporting long, black hair, a beard, and tattooed arms. With an incredible air of confidence, he jumped off and, without even glancing at Dodie, went to work on the truck. Within another few minutes, he flagged down a larger truck, attached a tow chain to the frame of the disabled Chevy, and whisked the whole 56-foot rig off the freeway onto a side street, where he calmly continued to work on the water pump.

“The intimidated schoolteacher was too dumb-founded to talk. Especially when she read the paralyzing words on the back of his leather jacket: ‘Hell’s Angels-California.’ As he finished the task, she finally got up the courage to say, ‘Thanks so much,’ and carry on a brief conversation. Noticing her surprise at the whole ordeal, he looked her straight in the eye and mumbled, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover. You may not know who you’re talking to.’ With that, he smiled, closed the hood of the truck, and straddled his Harley. With a wave, he was gone as fast as he had appeared.”

Given half a chance, people often crawl out of the boxes into which we’ve relegated them.

– Larry D. Wright

Tuscumbia, Alabama

EVANGELISM

Survivor Eva Hart remembers the night, April 15, 1912, on which the Titanic plunged 12,000 feet to the Atlantic floor, some two hours and forty minutes after an iceberg tore a 300-foot gash in her starboard side: “I saw all the horror of its sinking, and I heard, even more dreadful, the cries of drowning people.”

Although twenty life-boats and rafts were launched-too few and only partly filled-most of the passengers ended up struggling in the icy seas while those in the boats waited a safe distance away.

Lifeboat No. 14 did row back to the scene after the “unsinkable” ship slipped from sight at 2:20 a.m. Alone, it chased cries in the darkness, seeking and saving a precious few. Incredibly, no other boat joined it. Some were already overloaded, but in virtually every other boat, those already saved rowed their half-filled boats aimlessly in the night, listening to the cries of the lost. Each feared a crush of unknown swimmers would cling to their craft, eventually swamping it.

“I came to seek and to save the lost,” our Savior said. And he commissioned us to do the same. But we face a large obstacle: fear. While people drown in the treacherous waters around us, we are tempted to stay dry and make certain no one rocks the boat. Yet the boat is not ours, and our safety came only at the expense of the One who overcame fear with love-and saved us.

– James D. Smith III

Minneapolis, Minnesota

SUSPICION

Time magazine carried the following news item:

“When the post office in Troy, Michigan, summoned Michael Achorn to pick up a 2-foot-long, 40-pound package, his wife, Margaret, cheerfully went to accept it. But as she drove it back to her office in Detroit, she began to worry. The box was from Montgomery Ward, but the sender, Edward Achorn, was unknown to Margaret and her husband, despite the identical last name.

“What if the thing was a bomb? She telephoned postal authorities. . . .

“The bomb squad soon arrived with eight squad cars and an armored truck. They took the suspected bomb in the armored truck to a remote tip of Belle Isle in the middle of the Detroit River. There they wrapped detonating cord around the package and, as they say in the bomb business, ‘opened it remotely.’

“When the debris settled, all that was left intact was the factory warranty for the contents: a $450 stereo AM-FM receiver and a tape deck console. Now the only mystery is who is Edward Achorn and why did he send Michael and Margaret such a nice Christmas present?”

We gasp with shock at the thought of a costly stereo in pieces, yet many reject the far more costly gift of God’s Son. Eventually they will regret what they discover they have scorned.

– Robert T. Wenz

Clifton Park, New York

PRIDE

“Pali, this bull has killed me.” So said Jose Cubero, one of Spain’s most brilliant matadors, before he lost consciousness and died.

Only 21 years old, he had been enjoying a spectacular career. However, in this 1985 bullfight, Jose made a tragic mistake. He thrust his sword a final time into a bleeding, delirious bull, which then collapsed. Considering the struggle finished, Jose turned to the crowd to acknowledge the applause.

The bull, however, was not dead. It rose and lunged at the unsuspecting matador, its horn piercing his back and puncturing his heart.

Just when we think we’ve finished off pride, just when we turn to accept the congratulations of the crowd, pride stabs us in the back. We should never consider pride dead before we are.

– Craig Brian Larson

Arlington Heights, Illinois

SIN’S DELUSION

In A View from the Zoo, Gary Richmond, a former zoo keeper, had this to say:

“Raccoons go through a glandular change at about 24 months. After that they often attack their owners. Since a 30-pound raccoon can be equal to a 100-pound dog in a scrap, I felt compelled to mention the change coming to a pet raccoon owned by a young friend of mine, Julie. She listened politely as I explained the coming danger. I’ll never forget her answer.

” ‘It will be different for me. . . .’ And she smiled as she added, ‘Bandit wouldn’t hurt me. He just wouldn’t.’

“Three months later Julie underwent plastic surgery for facial lacerations sustained when her adult raccoon attacked her for no apparent reason. Bandit was released into the wild.”

Sin, too, often comes dressed in an adorable guise, and as we play with it, how easy it is to say, “It will be different for me.” The results are predictable.

– Bob Campbell

Lima, New York

SHARING

In its January 25, 1988 issue, Time provided an insight on selfishness and its corollary, sharing. Speaking about the introduction of the videocassette recorder, the article said, “The company had made a crucial mistake. While at first Sony kept its Beta technology mostly to itself, JVC, the Japanese inventor of the VHS [format], shared its secret with a raft of other firms. As a result, the market was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the VHS machines being produced.”

This drastically undercut Sony’s market share. The first year, Sony lost 40 percent of the market, and by 1987 it controlled only 10 percent. So now Sony has jumped on the VHS bandwagon. While it still continues to make Beta-format VCRs, Sony’s switch to VHS, according to Time, will likely send Beta machines to “the consumer-electronics graveyard.”

Even in a cut-throat business, sharing has its rewards.

– Phillip Gunter

Minden, Nevada

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Leadership Spring 1988 p. 46-7

Pastors

THREE KINDS OF CREDIBILITY

Emory A. Griffin

I entered the world of competitive swimming the summer before I started high school. Over the next six years, I swam in three hundred races and spent more than one hundred total days in the water.

During this time I worked under three different coaches. Each had a great influence on my swimming career. They were persuasive. When they spoke, I listened. They all possessed high credibility in my eyes, yet the reason for my regard varied greatly from man to man. The nature of the credibility was different in each case.

Coach Moyle was a whirlwind of activity. It was he who spotted me that first summer as I lounged by the side of the pool. He walked over briskly and began to persuade me to join the club team. He claimed he could make me into a great swimmer. I was flattered. No outside adult had taken an avid interest in me before. He painted a picture of healthy exercise, friendship with other swimmers, and the ribbons, medals, and trophies that could be mine. It was impossible to say no to such an enthusiastic, outgoing person.

His irresistible excitement continued throughout the summer. He tailored practices just for me, took movies of my stroke, had me work out with a gal who was training for the Olympics, and called me the night before each meet to discuss strategy for the next day’s race. We can label this facet of credibility dynamism, enthusiasm, responsiveness, or activity. Whatever we call it, Coach Moyle had it-and it made him a credible source.

In terms of energy, my high school coach was the exact opposite. Coach Tweedie was a slow-moving, hesitant man who never raised his voice. He didn’t seem excited when we won or upset when we lost. Yet he had a cluster of character traits that gave him high ethos-Aristotle’s term for a speaker’s ethical appeal-in my eyes.

Coach Tweedie was a good man, honest and straightforward. In the four years I swam for him, I never saw him do anything devious or say a mean word. High school kids can be quite cruel to each other, so he took great pains to insure that no member of the team would be hurt by the thoughtless words of others. He was interested in me as a person. He’d often stay after practice and ask about my studies, family, or dating life. After I became a Christian, he was willing to share his own beliefs and express his inner doubts. He didn’t pretend to know much about the technique of swimming-he was a gym teacher assigned to coach the team. But because of his personal warmth and integrity, I worked hard for the man. We can call this aspect of credibility character, trustworthiness, or safety. Coach Tweedie inspired confidence because he appeared to be without guile.

If my high school coach radiated warmth, my college coach struck me as a cold fish. He seemed distant and aloof. He spoke to me individually only once or twice a week. Yet when he did deign to give me advice, I hung on every word. The reason was simple: Coach Steiger knew more about competitive swimming than everyone else I’d met put together. In ten seconds he could spot what I was doing wrong. What’s more, he could tell me clearly and precisely how to correct the problem. In the sport of swimming, Coach Steiger was authoritative, intelligent, competent, and qualified. These terms describe the third aspect of ethos.

I’ve spoken of these three components as if they’re mutually exclusive. They’re not. It’s quite possible for someone to be regarded as authoritative, trustworthy, and dynamic all at the same time. Those who possess this kind of charisma obviously have a huge head start in the race to influence. People want to believe them. They have only to state their case. Unless they suggest something patently ridiculous or offensive, attitudes and actions will change.

A hero today, a bum tomorrow

We’ve been talking about credibility as if it were a fixed entity-something you either have or you don’t. Nothing could be further from the truth. A person’s credibility with a given audience is constantly changing. It can go up and down like a yo-yo.

