Pastors

When Your Friend is Dying

Betsy Burnham

How to help when your only gift is eternal hope.

Visiting a person who’s dying is rarely pleasant and never easy. Even pastors who’ve made hundreds of hospital calls wonder what to say to a patient who’s just received bad news from the biopsy.

But minister we must. One in four Americans now living will eventually have cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. Over the years, cancer will strike two of every three families.

In February, 1978, Betsy Burnham was healthy, the mother of two, happily active in the Presbyterian Church in Newton, Massachusetts, where her husband, Monty, was the new senior pastor.

In March, her happy life collapsed as emergency surgery revealed she had cancer.

Following that fateful diagnosis, Betsy found comfort and encouragement from the ministry of sensitive, caring friends. She also experienced the blundering and discomfort of those who wanted to help but didn’t know how.

“How does a person like me help someone with a malignancy?” a young woman asked Betsy.

In answer to that question, Betsy wrote the book from which this article is adapted.

When Your Friend Is Dying (Chosen) is the poignant, yet firmly unsentimental story of Betsy’s four-year battle with cancer. Out of her experiences, she shares how to, and how not to, offer help in a time of grief and distress. Her account is not only for pastors who want to know what happens in the heart and mind of a person who’s dying, but it can be passed along to lay helping groups in the church for discussion as they consider how to help those in the church who are suffering.

We had just moved east from California, and fall was settling in red and gold on the New England hardwoods. Monty had previously worked with Young Life, a ministry to teenagers, and then held an associate pastorate. Now he was responsible for leading a church, and I was eager to help. It was our ministry.

As I hung wallpaper in our new home, a heavy, lingering fatigue sank into my bones. My muscles ached as if I’d overstretched. Just three months earlier, my doctor had given me a clean bill of health, so I passed it off as the strain of moving.

Winter blew in. Suzanne and Marybeth, then twelve and ten, both loved the snow. We lugged our sleds up a steep hill nearby. But as I made my first run, bumping down the slope on my stomach, I felt an unusual discomfort.

By March, the tenderness and swelling could not be ignored. A series of x rays followed, and my doctor sent them to be read by a specialist, Dr. Peter Mozden. An appointment was scheduled.

When Monty and I read the plate on Dr. Mozden’s door, we were shocked. It read: “Surgeon, Gynecologist, Oncologist.” A cancer specialist!

In the waiting room, I glanced at the other patients, wondering which ones had “it.”

Dr. Mozden showed us the telltale x rays, pointing out the mass that appeared to fill my abdominal cavity. His face was grave.

“We must schedule surgery immediately. In fact, I’ll arrange it for next Monday,” he said firmly, and I knew I had little choice in the matter. “Possibly it’s an ovarian cyst. But the size indicates a probable malignancy.”

Malignancy! I tried to hurl that word away from me like a live grenade.

For the next few days, even as the pain grew, I struggled to believe the best. But Thursday night, the pain billowed unbearably. Monty dialed an emergency number. It was exactly the kind of scene I’d dreaded.

An ambulance pulled up with red lights flashing. Monty woke the girls, who sat sleepy-eyed and confused as a neighbor rushed in to stay with them. The last thing I saw as they slid my stretcher into the ambulance was Suzanne, wrapped in her favorite old quilt and watching me from Marybeth’s upstairs window.

All the rest was a blur of pain. I felt my life go spinning out of my control.

When Betsy awoke from surgery, it was her grief-stricken husband’s duty to tell her that the doctor had found a malignant mass attached to all her vital organs. It was worth fighting, the doctor had said, but Betsy’s condition was normally considered “incurable.”

She struggled with feelings of fear and disappointment, and with guilt at the thought of leaving her husband to raise their daughters alone. She was horrified by the very real possibility of becoming a burden to her family, causing them to “trek night after night to the hospital to watch me disintegrate.”

Inside, a wrestling match had started, and black depression settled over her like a cloak.

Fortunately, however, God had prepared some friends who knew exactly how to come and lighten her crushing load. It is from her experience both as one who had ministered in similar situations and as one who was ministered to that Betsy shares the following insights.

Helping a friend with cancer open up and talk about the illness is one of the greatest gifts you can give. Like lancing a boil, though, it takes directness and sensitivity. I learned this the hard way.

Several years before our family moved to Massachusetts, a young friend from our church in California was struck with Hodgkin’s disease, cancer of the lymph system. Of course the word cancer evoked in me a horror. Cancer meant Pam might die.

One evening, she and her five-year-old son came to our house to dinner. Seeing Pam’s little boy laughing and eating with my own children awakened something in me. Again and again, I thought of the fact that he might soon be motherless. Suddenly, I felt all the pain and fear Pam must have been suffering.

After we’d finished at the table, the children disappeared to a far corner of the house while Monty slipped away to make some necessary phone calls. Filling two mugs with steaming coffee, we settled comfortably in the living room.

Immediately, I set the conversation off on an ordinary, nonthreatening course. We both taught English, and I heard myself asking several innocuous questions about Pam’s experience in our mutual profession.

Eventually, the conversation turned to the joys of raising children and, finally, to some of the new classes being offered at our church.

But inside me, a pressure was mounting. Watching her, listening to her talk, the questions were pounding. I wanted, deeply wanted to ask, “Pam, what’s it really like—the chemotherapy, the life-and-death battle that’s being fought right in your own body?” But the words were aborted in my brain.

Soon the children popped back into the room, interrupting our quiet. Then Monty rejoined us. I had missed a God-given opportunity to help Pam work through some tough, personal struggles—to help her validate her personhood.

The opportunity never came again. And I have had to walk through her suffering to see my mistake. Now as a cancer victim myself, I am often faced with the difficult task of avoiding any talk about my illness in order to put others at ease when I ache for them to be real with me.

Some days I am eager to talk about my feelings, my treatments, the boredom of lying flat on my back in the hospital, my concern for Monty and the girls. Some days I am just tired of thinking about cancer at all. I never know which mood I’ll be in. But I would be delighted to have my friend ask me bluntly what I feel like talking about.

From all these experiences, I’ve learned that some preliminary work is necessary before you go to visit a sick friend.

In most cases, we have to learn how to say, out loud, the name of the illness. It’s harder than you think. In Pam’s case, I ought to have practiced saying the words cancer or Hodgkin’s disease. Forming these words beforehand would have kept them from sticking in my throat.

On the other hand, it’s best to avoid words like terminal, which leave no room for God’s possible intervention.

Fortunately for me, I have also been blessed with some friends whose gentleness and concern always open my heart.

Judy, for example, taught me that you don’t necessarily have to be a close friend before you reach out to someone who’s ill. She was living in Boston only temporarily while her husband finished his post-grad work in dentistry there. She had quickly involved herself in our church, and refused to be intimidated by the fact that we hardly knew each other.

Dropping in to visit one morning, she admitted, “I don’t know you very well. But I know that you must need a friend right now. I don’t have anything much to say, but at least I can listen.”

Those were just the right words, and she proved true to them. All through our talk, she gave me her undivided attention. I knew she really did want to know how things were going.

Another good listener and valuable friend is Dennis Doerr, the associate pastor of our church. In his many visits, he provided me with two keys.

The Art of Listening

Dennis came to my hospital room within days of my first operation, before my treatments began. His brows were knitted together slightly, his gentle smile overshadowed with genuine concern. He perched on the edge of the chair by my bed, and I knew, of course, that Monty had already told him about the doctor’s findings.

He squeezed my hand in a short, polite greeting. Then gently, directly, he got to the heart of things.

“Betsy, how are you accepting the surgical results?” he asked, leaning close to me.

My answer was a long time in coming. Dennis waited patiently, not hurrying on to another topic out of embarrassment. When my response did come, it took a long time to get out all that I needed to express— partly because I was tired, partly because I was sorting through so many thoughts.

Only when I had thoroughly explained my emotional sled-ride did he move on to another important topic.

“What lies ahead with the treatments?” he asked.

I was off again. Occasionally, he would stop me and ask a question as I explained, so unclearly at first, the process of chemotherapy. Even his questions showed me he was truly interested—that he was with me.

It was the first of many visits for Dennis. Each time, he came with real interest in what I had to say.

This is the first key to good listening: don’t go with a set agenda.

The second key I learned from Dennis is how to listen actively. This takes direct eye contact, real concentration. It means following your friend’s train of thought—even if it’s a bumpy one.

Emotions are an important area your friend may wish to talk about. Keep in mind that this is tender ground.

Sometimes people ask, “How does going through all this make you feel?” My response might be general:

“Miserable.”

At such a time, special friends will help to pinpoint the emotion as a first step in dealing with it. In the course of conversation, you might ask: “Does your illness make you angry?” “Are you lonely?” Questions that could open the door further might be: “What are you most worried about?” “What are your greatest needs?”

Of course, feelings are not just emotional. Your friend is quite likely experiencing genuine physical discomfort. Pain. Hearing about the physical details of illness might be tough, but I truly value my “unflinching” friends.

My friend Dierdre asked me one day, “What do you do with all those hours of being sick?” Perhaps she thought I’d talk about reading books, but I needed to answer on another level.

Very matter-of-factly, I looked at her. “Mostly, I crawl into bed exhausted. Sometimes I drop off to sleep.

More often I just lie there with thoughts running through my mind and”—my shoulders sagged with the unpleasantness of the truth—”then the next attack of vomiting hits me.”

Dierdre shook her head, hut she didn’t flinch. I felt she was actually trying to get inside my skin, to understand the intensity of my treatments. In some way, she was identifying with my weakness. Gently, she said, “It must be awful to feel like you’re turning inside out.”

After she left, I recognized that Dierdre might have chosen to shift the conversation to something more pleasant. It wouldn’t have been difficult. But she never inserted any self-centered comments, knowing there would be other times for light talk and pleasantries.

And it’s not unlikely that your sick friend may come up with a good day. Emotions come under control, spirits become vital and healthy again, some illnesses even go into remission as mine did for a time. Everyone is glad to hear a sick one say that he is truly feeling “fine.”

Again, this is not a signal to launch off on a long personal history. Don’t fill up the time with your plans and chatter. Get your friend to talk about his or her plans. Maybe it’s been a longing to visit the beauty parlor. Or it could be a desire to talk about how good it feels to be back in a normal family routine.

Or, you may discover still another possibility. Your friend may not want to talk about illness or deeply personal matters at all. Some people find it difficult to open up. Others share themselves only selectively. If this is the case, don’t force the issue.

One friend decided to question me until she forced an intimacy. I’m certain she meant well when she appointed herself to be my confidante. And in the beginning, when my thought life was consumed with accepting the reality of my illness, I appreciated her concern. But when I was released from the hospital and grew strong enough to get involved again in normal activities and routines, I did not want to go over the old ground.

Yet whenever this friend spotted me across a room, she’d make her way to my side, and inwardly I’d cringe because I knew what she was going to ask. In the midst of the happiest, lightest conversation about cooking or children or the church, she would pose the same gloomy questions: “How are you feeling? Is your illness progressing?”

I became annoyed. At that time, I needed people to treat me, as much as possible, like a person who had a normal, productive, creative life apart from the fact that I happened to be battling cancer. Unfortunately, I was no longer Betsy Burnham to this woman, I was “the lady who has cancer.” My sickness was the only thing on her agenda, even when it wasn’t on mine.

To sum it up, listening is one of the first, best steps in helping your friend to win the emotional, mental, and spiritual battles that accompany illness. A listening friend faces your inner struggles with you, bearing the burden at your side, leaving you with more energy to fight the battle for life.

A Time to Speak

In the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, the most beautiful, uplifting, and most oft-quoted passage perhaps is the one that begins: “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” (Eccles. 3:1).

In that same passage, the author wisely tells us about “a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.”

Certainly, your time spent with a friend who is seriously ill will involve more than listening. Listening is the first step and tells you what need to address. It wins you the right and the “time to speak.”

The most meaningful and touching words are not the glib maxims: “Cheer up. Things will get better.” That just doesn’t do it. Some of my friends are gifted, not only with “active listening,” but they are able to speak from the heart, too.

Dorothy Jayne, a wise and longtime friend, taught me so much about blending these two necessary aspects of friendship.

