Pastors

Funerals for Those You Barely Know

Mark Coppenger

How to handle that awkward but potentially signficant situation.

Is her name Carrie Mae or Carrie Lou?

My stomach tensed as I stood to give the funeral message. I can't believe I left the name off my notes!

My heart beat fast. I reached into my jacket pocket as discreetly as possible. Where's that obituary? It's soaking up the sweat that's spreading under my arm. It's so damp it's stuck in there. Looks like I'm going to have to do the message with all pronouns-"she" and "her" rather than using her name.

I looked at the family, seated in the first few rows. Will they suspect I've forgotten the name of their loved one? Should I ask them quietly for the name? Should I stop and fumble to get this damp obituary unstuck from my pocket?

I wish I could tell you this was fiction, but except for the name, it's not. My first year in the pastorate included thirty-one funerals, and often I strained to get the names straight. I'd write them in the margins of my Bible. I'd rehearse them in the "green room" at the funeral home. But now and then, I'd find myself stuck with pronouns. I felt like a duck, trying to move serenely on the surface while paddling like crazy underneath.

It's just not easy ministering to people you barely know. Usually the scenario goes this way: Your secretary hands you a note on the death. As you're rushing out the office door, she calls out, "She's Robert Caulkins's sister-in-law."

"Who's Robert Caulkins?"

"Bud Freely's nephew. He used to work for Axworth Drilling (Who? Robert or Bud?) before it became Shambling Pipe and Valve, which went bankrupt in '56."

"Okay. Thanks. Got to go."

You sit in the home with strangers all around, except for one older lady you met at the adult Sunday school Christmas party. It's hard to imagine doing anything particularly helpful for these people, and there seems to be the possibility of doing some harm-either through an ill-chosen phrase, a forgotten name, or just a general failure to rise to the occasion.

Fortunately, you don't remain a novice for long. And as I've done more of these funerals for people I've barely known, I've discovered they can be gratifying. In fact, they're often not as difficult as those for long-time acquaintances with whom you share a vast store of personal memories.

After all, the expectations of the family and congregation aren't as high. They know the constraints of time and your unfamiliarity with the person. If there were months to prepare the funeral, then they'd expect a substantial research program of you. But the folks know you've had to scramble, and they can be forgiving.

Compare this to the funeral of a giant of the church, well known to you and everyone, where the "you'd better get it right, Buster" factor is high. You enter the pulpit on these occasions with the suspicion that when you're done, a brief silence will be followed by a display of score cards like the ones competitive divers face. But when they know you and the deceased were strangers, they're more inclined to leave the cards down.

None of this is to suggest our primary concern in preparing a service is reputation. We have important things to say as God's people on the scene. If offense and disappointment are the natural outcomes of being faithful to God in the funeral setting, then so be it. But offense due to ignorance is nothing to be cherished, and it's nice to know you're going into a situation where the chances for it are reduced.

Eulogy

In funerals for the little known, the eulogy terrain is treacherous. It's difficult to get a candid picture of the deceased. As people sit in the parlor with the pastor, they feel obliged to limit their remarks to niceties. I suspect if it were Hitler's funeral, little or nothing would be said about the Holocaust, but someone would be sure to praise his special work on behalf of Aryans.

It's often said that funeral directors are prime candidates for religious cynicism since they hear so many scoundrels preached into heaven. Day after day they watch pastors gloss over corrupt lives in an effort to make everybody feel good, and so the meaning of discipleship is obscured. If for no other concern than the souls of funeral directors, we should be careful about heaping up misplaced praise.

It's embarrassing to hear after a funeral full of eulogy that the person was, in fact, a skinflint and a tyrant at home. As a pastor, you realize you've jeopardized one of your most precious vocational resources, your credibility.

The danger extends to praise of family members. I once ventured some kind words for the widow, calling her "one of God's good gifts" to the man. I knew this would be gratifying to her and felt sure, in light of the affectionate words I'd been hearing, that it was true. But not long after, a man in the community took me aside to inform me that she was the worst thing that had ever happened to her husband; she had tormented him with suffocating advice most of his life. The man's tone let me know he counted me as just one more in a long line of ministerial saps. G. K. Chesterton built his "Father Brown" detective series around the premise that clergy are savvy folks since they have access to so many dark secrets, but the notion that pastors are fuzzy idealists is strong, and a misdirected eulogy serves to reinforce this crippling impression.

There is danger as well in the opposite direction. What shall we call the pronouncement of critical words at a funeral? Mallogy? Kakalogy? Antilogy? Whatever the term, there may be the urge to wax prophetic against the departed and his type. Here lies before you a perfect sermon illustration for the "rich young ruler" or the "Demas has departed" texts. Only kindness and a strong desire to preserve your ministry and life will keep you from preaching it. Outright condemnation is rare at funerals.

But, as those of us who've written reference letters know, in a context where flowery speech is the norm, a meager word of support says a great deal by what it leaves out. This is fine; it communicates with delicacy. But even here I hesitate.

We can damn with faint praise. The relatives may have been the reticent sort. Or perhaps they weren't morally or spiritually observant. They told me nothing bad, perhaps, but their failure to tell the good could be leaving me with an inaccurate impression. If I'm not careful, I'll pass along that impression to the funeral congregation. In short, a eulogy can underdo as well as overdo it.

It's embarrassing to be patronized by a relative after the funeral: "If only you had known her better" or "It's so hard when you don't really know them." The tone tells the story: "You really fouled up, but I'm going to make a lame excuse for you just to keep things pleasant." You know you've undereulogized.

So I shy away from eulogy. It's so easy to get it wrong. If it were unavoidable, it would be worth the risk, but there's an alternative. I don't have to eulogize. Neither do I need to stick to a purely generic funeral, just leaving a blank for the name. Let me call this alternative the "personalized" funeral.

Personalizing the Gospel

I begin by scavenging, searching for bits and pieces of information about the person. As soon as possible, I go to the home where the family is gathering. I have them talk about the person, giving each one there a chance to reminisce. Often friends and neighbors will add to what the family says. Certain themes emerge. Anecdotes generate anecdotes. There is a pause for tears, and then a fresh word comes. Sometimes it runs fifteen minutes, sometimes an hour. I may ask questions to open new regions of memory. All the time, I'm taking mental notes.

Many families bring out objects to show you-a poem stuck in his or her Bible, a Sunday school class history, a photo of a long-dead spouse, a newspaper clipping, a watercolor he did. Any one of these can supply the key to your funeral remarks.

Back at the church are other resources for those at least remotely related to the church. Long-time members can add information. Bound issues of the church paper may hold other traces. I keep a file folder on each household in the church. Into these go letters, hospital visitation note cards, newspaper clippings. When death occurs, I pull the family file. Perhaps there's a Christmas card I'd forgotten, a notice of election to a civic club office, or the record of a comment made from the hospital bed.

I'm not after a comprehensive presentation of his or her life. If so, then the day or two between death and the funeral would be filled with anxiety. There would be too much to discover and assimilate. That's why I steer clear of eulogy: it presses me into this sort of anxiety.

But when the focus is not on the person but on the Lord, the bind is not there. I simply try to use an item from the deceased's life to introduce a truth from God, not build a case for the person's glory. Thus I scavenge with a different spirit. I'm not looking for everything but for something, some hook upon which to hang an apt biblical word.

Some examples:

1. Checking her hospital visitation card, I found I'd once read Psalm 121 to Alice. At the funeral, I recalled that moment together and then focused upon that psalm.

2. As I visited in the home, the family showed me a poem placed under the glass on Margaret's dresser. The closing words, "Remember God the Gardener knows when flowers need the rain," provided the base for comments on the sufficiency of God's grace for the woman who'd died-and for those of us who remained.

3. The family made clear Jack's love for the Bible, sports, and music. I saw in all these a hunger for heaven, where we find, respectively, the full truth of God, release from drudgery, and a new song. The message was not upon what a good fellow he was but upon the nature of heaven.

4. Bill's son passed on to me a small metal cross with the words "Jesus Christ" written on it. He'd found it in his father's effects. At the funeral, I mentioned this by way of introduction to the truth of the Cross.

The son also told of a time when Bill flew across country to help him after a car wreck. From the report of this deed, I quickly moved to a description of God's sacrificial love for his children.

Notice that in none of these was there a serious attempt to praise the deceased. In fact, in the first one, there was no praise at all. But the simple act of tying a biblical point to some feature of the deceased's life personalized the message and prepared those gathered to receive it.

You'd think this minimal attention to the glories of the deceased would frustrate the family and friends, but it's my experience that this approach is well received. Family members will sometimes coach you on what to say on their loved one's behalf, but they, too, seem satisfied with personalizing rather than eulogizing. Once they've seen the Lord and his work lifted up, they realize this is something better than what they had in mind. You might say they discover what they wanted all along, though they didn't suspect it.