Consider my view of Senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon. Hatfield has long been my favorite politician. He’s honest, says what he believes, and has an engaging sense of humor. He took an early stand against American involvement in Vietnam and has championed legislation to feed the hungry. As a Christian, he articulates his faith in a modest and winsome way. To me, he is a highly credible source. (Incidentally, don’t be put off if you don’t share my judgment of Hatfield. If you react differently to the man, it just shows the established principle that credibility is in the eye of the beholder.)

I heard Hatfield speak two years ago. In his address he recommended that the United States cut back its aid to Israel. Hearing this was like a kick in the teeth. I’d always applauded our nation’s role in helping Israel survive while surrounded by hostile countries. Now I was in a quandary. Here was a man I liked recommending an action I didn’t like. How was I going to resolve this inconsistency?

I did it by making mental adjustments in my views both toward Israel and Hatfield. It’s as if both attitudes were at opposite ends of a stretched rubber band. I reduced the tension by pulling them both toward the center. Thus aid to Israel has become suspect in my mind. I no longer give a reflexive response of approval every time the issue comes up. But the speech modified my opinion of Hatfield as well. By taking this stand, he lost some of the credibility I’d ascribed to him.

It’s important to realize that this new level of credibility wasn’t written in stone either. Since that time I’ve heard things about Hatfield that have lifted him back up higher than he was before the speech.

We can think of credibility as a bank account. People build credit through their words and deeds that meet with others’ approval. These deposits increase the potential to persuade. They can spend some of this acceptance capital in order to convince others. But if they keep spending and spending without acquiring new resources, they’ll go bankrupt; they’ll use up all their credibility. At this point we cease to believe them or take seriously what they say.

It’s even possible through deficit spending to get into a position of negative credibility. In this case, we react just the opposite of what such people want. Their words drive us away. If they’re for it, we’re against it.

So we see that credibility is an ever changing, fluid commodity. This has a number of implications for the Christian persuader:

It means we can never sit back on our haunches and think we have it made. Even Paul found it necessary to work at maintaining his ethos with the Christians at Corinth.

It also means we shouldn’t make a big deal out of every disagreement we have with others. It’s possible to lose our credibility over numerous minor issues and not have any left to draw on when something really important comes up. I know a Christian who argued with his next-door neighbor about his leaf-raking practices, fluoridation of water, the local school board election, and how to raise their children. When he had a chance to talk about what was really important to him-his faith in Jesus Christ-his reputation as a crabby reactionary blunted the force of his witness.

Finally, we need to realize that like money, credibility is only valuable when it’s used for something. It does no good to work constantly at building our image if we never take a stand. When vital issues arise, that’s the time to be willing to put our credibility on the line. As Mordecai counseled Esther, “Who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”

-Emory A. Griffin

Professor of Speech Communication

Wheaton (Illinois) College

* * *

Balanced biblical Christianity is a rare phenomenon. It seems to be a characteristic of our fallen minds that we find it easier to grasp half-truths than to grasp the whole truth, and in consequence we become lopsided Christians.

-John R. W. Stott

When we discern that people are not going on spiritually and allow the discernment to turn to criticism, we block our way to God. God never gives us discernment in order that we may criticize, but that we may intercede.

-Oswald Chambers

- More from Emory A. Griffin

Pastors

INTEGRITY UNDER PRESSURE

An interview with Mark O Hatfield.

Known as “the conscience of the Senate,” Mark O. Hatfield is serving his fourth term as Republican senator from Oregon. He is the Senate’s second-ranking Republican and ranking minority member of the influential Senate Appropriations Committee.

Throughout his political career-he served in the Oregon state legislature for six years and then became Oregon’s secretary of state and, later, governor for eight years before reaching the Senate-he has been characterized as a person willing to stand firm on his principles.

In 1966, for example, as governor of Oregon, Hatfield was adamantly opposed to the Vietnam War, a position that drew opposition and even hostility from many quarters. At the same time, President Lyndon Johnson, himself under criticism, was seeking the endorsement of continued American involvement in Southeast Asia from leaders across the country. Thus, when the governors of every state held a conference in Los Angeles that July, Johnson asked that they go on record as approving his policy.

The nation was deeply divided over the Vietnam conflict, and many political leaders felt such a showing of unity with the president would help heal the rift. Influential politicians told Hatfield, “Don’t rat on America.” If he wasn’t willing to vote in favor of Johnson’s policy, they asked him to at least be conveniently out of the meeting room when the poll of governors was taken.

At the appointed time, the roll call began, and each governor cast his vote under the harsh glare of the television lights. One by one they said yes to the president’s policy, until at last there were 49 affirmative votes. But when Hatfield’s turn came, knowing his political career might be at risk, he nonetheless quietly voted no-the lone dissenting vote.

Hatfield’s courage to stand alone, shown several times during his career, is rooted deeply in his Christian faith. He grew up in Dallas, Oregon, the son of committed Conservative Baptists. The family often provided food and shelter for those who needed it. “We always had something to share,” he remembers.

Today Hatfield is a member of Georgetown Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. Time magazine has called him “a moral exemplar,” and Billy Graham has said he is “one of the most consistent Christian political leaders in his personal and family life of any I’ve ever known.”

Here are his thoughts on the challenge of maintaining integrity under the pressures of public leadership.

You wrote Between a Rock and a Hard Place, so you’ve done some thinking about this: What are the toughest pressures leaders face?

I would start with the pressures from our own egos. I think people of the pulpit and people of politics probably fight this problem to the same degree. Parishioners expect to see someone in the pulpit who has it all together. He or she is supposed to be the living example of Christlikeness. What a tremendous burden! What an impossible role we give our ministers when we expect them to be Christ!

In political life, you’re not necessarily expected to be perfect, but you’re expected to know all the answers. That’s why you were elected.

How should we handle those expectations?

We have to accept those expectations and do our best to live with them.

The real problem, though, is not the expectations but our ego, which sometimes makes us believe we are the ultimate model of spirituality. The original temptation, remember, was not to do evil but to do good: to eat the fruit and become like God. When our ego leads us in that direction, we’re in trouble.

We need to pray that we do not begin to believe what people say of us. I’ve found a good stabilizing measure is to form relationships of accountability. My wife and I belong to a group that includes the pastor of National Presbyterian Church and his wife-Louie and Coke Evans-and four other couples in Washington. We get together once a month. It’s a ministry of support but also a ministry of accountability, which I think ministers need, too.

I remember when I was governor, every few weeks I would have the name George Smoka on my calendar. He would come from the Union Gospel Mission and say with his commanding voice, “I’ve just come to pray for you, Brother.” With that he would raise his one hand toward the heavens and place the other on my shoulder, and he would simply pray. Then he’d say, “Good-by; have a good day, Brother.” He’d walk out, and that was the extent of his call.

I always felt absolutely renewed and blessed by those calls. I think 90 percent of the people who called at my office were there for some request. But George Smoka never asked for a thing. That kind of support is invaluable for leaders.

You belong to probably the most exclusive club in the world, the United States Senate. In such a position, is humility more difficult to maintain?

Humility is unconscious. If you’re conscious of your humility, it isn’t true humility. Humility is a manner, a viewpoint, an all-encompassing thing.

But humility is expressed through actions, say, a nod of the head in acknowledgment of a verbal hello. It can be demonstrated simply by stopping and listening to someone. Its essence is putting others ahead of yourself. By God’s grace it can be demonstrated by anyone in any position. A pastor may show humility through offering a healing word to a hurting person.

A real test of humility is how you handle criticism. The natural reaction is to throw up an immediate defense, a quick excuse, a spontaneous rebuttal. The humble way to handle criticism is to try to understand the reasons for the criticism, to look for what truth there may be in it.

What other hazards must leaders watch for?

Power. Power is one of the most corruptive of all influences, so one should always look at power with a very jaundiced eye.

We’ve seen in the history of the church the corruptive influences of power. And in individual churches there is a corruptive influence whenever a minister feels he has to be the controlling force of his congregation.

We all remember Jim Jones, who had utter control over congregations in California and Guyana. As I understand his background, he started out with the simple proclamation of the gospel. Then he began to sense a personal charismatic hold he had on people. It was a gift that was perverted and used for self-glory and promotion rather than for the Lord.

I admire Billy Graham’s perspective. He is conscious of the fact he has achieved worldwide recognition, having proclaimed the gospel to more people than any other human being ever. He doesn’t have the power of an ecclesiastical organization, but he has the power of influence, and he recognizes its danger.

There’s a fine line between motivation and manipulation, between the good and evil use of power. How do you discern the difference?

We should be asking ourselves constantly: Are power and leadership things I’m using to promote self, career, and prestige? Or are they being used only as a way of serving Christ and bringing people into a relationship with Christ? In other words, are we the masters or are we the servants?

We are not masters of the congregations or constituencies we lead; we are servants of such people. As we see our lives in that perspective, God can use us. But that’s a constant battle, because the desire is always there to put self ahead, to take personal offense and let some issue rupture a relationship. I’ve often said my wife disagrees with me on many political issues. She cancels my vote in many elections, but that has not ruptured our relationship. It’s not that a good relationship comes easily; we work at our relationship. We’ve learned, though, that when we personalize issues and consider challenges to issues as personal affronts, it is because our egos are emerging.

How do the pressures of leadership affect your relationship with your family?