When she received the news about my diagnosis, Dorothy boarded the first cross-country flight for Boston.

A psychiatric social worker and family counselor, Dorothy has been an emotional pillar of strength whom Monty and I have valued throughout our entire ministry.

She sat by my hospital bed for a few long evenings, and we talked. I was weak and could only share in brief snatches my feelings about my own future, my concern for Monty—and especially for Suzanne and Marybeth. I was too worn out physically and emotionally to grasp most of what she said at first.

But one relaxed afternoon, Dorothy sat by my bed reflecting on her own life. It had been tough, but the hard times built in her a strong Christian character and sensitivity that were always evident. Somehow she knew just what was on my mind at that moment.

“Betsy, I was thirteen years old when my mother died of cancer,” Dorothy reminded me. She reached over and slipped her warm hand into mine.

I had known about Dorothy’s mother once. How was it I’d forgotten?

This wise and wonderful woman had been nurtured through her teen years by the love of God himself. If the Lord could mold such a beautiful personality once by his love and presence and power—and without the aid of a mother—I knew he could lead my girls in his perfect way, too.

I was staring at our linked hands, and suddenly Dorothy’s strength and character seemed to fill me as if an electric current were passing through her fingers into mine. I knew that it wasn’t easy for her to visit me and dredge up the memories of her own mother’s illness and death.

My eyes brimmed over. Dorothy’s ministry to me on this trip was accomplished. My spirit rested, genuinely trusting God in that moment.

But it wasn’t only my close friends who touched me. In our mobile society, you may not have had years to build such a close friendship as I have with Dorothy. Even a new acquaintance can reach out to someone by saying the right word at the right moment.

Shortly after Dorothy’s visit, a nurse who was new on the floor came in to introduce herself. She was young, and smiled with an unusual radiance that was invigorating. Even though she could have read my chart and learned all that was professionally necessary to know about me, she deliberately took the time to ask about my family and my particular type of cancer.

Briefly, I told her about the doctor’s diagnosis and the projected treatments. Perhaps she noticed the catch in my voice when I mentioned my family and the ages of our daughters.

When I finished, her gentle eyes were still locked with mine. Then she spoke in a soft, unthreatening voice.

“When I was fifteen, Mom died. It was hard,” she confessed, “but we made it. The whole family had to pull together. We all shared the work load. And yet I think I maintained a normal teenage life.

“I’m married now, and have a child. I can see that those things I learned when Mom was sick—and after she’d gone—have made me a better mother, wife, and nurse.”

She didn’t have to say any more. I knew that what she said was true because she was demonstrating her strength and love. Again, I breathed a grateful, silent prayer to my heavenly Father for sending the person with the right words.

Both of these friends spoke to me from the heart, and that made all the difference. Carefully, they had picked up what was most on my mind at that moment—Suzanne and Marybeth and their future. But they didn’t preach or give me a pep talk. Delicately, by personal experience, they reminded me that even in illness and loss, bad can be turned into good under God’s watchful care.

But suppose you and your family have never experienced the drawn-out battle of life-threatening illness?

That doesn’t mean you have no common ground on which to relate to your sick friend. But it is best to find the level on which you can relate.

Remember that many feelings get wrapped into an illness: loneliness, fear, sadness, uselessness, guilt, anger, frustration. All of us have had these feelings at times, and with varying intensity. These are the areas of common ground to listen for.

Maybe your friend will let you know that he is fearful about an upcoming surgery or treatment. And perhaps you have felt an overpowering fear for a child, spouse, parent, or even for your own life. You might look for an opportunity to tell about that experience briefly. Be prepared to answer questions honestly, and remember not to keep the rest of the conversation focused on yourself.

I realize this level of communication is not easy for some people. I have often encountered real stiffness in this area of heart-to-heart sharing. Some folks are not used to showing their emotions. Others are afraid to be vulnerable, to appear weak, less than perfect, not in control.

The truth is, all of us are a combination of strengths and weaknesses. I am not suggesting that you have to have an all-out, towel-wringing cry to show your friend you truly care. But you can enter that deeper level of friendship some folks miss when they deny or suppress emotions.

Praying with Your Friend

While it’s vital to pray for people, you can reach a new depth of friendship and faith when you pray with them. I don’t intend to offer a formula, but I’ve come to realize that many Christians have difficulty with interpersonal prayer—so I’d like to give a few suggestions.

In a quiet room, take hold of your friend’s hand while you pray. Something unusual happens when you very gently hold someone’s hand in yours. Before the first word is spoken, a tremendous warmth, strength, assurance, affection, and faith are imparted. Touch breaks through the natural feelings of isolation that occur in sickness, and it does so in a way that goes deeper than words.

Most important, pray simply and specifically. Formal prayers that sound lofty but avoid the mundane, personal needs of a friend have a “tinny,” unnatural ring to my ear. Is your friend in pain? Or worried about his family, career, upcoming treatments or surgery, finances? Talk with God together in simple language about these specific issues. When you dare to be honest in your requests, you may be wonderfully surprised to find the Holy Spirit has soothed your friend’s aching spirit with your own words.

The Practical Side of Helping

The night of my ambulance ride to the hospital, our family faced another real problem besides my medical emergency.

Dimly, I recall my concern for Monty, the girls, and our home even through clouds of pain. I had prepared and frozen some meals beforehand, but there were a myriad of practical details we were not prepared to handle. Our dearest friends, those we knew we could count on for help, were thousands of miles away in California. At the hospital, my worries gave way temporarily to the doctor’s sedation.

Later, when I woke from surgery, I was tremendously grateful for the practical kind of love already flowing toward our family from brand-new friends in the Northeast.

One man from the church spent his day with Monty in the hospital waiting room during the long operation.

They talked in short, quiet spurts or sat in silence. They paced the floor together, eager for news from the surgical team. Since the findings were not good, I was thankful later that Monty had not been alone.

Likewise, Dennis Doerr spent the entire afternoon of my operation at our home with Suzanne and Marybeth, fixing meals and playing games.

Finding that my family was being cared for was important to me. Physically, I was in pain, and the diagnosis was emotionally numbing. But at least our practical needs were not adding to my worry bank.

Ground Rules for Helping

“What can I do to help?” Monty and I have heard that welcome question time after time. Not everyone knows, however, what to expect when they offer to help. It’s good to understand some ground rules.

If you plan to make a blanket offer like, “Call me anytime if you need anything,” think about it first. If you mean that, fine. But perhaps you need to be more realistic and honest. Put together a list of what you are able to do and the times you are available. Decide whether you are willing to give up personal plans should your friend really take you up on your offer. Second, be flexible.

One friend called shortly after I returned from the hospital. She wanted to bring a meal. My strength was returning, and I was eager to get reacquainted with my own kitchen. Puttering over the stove made me feel less helpless and more human again.

“Thanks very much,” I replied, stirring my kettle of steaming soup. “But I’ve got things under control for tonight.” Then I suggested she plan on another time if possible.

But her ideas were set. “Oh, please let me help you. I’ve already planned what I’m going to fix.” Her frustration boiled over. “People want to help you. You should give them a chance whether you need it or not!”

Another woman called with the offer of a meal. I thanked her for her thoughtfulness but again said we were fine in that regard.

Pausing for a moment, she offered a couple of other options and hit on one special area of need. “If you or the children need a ride anywhere, I could do that instead.”

This was an offer at which I jumped. Suzanne needed transportation to her weekly guitar lessons, and I was unable to drive.

I soon discovered that this woman’s mother had struggled with cancer thirty years earlier. She was sensitive to the innumerable needs a family experiences at such times.

Sensitivity to your friend is another ground rule—and a very important one.

For the first three weeks I was home, there was at least one other person in the house at all times. Including my stay in the hospital, it was six weeks since our family had had dinner and an evening alone.

Just when it looked as though we were going to have a little privacy, I was informed by friends that they were coming by to pick up Suzanne and Marybeth for the afternoon and evening. I knew they meant well; their idea was for Monty and me to have a few quiet hours together. At another time, I would have welcomed that offer. But just then, our family had other needs.

I wanted to spend that time with my girls. They wanted some family time alone, too. They had even marked the calendar with a star when it looked as though we might have a family dinner. We were hoping for a long afternoon of mother-daughter talk, and I wanted so badly to feel the comfort of their sitting beside me on the bed, filling me in on the details of their lives I was missing.

But no matter how politely or strenuously I refused, these friends were insistent. Plans were already made.

They would not take no for an answer.

Fortunately, I was able to control the feelings and words that boiled just under the surface. Why were people making decisions for me? How did they know what was best for my family? Why couldn’t they understand our need to be a family? Or my need to be a mother?

Far more people were very sensitive to our needs. They offered to do what they could, accepted alternative suggestions if necessary, and followed through with heart-warming consistency. There are several areas in which they served us.

First, there is so much that goes into the upkeep of a home. When someone is ill, there is little time for a family to stay on top of things.

Several men from our church volunteered to maintain the grounds outside our home. They mowed the lawn, pruned bushes, and raked. Even on the hottest days of summer, one or more of these men showed up to do yard work. Monty was freed up to have some extra time with the girls and me.

Indoors there is plenty of work, too. You might volunteer to clean your friend’s home one day a week.

Vacuuming, washing floors or windows, cleaning a garage or basement, moving heavy furniture to sweep— these are all things a sick person is incapable of doing and might not readily ask of a friend.

One group of friends knew we were in the midst of redecorating our new home when I was taken ill. I had started several major projects only to leave them half-done. True, they weren’t uppermost on my mind. But unfinished projects have a way of staring you in the face.

This team of workers checked with me in the hospital. Would I like them to go into the house and finish things off? Did I already have color schemes, fabrics, and paint picked out? Should they do it all or leave some for me to finish? Their thoughtful questions hit the spot, not presupposing that I would want everything bright and new when I walked back in the door. It was still my home, and they let me feel that it was.

Sometimes illness may require your friend and his family to travel. Quite often, there is the need to consult with a specialist or take treatments in a hospital or clinic out of town. In this case, your friend may welcome a “house sitter,” someone to live in and provide routine upkeep while they are away. Usually, single people are free from other responsibilities and able to serve in this way.

And of course, there are other needs. Laundry has to be done, dishes washed, as well as numerous other functions of daily living that must go on. These border on the second area where you can help your ill friend—that is, with his family.

First of all, be aware that in a crisis, family members need to know they are useful, too. Suzanne and Marybeth are responsible for certain household chores. During our crisis, they went about their normal duties—and some added ones—aware that they were needed and helpful. Happily, I saw my daughters maturing.

Nevertheless, in spite of these cautionary notes, there are so many ways that concerned friends can help.

One woman took on the responsibility of organizing meals. This was valuable during my hospitalizations and while I was weak at home.

A single organizer can schedule meals. On certain days or evenings, no one may be home at all. At other times, family from out-of-town may be visiting, in which case the head count for dinner will be higher than usual.

A coordinator can also be sure that the meals are varied. Your friends will enjoy the meals even more if they aren’t eating chicken six nights in a row.

One final tip in this regard. Beautiful serving dishes are nice and thoughtful, but I was always thankful for meals that came in containers we could throw away afterward.

If your ill friend is forced into a situation where his or her children are often left alone, your help will be truly welcome. One older couple came to our home every afternoon while I was in the hospital. I was so grateful that the girls did not arrive from school to an empty house.

You may also offer an occasional day at the park or zoo, or a trip to the beach. Opening up your family’s recreation time to include other children can teach your child the value of loving and sharing. If needed, you might consider allowing a child to live with your family if the parents have to travel for medical treatments.

Often, just knowing there is someone readily available—to help, to listen, to visit—can lift the spirits of the sick person tremendously.

Ground Rules for Visiting

The very heart of God is touched when you visit a sick friend, for he identifies with the afflicted. As Jesus said, “I was sick, and you visited me” (Matt. 25:36).

Visiting is something special you can do for a friend, but once again observance of a few ground rules will make your ministry more effective.

Arrange your visit ahead of time. Always make a telephone call to verify your get-together, even if you have scheduled your visit days before. At the last moment your friend may have to decline. I was often tired or sick from the cancer treatments. Sometimes we were in the midst of an unexpected special family time. I was glad for the friends who called first, and for their kind understanding when they found that a visit was inappropriate at that time.

