Pastors

TEACHING BY THE CASE

Dean Merrill

Adapted with permission from Creative Teaching Methods, (c)1985 Marlene D. LeFever (Cook).

Case studies are used widely in legal, medical, and, increasingly, in theological education. What makes them valuable? And how can case studies be used most effectively in a local congregation?

First, Garth M. Rosell, vice-president, dean, and professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, presents the case for cases.

The soil had started to crack under the hot summer sun. Thirsty animals huddled together in the shade. For weeks there had been no sign of rain. The rugged Ohio farmers, their crops and livestock now gravely endangered by the terrible drought, could think of little else as they gathered for worship that Sunday morning in 1853.

Into the pulpit came their pastor. Under his arm was an umbrella. Setting it down by the chair, he began to pray: “Lord, we do not presume to dictate to thee what is best for us. Yet thou dost invite us to come to thee as children to a father, and tell thee all our wants. We want rain! Unless thou givest us rain, our cattle must die . . . and the harvest will come to naught. It is an easy thing for thee to do. O Lord, send us rain. Send it now!”

Before he had finished his preaching, there came the unmistakable crack of thunder and the sound of rain against the roof. Charles G. Finney paused in his sermon. Then, as the congregation quietly wept, he began to sing:

“When all thy mercies, O my God,

My thankful soul surveys,

Uplifted by the view, I’m lost,

In wonder, love, and praise.”

This little incident, like so many other events that dot the landscape of Scripture and Christian history, has helped me over the years to understand something of the character of God and the nature of faith.

Not until recently, however, did I see the importance of such events for the church’s educational ministry. True biblical knowledge comes only within the context of active faith and obedience. We cannot content ourselves with simply talking about Christianity one hour a week. We need to see how it is lived out in concrete situations. In addition to our words and prayers, we could use a few more umbrellas.

Two assumptions

Such a balance of word and deed is strangely rare in our day. I am well aware how widespread and tenacious are the popular pair of assumptions about the teaching/learning process:

Assumption 1: If I have said it in class, the students have learned it. Any teacher who has read student exams could raise serious doubts about the validity of this assumption. Authentic teaching, as Christ himself modeled, is memorable teaching. When enlivened and brought to mind by God’s Spirit, such teaching can be life changing.

Some years ago, my father was asked to preach in several countries in South America. As he was packing, my younger brother came into his room with a pebble he had picked up in the yard. Handing it to Dad, he said, “I want you to put this in your pocket with your change and keys. Whenever you reach into your pocket and feel the pebble, I want you to remember I love you and am praying for you.”

Dad did so, and in the years since has often reminisced about how much it meant to him as a father-far from home and sometimes in difficult circumstances-to reach into his pocket, bump his finger against that little stone, and remember. Like our Lord’s Table, or Finney’s umbrella, the pebble became an aid to memorable learning.

Assumption 2: If I know my subject well, I will be able to communicate it effectively. When I started to teach at the seminary, I was struck by the fact I had never in my life had even a seminar-to say nothing about a complete course-on how to teach. At the graduate level, at least, the assumption seemed to be that if you knew the subject well enough, you would be able to teach it adequately. As any student can testify, however, that is simply not the case.

Obviously we must know our subjects well. On a recent visit to see John Constable’s famous Hay Wain painting on exhibit at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, I was struck by how many prior sketches and earlier paintings he had completed of the same subject. A masterpiece, whether in art, athletics, or the classroom, seems to emerge only out of long hours of hard work and diligent study.

To our knowledge of the Bible, however, must be added a knowledge of our students. If we hope to apply God’s eternal Word to their individual needs, it is necessary to know and love them in the same way we seek to know and love God’s Word. Then we can become a bridge between the two.

Becoming participants in learning

Of particular help to me in recent years has been the use of case studies-written descriptions of actual events Christians have faced. Case studies nudge students to participate in the learning process. They deal with both of the above assumptions by helping students remember and by helping me understand my students. Indeed, few educational tools open livelier classroom interaction or produce more “memorable learning” than do case studies. I’ve found they have an unusual capacity to encourage people to talk about what God is doing in their lives.

Cases, like Finney’s umbrella, remind us that our faith and learning apply directly to real life.

Where to find case studies

Many cases covering aspects of Christian faith and life are already written. Here are some sources:

Living the Bible Story by Eugene F. Roop (Abingdon, 1979).

Casebook for Christian Living: Value Formation for Families and Congregations by Louis and Carolyn Weeks and Robert and Alice Evans (Knox, 1977).

Introduction to Christianity: A Case Method Approach by Alice and Robert Evans (Knox, 1980).

Resolving Church Conflicts: A Case Study Approach for Local Congregations by G. Douglas Lewis (Harper & Row, 1981).

For more information, write the Association for Case Teaching, P.O. Box 243, Simsbury, CT 06070.

So how does a case study class session unfold? Marlene LeFever, executive editor of ministry resources at David C. Cook Publishing Co. and an experienced Christian educator, presents a sample case and how to teach it.

Justice for whom?

He was on his way home from a school yard pickup basketball game, dribbling his ball down Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, when a white teenager walked up and stabbed him once in the abdomen. The young black was seventeen when he was killed, a senior in high school.

The suspect in the killing was an eighteen-year-old who worked as a delivery boy for a local pastry shop. He lived with his aged parents in a two-bedroom apartment over a shoemaker’s shop, not four blocks from the scene of the killing.

The boy’s father answered the door. He was a frail, white-haired man in his sixties, and he spoke with a heavy Italian accent. Asked what he wanted, the detective said he had to speak to the boy about a crime that had been committed. As he stood there, the detective was embarrassed by the old man. He could see that the boy’s father did not have the slightest inkling of what this was all about, and the detective had little stomach for what he knew was about to happen.

“It’s a murder. A black kid was killed up on Arthur Avenue three weeks ago. I’ve got to talk to him about it.”

“Are you here to arrest my boy?”

“Yes, I am,” the detective said softly.

The old man looked hard at the detective. His eyes widened, but he seemed to regain control of himself. He called the boy’s name.

The boy emerged from his bedroom and walked up to his father and the detective. He was short and slender, almost fragile, dressed in blue jeans and a white T-shirt. The boy looked at the detective and then lowered his eyes. He knew what this was all about.

The old man spoke first.

“This man says you killed a black kid up on Arthur Avenue three weeks ago.”

The boy hung his head and began to cry. “Papa, I did it. I didn’t mean to do it, and I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t. It just happened. I’m sorry.” The three of them stood silently, and then the old man too began to cry. The detective waited a minute and then put the boy in handcuffs and led him away.

[The case continues in Creative Teaching Methods.]

Utilizing case studies

In using case studies, there are some specific steps that will help students get maximum benefit.

 Get the characters. The first thing a teacher will want to do with a case is read it aloud more than once, becoming familiar with the characters. What are their personalities? What do they do? With which character will most of the students identify?

 Determine the issues. What issues are obvious in this case? With which specific issues do you think your students will best relate? You will need to select the one or two issues to discuss.

In this study, for instance, we might grapple with the issue of justice. Even if the story in this case is removed from most of our students’ daily lives, it hits concepts with which they will grapple, such as how we learn to look at complete issues, rather than just the emotional bits and pieces.

 Prepare to teach the case. There’s more to teaching a case than just reading a story and getting students to talk about it. Actually it can be difficult because the teacher can never be sure what direction the students will take. Unlike lecturers who are in control of the material presented, case study teachers surrender their sovereignty while still maintaining control of the discussion.

 Decide what your learning objectives will be. You are the director of the case. It’s your job to keep this discussion on track. Contradiction: It is also your job as leader to let the case get off the track if you perceive that the class has special needs that are not being met by your prior direction.

 Write questions to spark discussion. Here are some questions that could be used with the sample case:

What things can you know about the black teen? The white teen?

Based on what you know about the case so far, how would justice best be served?

What are just and unjust possibilities for what will happen to the white teen?

Suppose this boy were to be tried by an all-black jury or an all-white jury. What do you think would happen? What if the jury were all Christians?

 Use Scripture. In a class of highly motivated students with strong Bible backgrounds, the students may pick their own Scriptures to emphasize their points. Most of the time, however, you must choose appropriate Scriptures. Consider how Micah 3:1-2, 9-12 applies: “Hear now, heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel: Are you not supposed to know justice, you who hate good and love evil?” and so on.

 Interrupt the case for discussion or other learning activities. This sample case continues on. Further segments tell about the boy getting out on bail, a psychiatrist’s report on the killer’s troubled youth, the dangers he would face in prison, the effect of the murder on both families, and the boy’s contrition.

By doling out the case segment by segment, carefully revealing additional aspects of a tangled problem, you provide windows for learning. You might discuss the problems of harsh or lenient punishment. You could have students debate an issue such as “Should the boy be sentenced to life imprisonment?” and then reopen the debate after more facts of the case are revealed. Perhaps the class could role-play how different characters might feel about the events: the father lamenting a son’s death, the judge weighing the just punishment. Many learning activities complement the case study.

 Bring what has happened to a closure. Most cases end without giving solutions, but this one, initially a magazine article, supplies one.

“The boy is currently serving a fifteen-year term in state prison. He will be eligible for parole in three years. Two months after sentence, the white youth’s father suffered a stroke. He is now an invalid. The dead boy’s brother [formerly a model student but embittered by the handling of his brother’s death] is now under indictment, charged with armed robbery. There has been no noticeable decrease in the amount of crime or racial violence in the Bronx.”

To help bring closure, questions are an excellent tool: Have you changed your ideas about justice for the killer? If so, how and why? If you were the judge, what would you decide? With the question of justice not simple at all, how can Christians dare act in complex situations like this?

Most cases are long. Because of their length, you will want to plan the entire period around them, using Bible study and discussion of biblical principles throughout. But the time is worth it. Students really learn.

Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

WHAT NEW CHRISTIANS NEED MOST

Dean Merrill

What does it take to bring a person to spiritual maturity?

Have you noticed that the most essential parts of a process are often the most complicated? It is far easier for an architect to sketch a dashing roof line than to work out the tedious schematics. It is always more fun to invite guests for dinner than to cook the meal and do the dishes afterward.

In ministry, when we invite a person to follow Christ and the answer is yes, there is a surge of rejoicing all around. Darkness has given way to light; a new life has begun. The next stage, however-the crucial stage if this spiritual newborn is to survive-is the developing, forming, nurturing, establishing, rooting, confirming, discipling of the new Christian.

As the previous sentence illustrates, we in the church use varying language to describe the task. But there is no question about the importance. From the moment Jesus stared down his most impetuous disciple and said, “Feed my lambs,” the value of caring for the spiritually young has been set. Church leaders agree that answering an evangelist’s public call is not enough. Becoming a member is not enough. Without subsequent feeding, the act of beginning becomes a dead end.

We cringe as we eavesdrop on John Wesley storming at his preachers, “How dare you lead people to Christ without providing adequate opportunity for growth and nurture. Anything less is simply begetting children for the murderer.”

And in our own time, we affirm Lyle Schaller’s premise that “it is not Christian to invite a person to unite with a specific congregation and then not accept that person into the fellowship of that congregation.”

The Daunting Task

Yet the task looms so large, so intangible, that we are not immediately sure where it starts and especially where it finishes. What does it take to bring a person to spiritual maturity? What stages of growth can we anticipate? How do we guide the new Christian from A to B to C? Do we ever reach a point where we can quit?

Any parent knows the peculiar sinking feeling that hits, often within days or weeks of bringing the firstborn home from the hospital. The celebration quiets down, the grandparents say good-by, and in the silence late at night you’re suddenly struck with the awesomeness of what it means to raise a child to adulthood. It’s up to us to do and be everything this new little life needs-from now on. Yes, there’s a pediatrician to consult (for a fee), and miscellaneous friends and relatives with free advice, and later on a school system to help educate … but the buck stops right here, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, till independence do us part.

As philosopher Michael Novak says, “The raising of children . . . brings each of us breathtaking vistas of our inadequacy.”

The rearing of spiritual offspring is, if anything, even more intimidating, since indicators are less tangible (no height-and-weight charts, no report cards) and our chances to do our work are scant compared to the twenty-four hours a day natural parents have. We all carry dreams of what we hope for: the eager, committed young Christian who devours the Scriptures on a daily basis, begins changing his or her lifestyle to match what is read, participates fervently in public worship, seeks out a place of service in the church, prays freely and sees answers to those prayers, speaks openly of his new allegiance to Christ without embarrassment. …

But deep within, we know such pleasant results are not guaranteed, and if they fail to materialize, we assume it will be more our fault than anyone else’s.

So we mull over our parenting strategies. Is it better to jar the new Christian with a sense of all-things-new? Should we meet several times a week and require homework, for example? Or does that seem cultish? Shall we rather set an easy stride (after all, these are adults) and keep things comfortable?

A wide difference of opinion exists not only on the level of intensity but where to begin. Some churches are firmly of the “learn and grow first, then serve” philosophy, while others lean strongly toward on-the-job training.

What follows are descriptions of three different “ways to raise a baby.” None would claim to be the only way. From these accounts, church leaders can study, imagine, and pick and choose, in order “to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all . . . become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:12-13).

