Maximizing the Children’s Sermon

What do you do with little tykes once they’re assembled at the front of the church?

There once was a time when I prepared the children's sermon in the wee hours of Saturday night. But no longer. The more I analyzed it, the more I realized how terribly difficult it is to proclaim the gospel to children.

My own turning point was the moment I began to examine what I was doing and how I was doing it. I stopped taking for granted what I read in books of children's sermons and said to myself, There must be more to this than meets the eye. The author may have given me fifty-two sermons and a few good ideas, but nowhere did the author set forth criteria for why these were good children's sermons.

Before preaching to children, I decided to ask myself, What appropriate message and form should I use this time?

Gospel Telling and Worship

Two misconceptions cloud our thinking about children's sermons. The low view considers them a liturgical albatross. Many fine preachers have had the experience, I suspect, of seeing too much show and not much substance. They fully realize the many limitations imposed by time and setting.

The high view presumes children's sermons can do it all, reasoning something like this: As long as children are hearing some kind of proclamation in worship, they are being properly fed. If it is possible, this view takes the children's sermon too seriously.

If we buy into the low view, we would do away with the children's sermon altogether: Let them worship in children's church. Period. If we follow the high view, there would be a children's sermon every Sunday, which would constitute the only input geared for them. What we are often missing is a sensible balance-a little fun with the highest standards.

I advocate a middle view. The sermon never constitutes the whole worship experience for any age. Children need to be part of congregational worship and a worship experience that is age-appropriate. At our church, on half the Sundays children and younger youth worship with their families for the first twenty minutes before being dismissed to classes. On alternating Sundays they spend that twenty minutes worshiping together in the chapel, often led by children themselves with the help of an adult.

Listening to Myself

I found that analyzing my children's sermons as I did my adult sermons forced me to make some immediate changes. Listening in on my own worst efforts and on the unexamined offerings of others, I began to find some common failings:

Rambling. With children, time is of the essence. We must get to the point-our one point. So often it sounds like the proclaimer is having difficulty getting to the point, and when he finds it, has difficulty leaving it. I define a good children's sermon as one that is to the point, biblical, and participatory. Consequently, not-so-good children's sermons are rambling, moralistic, and object-centered.

Moralism. Christianity is certainly not without its standards and expectations, so there is a time and place to be moralistic with children. But too often, we forget that God's love must first find and transform us. Moralistic sermons either reverse this priority or neglect it.

More than any other age group, children seem to be on the receiving end of moralistic sermons, which come across sounding like "Good Christian children should be kinder, more respectful, more honest, more considerate, less wasteful, less quarrelsome, and not so mean and selfish." We cannot confuse this with the proclamation of the divine Good News. When I begin sounding like a sage adviser or character builder, the proclamation of God's love is probably losing out.

Children's sermons should enable children to experience, at that very moment in the worship service, the goodness of God and the caring of God's people. Children need to feel this more than they need to be advised about their behavior. We do not become what God wants us to be until we know God loves and accepts us.

Humanism. Humanism comes in many forms: cute stories, anecdotes, fables, fairy tales. Humanism tends to confuse the gospel with the wisdom of the ages or parental advice, something we all find easy to do. No matter how it is dressed, worldly wisdom will always be advice about how to get along in the world ( … la Dale Carnegie), while God's foolishness disrupts, reverses, and transforms (1 Cor. 1-2).

For a while, each Sunday the children in our church were edging closer and closer to the exit to see who could get out first. The children's sermon one day was about "the first and the last." When the children were dismissed out the other, seldom-used door, the first literally became the last. We have the obligation to upset their world as well as calm their fears.

Teaching. Although every good sermon ought to contain at least a little sound teaching, our children's sermons frequently slide into more than just a little. I know I am pulled in the direction of teaching instead of proclaiming. But isn't this what our church schools are for?

Truthfully, I have preached my share of sermons explicating the symbolic meaning of the sanctuary-the pulpit, lectern, Communion table, and various other Christian symbols. It was pure teaching. In order to break free from this dependency, I now push on to help children experience the gospel.

One Sunday I was explaining the reason for including flowers on the Communion table. Holding one of the flowers in my hand, I asked an older child to tear it into pieces. I then asked the child to put it back together "just as it was."

After reminding him of some great human achievements like building the space shuttle or inventing artificial kidneys, I asked if there was anyone in the whole world who could help him accomplish the task. You can see my method: I wanted the children to be struck with the realization that God is God, because we can't even reconstruct a simple flower.

It is easier to teach because we have so much to teach them, and proclaiming is so much more difficult. Although it isn't always possible, my goal is to preserve the unique nature of proclamation in worship. So when I do opt to teach, I do it guardedly, not letting it become a substitute for proclamation. Certainly I want to fill their heads with sound teaching, but not before I seek to transform their hearts so that teaching isn't lost.

Object lessons and allegory. These two are buddies who usually team up with disastrous results. Why? Because children don't think allegorically until they are long past grade school and entering high school. I had to re-examine my fixation on "the object in the brown bag."

In an outdoor setting, I once watched a minister bring out an ax and proceed to draw an analogy about personal conduct from each part: "As the blade must be kept sharp, so must we keep ourselves sharpened against the dull edge of immorality. . . ." How many children made the jump from steel to sex?

But I once made a similar mistake: I used a gun in a children's sermon. The reaction was tumultuous. I was chided by the hunters in the congregation who felt I didn't understand their point of view, and I was attacked by parents for setting a bad example. Nobody remembered my point!

I will use an object to get a discussion started but not to draw an analogy. On Rally Day when our church school opened this year, my objects included a miniature church without a steeple, half a banana, one ice skate, and a family picture with one member cut out. The objects helped the children get in touch with feelings of incompleteness and being missed. They caught the message: "Our church family is only complete when you are with us."

In Search of Better Ways

Methods abound to blunt the effect of a children's sermon, and most of us have witnessed or tried our share of them. However, I have found ways to improve my proclamation to children.

Variety. No one type of presentation stands head and shoulders above the others. I strive to be creative and unafraid to try something different, because a rut is a sure way toward mediocrity.

Here are some of the styles I have utilized:

let's pretend

pantomime

puppets

echo stories (the leader provides a line or two and the children echo back words, motions, or sounds)

story form (includes a plot and character development)

dramatic participation (children become participants)

a life experience (recounting a story where you have experienced God's grace in your daily life)

visual demonstration (otherwise known as object lessons)

As a rule, my preparation begins with the message-a scriptural message, of course-and then I determine the form of presentation. For example, when I was demonstrating the meaning of the commandments "You shall not steal" and "You shall not covet," I chose a pantomime.

I acted out the way an object, a new baseball bat in this instance, can hold sway over us once we decide "I must have it." In the planning stage I had only two acts: one where I physically took the bat off a table, and a second scene where I took it only with my eyes and desire. To end the sermon here, however, would leave it merely teaching about these two commandments. I added a third scene that suggested the way to break this hold is through prayer.

Another great method, puppets, allows children to overhear a conversation. The concept of "listening in" is important, because we all need a safe distance to listen before we can say, That's me, too. According to Fred Craddock in his book, Overhearing the Gospel, this is the power behind the parables Jesus loved to tell. Jesus chose the form of his message with his purpose in mind.

Simplicity and directness. Keeping it simple and direct for children may seem obvious, but so often the reverse happens. I don't write out the whole sermon, but I do make a point of writing down my single goal. When I am not 100 percent sure where I'm headed, I take too many detours getting there. One portable message does just fine.

The example above of the flower being torn into tiny pieces is one of the simplest, most direct children's sermons I know. I could use it to illustrate a number of Christian themes: the majesty of God as Creator, good Christian stewardship/ecology (don't destroy what you can't put back together), or the argument from design for the existence of God.

The constant temptation is to try to do too much, to complicate what begins as a simple idea. The greater the idea, the greater the temptation. A great idea should be used to make one great point.

I love children's sermons that are direct (not allegorical) and where everything said and done is directed toward one goal.

Targeting. When I discovered all children are not alike-age does make a difference-I began to target a sermon for a particular age group. Since several age groups usually gather with me, it means choosing which group of cherubic faces gets special attention on a given Sunday. I may only graze the target with the other age groups, but I at least have the benefit of consciously choosing which target I want to hit.

To do this, I had to learn the basic traits of preschool, younger elementary (primary), and older elementary (juniors) children.

Preschool children understand you literally. They don't distinguish clearly between fantasy and reality. On the other hand, they love "let's pretend" stories. Our approach must be crafted to steer a careful course between fairy tales and literal meanings that were not intended. Enjoy the fun of entering their childlike world.

For younger elementary children, going to school, making friends, enjoying creating things, struggling to be persons in their own right, and handling the tension between being safe and taking risks dominate their lives. I target my sermons to give them Christian role models and to affirm them as persons of worth.

The older elementary children are trying hard to master and control reality. They have entered the postconventional stage of childhood. Competition is uppermost in their minds. They love games. My sermons for them reveal my understanding of a God who accepts them whether or not they are "the winners."

A targeted sermon says I care enough to enter into the world of children rather than just trying to reduce an adult sermon to that amorphous level of "children."

Open-endedness. Children can think; they really can. So why beat them over the head with the obvious? Why feel compelled to tidy up all the loose ends and give them a complete package? I like to send out the children with something to work out for themselves.

Every Thanksgiving I am tempted to tell my story of Tom Gobble, the greedy turkey who eats so much that he gets eaten for Thanksgiving dinner. If I left this one open-ended, it would invite cannibalistic conclusions from literal-minded younger children. Besides, the story is so pat.

I prefer situations which beg continuing participation. Once in cutting a dollar bill into ten parts to illustrate a tithe, I opened a wider door that invited parents to take the story home with their children to discuss other ideas, like how money is spent, what is fair, or weekly allowances. Occasionally I will intentionally dismiss the children with ideas that need continuing thought.

In Bruno Bettelheim's Use of Enchantment, this noted psychiatrist points out that fairy tales are open-ended in the sense they allow listeners to rework the story in their imagination by entering into it at various points, depending on the conflicts felt at that moment. A good storyteller knows the most effective story is one where the meaning does not have to be spelled out. The story carries its message best when listeners find their own stories within the one being told.

I aim to tell the story in such a way that children experience God's love as radical reversal and surprising joy. This story form of gospel telling, in my estimation, is the most difficult form of all. And therefore the most effective.

Proclamation by participation. How true it is that we learn by doing! For children, the ratio is something like 60 percent retention of what they do, 30 percent of what they see, and 10 percent of what they hear. If this ratio is accurate, then proclamation by participation should be a primary goal.

One of my favorite children's sermons involved a gigantic chocolate chip cookie. With a few words of introduction, including a reading of Isaiah 58:6-10, I gave one of the gathered children the enormous cookie. Then I waited; that is, I trusted an open-ended process.

My words of introduction were most important. If I had said too much, it would have turned proclamation into moralism-"You should divide up the cookie." Had I not said the right words, the child would have felt confused or tested.

As it was, by resisting the temptation to be moralistic, I didn't spoil the effect of the child's decision. I was simply prepared to briefly summarize the experience, however it turned out.

An effective children's sermon is as rare as a truly great adult sermon, but children's sermons need not be a chore at best or a madcap zoo at worst. Plenty of signs warn us when we haven't cared enough to enter into the unique world of children: inappropriate or careless language, untargeted sermons, moralistic object lessons, dependency upon allegory and metaphor, humanistic anecdotes. But when we set our targets high, our striving will make us better proclaimers, not only to the children in our midst but to all the family of God.

Richard J. Coleman is teaching minister of the Community Church of Durham (UCC), Durham, New Hampshire.

80 Winter LEADERSHIP/86

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Pastors

DON’T WRITE OFF THE MEN’S GROUP

Lyle E. Schaller

“You do have some good ideas occasionally, Charlie, but this isn’t one of them,” declared Jack Spencer. “I’ve been a member for more than twenty years, and we’ve never been able to have a men’s group. About fifteen years ago we had a minister who really pushed it, but it didn’t go. That may work with some other churches, but not here.”