Depending on your friend’s physical limitations, you might suggest a number of ways you can make your visit enjoyable and helpful.

Perhaps your friend is able to get around finally after a long convalescence. You might offer a shopping trip, lunch out, or an evening at the theater. The chance to get out of confines is most welcome, I assure you.

Offer to write letters and answer correspondence as your friend dictates. If your friend is as fortunate in receiving mail as I was, this kind of help may be needed. I knew that most of those who had written were not expecting me to reply, but I wanted so much for them to know about my condition and how they could pray.

You might even bring notepaper or cards with you for this purpose.

One pastime I enjoyed was having someone read to me. I was physically able to read to myself much of the time—but it was so relaxing to hear someone else’s voice. And many sick people are too weak to read themselves.

Helping over the Long Term

After a second round of chemotherapy lasting a year, Betsy was feeling healthy and was eager to discontinue the toxic treatments. The doctor scheduled “third-look” surgery to check her condition, and she confidently went along, sure that he would find she was completely well.

To her shock and grief, the malignancy had reoccurred. Therapy might help, she was told, but there could be no guarantee.

While I was working through my letdown, I wanted friends to surround me more than ever—to walk the path with me through hurt and despair. I knew they must be tired of praying, hoping, encouraging, keeping a smile on their faces while visiting me. But I was sure they would rally around us and help carry my emotional burden again.

My hopes were nearly shattered.

To be sure, there was no letup in cards, letters, people to clean house or carry in meals—and I was thankful for this kind of continued help. What changed—dramatically—was the attitude. Some hurried in and out with hardly a word spoken. Few asked about the surgery, and fewer wanted to know how I felt inside. I could hardly blame anyone, but I felt abandoned on a dark, drifting slab of emotions.

But I wasn’t abandoned totally.

A few weeks after my third-look surgery I was back in the hospital, undergoing tests to see if my body could stand more chemotherapy. Angry, tired, and confused, I was ready to forget the tests and have Monty take me home. I simply wanted to quit.

I was staring up at the dead-white, sterile ceiling when my friend Gretchen came in. I was miserable company—barely looking at her, no smile. And when she told me how sorry she was about the recent findings, I let loose a flood of tears and hurts all of which she’d been through before.

She listened until I was through, then tried to comfort me. I was so depressed I almost missed what she was saying. After all, I didn’t even want to be with me anymore, so why should she?

After our short visit, she rose to leave. Gently, she took my hand in hers. With that winsome, loving look in her eyes, she assured me, “Betsy, I’ll always be here if you need me. Just let me know what I can do.”

I watched her slip out through the door, and suddenly I heard another message in the words she’d spoken. A small voice was ringing in my ears, speaking directly to my heart. It said: “Fight it, Betsy! Don’t give up. You have friends who will stick it out with you—because you’re worth fighting for!”

Bodily I struggled and, gripping the side rail, sat up in bed. Floods of courage surged through me like fresh new life inside. I even felt physically stronger.

“I will take more chemotherapy. I’ll fight it!” Once again my spirit was renewed, soaring in the love of friends who cared enough to stand with me in the toughest times.

It is a rare friend who will draw close when the road gets long and rough. Perhaps your friend has been suffering for a long, long time with no end of illness in sight. Or perhaps the end is clear and it’s only a matter of weeks or months.

Paul speaks about a durable, steadfast love—not a feeling that is blown away by tough times, bad news, or inconvenience. His words remind me that I’m not fulfilling a one-time obligation or laying out one impressive pile of gifts, as on Christmas morning. The best gift I can give is to draw in close—and stay there.

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Gal. 6:9).

Epilogue

Betsy’s third-look surgery was followed by three more aggressive rounds of chemotherapy, after which she made the brave decision to stop treatments.

She returned full stride to normal life and began writing the book that is excerpted in this article.

Two months later, a battery of tests at University Hospital showed the disease had spread from its original site. Cancer cells were found in her liver, pelvic bone, and a vertebra of the lower back.

Once again, aggressive chemotherapy was applied. But in November, 1981, the toxicity of the drugs and the spreading cancer proved to be too great, and treatments stopped.

On the evening of January 15, 1982, Betsy experienced God’s ultimate healing. She is at home now with him—and we await a joyful reunion.

—Monty Burnham

Betsy Burnham (1935-1982) was a pastor’s wife who wrote When Your Friend Is Dying during her final illness.

Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

IDEAS THAT WORK

Virginia C. Thomas

Including children in worship

Do children belong with the congregation in worship? Some churches cautiously answer, “Maybe as long as they’re quiet and require no special attention.” Others say, “Part of the time,” so children leave after a hymn and a children’s sermon. Several churches respond with a definite “No.” They plan an alternate activity, frequently a worthwhile activity, outside the sanctuary.

Our church found it hard to reconcile these three answers with our faith. We follow a Lord who welcomed children and called us to learn from them. We stand in a biblical tradition that instructs parents to answer children’s questions in the midst of a most significant celebration, the Passover.

We’ve learned we cannot honestly fulfill our vows to nurture children in Christ without nurturing them in worship. We’re expressing our ‘yes’ to children in corporate worship in at least six ways:

We state our intentions clearly. Children are welcome in our worship at any age. We want them; we need them. They need the experience of growing in worship with their church family. It’s an officially adopted policy of our governing board and a constantly publicized policy among our members through personal letters, pastoral visits, and classes.

We’re as diligent about inviting children to worship as we are to vacation church school, day camp, or choirs. We make sure our scheduling never compels families to choose between study and praise.

We support parents as God’s primary teachers of worship.

“My child bothers the people around her.”

“Kim doesn’t want to come to church. It’s such a battle.”

“I get nothing from the service if I have two wiggling children beside me.”

“We want Johnny to worship, but what can he understand about the service?”

We plan a class where parents can share these concerns and then seek answers together. The study includes our theology of worship, the relation of home worship and corporate worship, how children perceive and participate in worship at different levels of development, and the biblical model of parents in worship with children-as interpreters, not disciplinarians.

We analyze how children are prepared for public school and find many of the same strategies are valuable in preparing children for corporate worship. We offer resources: tapes of hymns, anthems, and service music children will hear in church, books explaining symbols and colors they will see, and a variety of helps for home worship. Periodically we send out a bulletin on such subjects as “How to Use a Pencil in Worship” or “How to Listen to a Sermon.”

We educate children for worship. Children learn to worship by worshiping with those they love and trust. But we can increase participation with education outside the sanctuary. This is most effective between ages five through eight.

For early elementary children and their parents, we have a class on worship and the sacraments. The sessions give children and parents a chance to explore the sanctuary together, practice passing an offering plate or Communion tray, use the hymnbook, sign the fellowship record, and follow a bulletin (called a worship guide in our church). First graders are given a hymnbook and are encouraged to put to work the skills they are learning in school-counting, recognizing words, scanning lines.

Our choir program emphasizes worship leadership, not performance. Choristers learn the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and any responses that will be part of the service. Their music is an integral part of our liturgy.

The Bible suggests children are apprentices in worship. The questions they ask are part of their offering to God. So we continue education in worship. We may practice a new hymn or Scripture reading just before the prelude. We seldom print a picture of the church on our worship guide. We use the space to teach about a symbol, a season of the church year, a mission emphasis, or a key word in the Scripture for that day. We give each child a worship kit, containing pencil, bookmarks, some instruction about how to use the worship guide that day, and an activity that will help them listen to at least one point in the sermon.

We help children contribute. We often act as if the main purpose of children in worship is to be quiet and sit still. But we are trying to act on our belief that worship for both adult and child means to glorify God. Our children participate, then, as any other worshiper, through praise, prayer, confession, and attention to God’s Word. Our education helps them do this with understanding. We avoid discrimination when hymnbooks are distributed, when bulletins, pledge cards, or fellowship records are given, or when the offering plate is passed. It’s surprising how, without some reminder, adults tend to keep the hymnbooks while children stand and gaze idly around during singing.

Children contribute to worship in many of the ways adults and youth contribute. They are invited to serve as ushers, greeters, and choir members. They may help prepare the sanctuary by sharpening pencils, checking the pew racks for supplies, and designing and hanging banners. They design worship guide covers or bulletin inserts that interpret the Scripture, the season, or a mission emphasis. They write prayers and announcements. They may assist the pastor in selecting Scripture for a call to worship, assurance of pardon, or benediction. One of their favorite activities is baking bread for Communion.

We plan worship for all ages. Worship that includes children is not childish. Our worship service is quite traditional with no gimmicks, but the minister conscientiously plans with adults, youth, and children in mind. The sermon begins with an illustration or question that speaks to all ages. Analogies may come from Dr. Seuss or ancient history. A prayer for peace is raised for the Middle East and the soccer field. The message of the gospel will be applied to those who fear death, job failure, and the dark. At least one hymn each Sunday will have a repeated phrase and recognizable printed pattern (an aid to failing eyesight as well as beginning readers). Scripture is read in a variety of ways: responsively, with solo voices, with a readers’ theater technique.

This has also caused us to alter our bulletin. Our guide to worship uses verbs rather than nouns (“We Prepare to Worship God,” not “Prelude”; “We Praise God,” not “Hymn 100”). We number the acts of worship because this helps children follow the sequence and keep up. We use large print and are careful about spacing.

We work to create a climate of welcome for all. Our church is in a retirement community, and almost 75 percent of our members are over sixty-five. Like most adults, they don’t know how to behave around children. We have a children-in-worship committee that, among other duties, interprets the needs of children to staff and congregation. For example, a committee member will be present when ushers are trained or the stewardship emphasis is planned. (What does it mean when you greet a young worshiper by name? Can children use the same pledge cards adults will use?) We’ve had some happy experiences matching temporary grandparents with a child who needs someone to sit with in church.

Saying yes to children in worship means continuous prayer, study, education, public relations, staff cooperation, and planning-in short, hard work.

It also means more children and families worshiping together; parents with more confidence in their ability to nurture; more vivid, concrete, and concise sermons; more specific prayers; services marked by color, drama, warmth, humor, and imagination; and a weekly demonstration of what it means to be the body of Christ, united across age differences.

By attending carefully to the child he has placed in our midst, we have all been enriched.

Virginia Thomas is a member of Westminster Presbyterian Church, New Port Richey, Florida.

Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

In Search of a Better Way

Robert Culp

An Ohio pastor tells how a seventy-year-old church regained its youthfulness.

The following story of a congregation doing serious business with its goals and structures is an inspiration to all who wish for reform. While many readers belong to denominations with differing polities from this one, the principles and attitudes expressed here can be applied to a wide range of settings.

Two years after the British voters thanked Winston Churchill for his wartime leadership by kicking him out of office, the old man said in a House of Commons speech, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

Nearly every pastor I know would agree with the sentiment. We have all suffered through power struggles in the church that left us in despair. The problem, we sensed, would not be corrected by a dynamic sermon or an inspiring song. Nor would a new program cure what ailed us. We dared to dream of radical surgery. But wouldn’t another form of government be worse?

The congregation I serve got along rather peacefully from its beginnings early in the century until the 1950s, when serious controversy hit. The turmoil produced four pastoral changes in five years. Pastor Number 1 was forced to resign suddenly, the trustee board voting to shut off all parsonage utilities if he was not out in thirty days. Pastor 2 scheduled a tent revival, with church approval-but then had to pay for it himself when the lay officers refused the bills. He resigned after nine months.

Pastor 3 lasted twenty months, splitting the church. Approximately 20 percent of the congregation followed him to start a new work. Pastor 4, an interim pastor recommended by the state denominational office, was ousted nine months later by the local officers, who questioned both his ability and doctrine.

Pastor 5, upon arrival in town, was forced to make his debut not in the pulpit but in court, where a lawsuit between church officers was in progress. Despite this rugged start, he managed over the next six years to heal much of the breach. He also did me a great favor when I succeeded him in 1961: he personally asked a troublesome man, who had left the church, not to come back and make life difficult for the young incoming pastor!