The home is the toughest environment of all for leaders. Why is it the ones we love most are the ones we are most impatient with? My wife has often said to me, “I wish you were as patient with your children as you are with your constituents.” She’s right. She reminds me that I’m accountable to God and to my family, and I’m grateful for that.

I think the greatest problem we have is our allocation of time, whether or not we let our professions work to the exclusion of our families. If our lives are going to be given only to our professions, then better we had remained as Paul said, unencumbered by marriage and family. But if we do decide to marry and have a family, I am thoroughly convinced one has to set priorities as follows:

First to God. The Bible teaches us to “love the Lord thy God with all thy strength, mind, and heart.”

Our second priority is to our families, because they are the gift of God to us; they are the joint effort of God’s creating authority working through us.

Our third priority is our professions, and if we put our jobs any place higher than third place, we have our priorities askew.

One practical way I’ve tried to put those priorities into practice: I’ve tried to communicate to my family that no matter how busy I am, I am always accessible to them. That has to be communicated verbally, but also in action.

In the midst of these pressures, what is your task as a leader? What must a leader actually do?

Three things. First, the leader must demonstrate commitment to the goals, objectives, and spirit of the program or organization he is leading. That commitment cannot be half-hearted; it has to be total.

Second, the leader must translate the institution’s objectives into the lives of followers. A leader must make the objectives relevant and helpful for people and show he genuinely cares for them.

Third, a leader always has to be alert to change. The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and the pastor’s message contains a continuity of truth. But that does not mean conditions around that truth are not changing. Cultural changes, social changes, and political changes affect every person and institution, and a leader has to recognize change and adapt, so that he or she never loses relevancy.

Whom do you admire as a leader? Who does these things well?

I wouldn’t have to think for a second to say Richard Halverson, chaplain of the Senate.

Dick came to the Senate at a time when the Republicans had just taken control. Because he was a Wheaton College graduate, Princeton Seminary graduate, and Presbyterian pastor, there was a little bit of political tension, as you can imagine. Yet into that situation came this man who met first with the pages, then the elevator operators, and then the capitol police. He visited each senator personally, and then he talked to their spouses to indicate his interest in serving them. It’s amazing the way this man has developed a shepherding role for the so-called up-and-outers, and what a response he’s received from the Senate!

Each session opens with prayer, and many senators used to absent themselves from the floor because it was one of those routine acts that people felt a little bored with. Now, most of us come to at least read his sermon or prayer, because it’s always so relevant to who we are and what we’re doing.

For example, one Christmas Dick prayed, “Father, help us to be mindful that you did not announce the Incarnation of your Son to the Roman Senate, but to a few lowly shepherds out on the hillside.” Another time, we were in a late session and tensions were high. He prayed at the midnight hour (which was the beginning of a new day and a new session), “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall; Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again. Father, help the Senate to stick together.” Still another time he prayed that God would help the senators understand that when they are home they are not senators but spouses and parents: “Help them not to treat their families the way they’ve treated their staffs.”

The New York Times and Washington Post have commented editorially on Dick’s prayers, and out of those helpful, pertinent prayers has developed the kind of pastoral role the senators have learned to rely on in times of family crisis. One lost his grandson in a terrible tragedy. He made funeral arrangements and asked Dick to travel to his home state to preach the eulogy for his grandson, whom Dick had never met.

So your model of a leader with integrity is someone who can speak authoritatively but simply and lovingly, too.

Yes, a person who is so vulnerable he makes you vulnerable. Unwittingly, perhaps unconsciously, we sometimes feel our titles, our positions, and our responsibilities mean we have to perform in the exact manner expected of us. In so doing we dehumanize ourselves.

Being vulnerable means we are standing totally open as a human being-not as a pastor, not as a senator, not as a leader, not as a follower-just a human being. And there is nothing that elicits response from people more than to feel they are dealing with someone who is on their level, who feels what they feel.

Can a person who is not particularly people oriented demonstrate that aspect of integrity?

I know of days when even Dick Halverson has found it difficult to be in one-to-one relationships with people. He has said that when he was a pastor, he spent much of his time in the pulpit or preparing to exposit the Scriptures, and he found casual conversation was not something that came easily. Realizing this, he said, “I am more and more aware that Christ living in you is what really creates the ability to be sensitive and responsive to people.”

Overall, what’s your goal as a Christian leader?

To apply in practical ways the servant leadership that Christ represented. That’s not easy, but I don’t think the Lord taught anything to his followers that is not achievable. Christ did not say, “Come and follow me, but you’ll never really make it because I’m God and you aren’t.”

We sometimes feel great pressures as leaders. Those pressures tempt us to shortchange areas in our lives. But if we have integrity, we can live whole, integrated lives. We can’t say, “This is my public life, and this is my private life; these are my public morals, these my private morals.” What we are, we are. If that is a person of integrity, then it will show through in every setting.

Pastors

LEADERSHIP BIBLIOGRAPHY—INTEGRITY

Vernon Grounds

Vernon Grounds, president emeritus after twenty-four years as president of Denver Seminary, is now director of the Grounds Counseling Center and president of Evangelicals for Social Action. Defining integrity as “the antithesis of hypocrisy, sound all the way through, like a gold coin without alloy,” he recommends the following books.

Integrity: Let Your Yea Be Yea

by J. Daniel Hess, Herald Press, 1978

I consider this series of lectures by the professor of communication at Goshen College the best available resource for understanding the multifaceted meaning of integrity. Hess, of the Brethren-Mennonite tradition, was reared in a Christian subculture where a person’s word needed no confirmation by an oath or a signed document.

Hess devotes a chapter to each of the many facets of integrity: authenticity, wholeness, veracity, verisimilitude, reconciliation, and shalom. Describing integrity as “the stone, steel, and lumber of ethics,” Hess sums up its meaning in our Lord’s admonition: “Let your yea be yea.”

Loving God

by Charles W. Colson, Zondervan, 1983

This is an apologetic that does more than present a logically persuasive case; it shows the transforming power of the gospel. Colson tells story after story of lives radically changed. The story of Bill Bontrager, for instance, shows especially that a relationship with the Lord Jesus motivates ordinary individuals to become extraordinary adherents of justice and righteousness no matter what sacrifice is involved. Colson’s stories disclose grippingly the secret of a stubborn love for principles and persons rooted in God’s unchanging love.

In Solitary Witness

by Gordon Zahn, Templegate, 1986

A humble man who served as church sexton in a little Austrian village, Frnz Jagersttter epitomized ethical conviction and courage. When the Nazis annexed his country, he alone in his community voted nein in the farce of a plebecite the invaders conducted. He also refused military service in Hitler’s army. Arrested and sent to prison in Berlin, he remained adamant in his refusal to serve the cause of tyranny. He finally was beheaded. Don’t read this biography unless you are prepared to be morally challenged by absolute integrity.

Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life

by Sissela Bok, Random House, 1979

To understand veracity, a central component of integrity, one can do no better than study this investigation of duplicity in its manifold forms. Bok, who teaches ethics at Harvard Medical School, explores the range of lying, from “harmless” falsehoods to untruth as public policy.

A person of integrity is truthful, she maintains, resolutely refusing to resort to any kind of deceit even to spare himself pain and loss. Bok raises issues that must be faced.

Honesty, Morality, and Conscience

by Jerry White, NavPress, 1978

Now the international director of The Navigators, Jerry White in this wide-ranging inquiry applies the absolutes of the Word of God to the everyday problems of Christian decision making. He does so with illustrations that render abstract principles both concrete and conscience probing. He indicates how scriptural standards, admittedly demanding, can be worked out in business, in the home, in education, and-yes!-in the church.

A Man for All Seasons

by Robert Bolt, Random House, 1966

This play dramatically retells an episode in English history that arouses powerful emotions of shame, anger, pity, and admiration. Thomas More, Henry VIII’s number one official, is an extraordinarily gifted man at the apex of political power. But faithful to the doctrine of his church, he is unable to sanction his monarch’s proposed divorce, which of course will allow Henry to remarry.

Thomas obeys God and conscience, although by so doing he arouses the king’s murderous rage. He topples from prestige into a prison cell, brings disgrace on his family, and ends up dead. With moving pathos, the play comes to a soul-wrenching denouement, leaving readers searching their own souls. How much is a person willing to compromise simply to survive?

Leadership Spring 1988 p. 67

- More from Vernon Grounds

Pastors

LEARNING THE HARD WAY

Gregory P. Elder

After finishing my first term as an assistant clergyman, working under the direction of an older (and wiser) minister, I listed a few of the mistakes I found myself making in my early days. And here’s what I’m trying now to avoid.

1. Allowing a small number of people to take up large amounts of time. Somewhere I picked up the idea that an hour-long appointment means sixty minutes, but not everyone in the church sees it that way.

There are some genuinely needy people who need to see us and unwittingly take advantage of our time. These are the souls who come about one problem and end up telling their life story and a number of religious and political opinions. When they find out we’re available to listen to such ramblings, they show up frequently.

Yes, some problems take a long time to discuss, and some people need more than an hour. But most need either a second appointment later on or a resolute hand to the door when the time is up. This requires firmness, and it is not easy to do without feeling rotten. But ask yourself if they would have this much to say to a psychologist or a lawyer who was charging them by the clock.