One Friend to Another

West Valley Christian Church in Canoga Park, California, is not one of southern California’s megachurches. It began in 1976 under the leadership of church planter Glenn Kirby and is now a congregation of four hundred. Single-family homes surround the church on three sides; to the west lies a public school playground.

West Valley’s emphasis on helping new Christians grow emerged almost unintentionally. The church has had a private school almost from the beginning, and it was the first school administrator who “kept after the rest of us about the need to give people some kind of big-picture approach to the Bible,” says Kirby. “He put together some material, and we went through it as a staff. Later on, I revised it, and in January 1980, we offered our ‘Bible History Overview’ for the first time in the adult Sunday school classes.”

Kirby was not yet to the point of thinking specifically about new believers. He and Gary Olsby, then minister of Christian education, simply wanted to give members a handle on the big, thick, black Book. So they spent nine months going from Genesis through to the early spread of the church, helping people understand who lived where and who preceded whom. Were members turned off by this large a dose of history?

“Most Christians don’t have the story line in their heads,” says Kirby. “They got excited as they began to acquire the overview.” Sunday school attendance, in fact, went from 150 to 210 during those nine months.

What next? Specifically, how could newcomers to the church get the same foundation? It was at this point that a Laubach-style “each one teach one” concept entered Glenn Kirby’s mind. Before long, he and Olsby boiled down the course to a blue 61-page workbook, complete with maps, charts, and fill-in-the-blanks. The nine-month class became a set of thirteen (and later eight) lessons for informal use.

“We asked how many graduates of our Sunday school class would be willing to reteach the same material-not to a roomful, but to one or two others in their homes,” Olsby remembers. “That sounded easy enough, and fifty people said yes.”

So they were put to work. Many of them gathered their own students: friends or neighbors who responded affirmatively to the question, “My church has this eight-week Bible History Overview course; would you like for me to take you through it? We could even do it at your house if you like.” Those who lacked prospects were matched with recent visitors to the church or others who wanted to brush up on the Bible.

The course is a simple who-what-when-where. It does not attempt to cover the Old Testament’s Wisdom Literature or the writings of the prophets. Neither does it tackle the New Testament Epistles. It simply lays out a parade of people who walked with God (Enoch, Noah, Abraham . . .) and another parade of those who didn’t (Jeroboam, Manasseh . . .), showing the advantages of the first over the second.

Week by week, in homes across the Valley, interesting things began to happen. Some had more to do with evangelism than discipleship or Christian education. Rod and Rita White led five separate studies, four of which resulted in conversions and baptisms. One couple they touched were the Setsers.

“When Bonny and I came to West Valley,” says Bob Setser, “the Holy Spirit had just begun to make us aware of our spiritual needs. Bonny came from a totally nonreligious home, and I’d turned away from the church in my late teens. But we both felt a void in our lives and wondered if the Lord could fill it. After a few visits, Glenn Kirby asked if we’d like to do an overview study of the Bible with another couple as teachers. We agreed, and that’s how we met Rod and Rita. Over the next several months as the historical panorama of God’s plan was explained, the combination of the Holy Spirit’s work plus Rod and Rita’s guidance and testimony convinced us we were on the right track. Before we completed the study, we asked Jesus into our lives.”

Subsequently, the Setsers became teachers of the overview, and their first students, the Paladinos, also joined the church. The network of influence has by this time become extensive.

“This course was our evangelism program for several years,” the ministers remember. Now West Valley has developed a calling program and some other outreaches, but the overview continues to draw people toward a Christian commitment. The eighth week specifically stresses Peter’s appeal to the crowd at Pentecost (Acts 2:38), and the workbook says, “To become a Christian today, we should do the same things these people did.” This is often the point of conversion for those who haven’t reached it earlier.

After seven weeks of learning and informal conversation, this decision is not as threatening. “Sometimes a student may feel lost or be very shy,” says Olsby, “and initially the teacher must do all the talking. Other times a student can’t read very well, and the teacher must do all the reading from Scripture. But most sessions are a free-flowing discussion with plenty of time for personal questions.”

West Valley has since added a second course (taught mainly in Sunday school) that looks much like what other churches use first. “Basic Teachings of the Christian Faith” has eight lessons on prayer, the church, service, sharing your faith, dealing with temptation, and church history. A third course on spiritual gifts includes a diagnostic questionnaire to help people identify their gifts and put them to use.

“Eventually, we want all our members to go through all three courses,” says Kirby. “Together they take a beginning person from salvation through to grounding in the faith and on to serving.”

The church is now using the one-to-one concept to try to accelerate older Christians’ spiritual growth. The elders and ministers meet in pairs each week for sixty-to-ninety-minute sessions emphasizing accountability. Partners set specific weekly goals (pray with my wife five times; memorize a portion of Scripture) and pray for each other. The following week, they compare how close they came to reaching their goals. Kirby and current minister of Christian education Steve Hancock hope to have all members in these long-term partnerships eventually. That’s likely; through the Bible History Overview, West Valley members have grown accustomed to a close, one-to-one approach.

“I admit we’re tempted sometimes to form more groups rather than keep finding teachers for one-to-one sessions,” Kirby says. “But we feel we’d be giving up too many benefits.” Among them:

-More and more people gain experience teaching.

-New teachers overcome their fears, because they’re already familiar with the material and they can simply follow the workbook.

-The new believer builds a solid, close relationship with an experienced Christian.

-People are grounded in the flow of Bible history from Creation to the church.

-Instructors model how to live the Christian life and how to study the Bible, two keys to discipleship.

-It builds bridges into the church.

And the bonus is this: It seems to generate more Christians along the way.

Mainstreaming

A second approach to nurturing new believers might be called “mainstreaming,” to borrow a bit of jargon from the educational world. In recent years, many school administrators have backed away from the earlier practice of segregating students with special needs or handicaps. Instead of filling up special classrooms with atypical students, they have tried placing as many as possible in the same rooms with “normal” students, for two reasons: (1) to surround them with examples of what “normalcy” is, and (2) to heighten sensitivity among ordinary students for those with special needs.

Some church leaders are taking a similar approach to new Christians. Having set an environment that says, “We are all Christians in process, and we all have a lot to learn,” they guide new believers into the mainstream of congregational learning as quickly as possible, with a minimum of special attention.

One such church is Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto, California.

The church is not as massive architecturally as many readers of the book Body Life and others by Ray Stedman, pastor, might have imagined. Packed into the middle of a block, with less than 150 feet of frontage, the plain, 1,000-seat auditorium extends back toward parking lots that hide behind adjacent houses. A one-lane driveway snakes along one side of the building and empties out on the other. “We’re as far as we can go on this property,” says Paul Winslow, a staff pastor since 1972, “but God provided a second building (seating 450) in Cupertino, ten miles south.”

So Peninsula Bible Church has taken to providing five Sunday services, two at one location, three at another. It has also parceled its pastors out all over the peninsula, with encouragement to develop the body of Christ not just at 3505 Middlefield Road but throughout the region, from San Jose to the edge of San Francisco. More importantly, the leadership has honed a precise self-definition.

“We’re a church that ministers to believers,” says Winslow, choosing his words carefully. “The nonbeliever is never addressed corporately here; we don’t have revival meetings or altar calls, for example. All the evangelism happens ‘out there,’ in the world. And believe me, there’s plenty to do; we’re only forty miles from San Francisco, what many say is the most evil city in the world. Our area is also incredibly affluent: more Porsches and Mercedeses per capita here than in Germany. Stanford University is less than two miles away.

“How do we affect this peninsula for Christ? We’ve decided to pour all our efforts into maturing and equipping the believers. We’re not a center for evangelism but for teaching. Our goal is not for people to be won by the professional pastors but by the regular Christians-they’re the evangelizers. And when they lead someone to the Lord, they don’t hand them over to PBC for follow-up care. They involve them in the same processes that helped them grow when they were new Christians.”

Thus, the Sunday meetings are consistently geared to a single purpose: exposition of the Word. When Stedman, Winslow, or one of the others steps to the pulpit, he means to do one thing only: unfold and apply a passage of Scripture. One gets a glimpse of this when walking in the church’s front entrance: two imposing racks line the narthex walls from floor to ceiling, with slots for as many as a thousand different “Discovery Papers”-transcripts of past messages. A thirty-page index lists available titles. New Christians along with all the rest are surrounded by this abundance of Bible teaching.

On weeknights, Discovery Seminars are held at the church: two-hour classes that require tuition and run the gamut from “Friendly Toward Jesus?” (Peninsula’s sole accommodation to new Christians, offered spring term only) to “Modern Church History” to classes on hermeneutics. Other electives covering books of Scripture are offered on Sunday morning, although space is a constraint.

“The whole church gravitates toward studying and applying the Bible-it’s in the air,” says Winslow. “If you don’t enjoy that, you start to feel uncomfortable here. We don’t have enough of the other usual trappings-a large music program, gymnasium, or social activities, for example-to hold you. You get bored if you don’t get into the Word.”

One reason this works at Peninsula Bible is that its Silicon Valley constituency is highly educated, eager to read and learn for themselves. They take notes during the preaching, snap up the Discovery Papers on their way out, and may stop to buy a book in the church bookstore.

Not everyone, of course, can find his own way to grow. Pastor Ron Ritchie, who ministers to singles each Sunday in the upstairs room of the Menu Tree Restaurant in Mountain View, knows the difficulty.

“Sometimes I’ll wake up at three in the morning,” he says, “and the Lord will say to me, ‘Ron, where’s Bill?’ Then I remember I haven’t seen him in a while; he’s fallen through the cracks. I look him up as soon as I can and give some personal attention.

“In that sense, caring for the new Christian is the responsibility of us all,” he continues. “There’s no program, no delegation. But if you find the Lord at PBC-and don’t move out of the area-I can guarantee there will be more ‘food’ than you can eat. That’s our whole purpose as a church.”

What are the pros and cons of mainstreaming as a way to care for the spiritually young?

Its advantages are that it sweeps up new Christians in a mass movement of sorts, a large band of pilgrims all headed the same direction. They are not made to feel a breed apart, rookies to be given unusual treatment. They quickly rub shoulders with Christians of all types and experience, learning what they can from a multitude of sources.

Such an approach largely dismisses questions about sequence. If you happen to drop in at the point where Ray Stedman is in the eleventh week of 2 Corinthians, that’s just the way it is. The Word is alive in all its parts, and nothing will be harmful for you; the Spirit can be trusted to guide you and personalize the message as needed. Eventually, all the bases will be covered.

Some church leaders will endorse the previous paragraph, while others will not. All can probably agree that mainstreaming does require a sizable amount of weekly Bible presentation with practical application, else the bases will not be covered for a long time, and new Christians may falter. Certainly mainstreaming should not be viewed as an easy way out, and its best practitioners do not do so in the least. Their desire is rather to keep from overcomplicating the new life in Christ, to make it as natural and as accessible as possible.

The Short Course

Many churches include some kind of brief, church-based orientation class in their overall ministry to new Christians. We turn now to those for whom such a class is the prime element.

“When you finally get up the courage to try church-and you haven’t been there in years-it’s scary,” says Don Bubna, pastor of Salem (Oregon) Alliance Church. “Every human being has at least some tinge of fear at being rejected by a new group. You might manage sitting through a morning worship service all right, but beyond that . . . you’re not at all sure you’ll survive.”

That is why Bubna created “The Welcome Class,” a freewheeling, no-demand “guided happening” every Sunday morning, year round. The only qualification to attend: you must be a newcomer or visitor to the church. You’re welcome to stay as long as you wish, although you’ll notice after three months that the topics may start to recycle. It’s your special zone in which to relax, breathe, laugh, find out what the Christian life is about, get close to this church’s leadership, and begin to put down your roots.

By now Bubna has the technique down to a science. He first experimented with it while pastoring a small church in San Diego in the early sixties. When he came to Salem twenty-three years ago, the class became a permanent fixture, and today, 80 percent of the eleven hundred people who regularly attend Salem Alliance have come through this portal. Bubna calls it “the single most significant contributor to two decades of growth.”

A typical morning begins with thirty-five to fifty people entering the pastor’s study (actually a large classroom that he enjoys throughout the week in order to host the Welcome Class on Sundays). There they find an incomplete sentence on the chalkboard: “You would know me better if ____,” or “Some of the best advice I ever had was ____,” or “Something I learned from a tough experience was ____.” (On some Sundays, people are given the option of asking anything about the church’s practices or beliefs.)

While you’re thinking of your answer, the pastor, his wife, or associate teacher Darrel Dixon will put a cup of coffee or tea into your hand and introduce you to someone else nearby. Soon the session begins with the gregarious pastor saying, “I’m Don Bubna, and you’re the Welcome Class. This is a gathering of new people and visitors who meet each week to discuss things Christians commonly believe.

“It’s a place where people are important. That’s why we take time each week for each of you to introduce yourself. The open-ended statement on the board will also let you tell us a little more about yourself-if you want to. You may complete it seriously, humorously, philosophically-or just pass. Who wants to be first?”

Often one of the leadership team breaks the ice, being careful not to sound too theological. Soon the comments are flowing freely, and if somebody says he’s from Spokane, you’re welcome to find out whether he knows your cousin who lives there. It is common for someone to spill the news of a sick child, a job loss, or a family concern. Would the person like prayer about that? Someone is promptly invited to lead out.