The juxtaposition of loving reference to their dead friend or relative and words of instruction from God is generally satisfying and helpful. Of course, when it comes to working with people, there are no foolproof methods. I've also blown this approach a time or two.

Shortly after coming to a church, I was called to do the funeral for a woman. I wasn't sure what I could say about this near stranger, but as I visited the family in her home, I found she had been a pretty good artist. It struck me that a sermon could be built on this interest of hers.

In brief, the message went this way: In art, we have the realists (e.g., Roman sculptors) and the idealists (e.g., Greek sculptors). The Bible is that way. It shows the realism of David's sin and Peter's denial, the warts of human existence. It also shows us the ideals, the perfection of Jesus and heaven. So God meets us at every level. He takes us from perdition to sanctification, and so on.

I cringe to recount it. It's so strained. You can almost see the beads of sweat form on the words. If I'd taken more time to reflect on what needed to be said, I could have made a more direct and satisfying statement. Having taught aesthetics for a number of years, I saw a chance to trot out some old course material. And it sounded like old course material trotted out. I determined to serve up better baked bread thereafter.

The personalizing approach helps me keep clear on what I should count success. Have I succeeded when the family is gratified and failed when it's not? Not necessarily. If so, then flattery, touching both the deceased and the family, would be the best percentage shot. But I can aim higher.

It's not at all unrealistic to hope the service will lead a good number of those present into the presence of God. When this happens, lives are changed. Comfort, repentance, quickening can occur, or at least get underway. In the personalized funeral, this happens as we establish rapport with personal reference and then move on to God.

Ready for the Good News

We don't think of funerals as laughing matters, but it's hard to keep from smiling when you see some of the folks who attend them. People who never come to church, whose lives are as dissolute as any to be found, find themselves seated before a preacher. They're usually black-sheep family members or rough-edged fellow workers. Whether they exhibit the florid face of the lush, the hair and jewelry of a lounge lizard, the affected sophistication of the socialite, the smug impatience of the self-made man, or the eyes that match a drug-fried brain, they look lost. Some squirm in borrowed Sunday-go-to-meetin' suits. Others posture in expensive, dress-for-intimidation outfits. And there you stand with Bible in hand. If you'll pardon the expression, "What a setup."

You see these people at most funerals, but you see more of them at funerals for those you barely know. The reason you barely know some folks is they are virtual strangers to the church. There are, of course, other reasons for unfamiliarity. You may be new to the church, the size of the congregation may be great, or the deceased may have lived elsewhere in recent years. But in many cases you're dealing with the unchurched.

A clear statement of the gospel is in order. I use a simple presentation I've committed to memory. It touches on repentance, trust, and the lordship of Christ, and provides a scriptural base for its claims. It's the sort of thing I could share in a moment with a desperate man. I want to be able to leave that funeral with a conviction like Paul's: "I am innocent of the blood of my listeners because I've not hesitated to proclaim God's counsel" (Acts 20:26-27).

If the personalizing item does not lead directly to the gospel statement, I introduce it in other ways. If I do compliment the deceased a bit, I might say he was no fool in that he did not rely on good qualities or deeds to make him right with God, which is an impossibility anyway.

On other occasions when I was assured the deceased loved the Lord, I've presumed to speak for the dead, telling the congregation the one thing he or she would most want them to hear, namely the gospel. No one has objected that I've misrepresented someone's interests.

A well-handled funeral can put pastors in a unique position. Because we have played a critical role in a delicate situation, we enjoy a special standing with the family. They see themselves in our debt. We're pasted in their book of memories. We can therefore move more easily into their lives to do God's work. Are they lost? They might give evangelistic counsel a hearing. Are their lives in disarray? Perhaps they'll open their door and ears to advice. Are they hoping for help for a friend or relative? They'll likely think of the one who helped them in their time of difficulty.

So many walls encircle the Christian minister. When breaks occur, when opportunities for entrance show themselves, then there's cause for celebration. Funerals for those we barely know can serve this cause admirably.

Mark Coppenger is pastor of First Baptist Church in El Dorado, Arkansas.

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

Pastors

THE PAIN OF FOND FAREWELLS

Clark H. Scott

“Clark, I need to talk to you. I’m taking the offer to open the new office in Illinois.”

Our congregation was two and a half years old. Wayne, a young C.P.A., had been one of our strongest leaders since its birth. My wife and I were close friends with Wayne and his wife, Debbie. We had stayed in their home on our house-hunting trip before moving to the area. We had spent hours planning together for the church. We had taken childbirth preparation classes together, and our daughters were born two days apart. We had prayed with them, laughed with them, cried with them.

Now they were moving.

How could they? Just months shy of the ground breaking for our first building, we were knee-deep in financial arrangements. The church needed their financial expertise-not to mention their support. And they led a growing class of young couples who would miss them tremendously. They couldn’t go!

Yet, how could they not? The new office was near their parents. They would be able to rear their children in the surroundings they had always wanted. They could go home again. Besides, the move was a promotion. The new position would challenge Wayne.

Wayne and Debbie would be the first to move from our new church. How was I to take this hurt? How could our small congregation, which had grown from twenty-five to about seventy, largely due to their work, press forward without them?

Florida’s transient culture forces us to face many such situations when solid, ministering members move away. We discovered how crucial is our treatment of those who leave. Those who remain sense our reactions-good or ill-and it affects the whole congregation.

Personal reactions

I first had to deal with my personal reactions. I hurt over the loss of a friend. In a small, growing church, friendships are practically inevitable. We share life at its best and worst. To avoid friendship in such situations requires a heart of ice.

Then, one day our friends leave. No more Thanksgiving dinners together. No more late-night rehashing of the congregational meeting. No more swapping baby-sitting. We feel abandoned. Our friends are moving.

Eventually I learned to see it as exactly that: our friends are moving. They will still be our friends. Communication may be by letter or phone. We may snatch visits when we pass through their town on vacation or when they return for a few days. But we are still friends.

This came home in a poignant way. Wayne and Debbie have been gone now nearly four years. Not long ago my mother died, and a few moments before her funeral as I stood in the chapel, I looked up to see Wayne and Debbie. They had heard the news from church members in Florida and had driven three hours to be with us in Indiana at a time when we needed friends. We did not lose them as friends when they moved; we just have friends in central Illinois now.

When Dale and Deana moved to Michigan, I again felt a deep, personal loss. A vivacious couple, they had been with us only a few months. Their potential was just becoming recognized. Dale was a corporate manager, well-read in a variety of fields-Bible, music, art, sports, history, politics. My education grew simply by talking with him, and he supplied me with issues of the many magazines and journals he received.

He softened the blow of their leaving with four tickets to a Dodgers-Tigers spring-training game, but even that stung since it was our last game together. I knew I’d miss his lively and generous spirit. Although we don’t correspond much, I feel we could probably pick up our friendship where we left it, perhaps discussing one of John Stott’s books or how the Tigers are faring.

When I lose a key member, I also fear my increased workload.

As a teenager, I worked in a grocery store, and one of the employees there was convinced the store could not run without her. I remember the owner saying, “I have seen our government go on in spite of the deaths of two presidents, and I’m convinced no one is indispensable.” That has shaped my thinking about the body of Christ. This does not make me unappreciative of those who carry large loads, but it has helped my perspective when those people leave. God will provide leadership and workers for his church.

After four years as chairman of our congregation, Howard moved across state to a Christian retirement home. He had carried so much responsibility that I just knew my load would increase. He alone knew how to handle many tasks-making bank deposits, lining up communion servers, signing checks, checking the post office box, being my personal counselor. How could I go on?

Then I realized we had grown to about 120 under Howard’s chairmanship. Wouldn’t it be egocentric of either of us to think out of 120 people, only two were capable of handling those tasks? After listing the jobs in our newsletter, we gave six volunteers ministries they needed. My load was not increased at all, and if one of these new workers moves, we won’t have to replace nearly so many jobs.

A third personal reaction was hardly logical but real nonetheless: the feeling of rejection. If they really appreciated my ministry, they wouldn’t leave. They’d stay until the job is done if they were as committed to the Lord as I am. Such disparaging thoughts crept to mind.

Not wanting to let Satan put a barrier between them and me by construing their move as personal rejection, I find I need to ask, “Is there anything in our church that’s making you want to leave?” “Do you believe the Lord is in your move?” It helps me to be reminded that the move is triggered by circumstances far removed from the church. It helps them, too, to look for what God might be doing through the transition. For some, leaving the church is the worst part of the separation. I try to assure them the Lord can use them where they are going.

When I start feeling sorry for myself, I remember that they will probably irk their new church by talking about how things were done here.