“Television has killed the whole idea,” agreed Stanley Winter. “In the church where my wife and I were married, we used to meet on the second Monday evening of every month for dinner, Bible study, a program, and fellowship. Sometimes we would have thirty-five or forty men turn out, and we must have averaged between twenty and twenty-five. Television has made that a relic of the past.”

“But it’s also the quality of the alternatives,” observed Bill Edwards. “Why would anyone come to church to hear a layman stumble through a devotional lesson when you can stay home and watch a religious program that’s professionally done?”

“It’s not just television and Monday night football that killed the men’s club,” argued Ned Vernon. “It’s the competition for people’s time. People have too many things to do. Half the mothers have a job outside the home. A lot of men work a full day and moonlight on a second job at night. There are dozens of civic, professional, social, political, and hobby clubs that want a chunk of your time. The men’s club belonged to an era when it helped fill up what otherwise could have been empty evenings for a lot of lonesome men. It’s like your appendix-obsolete. Times have changed.”

Do these comments help explain the demise of the men’s fellowship in so many congregations? Is the men’s club a relic?

A turnaround?

There is only one thing wrong with these comments and reactions. They represent the 1960s and the early 1970s, not 1986. While the all-male fellowship operates under a variety of names in different denominations, it is making a comeback in thousands of places. Hundreds of new congregations founded during the past decade report the men’s fellowship is a vital element of the total program and the entry point for many new male members into the church.

The number of United Methodist Men organizations has increased by fifty percent since the low of 1977, and new groups are being chartered at the rate of a hundred a month.

The Southern Baptist Convention reports an enrollment decline in the Women’s Missionary Union since the peak years of the early 1970s, while Brotherhood enrollment, which peaked in 1963 and then declined for seven consecutive years, has been climbing during the past decade.

Why the increase?

There appear to be six distinct reasons behind this trend.

The first, and by far the most important, is the religious revival currently under way on this continent. One expression of this is the tens of thousands of men’s Bible study and prayer groups meeting during the week, usually early in the morning. These groups are responding to the need once met by men’s fellowships in the churches. Now new men’s clubs are being organized in response to that same need.

Second, excellent planning has been going into the creation of the new groups. The United Methodist Men, for example, are now organized around a three-point purpose of fellowship, outreach, and witness rather than simply “getting together once a month.”

In general, the greater this emphasis on outreach or on a distinctive purpose, the stronger the men’s group. In some regional judicatories, men’s fellowships have become the chief resource for establishing and financing new congregations. In several congregations the distinctively male organization is built around a men’s and boy’s choir.

Third, in many congregations the men’s club provides a “sense of belonging” to match that offered by other specialty groups in the church: the choir, the women’s fellowship, the teen group, Sunday school classes for children, and a ministerial fellowship for clergy.

Fourth, the gradual movement toward larger congregations (eight percent of Protestant churches now account for one-third of all Protestant church members) requires an improvement in the quality of group life in the church. The men’s group is one response to that need.

Fifth, the shift away from the overwhelming family orientation of society of the third quarter of this century has created a need once again for a group the single adult male can join without feeling out of step because he does not have a wife. The all-male group offered that sense of inclusion to the single man and the widower in the 1920s and 1930s-and in the 1980s.

Finally, in many congregations, opening the door to permit women to hold any church office appears to have led some men, once members of an all-male governing board, to seek an all-male enclave.

While this may strike some as another example of male chauvinism, it is an especially significant consideration for those church leaders who are concerned about the gradual feminization of the church. In thousands of congregations, women now outnumber males at the Sunday morning worship service by a three-to-two or even two-to-one ratio.

What makes them thrive?

A review of vital men’s groups in churches reveals a series of characteristics that stand out repeatedly:

The strongest men’s groups have a clearly defined purpose of mission or service. It is rare to find a strong group today built solely around entertainment, fellowship, and recreation.

The strongest groups usually benefit from the leadership of two to four men who have made this a high priority in their own lives. They work hard at the job and are completely convinced of the unique role of a men’s group. Frequently these leaders have a strong entrepreneurial spirit; they are self-starters, they are persistent, and they follow through on the details. It is not unusual for two or three of these to be part of the leadership team for several consecutive years.

The strongest groups usually enjoy the unreserved support of a pastor who believes in the men’s organization and who affirms and supports it from the pulpit.

The strongest men’s groups are most likely to be found in congregations with two hundred or more members.

The most cohesive men’s groups usually have at least one major project annually that requires people to work with their hands. This normally requires more hands than are readily available in the group. Thus the project serves as an entry point for newcomers, the young, the aged, and more introverted men. It also may offer a unique opportunity to affirm those with nonverbal skills.

In one form or another, there is a strong emphasis on meeting the spiritual needs of the men and providing opportunities for personal and spiritual growth. These often take the form of Bible study, intercessory prayer, mission work trips, special inspirational retreats, witnessing ventures, or weekend camping experiences. It is difficult to overstate the value of the annual national rally that brings together several thousand men.

Many of these groups plan an annual social event to which wives and sweethearts are invited. This may be the only major “dress-up” meeting of the year, often built around a meal and a special program.

Most of the strong men’s groups express in three or four ways their relationships to the regional and national organizations of their denomination. These may involve participating in the regional fall retreat, supporting a major mission project, securing a charter from the national office, using denominational program resources, helping to sponsor new congregations, sharing in a work camp experience, participating in a witnessing program, or sponsoring a local cable TV religious program.

The strongest groups usually have their own treasury, treasurer, and financial program, including a special mission pledge. In 1981 the typical mission pledge averaged between $20 and $35 per man.

The most cohesive groups eat together at least seven or eight times a year. One of the most effective ways to kill a men’s group is to eliminate that monthly meal!

Many of the men’s groups reinforce their sense of identity and cohesiveness through a special insignia or emblem that is reproduced on a lapel pin, cap, T-shirt, or banner. Symbols are important in today’s world.

Frequently the men’s group serves as the adult sponsor for the youth group, the weekday nursery school, the Sunday school class for handicapped children, the boy’s chorus, the church softball team, the annual all-church picnic, the world hunger crusade in that congregation, the adult camping weekend, or the Sunday morning outdoor service at the drive-in.

The men’s group continues to fill unmet needs in many congregations.

-Lyle E. Schaller

Yokefellow Institute

Richmond, Indiana

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Pastors

DEATHBED QUESTIONS: DISCERNING THE UNSPOKEN

Linwood H. Chamberlain, Jr.

Nursing the soul of a dying person demands a heart sensitive to the tide of needs.

A woman I’ll call Marylynn, the fifty-nine-year-old mother of one of my parishioners, was dying of cancer. When I first entered her living room, now converted into a “dying room” complete with hospital bed and institutional sheets, death haunted the house.

Her husband had silently pointed my way into the room, whispering at the door, “I won’t disturb the two of you.” He then beat a hasty retreat to his garage. The shades were pulled tightly across the window, permitting only a few streams of dust-flecked light to trickle to the bed. The stale smell of stagnant air and unwatered flowers hung over the room like mist over a pond.

Marylynn, thin and pale, was lying limp in her bed. Her breathing was shallow. Death, the doctor had said, would come soon.

I went to her side, took her hand, and announced myself. Still I was not sure she had recognized who I was or even that I had come into the room. I said I’d like to pray with her. In prayer I called upon the Holy Spirit for trust in the resurrection and assurance of eternal life.

When I finished, Marylynn sat up. She looked directly into my eyes and said, “Damn it! Just because I’m dying doesn’t mean I want to hear about heaven!” She collapsed back into her bed like a balloon suddenly deflating.

Over the course of that visit, Marylynn informed me that if God was so mean as to strike her down with cancer just as she had started going back to church, she wasn’t sure she wanted to spend eternity with him. She hated God; she hated me; she hated her husband and her family.

Marylynn had begun my education about what she needed so she could die in faith.

I had approached Marylynn from my perspective. Seeing the signs of death in her environment and observing her husband’s avoidance, I had sensed she needed to talk. I was prepared to talk about the different psychological needs accompanying death, but I had limited her theological needs to only one. I had arrived with the preconceived notion that dying people needed to be comforted concerning heaven and hell, that Marylynn needed to be reminded death was not the end. I had been wrong.

What I did not know then, but know now, is that grief occurs in both psychological and theological stages. People face death asking many questions about God and the meaning of life. The truth of eternal life is only one question people ask as they approach their act of dying, and it is often not their most important issue. We need to be prepared to answer a variety of questions concerning the many stages of a person’s faith journey.

Jesus knew that. He used different perspectives and theological approaches, depending on the audience. With crowds and new converts, Jesus spoke in parables; however, he taught his disciples the meanings of the parables. Jesus adjusted his theological content in accordance with the needs and limitations of those around him.

I have learned that each of the stages of grief, described by Elisabeth Kbler-Ross and Granger Westberg, raises corresponding theological questions. I developed the following chart for a hospice workshop. (See below.)

Denial: Rejection of Evidence

When people hear they soon will die, an avalanche of new thoughts, information, questions, and demands for decisions rushes down on them. It’s overwhelming-too much to handle all at once. For their own protection, they need to avoid the immediate impact of the avalanche.

Frequently the first reaction to the news is to reject the evidence. By saying It can’t be true-it must be something else, they can step back, catch their breath, and get firmer footing before facing the news.

This protection through isolation lasts only as long as they can keep death at arm’s length. Therefore, while pushing away the evidence of an early death, they also push away the idea they will die at all. The finality of life, however, can only be put off for a limited time. Eventually the truth begins to overtake them: God does permit people to die.

People tend to run faster and faster to keep away from the news; they need help in slowing down. When they do, they can sort through the crush of new information a little at a time. Instead of being crushed by too many things at once, they can dig their way out at their own pace.

Our job at this initial stage is to help them focus on one aspect of that avalanche at a time. We need to let them examine it for a while. We stay with them while they slowly turn it over and over in their minds and then help them put it in its proper place in their understanding of life.

For the time being, questions or statements that lead them to focus on their own beliefs about life and death help more than statements about our beliefs. They do not need the additional load of our new ideas, ways of thinking, or theologies. The time will come to state our understanding and our perspectives on death.

Most recently I relearned this lesson from Diane. She went to her physician because of a slight difficulty catching her breath, expecting the doctor to give her the same tranquilizer and advice he had usually given for this recurring problem. This time, however, he admitted her to the hospital, ran three days of tests, and concluded she had terminal cancer of the lymph system.

Shortly after this diagnosis I visited Diane. Her words came in quick, staccato sentences, jumping from one subject to the next: “I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to get the house cleaned up. My husband doesn’t know how to cook. Oh, did I tell you about my niece’s wedding next year? I called the doctor and told him I wanted a second opinion. I wonder if I can still travel? In a couple of days I’ll be fit as a fiddle. I’m just a little tired right now.”

I held her hand. “There seem to be too many things for you to do,” I said.

Diane squeezed my hand as if she wanted to crush it. A tear ran down the side of her nose and dropped into her lap. The silence in the room seemed to last forever. “The doctor said I’m going to die,” she told me, speaking as if she were telling me about getting her hair cut, “but I’m not ready.”

“Let’s pray that God gives you time to do things,” I answered.

Diane could not think about the pain, the change in her lifestyle, the physical side effects of chemotherapy, or the procedures the physician wanted to try. She did not want to discuss her feelings about death, being hospitalized, or slowly deteriorating in strength. She needed permission to still live for a while, to take care of her husband as she had throughout their marriage, to get things ready in the brief time she had left. She needed to dig out from the avalanche.

Denial: Rejection of Help

Once people start to accept the fact of imminent death, another dilemma emerges. They are now thrown for a loss concerning what to trust. By an unwelcome turn of events, they have been forced to give up the unconscious fantasy we all harbor-that life will go on forever. Everything they had counted on and hoped for now seems to be challenged and discarded. If those dreams are not true, what is?

Christians start asking the same question: Can I count on anything I used to believe in? People need grounding at this point. It is still too early to start adding new ideas from our perspectives. Our job is to help them place what is happening on the foundation of their own faith laid in previous years. This helps people reassure themselves that all has not changed; what has changed is their awareness of death.

I watched a man pretty much do that by himself.

Ed, in his early eighties, was dying of old age and the many complications the body encounters when it starts to wear out all at once. “I’ve known for years I’d die someday,” he once told me, “but now that it’s so close, I’m afraid. I thought it would be different. Maybe I don’t really believe anymore.”