Then comes the Scripture for the day, with Bibles handed out for those who need them. Bubna does not assume people know how to find Psalms or Acts; he guides them by saying things like “about three-quarters of the way back in the book.” Everyone reads the text silently and then frames a comment about it. There’s no lecture waiting to be unleashed, however. The teaching is done via discovery, with plenty of give-and-take, and frequent life application.

Says Tom Riordan, a lapsed Catholic whose wife talked him into attending in late 1983, “The format is essentially educational, but it works on such an intimate level that at times it was, for me, really moving. I would get caught up in what was happening, and the more I opened up, the more I gained.” He eventually came to realize his commitment to Christ was still unformed, and Don Bubna led him to solid commitment in a restaurant the following March.

Tucked away in Bubna’s notes, of course, is an agenda. “We’re teaching basic Bible doctrine, but we never call it that.” The five areas to be covered: Scripture, God, our human predicament, Jesus Christ, and the church-what it means to be the people of God. “This last topic takes as much time as the other four put together.”

Sometimes the Bible study wraps up early, leaving time for general questions such as “Share one thing you’ve been learning about God” or “Tell us where you are in your pilgrimage of faith” or “What were the circumstances that surrounded your coming to commitment to Christ?”

Certain logistics are important, says Bubna:

1. The right location. He feels the pastor’s study carries a certain sense of privilege to it that attracts some people.

2. The presence of the church’s preaching pastor and his wife. “New people want some kind of identification with them. This also provides personal contact with those who most likely will merge into the congregation before long.”

3. A solid associate teacher to provide continuity when the pastor must be out of town. Darrel Dixon has been on the scene in the Welcome Class for more than ten years.

4. A visiting elder each week, who is always introduced. This furthers the exposure of leadership and sets up more relationships.

5. Periodic promotion. Although newcomers may enter the class at any point, special letters of invitation are mailed just ahead of the first Sunday of each quarter to those who have recently signed a Friendship Pad in the main service. It tells them where to find coffee, a sweet roll, and comfortable give-and-take with the pastor next Sunday morning.

The class is also occasionally announced in the bulletin and from the pulpit. But most new people are brought or referred by friends, previous attenders of the class who liked it and want others to experience it for themselves. Visitation teams now follow up first-timers with a personal presentation of the gospel in their home.

Along the way, those who profess faith in Christ are invited to separate baptismal classes, two or three sessions that prepare them to give their public witness at the time of baptism.

Eventually, members move out of the Welcome Class to other kinds of learning: adult electives, home Bible studies, or intensive ninety-minute discipling classes on Wednesdays. Yet even these retain the discovery approach, the warmth, and the humor of the Welcome Class. Don Bubna’s goal in each structure is to live out the words of Romans 15:7: “Welcome one another, therefore, as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”

The short-course approach to forming new believers is an easily grasped, conventional strategy, particularly in our current era of adult education. Many North Americans are well conditioned to taking courses in order to learn whatever they want to know. And they give such courses a measure of seriousness.

Such structure tells people there is a body of information to be covered here, enough that it will require more than one sitting. Yet it is not endless; you can finish on a certain date and feel you’ve accomplished something.

The class also tells the congregation each week as they read the church schedule in the bulletin that early discipling is going on. It keeps veteran Christians in touch with the fact that, among other things, this church is a continual “nursery.”

However, if the class is not more than a class, the new life in Christ can be reduced to gray academics. That is why the style of the “Welcome Class” is especially noteworthy. Bubna has worked hard to join fellowship with learning, the heart with the head.

The problem of sequence is not entirely solved. Those who enter midstream end up getting some first things second. That is partly why these are short courses. Students do not have to wait a long time to fill in the missing blanks, and as we have noted before, the question of whether sequence is important is debatable anyway.

The short course, in the end, is neither the most daring nor demanding form of nurture for new Christians. But it is practical, manageable, and can be significantly effective.

An Untidy Operation

The one-on-one, mainstreaming, and short-course approaches are just a few of the ways congregations care for the infants in their midst. Some churches use “covenant groups,” intense “Timothy-ing” in a small-group setting. Still others rely on a full-blown school, offering an array of courses in the Christian life with professors, credits, and electives. The styles and techniques vary according to pastoral temperaments, congregational strengths, and regional needs.

Perhaps we should accept the fact that forming new Christians will never be a tidy operation. We will always have questions about whether we are doing enough of the right kinds of things. We will probably go on wondering about the proper sequence, or whether sequence matters. We are forced to live with residual levels of uncertainty.

Yet we can take comfort in the thought most pediatricians pass along to anxious parents: “Don’t worry quite so much. The kid won’t break. With a reasonable amount of love and attention, she’ll be fine.”

Dean Merrill, formerly senior editor of LEADERSHIP, is editor of Christian Herald in Chappaqua, New York.

DISCIPLING WITHOUT PLAYING FAVORITES

Whether my church has one hundred or one thousand, I cannot focus on them all. I want to build disciples, so I spend intensive time with a fraction of the people to whom I minister. A few mouths get the biggest slices of my time-and-energy pie. And that opens me to charges of favoritism.

It’s easy for others in the congregation to become jealous of the few who associate most closely with me. I am their pastor, too, they rightly reason, yet I spend less time with them. And they may have been here longer, and perhaps been even more committed to the church.

The pastor indeed carries pastoral responsibility for the entire fellowship. I accept the reality that everyone in the congregation must in some way sense my personal interest and support. I’m not free to neglect the preaching, administration, and other efforts for the “many” to minister to the “few.”

But I’ll be most effective by focusing on a few. Here are several tactics that allow me to do that while neutralizing the feeling that I’m playing favorites.

I do not make public statements about my few. I don’t even say I have a few. That would be like saying, “I heard a great joke today, but I am not telling you!” People will feel left out and resentful if I play up how wonderful my relationship is with a handful of trusted parishioners. I may not even identify to a person among the few that I am focusing on him or her. I don’t need credit for offering a little more of myself to someone.

I do not focus on the few in a public setting. I define a clique as a group of people you can pick out in the midst of a bigger group because they clump together. So I use the motto, “Ministry in public, friendship in private.” In a public setting, such as Sunday morning, the few and I disperse to minister to others. We know we will see each other at other times for personal interaction.

I give the whole congregation plenty of opportunity to be with me at a more personal level. I find numerous ways to say to the congregation, “Come be with me.” People who want to get near me can do so in an evening Bible study, one-night seminars, and the occasional Sunday school class I teach. This invitation is offered to the whole congregation, and to members individually. I particularly welcome longtime members, the “old guard.” They need to feel included in my ministry too.

I minister to the many with the few. Of the thousands of people who crowded around Christ during his ministry, he concentrated on a mere twelve. But he sent them to minister. I love the comment of George Williams, founder of the YMCA in the last century: “We had only one thing in mind and that was to bind our little company together in order that we might better lead our comrades to Christ.”

Not too long ago a man asked me, “Stan, I want to grow in my spiritual life. Would you meet with me?”

I said, “It would be a privilege to grow in Christ together. When I visit the hospitals on Friday afternoon, would you join me?” He agreed. For months we saw God at work in difficult situations in the hospital. After our visits, we would talk and pray together. Later this man went on to do some visitation by himself, and now he helps coordinate some aspects of our visitation. What began as ministry to one person has developed into ministry, through him, to many.

-E. Stanley Ott III

Covenant Presbyterian Church

West Lafayette, Indiana

Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

LEADERSHIP BIBLIOGRAPHY—TEACHING

Howard Hendricks

Howard Hendricks has held many titles-pastor, seminary professor, radio host, author-but through all of them he is an educator. For the last thirty-six years he has taught at Dallas Theological Seminary.

When asked to list his favorite books on teaching, this was his response:

The Seven Laws of Teaching

Revised Edition (Baker)

by John Milton Gregory

First published in 1884, this template for teaching continues to cut accurate patterns. The book jacket promises “a clear and simple statement of the important factors governing the art of teaching,” but the book delivers much more. Here is teaching tonic to be taken in strong doses by those who want to rejuvenate their teaching.

For three dozen years I have seen more permanent and pervasive changes through the use of this text than from any other I have assigned. Undiluted cream, it bears continual and repeated reading.

The Essence of Good Teaching

(Jossey-Bass)

by Stanford C. Ericksen

Sorry, but this one will test your motivation. It’s not primarily a “how to” but a “what for” book, not popular reading but provocative. Ericksen tackles the unanswered questions in education: What sparks motivation to learn? What tools and techniques promote meaningful learning and strengthen memory? How do we best assess what students have learned?

Ericksen does provide some how-to’s, such as organizing a course to build student interest, presenting lectures that stimulate rather than bore, and encouraging better class participation. This book is written primarily for the serious-minded instructor who wants to break some fresh ground in his pedagogical patch.

Creative Teaching Methods

(David C. Cook)

Marlene D. LeFever

Creativity and teaching are indivisible. This treasure trove includes chapters on creative methods such as drama, role playing, simulation games, case studies, art, and many more. It’s a resource every teacher should have in the fingertip library at lesson plan time.

The book is both motivational and stretching, not another book on the theory of creativity but a handbook on its practice. Probe it and become an uncommon teacher.

Learning Is Change

(Judson)

by Martha Leypoldt

Teaching is causing people to learn, and learning is a process of change-in knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. Leypoldt details the many ways by which adults can become actively involved in the learning process, and thereby dramatically changed. This is a hands-on book whose most valuable contribution is the personalized plan for relating truth to the readers’ experience by means of exercises and reflection.

The Holy Spirit in Your Teaching

Revised and Expanded Edition (Victor)

by Roy B. Zuck

Communication presupposes content; without theological substance, Christian education cannot hope to be effective. But all too often Christian teaching is conceived only in humanistic terms; the supernatural distinctives are conspicuous by their absence.

Zuck sees the Holy Spirit invading the teaching-learning process-the teacher, the learner, the curriculum. He includes chapters on often-evaded topics, such as the Holy Spirit as a Teacher, the gift of teaching, and the relation of the human and the divine in learning. This book is meant to transform teachers.

Mastering the Techniques of Teaching

(Jossey-Bass)

by Joseph Lowman

Excellence in teaching rises out of two arenas: the dramatic and the interpersonal. Joseph Lowman holds these public and private tensions in balance with this clear analysis. Few have defined so well the process of teaching and provided so understandably an uncluttered description of what supports it.

Practical and stimulating, this writer teaches us to present material in bite-sized portions, to make every class hour earn a high grade. Although the book is designed primarily for college teachers, its value goes far beyond that rare breed.

Leadership Summer 1987 p. 137

Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

TO ILLUSTRATE

FORGIVENESS

In an article in Guide-posts, Corrie ten Boom told of not being able to forget a wrong that had been done to her. She had forgiven the person, but she kept rehashing the incident and so, couldn’t sleep. Finally Corrie cried out to God for help in putting the problem to rest.

“His help came in the form of a kindly Lutheran pastor,” Corrie wrote, “to whom I confessed my failure after two sleepless weeks. ‘Up in that church tower,’ he said, nodding out the window, ‘is a bell which is rung by pulling on a rope. But you know what? After the sexton lets go of the rope, the bell keeps on swinging. First ding, then dong. Slower and slower until there’s a final dong and it stops. I believe the same thing is true of forgiveness. When we forgive, we take our hand off the rope. But if we’ve been tugging at our grievances for a long time, we mustn’t be surprised if the old angry thoughts keep coming for a while. They’re just the ding-dongs of the old bell slowing down.’

“And so it proved to be. There were a few more midnight reverberations, a couple of dings when the subject came up in my conversations. But the force-which was my willingness in the matter-had gone out of them. They came less and less often and at last stopped altogether. And so I discovered another secret of forgiveness: we can trust God not only above our emotions, but also above our thoughts.”

– R. David Roberts

Johnson City, Tennessee

REWARDS

An old missionary couple had been working in Africa for years and were returning to New York City to retire. They had no pension; their health was broken; they were defeated, discouraged, and afraid. They discovered they were booked on the same ship as President Teddy Roosevelt, who was returning from one of his big-game hunting expeditions.

No one paid any attention to them. They watched the fanfare that accompanied the President’s entourage, with passengers trying to catch a glimpse of the great man.

As the ship moved across the ocean, the old missionary said to his wife, “Something is wrong. Why should we have given our lives in faithful service for God in Africa all these many years and have no one care a thing about us? Here this man comes back from a hunting trip and everybody makes much over him, but nobody gives two hoots about us.”

“Dear, you shouldn’t feel that way,” his wife said.

“I can’t help it; it doesn’t seem right.”

When the ship docked in New York, a band was waiting to greet the President. The mayor and other dignitaries were there. The papers were full of the President’s arrival, but no one noticed this missionary couple. They slipped off the ship and found a cheap flat on the East Side, hoping the next day to see what they could do to make a living in the city.

That night the man’s spirit broke. He said to his wife, “I can’t take this; God is not treating us fairly.”

His wife replied. “Why don’t you go in the bedroom and tell that to the Lord?”

A short time later he came out from the bedroom, but now his face was completely different. His wife asked, “Dear, what happened?”

“The Lord settled it with me,” he said. “I told him how bitter I was that the President should receive this tremendous homecoming, when no one met us as we returned home. And when I finished, it seemed as though the Lord put his hand on my shoulder and simply said, ‘But you’re not home yet!’ “

Yes, there are rewards for faithfulness, but not necessarily down here.