2. Allowing dependency relationships to form. It is easy to be flattered into thinking “I am the only person who can really help” (or convert or heal or counsel or . . .). Needy people often encourage this attitude; they may even believe it themselves. And the newly ordained are quite vulnerable to this since we long to be of service.

But this, too, is vanity, for ministry is something that belongs to the entire church. There are a few people who will have a singular relationship to the pastor, but most people can be helped by any number of competent, caring persons. When we develop a string of people who can or will be ministered to by ourselves and none other, we do both them and the church a great disservice.

3. Becoming the pastor of the “loyal opposition.” Every parish has a certain percentage of people who think the senior pastor is a terrible, uneducated loafer who really ought to be dismissed. And every minister in the world has enough faults to give this group boxes of ammunition.

One of their favorite games is to lure the assistant into their camp. With praise for us and legitimate criticism of the boss, they hope to have a pet pastor of their own. Even where this does not threaten to divide the congregation, it is spiritually deadly.

If people are really that hurt by a particular minister, they leave and go to another church. But people who choose to remain in a congregation where they are terribly unhappy have unresolved problems that a novice minister cannot solve. It is better to refuse to listen to them unless the other clergy are involved in a grave scandal.

4. Not talking seriously with other young clergy. Some clergy see a lot of each other, but a great deal of that time is spent catching up on the news or discussing the new organ, not ministering to one another. This is not all wrong; “shop talk” is necessary. But we also need opportunities to meet and speak on a private basis.

When I was ordained, a group of us spoke of organizing a fellowship group for assistant and junior clergy and church leaders in our area. We never did, and this was a mistake. It would have been a good idea to meet on a regular basis to exchange horror stories, compare notes on bosses, talk about ideas, and pray together. I look back on some of my friends who have left the area, or the ministry altogether, and think of how such a group could have supported them through difficult waters.

Real fellowship is difficult. It involves trust, and patience, and time. It requires people with whom we have something in common. Most of us have a limited supply of these. But now I’m more willing to work toward fellowship because I realize how much I need it.

5. Neglecting my family. We’ve all heard this warning over and over. Yet how easy it is to forget.

In my case, I wasn’t aware I was ignoring my wife until the day the parish secretary buzzed me to say my two o’clock appointment had arrived. I told her to send the person in, and in came my wife to complain to her pastor about “my husband who is ignoring me.” She made her point. After all, church appointments and committees come and go, but “a good wife who can find? She is more precious than jewels” (Prov. 31:10).

The rite of ordination does not override the rite of marriage. Both are noble callings, and one is not the “higher calling.” Both were instituted by God for the sanctification of his people. By some curious act of his grace, this sanctification includes the clergy.

6. Fearing the local barons. Every parish has its influential people, many of whom have the ear of the senior pastor. These are the people who decide your salary and the amount of time you have off. They’ve seen many assistant pastors come and go. Their opinions on your sermons, pastoral care, spouse, and automobile carry weight with many other people. They are, admittedly, a formidable lot. It is easy to try to avoid them, or to say and do what you think they want.

As I look back over my first two years, however, most of them respected me more when I disagreed with them than when I did not. Not always, but I survived the disagreement. People who are really powerful actually do not have much to fear from novice clergy; it is the people who want to be powerful who are the greatest threat.

7. Arguing over small issues. Of course, fresh out of seminary, you don’t think they’re small at the time. But looking back, I am embarrassed about the issues over which I took the senior pastor to task. I still have not changed my mind on most of those issues. If I ever have a parish of my own, I will certainly do things differently. But they were not issues worthy of ruining his morning. More serious still is that fighting over the location of a chair in the sanctuary rendered me unable to really make a point in more serious debate. Even with older clergy, there is “a time for war and a time for peace” (Eccles. 3:8).

The way to tell the difference between a large and a small issue is to ask ourselves what we would be willing to suffer in defense of that particular opinion. Would I take a cut in pay if the parish let me choose the hymns? Would I shave off my beard to get a guitar into the Sunday service? How many personal books would I burn to establish a new wedding or baptismal policy? Questions like these have a way of putting things into perspective.

8. Talking too much. One of the dangers of being ordained is that people tend to listen to us. Few people (except other clergy) interrupt us. They want to hear our opinions on a variety of issues. Since we have one or two college degrees under our belts, people often assume we know something. The temptation is to use the opportunity to pass off personal opinions as the Word of God.

We may know more about doctrine than many of our flock, but the fact is they know a lot about the world. James 1:19, I had to learn, applies especially to young ministers: “Be quick to hear, slow to speak.” If we are not sure of our facts on a given matter, we should say so. People will probably find out anyway.

9. Not reading. It was odd to me how easy it was to stop studying after ordination. One might have thought that after years of study, habits of regular study had been formed. But as it turned out, it was all I could do to get the notes together for the Bible study or sermon. Why?

The problem with study habits (and devotional habits) formed in seminary is they are most suitable for seminary. In no other place do we have the time to think, pray, and discuss theology as we did there. (It didn’t seem like it at the time, did it?) In the parish, whole new patterns have to be established, because the old seminary patterns don’t hold up.

When I was ordained, I promised I would spend one day a week in study. For a while I managed it, but the time soon became diverted. Finally I did no academic work at all, and my preaching showed it. It was only when I set a modest but workable schedule that reading again became possible. On the advice of another priest, I scheduled single hours of reading into my appointment book each week and treated those hours as appointments.

10. Taking myself so seriously. When I look at some of the photographs taken of me four years ago in my new clerical collar, I am embarrassed. I was so correct, so precise, so proper. The way to live with that kind of past is to enjoy the laugh.

Someone once said that Satan fell by gravity. Certainly many of us in the clergy take ourselves too seriously as well. Surrounded with the problems of parish life, it is hard not to. But my parishioners remember the jokes in my sermons better than my serious stories. Perhaps in this troubled age, it will be mirth that will communicate the gospel.

And one of the best sources of humor may wind up being me. It’s just beginner’s pluck.

-Gregory P. Elder

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church

Del Mar, California

- More from Gregory P. Elder

Pastors

THE WHIMSICAL SEVEN

Jim Berkley

A look at the cartoonists whose pens loose your laughter.

You may have wondered, as we did, if LEADERSHIP cartoonists actually look like their characters. The answer is no-well, not exactly. Bron Smith’s head isn’t shaped like a cactus, Mary Chambers doesn’t have several chins, and Ed Koehler’s hair doesn’t look like a Brillo pad in a wind tunnel. So in that respect they aren’t as we had imagined. But they are funny-if not funny looking.

Recently, seven popular contributors to LEADERSHIP’s humor gathered for what Mary Chambers’s husband, Tim, termed “the first Christian cartoonists’ convention in two thousand years of church history.” The LEADERSHIP editors joined them for the historic occasion and came away with new appreciation for the creativity, humor, and Christian spirit of these gifted individuals.

Knowing how much you enjoy their work (If we hear one more “Oh, LEADERSHIP articles are fine, but it’s the cartoons we love,” we’re going to take drawing lessons!), we decided to introduce you to some of the people whose cartoons are taped to your study door.

Associate editor Jim Berkley wrote the profiles, and to give you better insight into their twisted . . . er, talented minds, we asked each cartoonist to draw a self-portrait, which you see with their photos. Mary Chambers worked into the night that evening to capture the gang in the accompanying group portrait.

Mary Chambers

“I had never met another cartoonist until today,” Mary confessed at the gathering. “I’ve always wondered how other people cartoon. I’ve never had any formal art training, so when I was told to bring a portfolio to this meeting, I wondered, What’s a portfolio? I keep my drawings in an olive oil can.”

That’s Mary Chambers-friendly, self-effacing, delightfully candid. And tremendously popular with LEADERSHIP readers. Her portrait of a preacher practicing a fiery “Brimstone!” in front of a mirror captured national honors a few years ago from the Evangelical Press Association.

Mary, Tim, and their four young children are well along in converting what Mary called “a pitiful old house” in Alba (outside Joplin), Missouri, into their home. Tim now divides his time between ministering and nursing, but back in his school days, Mary’s cartoons provided some of the diaper money.

Although she’s now been published in several other magazines, Mary’s first cartoons appeared in LEADERSHIP. Her father, Christian Church minister Boyce Mouton, talked her into drawing his ideas. Before long, Mary was coming up with her own gags. It came naturally for her.

“My father, my father-in-law, my husband, and my brother are ministers,” she explained. “I guess a lot of the people I bat ideas around with live through the ups and downs of church life all the time. You get together, and ideas start building. The humor just emerges.”

Tim added, “It’s a great way to make fun of the members of her family!”

The honor of being parodied isn’t confined to her family, however. “My brother will look at one of my cartoons and say, ‘That’s So-and-so, isn’t it?’ ” Mary smiled and added, “I’ll say, ‘Shhhhh!’ At times, my father has feared for my life had my cartoons gotten into the wrong hands!”

But Mary can laugh at herself. She described one cartoon she drew for Partnership: “It was a self-portrait of sorts, a woman in church with several little kids. One’s trying to pull up her skirt, one’s undressing, and one’s crawling away underneath the pew. Clear at the other end of the pew, someone’s holding out the Communion tray, expecting her to come and get it.