Positive responses

What about the congregation’s response? In a small congregation or within small groups in a larger church, many lay people react to someone leaving much like I do. Friendships are uprooted, ministry loads are redistributed, and fears of rejection are kindled. Leaders’ attitudes can help in the transition. Here are some lessons we are learning that may help:

We let those leaving know we love them-without laying on guilt. As appropriate farewell gestures, we had a dinner for one family, gave a gift in the service to another, “roasted” another, and used church newsletter announcements for others. We tried to avoid doing the same thing every time so the farewell wouldn’t appear routine. We also did not want to hurt someone’s feelings by getting into can-you-top-this extravaganzas. We considered which groups the people had shared in and encouraged those groups to stage farewells.

We try to help members’ transitions by giving guidance on churches in their new community. We contact churches near their new location and ask them to welcome our former members. Letters, phone calls, cards, and church newsletters say “we miss you.” We do not try to keep their financial support or ask them to exert long-distance leadership because we let them know we expect them to be involved in a new congregation before long.

We trust the Lord to replace leaving members. It is amazing how God sends the right people at the right time. We once bade farewell to a special couple in the morning service and had a new couple appear at church that evening who eventually filled the vacated ministries. No, the new people will not be exactly the same, but God uses the unique gifts of new persons to good advantage.

We try to remember the local “heroes of the faith” as we grow and our history lengthens. Without looking backward all the time, we can incorporate into our program events that honor those who served at each stage of the church’s development. Anniversary Sundays, homecomings, and mortgage burnings are especially good times for remembering. So often we mention only those who have died. We want to let it be known there are living saints who still serve elsewhere. A display table or bulletin board with former members’ pictures, names, and special contributions serves this purpose well.

Having said this, I must admit I’ve never gotten used to saying farewell. In Florida we have nearly total turnover in a congregation every seven years. That means a lot of good-byes, but it also signals opportunity. In the midst of frequent farewells, we are determined to continue to minister to the thousands of newcomers to our area. After all, many of them were someone else’s leavers. As Job said, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”

-Clark H. Scott

Palm Bay Christian Church

Palm Bay, Florida

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

Pastors

THE BACK PAGE

Harold L. Myra

Alert readers will notice a change on this page. The editors have given it a new name, and Paul Robbins and I are being joined by Terry Muck as an alternating columnist.

During the past several years, Terry and managing editor Marshall Shelley have built an outstanding editorial team. In the past year, Marshall has taken more hands-on leadership under Terry’s capable direction. His newest assignment-beginning next issue-will be writing the front page. Terry, Paul, and I will alternate on this page.

Speaking of Marshall Shelley, not long ago we were in the locker room at the “Y” after battling out a tough game of racquetball. As we leaned against the lockers trying to cool down, still in our damp playing clothes, I said jokingly, “What I need is a good book on how to reduce my sweat time. It takes me twenty minutes to stop sweating.”

“Yeah,” Marshall said, “where’s the help when you really need it?”

“I don’t have time to sweat twenty minutes!” I bantered. “You can get a success book on everything else. How about Thirty Days to Dryness? Or better yet, The One-Minute Sweat: When You Don’t Have Time for the Drips.”

This burlesque of success books led to talk about the commercials that show busy men and women saying, “I haven’t got time for the pain.” Every time I hear that phrase, I wince. It conveys so much of our culture’s message.

Feel pain? Take a pill.

Feel down? Attend a seminar.

Feel guilty? Here’s a talk show to convince you there’s no reason for guilt; you just have “different values.”

To every problem, says TV, there’s a solution. Dull all pain. Avoid all distress. Yet we all know life isn’t problem/solution.

Life is painful.

No one can avoid grief, disillusionment, and failure. Our culture puts so many foolish expectations into our brains, it’s no wonder people can’t cope. An American missionary to Lebanon said to me, a few years before Beirut became a battlefield, that he had begun to see America in some ways as an “adolescent culture.” Despite Vietnam, Iran, and terrorists, our media and religion too often skim along the surface of life.

My wife, Jeanette, and I currently care for two foster babies. Someone told Jeanette recently that so many of the people whose children are wards of the court take all their cues about how to respond in domestic situations from television. Those are their only role models. Americans are media creatures. The unquestioned assumptions of many in our congregations are in flat contradiction to both Christian values and life’s reality. As we help them apply biblical values, we may need to work at realigning their expectations, especially that “pain has no place in my life.”

We can easily find ourselves contributing to the superficial view by projecting a question/answer, problem/solution grid rather than images of the Christian pilgrim traveling through very rough country under the grace of God.

I was reminded recently how these expectations also concern the pastor. Here are thoughts from good friend and CTi board member Steve Brown, pastor of Key Biscayne Presbyterian Church. It appeared in his Key Life publication.

“After a week of meetings in Pittsburgh, a man came up to me. A former missionary and member of the church for over thirty years, he said something I still haven’t been able to classify as either a compliment or something otherwise. He said, ‘Steve, I’ve really appreciated what you’ve said this week. All my life I’ve heard pastors say that they were sinners. You’re the first one I ever really believed.’

“Though I still chuckle about that remark, I acknowledge with complete sincerity his observation. You see, I’m not a pastor because I’m good or have abilities or because I’m talented. I’m where I’m at because God put me here. And sometimes I’ll be soft, and sometimes I’ll be hard, but you remember I’m just like you. I’m a leader, anointed of God to teach his Word. God must remind me over and over that even when people call me Reverend, I’m not.

“In every congregation, God sets aside brothers and sisters who are called to lead. But the problem is that sometimes we get the idea we are God’s gift to the world, and when that happens, the delicate balance between gifted leadership and ecclesiastical elitism gets shattered. There is no room in the body of Christ for elitism.

“There are no super-Christians in the body of Christ. All of us are ‘just one among equals.’ The importance of being honest and acknowledging that truth cannot be overstated.

“When a Christian gets honest, something exciting happens. We get to the point where God can use us. D. L. Moody once said, ‘I’ve had more trouble with D. L. Moody than any other man I’ve ever known.’ Thomas … Kempis said, ‘Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish yourself to be.’

“Let me tell you a prayer that God always answers. ‘Lord, show me myself.’ Don’t pray it unless you mean it, because he will, and you won’t like what you see. But he’ll make you different.

“Super-Christians? They don’t exist. There are only sinners saved by the blood of the Lamb. Remember that the next time you find yourself enjoying compliments so much they take on the sound of a flapping cape.”

Thanks, Steve, for insights we can identify with. Frankly, the longer I live, the more preposterous becomes any suggestion of donning Superman’s cape. Moody and … Kempis are painfully accurate-but therein enters the grace of God.

Harold L. Myra is president of Christianity Today, Inc.

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

Pastors

FROM THE EDITOR

Terry C. Muck

From our It-Could-Only-Happen-in-a-Church Department: A nursery worker refused to change a baby’s diaper. Why? Because the baby had been brought to church by a baby sitter.

The worker didn’t feel it was proper for a baby sitter to let the nursery do her work. When the nursery supervisor decided the worker should change the diaper, the worker quit.

Anyone who has pastored a church knows people get angry for the strangest reasons. We can wish it weren’t so, but it is. The question is, can we help?

While that question was running through my mind, my Bible reading happened to take me to the Book of Numbers and the rules for the cities of refuge. You remember the situation. After conquering the land of Canaan, the Israelites set apart six cities as refuges for anyone who accidentally killed another person.

The ancient Near East custom of blood vengeance, the execution of a willful murderer by the victim’s next of kin, was recognized by the Hebrew people as a valid legal principle. But for involuntary manslaughter, anyone, whether Israelite or foreigner, who committed the deed could flee to one of these six cities for asylum.

This was not a legal loophole. The refugee still had to stand trial to determine if the death was accidental. If so, asylum continued.

Neither was this refugee program an easy way to start a grand new life. A person who fled to a city of refuge had to remain within city boundaries until the high priest of Israel died, a time of general amnesty for all. That could mean many years away from family, friends, and livelihood.

Providing refuge during disputes-the idea intrigued me. I immediately thought of the countless people in our churches either suffering emotional bruises or inflicting them. Perhaps they, too, need refuge, not for manslaughter but for “feeling-slaughter.”

In such cases, of course, God is our primary refuge. Many Old Testament passages speak of God as refuge. Moses, in his final blessing to the tribes of Israel, told them that “the eternal God is your refuge.” And David’s song of praise in 2 Samuel testifies that “my God is my rock in whom I take refuge.” In fact, God as refuge from enemies is a frequent theme of the Psalms.

Yet beyond the God-as-refuge idea, is there a place for human-based sanctuary provided by the church for those in emotional need? Modern-day cities of refuge? True, we no longer need to protect manslaughterers from blood avengers. But what local church leader hasn’t felt the need to separate two feeling-slaughterers to prevent escalation of hostilities? Who of us has not counseled a suffering brother who needs some time away from the battlefield until his wounds can heal? What kind of refuge can we provide?