– Ray Stedman

condensed from Talking to My Father

LUST

As a kid, I saw a movie in which some shipwrecked men are left drifting aimlessly on the ocean in a lifeboat. As the days pass under the scorching sun, their rations of food and fresh water give out. The men grow deliriously thirsty. One night, while the others are asleep, one man ignores all previous warnings and gulps down some salt water. He quickly dies.

Ocean water contains seven times more salt than the human body can safely ingest. Drinking it, a person dehydrates because the kidneys demand extra water to flush the overload of salt. The more salt water someone drinks, the thirstier he gets. He actually dies of thirst.

When we lust, we become like this man. We thirst desperately for something that looks like what we want. We don’t realize, however, that it is precisely the opposite of what we really need. In fact, it can kill us.

– Craig Brian Larson

Chicago, Illinois

UNSEEN NEEDS

The Times-Reporter of New Philadelphia, Ohio, reported in September 1985 a celebration at a New Orleans municipal pool. The party around the pool was held to celebrate the first summer in memory without a drowning at any New Orleans city pool. In honor of the occasion, two hundred people gathered, including one hundred certified lifeguards.

As the party was breaking up and the four lifeguards on duty began to clear the pool, they found a fully dressed body in the deep end. They tried to revive Jerome Moody, thirty-one, but it was too late. He had drowned surrounded by lifeguards celebrating their successful season.

I wonder how many visitors and strangers are among us drowning in loneliness, hurt, and doubt, while we, who could help them, don’t realize it. We Christians have reason to celebrate, but our mission, as the old hymn says, is to “rescue the perishing.” And often they are right next to us.

-Steven J. Pedersen

Strasburg, Ohio

CHURCH LEADERS

Bruce Larson, in his book Wind and Fire, points out some interesting facts about sandhill cranes:

“These large birds, who fly great distances across continents, have three remarkable qualities. First, they rotate leadership. No one bird stays out in front all the time. Second, they choose leaders who can handle turbulence. And then, all during the time one bird is leading, the rest are honking their affirmation. That’s not a bad model for the church. Certainly we need leaders who can handle turbulence and who are aware that leadership ought to be shared. But most of all, we need a church where we are all honking encouragement.”

– Robert Sweat

Derby, Kansas

HONORING PARENTS

Once there was a little old man. His eyes blinked and his hands trembled; when he ate he clattered the silverware distressingly, missed his mouth with the spoon as often as not, and dribbled a bit of his food on the tablecloth. Now he lived with his married son, having nowhere else to live, and his son’s wife didn’t like the arrangement.

“I can’t have this,” she said. “It interferes with my right to happiness.” So she and her husband took the old man gently but firmly by the arm and led him to the corner of the kitchen. There they set him on a stool and gave him his food in an earthenware bowl. From then on he always ate in the corner, blinking at the table with wistful eyes.

One day his hands trembled rather more than usual, and the earthenware bowl fell and broke.

“If you are a pig,” said the daughter-in-law, “you must eat out of a trough.” So they made him a little wooden trough, and he got his meals in that.

These people had a four-year-old son of whom they were very fond. One evening the young man noticed his boy playing intently with some bits of wood and asked what he was doing.

“I’m making a trough,” he said, smiling up for approval, “to feed you and Mamma out of when I get big.”

The man and his wife looked at each other for a while and didn’t say anything. Then they cried a little. Then they went to the corner and took the old man by the arm and led him back to the table. They sat him in a comfortable chair and gave him his food on a plate, and from then on nobody ever scolded when he clattered or spilled or broke things.

One of Grimm’s fairy tales, this anecdote has the crudity of the old, simple days. But perhaps crudity is what we need to illustrate the naked and crude point of the fifth commandment: honor your parents, lest your children dishonor you. Or, in other words, a society that destroys the family destroys itself.

– Joy Davidman

from Smoke on the Mountain

STAYING POWER

On opening day of the 1954 baseball season, the Milwaukee Braves visited the Cincinnati Reds. Two rookies began their major league careers with that game. The Reds won 9-8 as Jim Greengrass hit four doubles in his first big-league game. A sensational debut for a young player with a made-for-baseball name!

The rookie starting in left field for the Braves went 0 for 5. Not a very auspicious start for one Henry Aaron.

– Harry J. Heintz

Troy, New York

GOD’S RELIABILITY

In the town hall in Copenhagen stands the world’s most complicated clock. It took forty years to build at a cost of more than a million dollars. That clock has ten faces, fifteen thousand parts, and is accurate to two-fifths of a second every three hundred years. The clock computes the time of day, the days of the week, the months and years, and the movements of the planets for twenty-five hundred years. Some parts of that clock will not move until twenty-five centuries have passed.

What is intriguing about that clock is that it is not accurate. It loses two-fifths of a second every three hundred years. Like all clocks, that timepiece in Copenhagen must be regulated by a more precise clock, the universe itself. That mighty astronomical clock with its billions of moving parts, from atoms to stars, rolls on century after century with movements so reliable that all time on earth can be measured against it.

– Haddon Robinson

in Focal Point

What are the most effective illustrations you’ve come across? We want to share them with other pastors and teachers who need material that communicates with imagination and impact. For items used, LEADERSHIP will pay $25. If the material has been published previously, please include the source.

Send contributions to:

To Illustrate . . .

LEADERSHIP

465 Gundersen Drive

Carol Stream, IL 60188

Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

THE CUTTING EDGE OF TEACHING

Mark H. Heinemann

As I read the paper in my den, I heard a ruckus in the next room. One of my daughters, Kim, was yelling at her sister, Betsy. I sat listening for a moment, and then my annoyance peaked. I jumped up, stalked into the next room, clenched my fist, and yelled, “Stop screaming at your sister!”

Silence.

The two of them looked at me, and suddenly I realized what an absurd figure I was, yelling at Kim to stop yelling.

“I’m sorry. I’m doing exactly what I’m telling you not to do, aren’t I?”

“That’s all right, Dad.”

“So stop yelling, okay?”

“Okay.”

I walked back into the den and sat down. I bent forward and closed my eyes, rubbing my forehead. That yelling of hers does kind of remind me of my own, I had to admit to myself. I began to think about the difference between speaking the truth, even speaking it well at appropriate times, and living the truth. A proverb attributed to John Locke says, “Ill patterns are sure to be followed more than good rules.”

Someone else said that a person who preaches well and lives poorly is like a man who builds a fire and then throws water on it. It grieves me to remember occasions when, in moments of weakness, my life threw water on the fire.

Then, as I was reading 1 Timothy 4:11-16, I was reminded that ministry, like a pair of scissors, has two blades that must be hinged together, matching sides operating simultaneously. Paul urges Timothy to sharpen both cutting edges of his ministry: his exhortation and his example.

First Paul says “Command and teach these things.” I once had the false impression that if I preached well enough, individual and corporate spiritual growth must necessarily follow. But the verbal giving of truth is only half the scissors.

The living of the truth-openly, visibly-is the other half, the half that gives cutting power to my words. “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young,” Paul writes, “but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.”

We all know that in ministry, criticism will come. Sometimes people go beyond constructive criticism, pointing out that we are too young or too old, too familiar or too cold, too timid or too bold. Sometimes the criticism is valid, but sometimes the person is simply searching for some reason to disqualify us. Something must be found to shade an edgy hearer from the searchlight of the Spirit.

Such are the hazards we face. But if we attempt to live the truth as well as speak it, Paul reminded me, we will be able to live with criticism. The ministry has two sides-always-and our exhortation is best validated by our example.

I’ll never forget the week I was working on a sermon on forgiveness-and a man kicked in my car door in a restaurant parking lot because he thought I had parked too close. While subduing feelings of anger and a desire for revenge, I realized I was in the process of learning some life lessons about my subject.

I want to be like Abe Lincoln talking about honesty, like Winston Churchill talking about commitment, like Mother Teresa talking about caring for the poor. And I can be-if I take pains to live the words I teach.

-Mark H. Heinemann

Greater Europe Mission

Dallas, Texas

Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

DAMAGE CONTROL FOR MISTAKES

James D. Berkley

How do you keep a minor blunder from mushrooming into a major error?

Mistakes are inevitable, even for pastors. Even for excellent pastors. Wisdom and will can go awry, and ministry suffers.

The mistakes can be as benign as arriving late for a meeting, or as harmful as living a lie. Some “mistakes” come as brash surprises: A pastor told LEADERSHIP, “One day I changed the church thermostat-and the church fired me! They told me I was ‘too involved.’ “

Mistakes happen. But dig into any effective pastor’s past, and you uncover mistakes transformed into character. To discover how this is accomplished, LEADERSHIP associate editor Jim Berkley sought the insight of veteran pastors who, combining grit and grace, have grown through their mistakes. He pooled their wisdom into Making the Most of Mistakes, an upcoming volume in THE LEADERSHIP LIBRARY. The following excerpt focuses on minimizing the damage of personal blunders.

Thick containment shields cover the best designed nuclear reactors. Should something go wrong, these shields provide the first line of defense by containing explosions, and thus contamination. If radioactive debris and gases remain within the shield, the extent of the damage stays limited, and mop-up operations are possible.

When clergy error causes a runaway reaction in the parish, containment is again the word. Little mistakes have a way of becoming big, sometimes insurmountable, problems-if they are not contained. Pastors have found, usually the hard way, that when the disaster alert sounds, some actions contain the damage better than others.

A Parish Chain Reaction

On a prominent suburban corner stands a beautiful church complex, newly built and lushly landscaped. The senior pastor (let’s call him Josh) is a gifted preacher, a warm pastor, and a successful leader. Sitting in his finely appointed office, you get the feeling Josh must do a lot of things right.

But he made one mistake that won’t let him go. Several years back, he inadvertently stepped on the most stubborn toes ever bruised.

Those toes belonged to Tony, a man Josh helped rescue from a life of drug abuse. Once converted, Tony became a zealous church member. Initially Josh was pleased with Tony’s drive, but Tony’s unbounded and erratic nature eventually sent caution signals to Josh. Tony had plenty of free time since he was independently wealthy, and he constantly pushed Josh to be his mentor. Josh did his best to stall Tony without discouraging him. He didn’t think weekly one-on-one sessions with Tony would be the best investment of his time. Tony soon realized he was being sidestepped.

Eventually Tony began to disagree with Josh over points of doctrine. Tony challenged Josh’s teaching of the doctrine of the Trinity, accusing him of incipient Unitarianism. Then they clashed over spiritual gifts. Then eschatology. It degenerated into an all-out disagreement over practically everything-Josh trying to defend his theology while Tony circled and strafed whatever he considered a weak point in Josh’s defense.

The confrontations started with a rather uncomfortable conversation in Josh’s office. They escalated to the point that Tony rose at the close of a worship service and attacked Josh’s orthodoxy before the whole congregation. Much to Tony’s surprise and embarrassment, he got nowhere with the congregation. Humiliated, he kicked the dust off his sandals and tramped off to another church across town.

Over the next decade, Tony embraced and discarded at least two other congregations, but all the time he never forgot Josh. With Manson-like charisma, he gathered around him a fiercely loyal band of malcontents, and they began appearing at Josh’s evening services to accost parishioners with inflammatory pamphlets Tony had produced.

Josh was upset with the way they attacked and alienated his sheep, not to mention the relentless assaults on his own leadership and integrity. He met with the group privately, to no avail. The deacons tried to arrange a conference, and were frustrated time and again. Nobody, it seemed, could stop the incessant picking at Josh and troubling of the congregation.

The deacons drafted a letter to the congregation, explaining the disagreement, outlining their attempted resolution, and pleading for forbearance and understanding. Tony persisted in stirring trouble. Finally, the deacons arranged for a restraining order to bar Tony and his followers from church property.

That only infuriated Tony, who stepped up his tactics. He and his crew started picketing the church.

Once Josh arrived at church and counted thirty-four signs denouncing him and the church posted along the sidewalk. Tony took out a half-page advertisement in the local paper. The rambling diatribe stopped only a millimeter short of slander. He peppered new church attenders with letters “warning” them about Josh.

His opposition seemed to have no limits. Once when Josh flew to Seoul, Korea, to speak at a conference, he found Tony distributing leaflets at the hall! For the last five years, Tony and his band have picketed the church every Sunday, rain or shine. He remains Josh’s indefatigable albatross.

Josh lives daily with his seemingly innocuous mistake-slighting Tony-that mushroomed completely out of proportion. Could it somehow have been avoided? Josh will always wonder. But his experience illustrates the two immediate concerns that face anyone who makes a mistake: What should I do? and What should I say?

What Should I Do?

Nuclear technicians don’t run to a contaminated area the minute the alarm sounds. Something dreadful has gone wrong, so now is the time for cool heads and rational problem solving In fact, following the Three Mile Island nuclear mishap, one of the review committee’s recommendations was for at least one reactor operator to be stationed away from beeping indicators and wailing sirens. Flashing lights and indicator needles in the red work against levelheaded thinking. Only an untraumatized mind is able to make rapid but sound decisions. There’s wisdom in this approach for pastors, too.

•Proceed cautiously. Church leaders are equally wise to proceed directly yet cautiously as the warning alarms sound in the parish. A mistake triggers reaction. Things start to happen quickly, and a bigger mistake looms large when decisions are knocked off out of panic. Pastors want to avoid that.