I soon noticed that the finance room, in which the trustees met, was always locked. If I knocked during one of their meetings, the door was opened reluctantly. A friendly trustee eventually told me why-his colleagues wanted to make sure I wouldn’t “take over” the way my predecessor had.

Ah, the blessed checks and balances of democracy.

By chance, I discovered that the trustees were being charged double interest on a large church note. I pointed out the problem, much to the embarrassment of all. The savings from that point on were sizable, and I never found the door locked after that.

The infighting calmed over the next years. These were not bad people, I found, intent on causing random havoc; they were simply trying to care for their church the only way they knew. By 1970, we were able to face a major, potentially divisive issue and settle it without an explosion. The chance to buy a larger building came up suddenly. The seller insisted on a decision within twenty-four hours. The membership did not even get a chance to look it over; they simply came together to hear their pastor and trustees say that this was a good opportunity and God would prosper us if we would step out in faith. The prize tag was $105,000.

They voted yes, unanimously. A taste for the joy of unity was planted within us that day. We began to wonder if we were in some sense a favored people, chosen by God to minister to others in some specific ways. Four years later, the mortgage was burned without a building fund drive. Unsolicited gifts had ranged as high as $25,000, some of them from nonmembers. We praised God together, and I realized that the trust level between the people and me was reaching new heights.

The 1970s were a flurry of activity at First Church of God. Choir rehearsals took up four days a week. We got interested in starting new congregations in urban areas of the South. We sent our own missionary team to Haiti. Back home, we started operating a coffee house, a bookstore, a food pantry, a clothing center. We had jumped on our service horse and ridden off in every direction.

Every activity required another committee. Decisions galore had to be made, and few people were authorized to make them quickly. I was spending my life in meetings, one after another, and neglecting my family as a result.

Underlying our busyness came the nagging feeling that we had no real sense of direction. More was being promised than fulfilled. A better building, a bigger congregation (up 300 percent for the decade), and larger offerings somehow weren’t enough to satisfy. We began talking more about what we were meant to be.

By 1978 we had renovated our building to accommodate the day care and school program, and our hearts were set on beginning a 1,000-seat sanctuary-when we hit a roadblock. Actual construction costs would be twice the initial estimate. It would take us at least two years to raise the money, and we were already running above 500 for worship in a sanctuary that seated 450.

The building committee found an existing church for sale at a fraction of the other cost. It had adequate space and was in sound condition. But should we buy it? Should we give up the dream? You can imagine that the business meetings were long and emotional.

We finally voted to buy the existing building. Thankfully, we lost no members in the process. Moving to occupy the new facility on Toledo’s “church row,” Collingwood Boulevard, however, seemed to signal the need for other changes. Were we structured to face future issues in the best way? We opened the door for a closer look at how our local body was put together.

Battles We Didn’t Have to Fight

Looking back, I can see several advantages that made such a self-assessment possible. First was the conviction, deeply held, that we ought to follow the principles of the New Testament church. We needed to study that church in more detail, but the congregation was committed to conform to whatever we learned.

Another long-taught and widely held conviction was that we must continually rely on the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We were convinced that he is not static-but alive, dynamic, and verbal. If he led us into uncharted waters, we would follow.

The third blessing was a small but vigorous group of senior members who were not afraid of change. Both the deacon chairman and the trustee chairman had been in office for more than thirty years-and realized it was perhaps time to step down. The Christian education leader had suffered an incapacitating stroke. These were all proven persons, respected and followed, but wise enough to admit that the conflict of the 1950s had cost the church an entire generation of young people. They seemed determined to redeem their grandchildren.

The fourth battle that was avoided was mistrust of the pastor’s motives. This overhaul of structure began eighteen years after my call. People will follow a leader who they are convinced is following God. Vision is necessary, but if it is to prosper, it must be built upon a foundation of love, trust, and confidence.

Sometimes it takes years for a flock to get comfortable with its shepherd. The two building decisions of the 1970s had laid a good groundwork. Now the time was ripe to proceed with change.

Renovation Time

We began with a men’s weekend retreat, taking apart several books on the church and spiritual leadership. Then in January, 1980, we launched an “All-Church Retreat”-actually, a series of events for the entire congregation. We cleared the month’s calendar of everything but Sunday morning worship. Instead, we held discussion and sharing sessions twice each week. And twice more each week, the same people met in small groups to wrestle with our purpose, strategy, and structure.

It was intense, but by the end of the month, we had hammered out a statement of purpose and some additional methods for implementing it. We honed and polished these things for another three months, until in May we formally voted to suspend the bylaws for six months and try out our concepts. The vote was unanimous.

What our church was really all about, the statement said, was “to be a loving fellowship of committed believers worshiping together, seeking to reconcile persons to Christ, mature them in him, and involve them in ministry to one another and the world.” We followed this with a list of our four main strategies: celebrating together, demonstrating koinonia, witnessing, and discipling.

This meant reorganizing the church according to our purpose. Organizations and activities were no longer justified just because of tradition. The question was: Are they consistent with our mission? Do they help us get the job done?

When the dust had settled, we no longer had a men’s organization, a women’s organization, a board of Christian education, or a board of trustees. Their functions were either swallowed up elsewhere or found to be unnecessary. And there was very little opposition. Most leaders wanted a change. A few of them had second thoughts when they found themselves no longer in leadership positions. When three adult choirs merged into one, some leaders felt left out and told me so. But they were not bitter; they were just struggling to find new places of service. And with time, they found them.

The key concept regarding leadership was that it was no longer a political plum but rather a spiritual ministry. In the future, leaders would no longer be elected for three-year terms but recognized and confirmed indefinitely by the membership. They would not run against each other; their names would simply be put before the body with this question: “Is this person spiritually qualified to be a leader?”

At the May business meeting, all the offices of the church and its organizations were declared vacant. Leadership was placed in the hands of a new, single board, the Council of Deacons, which would provide direction in five areas: stewardship, education, body life, evangelism, and missions.

Each new deacon would take a long look at his or her gifts and then ask to be assigned to one of five Servant Boards, actually sub-working groups of the Council of Deacons. These boards would meet as often as necessary-usually twice a month-to do their work and bring recommendations to the whole council.

We confirmed thirty-four deacons at that first meeting, nominated by the congregation and approved by at least an 80 percent vote. When the six-month trial period was over, there was no doubt in our minds that the new direction was on target. We rewrote our by-laws and moved ahead with joy.

Since then we have added two to six deacons each fall, until the total council now stands at forty-eight-twenty-one men and twenty-seven women. Starting in July each year, we provide forms in the bulletin about once a month for deacon nominations. On the left side are printed the spiritual qualifications from 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. On the right side are blanks to be filled in, and a place to sign your name. We receive twenty to twenty-five nominations each year in this way.

The council screens these and presents those fully qualified to the congregational meeting. Interestingly, the members have not confirmed all our nominees. Each year they have turned down some. But the choices they have confirmed have been excellent, decided on the basis of spiritual qualifications, not head-to-head comparisons.

New deacons are considered to be in training for the first year, after which we hold an ordination service for them. Only two have dropped out at this point, one voluntarily, the other after discussion with me.

The typical monthly Council of Deacons meetings give direction, set policy, and implement our ongoing plan, since day-to-day work is handled by the Servant Boards. For example, the council recently wrestled with whether to make Sunday school the prime vehicle for our education, evangelism, and fellowship groups. This was revolutionary-it would require everyone (choir members, ushers, youth leaders, etc.) to become active in Sunday school, and it would mean scrapping Sunday evening worship in order to set up a home visitation program. We studied the change very carefully, but in the end adopted it unanimously. Two months later, Sunday school attendance was up 150 percent.

We have dealt with emotional issues-how to handle the weddings of divorced persons, for example. The current council contains divorced persons, so the subject was more than just academic to them. It took us several meetings to decide that we would perform second marriages, but only in the church parlor-not at the altar. I am not holding this up as a perfect policy; I am simply illustrating a hard question on which we came to agreement in the end.

Some Reflections

Veteran pastor Paul W. Powell, a Baptist from Texas, has written, “The best leadership occurs when, after the project is over, the people say, ‘We did it.’ ” I am so glad we developed our changes together, with input from as many people as possible. A “pastor’s plan” would never have worked, even with my long tenure in this church. It had to be God’s plan as discerned by his people.

Important to the acceptance of change was that we announced each step as an experiment, with the option to return to our former ways. Nothing was set in concrete. We could always change our changes. We designed things, tried them out for 90 to 180 days, and then carefully evaluated before pronouncing them permanent.

We learned again the value and necessity of prayer. We prayed in meetings, before meetings, and after meetings. We prayed corporately and individually. We were convinced that prayer would change things-attitudes, mind-sets, ignorance, and anything else that needed changing. The person who headed up our prayer effort in those days has now become a staff member, our minister of intercession.

When we rewrote our by-laws, we purposely obeyed an old rule about preaching: Keep it short and simple, and the people will love you. The old bylaws had run on for pages and pages; the new set is only five and a half. The methodology for implementing our task is in a separate handbook that can he altered without moving heaven and earth. This arrangement allows us to stay flexible while still holding to the course.

The single most important change, of course, has been the principle of shared leadership. There is no real voting among the leaders; there is rather a yearning for unanimity. Early on, one deacon objected to an otherwise unanimous agreement on selling some church-owned property. We did not run over his opinion; we stopped for further prayer and discussion. In the end, a much better price was gained, and the wisdom of consensus was reinforced.

The sharing of decision-making power is risky, but the feeling is spreading among us that we now have a local church guided not by history, traditions, or by-laws but by Spirit-led men and women. A revolution of form is not enough, but it does provide a vehicle to present the gospel and nurture those who receive it. The body is no longer muscle-bound; it is free to better fulfill its mission in the world.

Robert Culp is pastor of First Church of God (Anderson), Toledo, Ohio.

Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

CREATIVE SUFFERING

Paul Tournier

There are people who constantly worry over whether they will have the courage to face this or that deprivation-old age, a painful illness, infirmity, or the death of husband or wife. I have always tried to reassure them, for as long as the trial they fear is not there, the courage cannot be there either. And they are probably the ones who will bear it most courageously if it does come. Over and over again I have marveled at the resources of courage these worrying people reveal themselves to have when they have to face the real thing and not the phantom of their imagination!

There is more to be said. There is that extraordinary joy which radiates from many a sufferer from serious infirmity, and which contrasts astonishingly with the moroseness of so many of the healthy people one sees on the bus. What is the explanation? Well, I think that it is because their lives demand permanent courage, a constant expenditure of courage; and since courage belongs to the spiritual economy, the more one spends it, the more one has. It is like a current flowing through them and producing joy, the joy of victory over one’s fate. This joy in victory is something we find in all those who accomplish a great exploit-in the climber who reaches the summit of the Eiger via the north face; and in every champion in sport, even if they do collapse in tears of exhaustion at the winning-post. Moreover, in a seriously disabled person it is not the victory of a single day, but of every day. Where does the pleasure in living come from? More from struggling than from possessing.

The first time I spoke on this theme of deprivation was at a meeting of the Association of Single Mothers. The audience consisted therefore entirely of women who were widows, divorced or abandoned wives, or unmarried mothers, in charge of fatherless children and responsible for their upbringing. What I had to say to them about orphans could be an encouragement for them. But they did not need encouragement: I was struck by the joy that reigned among them. I reflected that they too had to expend plenty of courage each day in lives as hard as theirs, and the secret of their impressive joy was in that current of spiritual energy running through them. But there was also the phenomenon of communication-courage passing from one to another; each drawing courage from the realization of the courage of the others, and contributing her own courage to that of the rest. It was like the multiplication of reflections in a hall of mirrors.