Ed slumped over the table at the edge of his bed. He was partially shaven and had a small portion of his recent lunch stuck to the corner of his mouth. He was wearing a faded bathrobe, an overly large hospital gown, and the paper slippers provided him by the hospital. His thin, varicose-veined legs sticking out beneath the robe completed the picture of a frail human being barely capable of caring for himself.

I asked if he ever believed. With a touch of surprise, he said, “Of course! I grew up in the church. My parents were churchgoers since they were born, too. We Swedes have always believed!” He raised up and threw his shoulders back, like a proud fisherman about to show his catch.

Ed spent the next half hour telling me about his history of faith. We never spoke much that day about dying, but Ed taught me a lot about what it takes to live for eighty years and still keep the faith. I believe he taught himself, too.

Denial: Rejection of Others

Denial takes yet another form: people deny that anyone else can possibly appreciate what they are experiencing. While probably true in terms of fully knowing their inner thoughts and fears, the position also closes out our attempts to empathize or show support. At this point we need to demonstrate we appreciate them, even if we cannot fully understand the specifics of what they are feeling.

A nonmember taught me this in a graphic way. Esther was a brittle diabetic in her late sixties. The disease was slowly taking its toll through kidney failure, loss of sight, and gangrene in an infected foot. By the time we were introduced, she had undergone the amputation of first her toes and then her foot. The problem persisted in crawling ever higher up her leg.

One day, when I was bringing her communion, she could not stop crying. I put my hand on hers, trying to comfort her, and said, “Go ahead and cry. I know how you feel.”

Her crying stopped, but not from my comfort. She looked at me, her head tilted slightly to the side, and spoke like a mother to a child: “No you don’t. You have both legs, you can see, and you’re not dying. You don’t know what I am feeling. How could you?”

I was stunned. In trying to comfort her, I had unintentionally made light of her feelings by implying they were normal or common. In truth, they were special to her situation.

I told her I was wrong; she was right. I have felt fear. I have occasionally felt helpless and overwhelmed. I have felt like crying. But I was only guessing about her emotions. More important, I told her I cared, and I would continue to visit if she wanted to take the time to teach me how she was actually feeling.

She didn’t answer right away but kept looking at me as if she were sizing me up. Finally she smiled and said, “Maybe you know a little bit how I feel.”

People do not stop with rejecting other people; they also reject God. Frequently people will ask, “How can God, who never was afraid, really understand my fear?” Now they need additional information.

Only after they have permitted themselves to trust that we are trying to understand them-that we do not want to force our feelings on them-can we share effectively the truth of Scripture about the humanity of Jesus. Without denying the pain and specific reality of their grief, we need to communicate that Jesus went through pain and grief concerning his own death. The writings in Hebrews, Paul’s letters about his own struggles, and the prophets’ inner fears help people know they share good company in feeling overwhelmed by life-and-death issues. Not only does this show respect for people’s perspective, but these truths from Scripture also show that God does not quickly dismiss their feelings.

People do not need, especially at this time, the trite explanations that seem to roll so easily off the tongues of those trying to make dying a simple matter. A statement like “It’s all for the best in God’s plan for creation” most likely confirms people’s worst fear: God is playing around with their life without taking their feelings into account.

Emotional Release: Anger

Eventually the realization of what is happening sinks in. Now, instead of being snowed by external information, people feel like exploding. All the complexity of feelings that must be faced in approaching one’s own death bubble up inside, and they need to get them out.

Anger is typically one of the first emotions to expose itself. People get angry at the doctor for not being able to do something to stop whatever is happening; they get angry with their spouse for not pushing them toward medical action sooner; they get angry with us for our simplistic beliefs.

They also get angry with God. Usually they will ask, “If God really loves me, why doesn’t he do something?”

Anger is a natural way for people to express self-concern, and it provides the energy and desire for people to take care of themselves. That energy will be needed in the stages to come. They need permission to express all their feelings, so each one can be addressed in the open. After all, life does not seem fair; you and I don’t always like what is going on either.

People do not need our defensiveness about God. A simple listening ear and gentle probing into the depth of their anger is better than all our theological explanations about the wisdom and will of God. God can surely take care of himself without our help during this one stage in their journey with grief.

Emotional Release: Guilt and Bargaining

Guilt and bargaining seem to be two sides of the same coin. Both assume that what people have done, or will do, can affect the eventuality of death. Both arise from the proposition that we human beings have final control over life.

Typically people ask, “What did I do to deserve this?” or “What can I do to change this?” The later question usually takes the form of trying to bribe God: “I’ll become a minister of the gospel, give up drinking and smoking, and start tithing if only God will take this problem away.” People want to make up for some inner deficiency they assume caused their vulnerability to death.

People need to know God relates to them out of grace and not retaliation and vengeance. Sometimes they carry around leftover guilt from the past that frightens or shames them when they think about meeting God. Communion, prayer, scriptural passages, and the assurance of God’s forgiveness are most appropriate at this point.

A case in point concerns Franklin. Franklin was suffering from slow deterioration of his spinal column due to a malignancy that could be retarded but not stopped. He had led an active, physical life, earning his living in steel mills and construction. After the onset of his disease, all he could do was sit, and that for progressively shorter periods of time.

He was an avid follower of the radio ministries, well versed in the Bible, and a man of faith, yet his question to me was “What am I doing wrong?” He thought he was not praying hard enough. He felt he had not made up for old sins and had to do something so God would quit afflicting him with his back pain and would cure his cancer.

I could not relieve him of his pain or his dying; I could, however, offer relief for his guilt. We discussed forgiveness and scriptural references to “turning back to God’s constant welcome” and we celebrated communion. Franklin still had questions, but God’s promise to forgive helped him look forward in grace and not backward in fear.

Dying people are burdened with almost intolerable circumstances. They need hope and encouragement. What they do not need is more guilt by our suggesting they should have more faith in facing their ailment. A statement like “If you’d just put your faith in God, you would be able to accept this in peace” causes more stress than it eliminates.

Franklin’s wife was listening to the two of us talk one day, and I noticed her crying. She explained to me, “Maybe I should quit praying for his healing. I thought faith was only trusting that God would heal if we believe enough, not that we should trust him even in our sickness. Maybe I don’t have much faith after all.” By supporting Franklin’s ability to die well as a witness to faith, I had inadvertently closed off the possibility of his living well and being healed. I had emphasized how his faith was not leading Franklin to healing but to witnessing.

Simple truths about death or healing have built-in complications and are, in actuality, only partially correct. Since we do not know entirely the grace of God, we do not understand entirely his will to permit diseases and the process of dying. We need to admit our human limitations.

Although the dying are merely trying to make sense of their circumstances, we do them no favor if we suggest easy cause-and-effect answers to their current problem. When we exhibit our own continuing faith in the midst of things even we cannot explain and over which we have no control, it helps people later accept our presence and our care, if the will of God lets them continue to move toward death.

Lethargy/Depression: Reactive

Once the concept of dying begins to sink into people’s awareness, their approach to the future changes. They begin to visualize a world without their presence.

Often this leads to a basic form of insecurity: Does anybody care if I live or die? Questions about being missed or about the value of life are often asked. People need reassurance they are so important God sent his only Son to save them, that God has the hairs on their heads numbered. They need to explore how the world will be different without their presence. If it is true, we can help by saying, “I’ll miss you.”

Since they are just beginning to piece together how their death will fit into the scheme of history, now is not the time to preach the omnipotence of God, or that he can create new believers from the very stones.

However, our response to depression is not as easy to frame as it may seem, because depression has two sides: reactive and preparatory.

I typically note people’s words as pointers to what they are facing. If they are focused outward, it indicates preparatory depression. If their words point inward toward themselves, reactive depression is often the accompanying feeling. People may point to themselves as insignificant, or they may overcompensate by saying they are the only ones who can cope. Either way, they are still pointing to their need to have worth as their lives are ending.

One patient displayed both sides of depression during a single visit. Bill had only been hospitalized a short time, but during that time his body turned from a healthy, pain-free friend to a stranger increasing his suffering with every breath. He lay in bed, his wife holding his hand and his brothers standing off in the corner. They had been by his side for twenty-four hours straight.

I had been asked to visit because his pastor was out of town and did not know of Bill’s condition. After the usual awkward introductions, Bill told me he was dying, and because of his continually weakening condition, he was not going to be able to go back to work. He grieved that he wouldn’t even be able to finish his garden at home. We spoke about his fears and regrets.

At one point I asked if we could pray together. He replied, “No, ’cause I don’t want you to ask God for me to get better. I don’t feel like going on. Life’s not worth living.”

“Your wife will miss you,” I said. “God gave her to you.”

He turned to look at her. She was openly weeping. He pulled her hand over to both of his and asked, “Could we both pray with you?”

After the prayer Bill stared at the ceiling, and a lengthy silence filled the room. Eventually he rolled his head to the side. Our eyes met.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“About my grandchildren,” he whispered. “I was wondering who would take care of them.”

The finger of Bill’s words now pointed toward the world.

Lethargy/Depression: Preparatory

This other side of depression is the awareness that, in dying, they are leaving others behind, that their loved ones may not be well prepared, that this death will cause pain and problems. On this side, people need exactly the opposite reassurance than was required for reactive depression.

Now they need to be reminded that God is in control of the universe and that he will be able to take care of the family. People’s importance and meaning in life need to be separated from the ability of the world to go on without them.

A discussion about how they were instruments in God’s preparing their family for the future is one way to help them let the future rest in God’s hands. Specific plans for the future, such as insurance and funeral arrangements, are appropriate at this point.

Hope and Acceptance

Eventually, after many side trips and much exploring, people reach the point in their journey through grief where they can accept what is happening. They have been allowed to acknowledge that death is not fair, to rule out trying to scheme their way out of it, to learn that the love of God remains even for sinners, and to accept that the family will be taken care of in their absence. Finally they ask, “What’s next?”

Now I talk about Easter, the images of heaven prophesied in the Bible, and the promises of Jesus for life everlasting. Theologically they have reached the stage of receptivity to the beauty of eternal life.

Mary was eighty years old. Everyone was hanging on to her life and saying they did not want her to die. She told me she missed her husband who had died years before. Looking at her children, all with their own spouses, she said, “I’m tired. I just want to go home.”

Death is not so bad when you are ready for it in faith.

Linwood H. Chamberlain, Jr. is pastor of First Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lorain, Ohio.

SITTING WITH THE DYING

In over forty years as a pastor, Kenneth Nelson sat by the hospital bed of hundreds of dying Christians. Now in retirement, he reviews his modus operandi.

If there’s no response to word or touch, I don’t demand recognition. If from another world she calls me by a different name or asks about dead friends, I don’t correct her. I share bits of news-something I saw, a mutual friend I visited. When relatives come, I step into the background; families need time alone with their dying.

I neither catechize nor preach. If she nods her head when I suggest prayer, I offer one; if not, I pray silently. There’s nothing about which I need remind God. His dying child is coming home.

If regret is expressed for words and acts, I listen without interruption, then assure her that God heard the confession and forgave. If regret is spoken for having done so little with life, I assure my friend that God understands. And I confess that none of us will ever do all we could before death. I would like to make the passage from here to eternity as joyous as possible. My judgment in word or attitude is inappropriate.

If the person is in a coma, I try to imagine the joys and apprehensions of this friend, who is now approaching the Heavenly City.

If there’s no response during my visit, before leaving, I put my hand on my friend and offer a silent prayer.

If a person has neither friends nor relatives, I stay longer. Everyone deserves companionship in death.

– Kenneth E. Nelson

Prescott Valley, Arizona

- More from Linwood H. Chamberlain, Jr.

Pastors

PEOPLE IN PRINT

Getting Organized to Lead

Church Administration: Effective Leadership for Ministry by Charles A. Tidwell, Broadman, $8.95

Reviewed by David Wilkinson, pastor, Trinity Presbyterian Church, Oroville, California

Henry Ford said he took the church’s survival as a sign of God’s existence; no other enterprise run so poorly could stay in business. Charles Tidwell is concerned that the church cease “presuming on God” by living out Ford’s diagnosis.