Josh perhaps rushed to a premature decision about Tony. Tony was pushing him for the kind of mentoring Josh wasn’t prepared to give. Josh’s initial solution was to stall and hope Tony would give up. Instead, Tony felt offended, and trouble resulted.

Then, when Tony started causing arguments, Josh jumped in to defend himself, a natural reaction. However, as he looks back, Josh realizes that perhaps working with Tony to uncover the cause of his attacks would have been more fruitful. Josh’s first response was not the best.

One pastor says, “I have to slow down my reactions so I don’t issue final decrees on scant evidence. Often I need to take a deep breath, to draw back and gain perspective. You know, you can’t characterize the whole town by what you see from the subway.”

Mistakes can make a leader myopic. The world narrows to a few frames of blurred action. That’s why a brief hiatus from making decisions can be so valuable. It’s not a vacation from responsibility, but rather an opportunity to assess the wider picture.

It also allows the sorting of feelings. Josh felt upset with Tony, and justifiably so. But understanding Tony was another matter. Josh might have stopped to consider better what Tony was feeling. From that he could have charted his possible responses.

How many ministries have been brought to an inglorious end by hasty reactions rather than reasoned decisions? A cool-headed observer may see today’s accident as tomorrow’s opportunity. As one Baptist pastor advises, “I need to wait on the Lord. Sometimes the biggest mistake I can make is to panic and act prematurely.”

Thinking through a situation adds quality to one’s response. South Carolina pastor Bill Solomon cautions against overreaction: “I’m the kind of guy who goes on a ten-day fast if the doctor mentions I’m a little overweight. So when it comes to mistakes in ministry, I have to be careful not to react in inappropriate ways. Taking time to think through the situation helps. Maybe this ‘disaster’ is only a temporary setback, and all I need to do is hitch up my britches and keep going.”

But restraint cannot mean vacillation. Eventually the time comes to act, and eventually usually comes sooner rather than later. A pause provides perspective; a prolonged pause leads to inaction and often breeds complications.

So when do you proceed? When you have a fair grasp of the situation and have your own emotions reasonably in check. In some cases that means counting to ten, in others, waiting ten months. Whatever the case, it means thinking first and doing second. But the time does come to act.

•Proceed decisively. Josh can point to his mistake with Tony: “I didn’t handle the problem properly at the beginning. I should have been more decisive. I never could have discipled Tony-that’s not the point-but I should have allowed him more dignity when he first felt hurt. I could have explained my dilemma over so many people needing my attention. I could have set him up with another person in the congregation. Then he could have denounced me privately and gotten it off his chest. But now he can’t stop. He’s invested too much to quit and lose face.

“I also should have recognized the meanness in human nature. Jesus dealt decisively with people, not sentimentally. When it comes to some people, I’ve sadly realized that if you believe all things, you will have all things to endure. I wanted to keep pleasing people-which is selfish at the core-when I should have been tougher.”

After thinking through the initial course of action, steps can follow purposefully. Encouraging them to be clear and direct, Paul wrote the Corinthians: “If the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle?” (1 Cor. 14:8). Likewise, if stumbling pastors do not regain firm footing and proceed with obvious intent, who will be able to stand behind them?

One pastor of an Episcopal church allowed a difference of opinion to nearly split the congregation. Most members were staid and very conservative, and this pastor shrugged off the stir a liturgical renewal element was bringing. Even when tempers flared, accusations were hurled, and a denominational investigation was launched, the pastor remained passive, almost indifferent to the situation.

This pastor didn’t react impulsively; he hardly reacted at all, and that was his greater mistake. The people needed direction, a sure trumpet. Somebody had to raise a banner. At least then people could decide whether to rally around it or consider leaving. As it was, a vacillating, inactive approach nearly doomed the church to dissolution. It wasn’t until another pastor assumed command that the church began to regain some direction.

The original pastor resigned and slipped away. With clear hindsight, the present pastor told me, “I think if he would have taken a stand-practically any stand-he would still be the pastor today. The people couldn’t support him because they didn’t know where he stood.”

Another pastor inherited a staff and ran into a problem with the man in charge of children’s ministries. “He had an attitude problem,” the pastor said. “Everywhere he went, he sowed dissension. We were building a new building, and he was telling the building committee one story about what he wanted in the children’s center and the rest of the staff another. At the same time he was telling the teachers how he never gets anything he wants. Everybody ended up upset with everybody else because of this man.

“I kept hoping he would cooperate, but finally he sent out a letter opposing me, and our leaders and I concluded he simply could not work under my leadership. Then I made the mistake of giving him a year to find a new position. A whole year! That gave him time to continue sabotaging my ministry, like timing the announcement of his leaving to do as much damage as possible to our building fund kickoff.

“I wasn’t decisive enough. By the unsure signals I kept giving out, I added to the original mistake of letting him linger. I’ve since decided: Make a firing quick and clean. Now I’m not saying be unfair or dictatorial. I just mean that when an original mistake in hiring becomes a major difficulty, the best move is to be decisive. Take into account their dignity, be fair, be just, but do what you have to do-let them go.”

When a mistake occasions that first frantic What do I do? respond as the experienced do: think first and then act. Do nothing out of panic or haste, but when you do respond (and you have to eventually), act responsibly and unequivocally. As one pastor says, “You can’t pussyfoot around and expect people to respect you.”

What Should I Say?

There were times as a pastor when I envied the President. In his Oval Office, protected by several strata of associates and secretaries (not to mention the unsmiling guys in dark suits), he can orchestrate his response to whatever mistakes he makes. To top it off, who goes before the questioning press? Many times it’s not the President. He’s got a press secretary to smooth his gaffes and blunders.

For pastors, when it comes to saying the right thing following a mistake, they are on their own-no press secretaries, no high-level advisers. Along with, perhaps, a few lay leaders, they formulate their own response.

The immediate concern is How much do I divulge? Do I go public, or should I sit on it? The ability to own up to a mistake and call it our own is important. If it is sin, it must be confessed; if error, we need to take responsibility. Only then can we begin to fix what’s “broke.” But do we need to tell everybody about our mistake? And how much of it needs to be told?

The answers to these questions depend on at least three factors:

•What kind of mistake is it? Mistakes differ by nature and magnitude. Misplacing a pencil occasions a different response than leaving the pencil imbedded in another person’s chest. After the one you say, “Oops!” Following the other, you beg forgiveness.

Is it a mistake of orientation, of interpersonal relations, or of judgment? Say I come into ministry with the mistaken notion that it will be a forty-hour-a-week job, and before long I’m complaining to the board about the “unfair expectations” of the congregation. That’s a mistake of orientation, and one of the best strategies is to admit my rookie notions to the board. I don’t need to solemnly apologize to the whole congregation about my “grave failing.” I’m learning and growing. They practically expect such mistakes, and probably take pride in “training me right.” I can consider it a mistake of orientation, reorient myself, and be on my way.

But not if I lash out at a distraught widow who calls me at 3 A.M. on my day off. Then I have injured someone and probably poisoned the interpersonal well in that congregation. I need to say more in that case-a lot more.

Within each type of mistake, magnitude also determines my response. I may order church stationery with an error in the address, and in so doing, waste two hundred dollars. Or I may hire a close friend as youth director who later embezzles thousands of dollars. Both blunders were judgment mistakes, but their vastly different magnitude suggests far different responses. While I may want to mention the wasted stationery to the trustees, I may need to offer to step down from the pastorate in the wake of my embezzling friend.

What exactly should I say? It still depends. Did I know my friend was a crook and lie about it to the board when he was hired? Then I have committed not only a major mistake but a moral one, which demands asking for forgiveness. Until I understand if my error is minor, major, or moral, I don’t know how much I should say.

Playground basketball games sometimes operate under the rule: No harm, no foul. If no one is hurt, no foul is called. Likewise, if no one has been truly hurt in a church situation, pastors need not blow the whistle on themselves.

Some mistakes hardly merit disclosure. Must I bring to the board every undiplomatic word I let slip, every phone call I forget to return, every errant thought about that attractive gal in the supermarket? Must I confess from the pulpit those two hours I wasted in my study reading Life magazine, or the time I snarled at the C.E. director who forgot to give me the attendance figures for the third week in a row? Of course not. Common sense tells us to measure the exposure of the mistake by its nature and magnitude. Big sins demand more said than minor slips.

In a way this runs contrary to our inclinations. It’s the major failings I’d just as soon bandage over and forget. But it’s exactly the mistakes that hurt the most that have to be exposed for healing. The little scratches will take care of themselves, but the deep wounds need open attention.

All the same, one pastor says, “I try to admit my mistakes in a way that is not heavy on guilt. If I’ve done wrong, I say so, but I don’t try to make myself look like a no-good rat. I’ll talk to the person my mistake affects and apologize for the action-sincerely. But I don’t need to apologize for what or who I am. That can overwhelm even the one I’m talking to.”

•Who is involved? Recognizing three possibilities helps us sort out this question.

Sometimes I’m the only one fumbling the ball. Maybe I don’t study enough for my sermons or I’m always late for work. Perhaps I short my prayer life. These are personal in nature; I’m acting in collusion with no one.

Whatever I say about this kind of mistake, I am the only person exposed. In considering the wisdom of confessing my sin or admitting my error, I have no co-conspirators to think about.

Some of these mistakes can be corrected with a little resolve, and I need to decide the advisability of involving others at all. Why expose my lack of devotional time to the congregation? Wouldn’t it be better to tell one or two persons whom I could ask to hold me accountable? Then, while I work to mend the error under their supervision, I haven’t undermined my position or unnecessarily burdened parishioners with my shortcoming that they may well use as an excuse for theirs-“After all, if the pastor has trouble . . .”

Those errors in which only I am involved are sometimes best left in a small, chosen circle.

Other mistakes pit me against personalities: stubbornly contradicting a founding member or demanding Gaither anthems from a popular choir director whose tastes run toward Bach. Such interpersonal mistakes become more complex, because now I’m dealing with the rights and emotions of others. I need to judge what to say not only by how it affects me but by how it affects others.

Will I make others look bad if I go public? Will it cause them to feel they have to reciprocate? Would the problem best be settled in private with the other party?

Most of us have heard the “confession” that is really a thinly veiled attack: “I’m so sorry I punched Deacon Tidwell at the last deacons’ meeting. After he had been so tightfisted when discussing my salary, and when he viciously tried to take away my car allowance, I guess I just cracked.” It is tempting to wallop someone again under the guise of admitting a mistake.

Still other mistakes involve co-conspirators. When somebody else has joined me in the mistake, that party is bound to be implicated by any statement I make. I may be ready to go public, but is he or she?

When Josh and Tony scrapped over doctrine, Josh was probably making a mistake by allowing it to degenerate into personal attacks. But so was Tony. Thus anything Josh had to say about the problem to the deacons or congregation involved Tony as much as himself. Josh could own up to the mistake or confess the sin for himself, but not at Tony’s expense. Whatever Josh said about Tony had to be fair and truthful, not just another way to spar with him. In situations like this, restraint and diplomacy are the key words; not cover-up, but tact.

•Who needs to know? The key word here is needs. All kinds of people may want to hear about a mistake, but not everybody has a stake in my revelation. Running out on the street and pouring out my shortcomings to the first passerby hardly suffices as a confession. Yet, in some cases, mounting the pulpit to spew a confession to the congregation may be just as inappropriate. In general, mistakes should be broadcast no farther than the narrowest necessary circle.

So who belongs in that circle? Any person involved in my mistake. We need to come clean with those affected. Since they were victims of the mistake, they deserve a full explanation, if not more.

In nearly any instance when the organization suffers from my mistake, key church leaders need to be brought into the circle of confidence. After all, they share responsibility for the welfare of the congregation. In a support staff position, this would include the senior pastor. In other churches, the moderator, the chairman of the board, the executive committee of the elders, or other such individuals might be the first people to contact. They can help decide how much wider the spotlight of revelation has to shine.

If key leaders are able to receive the disclosure of misconduct and deal with it effectively, perhaps that’s as wide an exposure as is necessary. The purpose is health and repair. Hidden sin is usually growing sin. Unacknowledged error is often repeated error. Airing the mistake before those who need to know, taking steps to rectify the wrong and forestall repetition, and then getting on with business-that’s the order of the day. If a small but responsible group can accomplish that purpose, most pastors are ahead to let it remain there.

Sometimes, however, due to the nature or magnitude of a mistake, the exposure needs to be greater-the entire leadership of the congregation, or perhaps the entire congregation. In Colorado an assistant pastor was caught embezzling checks from the offering. Eventually not only the leadership but the congregation and finally the community played a role in rectifying this mistake. His church board was forced by state law to report his theft of corporate funds to the State attorney. Even though they wanted word of the regrettable occurrence to go no further, it became public record by necessity.

Josh used this narrowest-circle method. First he tried to pacify Tony. When that didn’t work, he talked with key church leaders. They decided the deacons as a whole needed to be briefed. Only when even the deacons couldn’t contain the difficulty did Josh and the leaders attempt to communicate the problem to the entire congregation.