The most encouraged of all was myself. I came away from that meeting full of joyfulness, and when the organizer brought me a rose bush for my garden I felt that she deserved it more than I. It is very clear that nothing arouses in us more courage than meeting a man, woman, or child who is showing exemplary courage in adversity. It is far more effective than exhortation. It seems to me most important to emphasize this contagious quality of courage. For I see so many good people who try genuinely to resist all kinds of temptations out of faithfulness to their ideals, but who feel quite powerless in face of the fearful contagion of evil, of violence, injustice, and lies which is attacking the world. What can they do about it? Their daily obedience, worthy though it be, seems no more than a tiny drop lost in a stormy ocean. The contagion of good is not so obvious. However, one thing that is unmistakable is the contagious effect of an exceptionally courageous obedience. …

Actually, I do not think we should ever be exhorting people to be courageous. To be really fruitful, courage must come spontaneously, in answer to an inner call. I can think of several women who have had the courage to give up the idea of divorce in circumstances in which it would have been justifiable. I would not have taken it upon myself to encourage them because it was they, and not I, who had to face the sufferings that their decision imposed upon them. Jesus puts us on our guard against placing upon others burdens which we do not bear ourselves (Luke 11:46).

I have always observed that when it is God who calls us to make that sort of decision he also gives us the strength to bear the consequences.

-Paul Tournier

Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

A Code of Conduct for Boards

Stephen A. Bly

“We won’t grow until we get a parking lot,” I insisted.

No one on the board claimed that the present situation sufficed. Two hundred fifty people competed for curbside space. But soon the arguments began: “Exercise is good for them.” “Encourage them to car pool.”

“Listen,” I said with slight agitation, “if we can’t offer visitors a pleasant, quick entrance into the church, what’s to keep them coming?”

That’s when Bob Stanton spoke. “I remember back in ’41. We discussed this same question. Somehow we’ve managed to get by all these years. Now, I do agree with the Reverend, it would be nice to have more elbow room for the cars. But, where would we put such a lot? We’re surrounded by homes and businesses.”

“The furniture store across the street’s up for sale,” I hastened to announce.

“But they don’t have any parking space either,” Bob pointed out.

“We could sell the buildings and have them carried off.”

“What’s the asking price?” responded another elder.

“$400,000.”

That’s when Bob Stanton gasped and jumped to his feet. “An outrage! I could have purchased that whole block five years ago for $65,000. And how big is it? Couldn’t be over two and a half city lots. Why, that’s enough room for twenty-five cars, if we’re lucky. Figure it out. $15,000 per car!”

My head began to pound. “That’s not the point,” I continued. “Any way you slice it, we’ve got a major limitation problem. What are we doing about it?”

The clerk made a suggestion. “Give the problem to the operations committee to chew over. They can make a thorough investigation and . . .”

The body that Christ bought with his blood sometimes sees other kinds of red. Christians who should be recognized for their love of one another can too often be spotted by their splits.

This need not be. Local-church problems can be greatly minimized by a few simple ground rules. But they need to be spelled out before the contest begins, hashed out with pastoral candidates, presented as a crash course to each newly appointed governing leader, and included in new-member classes.

My elders and I have adopted these for our own code of conduct.

1. The relative attention given to any issue will be in direct proportion to its prominence in Scripture. We ask ourselves: How often does the Bible deal with this? Could we postpone this issue a month without harm to our total ministry? Minor problems need solutions, too, but not at the cost of major confrontations.

2. We will encourage church members to spend an hour’s time each month in prayer for the pastor and board members. A person who seeks the Lord on my behalf will find my listening ear when he or she wants to change my mind. This one wants God’s best for my life.

An hour per month can be rearranged into two-minute segments each day. Another good suggestion includes praying for the pastor and board at least as much time as one talks about them.

3. The members understand that having their say is more important than having their way.

I teach and preach that every opinion matters. Family members need the opportunity to express their views. That doesn’t mean we jump every time someone hollers. But we do listen. Then we watch for God’s wisdom and God’s timing.

The two most destructive times in a church fellowship are when (a) no one listens or (b) we listen to someone and act without careful evaluation.

4. We withhold financial support only when the Lord stops blessing. Some say, “But keeping my offering is my only form of protest!” But this also forfeits any platform from which to speak.

I advise my congregation, “If tempted to stop giving, take a two-by-three foot poster and color, in three-inch letters, ‘I, _________ have stopped giving money to my church because _________.’ Be honest.

“Then, imagine posting this sign where all your Christian friends could see it. Try to envision taking it to your job. If such a sign would hamper your ministry and witness, so would holding back funds.”

5. We will stay in the nitty-gritty of church life while serving on leadership boards. Once we’ve been elected, we try not to remove ourselves from the creative tension of ministry with people. This helps our decisions lean toward the practical rather than the speculative.

The one who dashes into the church office a half hour before Sunday school to run the old mimeograph votes with more understanding the next time office equipment is discussed.

6. A majority vote is a strong indication of God’s will for us at this time. If the board has been called by the Lord to serve, then logic presumes he will express his voice through each of the members. The minority may still be right, but the timing may be wrong.

I hold very high respect for opponents who freely express their view, then fully give themselves to carrying out my idea. They earn my undivided attention to their opinions next time. I ask myself: Do they have more facts than I do? Do they have more experience? Could it be that I’m right, but the timing’s wrong? Is there a scriptural reason why I can’t fully support this suggestion?

7. Never keep silent in a meeting on an issue that won’t be kept silent at home. Some of the best logic is saved for the wife and the walls. While it’s unrealistic to expect anyone to struggle through an important, fervent argument behind closed doors and never mention a word at home, the problem develops when opinions expressed clearly outside the meeting never get voiced within.

We attempt never to make notable verdicts on an idea the first time it’s introduced. That way, the members can jot down feedback as it comes over the next month. They can present their information to the major parties involved before the next meeting, too.

8. Every dissenting vote symbolizes a possible word of caution from the Lord. No sincere pastor wants a rubber-stamp committee. The objective should be well-reasoned, enthusiastic unanimity. But the road toward that goal produces more than a few gray hairs.

I assume the Lord’s caution can be delivered through improper grammar, trite phrases, wrong motives, and even misquoted Scripture at times. I try to solicit comments from those who haven’t vocalized any. I look for nonverbal signs, too. In order to encourage feedback from the hesitant, I’ll initiate drawbacks to my own ideas. This presents an easy in for expressing doubts. When a whole board welcomes alternate views as a strength rather than an irritating intrusion, hostilities are minimized.

9. People can still love/respect one another while rejecting individual ideas. I strive for personal relationships with all on my board. I try to affirm the commitment to a long-term relationship, with the highest good of the individual in mind.

If possible, I visit each member on the job to get a feel for daily struggles. Getting acquainted with the whole family, perhaps through a meal in my home, can go a long way in effective communication. Occasional social events with the entire board and spouses, where no business is discussed, have proved to be a healthy exercise.

10. Spiritual authority or knowledge will not be used as a club to force passage of an issue or program. The pastor, Bible teacher, or seminary student isn’t necessarily right all the time. Some of us allow the presumption to grow unchecked that to oppose us is to oppose God. A vote against a spiritual leader does not necessarily infer a lack of spiritual commitment or maturity.

Whatever happened to our parking problem? We ended up signing options on four older homes behind the church, so we could purchase the property a lot at a time. In the meantime, we established a fund to prepare for those events.

Many a church disaster has sprung from lesser issues than parking lots. How did we avoid hard feelings? By following our guidelines for good church board conduct.

-Stephen A. Bly

Fillmore (California) Bible Church

Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

FROM THE EDITOR

Terry C. Muck

In 1974 I prepared to attend a seminar taught by the noted British historian, Herbert Butterfield. He inaugurated the seminar at Northwestern University with a public lecture on the subject “The Christian and Politics.”

In 1974 Jerry Falwell had just started to sensitize the nation to the relationship between religion and politics. My classmates and I wondered whether they mixed like oil and water or cream cheese and bagels. So my heart beat a little faster as the evening of the lecture approached.

I sat in the front row of Leverone Hall at eight o’clock. Dr. Butterfield, who I later came to admire greatly as he shepherded ten of us graduate students through a quarter-long examination of the role of the Christian historian, shuffled his eighty-year-old frame to the lectern. He cleared his throat, paused a moment, and then said, “I don’t think I can really speak to this subject to your satisfaction. You see, I don’t believe the Christian really participates in the political process as a Christian politician. He participates as a Democrat or a Republican or an independent. A Christian, as a Christian, is apolitical.”

I was stunned. And the sound of creaking chairs around me told me I wasn’t alone in my disappointment. We had come to hear some answers to our questions about how a Christian does politics. We wanted to know how we could make our views known on the burning issues of abortion, war, and integrity in government. And our potential answer man was telling us there was no single Christian way to do it.

This was my first exposure to what Harry Blamires calls “the Christian mind.” As we put together plans for this issue of LEADERSHIP on the subject of church politics, I recalled that lesson vividly. In so many of the church politics issues we uncovered in talking to local-church leaders, we saw startling parallels to the secular political arena.

Yet those of you who lead churches know that somewhere there is a fundamental difference between secular politics and church politics. Trouble is, the line between the two is often blurred, ignored, or forgotten. The problem, more often than not, is that we get so involved with technique that we forget some more fundamental issues. So the question becomes: how does a local-church leader get things done in the church without resorting to the excesses the world so often encourages?

If the end is good (and what church program isn’t?), there is a great temptation to push it through by argument or manipulative politics. We cut corners. We engage in what Martin Lloyd-Jones called “sinful snacks,” relapses into worldly technique in order to achieve our heavenly aims. Often the technique itself is not bad, but we use it at the wrong time, with the wrong person, or with a wrong attitude.

With a little imagination we can easily see Jesus being asked this question. As he sits quietly on the side of a sun-drenched Galilean hill, a small-town rabbi with a congregation of 100 faithful timidly approaches him. This is not a Jerusalem rabbi with Sanhedrin members on his synagogue council. This is a guy slogging it out in Dalmanutha or Cana.

He asks Jesus, “Sir, how can I get my people to work with me instead of fighting everything I do? They’re so obstinate. Sometimes I have to practically hit them over the head with a club to bring them around. I don’t want to do it that way, but if I don’t, nothing would ever get done.”

Jesus sizes up his interrogator pretty quickly and says, “Try thinking of three things. First, realize that you’re spiritually bankrupt and can’t solve this problem by yourself. Second, let that realization humble you so much that it drives you to rely on my Father totally. Third, show humility to the people in your flock. If you genuinely accomplish those three things, your problems are over.”

Jesus then goes on to give the rest of the Beatitudes, the “technique” Beatitudes-be just, desire good, be kind, be merciful, work for peace and unity, delight in being challenged by nonbelievers-but he starts with attitude. And it’s precisely that attitude that the secular politician gets all wrong.

Nine years ago I sat and listened as Dr. Butterfield went on to explain that the Christian as Christian is the salt of the world, seasoning it by his mere presence. The Christian politician seasons the political world by his lifestyle, morality, and outlook on life. Both Republicans and Democrats want to reduce unemployment-they have simply arrived at different conclusions on how best to do it. Yes, there are genuine moral issues (a Christian must reject Nazism and apartheid), but the deepest Christian effect is not necessarily how he votes on an issue, but how he lives his life.

That lecture changed my outlook on politics. I came to agree with Jacques Ellul, who, after a lifetime of Christian political activism in France, concluded, “I no longer think that one can derive from the Bible a political or social doctrine that is more true than others. But Christians will have a special courage, a spirit of inventiveness, a lucidity, a radicality, an ability to change, a desire for justice and liberty, all of which come from the Gospel and which no one else can have if-they accept the consequences of their faith, if they accept transformation within.”

I continued to express my views to my campus friends on abortion, war, and integrity in government. But I noticed the self-righteous fervor began to leave my arguments. And my friends became interested in not only my views but also in me. When the dust had settled from our political disagreements, I could talk to them about being a Christian.

The same is true of church politics. You win some battles, lose some, and land somewhere in between on the others. But God doesn’t tally wins and losses like we do, and on his scorecard, it’s how you play the game that counts.

Terry C. Muck is editor of LEADERSHIP.

Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

Pastoring with an Ache Inside

Dean Merrill

During the four years of Betsy’s cancer (see “When Your Friend Is Dying”), her husband continued in full-time ministry. An inside look:

Monty Burnham’s pastoral honeymoon was not yet over when he was sledgehammered with the surgeon’s report. He had moved his family less than eight months before from the sun and surf of Monterey Peninsula to the narrow streets of metropolitan Boston, where the 250-year-old United Presbyterian Church of Newton awaited his ministry.