Tidwell, professor of church administration at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, writes from experience in church administration and twenty years of classroom interaction. He understands the need for good administration, both for the glory of God and for the sanity of the pastor.

He knows the difficulty of “envisioning oneself as being at the pinnacle of ministry while laboring with rolled-up sleeves over an unusually cantankerous copy machine, with smeared ink gradually menacing the bottom of the roll in the sleeve.”

However, he does more than commiserate. Church Administration presents Tidwell’s prescription for change.

The book is encyclopedic, covering all the bases from the global (defining your purpose as a church, financing and constructing a building, enabling volunteers) to minutia (how to count money and even a checklist for keeping restrooms clean and well supplied).

He devotes a chapter to each of eight “functional areas” of administration: purpose, objectives, program (or ministry plan), organization, human resources, physical resources, financial resources, and control. This clear structure makes it easy to find help for where you itch. A helpful summary and a number of “learning activity suggestions” are listed at the end of each chapter.

The “Decalogue for Supervisors” in one appendix was, to me, alone worth the price of admission. It includes such commandments as:

“Thou shalt check appropriately on progress. Be sure you don’t nag by asking too soon or too frequently. Supervision can degenerate easily to ‘snoopervision.'”

“Thou shalt develop solution-minded workers. A supervisor’s beatitude might be: Blessed is the worker who suggests one or more possible solutions to every problem he brings.”

Tidwell declares that the “primary applications of this writing are likely to be in churches with congregational polity.” I found that true; its orientation is definitely baptistic. He even includes an appendix with suggested by-laws for use in a Baptist church.

One reason I read the book was to better understand my Baptist brothers. Although most of what he writes is applicable to church leaders no matter what the polity, some things he writes about I hope I never have to understand!

But as an example of the universally applicable, he writes about church objectives: “Leaders might withdraw from the busy lives they lead long enough to write some beautiful statements of objectives. They could have copies made, pass them out at the door on church meeting nights, and persuade those present to vote in favor of the statements. What would they have accomplished? Just about what they have so often accomplished when they have tried to lead people in this fashion: Their approval for the leaders to go ahead and try to do the job, or their pledge not to try to keep the leaders from going ahead. The vote of approval gained in such a manner usually means no more than, ‘It’s OK with us, if that’s the way you want to do it.’

“A meaningful vote of support,” Tidwell points out, “not only means ‘We are definitely in favor,’ but also ‘Count on us for whatever it takes to get the job done!'”

He reminds us, “People who have a real part in helping to shape the objectives are more likely to be motivated to give their support to help accomplish the objectives.”

Tidwell understands the need for deft handling of power by a pastor. He cautions: “Any church cause in which the pastor’s favor and support are not clearly perceived by the people is likely to have limited favor and support of the members.”

At the same time, a pastor “who has to call attention to the authority of an office probably has not learned how to rightly use whatever powers the office authorizes. … The power of a right idea . . . is much to be preferred to any authoritarian edict by virtue of any office.”

When asked about the perennial problem of leader burnout in churches, he pointed to Exodus 18 and the advice Jethro gave Moses on good management: Delegate, give manageable tasks, manage by exceptions, and make decisions on the lowest possible level. Jethro promised: “If you do this, and God so commands you, then you will be able to endure, and all this people also will go to their place in peace.”

Tidwell even includes an organizational chart to show how Moses had things organized before God intervened. (See illustration)

He points to the lack of a listing under Z. It’s purposeful; Moses had no time left for his wife, Zipporah.

Tidwell, like Jethro, is convinced good organization is God’s will for his church. Tidwell’s book will take us a long way toward better church administration.

As Tidwell says, “We owe it to God to do it better.”

Raising the Aim of Parish Counselors

The Caring Pastor by Charles F. Kemp, Abingdon, $9.95

Reviewed by Bob Barber, pastor, Huntsburg Congregational Church, Huntsburg, Ohio

“The parish pastor is in the front line of the mental health field whether he or she wants to be or not. In terms of numbers alone, pastors of parish churches are doing more counseling than is done by counseling specialists, whatever their setting or affiliation.” With that bold statement, Charles Kemp begins the reader’s tour of pastoral counseling.

Why another book on pastoral counseling? Do pastors need yet one more set of counseling blueprints?

Kemp responded, “Although friends of mine, none of the groundbreakers in the field were pastors. Added to that, most of the recent books are for specialists. The fact is, we are not psychotherapists; we are pastors amidst preparing sermons and doing funerals. Yet, pastors are in the forefront of counseling, not the specialists.” With fifty years of pastoral and teaching experience and his present ministry as a counseling consultant at University Christian Church in Fort Worth, Kemp aims his book directly at the parish setting. “Pastors think of themselves as second-rate. They are not. They have a tremendous role in the field of helping people,” he said in a phone interview.

Kemp communicates that feeling of pastoral worth and importance throughout this tour. He begins by surveying the foundations of pastoral counseling, providing a lucid look at pastoral counseling’s rich history.

Kemp continues to the framework for pastoral counseling, condensing major principles of several schools of psychotherapy. “The pastoral counselor,” he writes, “has much to learn from the psychotherapists. Primarily, what he or she has to learn centers in two fields: (1) personality theory, which helps the pastor understand parishioners, and (2) counseling methods and techniques, which give practical suggestions in dealing with specific situations.” He moves from Jung to Adler to Rogers to Frankl, to name a few. In two cogent chapters, Kemp distilled the essence of at least two dozen personality and counseling books in my library.

Kemp compliments all. He summarizes: “My own position in all this can be stated in three sentences: 1. All schools have some truth, 2. No school has all the truth, 3. None will replace the pastoral counselor.”

Kemp tells what to grasp from each area of thought but not what to avoid. When questioned, he noted, “There are definitely things to avoid. Take behavior modification, for instance; it can be taken too far, taking away individual freedom.”

Moving on, Kemp provides a refreshing twist to the tour. He doesn’t show us the main rooms which every one always sees, he takes us to those out-of-the-way rooms which, in the long run, may prove most useful. He explores what might seem like minor situations, but which can cause ministerial dilemmas for those not adequately acquainted with them.

You will not find discussions centered upon the more common topics, such as ministering to the sick or bereaved. “The pastor is going to do that all the time,” Kemp said, implying that reliable resources in these areas are readily available. “The pastor needs help exploring new areas.”

He helps us discover ways pastoral counseling can occur in unusual settings. He spotlights our involvement with “exceptional persons,” those with extraordinarily elevated or depressed mental abilities. Kemp claims, “If a pastor has a congregation of five hundred, by national averages that pastor will have from five to twenty-five persons who are very brilliant, and an equal number whose mental ability is well below the general average. … both groups need a ministry.”

He touches other ground: dealing with the needs of the rich and the poor, counseling fellow pastors, making pastoral counseling and preaching “mutual allies.” He makes a case for enabling people to simply relax and enjoy themselves, because “helping people have fun is a legitimate ministry.” This is only a partial list.

Kemp breathes new life into the clich “The pastor is in a unique role.”

“No, the pastor isn’t a vest pocket psychiatrist, but there is no greater privilege in life than to sit down and help someone come to greater self-understanding,” Kemp concluded in our interview. Indeed, that remains both the privilege and the responsibility of the pastor.

Harvesting the Baby-Boomers

Ministry with Young Couples: A Pastor’s Planbook by Douglas W. Johnson Abingdon, $6.95

Reviewed by Steve Harris, pastor, Evangelical Baptist Church, Sharon, Massachusetts

The baby-boom generation, those millions of young couples a few years each side of thirty, is now advancing through American society like a pig in a python. Unless that process finds them moving into our churches, the future of American Christianity may be in doubt.

That’s Douglas W. Johnson’s provocative thesis in his recently published Ministry with Young Couples. Johnson, a United Methodist pastor, provides a helpful examination of the couples in this largest of age groups, highlighting how the church can reach them.

“If the church is to pass on its Christian values to the next generation, it must work with young couples”-not an easy task, admits Johnson.

Young couples are a unique bunch: affluent (although only 5 percent qualify as yuppies), better educated than their parents, mobile, competitive, deeply concerned about health and self-improvement, and greatly affected by their peers. A talented and discriminating crowd, they want to be associated with success.

“Young couples don’t come to church out of habit or because there isn’t anything else to do on Sunday morning,” Johnson observes. “They come when they believe the church has something worthwhile to offer. And if this church has something better than that church, they’ll go there.”

When they do come (based largely on their perception of the pastor and an accepting peer group), young couples can greatly strengthen a church. They can be energetic, innovative, and future oriented; they’re great risk takers. Of course, those same qualities viewed from another angle can be seen not as assets but liabilities.

Young couples harbor their share of hurts and needs. They face life’s biggest decisions (Should we get married? Where should we live? Should we have children? What careers will we choose?) in a relatively brief time span.

Despite-or because of-their credit card sleight of hand, many are struggling financially. In many cases, owning their own home is a dying dream. Their parents are becoming a source of stress. The work/marriage/family balancing act, especially in two-income households, has never been harder. High-tech career competition is already producing cases of premature burnout. Changing sexual roles and the sexual revolution with all its casualties have affected this generation like none before.

“Despite their strengths, many of them are insecure,” Johnson says. “The greatest thing we can offer them is acceptance and love.”

Johnson pushes that acceptance to the inclusion of nonmarried and homosexual couples in young-couple ministries. Johnson, from an evangelical background, calls his viewpoint as much pragmatic as theological. This controversial position will no doubt be a problem for many who read this book; it was for me. For all the controversy, however, Johnson doesn’t dwell on the point.

The book’s strength is its practical advice for pastors and churches who presently have no ministry to young couples-but want one. It provides a good overview and workable suggestions. One whole chapter is devoted to “illustrative program ideas.” As a pastor in a small congregation with few young couples, I appreciated his encouraging advice, such as:

Start small. You don’t need dozens of young couples. In fact, it might be better to start with three to five couples gathered socially and grow gradually, rather than attempt a big-bang extravaganza.

Develop interest groups. A father of two months recently asked me: “Why don’t churches have support groups for new parents like the social service agencies do?” A mild rebuke, but a great suggestion.

Johnson seconds that. Young couples have a myriad of interests: the environment, day care, leisure, politics, personal fitness, and diet. Those interests can be a natural starting point for small-group interaction and outreach.

Be personal. Young couples have grown up in a computerized, impersonal world. The more personal we can be, the more positively they respond. Translation: From now on my visitor letters will be hand-written notes. In a small congregation, I can do that, but maybe all pastors should consider at least a handwritten P.S.

Do it well. “Young couples want high-quality stuff,” says Johnson. “They’ve grown up with TV, and that has shown them high quality is possible. Therefore, they’ve come to want it, even expect it.”

I initially objected: “Isn’t an emphasis on high quality merely another way we ‘pander’ to the hard-to-please?”

“No, it’s not a matter of indulging whims. They are pushing the church to do things well. And we need that push,” responded Johnson.

Consider the nursery. “Young couples have come to expect excellence in the care of their children,” Johnson notes, “and the church nursery had better be more than just an available room if it desires an effective ministry to those young parents.”

Johnson considers young couples both the source and the sustenance of new life in the church. If we pastors and our churches buy that-and all the evidence suggests we should-this is a book from which we can benefit greatly.

NEW AND NOTEWORTHY

Healing of Memories by David Seamands, Victor, $11.95

David Seamands knows comforting words in a Sunday sermon sometimes come up short. Some festering memories require the concentrated prayer of a caring pastor. Overreacting to the Roman Catholic use of the confessional, Protestants, Seamands writes, “have given up one of our greatest privileges-being temporary assistants to the Spirit as his instruments to bring forgiveness.” While this may be new terrain for some pastors, Seamands explores this topic with sophisticated sensitivity and a winsome style.

In story after vivid story, Seamands shows ways to walk with another through an aching past or a searing memory. While he reviews the kind of preaching that can foster positive, healing images of God, Seamands focuses on the personal intervention of a pastor or counselor. He discusses particulars like noticing symptoms that indicate a need, conducting the counseling and prayer time, and scheduling follow-up. Throughout, the book maps the painful, wary journey that faces the inwardly suffering as they wend their way toward wholeness.