As chaplain for a small-town police force, I was occasionally subpoenaed to testify in court concerning incidents I had witnessed while riding with officers. On the way to my first courtroom appearance, a friend in the department offered some sound advice: “Never volunteer information. Answer the questions, but don’t say anything you don’t have to say. It can keep you out of a lot of trouble.” He wasn’t telling me to lie or to duck questions; he only advised restraint. Why buy trouble with unnecessary jabber?

Pastors can learn from that officer’s advice. Following a mistake, something needs to be said-even volunteered-something truthful and upright. Conscience, good faith, and Christian maturity demand it. But the amount said and the audience told are best limited by the scope of the mistake: Say no more than is necessary to no greater audience than the mistake merits.

Jim Berkley is associate editor of LEADERSHIP.

Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

WHY BOARD TRAINING GOES AWRY

Larry W. Osborne

When Tim entered the ministry, he honestly looked forward to working with his board members. Even though he’d heard his share of war stories, he figured his case would be different. If good people were elected and he discipled them carefully, he saw no reason why he and the board couldn’t work as close partners in ministry.

Now, five years later, Tim isn’t so sure. Instead of partners, they seem like adversaries. He’s come to expect resistance as a normal part of the process. Many of his best ideas have been rejected. Sometimes he wonders if these people understand church ministry at all.

Odds are, they don’t. Not that they can’t. They just don’t.

If Tim’s board is typical, no one has ever taught them how to be leaders in the church, how to think strategically, or how to make certain key decisions that affect everyone else. That’s been left for Tim and his fellow professionals to study and learn. As a result, he and his board suffer from “educational separation.” With every book he reads and every seminar he attends, Tim is slowly widening the gap between the way he views the church and the way his board members do.

Early in my ministry, I faced a similar situation. The more I learned about local church ministry, the more I found myself frustrated with board members who, I felt, lacked an understanding of even the most basic ministry principles.

Not sure what to do about it, I decided to try to close the gap. I started sharing with the board some of the insights and principles I had learned in my pastoral ministry classes. We didn’t neglect the standard Bible study and prayer. We simply added a new dimension, “practical theology.”

Over the years, our training has covered a variety of topics: church growth, educational theory, group dynamics, management styles, counseling. We’ve read articles and books on the church by people such as Lyle Schaller, Gordon MacDonald, C. Peter Wagner, and Frank Tillapaugh. We’ve reviewed the insights of secular books like In Search of Excellence, and Megatrends. Seminars and conferences have also been a good source of training. Anyone returning from one summarizes for the others the major points he or she learned.

The results have been gratifying. Within the first year, the gap in our perceptions of ministry began to close. Because they were being trained like pastors, the board members began to think like pastors. We began to understand one another. We made better decisions, and we felt more like partners.

Such a training program can be a key step in the process of building a partnership between pastor and board. But for it to be most effective, I have to keep some points in mind.

No lobbying

I had to learn the difference between lobbying and training. The two are easily confused.

A few years ago we were considering hiring a new staff member. I had someone in mind, and I knew we needed to hire before the pressure was there, for growth rather than need. All the experts agreed with me.

I figured it was an ideal time to teach the board about hiring staff. I put together a reading packet of everything I could find on hiring pastoral staff, sent it out, and asked everyone to be prepared to discuss it at our next meeting.

When we began our discussion, Jim spoke first. “Thanks for the helpful articles, Larry,” he said. “But I know there’s another side to every issue. All these articles agree with you. I’d like to see some from the other side as well.”

When I told him there weren’t any, he looked at me with disbelief. He actually thought I was lying. I had a hard time convincing him that no one recommended holding off on staff as the best way for a church to grow.

From that experience, I learned a valuable lesson: When information is presented in the middle of a decision-making process, it will usually be viewed as lobbying rather than training.

Yet this is precisely the setting in which most of us share the bulk of our insights. As a result, board members often view our ideas with the appropriate skepticism a lobbyist’s proposal deserves.

Another difference between lobbying and training is that training allows people the freedom and time to change their mind.

Most of us have had the experience of initially rejecting an idea we later championed. But it’s a change that seldom occurs overnight. By removing our training from the pressured arena of decision making, we’ve granted our board members the luxury of time.

When John, a board member, first heard the principles of church growth, he rejected them a priori. But with the passage of time and further exposure, we were able to refine the concepts and work through some of his initial misconceptions. Now he has become a strong supporter.

If John’s first exposure to these principles had been part of a lobbying effort, he probably still would be an opponent today. It would have forced him to digest the information and make an immediate decision based upon it. Then, as part of the debating and decision-making process, he would have had to publicly defend his position. And unfortunately, once a person takes a public stand on an issue, he seldom changes his mind. It is too threatening to the ego.

By avoiding the lobbying trap, I insure that the merits of good ideas have a chance to sway the skeptical.

Why be subtle?

Training works best when it’s highlighted; the more “neon signs” I can put around our training program, the better.

One way we highlight it is by setting aside a special time and place for our ministry training. I never tack on any teaching at the beginning of a business or board meeting. It is too likely to be viewed as either lobbying or a preliminary to the real meeting.

A couple of years ago, this principle was confirmed for me in an unusual way. I was conducting a survey of pastors to find out how many were training their board members and what the results were.

I had no problem finding pastors who claimed to have a training program. But to ensure that training was really going on, I asked for a detailed description of what they were doing. When a pastor’s description convinced me he really was training his board, I listed him as a “training pastor.”

Yet when I surveyed the board members from these churches, I got some surprising answers. The most surprising was in answer to the question, “Do you receive training for church leadership or board membership?” Many of the board members said no.

I couldn’t figure it out. The pastors had described to me in detail how they were training. Now their board members were telling me they had not received any training.

As I studied the information more closely, I discovered a significant point. Most of the pastors who told me they were training were doing it at the beginning of a business meeting. As a result, many of their board members didn’t view it as training at all. Perceiving it as an insignificant preliminary before the real meeting began, they were tuning out, much as people have been known to tune out during perfunctory prayers and devotions at the beginning of a meeting.

Another benefit of highlighting our attempts to train the board is it tells people, “This is an important part of what you do, important enough to be worthy of its own forum.”

When I first began, I tacked our ministry training onto another meeting. No one seemed to take it very seriously. I found myself frustrated by incomplete assignments and half-hearted attention. But once I set aside a time just for ministry training, people started coming with their books and articles marked up and their assignments done. They were ready to dig into the issue at hand.

And recently we’ve stopped meeting in the evening and started meeting one Saturday morning a month. Now, rather than starting the meeting exhausted from a hard day at work, we begin fresh. And we’ve made a symbolic statement by saying that training is important enough to be worth one Saturday morning a month.

Soaking time

Most of us tend to think if we have covered an issue once, everyone understands. We forget our own need to hear an idea several times before it soaks in. As a result, many training programs talk about an item once and then go on to the next subject. Because we don’t want to bore people, we are tempted to move on long before a lesson has been learned.

To keep from doing that, I try to keep in mind three stages of learning. The first stage, exposure to an idea, is exciting; we wrestle with new concepts and principles.

At the second stage, familiarity, there are few surprises. There is a great temptation to tune out or move to a new subject because “we know this stuff already.”

The final stage is understanding. It goes far beyond familiarity. The difference between the two is simple. When I am familiar with a subject, I recognize where the teacher is going. When I understand a subject, I can teach and apply it myself. A lesson hasn’t been learned until this stage.

By keeping these three stages in mind, I’ve been able to avoid the temptation to move on from an idea too early. It has helped me overcome my fear of boring the board with repetition. My friend Paul’s experience has kept me from being satisfied with anything short of understanding.

Paul was exposed to some information about the effects of architecture upon church growth. He became familiar with it and gathered articles on the subject. A little later he shared the ideas with his board.

The board seemed intrigued and readily followed what he was saying. So Paul moved on in his training. Later, however, when the board began discussing plans for a new building, Paul realized they hadn’t understood the new concepts at all. The board had seemed to understand his ideas, but they weren’t basing their decisions on them.

When Paul told me the board’s puzzling inconsistency, I wasn’t surprised. They had heard only once about large foyers fostering fellowship, or small parking lots hindering growth. They were just getting exposed to the ideas. They liked the sound of them, but they weren’t familiar enough with them to support them. They certainly didn’t understand them well enough to explain them to others in the congregation.

Paul didn’t realize the members simply needed more time to grasp the concepts. It would take repeating and elaborating on these ideas at future meetings for the board to move from where they were now-exposure-to full understanding.

Another aspect of the principle is that even after a subject has been covered fully, and everyone has had time to accept or reject the idea, it still needs to be covered again next year. This is because new board members also need training. If a subject is not covered again, a turnover of even a few people can dramatically alter the dynamics of a board.

Obviously, going over the same material year after year would be boring and laborious for those who have been on the board. To save them the agony, we’ve set some basics we expect every new board member to cover, either prior to joining the board or during the first few months in office. The material consists of several articles and a couple of books the rest of the board members have already discussed. In this way, we insure the gains of today are not lost tomorrow.

Becoming leaders

Early in my ministry, whenever I thought of equipping the saints for ministry, I thought in terms of character development, biblical knowledge, and a specific ministry skill. I left training for leadership to seminaries and Bible schools.

But now that I have begun training our lay leaders to lead-to think long-range, to motivate followers, to solve problems-not only has our church benefited, but so have the members of our board. They have learned principles that have made them better leaders at home and in the marketplace.

A few months ago, one of our elders told me he had received a major promotion at work. His new job would make him responsible for leading a group of engineers through a significant project. When I congratulated him, he said, “This is a new track for me, but I am excited about it. I’ve already seen a lot of areas where I can apply the things we’ve been learning about leadership.”

Training the board can sometimes go awry. But when we keep it on course, our leaders learn to lead.

-Larry W. Osborne

North Coast Evangelical Free Church

Oceanside, California

Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

NOT EVERYONE LEARNS ALIKE

Penny Zettler

How to teach in the ways people learn best.

I’m currently teaching the Pastor’s Doctrine Class to our fifth and sixth graders. Since we have only a limited time, I’ve had to compress a few years of theological study into a few weeks of classes. The morning I was trying to cover the doctrine of the Trinity, I was particularly time conscious. Forty-five minutes for the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit-it was laughable.

So I launched into a lecture. A lecture was efficient, I figured, considering I needed to get across a lot of information in a short time.

About five minutes into my inspired talk, however, one of the boys raised his hand and asked, “Can’t we draw?”

Draw! I thought. How can you ask to draw when there is so much to learn?

Later I caught myself. Sometimes I forget that if I don’t teach in such a way that the students actually learn something, I’m wasting my precious breath and their fidgety time.

That boy has the soul of an artist. He didn’t want to hear my carefully organized, beautifully delivered facts. He wanted to learn in the way God had made him. He had heard enough facts; now he wanted to put them into a drawing. He could appropriate the theology best by expressing himself on paper-his favorite and most effective way to learn.

My little drawing friend and I are separated by more than height and years. We are probably wired differently. I thrive on personal interaction. In most of the classes I teach, I’m usually thinking of ways to get people to discuss the subject. (My fellow team teacher contends I get sweaty palms if the class isn’t moving toward small-group discussion within the first twenty minutes.) But the young artist likes to draw.

Discovering Our Differences

As I began thinking about the different ways people like to learn-and do seem to learn more effectively-I noticed how so much is being said in educational circles about people’s different ways of perceiving reality. We’re inundated with “right brain, left brain” jargon. We hear that some people think with their feelings, senses, and emotions; others with facts and figures. Clearly we don’t all think-or learn-alike.

I was exposed to these educational truths at a national conference for Christian educators. It was an “Aha!” experience. Now I had a clear explanation of what I had observed. Finally research illuminated the reasons a variety of teaching methods are important-in fact, crucial-to the teaching ministry of the church.

Educators have found at least four separate learning styles, each with its own optimum teaching methods. Individual educational theorists label their quadrants differently, but I prefer the schema Bernice McCarthy outlined in The 4MAT System. She distinguishes four kinds of students: innovative learners, analytic learners, common sense learners, and dynamic learners. The following descriptions lean heavily on her work.

Innovative Learners

Innovative learners seek meaning. They learn as they listen and share ideas. For them, being personally involved in the learning process is important. McCarthy writes, “They are divergent thinkers who believe in their own experience, excel in viewing concrete situations from many perspectives, and model themselves on those they respect.”

As you might have guessed, I’m an innovative learner. We innovative ones like to participate in small-group discussions. We’re idea people, whose favorite questions are “Why?” and “Why not?”

Often we’re found in careers in the humanities, in personnel work or counseling or organizational development.

But I hate art projects. Don’t invite me to carve a bar of Ivory soap into a dove to represent the Holy Spirit. I’m not interested. It won’t look good. I’d think the whole idea is silly-unless we could sit around and talk about the process. Then I could get excited.

So put me into a small group at some point in the learning experience. Let me discuss with other learners the application of biblical truths. I want to talk about it and hear others’ opinions. I go crazy when a teacher just talks on and on. I want my turn to work with the idea or to get to know the teacher as a real person. Discussions, skits, small groups, drama, and interaction with others are the learning strategies from which I learn best.

Since I prosper in this kind of learning atmosphere, it’s hard for me to believe that not every student longs for that moment in class when he’s invited to move his folding chair into a circle.

I have to remember there are three other learning styles.

Analytic Learners

An analytic learner says, “Just give me the facts.” Analytic learners like to know the mind of the experts. For them, learning comes through thinking through ideas to form reality. They tend to have less interest in people than in ideas and concepts. They like to critique information and collect good data.