“Sometimes, I’d judge other women because their kids were so out of control. I’d think, I know what THAT kid needs! When I had children of my own, I changed my tune. Now I say, ‘Well, they’ve been playing with the elders’ kids!’ “

“I cut my own teeth on the back of the pews,” Mary said. “But there came a point when I noticed some of my ‘Christian teeth’ were getting loose. I started going through all the things I’d been taught and asking, ‘Do I believe that?’ I had to decide whether a belief was something I believed or something my parents believed.

“The thing my parents taught me was not so much what to believe but where to look. In the last ten years I’ve found my faith-my faith, not one handed to me. I have my permanent teeth now, and I can say about Christianity, ‘I believe.’ “

Mary’s church benefits from her talents. “There is such a need for artwork in churches,” she said, “an incredible range from dart boards for the carnival to illustrations for newsletters and Sunday school. I’ve done a lot of things like coloring books for children. It’s so much fun.”

Being so intimately involved with the church, Mary also understands the down side. “We’ve come through some hard times in our congregation the last year,” she said, “and many things haven’t been that funny to me. People keep coming to me with ideas, and they’ll say, ‘Isn’t this funny?’ And I’ll think, No, that’s not funny; I just lived through it last week!”

After LEADERSHIP publishes cartoons, the cartoonists retain the copyright, and they greatly appreciate people requesting permission for reprints. “My favorite request came from a fellow who called from a church in California,” said Mary. “He said, ‘I really enjoy your work.’ And, being gracious, I said, ‘Oh, thank you so much.’ Then he asked if he could reprint some of my work in the church newsletter, and I told him to feel free to help himself to whatever he wanted.

” ‘Don’t you need to know which ones?’ he asked. I said, ‘If you’d like; it might be interesting.’ So he read off a caption. ‘That was Rob Portlock’s [another LEADERSHIP cartoonist],’ I told him. He read me another, and I said, ‘That was Portlock’s, too.’ He read me a third. ‘That also was Portlock’s,’ I informed him. Then with mock indignation I said, ‘You’ve been enjoying someone else’s work!’ He was mortified. It was one of the highlights of my career.”

Doug Hall

“I was a church janitor when I was in high school,” admitted Doug Hall. “It was a large church, and as janitor, you get to see everything-such as the different side of people who get locked out of their meeting rooms. You empty the pastor’s wastebasket, and ‘Oh my! What’s that I find?’ It gave me the backstage view.”

Doug, whose mother is a Christian education pastor and father a seminary professor, is no newcomer to church life. He became a Christian at ten, attended a Christian college, and served a stint editing Vital Christianity, the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana) magazine. Now, rather than pushing a broom, he’s pushing a pen as a professional cartoonist. You may soon find “Simple Beasts,” his recently syndicated cartoon strip, in your newspaper. He and his wife, Cindy, live in Silver Spring, Maryland, and attend Third Street Church of God in Washington, D.C.

Doug is seriously funny. His strategy: “A good cartoonist really tries to understand people-why they do the things they do, even the irksome things. Once you understand, then it’s easy to forgive-and to find the humor in the situation. That’s what mellows cartoons, takes the jagged edges off sarcasm or parody.

“When I get an idea, I sit down and work on it with the white page just staring up at me. Often I come up with two or three horrible ways to take the idea, but I find if I stick with it and push past that barrier of stereotypical humor, there are better ideas beyond. The hard thing is staying on task past that discouraging beginning.”

Moving a concept from “pretty good” to “right on target” is Doug’s desire. “I once read an article that suggested that those who want to be cartoonists should draw their first five hundred cartoons and throw them in the wastebasket. [Some cartoonists cruelly suggested that the LEADERSHIP editors perform this service for them.] In a way that makes sense. Lots of times the ideas on the very surface are superficial, and they have so much less to say than the ones we really have to work on.”

Doug’s character Mrs. Thundermuffin comes to mind. This grandmotherly type has been seen standing on the pastor’s desk pulling his tie to get her way. After first invoking the Fifth Amendment when we asked if Mrs. Thundermuffin were anybody he knows, Doug replied that she “would be a composite of many of the strong personalities I’ve encountered, who on the surface seem meek and mild but pack a punch when you get right down to it. They’re the real power in some churches.”

Doug’s cartoon pastors, however, are no wimps. His own favorite cartoon depicts a stern pastor leaning over the pulpit, telling his congregation, “God loves you, but don’t let it go to your head.”

“Sometimes,” Doug explained, “that message does come across-‘Remember that it’s there, but don’t take it too far.’ We have a hard time accepting God’s grace.”

Doug doesn’t want his cartoons to be page filler. “Candor is one of the elements of good cartooning,” he said. “I don’t want people to say about my cartoons, ‘I’m not sure that’s the way things are.’ I try to be honest about my own struggles and the struggles I see my brothers and sisters having. Then if somehow I can make those struggles humorous, they’re easier to take.”

To test his effectiveness, Doug has a benevolent critic-his wife. “When I finish a batch of cartoons, I give them to Cindy. Then I go into the next room. If I hear at least two chuckles and a snort, I consider it a successful batch.”

Ed Koehler

The Book of Romans and some people who cared enough to share the gospel with him transformed Ed Koehler from a nominal churchgoer into an active layman. Here’s how Ed tells the story:

“Although I was raised Catholic, my faith wasn’t personalized until I was 19. Following high school, for some reason, I had become extremely concerned with reality. I wasn’t quite sure, believe it or not, that I existed. It sounds silly now, but this was a big question for me. I’d wake up in the middle of the night thinking, Am I here? For years I didn’t really live; I just existed. But then I began to worry that I wasn’t even doing that!

“God did what comes most natural to him: he stretched out his arm to save, leading me to the Bible. In Romans the idea of free salvation began to make a lot of sense. Soon after that I became a Christian. Or, in keeping with my Calvinist beliefs, the Holy Spirit opened my eyes. Through my wife, Judy, I wound up in the Presbyterian Church in America, in which I presently serve as an elder.”

Such service often provides Ed material for his cartoons. In fact, it sometimes gets him in trouble. “A couple of times,” Ed said, “people have been quick to point out that the cartoons originated in our congregation, and it gets a little ticklish. One man actually seemed offended.

“It involved the first cartoon LEADERSHIP used. It showed one person sitting in a large sanctuary and some new people being welcomed at the back. The cutline said: ‘Welcome to First Church, where we’re more concerned about quality than quantity.’

“The man said to me, ‘I certainly hope that’s not talking about our church!’ With all the innocence I could muster, I said, ‘Ohhh, no.’ The building, though, did look a little like our church . . .”

Although being active in his church and working for Concordia Publishing House in St. Louis, Missouri, certainly provide ideas and a strong dose of reality for Ed’s cartoons, some ideas simply pop into his mind. His creative technique? “Mostly I sit at the drawing board and start doodling, trying to come up with silly-looking people and pictures. Hopefully, somewhere in the process of doodling and thinking about the church, I come up with a cutline that brings it all together.”

Ed’s experience teaching children while still a young Christian provided the idea for his favorite cartoon. “I was about 21 years old, just beginning to attend church with my girl friend (now my wife), and they asked me to teach Sunday school. I did enjoy meeting the children, but I had no idea how to cope with a roomful of wild children-who probably knew more about the Bible than I did.

“It’s odd that immediately after you become a Christian or get involved in a church, one of the first things they want you to do is teach a children’s Sunday school class-probably one of the toughest jobs in Christendom. ‘Aw, he’s been a Christian a few hours. Let’s have him teach!’

“That’s why I particularly like my cartoon in which a man is climbing up a rough mountain, and a guru standing in front of a group of children at the top says, ‘Welcome, O weary searcher for truth. Have you ever worked with kids?’ “

Ed draws for more than laughs. “With my cartoons, I’d like to see the result that we would decrease that Christ might increase. What I mean is that we take some of the things about ourselves-our subculture, how we dress or talk or hang onto traditions-a little less seriously. As we begin to chuckle at ourselves, then, hopefully, we’ll take Christ and his gospel and the kingdom with a lot more seriousness.”

Ed is grateful to Judy not only for providing him with a church (and two daughters), but also for her assistance with his cartoons. “I usually type his gag lines,” she said, and then with slight exaggeration added, “but he pays no attention to my advice.”

Ed set us straight. “She has a degree in communication, so she’s a wonderful editor of my verbose gag lines. I’ll have paragraphs, and she chops them down to the bare minimum.” And then with a twinkle in his eye, Ed couldn’t resist adding, “Then it’s up to me to try to reinsert some humor!”

Bron Smith

In his church in Puyallup (pronounced Pew-AL-up), Washington, Bron Smith shares the children’s sermon duties. Usually he gets time to prepare, but not always. “One Sunday the youth pastor came up to me before the service and said, ‘All set with the children’s sermon?’ I looked at him wide-eyed, and then Jacquie, my wife, remembered she had forgotten to remind me it was my Sunday. So the youth pastor asked, ‘Well, are you gonna wing it or am I?’

“I told him, ‘Tell you what: Just before it’s time to do the children’s sermon, I’ll nod yes or no.’ I didn’t get a lot out of the early part of the service as my mind raced to come up with something, but I finally nodded yes. I used a series of vocal sound effects that went with various animals. I said something about the traits of the various animals, amused the kids with the sound effects, and then told how those traits were God’s special way of taking care of the animals. Then I said God gave us a soul as a special way of adapting so that we can spend an eternity with him.”