It might be as simple as physical separation-removing someone from one committee and placing him on another, for example, to minimize unnecessary personal contact. Or it could involve calling a month-long moratorium on discussion of a particularly divisive issue.

This requires a patient attitude toward the “criminal.” Judgment is suspended. It can mean lending psychological support to someone who needs a safe place to vent feelings and hear encouraging words.

The refuge idea avoids the big mistake in dealing with heated emotions: to trivialize them, to say, “This just isn’t rational,” and to try to talk people out of their anger. Emotions are real, and the first step in dealing with an emotion like anger is not to assign blame but to admit we all get angry, sometimes for the flimsiest reasons, yet those reasons must be dealt with.

William Blake put it best when he said, “The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of experience.”

Perhaps we can be most helpful by providing an opportunity and place to work out their feelings rather than a logical paradigm to explain why they shouldn’t feel them.

A refuge also provides time to catch one’s breath without feeling rushed toward resolution. Working out anger is a little like digesting food: there is no rushing the process. Trying to speed it up is just asking for a stomachache later.

What about our own need for cities of refuge? We can’t deny the reality of our emotions any more than we can deny them in our parishioners.

Pastors use many refuges. For some it’s a day away every month. For others, private office hours. Having a hobby helps, as does a special circle of friends totally separate from the church family. A refuge is an individual thing, and it might take some experimentation to find the right one.

One of my refuges these past seven years has been writing this column. Four times a year I sit down in front of a keyboard and try to put myself in your shoes. After snugging the laces and wiggling my toes a bit to get the feel, I flex a thought or two on how the theme of this issue intersects with local church leaders.

It has been fun, and I have enjoyed every minute. Since most of an editor’s time is spent polishing the work of others, writing is an opportunity to get away from it all and create.

From now on, Marshall Shelley, managing editor of LEADERSHIP, will write this page. It will become, perhaps, his escape and definitely your delight. I will take my place as an occasional columnist on the back page along with Harold Myra and Paul Robbins. That’s one more thing about finding refuges. They change all the time, and the changes are usually good.

Terry C. Muck is editor of LEADERSHIP.

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

Pastors

MASTERING CEREMONIES

Eugene H. Peterson

Public occasions put pastors center stage–where, ironically, they can’t be seen.

In today’s increasingly secular society, the only personal contact many people will have with a pastor is some public occasion: a wedding, funeral, baby dedication or baptism, an awards ceremony. These settings, where clergy are front and center, offer unique opportunities to minister, but as the following article points out, the pastor is most effective remembering where the spotlight will shine.

This article is taken from an upcoming volume in THE LEADERSHIP LIBRARY: Weddings, Funerals, and Special Events.

Most pastoral work takes place in obscurity, deciphering grace in the shadows, blowing on the embers of a hard-used life.

Pastors stay with their people week in and week out, year after year, to proclaim and guide, encourage and instruct as God works his purposes (gloriously, it will eventually turn out) in the meandering and disturbingly inconstant lives that compose our congregations.

This necessarily means taking seriously, and in faith, the dull routines of life. It means witnessing to the transcendent in the fog and rain. It means living hopefully among people who from time to time get flickering glimpses of the Glory but then live through long stretches of unaccountable grayness. This is hard work and not conspicuously glamorous.

But there are frequent interruptions in this work in which the significance blazes all of itself. The bush burns and is not quenched. Our work is done for us, or so it seems, by the event. We do nothing to get these occasions together: no prayer meeting, no strategic planning, no committee work, no altar call. They are given-redolent with meaning and almost always, even among unbelievers, a sense of reverence. These interruptions of the ordinary become occasions of ceremony and celebration: weddings, funerals, baptisms, dedications, anniversaries, graduations, events in which human achievements are honored.

Instead of deficiency of meaning, which characterizes so many lives and for which people compensate in frenzy or fantasy, there is an excess: the ecstasy of love, the dignity of death, the wonder of life, the nobility of achievement.

These occasions burst the containers of the everyday and demand amplitude and leisure in which to savor the fullness. No love was ever celebrated enough, no death ever mourned enough, no life adored enough, no achievement honored enough. People set aside time, clear space, call friends, gather families, assemble the community. Almost always, the pastor is invited to preside.

But when we arrive, we are, it seems, hardly needed, and in fact, barely noticed. One of the ironies of pastoral work is that on these occasions when we are placed at the very center of the action, we are perceived by virtually everyone there to be on the margins. No one would say that, of course, but the event that defines the occasion-love, death, birth, accomplishment-also holds everyone’s attention. No one inquires of the pastor what meaning there is in this. Meaning is there, overwhelmingly obvious, in the bride and groom, in the casket, in the baby, in the honored guest.

The pastor is, in these settings, what the theater calls “fifth business”-required by the conventions but incidental to the action, yet, in its own way, important on the sidelines. This is odd, and we never quite get used to it, at least I never do. In the everyday obscurities in which we do most of our work, we often have the sense of being genuinely needed. Even when unnoticed, we are usually sure our presence makes a difference, sometimes a critical difference, for we have climbed to the abandoned places, the bereft lives, the “gaps” that Ezekiel wrote of (22:30) and have spoken Christ’s word and witnessed Christ’s mercy. But in these situations where we are given an honored place at the table, we are peripheral to everyone’s attention.

Where Is the Spotlight?

At weddings, love is celebrated. The atmosphere is luminous with adoration. Here are two people at their best, in love, venturing a life of faithfulness with each other. Everyone senses both how difficult and how wonderful it is. Emotions swell into tears and laughter, spill over in giggles, congeal into pomposity. In the high drama that pulls families and friends together for a few moments on the same stage, the pastor is practically invisible, playing a bit part at best. We are geometrically at the center of the ceremony, but every eye is somewhere else.

At funerals, death is dignified. The not-being-there of the deceased is set in solemn ritual. Absence during this time is more powerful than presence. Grief, whether expressed torrentially or quietly, is directed into channels of acceptance and gratitude that save it from wasteful spillage into regret and bittemess. The tears that blur perception of the living, including the pastor, clarify appreciation of the dead.

At the baptisms and dedications of infants, the sheer wonder of infant life upstages the entire adult world. The glory that radiates from the newborn draws even bystanders into praise. In the very act of holding an infant in the sacrament of baptism or the service of dedication, the pastor, though many times larger, stronger, and wiser, is shadowed by the brightness of the babe.

At anniversaries and graduations, ground breakings and inaugurations-the various community occasions when achievements are recognized and ventures launched-the collective admiration or anticipation produces a groundswell of emotion that absorbs everything else. Every eye is focused on, and every ear is tuned to, the person honored, the project announced, the task accomplished, the victory won. The pastor, praying in the spotlight and with the amplification system working well, is not in the spotlight and barely heard.

And so it happens that on the occasions in our ministry when we are most visible, out in front giving invocations and benedictions, directing ceremonies and delivering addresses, we are scarcely noticed.

The One Thing Needful

If no one perceives our presence the way we ourselves perceive it-directing operations, running the show-what is going on? We are at the margins during these occasions. No one came to see us. No one came to hear us. We are not at all needed in the way we are accustomed to being needed.

No one needs us to tell the assembled people that things of great moment are taking place. No one needs us to proclaim that this is a unique event, never to be repeated, in which we are all privileged participants. All this is unmistakably obvious and not to be missed by even the stiff-necked and uncircumcised of heart.

So why are we there? We are there to say God. We are there for one reason and one reason only: to pray. We are there to focus the brimming, overflowing, cascading energies of joy, sorrow, delight, or appreciation, if only for a moment but for as long as we are able, in God. We are there to say God personally, to say his name clearly, distinctly, unapologetically, in prayer. We are there to say it without hemming and hawing, without throat clearing and without shuffling, without propagandizing, proselytizing, or manipulating. We have no other task on these occasions. We are not needed to add to what is there; there is already more than anyone can take in. We are required only to say the Name: Father, Son, Holy Ghost.

All men and women hunger for God. The hunger is masked and misinterpreted in many ways, but it is always there. Everyone is on the verge of crying out “My Lord and my God!” if only circumstances push them past their doubts or defiance, push them out of the dull ache of their routines or their cozy accommodations with mediocrity. On the occasions of ceremony and celebration, there are often many people present who never enter our churches, who do their best to keep God at a distance and never intend to confess Christ as Lord and Savior. These people are not accustomed to being around pastors and not a few of them politely despise us. So it is just as well that we are perceived to be marginal to the occasion. The occasions themselves provide the push toward an awareness of an incredible Grace, a dazzling Design, a defiant Hope, a courageous Faithfulness.