These are the people who love the traditional classroom. Straight lecture suits them well, as long as the lecturer is qualified. They are willing to do the memory work and lap up all the facts. It’s easy to like these students because they are happy to sit still and listen. Learners like these excel at creating concepts and models. They cluster in careers like math, research, the basic sciences, and planning departments.

Bob is an analytical learner. The fact that he’s an actuary should be the tip-off. When I suggest making big, colorful collages that depict the pressures society puts on twentieth-century Christians, he wants to hear what scientists say about current trends, what facts I’ve dug out of the most recent journals, and what predictions specialists make for the future. Forget the collage for Bob, unless it is adapted to appeal to his learning style.

To best teach the analytic learners, I’ve found I need to give them details, lists, technical information, and quotes from “the experts.” And if I keep it well organized, it makes it easier for them to transfer it intact into their notebooks!

They tend to frown when drama, art, or small groups are the order of the day. These techniques seem a waste of time to them-fluff when they are looking for information. One way around this problem is to supply them the data about learning styles. Once these folks know why the other teaching methods are necessary, they are more amenable to them.

Common Sense Learners

These people don’t want to talk about something; they want to do it. Nothing is more important for common sense learners than practical, hands-on approaches. Learning is filtered through the screen of usability. A “fuzzy idea” that they can’t take apart to see how it works makes them uneasy. You’ll often hear from them, “How does this work?” But they may actually resent being given answers. They would prefer to solve the problems themselves.

The common sense crew learns by testing theories in ways that seem sensible. As McCarthy says, “They edit reality.” Grown-up common sense learners can be found on Monday morning working as engineers, nurses, technicians, and physical scientists.

Eric, a common sense learner, doesn’t hesitate to help me understand how his type can learn best. He tells me, “Forget all that fancy jargon; just get down to what really works in life.” Actually he’s not that fond of being in a classroom at all. He’d rather “get on with it,” whatever it is. He wants to know what works, what you can do with it, and how it all fits together. With Eric, I can’t be nebulous. I have to be specific, and then let him try it out.

With people like this, I’m most effective when I give them something to design with their hands. I provide some factual data to massage and a problem to solve, then set them free on a project. And the best projects have some tie to “real life.”

If the Bible lesson is on stewardship, for example, the common sense learners would enjoy working on a project to pay the church bills. Give them a copy of the church budget, the income, and the possible ministry expenses. Then set them loose to plan, to experiment, and to solve the problem using their practicality.

Dynamic Learners

Dynamic learners want to discover truth themselves. Hidden possibilities excite them. Their favorite question: “What can this become?”

The world comes to people like these in rather concrete principles, but they process it actively and with flair. They don’t so much absorb reality as enrich it. People like this often seek careers in sales, action-oriented managerial positions, and marketing.

Marianne is creative and full of enthusiasm. If asked what she thinks of Sunday school, she’d tell you, “I’ve learned to put a mask over my boredom in the traditional classroom setting. I’d greatly prefer to have more action and challenge. Just don’t make it the same every Sunday.”

This group functions best by acting and then testing their experience. To best reach them, I need to make things happen in the classroom, to inject action into mere concepts. Dynamic learners need variety and flexibility, which makes them greatly adaptable to change.

Planning a lesson for folks like this may seem intimidating. Not many of us feel cut out to be ringmasters in a three-ring circus. However, many helpful resources, such as Marlene LeFever’s Creative Teaching Methods (see “Learning-Styles Resources” below), provide plenty of practical helps.

For a lesson on evangelism, I may charge the dynamic learners to design a strategy to reach a local apartment complex with the gospel. And I’d challenge them with the task of not only designing the plan but finding ways to bring it to reality. They don’t necessarily want the hands-on experience of printing the brochures or mapping the neighborhood (as the common sense learners would), but they would sure like to brainstorm the program design. This is a real task, one they would consider worthy of their enthusiasm and creativity.

Identifying Learning Styles

Why am I constantly surprised that people learn in different ways? And why am I apt to teach as if I knew nothing about learning styles? Probably because I naturally settle into teaching in my favorite learning pattern. It’s comfortable. It’s safe. And at least one of us in the classroom will like it!

But just as people finally “hear” the gospel when it is translated into their mother tongue, they best learn it when it is taught in their native style.

That’s why it’s important to identify my own style and the preferred styles for my students. It’s an eye-opener. Like the newlywed who’s shocked to find his way to hang a towel isn’t the way, students don’t dream that others perceive reality-and thus prefer to learn-in ways different from their own.

A number of easy, ten-minute tests are available for identifying learning-style preference. I’ve used the “Learning-Style Inventory” published by McBer and Company (see “Learning-Styles Resources” below). It gives me quick information about my learners, and it opens the students’ eyes to their vastly different preferences in classroom activities. Often students compare the results with surprise-an enthusiastic “I can’t believe it. You’d rather do that too?” or a skeptical “Really? How could you enjoy that kind of class?” But after we’ve all taken the test and compared our results, the class seems more willing to try new approaches.

Once I know what will work best for my students and decide to “invite everyone to the learning party,” to use Southern Baptist Mancil Ezell’s phrase, I have to find ways to ease new methods into classroom routines.

Making New Methods Work

It’s risky to try new methods. Frankly, I prefer the ones I’m good at. If I try something new, it may flop, and I’m not enthusiastic about flops. But unless I push myself into uncharted areas, I run the risk of never reaching the students with other learning styles.

But what about the class of adults who want only a weekly lecture? They insist that something as important as God’s Word should be studied seriously (translation: No learning activities allowed!).

Another objection: isn’t preparing for four kinds of people four times the work?

These are legitimate questions, and perhaps my own experience can answer them. I don’t immediately ask lecture-expectant students to tear paper cups into what they feel about the Council of Chalcedon. Introducing new techniques to a traditional classroom is best done gently. I start with rather nonthreatening suggestions-a work sheet done with a partner, a small-group question-and-answer session, a discussion for a few minutes, or brainstorming in a large group-nothing that can be interpreted by nervous students as potentially embarrassing.

Only when the group is accustomed to a few changes do I offer choices the class may interpret as unusual. Skits, group projects, art options, special research, or even individual study can be a breath of fresh air to those students who long to be invited to learn in their own favorite style.

I try to accommodate each of the four learning styles at some point in the lesson, but this is not an overwhelming task. When I plan, I keep in mind specific students in the class who best represent for me the various learning styles. Then I make sure there is something in the lesson that will appeal to each of those students. It may be the introduction or one of the options to explore the biblical data. Perhaps it’s the application. But somewhere in the lesson, I want each person to know the message is for him or her.

It takes a little additional planning. Sometimes I simply remember to take advantage of those extra options offered in the curriculum. I also find it helpful when I am planning the lesson to keep handy a long list of learning options to quickly remind me of the hundreds of methods I could employ.

A sample lesson could start with an agree-disagree activity. Then we could reassemble for a mini-lecture, after which the options for biblical study could include a dramatic re-enactment or a prepared question-and-answer sheet (with reference books handy).

With some practice, this kind of preparation becomes second nature. It doesn’t prove to be four times the work. My students and I see it as four times the fun.

A few other basic guidelines have helped me introduce new learning activities:

-Be upbeat. The line I use is this: “I know this is a new way of doing things and it may seem dumb to you, but do me a favor: humor me. Just give it a try. We’ll risk together. It just might help us see God more clearly.” If I give them the option to cooperate with me in the endeavor, it becomes their new toy, too.

-Move slowly. I aim at trying only one new idea a month. I don’t want to scare anyone away.

-Start small. The first teaching options I spring on a class are purposely not all that unusual. I wouldn’t start by using Play-Doh in an adult class. I’ve actually used it with great success, but only after we had learned to trust one another, and for a special reason-a lesson on being childlike. It’s best to start with activities I’m pretty sure the class will accept. One group may be yearning for drama and art; another might be more easily persuaded to begin with pencil-and-paper options. By offering options and seeing which are received with enthusiasm, a teacher soon develops a feel for what the class will accept.

-Offer choices. Some people will simply not want to participate, thank you. So I offer them a learning option similar to what they are accustomed to.

If I’m facing a traditional class that expects a lecture, I make sure part of the lesson is solid information: a film with terrific content, a report by a knowledgeable member of the class, a debate with sharp people on both sides, or a mini-lecture. To ignore the students’ desire for a lecture means to frustrate or even infuriate them. That’s not the learning environment I’m trying to create. So I’ll work to accommodate their expectations while broadening their horizons.

Potential obstructionists get their way, and I get mine. This win-win situation allows innovation to proceed with everyone reasonably happy.

In his grace, God has made each of us unique. At times, teaching a roomful of people who learn in different ways can be a frustration. But we can use that same uniqueness to enrich our classrooms. I saw this in my class not long ago.

There they sat-a plumber, a computer-software expert, and an engineer-enthralled with the Sunday school assignment. The morning’s topic was “God, the Holy Spirit.” The men were trying to show the interaction of the three persons in the Godhead. So they designed a mobile.

The mobile showed symmetry, perfect balance, and dazzling color. We all learned as they explained the things they had tried to depict about the Trinity. That mobile graced our classroom for many weeks.

I hadn’t expected these men to choose that learning option. I’d supposed they would go for the individual study or the group discussion. But once again I was taught that when people are given options in the learning environment, they not only learn but enjoy it.

Penny Zettler is minister of Christian education at Central Baptist Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

LEARNING-STYLES RESOURCES

How to find your learning style

Gregorc Style Delineator

Gabriel Systems, Inc.

Box 357

Maynard, MA 01754

(617) 897-6470

Learning-Style Inventory

McBer and Company

137 Newbury Street

Boston, MA 02116

(617) 437-7080

Learning Preference Inventory

Hanson, Silver, Strong & Associates

Box 402

Moorestown, NJ 08057

(609) 234-2610

How to teach by learning styles

Learning and Teaching Style: In Theory and Practice

by Kathleen A. Butler, Ph.D.

Gabriel Systems, Inc.

Box 357

Maynard, MA 01754

(617) 897-6470

Creative Teaching Methods

by Marlene D. LeFever

David C. Cook Publishing Co.

850 North Grove Avenue

Elgin, IL 60120

(312) 741-2400

The 4MAT System

by Bernice McCarthy

EXCEL, Inc.

200 West Station Street

Barrington, IL 60010

(312) 382-7272

Teaching Styles and Strategies Manual

Hanson, Silver, Strong & Associates

Box 402

Moorestown, NJ 08057

(609) 234-2610

Teaching Students through Their Individual Learning Styles

by Kenneth and Rita Dunn

Reston Publishing Co., Inc.

1480 Sunset Hills Road

Reston, VA 22090

(703) 437-8900

Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

SPINNING YARNS

Craig Brian Larson

The well-told tale may be the preacher’s best tool.

Throughout his conquests, Alexander the Great read the Iliad, a book that kindles martial zeal. He often placed his copy, annotated by Aristotle, under his pillow at night alongside his dagger. It’s not stretching it to say this one story’s effect on Alexander may have changed the course of history.

I confess I had been preaching for years before I realized well-told stories wielded this kind of power, that they could actually change people’s lives. I happened onto that realization the hard way. My college degree was in accounting, and I’ve always felt at home with facts, analysis, and principles-the abstract and conceptual. I would have been embarrassed to simply tell a Bible story in a sermon; that was for children. I thought adults needed a quick summary of the story followed by cogent lessons from it.

But then I became pastor of an inner-city church in Chicago. I began to notice my sermons had less impact than in my previous location, a college town. I wasn’t shirking on preparation. I painstakingly studied and outlined each text. But my people too often had blank looks. So I set a goal to learn how to communicate to my people, none of whom were college graduates, and a few of whom couldn’t read.

Other inner-city pastors emphasized oratory and delivery, so I bought a book on classical rhetoric and tried becoming a flame thrower. Blank looks became surprised looks.

Then I read Triumphs of the Imagination, by Leland Ryken, which discusses the nature and value of fiction. Frankly, I hadn’t read fiction in eight years. But Ryken argued that a story has power-in itself. Hearing one, we enter the experience of others, feel what they feel, learn firsthand.

So I tried recounting Bible stories in my sermons, accenting dialogue, building suspense. I began woodenly, then loosened up and found I actually enjoyed telling the stories! Best of all, my people now had looks of interest. They were enjoying the stories, too.

Since then I’ve read many more books on storytelling and fiction writing. I’ve found the same principles these yarn spinners use to make characters appealing and heighten suspense have aided my preaching.

Characterization

People love people. Many magazines exist solely because of this fact. We are inspired by other’s accomplishments. We are curious about their secrets. We are attracted by their virtues and repelled by their flaws. For good or ill, we are never neutral about people.

Fiction writers know that, and they labor to create characters that will bond with the readers’ interests. If we care about their character, we will keep reading their book.

God has filled his Book with fascinating people: Joab, a no-holds-barred pragmatist; Abigail, an unflappable crisis manager; Jonadab, a crafty schemer; or Jonathan, the greatest friend someone could have.