The congregation had been a historic downtown church until 1946, when it bought an imposing Gothic edifice only two blocks outside the city limits. The 550 active members had managed a two-year interim and were now eager to move forward under the leadership of this personable Californian. A former Young Life staffer (nine years), Burnham had most recently been an associate pastor. This would be his first senior position.

“One of the harder parts of being in the ministry during such an ordeal,” he says quietly, “is that you’re so public. You’ve made a commitment to be Christ’s servant through everything-and now everyone’s watching.”

The Burnhams made little attempt to keep a stiff upper lip, to hide their trauma from onlookers. “We treated the church as our family. We shared the prognosis on Sunday morning and kept people informed all along the way. If there seemed to be light in the tunnel, we rejoiced together. At one point, we dared to say Betsy was in remission and even healed.

“But when we were in despair, we shared that as well. I preached a good deal those years on suffering, how God purifies us in the crucible.”

One result was an outpouring of love and practical support from the congregation, as Betsy’s book describes. “I felt like the paralytic in the Gospels being carried by his friends,” says Monty. “We were borne along on a flood of mail and phone calls.” At the same time, the demands of ministry pulled him outside his private crisis, forcing him to run on two tracks simultaneously. The result was greater fatigue but also more perspective.

“We had basically two good years and two grim years-not in sequence, but mixed back and forth. When Betsy felt strong, we made the most of the time, going to plays and films, taking trips together, eating out, stopping to smell the flowers. When she was battling the pain-both the cancer and the pain of the cure-I wanted nothing so much as to be at her side.

“It was like the crisis of having a new baby in the house-you don’t have time to ponder, you just work. How I got through I don’t know-it was a gift of grace. I learned, however, that we are like camels; we carry a great resource within us. I used to think spiritual manna was only for today, and that if you didn’t feed on the Word every twenty-four hours, you would starve. Not so, at least in my time of pressure.”

Monty continued to preach three Sundays each month (Assistant Pastor Dennis Doerr preached the fourth) straight through, breaking off only when Betsy’s death became imminent. “Wednesday is my sermon preparation day,” he says, “and I held to that rhythm unless she needed to be taken to chemotherapy or if I simply couldn’t concentrate. There were Wednesdays when I’d finally just go work in the yard instead and come back to the sermon on Saturday. The fear of not being ready would eventually get me moving, and I’d always rally for the next day.” During the four years, Burnham did no recycling of old sermons; each week’s message was a new preparation.

Betsy was there to hear him preach as late as November, 1981, two months before her death. “Her commitment to ministry was as strong as mine,” says her husband. “She wasn’t the type to demand my time when the needs of the church called. If anything, I was the one who would be struck by depression and suddenly lose energy. At those times, I would just leave the office to go be with her.”

But while preaching continued, other things fell away. The first to go was Monty’s chairmanship of the local Young Life board, and then his hospice work. “Both of those had been so central to our lives back in California,” he explains, “but there wasn’t the time or energy to continue.” Eventually he felt forced to resign as vice-moderator of the Boston Presbytery only two months before he would become moderator. He did, however, carry through as chairman of counseling and follow-up for the Billy Graham Boston Crusade of early 1982.

The church also celebrated its 250th birthday with a month of special events. A larger kitchen and more rest rooms were added to the building.

Meanwhile, personal time became ever more scarce for the pastor. “I read only half a dozen books in four years,” he confesses, “-one of which was A Severe Mercy by Vanauken. Somebody came to stay with Betsy and the girls not long after her first surgery, and I left to spend three days in a Cape Cod motel. There I faced the fact that, humanly speaking, she had not the ghost of a chance. But the book led me to believe there would be a mercy somewhere in the severity.”

Golf-“my dearest love”-was forgotten, and the tennis club membership the Burnhams had purchased soon after arrival was never used. As the months wore on, Suzanne and Marybeth began to show signs of jealousy. “They felt they’d lost me, too-to Betsy,” Monty says. “They couldn’t find their space in my life.”

Monty now regrets what he feels was misdirected anger. In the face of a terminal illness, “I could always theologize so God didn’t bear the brunt of what was happening. And of course it wasn’t Betsy’s fault. So I sometimes vented on the girls.

“In the past, I had been the disciplinarian, and Betsy the merciful mother. Now, we both seemed to intensify-she grew ever more soft, while I became tougher. We couldn’t seem to get the right synthesis of truth/justice and compassion. It was very difficult at times.”

Some of Monty’s hardest public moments came while officiating at funerals, which occurred as often as once a month. In December, 1981, as Betsy lay waiting for the end, he conducted the funeral of a woman who died of virtually the same kind of cancer. “It was exceedingly difficult,” he remembers. “But I had to face the full range of life experiences.

“After all, I am called to model the gospel as well as share it. The gospel had to be a word of hope to me, too.”

Some who tried to exhort the Burnhams to believe for healing proved to be an irritation. “They didn’t really say it, but they implied, especially through the literature they gave us, that I was the roadblock. I didn’t have enough faith, or I wasn’t saying the right words. Isaiah 53:5 (‘By his wounds we are healed’) became a proof-text.

“Other people urged us to always be strong and victorious. When I would say, ‘I believe God loves me where he finds me, in my humanness and weakness,’ it sometimes caused tension. For these and other reasons, some of them withdrew from the church. The truth is, our active membership sloped to about 450 over the four years. My style of vulnerability didn’t appeal to some, and others felt neglected.”

Burnham’s staff at the church, however, proved not only loyal but valuable as they covered for his absences from the office and conserved his energy. “People gave me a long leash on my schedule,” Monty says with gratitude, “and I’ve never been a clean-desk person anyway. I’m a self-starter who doesn’t need the discipline of the clock-but doesn’t stop to file things, either. Dennis, my secretary Diane, and the others were a great support.”

Monty Burnham did not preach the Sunday of January 10, 1982. He stayed at the bedside of his wife, with whom he would spend only five more days. She was buried on Monday morning, January 18, in subzero temperature with eight inches of snow on the ground. That evening, the congregation packed the church for a memorial service. The choir sang an anthem Betsy had helped create. Suzanne, then sixteen, sang a solo, while Monty and fourteen-year-old Marybeth read Scripture. After the sermon, the worshipers lifted “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and ended with a quiet refrain of “Alleluia.”

Was there a mercy in the severity? Yes, says Monty Burnham, who returned to the pulpit March 7 and continues there today. “It was that we lived Betsy’s dying. Her death came slowly, giving us time to say and do all the important things. We burned more firewood in those years; we listened to more records together. We spent the time being what each other needed. Maybe that’s why we used to get angry-but also sad-watching others throw their marriages away while we were fighting so hard to lengthen ours.

“The pain has not separated me from people. It has drawn me to them. I come with fewer answers now. The further I get from seminary, the more I approach life and people with my heart as well as my head.”

There are still times when emotion overwhelms Monty Burnham in the pulpit, when his throat suddenly tightens and “I’m ambushed by teariness. So many of the hymns, I now notice, have to do with suffering. Communion also seems to trip me up, when I pause to realize she’s sitting at His table at that very moment.”

But such moments do not hinder ministry; they authenticate it. The pastor’s pilgrimage has become a model to all. Eight months after the funeral, Burnham wrote in the church newsletter: “My calendar tells me it is late summer, yet my heart gives evidence of spring. The winter of Betsy’s illness and death is waning. New life is emerging-miraculously, mysteriously-in terrain blanketed by ice and snow.”

After a quotation from Henri J. M. Nouwen’s Letter of Consolation, Burnham concludes, “Please pray for me and help me cultivate the crocuses in my landscape. I offer my new life to Christ, to you, and to the world He loves.”

-Dean Merrill

Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

Seven Reasons for Staff Conflict

Wayne Jacobsen

If you don’t see eye to eye, it’s not always because of stiff necks.

Two knight on a chessboard. Light and dark. Confrontation. Against each other. Forehead to forehead. Vintage toning.

In this series: Dealing with Conflict

"Tension and conflict in multiple-staff churches are caused either by the ego of the staff member or the incompetent management of the senior pastor." I wish to expose that statement for what it is-a myth. Staff members are just not that rebellious nor senior pastors that incompetent. Assigning blame at either point misses the real issue in most cases and only perpetuates conflict.

The vast majority of staff pastors I've spoken with, though they admit the reality of conflict, find it neither overwhelming nor ever-present. Deep joy in ministry and affection for their pastor undergirds their labor. Personally, leaving my staff position was the hardest decision I ever made, knowing how much my relationship with my pastor would change once I was fifty miles down the road instead of fifteen feet up the hall.

No management system or technique can ensure an absence of conflict. In fact, I'm not so sure eliminating conflicts is desirable. Conflict often indicates healthy growth processes are at work. Too often, however, failure to recognize the source of conflict and to handle it appropriately leads to far more destruction than healthy growth processes are worth.

In conversations with pastors and staff members, seven major areas of conflict continue to surface, none of which has anything to do with staff submission or pastoral mismanagement. When seen for what they are, each can be easily handled and the conflict turned to constructive ends.

Generational Differences

"I've tried to get my pastor to use contemporary choruses in worship with more spontaneity, but he is too locked into old traditions."

"These young kids think they know how everything ought to run. Don't they think we've learned anything after years of ministry?"

"When I was their age, I was pastoring the smallest church in my section and working a second job to pay expenses. They don't know how good they have it."

Generational realities-differences in age, cultural background, and experience-consistently surface as contributing factors to staff conflicts. Failure to appreciate generational distinctives presses minor differences into major conflicts.

These differences shape the way we respond to circumstances and how we make decisions. Most senior pastors came of age between 1940 and the early '60s, a time when society's efforts were successful and the church held a prominent place. The age of technology brought economic expansion. At the same time, fads came and went. Change almost always meant regression. As a result, senior pastors generally believe in the value of tradition and working for the kingdom of God within existing structures.

Conversely, many staff pastors came of age in the late 1960s and '70s, witnessing the limitations of human effort. The West lost prestige abroad and the war on poverty at home. The church lost its place in society. As a result, younger pastors are more willing to tamper with structures. They usually fall on a spectrum somewhere between simple openness and prideful disdain of anything traditional.

When these two generations come together, there is bound to be some conflict. Something I may attempt on a whim might still prove difficult for someone from a previous generation even after months of careful research and prayer. I could misinterpret the caution as closed-mindedness. They could mistake my suggestion as criticism of their experience. In reality, we'd both be wrong.

Background differences are further compounded by recent changes in church life. In the last two decades, people have gravitated to larger churches. In an earlier generation, pastors fresh out of seminary usually took small-town pastorates, where today many begin as staff members. As a result, many senior pastors have never been staff members and can't empathize.

These barriers are not insurmountable. Joel envisioned a community where the visions of sons and daughters would fit side by side with the dreams of old men. His prophecy pictures a community able to draw on the wealth of God in each individual. The idealism of youth can be tempered by the wisdom of experience, and the routine of tradition can be energized by the exuberance of youth. The end product need not be either idealism or cynicism, but biblical realism.

Understanding and respect can diffuse these conflicts. Don't evaluate someone else's actions on your perspective alone. Try to see what they see. Their hymns may be as meaningful to them as your choruses are to you. When you understand why people feel as they do, you are in a better position to work with them. Though this respect must flow both ways, my generation will have to admit that part of our culture has removed from us a respect for the wisdom of age. We must in humility recapture it.

Theological Disagreements

Differences in biblical interpretation produce conflict even where love abounds. A youth pastor from the Midwest shared his current dilemma. His church had just voted to build a new gym and youth activity center at considerable cost. Though grateful, he was growing in concern for the needy, both for those in the Third World and those across town. Is it right to go to such expense for the recreation of some believers, with others in such need?

It's easy either to support him or cry "ascetic," but his crisis is real. Theological concerns affect daily ministry.

Certainly each congregation holds theological essentials, and I'm not talking about these. I'm referring instead to differences in applying theology to twentieth-century living. The role of women, divorce, worship patterns, the present ministry of the Holy Spirit, and applied sanctification (legalism or leniency?) all bring struggles. History proves that theological differences among people who seriously study the Word are a virtual given. The only churches I know that are one-minded in all matters of theology are churches where only one mind is allowed to function.