Healing the Wounded by John White and Ken Blue, Intervarsity, $11.95

“Church discipline that takes sin seriously is almost extinct,” argue John White and Ken Blue. Lulled by growing numbers and material prosperity, congregations too often ignore blatant sin in their midst. Pastors and church leaders assume weekend teaching conferences or week-long ethical emphases are enough to mold biblical holiness. But sometimes, the authors suggest, only corrective discipline brings repentance, reconciliation, and restoration.

They buttress their conclusion with case histories and biblical and psychological research. They tackle questions like: What if the person does not acknowledge wrongdoing? What if sin persists? How do you deal with gossip? The authors believe churches willing to work at the discipline modeled in this book will deepen relationships and uncover new spiritual power.

Strategy of Service by June A. Williams, Zondervan, $5.95

June Williams has found that although Christians know they should be Christ’s hands and feet for the needy of their neighborhoods, most churches have trouble knowing how or where to start. Growing up in the church, she explains, she was taught how to pray and witness to her faith, but never how to reach out to the helpless, lonely, and sick. Only experience as a nurse-midwife and social worker opened her eyes and convinced her that churches can and must reclaim the ministry of servanthood.

Strategy of Service distills Williams’s years of experience leading workshops with congregations and serving as outreach coordinator in an inner-city church. She tells how to listen to the needy, befriend those who slip through the welfare cracks, and enlist the church in finding the community’s hurting. She tells of congregations’ successes and joys along with their fumbles and hard lessons, all in a way that challenges the church leader to more intentional strategies of Christian caring.

Pastors in Ministry by William Hulme, Milo Brekke, and William Behrens, Augsburg, $8.95

As a professor of pastoral care, William Hulme grew concerned about unfulfilled pastors, a number of whom were once his students. His alarm prompted him, in association with Milo Brekke and William Behrens, to survey hundreds of parish pastors to get to the root of their frustrations.

The results provided this readable book’s material on a spectrum of ministerial issues. Their data and conclusions shed light on questions like: Why are pastors least inclined toward involvement in youth work? Why are some pastors uneasy around strong lay leadership? Why do pastors hesitate to do evangelism? Among other things, they discovered that clergy dissatisfied with their devotional life experience more stress in other areas of ministry and feel more anxiety about their salary.

The Church Computer Manual by Lowell Brown and Wes Haystead, Tyndale, $12.95

Computers are cropping up everywhere, and increasingly so in churches, claim authors Lowell Brown and Wes Haystead. Computers have begun to change the way churches do budgets and handle mass mailings. They open new possibilities for charting attendance or filing sermon illustrations. Far from depersonalizing ministry, this book suggests, computers free staff from office tasks to allow more time for people ministry

This book’s numerous worksheets help church planners decide how and when to buy a computer. Helpful cautions include, “When you buy a computer, [selecting] software always comes first.” A glossary explains terms like menu driven program and record fields. The authors speak from experience on acquiring and using a church computer without deflating the budget or alienating the board.

-Reviewed by Timothy Jones

Christ Our Peace Church of the Brethren

The Woodlands, Texas

Pastors

FAMILY AND CHURCH: WHO SUPPORTS WHOM?

Dennis B. Guernsey

When I was in seminary, I worked as a probation officer for the juvenile court. My duties involved night intake. I often had to decide whether to return an erring juvenile to his or her parents or to detain the kid until the next day. Also, I often had to decide what to do with younger children who, through no fault of their own, had come into the custody of the police.

Many parents mournfully admitted their failures with their children. But I never once had a parent admit he or she had intended to do a lousy job. Their hearts were always in the right place.

It is possible for one’s intent to be inconsistent with one’s behavior. Nowhere in the world today would you find a pastor or a director of Christian education who would admit to making decisions that consciously hinder Christian family living. In the educational establishment of Christian higher learning, I doubt if we could find a lecture entitled “How to Foul Up the Families of Your Church.”

Neither could we find a board or congregation deliberately set on ruining the pastoral family by their insensitive demands and expectations.

On the other hand, we must ask ourselves, are we making it better or worse for families-lay and pastoral alike? The answer for each church falls somewhere on a continuum.

The parasitic church

On the most negative side of the continuum is the parasitic church. A parasite feeds off its host without making positive contribution. Parasites are legion throughout nature. Even the word elicits a flesh-crawling response when we hear it.

Can a church be a parasite? Let me suggest several ways.

In the first place, the church body may think of its pastor and staff wholly in terms of itself without reference to the pastoral family. Do the members of the church have unbridled access to the leadership? Are the pastor or the elders expected to lead even though the pay is inadequate?

I know a doctrinally sound church that hangs on to its existence by asking its pastor year after year to forgo even a cost-of-living raise. The church serves a middle- to upper-middle-class congregation, but the pastor is asked to live near the poverty level. When the pastor finally gathered up enough courage to ask the church board for a raise, they had the temerity to ask him to submit a detailed budget demonstrating how he was spending his money. Clearly this church was not paying their pastor the honor he deserved, and that is the nature of a parasite.

On the other hand, take a look at the time and number of regularly scheduled meetings for parishioners. I have known pastors who demanded, however gently, that meetings be held only during prime time-prime not in terms of television but in terms of the family’s opportunity to be together. The reason given is that you’re more likely to be able to “get them there.” Such an attitude is parasitic in its rawest form. It falsely requires the people to make a choice between the church and the family, assuming the church schedule should be given first priority.

In the parasitic church, the energy demands are seemingly limitless. One residual effect is midlife dropout. I recently had a discussion with a small group of committed Christian laymen. Without exception they complained of severe fatigue and wondered what they could do about it. Each had served on the ruling boards of the church, only now to find themselves on the periphery of church life with little motivation to reenter the demands of leadership. Without exception, they were looking forward to weekends in a camper, at a cabin, or just “away from it all.”

Later, I was asked by their pastor to consult about his recent rash of resignations. He was running out of leaders and was searching for the reasons. He was concerned that somehow he was undoing the exact purpose for which he had been called to the ministry.

His problem was not organization, nor was it structure. It was perceptual. As long as the people were seen as a means to an end, he would continue to face problems of leadership.

The competitive church

Next on the continuum is the competitive church. It is similar in kind but less severe than the parasitic church.

The competitive church recognizes the validity of the pastor’s family, but often the relationship between the two is adversarial. Words such as jealousy, resentment, and bitterness typify the attitude of the pastor’s family toward the church. Often the pastor is not available for important family events. He seldom makes an open house at the children’s school.

These pastors usually feel torn between two competing loyalties. They are in a no-win position. Someone has to lose, and either way they are going to pay the price.

In terms of the people, the competitive church is in a race to see who can consume the resources of the family first. Whereas in the parasitic church the family is typically passive, in the competitive church the family members are resistive. They battle all the way.

The pastor can seldom find a compatible time to hold a meeting or initiate a program. Nothing goes down easily. The yearly church calendar becomes a pitched battle. Youth directors and leaders try to schedule more activity into a young person’s life than he or she can handle, and the family is left with what is left. On the other hand, the family seemingly schedules vacations on purpose to conflict with camps and conferences.

Faithful workers for the church are forever combing the rolls, seeking new bodies to replace those who have been expended during the battle. After a few phone calls, the recruiter begins to realize people are deciding to expend their energy elsewhere. A sense of panic sets in.

The cooperative church

This church has a sense of relative protectiveness toward its members’ family life, maybe by deciding to have no meeting one night each week. This makes sure the family is free (as far as the church is concerned) on that night. That is certainly a beginning.

The pastor may have a real “day off.” The people may respect a sense of privacy in their leaders’ lives. The church may care that the pastors’ and elders’ quality of life is good.

In a cooperative church, a positive mind-set is fostered-the church is the friend of the people. Between friends, people can say no without offense or tension.

The cooperative church has the ability to be healthily other-directed. By this I mean it defines its role as being truly in the world. It also senses that the work of God is much bigger than one particular church. Cooperative churches have a sense of near and far mission.

A truly cooperative church does more than provide seminars on family-related topics, however basic they may be. A cooperative church defines its role in such a way that it genuinely serves its members by actively strengthening their families. If viable families are not available to some of its members, the church provides new or substitute family-like relationships and environments.

The symbiotic church

Farther out on the positive side of the continuum is the symbiotic church, similar to the cooperative church but differing in degree. The relationship between church and family is more than cooperative; it is mutually interdependent. The two lives are inextricably tied to each other. If the viability of one is threatened, the life of the other is threatened as well.

Recently a young couple involved in evangelism in the Soviet Union was in our home. As a part of the evening, they eagerly showed slides about their ministry. The image of one of the slides still hangs in my mind. It was a picture of a small underground church that met together in spite of incredible persecution and hostility. There they were, gathered for a photograph around a small dining room table in the cramped living quarters of one of their members. On the table was a meal, a love feast. The young couple reported they had been extended remarkable hospitality in that home.

They were meeting in a home. The vehicle of fellowship was the hospitality of that household. Perhaps, whenever persecution forces the church to return to basics, we return to the natural and necessary symbiotic relationship between family and church.

Although the church in the Western world enjoys relative peace and freedom, part of its struggle to grow comes not from faulty methods of church growth nor from inadequate preaching, but from self-defeating philosophies of ministry that do not take into account the natural and critical importance of the family.

It is a deadly commentary that some church leaders can trumpet distress calls on behalf of the family while at the same time proclaiming the health of the church. How can one be well if the other is sick? The answer can only be that the life of the two are not, in fact, dependent upon one another. Somehow one can live while the other dies or is diseased.

What I am suggesting is not a change in pulpit rhetoric but in philosophy, in which the relationship of mutual interdependence, or symbiosis, is basic to the ministry of the church. The health or disease of one is measurably experienced by the other.

-Dennis B. Guernsey

Fuller Theological Seminary

Pasadena, California

- More from Dennis B. Guernsey

Pastors

FIDDLIN’ WITH THE STAFF

Calvin Miller

It’s not easy to keep the music going when all eyes are on first chair.

It was George Bernard Shaw who said the most difficult instrument to master is second fiddle.

I confess a love of symphony but a rustic understanding of orchestras. Violins are the stuff of orchestras, but fiddles? Isn’t a fiddle a violin that thinks too little of itself—a Stradivarius with low self-esteem? Violins are singing strings urged by the gentle bow of art to seduce the ear of gods. Fiddles, they say, are cat intestines rasped over by horse tail.

Sometimes there is more fiddle than violin in church-staff relationships. Excellence is the goal, but the unsettled feelings that keep some church staffers unhappy (and frequently resigning) make fiddles out of violins.

I am writing the morning after the sudden resignation of a three-year staffer. I felt we were good friends, and I have been ever pleased—as has the whole congregation—with his work. But he’s leaving.

In our denomination average staff tenure is better measured in months than year—fifteen to be exact. The average pastor lasts twenty-eight months. Although our church beats the average, I am still alarmed by the facts. We have experienced five staff resignations in ten years, and the average stay of each was about three years.

In only one case did our trustees ask a staffer to resign. The rest chose to do so. Our pay scale beats the average, fringe benefits are adequate, and the church is growing significantly. So why the turnover?

Most resignations read like the current one; it speaks of “the call” of God to a new congregation. The statement usually speaks of “the will of God”—a nondebatable, nonnegotiable recourse. When God continually speaks at fifteen-month intervals, however, he makes himself look unsettled.

Lottie Moon said we blame too much on God. Finding herself the only missionary in China in the nineteenth century, she wrote, “It seems queer that God would call five hundred preachers for Virginia alone and leave one lone woman for all of China.”

No, there is more of psychology in the issue than of calling. So often in the resignation of staff persons, I feel I can hear music—not symphony but the ill-tuned strains of second fiddle.

However, second fiddle is a hard instrument to discuss. It seems un-Christlike to protest it. Truly those who object to it must do it in a way that defends themselves against accusations of arrogance. “If you want to be first chair in God’s kingdom,” said Jesus, “second fiddle is your calling” (a loose translation of Matthew 20:26-27).