But awareness, while necessary, is not enough. Consciousness raising is only prolegomena. Awareness, as such, quickly trickles into religious sentimentalism or romantic blubbering, or hardens into patriotic hubris or pharisaic snobbery. Our task is to nudge the awareness past these subjectivities into the open and say God.

The less we say at these times the better, as long as we say God. We cultivate unobtrusiveness so that we do not detract from the sermon being preached by the event. We must do only what we are there to do: pronounce the Name, name the hunger. But it is so easy to get distracted. There is so much going on, so much to see and hear and say. So much emotion. So much, we think, “opportunity.” But our assignment is to the “one thing needful,” the invisible and quiet center, God.

We do best on these occasions to follow the sermonic advice of the Rebbe Naphtali of Ropshitz: make the introduction concise and the conclusion abrupt-with nothing in between.

Such restraint is not easy. Without being aware of it, we are apt to resent our unaccustomed marginality and push ourselves to the fore, insisting we be noticed and acknowledged. We usually do this through mannerism or tone: stridency, sentimentality, cuteness. We do it, of course, in the name of God, supposing we are upholding the primacy of the one we represent. This is done with distressing regularity by pastors. But such posturing does not give glory to God; it only advertises clerical vanity. We are only hogging the show, and not very successfully, either. For no matter how resplendent we are in robes and “Reverends,” we are no match for the persons or events that gave rise to the occasion to which we were asked to come and pray.

In Golden-Calf Country

But there is another reason for keeping to our position on the margins of ceremony and celebration. This is golden-calf country. Religious feeling runs high, but in ways far removed from what was said on Sinai and done on Calvary. While everyone has a hunger for God, deep and insatiable, none of us has any great desire for him. What we really want is to be our own gods and to have whatever other gods that are around help us in this work. This is as true for Christians as for non-Christians.

Our land lies east of Eden, and in this land Self is sovereign. The catechetical instruction we grow up with has most of the questions couched in the first person: How can I make it? How can I maximize my potential? How can I develop my gifts? How can I overcome my handicaps? How can I cut my losses? How can I live happily ever after, increase my longevity, preferably all the way into eternity? Most of the answers to these questions include the suggestion that a little religion along the way wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Every event that pulls us out of the ordinariness of our lives puts a little extra spin on these questions. Pastors, since we are usually present at the events and have a reputation of being knowledgeable in matters of religion, are expected to legitimize and encourage the religious dimensions in the aspirations. In our eagerness to please, and forgetful of the penchant for idolatry in the human heart, we too readily leave the unpretentious place of prayer and, with the freely offered emotional and religious jewelry the people bring, fashion a golden calf-god-Romantic Love, Beloved Memory, Innocent Life, Admirable Achievement-and proclaim a “feast to the Lord” (Ex. 32:5). Hardly knowing what we do, we meld the religious aspirations of the people and the religious dynamics of the occasion to try to satisfy one and all.

Calvin saw the human heart as a relentlessly efficient factory for producing idols. People commonly see the pastor as the quality-control engineer in the factory. The moment we accept the position, we defect from our vocation. People want things to work better; they want a life that is more interesting; they want help through a difficult time; they want meaning and significance in their ventures. They want God, in a way, but certainly not a “jealous God,” not the “God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Mostly they want to be their own god and stay in control, but have ancillary divine assistance for the hard parts.

There are a thousand ways of being religious without submitting to Christ’s lordship, and people are practiced in most of them. They are trained from an early age to be discriminating consumers on their way to higher standards of living. It should be no great surprise when they expect pastors to help them do it. But it is a great apostasy when we go along. “And Moses said to Aaron, ‘What did this people do to you that you have brought a great sin upon them?’ ” (Ex. 32:21). Aaron’s excuse is embarrassingly lame, but more than matched by the justifications we make for abandoning prayer in our enthusiasm to make the most of the occasion.

Our Real Work

Our churches and communities assign us ceremonial duties on these occasions, which we must be careful to do well. There are right and wrong ways to act and speak, better and worse ways to prepare for and conduct these ceremonies and celebrations. No detail is insignificant: gesture conveys grace, tone of voice inculcates awe, demeanor defines atmosphere, preparation deepens wonder. We must be diligently skillful in all of this.

But if there is no will to prayer in the pastor-a quietly stubborn and faithful centering in the action and presence of God-we will more than likely end up assisting, however inadvertently, in fashioning one more golden calf of which the world has more than enough. What is absolutely critical is that we attend to God in these occasions: his Word, his Presence. We are there to say the Name, and by saying it guide lament into the depths where Christ descended into hell, not letting it digress into self-pity. We are there to say the Name, and by saying it direct celebration into praise of God, not letting it wallow in gossipy chatter.

Our real work in every occasion that requires a priestly presence is prayer. Whether anyone there knows or expects it, we arrive as persons of prayer. The margins are the best location for maintaining that intention. Our vocation is to be responsive to what God is saying at these great moments, and simply be there in that way as salt, as leaven. Most of our prayer will be inaudible to those assembled. We are not praying to inspire them (they are inspired enough already) but to intercede for them. The action of God is intensified in these prayers and continued in the lives of the participants long after the occasion. The ceremonies are over in an hour or so; the prayers continue. This is our real work: holding marriages and deaths, growing lives and lasting achievements before God in a continuing community of prayer.

Eugene H. Peterson is pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bet Air, Maryland.

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

Pastors

PASTOR, I’M LEAVING

John Cionca

A guide for surviving those three painful words.

When Jack, a fellow pastor and friend, arrived for dinner, I could see he was troubled. Later he shared the source of his dejection: “Today one of my key leaders told me he’s leaving the church.” The member wasn’t moving out of town. Just leaving.

While Jack spoke, I felt my own anger and hurt resurfacing from similar experiences in the pastorate. I wanted to help him, but other than sharing his discouragement over the loss of disgruntled members, how could I?

I decided to ask a dozen colleagues how they handle the emotional fallout from dropout members.

A Common Denominator

All of them share a sense of failure when a family leaves the church. A pastor in the Southwest admits: “Sometimes I have been able to say, ‘Well, you can’t win them all.’ But when I’m alone with my thoughts, my mind wanders back to those people. I try to guess what’s behind their leaving. I know I can’t minister to everybody, but it hurts when people leave.”

Another observed: “No matter how much explanation people give to assure me that ‘It’s not you, Pastor,’ I still feel that pain personally.” Pastors typically accept overall responsibility for the church’s ministry. Whether the unhappiness is with an adult class, the youth ministry, or the music, the minister always feels the sting.

“You can usually narrow the reasons for leaving to a few,” one pastor told me. “People feel they don’t belong, they don’t agree with some doctrine, they want a different style of program, or they don’t have any friends. Often they say they’re ‘not being fed.’ “

But since the church often reflects the pastor’s personality and philosophy of ministry, when a member announces, “I’m leaving the church,” pastors translate that, “I’m rejecting you!”

Contributors to the Pain

A number of factors affect how deeply a pastor will feel the loss:

The Personality Factor. On psychological inventories such as the Taylor-Johnson Temperament Analysis or the MMPI, pastors’ scores vary on scales regarding sensitivity versus indifference, subjectivity versus objectivity, or relational orientation versus task orientation. But our profession necessitates building relationships, and therefore most ministers are in a position to be hurt by people who seemingly reject their ministry. The more sensitive, subjective, or relational one’s personality, the more intense will be the hurt.

The Surprise Factor. Often we’re not surprised by someone leaving. Some members let their disagreement be known, and we are psychologically prepared for their departure. But when a couple just disappears and we hear rumors they’re attending elsewhere, we take that news much harder.

The surprise factor definitely had an impact on my friend Jack. Fred, who left his church, taught an adult Sunday school class. He was preparing to coordinate the home Bible study program. The previous Sunday Fred had assisted Jack in the chancel. Then Monday morning he told Jack that he and his family were leaving the church. The greater the surprise, the more likely the wind will be knocked out of us.

The Investment Factor. Pastor Ron poured a lot of time and energy into the Johnsons, and Joan Johnson grew in her church responsibilities. Then she began to struggle in her marriage. For eighteen months the church cared for the Johnsons, supporting their marriage, watching their children, praying for them. In the end, however, Joan decided she wanted out of her family-and out of the church.

Ron’s personal theology of ministry was at risk with the Johnsons. The couple’s active involvement affirmed his philosophy of ministry that all people should have the opportunity to use their gifts in the local church. “When I saw her blossom, I felt she justified my philosophy,” Ron recalls. “I had a lot of chips on the table, and when she left, I felt like I lost them. It challenged my theology.” The more we have invested in a member, the more it hurts when one leaves.

The Statistical Factor. Departing members damage statistics, and whether we like it or not, we are influenced by the statistical game, at least emotionally, that a successful pastor is one whose church is growing. A pastor who has “built” his church is more attractive than the pastor of a dwindling congregation.