The importance of these differences cannot be underestimated. Yet they do not have to divide people; instead they can become steppingstones to personal growth and biblical enrichment. Growing in theology with coworkers is a great benefit of serving on a ministry staff.

To negate the destructive possibilities of these kinds of disagreements, staffs must cultivate an atmosphere of freedom. I've been fortunate to work on two staffs I would consider exemplary in this regard. In our staff meetings, any of our theological concerns (and generational differences) could be discussed and evaluated without people being threatened, hurt, or asked to resign. This freedom fostered growth whether we were discussing how to handle marriages of pregnant couples or what we were learning about worship.

This freedom requires two understandings. First, decision-making authority must be clearly defined. Honest, open sharing cannot be conducted in a political setting where manipulation, compromise, and infighting reign as tools of decision making. The security of knowing who makes the final decision (the pastor or board) can open the way for free discussion. The most important gift a pastor can give staff members is to be secure enough to offer this freedom without being threatened.

Second, differences must never be paraded before the congregation or made an element of corporate contest. Let growing pains be stamped "Staff Members Only." Cooperation even in the face of differences must be the result of such discussions, or freedom becomes destructive. Your personal growth must never become someone else's bondage.

Miscommunication

"All conflicts are communication problems" may be a bit overstated, but miscommunication sure accounts for its share. In church offices these are often classics.

We all know staff members who burn with vision as they begin their new vocation, not understanding they were hired simply to perform certain tasks. Conversations before their hiring and the announcements surrounding it may have been laced with phrases like "becoming part of the team," "freedom to carry out your calling," and "it's not what you do but who you are that counts," which always mean more to the hearer than the speaker.

While the pastor sits in the church office wondering why staff members can't settle into their responsibilities, the staff members are frustrated trying to reconcile reproducing tapes or cleaning the kitchen with the ministry they envisioned.

Honesty is the critical element here. The blunter the better. Worry more about your staff members understanding what you will expect of them than trying to make them like it. Perhaps we suffer from homiletic hangover, but it's easy to make a staff position sound greater than it is. It may help in recruitment, but it leads to trouble in the long run.

Daily miscommunications-not sending the right information or the same information-create the same potential for conflict. Working together effectively requires lots of communication. Questions. Memos galore. Make sure people understand what is going on, especially when it will affect, no matter how distantly, something in their field of ministry. Get your information from the right sources.

Again, honesty is indispensable. The pastor who on varying issues alternately placates a staff member by giving in and then denies something else to test commitment is not being honest. Neither is the staff member who attempts to manipulate the pastor by not providing all the facts about a decision or hides some pet project for fear the pastor will disapprove.

Miscommunication can also be negated by demonstrating your loyalty. One staff pastor told me how he looks to do things his pastor cares deeply about even though they may matter little to him (picking up a gum wrapper on the carpet). He likened it to bringing his wife flowers. Find ways to visibly demonstrate your love and support (a note of thanks or offering to handle some busywork you weren't asked to handle). It will cover a multitude of miscommunications.

Diversity in Perspective

I earned spending money in college as an Oklahoma state football official. Most games I worked with three other officials. On the occasions when I was head referee and responsible for everything that happened on the field, there were six other eyes watching the game with me. Many times we would see a call differently. One would rule a pass complete, another that it had been trapped. My task was to decide who had the best perspective to make the call.

Diversity in perspective is often a major factor in staff tensions. Whether in matters of methodology, facility, personnel, crisis resolution, or budgets, members of multiple staffs view the body from different angles. "How will this decision affect the people and ministries I'm involved with?" That's not wrong. That's being responsible. It becomes wrong when a staff member seeks to compel his perspective over the perspectives of others and expresses dissatisfaction with them, their viewpoints, or the final decision.

My objective as a pastor is the same as the referee-to use the perspectives of others to see possibilities from all angles. It's helping the eyes, ears, and hands of the body to work together.

The church is unique in this regard. It must seek to move not by the opinions of people but by the will of God. Listening to many perspectives with a whole hearted search for God's mind is a powerful combination-a process laden with occasional conflict, perhaps, but pregnant with power.

It is a process only for the mature, for those who have lost the need to use pressure and manipulation as tactics for change. It's for staff members who are willing to be only a part of the solution, for those who can practice submission, which Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline defines as "the ability to lay down the terrible burden of always needing to get our own way."

At the same time, staff members must avoid self-protectionist tactics like apathy. Withdrawing denies the larger reality of the relationships between various segments of the body. It does not avoid conflicts; it only delays and compounds them.

Majoring in Minors

Society's preoccupation with power and control often creeps into staff relationships, distracting us from our primary task-serving people-and turning our energies to secondary things such as buildings, budgets, and recognition. When egos become enmeshed in in-house politics, we can miss opportunities to help those in need and to disciple those hungry for the Lord.

In theory, most pastors are eager to let staff members minister. What pastor wouldn't rather have the youth minister lead someone off drugs instead of fighting for a larger budget? But so much of our conversation centers on expenses, record keeping, and maintaining institutional control.

Recently someone told me how snobbish he used to think I was because I would scurry past hurting people on my way to handle some pressing matter of church business. How painful to hear, but how healing to misguided priorities! I felt the parable of the Good Samaritan was pointed directly at me.

Jesus never grabbed for institutional control, either in the Roman Empire or in the Jewish hierarchy. Yet the fire he ignited in eleven men changed the world. Putting too much emphasis on program distracts from personal ministry. What if I don't get all the space I think I need in the new education wing? Does ministry hang so precariously on such externals?

A good test of whether or not you are majoring in minors is to look at what is frustrating you. Does it have to do with institutional questions or serving individual people? Nothing can really hinder the latter. If it's merely an institutional matter, give input where you are invited and defer to the decision makers. Conflict over minors isn't worth whatever you hope to gain.

Environment

It is impossible to examine staff conflicts without looking at the environment of staff relationships themselves. What kind of hierarchy allows for both accountability and freedom to minister? A system based entirely on the power of position can't flourish in a setting where the highest order of personal motivation must be leading of the Holy Spirit.

Is faithfulness to God challenged when you are asked by a superior to do something you don't fully agree with? How can people be freely released when "I felt God wanted me to" is an oft-used excuse of the immature?

These questions complicate the usual employer-employee model. The church isn't just another business, and answers won't be found at the extremes. Freedom to the point of anarchy is destructive. Authority that chains the church to one person's will may find less outer conflict but breeds it far deeper inwardly.

Obviously the problem calls for more extensive discussion than is appropriate here. The stress between individual conscience and submission to authority, however, does contribute to staff conflicts. Until we reconcile these competing values, they always will. The answer lies not in an ideal management system but in compassionate, personal cooperation that seeks to allow Christ to lead the life of the church.

Lack of Relationships

"I could count on one hand the number of times we as a staff really prayed together other than to cover church prayer requests."

"In six years I have never been invited to my pastor's home for anything but church business."

"I want to share with him what I'm going through, but my struggles are always misunderstood as a lack of personal support."

I've heard these comments from staff pastors who hunger for strong personal relationships. Without them, conflicts become major obstacles to ministry. With them, conflicts are more easily resolved.

Key terms in disarming conflict are respect, understanding, freedom, submission, deference, honesty, and openness. These words describe personal relationships, not institutional systems. Management systems don't create destructive conflicts. People do. Where conflict destroys ministry, you can be sure that relationships have deteriorated. And preventing deterioration requires maintenance.

Relations must be familial. It is easy to let ministry relationships slip into mere professionalism. Relating only on the basis of the organizational chart forces us into an agree/disagree response to each other's ideas and actions. Once that happens, staff relationships become contests of influence, typified by suspicion, hurt, and independence.

The most productive staff relationships I've observed are where love was expressed in personal friendship. I'll never forget the morning my pastor came by on his way to the office to sit and talk with my wife and me after our small apartment had been burglarized.

Relationships must be supportive. If our goal is to minister to people and extend the kingdom, then we must work at encouraging one another. As a staff member, can you still support your pastor even if he opts for a different action than you suggested? As a pastor, do you care about helping your staff member go on when you know he or she has been disappointed?

You can't work in God's kingdom with others and ignore their needs. One pastor described the degeneration of relationships among his elders: "Being right became more important than being right with each other."

"You are my friends," Jesus told his disciples. And he cared deeply for their needs. "Familiarity breeds contempt" is a battle doctrine for the world; it has no place in the church.

Relationships must be mature. Being people's friend means saying more than just the things they want to hear. Leadership people must also have enough maturity to accept correction without being hurt or angry.

Jesus' closeness with Peter did not keep him from rebuking him when he sought to keep Jesus from the cross. James and John were blasted for wanting to destroy an entire village.

These relationships do not spring up overnight. They are cultivated. Fear of committing time to personal relationships is the greatest deterrent to a healthy staff environment. Maintenance is too time-consuming, some argue. While they do take time to establish, good friendships are not inefficient in the long run. There is no way to measure the time and energy wasted on conflicts that tear people apart, leaving them seething beneath the surface, or requiring endless meetings to resolve.

A local Assembly of God pastor lives out this commitment by meeting twice a week with his four-member staff-once for personal sharing and once for church business.

When you are truly someone's friend, conflicts need not be feared or hidden. They are not seen as the result of incompetence or rebellion but as the natural result of people working together who see through a glass darkly. Even with imperfect people in imperfect environments, the work of God can forge ahead.

Wayne Jacobsen is pastor of The Savior's Community, Visalia, California.

Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

Who Decides What Deacons Do?

Lloyd Jacobsen

When traditions and constitutions leave us confused, it’s time to probe deeper.

The setting was a question-and-answer session with one of America’s best-known television pastors. I raised my hand and said, “Can you tell us what kind of relationship you have with your deacon board?”

The man repeated my question, while a hundred ministers waited. Then he said, “My relationship to my board is that I allow them to meet once a year to rubber-stamp my plans for the coming year.”

At least he captured one outlook on the question.

On the other extreme stands a grimly resolute board chairman who has gathered almost total power. In his zeal to keep the pastor from “getting out of hand,” he has presided over more pastoral changes than Italy’s had prime ministers.

Why are we still agonizing about this question? In my visits to churches across the nation during the past years, I have seen problems again and again where pastors and lay leaders are in conflict about their relationship to one another. It is a major, if not the major, cause of unrest in churches today.

This is true even in churches where flow charts and job descriptions have been hammered out, agreed upon, and made official. A nearby fellow pastor, Leith Anderson, asks students in his Bethel Seminary church management courses to make a flow chart of their particular churches. They draw neat diagrams of boxes and lines, an exercise that comes close to creating art with its order and symmetry.

But Leith takes it further. He then asks students to make a second flow chart of the real power situation in their churches. In other words, he wants them to show who really has to back something to get it operational. Who in the congregation must be convinced before a project will fly?

This second assignment doesn’t produce the elegance of the first charts. There are skewed diagonals, stars at the hub of many lines, and lonely boxes on the edge of the papers, sadly ignored by the flow. They all tell similar tales. An official document of the church is not the whole story of who does what. Not everybody stays on the posted trail.

Five Ways to Sort the Issues

Deacon board functions, I have noticed, are arrived at in an interesting variety of ways. Sometimes the “reality” flow chart is the product of a demolition derby. Collisions of varying intensities, not always planned, eliminate contenders for power. Eventually all are disabled but one-the only person still running is declared the winner.

The process, unfortunately, is hard on the health of the church. Some of the disabled are never able to get up enough RPMs to participate again. Although the derby is exciting, relieves boredom, and settles the issue, it can also exhaust spectators to the point where winning is meaningless. Not very many able-bodied Christians remain to be led.

Sometimes the function of lay leadership is prescribed by denominational polity or tradition. An episcopal form of church government gives the pastor more power in a showdown with lay leadership than a congregational church, where the minister is often considered just one of several constitutionally appointed elders. But in both cases, official pronouncements often fall short of covering all the twists and turns of real life.

Management techniques, often patterned after American industry, are the source of lay leader functions in many churches. After purposes are “owned,” goals set, and strategies agreed upon, the actual jobs are pretty clear. A mini-corporate business structure installed in the church tells where the decision makers will be.