Ambition and the Pastor

I am loathe to bring this up, but perhaps staff members would be more content with their position if they clearly could see the pastor was content. Staff members often fear the shepherd may abandon them on the way to a more prestigious pulpit that would minister to his self-esteem at their expense. To use the metaphor at hand, maestros may not change orchestras as often as violinists, yet they change so often the orchestra is insecure.

Each time a pastor flirts with a search committee, a tremor passes through the staff. They wonder if they might not be wise to beat him to the punch by offering their resignations first.

Besides, it is hard to convince a staff member to be content while the pastor plays pulpit roulette with every enticing offer that comes along. The temptation to land a large church by “shepherd’s bingo” is infectious. The pastor who is a denominational climber cannot model contentment for the staff.

Yet ambition is ever with us all.

Several years ago my son came home from school where he played the trumpet in the band. “Dad,” he boasted, “I’m good on the trumpet.”

“Better than you are at modesty,” I alleged.

“Dad, I’m in sixth chair, but I’m a lot better than the kid in fifth chair,” he said, literally tooting his own horn. “The kid in fifth chair is skinny with fat lips; I’m going to challenge him for his chair.”

He did, of course, and took the kid’s chair. His vaulting ambition began to o’er leap itself: “Dad, there’s this kid in fourth chair, he is forever licking his mouthpiece—it’s gross!”

It sounded like it.

“I’m going to challenge him for fourth chair.” And so he did. And in this fashion, my son tooted his way to the top.

I was all too prone to criticize him. While my son was climbing to prestige in the school band, I often loitered near the coffee urn at the local pastors’ meeting. It occurred to me that our church was very small. In fact, of the seven pastors present, I was sixth chair on the basis of congregational size. Finding little joy in being sixth, I often stared across the doughnut dish at the man in fifth chair. He seemed thin with flabby lips. Inwardly I wondered, Should I challenge him and move to his place? Then on to the man in fourth chair: I wondered as he licked his Styrofoam cup if he could be beaten.

Instantly I rebuked myself!

Ministers are not competitors; we are team members. Staff will take on that perspective if the pastor does not appear to be competing for someone else’s chair from year to year. If the maestro is always shopping for a bigger orchestra, musicians may consider it a reasonable venture and vent their own ambitions by seeking an ostensibly more rewarding post.

Ambition and the Staff

Still, much of the unrest in church staffs is born in the ambition of staff members who begin to compete with each other for congregational prestige. This kind of strife is not usually sparked by the senior pastor. Indeed, it often catches him by surprise.

A pastor friend came back from a trip to find his education director and music director quarreling over which of them was “top dog” in his absence. It reminded me of Jesus’ having to rebuke the two sons of thunder.

This whole neurotic need for preeminence derives from the notion the pastor occupies first place in the church and others are second. This may be true administratively, but it is certainly not true when one considers the whole task of ministry.

A part of the discord is cultural, I’m afraid. It’s a competitive world, and almost every church member is measured by occupational advancement. The golden best seller of yesteryear called The Peter Principle taught it is customary in corporations to climb the ladder rung by rung until reaching the level where one is no longer competent.

This kind of advancement forms the matrix of mobility in the world of corporate esteem. In suburban congregations like my own, it is the way of life for most of the male (and some of the female) members. It is a familiar path for Christian Yuppies on their way to the “yippee!” of executivehood.

This principle, however, does not hold in the church. Each staff position is so specialized that there is little opportunity for promotion. A church staff member, finding it hard to receive promotions within the church, may begin to feel locked-in with no place to go. Surrounded by so many executive climbers, the staff member longs for some way to measure personal advancement. Changing churches becomes a kind of answer. A larger church might satisfy Yuppie tendencies, while a smaller church may at least celebrate a person’s newness for a while.

Staff members are little different from pastors. Both have identity needs, and both are called to serve the church. Both look for solid spiritual evidence that they are central in God’s will. I know my life and joy in Christ is made full by the men and women who serve with me in ministry.

Adjusting to Ambitions

Still, almost all head pastors I know agree that staff relationships are their greatest single time consumer. They want to lead in a positive but gentle way, one that sets the direction of the church and yet accords to all team members a feeling of worth and dignity. And that is not easy.

Life itself is hard. The search for self-worth is universal. Most of us are trying to make beautiful music in the congregation while we struggle with finding out who we are, and once we discover ourselves, we must like who we are as well.

But back to fiddles a moment. Tevye reminds us that life is fragile and the trick is to scratch out some kind of tune without breaking our necks. The fiddler on the roof is an existential politician. He must find meaning, stay alive, and keep his balance—or be lost. The church staff member is a fiddler politician who teeters in his tune making and sometimes tumbles ingloriously into the abyss of resignation and the oft-visited denominational placement channels.

Bitterness and hurt often result, adding unpleasant discord. One pastor of my acquaintance, when questioned why he resigned, said it was because of sickness.

“Sickness?” he was asked.

“Yes, they were sick of me and I was sick of them.”

Relational dissonance dwells in low self-esteem and second-fiddle feelings. The ill harmony sounds like, “I don’t count for much in this program,” “I’ve been in this church a year, and nobody listens to me.” How quickly these feelings rise. There is little distance between the honeymooning staffer who cries, “All is joy and newness; I just want to serve the Lord!” and the one who demands, “When is it my turn to lead the band, anyway?” The performance and tenure of staff is tied to their own sense of personal adjustment.

But what if the “first fiddlers” suspect the music of their subordinates is really better than their own? In The multiple Staff and the Larger Church, Lyle Schaller claims the average pastor cannot add more than one other full-time staff member because he cannot split the ministerial esteem more than that. Obviously second fiddle is not just an instrument that staffers are loath to play.

We Baptists quarrel and split as often as any. In our city, eight of the nine churches in our denomination grew out of church quarrels. Most of the time such quarrels are neither theological nor academic, but a power contest. And these conflicts of power grow directly out of fiddlin’ issues. The psychology of who holds first chair gets cloaked in theological disputes or spiritual verbiage when the real questions are: Who is fiddlin’? And in what order?

Keeping the Music Sweet

Concerts are never the place to discover the politics of an orchestra. The music always sounds good at a concert. Rehearsals and post-rehearsal coffee klatches are the places.

One potential church member told me at a business meeting—the first service he had ever attended at our church—”We’re looking for a new church, but our last five churches have been unhappy experiences. We never discovered it at worship—only at business meetings. Now we’ve decided we will never join a church till we have visited at least one business meeting.”

The remark evidences a kind of wisdom, but is not altogether wise. The truth is, the key thing about an orchestra is not the roughness of its rehearsals but the quality of its concerts. It is true, however, the mood of its rehearsals usually colors the quality of its concerts, and so it is with business meetings.

I remember a symphony intermission when my wife leaned over and said, “Beautiful—beautiful!”

“Ah yes,” I replied. “Too bad about the violin section.”

“What about it?” she asked.

“Didn’t you know the second chair has been mad for years about not being promoted to concertmaster? The concertmaster was brought in from out-of-town, and frankly the second chair’s burned up about it!”

“Really?” she said.

“Not only that,” I said, “but the oboist is upset with the percussionist. She thinks he’s anticipating the maestro’s cues.”

“Unbelievable,” she said.

“The flautist is upset, too!” She began to eye me suspiciously. “Yes,” I said, “she thinks the maestro is partial to the performance of predominately string pieces . . . and the pianist is nearly sixty and she knows she can’t hold on forever, but she came to this orchestra in her forties and has no intention of giving up her position till her fingers knot up in her mittens.”

My wife could see where it was going, knowing I really didn’t know them personally. “Yes,” she said, “somehow we can forgive all their pettiness as long as the music is good.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “So long as the music is good.”

On my church staff, the music sometimes gets a little rough. I must confess when there is trouble in the fiddle section, my nerves get a bit frayed. My heart aches that all of us, called by our Lord to be the servants of all, cannot do better than talk about the glories of second fiddle. Few ever master it.

But most long-term pastors can play it fairly well.

They have learned second fiddle by playing in the gaps between the comings and goings of staffers. In the smaller church, the pastor may have to take upon himself most of the responsibilities of an unfilled position. In the larger church, the duties of an absentee staff position may be shared by a collection of ministers, each assuming a portion of the duties for a while. Still, the administration of the work falls squarely on the pastor.

Across the years I have developed a terrific respect for the maestro who leads the same orchestra for a long time, for such a person is an expert at second fiddle. When the prima donnas of churchmanship wrangle over the best seats, the competition is fierce and the arguing can be raucous. The good maestro picks up the fiddle no one wanted and manages to keep the melody going a little louder than the quarrels.

Every long-tenured shepherd has quietly picked up the fiddle and played in moments of trouble caused by resignations. These periodic storms of congregational unrest are bridged by the godly pastor who reaches out to the hurting staff member, even when that associate is the problem. Almost always the pastor gets hurt by innuendoes that accompany resignations, if not by direct accusation. But his years have taught him that the church will survive if he can keep the music going—even when it is hard to play above the noise.

My favorite story in the Gospels speaks of a basin and towel. On that night in which every musician was first chair, Jesus picked up the basin and reminded the world that second fiddle is a beautiful instrument when properly tuned in humility and played in service.

Fanla Fenelon was played by Vanessa Redgrave in the wonderful documentary movie, Playing for Time. Jewish musicians—all women—were spared the gas chambers in Nazi Auschwitz as long as they played beautifully. They were dressed in drab gray—all alike—and their heads were shaved. Thus both identity and femininity were taken from them. Everything, even their right to live, became irrelevant. Their lives were reduced to a single proposition: music or death.

Perhaps I’ve spoiled the metaphor by speaking so plainly, but we must remember that the music of the church is the evangel—the good news that God was in Christ. If poor orchestration obscures the theme for long, the church will begin to lose members and, worse than that, may actually lose its way. And a lost church can do little to redeem a lost world. It must keep the music going or it will die. In this strategic, saving symphony, every instrument counts.

In a sense, these are the glorious options of the church: music or death. We must therefore play as well as we can, for the quality of our instrument is not as important as the certain, unfailing sound of the music.

Calvin Miller is pastor of Westside Baptist Church, Omaha, Nebraska.

- More from Calvin Miller

Pastors

AWAKENING FROM AN ASSISTANT PASTORATE

Mark Galli

In seminary it finally became a real possibility: Someday I would have a church of my own. And when graduation neared, having a rather inflated view of my abilities not untypical for a seminarian, I eagerly mailed my dossier to churches whose pulpits were vacant.

When my mailbox failed to overflow and my phone didn’t ring off the hook, it became apparent my hour had not yet come.

I would have to pay my dues by ministering as an assistant pastor for a few years. Which I did, and enjoyed. After all, the congregation soon recognized my vast talents and genuinely seemed to love me, as I did them. Yes, they also offered some constructive criticism, but the longer I stayed, the more it became apparent to all concerned I had a great future in the church.

And the more the congregation spoke about my fine potential, the more I sat gazing out my office window, contemplating how graciously I would handle success in my own church.

Finally, when my time as an assistant was fulfilled, I received a call as pastor of a small church. I could hardly wait to clutch the shining chalice. My hour was at hand!

As I write almost two years later, I’m pastor of that small church, but with a considerably altered outlook. Only when my naive assumptions were held up to the light of reality did genuine ministry begin. With the experience still fresh, let me expose ten previous assumptions. Colleagues about to make the same move may see themselves in my experience.

1. I had paid my dues. Not quite. If seminary education wasn’t enough, neither were a few years of experience as an assistant. My new congregation still wanted to see the variety of skills my dossier claimed. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, I was still a rookie. And I found it’s better to admit it as soon as possible; the congregation appreciates realistic self-assessment.

In addition, the previous pastor, a relative rookie at the beginning, had thirteen years of experience before leaving. The congregation naturally compared us, and I came out looking inexperienced. I still had dues to pay.

2. The congregation will be attached to me immediately. Who would expect that? A part of me did. Remember, I came from a church where people showered me with affection, especially as I was leaving-gifts, dinner parties, and receptions in my honor. I arrived at a church that issued a nearly unanimous call and gave me an enthusiastic reception. I received a number of dinner invitations in the first month or so.

But then the quiet set in. No one invited me out (under the inaccurate assumption that everyone is always doing it) and I still didn’t know anyone well enough just to pick up the phone and see if they wanted to catch A Passage to India with me.