When we pressed Bron about the sound effects, he demonstrated a couple for us. We can’t spell them for you, but let’s just say that one sounded like a cross between an owl taking flight and a motor scooter with a flat tire.

Such creativity is typical of multitalented Bron. Now a free-lance illustrator and the father of two sons of his own, he achieved Northwest fame as “Captain SeaTac,” the host of a children’s show on a Tacoma television station.

Sequim (pronounced Skwim-really, we’re not making these up!), Washington, where Bron’s father is a long-time church elder, was Bron’s childhood home. After a tour of duty in Vietnam, he settled in Los Angeles, where he began his work as an illustrator. There he became involved in a Christian and Missionary Alliance church in Pasadena. He has been active in churches ever since, teaching and leading in worship.

Bron enjoys sharing his talents with budding cartoonists. For the last few years he has taught cartooning for Sunday school teachers at the Greater Tacoma Sunday School Convention. “Every year I have three or four cartooning workshops. They’ve been well attended, because people like to get a shake-and-bake cartooning course. Then they can go into their Sunday school classes and do whatever’s necessary to increase the attention span of their students.”

Bron has two favorite places to go for inspiration: a coffee shop and his parents’ orchard. “Maybe I’ve got a morbid sense of humor, but the last batch of cartoons I sent LEADERSHIP all got rejected,” Bron told the other cartoonists, who all laughed a knowing laugh. “To conceive them, I went out in my parents’ orchard. The way I do it is to take my mind into the sanctuary and examine with my creative imagination everything I envision. I try to twist it around-such as the pastor doing something familiar, like saying, ‘Next Sunday, I’ll be on vacation,’ but his wife is the only one in the congregation. I’ll tumble those ideas until nothing more comes to mind. Then I take my thoughts into the boardroom and try to juxtapose situations. If you have a sense of humor and sensitivity to the ridiculous, something funny will click.”

Then Bron turned to the editors: “Of course the ultimate judges are these four people here. I’m glad they enjoy what I call zany art. Only in the last few years have I been able to draw the way I really enjoy-and still find a Christian market for my work. It’s a rare privilege to be able to use an out-of-the-ordinary gift for God’s glory-and for it to be a ministry.”

Rob Suggs

When Rob Suggs was in seminary, he had a recurring fear that he would sabotage his own sermons by hesitancy and indecision. “I was afraid I’d so want people to see both side of issues that I would never really say anything strongly,” Rob confessed.

That fear helped Rob produce one of our favorite cartoons. A despondent preacher sits at his desk in front of a plunging attendance graph. His associate is consoling him. The cutline: “I’m no expert, Joe, but perhaps you shouldn’t close each sermon with ‘But then again, what do I know?’ “

“I couldn’t decide if it was really funny,” Rob recalled, “but since it was so autobiographical, I was pleased when LEADERSHIP used it. I like my cartoons to be funny and say something at the same time.” But Rob cherishes no pretense.

“In the great scheme of the kingdom of God, the work we do is rather insignificant. It has little to do with evangelism or missions or anything truly important. However, the Bible presents mankind in a totally realistic way, more so than any other piece of literature. Maybe as cartoonists we’re helping affirm the fact that man is fallen-and yet there is hope. That’s where the laughter is. It wouldn’t be funny if there weren’t hope. We look at life from the perspective of redemption despite being fallen.”

Rob stopped at this point and asked, “Am I sounding too pretentious?”

Somebody responded, “But then again, what do I matter?”

Being the product of a southern church subculture, Rob considers himself at somewhat of a disadvantage. “I’m a Southern Baptist,” he said, “and as such was saved in the womb! And because we’re such a big denomination, I’ve found I tend to think the way Southern Baptists do things is the way everyone else does them. I’ve had to broaden my terminology for a wider audience.

“As a member of large churches-four or five thousand members-I always enjoyed hanging out with the staff members. Other kids liked football players and policemen and cowboys; I liked youth directors, church janitors, secretaries-whoever would talk to me. They helped get me interested in the church subculture.”

After eight years in a family manufacturing business, Rob joined the ranks of the church-employed in 1987, serving as a singles pastor. He’s now splitting his time between cartooning and singles ministry at First Baptist Church of Jonesboro, Georgia. He and Gayle, his wife of a year, live in Atlanta.

Being involved in church work has changed his outlook: “For me, most of the fun in cartooning is not the drawing process, which is rather agonizing; it’s that process in which I try, like a computer hacker, to tap into the unique thought processes of a pastor. I think, What would be the frustrations of someone on church staff? That’s hard when you haven’t been there.

“I used to sit in the pew as a cartoonist (They haven’t yet made us sit anywhere else!) and tend to visualize the pastor as someone who stands behind the pulpit, because that’s all I’d seen. But during the last year on a church staff, I’ve begun to see things from behind the scenes.

“One of my recent cartoons had to do with all the ministers in town gathering in an abandoned warehouse on their day off, until they were found by a band of villagers and their dogs. I never would have thought of that if I hadn’t experienced Mondays when the phone kept ringing, everyone assuming I want to continue to talk about church work instead of cartoon on my day off. So I drew that cartoon out of frustration.”

How else has being an “insider” in church life changed his viewpoints? “I think I’ve become less pointed-especially from being in counseling situations and seeing people as individuals. That’s made me think twice about some kinds of humor.

“For instance, some of the singles in my group are 95 years old-at least-and one of our favorite stereotypes is little old ladies. I’ve begun to see them as unique individuals rather than stereotypes. I’ll probably continue to use the stereotype from time to time, but knowing some grand old ladies will make me use it more carefully.”

Cartoonists learn to dispense knowledge of their talents cautiously, as Rob found out a few years ago. “One summer when I was a youth director, word got out that I could do chalktalk Bible stories for the children. I was immediately drafted for vacation Bible school. I’d walk into a room, the teacher would say what the Bible story was for that day-such as Noah’s ark-and I’d have to tell the story and draw it. After the first couple of classrooms that morning, I began to pray, ‘Dear Lord, don’t let the next class be studying Malachi!’ After that, I began to keep it a secret that I was a cartoonist.”

Sorry, Rob. Word’s out.

Larry Thomas

When LEADERSHIP was launched in 1980, cartoons-effective, insider-perspective cartoons-were to be a mainstay. But there was one problem: Where do you find such cartoons?

Larry Thomas was one of the answers. The launch team came up with many of the first cartoon ideas, and they counted on Larry to make them work visually. He was an obvious choice, well known from his work with Christian publishers in the area.

But Larry was a little wary about the arrangement. “I wasn’t too impressed with what I’d seen of Christian cartooning. I expected it to be a rehash of dreary, trite humor, badly drawn. But that’s not at all what happened. I’ve seen such growth in the LEADERSHIP cartoonists. They’ve displayed drawing skills that match what I find in the secular world.”

Larry lives in Elgin, Illinois, with his wife, Jeanne, and two daughters. There he operates his own graphic arts studio. Like many others, Larry grew up in the church, “but I didn’t particularly buy into it. But through various experiences, I discovered the kind of faith I had wasn’t real, and somehow I was going to have to develop one I could live with. Finally I did find my faith, surprisingly enough, when I was teaching a Sunday school class. It was crazy: I was the one who supposedly had some answers for the kids, yet only in that experience did the facts finally mean something for me.

“What I now do in the way of humor comes out of what I know and can appreciate and love. I’m not out to make fun of people; I hope to be laughing with them at the things we all recognize as funny.”

Larry provided an example from his own teaching experience: “I once had a class with twenty-eight seventh- and eighth-grade boys in a room a little larger than a broom closet. I remember how inept I felt as a teacher as my style swung between lenience that led to pandemonium and Nazi-style control by intimidation.

“So I drew a cartoon with the teacher utilizing what looked to be a subtle disciplinary measure: under each kid was a trap door leading to places unknown if they but opened their mouths. That was fun to draw because I thought that teachers would definitely understand. I was actually making fun of myself.”

For Larry, that gentle, often self-effacing feel is one of the distinguishing marks of Christian humor. “We’re not trying to hurt someone when we expose the humor in some event or relationship. Ultimately we’re using humor for all the right purposes: so that people can enjoy what’s around us. We don’t try with a feeling of superiority to stick it to people.”

Most cartoonists labor in obscurity, their pens and drawing boards (and occasional royalty checks) their only companions. Months after ink was lovingly applied to paper, people open a magazine and break into laughter. But the cartoonist doesn’t often receive the satisfaction of hearing it. Living nearby and being able to deliver his cartoons to the LEADERSHIP offices in person gives Larry a unique pleasure: actually hearing the guffaws produced by his work.

“I get immediate feedback. When they like it, that’s great. Of course, it also can be difficult when I get the feeling I should have left some of them home. But talking with real people makes it easier than getting it through the mail.”

Jeanne offers Larry a primary screening method. “She’s kind about the cartoons she doesn’t like,” Larry noted. “She has a sound that goes ‘Ummmmmmm.’ When I hear that, I know it’s a loser. I’ve got piles of ummmmmm cartoons at home.”