In order to spotlight characters in a Bible story or modern-day illustration, I must know them. Fiction writers spend days imagining their characters’ habits, emotions, weaknesses, abilities, ambitions, and fears. As I prepare to tell a story, I take the time to ask myself, Were these people extroverted or introverted? What was their relationship to God? Were they assertive or passive, impetuous or controlled, can-do types or defeatists? This thinking takes time, because people are complex. But if I don’t do it, I end up with cardboard figures that are indistinguishable and boring.

One way to bring biblical characters alive in my mind is to find contemporary parallels. Recently Jeroboam took off his sandals and put on black wing tips for me. Here is the consummate one-minute manager, high on the list of corporate headhunters. He is ousted from management only to return to claim the presidential suite. Yet he compromises principles and loses out with God.

Another way to ensure the characters in my sermons are vital is to concentrate on the universal elements of their personalities: ambition, loss, romance, unfulfilled desires, success, stress, and so on. Last year I preached an expository series through the life of David, and I wrestled with the text where David feigns insanity. Then I spotted the common denominator-when facing a crisis, David was resourceful. The text sprang open.

I have also found that Bible characters are more relevant if I unveil their possible thoughts and motivations. My listeners know the complexity of their own inner lives. They identify with the Bible character when they discover his or her personal struggles.

For example, I imagined Sarah’s reaction when the Lord promised Abraham, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son,” something like this:

“Sarah was speechless. Then came a sudden association, a memory sadly pushed to the back of her mind years ago: God had promised they would have offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky. She had never known what to think of that. And now, at this word from these strangers, she did think, After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?”

It’s easy to slide into the rut of characterizing by adjectives only. Though adjectives are useful, especially when time is short, fiction writers use many means to make each person in the story vivid and memorable.

 Dialogue. We get to know others by overhearing what they say.

 Actions. Play-by-play is perhaps the easiest way to inject life into a sermon.

 Thoughts. “As water reflects a face, so a man’s heart reflects the man” (Prov. 27:19).

 What other characters say. One person brings the best out of our character; another the worst. Together they give the whole picture, like a statue viewed from different angles.

 Description of appearance. We discern much about others just by looking at them.

Dialogue

Of those methods for enlivening a character, dialogue is perhaps the most powerful. Some fiction writers advise that dialogue should make up one third of the novel.

Some of the most memorable words in the Bible come from dialogue. What preacher would want to do without Moses’ answer to God at the burning bush: “O Lord, please send someone else to do it”? Or Abraham’s words to a curious Isaac as they climb a mountain of Moriah: “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son”?

I have found using dialogue in my sermon’s stories helps in several ways.

First, dialogue invites immediacy. It beckons the listener to eavesdrop on each conversation. The storyteller gathers the listeners and the characters into the same room by using direct quotation rather than indirect. If I quote only indirectly, I put myself between the listeners and the scene: “Jesus then told Nicodemus that unless a man is born again. . . .” However, when I quote directly, I let the character do the talking: “I tell you the truth, unless a man is born again. . . .” A subtle change, but a noticeable improvement in immediacy.

Second, dialogue heightens emotion. Which has more drama, to say, “Elijah sat down under the broom tree and felt depressed,” or “Elijah sat down under the broom tree and said, ‘I have had enough, Lord. Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors’ “?

Third, dialogue reveals the person. We learn much about Naomi through these few words: “Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty.” In a sermon I could say, “Naomi had been through great hardship and felt self-pity and bitterness,” but her own words reflect that more powerfully.

Because my listeners intuitively gauge the character from his or her words, I am particularly careful how I paraphrase and deliver Bible characters’ dialogue. Slang and regional accents can add humor and contemporaneity, but they can also mislead or distract when used indiscriminately.

Action and Plot

When we recount a Bible story in a message, we obviously do not write the plot, nor do we alter it. The same thing applies to illustrations from books, news events, or our own lives. But learning what makes for a good plot has attuned me to the crescendos and decrescendos of a story. I want to be like the pianist who interprets a song more sensitively because of his grasp of music theory and composition.

When I was a teenager, I bought a classical music album entitled Fireworks, a marrow-throbbing collection of zeniths from various pieces. We owned other classical music, but I got every last spark out of Fireworks. My tastes have matured; I now enjoy the quiet and subtle movements as much as the grand finales.

My storytelling has followed a similar path. At first I told stories like one long finale, trumpets blaring from beginning to end. But I’ve grown more sensitive to downs and ups. Now I reserve my highest intensity for the climax.

The key to understanding a story’s plot, and where the climax falls, is identifying the conflict. Whenever I prepare to tell a story, I consider: What problems is this person trying to solve? What adversity is there to overcome?

I had told the story of Isaac’s birth many times before I recognized and developed one of the subsidiary conflicts: Would Sarah ever laugh again? Would her life ever take on joy? This problem isn’t verbalized until the end of the story. At the birth of Isaac, Sarah says, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” I decided to tell Sarah’s story, basing it on the problem of her lack of joy.

Since conflict sparks interest, I’ll usually begin my telling of a story with it. Normally I don’t launch the story with an eloquent description of a person, landscape, or background events; I unload that cargo as the plot progresses. With Sarah’s story I had to establish from the start her lack of laughter, unstated in Genesis until the end. I imagined her reaction to someone else’s celebration:

“A new mother giggled with her family and friends. Sarah smiled too, but she couldn’t laugh; she hadn’t really laughed in years. She was glad for the mother, but it was a hollow gladness and a Mona Lisa smile. Would Sarah ever laugh again?”

Sometimes, feeling pressure from the clock, I rush the beginning of the story to get to the climax and make my point. Taking time to establish the person’s struggle is difficult for me, a get-to-the-point person. But by slighting the conflict I defuse the climax, leaving myself with an emotional dud.

For example, the parting of the Red Sea is a moving climax, but only if you’ve been through Pharaoh’s repeated refusals and the ominous charge of the Egyptian cavalry. So when I told the story during a series in Exodus, I didn’t skip a single plague. The greater the struggles, the more powerful the victory.

Sensory Description

The doorways into the imagination are the five senses. By appealing to the senses, the storyteller takes the listener by the hand and leads him across the threshold into the scene. Notice how the following sensory-filled introduction involves you in Joseph’s experience:

“Joseph’s head pounded as he looked at the crowd of buyers and wondered, Which one will be my master? He wanted to get off his feet, blistered by the desert trek. Raucous, foreign tongues filled his ears, but he longed for the voice of Jacob.”

During my sermon preparation I close my eyes, place myself in the scene, and use my imagination. What do I see? What do I hear? What do I touch, smell, taste? When I put myself into Elijah’s place at the ravine of Kerith where he was fed by ravens, the brook didn’t just run dry. Stones hurt the back of my cupped hands as I pressed them into the riverbed for the trickling water. In the message I won’t use all these perceptions, just enough to satisfy a healthy imagination.

Of the five senses, sight is the most influential. Storytellers are like film makers, who search for meaningful, emotive images: David twirling his sling; Abraham lifting a knife over his son; Adam hiding in the bushes from God.

Lengthy descriptions slow a story, so whenever possible I embroider description into the action. For instance, instead of saying, “Goliath’s sword was heavy,” I would say, “David strained to raise Goliath’s sword over his head.”

When we taste, touch, sniff, observe, and listen, we tell the story freshly even to those who have heard the story ninety-nine times before.

Delivery

Rushing a story is like gulping down a Sunday dinner. It takes time to set the mood, to expressively speak the dialogue. Our listeners will not get emotionally involved in thirty seconds, nor can we build suspense in that time. We need pauses . . . silence.

There are occasions to speak rapidly, to increase the sense of fast action. But in general, a hurried story says, “Just get the facts.” A slower pace says, “Feel this; live this.” I used to balk at spending a large amount of time on a story, because I wanted to get to the point. Now I realize the story gets the point across better than my declarative statements.

By trial and error I’ve developed a storytelling style that works for me. I write out the story in my own words, then read as little as possible, because when eye contact is broken, the mood evaporates. And I tell the story without pausing for principles or application. I want people to experience the story itself in a powerful way first.

Telling a story well requires extra preparation, and when a story is long or I don’t manage time well during the week, I read more during the sermon. And I’ve faced those dreaded moments in which I am a few feet from the pulpit, with solid eye contact, and can’t remember what’s next. But those blunders are forgotten when a story hits home.

Surprises

As I increased the amount of storytelling in my preaching, I didn’t have to jettison principles and propositions. But instead of the traditional format of ideas, then illustrations, I first tell the story or paint the image, proceeding from known to unknown, concrete to abstract. This gives the listener a solid box for storing wispy principles.

Recently I preached on how we often push God to the side during the week and live for our pursuits. But I began by telling of King Ahaz, who was charmed by a pagan altar in Damascus and carved a copy in Jerusalem. He took the liberty of moving the furniture in God’s house, sliding his new altar into the center and the bronze altar to the side. Ahaz instructed the priests to sacrifice on his altar; at God’s altar he would seek divine guidance.

Only then did I raise the question, “Aren’t we like Ahaz if we devote time, energy, and thoughts to personal ambitions but seek God only when we can’t pay the bills?” Weeks later a member confessed, “Pastor, that story showed me exactly what I was doing.”

A second surprise of my increased yarn spinning is that Bible stories have become my main resource for illustrations. The Bible is packed with stories-adventures, mysteries, romances. It has heroes, villains, suspense. I never had enough illustrations before. Now I’ll often use Bible stories to open windows on a subject.

Through these stories, Bible events and characters are becoming symbols for my people, things by which they interpret their lives. Recently Mary told me, “I used to complain a lot: ‘Why do I have to go shopping today?’ ‘I hate to clean the bathroom.’ But when you preached on the desert wanderings, and I saw the Israelites grumbling all the time, I just couldn’t complain any more. And if I catch myself complaining, it hurts me inside because I don’t want to be like them.”

As I tell stories, I am affected as deeply as the listeners. Some time ago I sat with my boys at bedtime reading the story of David and Goliath from a children’s book. I came to David’s famous line: “All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”

For the rest of the story I fought back tears . . . just reading a children’s book.

I’m not given to tears, but pastoring in Chicago, toe to toe with Goliath, I identified so deeply with David. Suddenly I was ready to fight again.

Craig Brian Larson is pastor of Central Assembly of God, Chicago, IL

Leadership Summer 1987 p. 20-4

Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

BARGAIN-BASEMENT BOOK BUYING

Bing Wall

“When you leave seminary,” a professor had said, “you should have a trunkful of personal belongings and a U-Haul full of books.”

I chuckled, but the chuckle was laden with guilt-guilt over my meager library and guilt over spending money on books. Not that I didn’t like books. I loved them. But having a love affair with books is different from actually building a library. My wife and I were just starting married life, complete with bills. How could we afford our living expenses, pay tuition and still buy books? We simply couldn’t.

When the day came to move to our first full-time ministry, we did load a U-Haul-with our personal belongings. My books didn’t even fill the back seat of our ’72 Hornet.

The desire to seriously work on my library remained frustrated early in the pastorate. One child was born the first year and a second was soon on the way. My library lay dormant.

With inadequate resources for sermon preparation, I found my creativity suffering. For example, while working on a message about heaven, I could locate only a few pages in a theological text in my study. A trip to a Christian bookstore miles away turned up just one brief paperback. Even a simple matter like a historical or scientific illustration involved driving sixteen miles to look in the public library’s encyclopedia.

By the time I left this first ministry, I was hungry for any type of book. I needed literature, history, philosophy, biography, a set of encyclopedias, dictionaries, better commentaries, and books of sermons.

Then one bright spring day I came across a Salvation Army Thrift Store downtown. Curious, I went inside. I couldn’t believe it. In one section I found about four thousand used books, divided by subject. Most were priced at fifty cents or less. Entire sets of encyclopedias were going for ten dollars. In an hour I was out the door with a shopping bag full of a variety of needed books, all for seven dollars.

I began to investigate other ways to locate used books at a reasonable cost. To my surprise, they were all around me.

The public library held two used-book sales a year. My first trip to one of these sales was a disappointment. Arriving at the sale fifteen minutes after it opened, I missed out on most of the choice books. But even so, I picked up twenty books of biography and history, plus several commentaries. By arriving earlier the next time, I was more successful. My purchase? About fifty volumes for twelve dollars.

Other groups like Rotary or Lions held used-book sales as fund raisers, and I often discovered a retiring pastor had donated significant works to these sales. I’ve found works by Machen, Tillich, Spurgeon, Tournier, and Bonhoeffer, all between ten cents and a dollar. Others by writers unfamiliar to me have turned out to be prized finds.

A few good books can be unearthed in used-book stores. These booksellers know the value of their product, however, and their prices reflect that. If a book is still in print, it is often priced at 50 percent of retail. Sometimes this price is higher than those found in mail-order catalogs. But occasionally I have located a classic out-of-print book that is worth the price.

These three sources have been crucial in the building of my library. Other pastors strengthen their libraries through discount mail-order houses, the generosity of retiring pastors, and strategic entries on their Christmas and birthday lists.

By now I have a tiny U-Haul of books. Building a library, formerly a source of anxiety and guilt, has become an enjoyable pastime. On vacation or at a conference, I’ll sneak away to visit the local book dealers. Or when I’m home, I’ll take an hour to browse the Salvation Army or Goodwill stores. Discovering treasures new and old has become great fun-and affordable.

– Bing Wall

Calvary Baptist Church

Fort Dodge, Iowa

Leadership Summer 1987 p. 106

Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

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