In short, I was not only a rookie but the new kid in town. I would have to pay emotional dues as well. And that takes time.

3. The members will eventually be my good friends. Assistant pastors usually work with youth, who tend to show their affection easily. Their parents see assistant pastors as desperately needed colleagues in child rearing. The older members may “adopt” them in the absence of their own children. An assistant is very approachable and so has probably fostered many friendships in a congregation.

However, that didn’t happen when I became a pastor. It’s probably typical. Because of my official roles as trusted counselor, Bible teacher, and spiritual guide rather than youth pastor, most people, although friendly, kept me at arm’s length. Lay people often have a difficult time understanding those who have chosen a religious profession.

We may detest this state of affairs theologically (the priesthood of all believers!) and personally (“I’m a human being first, a pastor second!”), we may go to great lengths to be one of the gang (spicing up our stories, cutting down the God talk), but it’s not likely that many in our congregations will warm up to us appreciably.

There are exceptions, but the exceptions merely prove the rule that pastors in most congregations will not feel the warmth, intimacy, and honesty they experienced as an assistant, at least not from as many people.

4. Regular preaching will be a joy. Preaching once a month as an assistant deluded me in many ways. It took a great deal of time and effort, yet I didn’t chafe at it. Instead, I eagerly anticipated my monthly opportunity. Furthermore, I imagined that once I began to preach regularly, preparation would take less time.

But I found out preparing sermons week after week after week is no great joy much of the time, especially when I’m tired, depressed, uninspired, feeling the pressure of administration, when my counseling load is immense, or social and community concerns demand my attention. Then I would like nothing more than to whip something together, or maybe even wing it. But I soon discovered I can’t get away with it. The congregation notices.

In addition, preparation didn’t get easier, nor the time shorter, at least when I was serious about improving. As soon as I got a handle on one area, I spotted another that needed more attention. Exegesis may take less time now, but finding appropriate illustrations and practicing delivery takes more.

Besides the time of direct preparation, I also found I must do a great amount of reading to keep my mind constantly challenged and my preaching revitalized, even when fatigue tempts me to nap.

Make no mistake, I have no thoughts of relinquishing my preaching privilege. It is worth the effort required. But it’s not a part of ministry that simply climbs from success to success.

5. I’m a great preacher. If we beginning pulpiteers are honest with ourselves, most of us have this illusion locked away in some corner of our minds. I could have saved myself a lot of grief right from the start by accepting the fact that I wasn’t a new Spurgeon. Those who won the preaching prize in seminary can ignore this point. The rest of us should take it to heart.

And that’s not easy. Besides the naturally inflated view we tend to have of ourselves, the congregations we serve as assistants no doubt reminded us time and again of our great potential. One of the reasons I yearned for a pastorate was to realize that potential.

As a pastor I quickly realized my inability to preach as persuasively as the dynamic preacher of my self-image. I haven’t yet added another service to accommodate the overflow. Word, Inc., hasn’t yet approached me about publishing a book of my pithy homilies, nor has their film division come to tape my latest series.

A few good souls like anything coherent that comes out of my mouth. But as for the rest, some listen with eyelids at half-mast, while others stare wide-eyed at the cross behind me. And that’s typical for most of us. Only once in a while do we dazzle them.

When the first pastor under whom I worked evaluated my first sermon, he said, “You’ll never be Harry Emerson Fosdick, but you’ll be pretty good.” My young ego was bruised, and, of course, I didn’t think he knew what he was talking about. I know now he was dead right.

6. My influence will be extended considerably as a pastor. Assistants often imagine themselves as movers and shakers. They expect great things once they become pastors with the authority to get things done. The fact is, when I became a pastor, I lost some freedom, and therefore some power.

A pastor who sees and has responsibility for the whole picture sometimes hesitates to speak out too forthrightly. The assistant can preach dogmatically against divorce; the pastor counseling an elder and her husband on the verge of splitting up softens his sermon. The assistant can insist that members publicly witness that “Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior”; the pastor knows many inarticulate members who don’t express their faith in those terms but perhaps have a greater witness in their own words. The assistant can decry the ostentatiousness of the sanctuary, but the pastor sees faces of faithful members now deceased who gave out of love to beautify the church.

In fact, sometimes as a pastor I have longed to return to simpler days, when I didn’t know so much, and issues were simply issues-not tied to individuals who misunderstand and hurt. Yet I stay on, because I know there is a great deal I can influence, and the opportunity to preach weekly is no small forum for encouraging change.

The difference between the assistant’s and pastor’s influence is not the difference between night and day, but more like early morning and noon. Both times of the day encourage growth, but the noonday sun a little more. It still takes ample portions of time and patience to see significant growth.

7. I am not going to do anything controversial during my first year. Most books on starting a new pastorate recommend using the initial year to become acquainted with the congregation to create a sense of trust. Such was my intention.

I never said or did anything I felt was controversial. But I soon discovered not everyone in my parish agreed that homosexuality was a sin, or that the prayer of confession was an integral part of worship, or that clapping for the choir disturbed the flow of worship. Some may call me naive, but such things certainly weren’t controversial in the first church I served.

That’s precisely the point: Each congregation has its own personality and beliefs, which we often take for granted as assistants. Some things mentioned in our first congregations created yawns, but in the second ignite fire. The odds are we’ll end up saying something controversial, even when we’re desperately trying not to.

It is certainly admirable as well as logical to try to hold off controversy. But don’t expect to avoid it entirely-unless you plan to hibernate in the furnace room the whole year or give glib sermons that say nothing.

8. I’ll never make the mistakes my mentor did! In more than four years as an assistant, I worked under two different pastors. I watched them both intently. They had long experience and considerable gifts for ministry. I learned a great deal from studying their strengths and weaknesses.

In regard to their weaknesses, I often remember making vows to myself: I’m not going to be indifferent to transients; I won’t let members’ giving determine my treatment of them; I’m not going to hole up in my office!

One of the unfortunate facts of life is we imitate not only the good but also the bad traits of our role models, whether they be parents or senior pastors. Eventually I did something I vowed never to do. And so will you. When you shake your head and wonder whatever gave you that idea, you’ll know.

9. I will dive into my new pastorate with unbounded energy. An assistant pastor has a great deal of energy; one must to work with youth. Energetic was one of the words my references used to describe me. But when I arrived at my new church and began work, I found myself tiring earlier in the day and week. I began to entertain notions I was not cut out for the pastorate.

The fact was, I was under terrific stress. I’d just moved, changed responsibilities, altered family patterns for my wife and children. And if nothing else, stress is tiring.

During that first year I wanted nothing more than to dig in with unchecked enthusiasm, but I found myself dampened by fatigue. The fatigue eventually subsided, but I had to learn to accept it as a given for the first year and a half.

10. I’m not going to be an average pastor. For whatever reason-to satisfy our egos, to make more money, to impress our superiors, to impress our Lord-most of us want to be successful men and women who turn a dying church around, who minister to the needs of people far and wide, whose church is a citadel of Christianity.

That, fortunately, is a burden only a few are called to carry.

The rest of us must learn to accept who we are- pastors with some strengths and some weaknesses, who serve churches faithful in some ways but not in others. Let’s accept our humble situations in life. Anything more is pride. And, of course, until we acknowledge our limitations, the Spirit can never work with us as he would.

This may sound quite depressing. You may think I am trying to discourage assistants from seeking pastorates. Hardly. The fact that I write as a pastor with no intention of changing my position speaks for itself. There are, after all, tremendous rewards in being a pastor, some of which I have alluded to.

Those rewards, however, are usually the primary thing assistants think about when contemplating the pastorate. I wish I had been more appraised of the other realities. It would have saved much self-incrimination (“You’re not living up to your potential!”), relieved some pressure (“Try harder!”), and alleviated many doubts (“Am I called to the pastorate?”).

No, the pastorate is no silver goblet, shining gloriously without mark or dent. It’s more like an earthenware vessel, often a dull brown or gray, with countless chips and cracks from constant use. It takes some breaking in. Yet, for all its imperfections, God still uses it to carry the very treasure of his gospel.

And that, of course, is the way it should be. For then it becomes clear to all that the “transcendent power” of our ministry “belongs to God and not us” (2 Cor. 4:7).

-Mark Galli

Grace Presbyterian Church

Sacramento, California

- More from Mark Galli

Ideas

Riddles of Pain

Philip Yancey

Columnist; Contributor

Clues from the Book of Job.

“But those who suffer he delivers in their suffering; he speaks to them in their affliction.”

—Job 36:15

“Why me?” Almost everyone asks that question when great suffering strikes. An earthquake in Mexico, a diagnosis of illness—in circumstances large and small we face anguished questions about why God allows pain.

Ironically, suffering Christians often gain help and comfort from the Book of Job. I say “ironically,” because Job actually raises more questions about suffering than it answers. One setting in the book seems perfectly stage managed for an enlightening monologue: God’s personal appearance in chapter 38. But he avoids the question entirely. And all theories about suffering, fine-sounding theories proposed by Job’s friends, are dismissed by God with a scowl.

The Book of Job contains no compact theory of why good people suffer. Nevertheless, this amazing account of very bad things happening to a very good man does give many “over-the-shoulder” insights into the problem of pain. My own study has led me to the principles that follow. They do not answer the problem of pain—even God did not attempt that. But they do shed light on certain misconceptions that are as widespread today as they were in Job’s time.

1. Chapters 1 and 2 make the subtle but important distinction that God did not directly cause Job’s problems. He permitted them, but Satan acted as the causal agent.

2. Nowhere does the Book of Job suggest that God lacks power or goodness. Some people (including Rabbi Kushner in his best seller, When Bad Things Happen to Good People) claim that a weak God is powerless to prevent human suffering. Others deistically assume that he runs the world at a distance, without personal involvement. But in Job, God’s power is not questioned; only his fairness. And in his final summation speech, God used splendid illustrations from nature to demonstrate his power.

3. Job decisively refutes one theory: that suffering always comes as a result of sin. The Bible supports the general principle that “a man reaps what he sows,” even in this life (see Pss. 1:3; 37:25). But other people have no right to apply that general principle to a particular person.

Job’s friends tried with all their persuasive power to convince Job that he deserved such catastrophic punishment. However, when God rendered the final verdict, he said to them, “You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has” (42:7). Later, Jesus would also speak out against the notion that suffering must imply sin (see John 9:1–5 and Luke 13:1–5).

Job’s friends, along with most people in the Old Testament, did not have a clearly formed belief in an afterlife. Therefore, they wrongly assumed that God’s fairness—his approval or disapproval of people—had to be shown in this life only.

4. God did not condemn Job’s doubt and despair, only his ignorance. The cliché “the patience of Job” hardly fits the stream of invective that poured from Job’s mouth. Job did not take his pain meekly; he cried out in protest to God. His strong remarks scandalized his friends (see, for example, 15:1–16), but not God.

Need we worry about somehow insulting God by our outbursts in time of stress or pain? Not according to this book. In a touch of supreme irony, God ordered Job’s pious friends to seek repentance from Job himself, the source of such bitter complaints.

5. No one has all the facts about suffering. Job concluded he was righteous but God was unfair. His friends insisted on the opposite: God was righteous and Job was being justly punished. Ultimately, all of them learned they had been viewing the situation from a very limited perspective, blind to the real struggle being waged in heaven.

6. God is never totally silent. Elihu made that point convincingly, reminding Job of dreams, visions, past blessings, even the daily works of God in nature (chap. 33). God similarly appealed to nature for evidence of his wisdom and power. Although God may seem silent, some sign of him can still be found. Author Joseph Bayly expresses the same truth this way, “Remember in the darkness what you have learned in the light.”

7. Well-intentioned advice may sometimes do more harm than good. Job’s friends offer classic examples of people who let their pride and sense of being right interfere with their compassion. They repeated pious phrases and argued theology with Job, insisting on wrong-headed notions about suffering (notions that, in fact, still haunt the church). Job’s response: “If only you would be altogether silent! For you, that would be wisdom” (13:4–5).