Ron Wheeler

“I’m still searching for the perfect place to be creative,” Ron Wheeler lamented. “I can’t find it.”

He has, however, found a career in Christian cartooning. But getting to where he is now-husband to Cindy, father, active churchman-wasn’t all that easy. Ron described the bumps and turns:

“When I was growing up, my family went through a church split and then just didn’t go to church. I came to Christ later at a low point in my life when I really needed him. I had been working in the business world, but things fell apart there. So I went back to the one thing I knew I could do: cartooning. I’d had a successful comic strip in college, so I moved to Kansas City to camp on the doorstep of a syndicate there to sell my strip. After initial interest, they told me it ‘wasn’t marketable.’ That was the low ebb of my life.

“I’d begun going to church and praying by that point, but I didn’t have much understanding of who Jesus was. I was trying to tug him on a leash, saying, ‘Make me a cartoonist. I want to go this way!’ But circumstances pushed me to the point where I said, ‘God, I give up.’ The next day I applied for a job sweeping floors at a company across the street from my apartment, because I couldn’t find work anywhere. It turned out to be an audio-visual production company. When they asked me what I’d been doing and I told them about my comic strip, they said, ‘We’ve been looking for a cartoonist for three months.’ They sent me home to do a test drawing and hired me later that day. I’ve been doing cartoon work full-time ever since.

“I think God wanted to answer that prayer for me to be a cartoonist, but he wanted something more. He wanted me. And he couldn’t get me until I came to the point where I had no other choice but to submit to him. It’s been exciting to see how God moves, opening doors where he wants me to go.”

Besides LEADERSHIP cartoons, Ron has many other irons in the fire, including a regular cartoon strip in Teens Today, a weekly Nazarene youth magazine. Through his work, Ron hopes to accomplish more than a few laughs. Ron caught an interesting angle on spiritual gifts recently in the cartoon he picked as his favorite for LEADERSHIP. One man is shaking another’s hand and saying, “Hi! I’m the chairman pro tem. of the church bulletin selection subcommittee to the worship commission. What’s your gift?” With a friendly grin, Ron, an elder in his local church, has successfully kidded us about one of our churchly idiosyncrasies.

Ron has another trick for finding church humor. “Frustration,” he claimed, “serves as a good indicator of hidden humor. If you’re frustrated over a situation, chances are you can relieve that tension by laughing at it. So I recall frustrating situations from the past and see where in them the humor is lurking.”

Where does cartooning stand in the great scheme of things? “Cartoons are a tremendous communication vehicle. We live in a sensory-oriented culture-the information age-so there’s a lot of competition for people’s attention. Cartoons can more than hold their own in that marketplace of attention. Everybody likes to laugh. And no matter what their age, people read cartoons, whether they admit it or not. It’s the first thing they read. So I’d like to see more Christian cartoons. I see cartooning as a way to bring back values so lacking in our world today.”

- More from Jim Berkley

Pastors

AN AIDS POLICY: TWO CHURCHES’ SEARCH

Peter Pendell and Dennis Sawyer

What official stance should a congregation take toward members with AIDS?

AIDS-it’s always fatal; there’s no known cure. Once confined primarily to homosexuals and drug abusers, it is now gaining ground beyond those groups. Local churches will soon encounter the problem face to face-if they haven’t already.

How should a church minister to those with AIDS? To what extent can it let them participate in fellowship without endangering others? Do other parishioners have a right to know who in the congregation has AIDS? What approach best blends caution and compassion?

The accounts below describe how two different churches tackled this issue. The first is Millington Baptist Church in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, a suburban congregation previously unfamiliar with such problems. Pastor Peter Pendell candidly recounts the fears they felt as they sought to minister to a family with AIDS.

Millington Baptist Church

We thought we were safe, tucked away in our corner of the world, telling one another that sex outside marriage and the illicit use of drugs were anathema. We thought the AIDS virus had been stopped at the door by these ushers of chastity and self-control.

But Bill Miller knocked on the door of our church, and we welcomed him. He attended with some regularity, enough so that we learned of his struggle with intravenous drug abuse. After a period of absence, Bill returned with his bride, Jane, and her 4-year-old daughter, Tammy. Just months after Bill and Jane trusted Christ as their Savior, Bill learned that his former wife had tested positive for the AIDS virus. Seeing the possibilities, Bill and Jane, who were now expecting a child, were tested and found to be carriers of the virus. At birth, their son, Michael, joined his parents in that dreaded condition.

The situation drew our leadership into the most difficult decision-making process I have ever witnessed in a local church.

Critical Issues

Consider the issues that battled one another:

Confidentiality. Did we have the right to reveal the Millers’ condition, and if so, to whom? The year was 1984, and much less was known about AIDS than is known today. Fear was widespread. Public disclosure would probably mean Bill’s losing his job, Tammy’s removal from school, and the family’s social ostracism. Bill gave us permission to inform a small circle of friends in the church who had helped him through prior crises. As could have been predicted, that circle grew to include those who were not so sympathetic. We were left with the further difficulty of a congregation in which a significant number knew of the problem but many did not. Those who disagreed with our quiet posture threatened to tell friends who were as yet uninformed.

The right to know. What was our obligation to others who could conceivably become infected? Many were convinced then, as they are now, that the virus could be transmitted by nonsexual contact. I remember well the shock of one mother who had just learned of the problem: “How dare you fail to inform us of something so dangerous?” I was torn by the potential consequences of our silence: spreading infection, an exodus of families, growing mistrust, and even lawsuits. We were already seeing a gulf develop between those who wanted to restrict the Millers and those who wanted a completely open door.

I did break my code of silence once as I learned that an uninformed woman was due to take a prepared supper to Bill and Jane. I personally felt no great danger visiting them in their apartment, but I knew others would. In a sincerely broken response, the woman said, “I just can’t do it. I can’t take the chance.” When they learned of the change of plans, Jane was saddened, but Bill was angry. He said, “Where is the love of Jesus in all this?”

Hearing that, I cried.

Truth. Can we separate the truth, the rumors, and the unknowns of the AIDS epidemic? We consulted physicians who treat AIDS patients, the Center for Disease Control, and our own county health department, but the questions persisted.

“What if an infected child bites my daughter in Sunday school or shares her lollipop?”

“How dangerous is the saliva or urine of an infected baby in our nursery?”

“Would the perspiration of an infected person carry the virus into food that is being served at a potluck?”

Pronouncements from health-care professionals do not necessarily remove all fear from lay people. A church policy must consider the fears and unknowns as well as the “facts.”

Restrictions. Are there areas of church life that must be pronounced “off limits” for this family? As the elders discussed possible restrictions, a deep sadness pervaded the room. A number were involved with Bill and his family. Each was haunted by a mental picture of Jesus’ touching the lepers of his day. Were we willing to touch the “lepers” of our day? At the same time, concern for the church at large weighed upon us.

Ultimately, we reached the conclusion that though we as Christians might decide to have close contact with the Millers, we did not have the right to make that decision for others. Based on the knowledge we then had, as well as our fear that medical science did not have enough data to define the means of transmission with certainty, we imposed the following restrictions:

1. Adults who tested positive would not be allowed to minister to children or handle food.

2. Children under the age of 7 who had tested positive, or who lived in the home of an infected adult, would not be allowed to participate in the nursery or children’s activities. (The age of 7 was chosen because we felt that bodily functions were well regulated by then, and the tendency to share food or bite could be controlled.)

3. Toilet facilities would be used only in emergencies.

The need to minister. Both Bill and Jane had recently become Christians, and Tammy was trusting Jesus as only a small child seems able. Yet the restrictions we imposed kept Tammy and Michael from close association with children their own age, and this in turn effectively cut off Bill and Jane from the life of the body.

The decision to restrict the children was most difficult for me. In hindsight, limiting the activities of an uninfected child because she lived with an infected adult seems too severe, but at the time, many thought she could become a bridge over which the virus would pass from the home to the church. We sought to establish a home Sunday school class for Tammy and had two volunteers in place, but Bill’s recurring episodes of illness kept us from proceeding. Besides, Tammy needed the socialization of Sunday school as much as the information, and we couldn’t provide that at home.

Bill and Jane were encouraged to attend church activities, but the difficulty of finding baby-sitters normally kept them home. The family needed much more than the financial support that was relatively easy to give; they needed brothers and sisters who would care for them emotionally and spiritually. They needed assurance that the family of God would stand beside them to the end. The combination of fear, confidentiality, and busy schedules kept us from effectively meeting their needs. For example, Bill was especially frustrated with the restriction on toilet facilities and after it was imposed spoke increasingly of finding another church.

After a while, the family did start to attend another church. I was hurt by what appeared to be their ingratitude for what we had done for them, but also by the unwillingness or inability of many of our people to enfold this family. I found it difficult to dispute their reason for leaving-“We want to go where we feel accepted”-but I took comfort in the knowledge that a number of our people had sacrificed for this family.

Both Bill and his former wife are dead now, and Jane and the children have moved to another part of our state. The problem is past, or is it? We are reexamining our response to Bill and Jane, recognizing the failures and seeking to formulate a more compassionate and comprehensive policy before it happens again. It will happen again.