No one knows this better than a small-church pastor. When Westinghouse transferred one family to New York, a church I was in lost 3 percent of its Sunday school.

The second part of the statistical game is income. A church that is meeting or exceeding its budget appears more successful than a church struggling with finances. When a tithing family leaves, their loss is felt financially. In a small church, that tithe may be a substantial percentage of the budget, and the decrease in statistics may cause some to question the pastor’s leadership.

The Prestige Factor. During my last pastorate, one particular loss hurt me deeply because of the couple’s prestige. Ben and Alice were long-time church members. For over a decade Ben had served as a deacon and worship leader. He was chairman of the search committee that called me.

Sixteen months into my ministry, Ben shared that he and Alice would be leaving the church. Gracious people, they didn’t make any waves. I highly respected them and understood their reasons. But Ben was a pillar of the church, a nationally known evangelical leader, and a board member of my seminary.

While we tell ourselves we can’t scratch where everyone itches, we sure would like to scratch effectively for people like Ben and Alice. Losing them impacts us significantly.

The Spin-off Factor. I am convinced the most important ingredient for church growth is congregational attitude and esteem. When someone leaves the church to attend a different one, it is a blow to a church’s self-esteem. When more than one family leaves, people begin to wonder: What’s going on around here? What’s wrong with us?

Because they know someone’s leaving hurts the church’s self-esteem, pastors feel the loss doubly.

Coping with the Inevitable

Some sheep will inevitably move elsewhere, so how can pastors cope with the feelings of hurt, loss, and failure that accompany these migrations? As I mulled over the responses from my colleagues, I arrived at several conclusions:

Concede that people will leave your ministry. You’ve heard the expression, “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” Not so! Mid-life men need to anticipate career restlessness and older couples should count on the empty-nest syndrome. So must pastors anticipate the reality of losing members through discontent.

One pastor put it: “I try to take heart by remembering that it has happened before and it will happen again. People will leave, but it’s not the end of the world. Every pastor in the country has faced it.”

Praise God for diversity. People are different. That’s why McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Kentucky Fried Chicken all stay in business. People don’t leave their preferences at home when they attend church. They appreciate different styles of worship, program, and involvement. One pastor considered such preferences not necessarily bad: “Just as some pastors would not appeal to me if I were sitting in the pew, I recognize I will not appeal to everyone, either.”

Another minister noted, “There are differences in gifts and styles of ministry, and at the present, some individual may need something else.”

The Lord is building his universal church, and a subtraction from my particular congregation might actually be a blessing. One pastor wisely observed: “There are some people the Lord might move on. Maybe down the road you’ll see that by his grace he protected you from deeper problems. Sometimes it’s best for you and the overall welfare of the church when people leave.”

Look beyond the complaint to the concern. In one church, I was asked to resolve a dispute over having a woman teach an adult Sunday school class. This woman had previously taught in the adult elective program, but for two years had been sidelined until the elders could “study the issue.” After two marathon sessions, the board concluded she could teach.

Although the board strongly endorsed the decision, one elder who held a very conservative view resigned. To my surprise, the woman and her husband also left the church shortly thereafter.

The dispute over teaching was only a surface issue. What the woman really wanted was for me to say, “Yes, I understand that you have been hurt and not treated fairly.” She primarily sought love and affirmation of her worth. Only secondarily did she desire resolution of the teaching issue.

I had rolled up my sleeves and attacked the surface problem but had failed to communicate my concern for her personally. I wish I had heard then the advice given by one pastor: “I try to get beyond my feelings to focus on the hurts of the person leaving.”

Accept criticism where applicable. Even after people quit, we can’t simply write them off. One pastor said, “After people leave, I feel guilty: Have I tried everything? Was I fair? Was I open enough?” People’s absence leaves us with nagging questions.

Another minister stated: “Maybe I’ve done something wrong. Maybe something is lacking either in my personal ministry or the ministry of the church. So I try to honestly evaluate what is said to see if there is truth in it.” While we might not retain disgruntled members, their loss may point out personal shortcomings that, when corrected, will help us with other people in the future.

Process your feelings with another person. One of the questions I asked my friends was, “How do you get back on track after a family has left?” There was great overlap on one response: “Talk it out with a friend.”

“I try to share my burden with another pastor who understands,” one advised. “People who aren’t in the ministry often don’t comprehend what it feels like when someone leaves, so I meet with pastors who have experienced and understand the same circumstances.”

A pastor of a larger church noted that he confided in the staff members. “We compare notes. Maybe I don’t know the whole story. Though the rejection is still there, it gets easier if you can discuss it.”

Another pastor confides in a key layman: “I feel comfortable sharing with him. He may not have the answer, but just being able to talk with him helps.”

Whether we share with a spouse, board member, staff member, or pastor friend, a loving listener seems to aid in healing the hurt experienced when someone leaves.

Leaving the Door Open

Knowing people are unhappy with my ministry is disquieting; going to them when they are leaving is utterly disconcerting. Nevertheless, some pastors contact people who leave the church.

Ken Trivilla at Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, conducts an exit interview, believing the information gained will benefit the church. The Wooddale staff feels everyone who leaves the church should be given a “proper burial.” Ken says, “I want to leave people with the feeling they can return if they want to. I always try to meet people personally, face to face.”

What’s sometimes hard is interviewing people you’re glad are leaving. “One man left because he felt he was able to teach better than some of our teachers,” Ken recalls. “I took him to lunch and listened to his grievances. When it became apparent I was not trying to woo him back to the church but was just allowing him to share his concerns, he got angry.”

In another situation, Wooddale had put a couple to work too quickly. Ken says, “They had come from a church in Chicago, and in the fall we put them in a teaching slot. By December they decided to leave our church. I called them right away, and tried to rebuild our bridges. They didn’t return, but we parted good friends.”

Whatever the technique used, I want the particulars of a given situation to determine my response. A couple of times I have met with the people to talk about their leaving. I have also phoned members who had begun attending another church. In two other situations I wrote people a cordial letter indicating I recognized their departure and wished the best for them.

In each of the circumstances I felt it was important to do three things:

First, I wanted to apologize if either my demeanor or our church ministry offended them. If there was any barrier on my part, I wanted it removed. Who was at fault was not the issue.

Second, I wanted to reaffirm our philosophy of church ministry. I did not want them to think our church’s direction would necessarily change simply because they were unhappy with it.

Third, I wanted to leave the door wide open for their return. If they subsequently learned the pews were not softer on the other side of the block, I hoped they would feel free to return. I remained on cordial terms with all six of the families that left our church, and one eventually came back into our fellowship.

Researching this article has encouraged me. Not that the reality of my friends’ pain was encouraging, but I was uplifted by the fact we were a fellowship of ministers experiencing the same concerns and affirming one another.

Tomorrow morning I’ll return to the church I am serving as interim pastor. Since the previous pastor left, some church members have drifted away, and hurt feelings surround the entire congregation. The pain is deep. I feel it.

But we can learn from our injuries and grow through our pain. And we may become God’s messengers to other colleagues when they, too, hear the words: “Pastor, I’m leaving.”

John Cionca is dean of students at Bethel Seminary and interim pastor of Colony Park Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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

Pastors

DEFUSING SPIRITUAL DEPTH CHARGES

Joel C. Hunter

After the service she waited until I was alone. I had noticed her and assumed this dear Christian lady had a problem that needed to be mentioned in privacy. I was partially right.

“Joel,” she ventured, “I have something to say to you, but I’m not sure I should.” Not knowing whether to encourage or discourage her, I simply nodded my head and waited. Finally, she said, “I just have not been getting the kind of depth from your sermons that I need.”

Ouch.

Thankfully I did not respond with my first few impulses:

(a) to explain my entire philosophy of preaching, using words like esoteric and broad-band transmission and avoiding the gnostic heresy,

(b) to discredit the plaintiff, or

(c) to say, “Well, the Lord tells me what to preach. If you don’t like it, I guess we both know whom you are fighting against.”

After making an appointment to talk further with her about it, I left the sanctuary. My confidence was shaken, my fears in full bloom. And my anger drove me to consider the matter further.

The phrase spiritual depth is fast becoming a catch phrase in church circles, and it’s easily used as a weapon. How do I defend myself against the charge that I lack spiritual depth? To add to the frustration, I have yet to hear a concrete definition. And since it describes the core of life rather than a simple behavior that can be changed, what could be more devastating?

How ironic that such a spiritual quality should become a means of judgment rather than blessing! I cannot conceive that those with true depth require more than they give. Those I consider spiritually deep see the best in others and often learn the most from common people and events. They can get truth from a rock.