8. God refocused the central issue from the cause of Job’s suffering to his response. Mysteriously, God never gave his own explanation of the problem of suffering. Nor did he even inform Job of the contest recorded in chapters 1 and 2. The real issue at stake was Job’s faith: whether he would continue to trust God even when everything went wrong.

9. Suffering, in God’s plan, can be redeemed, or used for a higher good. In Job’s case, a time of great travail was used by God to win an important, even cosmic, victory. Looking backward, but only looking backward, we can see the “advantage” Job gained by continuing to trust God.

Job, a suffering innocent, set a pattern of redemptive pain eventually fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who lived a perfect life but endured pain and death in order to win a great victory.

Thousands of years later, Job’s questions have not gone away. People who suffer still find themselves borrowing Job’s words as they cry out against God’s seeming lack of concern. But the Book of Job affirms that God is not deaf to our cries, and is in control of this world no matter how it appears. God did not answer all Job’s questions, but his very presence caused Job’s doubts to melt away. Job learned that God cared about him, and that he rules the world. It was enough.

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

- More from Philip Yancey

Refiner’s Fire: Agnes’s God: Squeezing into Modern Times

Steven Mosley

In this fall’s Agnes of God, an agonizing shriek and a newborn child found strangled under a nun’s bed set the stage for the indignant questions of a court-appointed psychiatrist. The government wanted Dr. Martha Livingston (Jane Fonda) to determine whether Sister Agnes (Meg Tilly) was sane enough to stand trial for the murder. Livingston wanted to know more: how a novice became pregnant and why it was kept secret.

Mentally drifting through Livingston’s inquisition, Agnes displayed the spaced-out sweetness of a newly converted Moonie. We could only root for a quick deprogramming. As Livingston told Mother Miriam Ruth (Anne Bancroft): “She has a right to know there’s a world out there filled with people who … fall in love, have babies, and occasionally are very happy.”

Agnes was a serious film about serious choices. Doubt, level-headed faith, and mysticism were each given their articulate moments. In a time when the roar of Rambo weapons, Mad Max vehicles, and Star Wars special effects have all but drowned out dialogue in the cinema, the human voice speaking from the heart and soul deserves our applause.

The film worked as a dramatization of philosophies in conflict, but it also worked as a mystery story—complete with hidden clues, silent witnesses, and a secret passageway. What distinguished it from other films of the genre is that the mystery really matters. We were pulled along not only by who-done-it curiosity but by a desire to know if God is really present, if miracles really happen.

Miracles

The miracles this film focused on, however, are very specialized: heavenly voices, a virgin birth, and stigmata—the marks resembling Jesus’ crucifixion wounds some medieval mystics were said to have received.

From a Protestant point of view, God was terribly confined in Agnes’s world. He had to squeeze into modern times through her bleeding palms and through mysterious conception or not be seen at all. Agnes’s ecstatic singing, we were told, is all that keeps Mother Miriam’s faith alive amid the contemporary dearth of saints.

One couldn’t help longing for the God who saves marriages, calms anger, clarifies perplexities, and even helps us find our lost keys.

Still, there is a part of Agnes’s world we found compelling. One short sequence showed a teenage novice being accepted into the order. The girl moved slowly down the chapel aisle dressed as the “bride of Christ.” Her face carried the confident radiance of any girl at her wedding. Arms outstretched, she lay prostrate before the altar. Her long red hair cut, she cheerfully pressed the veil to her cheek.

Protestants, of course, believe such dedication can be lived out in the ordinary world of office, classroom, and home. We do not build a wall around the “religious.” That is part of our strength. The danger is that we sometimes lose God in his blessings. We mistake physical comforts for peace and cheapen grace into prosperity.

Standing alone in her bare room, singing through the window, Agnes forced a question on us: If everything but God were taken away, if suddenly we had no “blessings,” would we still be able to praise with her clear, joyous voice?

STEVEN MOSLEY

A New Song

A new breathing of the Spirit of God in church music—emanating from a monastic-style community in the town of Taizé (pronounced teh-zay) in eastern France—is fast becoming an international role model for meaningful congregational singing.

“Singing is the highest moment of prayer,” writes Taizé founder Brother Roger. And at Taizé, prayer and singing are considered inseparable. The truly praying heart continues to sing long after the service is ended.

Taizé’s unique transdenominational ministry began in 1940 when Roger Shultz, a newly ordained minister of the Swiss Reformed Church, founded a ministry to help Jews escape Nazi persecution at Taizé near Cluny. He and his friends subsequently cared for orphans who had been abandoned nearby.

Placing its emphasis on reaching the young (its Council of Youth attracted 40,000 young people a decade ago) and the desperately poor (of the 90 brothers, about 50 are located in fraternities among the poorest of the poor in many countries), Taizé is reaching deeply into individual lives and communities in many countries. And thousands of people on serious spiritual quests are finding at Taizé answers that have eluded them elsewhere. Taizé is a giving community, without any commercialization, a place of visible spiritual communion for all humanity where individuals can “confront their lives with the Gospel in the solitude of silent retreat.”

“People do not come to Taizé for the liturgy, but for the silence,” says one church renewal leader. Taizé teachings emphasize attentive listening to God speak, learning to become spiritually intuitive. Writes Brother Roger: “It is essential that a flow of inner life animate the singing.”

Accessible

Since congregational singing is an essential part of prayer at Taizé, this music is not for listening to, but for participating in. It is accessible to all, yet aesthetically satisfying. “These elements had to be of real musical quality,” writes Brother Roger, “so that genuine prayer could be expressed through them.”

Made up of short musical segments, generally from 2 to 8 measures, with a simple Latin text of few words (such as “Jubilate Deo,” [“Rejoice in God”] or the title of a psalm with an “Alleluia”), this simple music transcends in both text and music the comparable materials usually used in American churches.

The music avoids vocal difficulties, and borrows stylistically from chant and Renaissance church music. Unison congregational responses alternate with vernacular stanzas sung by a cantor.

The singing is never hurried. People sing until they feel the Spirit terminates the piece, so it never loses its vitality. Appropriate for liturgical worship, the length of any selection can be tailored to fit a specific time slot.

According to Robert Batastini, editor for the music’s American publisher, the form was conceived by Brother Roger who took his idea to Jacques Berthier, a Paris organist. Berthier developed the idea and has now composed over 150 separate pieces (available in two volumes from G.I.A., 7404 S. Mason Ave., Chicago, IL 60638).

Taizé emphasizes singing well. Worshipers are encouraged to be careful about diction, stay in tune, sing exact note values, and avoid forcing the sound. Whereas congregational singing in churches that use song leaders often tends more toward group sensation than spiritual expression, the singing at Taizé is a spontaneous and natural manifestation of an inner reality.

RICHARD DINWIDDIE

The poetry of Christian iconoclast Steve Turner is not kind. As an Englishman, he is only too happy to take on Americans (“It’s Great to Be Back”). But he is usually more concerned with wounding the heels of Communists (“Mikhail Suslov …”), liberal humanists (“Creed”), and the institutional church (“How to Hide Jesus”).

This free-lance journalist’s previous books include Conversations with Eric Clapton and A Decade of the Who. Now Lion Books has combined two older volumes of Turner’s verse with Up to Date, his most recent work, to bring out the first American edition of his poetry.

You will find this volume, subtitled “Poems for people who feel that poetry has forgotten them,” too understandable for comfort.

DAVID NEFF

Mikhail Suslov Formerly the Second Most Powerful Member of the Soviet Politburo Lies in State in Moscow

With eyes shut to ideology, hands too stiff to launch the first strike, he lies in satin and flowers. All redness has gone. His skin has become neutral. At last he is one with Stalin’s millions, at last he has climbed down into the people. His greatness has been mislaid through some mechanical fault. He can command only stares. He is meek. He will inherit earth.

- More from Steven Mosley

The Gift of Greeting

Fred Smith

Recently, I asked a young usher what he thought were his responsibilities. He said, “Nothing more than being there, shaking hands, finding my place in the aisle, taking the offering, and showing up for an occasional ushers meeting.”

I questioned if he was seeing the whole picture. As we talked, he became excited about the ministry of hospitality. Greeting people is a unique function, based on a gift and disciplined by dedication. It is part of the work of the church, not just church work.

Four images help clarify the role.

A Hospital For The Hurt

When people gather for worship, many of them are desperate for care. They might wear designer clothes, not hospital robes, yet they are hurting just the same. Steve Brown, pastor of Key Biscayne (Fla.) Presbyterian Church, says that whenever he preaches, he tries to remember that at least six out of ten have a serious hurt.

I recently received a letter. “I’ve been kept through a lot of things—my dad being murdered when I was 12. From approximately age 20 to 35 I went through severe depression—several hospitalizations, shock treatments, several attempts at taking my own life—then healing from and through Jesus Christ. Then my call into the ministry. So often, I have felt so inferior.” I dare say that many times this person went to church and sat with people who had no idea what was going on inside.

Ushers are something like the admitting department of the hospital. It is part of our ministry to be sensitive to the hurt.

Lower Lights

There’s a story behind the old hymn “Let the Lower Lights Be Burning.” It refers to a shipwreck caused when the harbor lights were not on, even though the lighthouse tower light was on. Philip Bliss, the composer, saw Christ as the lighthouse, but Christians as the harbor lights. So he wrote, “Trim your feeble lamp, my brother; / Some poor sailor tempest tossed, / Trying now to make the harbor, / In the darkness may be lost.”

As ushers, we are special harbor lights to identify those people who may be trying to make the harbor.

Richard Halverson, chaplain of the U.S. Senate, says that when he is on the platform, he looks at the audience, tries to sense who needs prayer, and prays for them. Not only does he obey Christ in praying for them, he also prepares his heart to serve them if the occasion arises. Likewise, good ushers stay sensitive to storm-tossed people.

A Home For The Lonely

A recent survey showed that one out of four Americans suffers with painful loneliness. Older women in the upper middle class are the most afflicted by loneliness—the very ones who come to church most often.

One research physician at Johns Hopkins calls loneliness the number one killer—“another illness goes on the death certificate, but the prime cause was loneliness.”

Many times, the only genuinely friendly greeting a person gets is from an usher at church. When an usher was busy, I’ve seen some people wait until they could shake hands. It occurred to me then how many people come for that human touch.

Once, after speaking in Kentucky, I was talking with a group of people. On the edge stood a small, elderly woman who, when the others wandered off, came up and asked, “Would you hug me?” Warmly, I did. She looked up with a cherubic, beaming face, paused, and sort of waddled off. I wondered how long that hug would have to last before she got another.

Lest I become maudlin, I emphasize that lonely people should also help themselves. The church cannot know all the lonely people. But the church should rightly be an oasis where the hurting and lonely can find someone who cares.

An Atmosphere That Attracts

Recently a friend invited me to dinner in a new restaurant. Arriving a little early, I was met by the maître d’, and never have I been received more graciously. I was welcomed, even honored. When I asked if there was a public phone, he said. “Please, use mine.” I had become a member of his elite just by stepping through the door.

When my friend arrived, I told him I was going to return with my wife, Mary Alice, just so she could see how welcome someone could feel. My friend, Tom, nodded toward the maître d’ and said, “He owns the place.”

As ushers, we too are part owners of the church, able to greet people, convince them they came to the right place, where we’re happy to have them. We’re really serving as maîtres d’ as we pass out the bulletin, the menu of what they are going to get.

I’ll not go so far as to say that we should stand at the door and ask if they were satisfied with the meal; yet we are there, called to a ministry of using our gift of greeting.

FRED SMITH¹

- More from Fred Smith

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Gospel Telling and Worship

Listening to Myself

In Search of Better Ways

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Denial: Rejection of Evidence

Denial: Rejection of Help

Denial: Rejection of Others

Emotional Release: Anger

Emotional Release: Guilt and Bargaining

Lethargy/Depression: Reactive

Lethargy/Depression: Preparatory

Hope and Acceptance

SITTING WITH THE DYING

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The parasitic church

The competitive church

The cooperative church

The symbiotic church

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Ambition and the Pastor

Ambition and the Staff

Adjusting to Ambitions

Keeping the Music Sweet

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Miracles

A New Song

Accessible

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A Hospital For The Hurt

Lower Lights

A Home For The Lonely

An Atmosphere That Attracts

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