Philadelphia Church

Philadelphia Church, in inner-city Chicago, was used to welcoming street people and already had an active ministry to homosexuals when it faced the need to formulate an AIDS policy. Pastor Dennis Sawyer tells the story.

“Pastor, the call on line three is for you, but the man refuses to identify himself.”

“This is Pastor Sawyer. May I help you?”

“Does anyone in your church have AIDS?” The voice was surly.

I offered the response that over the years has saved me not only time, but also much embarrassment: “Why do you ask?”

“I visited your church Sunday morning, and I read in your bulletin-you know, the bit that says, ‘Anyone interested in helping to draft an official church policy statement regarding AIDS,’ and then it says where to meet.” He then repeated, “I want to know if anyone in your church has AIDS. Do you think anyone with AIDS shook hands with me Sunday morning?”

“Sir,” I said, “in a city as large as Chicago, you probably encounter someone every day who has been exposed to the AIDS virus.” I attempted to explain that according to the Surgeon General and all the latest research, there was absolutely no danger of his getting AIDS from casual, nonsexual contact.

He didn’t want education, however. He only wanted to know if anyone in our congregation had AIDS.

“Sir,” I answered, “in any large church in this city, you will probably find people who have been exposed to the AIDS virus.”

“Then I’ll stay home and watch TV,” he said, and with that he hung up.

Confronting the Crisis

I wasn’t ignorant of AIDS when the epidemic first touched my life as a pastor. I had been paying close attention to the media coverage of AIDS, because our congregation has an outreach to homosexuals, and many have given up that lifestyle through the power of Jesus Christ.

It was evident from the statistics that AIDS would eventually affect everyone in the nation in one way or another. According to the Surgeon General’s report on AIDS, by December 1991 an estimated 270,000 cases of AIDS will have occurred in the United States, causing 179,000 deaths within the decade since the disease was first recognized. In the year 1991, an estimated 145,000 patients with AIDS will need health and supportive services at a total cost of $8-16 billion.

Those 179,000 deaths are equivalent to wiping out Stockton, California, or Dayton, Ohio. In comparison, 33,629 Americans died in the Korean War, and 47,321 Americans died in the Vietnam War. When those figures are added together and doubled, they still do not match the number of expected deaths by AIDS.

Troubled by the statistics, I began to educate myself regarding AIDS, so I wasn’t totally uninformed when Phillip came to see me. “Pastor, I’m worried,” he said. “Off and on for the past three months, Evelyn has been really sick. I think I may have given her AIDS.”

Phillip had become a Christian six years earlier. Delivered from an active homosexual lifestyle, he had been celibate for three years prior to marrying Evelyn. She knew about his background, and we had spent hours together in premarital counseling. However, that was before AIDS was a household term. Phillip and Evelyn had been happily married for three years, and she wasn’t evidencing the symptoms common to someone with AIDS-Related Complex (ARC). Out of concern for her, however, Phillip agreed to be tested for AIDS so that if he tested positive, we could begin taking whatever precautions were necessary. But what precautions would be appropriate?

When Phillip tested positive, I faced a number of difficult questions. Phillip’s dentist is a member of the congregation; should I say something to him? When Evelyn is feeling good, should she still work in the nursery? Should I make these decisions on my own? Should I inform the church board? What about the congregation? Do they have a right to know?

Those and other questions were swirling in my head when Martha came to see me. She had been a Christian for more than ten years, but her adult children were still running from God and living the life Martha had left.

“You know my daughter is still on drugs,” Martha said. “Well, now she is pregnant. I talked her out of getting an abortion and made arrangements with a Christian adoption agency to place the baby in a Christian home.”

“It sounds as though you’re doing the right thing,” I said.

“Well, there’s another problem. My daughter tested positive for AIDS. Now the Christian agency won’t take the baby because no one wants an AIDS baby. I don’t get it! They preach against abortion, but if a baby is born with AIDS, they refuse to get involved. Do you know of a Christian couple who would be willing to adopt a baby with AIDS?”

Her eyes started to glisten as she continued, “The baby might be born AIDS free, or it might not. No guarantees.”

“I haven’t known a baby yet who was born with a guarantee,” I answered. “I’ll see what I can do.”

More questions filled my head. Should I contact one of the childless couples in our church? Could our church handle something like this? People were picketing schools that children with AIDS tried to attend. If the baby came to our church, would anyone have to know it had AIDS? Could we let a baby with AIDS stay in our church nursery?

The Need for a Policy

At this point, I realized our church needed a policy covering these questions. I wanted it to be a policy that would hold true regardless of whether the person in question had been in our church for years and was perhaps a victim of an infected blood transfusion, or was fresh off the street.

Years ago, I learned that a truly neutral policy can be created only in a neutral environment. It’s easier to stay objective when the people who will be affected by the policy are still without names and faces, a lesson gained the hard way. For example, one time “Mrs. Smith,” a new attender, notoriously unorganized and totally lacking in basic hygiene, wanted to use the church social hall and kitchen for a private event. Over the years, the church had occasionally allowed someone this privilege, but we didn’t have a policy.

Knowing Mrs. Smith’s desire, the powers that be hastily drew up a policy for the use of those facilities, and based upon it, her request was denied.

Unfortunately, the policy was so written that when an elder’s wife and later the single adults group wanted to use the same areas, they, too, were turned down. Hurt feelings and accusations of favoritism prevailed for weeks before a truly equitable solution could be found.

Recognizing there was already hysteria surrounding the AIDS issue, we didn’t want to repeat our earlier mistakes. We had to form an AIDS policy before anyone in the congregation knew about Phillip, Evelyn, Martha, or others who may have been exposed to the virus. We wanted to determine a policy based solely upon the known facts and not upon personalities, politics, or social status.

I contacted the newly formed AIDS Pastoral Care Network here in Chicago, and they advised, “Whatever you do, don’t tackle this project alone. Form an official task force, and use it to educate your congregation.”

To start the process, I purchased copies of the booklet Confronting AIDS and gave one to each elder and member of the church staff. After they had read the booklet, I asked for permission to establish a task force that would draft an AIDS policy. The statement would then be presented to the congregation for its approval.

Invitations were sent to individuals in the church who would likely have something to contribute-health professionals, counselors, writers, educators, former drug abusers, and former homosexuals. Finally, an announcement was placed in the bulletin inviting anyone else who might be interested.

Approximately 8 percent of our Sunday morning congregation (about 40 people) attended our first AIDS task force meeting. Booklets, pamphlets, and articles were distributed with an appeal to become informed. In subsequent meetings, we discussed, argued, whittled, wrote, and rewrote.

Just prior to our third meeting, I received a call from a young man, new to the city, who was scanning the Yellow Pages for a church home. After asking questions to ascertain our theological bent, he said, “Would you allow someone with AIDS to attend your church?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because I have AIDS, and so far, the other churches have recommended I call somewhere else.”

“We would be happy to have you,” I said. “In fact, could you come to a meeting at the church tonight? We need your input on our AIDS task force.”

Jim joined the task force and soon became a Christian spokesman for people with AIDS. He has since appeared on the Oprah Winfrey program and Moody Radio and has been interviewed by Christianity Today magazine.

I was able to encourage Jim to attend our church because the members of the task force, through education, were developing compassion for individuals with AIDS. It was important to the entire group to use the proposed document as a teaching tool to stem the fear, confusion, and rejection so often associated with AIDS. It was also important to the group that the statement reflect our commitment to celibacy prior to marriage and monogamy thereafter, and at the same time clearly state that we would assist anyone regardless of personal beliefs or current lifestyle.

Finally, after six meetings, we produced a “Statement of Policies and Procedures Regarding AIDS.” (See “Policies And Procedures Regarding AIDS.”) The final draft was adopted unanimously by our church council and congregation.

What’s Happened Since

The statement includes a commitment to educate ourselves and our community. Therefore, as pastor, I have felt the liberty to invite the community to an AIDS film showing at the church, to speak to ministerial groups, to write articles, and to be involved in radio broadcasts.

The statement also calls us to minister to people with AIDS. We have established ministry teams to make initial visits, do laundry, clean houses, provide transportation, and care for the care-givers of persons with AIDS.

The greatest results of this ministry, however, have been indirect: people in the church are confessing serious needs in their lives that previously they had kept hidden. “If our church can honestly love and reach out to people with AIDS,” I frequently hear, “then maybe I can be honest about my problem.”

Our policy statement was adopted a year ago now, and the task force continues to monitor developments in AIDS research. So far they’ve seen no need to modify the statement. I’m happy to report that Phillip still shows no AIDS symptoms, and that while Evelyn is still sick, there has been no ARC diagnosis. Also, Martha’s grandchild (a girl) was placed with a Christian couple who were thrilled to get her. Although she tested positive for the AIDS antibody at birth, she’s doing fine so far, and we’re hopeful she’ll soon receive a clean bill of health.

According to Newsweek (Aug. 10, 1987), “The census of the dead stands at 22,548 now, by the government’s conservative count. As many as a million and a half more Americans are thought to be infected with the AIDS virus. Our response to AIDS will in important ways define us as a society.”

I’m convinced our response to AIDS will also help define us as a church. We hope to model Jesus’ words: “I was a stranger and you invited me in . . . I was sick and you looked after me. … ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’ “

- More from Peter Pendell and Dennis Sawyer