One such man was a member in a church that changed pastors. The departing pastor had a reputation for “spirit-filled” sermons. The pastor arriving was known for dry monologues. I thought my friend would be gone in a second.

Some months later, however, when there was indeed deep trouble within the congregation, I talked with him. “I can see why people are a little disappointed,” he said. “But I’m getting a lot out of his sermons.”

Perhaps that was a comment about the sermons. More likely it was a commentary on my friend and the Holy Spirit’s activity in him.

What’s the damage?

When a spiritual depth charge hits its mark, what are the extent of the injuries? I found damage in two areas: ego and perspective.

Usually I’m fairly thick-skinned. Call me short and scatterbrained, and my estimation of your perception will increase. Call me a lousy counselor, and I’ll say, “So you think I’m a lousy counselor. Tell me about it . . .” But criticizing my preaching as shallow is like calling my baby ugly.

I think I am a gifted preacher. Does that make me sound conceited? Not so. It places me alongside almost every pastor I have known. After serving nine years on a board that interviews ministry candidates and asking, “What do you feel your gifts are?” I cannot remember even one who failed to mention preaching. It was usually first on the list. If people are naturally defensive about their weaknesses, how much more does it hurt when someone implies, “Don’t look now, but even your strength isn’t strong!”

Second, the depth charge knocks my perspective out of kilter. I feel I should produce profundity on demand. Like Carl Sandburg when someone asked him to write a particular poem, I reply, “That’s a little like ordering a woman to have a red-headed baby.” Profundity in my sermons will have to be knit together by the Lord.

I am not deep by my design. I wonder if anyone is.

What do they really want?

But are people really asking for profundity? Upon investigation, I found my sincere detractor was neither attacking me personally nor demanding profundity. She was looking for something else, something she had assumed was depth. I’ve discovered that when people call for spiritual depth, they actually may want a certain style or familiar content in a sermon. Asking a few questions can shift us from being hurt to being helpful.

Detail. When I met with the woman, I asked her to be specific: “Can you give me an example of spiritual depth in sermons?”

“Well,” she said, “I don’t mean to compare, but I have been listening to Pastor _____ on the radio. He takes an entire half hour to explain one verse! He brings in the Greek, fills in the history, gives us the author’s background, offers personal observations of people who violated the verse and what happened to them. I never knew anyone could get so much out of Scripture.”

She was not requesting depth so much as more detail. She thought the more a preacher talked about a small portion of Scripture, the deeper the sermon must be. Whether or not that’s true, I leave you to decide, but anyone can provide more detail.

If detail is the request, then looking up the Greek, piling up background information, and having multiple examples may well satisfy my detractor. Maybe God is leading me to give more detail; maybe not. But at least I can deal with a clear request, not an accusation about the depth of my spirituality.

Application. I heard another request when I asked someone, “Can you recall certain sermons that ministered to you deeply? What do you remember?”

“Reverend Jones wasn’t that great a preacher,” he said, “but every Sunday he would tell us what we needed to do during the week. It wasn’t just a theological talk; it was a practical assignment. You never had to wonder. You either did it or you didn’t.”

Many listeners get frustrated when a sermon doesn’t easily lead to a conclusive act. They might assume the sermon is spiritually shallow because it doesn’t issue a clear call for action. Perhaps they have a point. Regardless, the request is clear. These people are not seeking profundity; they’re looking for assignments and, perhaps, accountability.

The question left to the preacher then is not “Am I deep enough?” but “Does emphasizing application fit the goal of the passage? Does God want me to provide direct applications every Sunday?”

Challenge. One Sunday early in my ministry, I had gotten in a John-the-Baptist mood. I’m not sure what happened, but I began preaching pastor-to-vipers. Afterward a man told me, “You really got down to some spiritual depth this morning, Brother.”

“Thanks, but what do you mean?” I asked.

“You had us sweating. When a church squirms under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, you’ve done your job. You can’t pussyfoot with the gospel. We need to be broken so the seed can go deep.”

Many people link their discomfort with the pastor’s depth. There are indeed times when that’s a valid link. Yet a particular style of preaching, or a conclusion for each sermon that produces discomfort, does not necessarily come from or result in spiritual depth.

I had a young man tell me he was having a difficult time sticking to his Christian goals. “I don’t need to know more; I need to be challenged from the pulpit to do what I already know.” To him, spiritual depth was an outer voice that echoed an inner accusation.

A question such as “How does a spiritually deep sermon make you feel afterward?” helps identify people who have linked challenge with depth. Once the link is identified, the preacher and listener can talk about the benefits or dangers of stern preaching. Spiritual depth hardly gets into it.

These three yearnings often hide under what members call spiritual depth. You could probably add others, such as new insight or creative technique. But this analysis still doesn’t answer the question: What is spiritual depth, and is it the preacher’s job to provide it?

Where to dig deeper

My conclusion is that in most cases a sense of spiritual shallows comes not so much from inadequate preaching as an inadequate view of the Holy Spirit. Many people have missed the point of listening. As 1 Corinthians 2:10 explains, the one who reveals the deep things of God is not the preacher but the Holy Spirit. And this passage tells us where they are revealed: within us.

In our conversation, the lady who deflated me with the spiritual depth charge said: “I kept waiting for you to work in this saying of Jesus, but you never did. And I kept thinking of applications you never made. I could have taught a whole lesson on what you were trying to say but didn’t!”

How tragic. She had experienced spiritual depth without recognizing it. The Holy Spirit had been revealing things to her, but because she was not hearing them from the pulpit, she received them only as frustration.

God’s goal is to speak to us personally. The sermon has accomplished its purpose if through it the Holy Spirit was able to “remind us of all that he has said to us.” The Spirit’s message may be stated in the sermon or stimulated by it.

In either case, genuine spiritual depth begins when both preacher and hearer listen more deeply than any human voice can speak.

-Joel C. Hunter

Northland Community Church

Orlando, Florida

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

Pastors

LEADERSHIP BIBLIOGRAPHY—EMOTIONS

David Seamands, professor of pastoral ministry at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, was for sixteen years a missionary in India, and for more than twenty years a pastor. His own books include Healing for Damaged Emotions and Healing of Memories. He recommends these favorite titles on emotions:

Your Inner Child of the Past (Simon and Schuster)

by H. S. Missildine

I’ll begin with the bottom line-self-awareness, discovering what makes us feel and act the way we do. Although not directly Christian, this classic for two decades has helped Christians become aware of the “childish things” that hold them back from Christian maturity. It reviews the family situations that shape our emotional reactions. Chapters are devoted to the causes of common emotional problems plaguing Christian workers: overanxiety, guilt, irrational anger, unreasonable expectations, and procrastination, that most troublesome one.

Mere insight of itself will neither bring about healing nor change feelings or behavior. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. But the accurate self-knowledge this book brings certainly helps us know what to watch and where to pray.

The Art of Understanding Yourself (Zondervan)

by Cecil Osborne

Another classic, this book examines some of the same emotional needs through Christian eyes. Its focus is on relationships, with an emphasis on the redemptive fellowship of the church and the healing power of small groups. Many of us Lone Ranger types need to be reminded that we will never find true emotional healing until we share and pray with others.

Counseling Christian Workers (Word)

by Louis McBurney

This book is a gold mine for Christian workers as well as those who counsel them. Dr. and Mrs. McBurney run the Marble Retreat Center in Colorado, where they have helped several hundred pastoral couples whose lives and marriages needed repair. A deep, inside knowledge of Christian workers adds to McBurney’s gilt-edged Mayo Clinic training.

His fine descriptions of “The Hurting Christian Worker” and “The Problems and Pressures of the Ministry” help us understand ourselves and how to handle our unique roles. Then he deals with the personal and marital maladjustments many of us face. McBurney writes with penetrating insight yet tender understanding. He is indeed a pastor’s pastor.

Forgive and Forget (Harper and Row)

by Lewis Smedes

One of the greatest problems we face is dealing with the anger and resentment that arise from the endemic hurts of ministry. We think it is Christian to say “Forget it,” and forgive too quickly and easily. Smedes deals with this kind of Christian Stoicism and the unresolved emotions it produces.

He reminds us that in true forgiveness we must face up to the hurts of life and acknowledge our real feelings toward those who have hurt us. Then he leads us gently but firmly through both the crisis and process of forgiveness. Smedes’s book is well written and full of important truth.

Understanding Mourning (Augsburg)

by Glen W. Davidson

A Grief Observed (Seabury)

by C. S. Lewis

Both books provide excellent help for an emotion we face continually in others and inevitably in ourselves.

Davidson’s is “A Guide for Those Who Grieve.” He deals with the frightening mood swings that hit us when we are ambushed by grief. It is clinical but in no way technical and gives us the facts we should know about the grief process.

Lewis’s book is unsurpassed as a description of the battle between faith and feelings when death intrudes. Here is the great defender of Christianity in what he later called “my yell at God.” He offers a ruthlessly honest look at faith’s battle with and conquest of grief.

To Understand Each Other (John Knox)

by Paul Tournier

This tiny book, written by one of the greatest counselors of our age, addresses a basic emotional concern-achieving true understanding of one another in marriage. In Tournier’s typical “let me talk to you” style, he covers the basics: the mysteriousness of your spouse, communication, sex. Best of all, he emphasizes a mutual submission to Jesus Christ.

Leadership Spring 1987 p. 97

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

Mitch Anthony’s War

Diane Eble

How Christians can join the fight against suicide

The mood in the room is quiet, intense. “Okay,” Mitch Anthony tells the 30 students assembled at the rap session, “if you’re here just to cut a class, get out.” No one moves. “So, I assume everyone is here because you really are struggling with what I talked about earlier in the assembly, and you really want help.

“You heard me talk in the assembly about how, when I was 17, I thought of killing myself, because I didn’t feel I had any reason to live. And you heard me talk about another time, when I was older, how someone had hurt me so bad I didn’t feel I could go on living. How many of you have thought about killing yourself?” Hands raised. Maybe 90 percent.

“How many of you knew how you were going to do it?” More hands raised. Maybe 60 percent. “Who wants to tell me about it?”

The stories come out, haltingly. Sexual abuse. Neglect. Loneliness. Repeated abandonment. Mitch listens, nods, gives feedback. Then he gets the group onto an all-important question: “What positive things have you found that help you cope with frustrations? Who do you turn to?” Without realizing it, many of those young people quietly cross a line from death to life as they focus on positive problem-solving.

The War Continues

And so Mitchel Anthony’s war on suicide continues. In this case, his tactic is a high school prevention program that goes beyond educating teenagers, teachers, and parents about suicide’s warning signs. He also talks about improving self-image and teaches coping skills, thus attacking the root of the problem.

For Mitch Anthony, it all started when he stumbled upon a tremendous opportunity to share the gospel while pasturing a church in Clear Lake, Iowa. “I began noticing a significant increase in suicides and suicide attempts, so I started up a suicide hotline, using a common secular approach but with a Christian philosophy and purpose.”

He advertised on highway billboards, television, and radio: “Suicide is not the answer. Call 357-HELP.” He established a referral network, including pastors who would be willing to provide counseling to callers who desired it. He trained volunteers to offer a listening ear and direct callers to further help. The hotline received an average of five or six calls weekly in a county of fewer than 60,000 people—he expected only two or three a month. Clearly, there was a need.

Two years later Anthony established the first state-wide toll-free suicide crisis line. In June 1986 the National Suicide Help Center was established in Rochester, Minnesota. Now his goal is to have 13 regional centers throughout the country, with toll-free numbers and a referral system by the year 2001. The National Suicide Center offers crisis counseling, suicide awareness programs that can be used in high schools, communities, or churches, and research and educational resources on suicide.

Spiritual Resources

Unlike those who operate secular suicide crisis lines, Anthony does not hesitate to talk with callers about spiritual matters. “Over and over again, callers tell me their lives are empty. They don’t realize that God could be a source of strength. When they do realize it, hope is reborn.” To every caller, he sends out a small book he wrote, entitled Seven Reasons to Keep on Living.

Key to Anthony’s program is the pastoral referral network. The Suicide Help Center screens churches and offers training as needed. “We look for a church that is concerned about people and willing to reach out,” says Steve Lansing, director of training. “Ideally, we look for a church that has a structure for counseling, that has several people who are trained and available.”

“Some secular government groups, and schools, have trouble with the spiritual component in my high school presentations,” says Anthony. “I tell them you can’t ignore the central part of man.

“Ministering to people who are touched by suicide in one way or another is a unique opportunity for Christians to reach out. Non-Christians don’t have answers to ultimate spiritual questions,” says Anthony. “The church does.”

Ideas

Scorpions, Worms, and Iranian Missiles

Philip Yancey

Columnist; Contributor

Is my own physical safety more significant than the deaths of 10,000 refugees?

Once I lay sleepless through a long night inside a tent in Somalia. The African refugee crisis was at its height then, and tents and makeshift shelters stretched out for several acres around me: 60,000 refugees lived in this one camp I was visiting on assignment.

I wanted to stroll through the camp staring upward, where the Milky Way shone spectacularly in the clear, equatorial sky. (In an odd inversion, our galaxy reminded me of the lights of Los Angeles as seen from the air.) But camp workers had warned against nighttime strolls, because of the scorpions.

They told horrific stories about scorpions lurking in towels and clothing, especially shoes. Victims of their bites must endure a pain like no other—“childbirth times 12,” said one nurse—for at least two weeks. A small scorpion had dropped from the slope of a tent onto the face of a sleeping doctor; for days the doctor got Novocain shots in his cheek, one every four hours, in an attempt to quell the pain.

As I lay awake I could hear a faint, eerie sound, like the keening death wail of a Muslim woman, in tone more animal than human. It was the sound of a Somali nomad bitten by a scorpion, carrying through the thin desert air. Each hour I lay in my tent it grew slightly louder. By morning, the nomad had reached the camp for treatment.

After a few days I left the camp, and as the truck pulled away from the thousands of huts squatting in hummocky rows against the horizon, a chilling realization set in. The camp doctor had told me that probably one in six refugees would die of malnutrition or disease within the next month. But it struck me with awful force that during my stay in the camp, I had spent far more energy and time worrying about those damnable scorpions than about the 10,000 refugees who would die.

Once a Hebrew prophet named Jonah sat under the shade of a vine just outside the great city of Nineveh. When a worm chewed through the vine, exposing Jonah to the blazing sun and a scorching east wind, he became sullen and bitter, and he was angry enough to die.

God chose that particular moment to give Jonah a lesson in divine priorities. Even after the episode with the great fish, Jonah had never fully accepted his assignment as missionary to the Assyrians. Assyrians! Cruel, godless—veritable Nazis of their day, who razed whole civilizations and led captives away with hooks in their mouths—they hardly deserved another chance. It was the height of insult to send him, a Hebrew prophet, to his archenemies. Who cared if Nineveh got destroyed in 40 days; they had it coming.

But the Lord said to the sulky prophet, “You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?”

Once, some officials high up in the United States government sat around a table discussing ways to free Americans being held hostage in the Middle East. Of their various attempts, only one bore fruit, a plan that involved the shipment of millions of dollars of military hardware to Iran.

When the news broke, newspapers were filled with stories about the arms-for-hostages swap. Editorials expressed outrage that the United States had bargained with a hostile nation that sponsors terrorism. Congressmen decried the fact that profits from the arms sale had been siphoned off to support an embargoed war in Central America.

Committee members and special investigators pored over shipping documents, the minutes of meetings, and logs of telephone calls. Who knew what, and when? Were any laws violated? Had the White House upset the constitutional balance of power? These were the questions hotly debated each evening on the network news.

Strangely, very few people voiced aloud what seems to me the most basic issue of all, the fundamental moral issue underlying the bartering. Essentially, America was offering 60 million dollars’ worth of weapons—devices brilliantly engineered to cause death—in order to save the hostages’ lives. Or, looked at mathematically, we were bargaining the deaths of scores of Iraqis for the lives of six Americans.

Shortly after one of the arms deliveries to Iran, an Iranian missile fell in the streets of Baghdad, Iraq, killing 48 civilians. Had that missile been obtained in the deal for hostages? Journalists reported the delivery of 2,000 antitank missiles: What if only 10 percent of those missiles found their mark, hitting 200 Iraqi tanks and killing two soldiers in each one? The arithmetic is obvious: 400 dead Iraqis in exchange for six (or three, as it turned out) live Americans.

I do not question our nation’s right to defend its citizens by force. I simply wonder at the fact that this equation of death-for-life is so seldom mentioned in discussions on the whole affair. In the articles I have read, only one man has cast the issue in such blatantly moral terms. That man, a priest named Lawrence Jenco, happens to be one of the hostages freed after more than 18 months of captivity in Beirut. Jenco said, simply, that he “would have preferred to stay” in his cell if his freedom had been purchased with guns, because “the trading of arms symbolizes violence.”

I do not know personally a single citizen of Iraq, and I realize that nation does not share American values and democratic ideals. But perhaps that is the lesson we are missing in all the fuss, the same lesson suggested by my experience in Somalia and Jonah’s in Assyria. Is my own physical safety more significant than the deaths of 10,000 refugees? Is the comfort of one Hebrew prophet more important than the lives of 120,000 Assyrian children? And how many Iraqi deaths are worth six American lives? Or are these questions we should not be asking?

Philip Yancey: A Philip Yancey column that ran from 1985 to 2009

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