Then there is the rising interest in New Testament church polity. This has given birth to a new examination of church officers. “Elders” and “deacons” are now common terms in many churches that had only councilors, trustees, and vestrymen in the past.

(Two things are pertinent here. One is the brevity of the New Testament job descriptions. That is why modern churches that have these officers show a wide variety in their actual work. Agreement that these are legitimate offices does not correspond with agreement on what they do. Secondly, although some are enthusiastic about installing a New Testament pattern, many others question whether such structures are normative for the modern church.)

The Topsy system is also common in some churches. This is where a responsibility is added to fill a special need that comes up today, and another is added tomorrow. Eventually, it all becomes part of the whole. In the history of the church, people convince others of additions and refinements until their present administrative system “jes’ growed up.” Don’t sell short, however, the tenacity with which this helter-skelter system will be defended from change. It often ranks in sacredness right behind the doctrine of the Trinity!

How Shall We Then Function?

No one method is so successful that we can prove its validity with charts and numbers. Experts who guarantee us the “right” way of deciding duties have been slow in coming forward, perhaps because of their own uncertainties.

As mentioned earlier, the Scriptures do not give us fine-tuned job descriptions that are clearly applicable today. Acts 6 and 1 Timothy 3 help; however, they are not high-yield sources of information on the specific responsibilities of lay leaders here and now. It seems that neither practice nor precept gives us a universal answer. So who does decide what deacons do?

The answer we seek, I suggest, lies sleeping in the very words that describe our two positions. Minister, though highly exalted now in both ecclesiastical and government parlance, is nothing more than one who attends to the needs of others. Likewise deacon primarily means a servant. Alfred Greenaway, in his commentary on Philippians, claims that the Greek diakonoi comes from dia and konis, which means “raising the dust by hastening.” We get the picture of a person eagerly placing the needs of others ahead of his own. Ministers and deacons are simply those who place themselves and their skills at the disposal of others for their good. They restrain natural self-assertiveness and put it into a harness for the sake of the church.

Take a number of people who have responsibilities in an organization, see that they have this servant spirit, and then watch them operate under almost any system. You will see productive, harmonious, effective leadership.

But how can a pastor instill a servant spirit in lay leaders? And what about boards that aren’t even interested in the whole idea? How do you break through crusts of tradition that have ruled as long as anyone can remember?

Both enormous potential and maddening frustration are bound up in discovering how to teach servanthood. It is not learned mail-order from a handy ten-lesson booklet with the answers on the last page. Although the basic principles can be listed and memorized, they are learned in real-life situations.

Some things in the kingdom, the really important ones, are not taught in a classroom. Rather, they are absorbed from demonstration in a variety of circumstances over a period of time, often at great personal cost to the demonstrating teacher. Seeing the lessons of servanthood in action awakens interest and deepens appreciation.

The potential is enormous, because a life lived in servanthood can’t be denied or ignored by observers, whether they want to learn the subject or not. It has a magnetic charm. Deep in the best part of us, there is an answering echo when we see this beautiful virtue being practiced. When Malcolm Muggeridge wrote about one of the great servants of our day, he called Mother Teresa’s life Something Beautiful for God. This outstanding woman’s appeal to those who would help is almost irresistible and is grounded not in her lectures on servanthood but in her demonstration of it.

But teaching servanthood is also frustrating. It can’t be neatly scheduled. It eludes capture into the normal rhythm of learning: teach, learn, teach, learn. Sometimes the class leaps ahead in dazzling insight; then it lags interminably, just when we need to fit our plans together.

Instilling a spirit of servanthood is not a short-term project. It is not a quick fix for pressing problems, a Band-Aid solution. It is getting at the very heart of the need, an effort that deals with the slippery complexities of human personality. It takes time.

Knowing this, what can we do?

We can model servanthood. Late one evening, a pastoral staff member stopped by the church and noticed volunteer painters from the congregation still working. Down in a remote corner of the educational wing, he saw a light and heard whistling. Curious to see who had the lonely, isolated painting assignment, he walked down and peered in the room. To his amazement it was the senior pastor, splashing away with uncertain ability but definite joy. It was the older man’s way of telling his workers he was not beneath serving too. That sermon-in-life penetrated as deeply as any the pastor had preached from the pulpit.

It isn’t very hard to find excuses why a pastor need not do things of this sort. Most common is the effectiveness excuse. “I must use my time effectively.” Certainly the pastor who is forever buying pencils for the Sunday school and changing light bulbs is not necessarily demonstrating servanthood. He may have psychological needs or just be a poor administrator. But cannot we all go the second mile occasionally and quietly take up menial work?

Preach servanthood. After all, it is a leading New Testament subject. It is woven into the whole fabric of the gospel. A once-a-year special on the subject is not enough. Soon listeners will nudge each other and wink knowingly, “Here it comes again. He’s on his annual preaching schedule.” If it is just another topic, the impact will be lost.

Servanthood must be part of the whole message every pastor shares with the people.

Honor servanthood. It is, of course, quite a paradox to exalt lowliness, show the greatness of humility, and admire qualities the world scorns. But our Suffering Servant, the One who came not to be served but to serve, gives us insight into the beauty of this kind of life. In his kingdom, servanthood is the requisite attitude for leadership and growth. We can heighten appreciation of servanthood by privately and publicly admiring acts of serving by people in the congregation.

Apply servanthood. At church election time, one pastor reminds the voters that they are not to elect the most popular, dynamic, or outwardly successful individuals. Rather, they are to look first for those who have exemplified a servant spirit in the church. He instructs the congregation to make leadership and skills a secondary consideration. He believes those who are not qualified for certain aspects of church business can always call in the experts for help. This church is experiencing a dynamic growth in the framework of unusual harmony and love.

Keep track of “servers.” In this same church, it is a practice for all leaders to submit a monthly recognition report to the pastor. This report includes the names of those who have demonstrated outstanding traits. Highest on the list are those that pertain to serving. When a leadership opening occurs, this pastor looks in the file and finds certain names listed again and again. He has a master list of people with leadership potential.

Share mutual experiences in servanthood. Although learning servanthood is not an academic exercise, there are many excellent books, tapes, and films on it. When church leaders are jointly exposed to these resources, they can build a strong consensus on the subject.

Finally, pray about it. God is on the side of those who want servanthood to develop in their churches. Quietly, and with sublime subtlety, he goes about encouraging this virtue in response to a shepherd’s earnest petition.

Over the past eleven years, I have seen the remarkable effects of what servanthood can do in a congregation. I still remember-and still cringe over-the early board meetings, where loyalty to constitutional jots and tittles was king. In the congregational business sessions, rules of order seemed to be weapons for pushing through personal ideas, regardless of who needed help or encouragement. I knew things had to change.

I began pointing out the priority of a proven servant spirit when looking for leadership qualities. I was amazed at the readiness of the response. As new leaders were chosen and began to exercise their responsibilities, a beautiful courtesy developed. What a joy our business gatherings have become. The atmosphere is relaxed. People still honor the bylaws but are even more concerned to honor one another. The unity we enjoy today is a product of laying down our rights and turning instead to serve the congregation.

The question pastors and lay leaders should be asking is not what should we do but what should we be. When this insight is followed, it brings harmony to church boards, no matter what the system.

At the beginning of his reign, King Rehoboam asked advice from the elders. Their reply is timeless: “If today you will be a servant to these people and serve them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants” (1 Kings 12:7). If we, like the king, ignore such counsel, we will forever regret it as he did.

God is calling pastors and deacons to ministries characterized by serving.

Lloyd Jacobsen is pastor of Bethel Temple, St. Paul, Minnesota.

Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

PULPIT PLAGIARISM

Jamie Buckingham

It’s getting harder and harder to fool all the people all the time.

When I bought my Apple IIe Word Processor, I discovered the capabilities of split-screen programming. By pushing the right combination of buttons, I could look at two things simultaneously. The top, for instance, could show data typed in earlier, while the bottom remained blank.

I asked my instructor how this could be useful.

“It is used primarily for plagiarism,” he said candidly. “By putting someone else’s material on the top screen, you can then rewrite it.

“It’s done all the time,” he winked.

I thought of the mess Alex Haley got in when he was accused by an obscure writer of having stolen his material-word for word-to be used in Roots. Too bad Haley didn’t have a split screen.

I almost did the same thing with one of my earlier books. I copied material I thought was a taped interview but turned out to be material my secretary had copied from someone else’s book. Horrors!

Now my computer instructor tells me I’ll never have to face that problem again. With my split screen I can change just enough words that I never have to worry about going to jail.

But a question remains: Is it right?

It is the same question preachers face. For if plagiarism is an occasional problem for writers, it is a weekly problem for preachers.

For instance: Should pastors feel free to preach others’ sermons? If they do, must they give credit for it?

And what about telling stories they’ve heard other people tell-and taking credit for the stories themselves?

To a certain degree, all of us preach other people’s stuff. After all, as Solomon once said, there’s not much new under the sun. Besides, so many in the pulpit today have to preach far beyond what they are creatively equipped to do. Using other pastors’ sermons would be a great help. In fact, preaching sermons already preached by great pulpiteers would teach the rest of us a great deal about homiletics.

On the other hand, it makes me feel slightly uneasy to endorse something like this-which in many other realms would be considered plagiarism-without having a very good basis upon which we could do so.

Of course, in the strictest sense of the word, everyone plagiarizes. In fact, the preceding paragraph was plagiarized from the letter written me by Terry Muck, editor of LEADERSHIP, when he first suggested this article. I lifted it, word for word, and doubt if he or anyone else would have known the difference had I not called attention to it.

This brings up one of the primary reasons for not giving credit. Most speakers hate to break the flow in the middle of a message. It’s much easier to keep going than to confuse the hearer with a score of footnotes plugged into the actual text.

But courtesy calls for gratefulness-as long as it can be given without distracting. Recently the leaders in our church have been studying Richard Foster’s excellent book Celebration of Discipline. I heartily agree with much of what Foster has written and wish I had said it first. But for me to stand in the pulpit and take credit for what originated with him not only would be theft-it would be foolish. I would be quickly spotted carrying stolen goods. I would lose far more credibility (at least in the eyes of my leaders) than I would gain in the eyes of others who might be impressed with my brilliance.

Therefore, it is far easier to say, “I learned something this last week while studying Richard Foster’s book Celebration of Discipline.” Now I am free to take off on whatever tangent I wish. At the same time, I have pointed people back to the genesis of an idea. If they return to the spring to drink-as I have drunk-they, too, may come up with original thoughts, just as I did.

In my early days of preaching, I relied heavily on books of sermons and-perish the thought-books of sermon illustrations. Since a powerful experience with the Holy Spirit in 1968, I have not had to fall back on those. I discovered I had been preaching leftovers, while the Lord had set before me a banquet table from which I could feed the people. (This, by the way, is perhaps the strongest argument against preaching someone else’s material. If it is not your own, if you have not experienced the truth you are preaching, how can it minister life to those who hear it?) But the spring inside me that flows with eternal truth sometimes gets clogged with debris. My pump, then, is often primed by the sermons of others, written, taped, or heard in person.

A preacher friend once joked: “When better sermons are written, I’ll preach them.”

To that I say, “Amen!”

In fact, I hope I am one who will write the better sermons-and that he will not only preach them but improve on them as he does. It is a humbling honor to know that something I originated is now in wider circulation because it is being told from various pulpits where I could never go.

There is a danger, however, in taking someone else’s first-person experience and telling it as though it happened to you. This danger is especially acute in this day of mass media, when some of the people sitting in your congregation may have just heard the author tell the same story on national TV or may have just read the book you swiped your story from. (Incidentally, those folks will not call you a “plagiarizer” when they get in the car and drive home after church. They’ll call you a “liar.”)

Sometimes, of course, it works in the other direction. I remember when Charles Allen came to preach in the little South Carolina town where I was pastor of the Baptist church. I had read all Allen’s books of sermons-and preached most of them.

Some of our folks went down to Main Street Methodist to hear Dr. Allen. One of them came back and told me, “You’ll never believe it, but that lanky old Methodist is preaching your sermons. He even told one of your stories last night and didn’t have the decency to give you credit.”

I held my breath until the week was over and Dr. Allen was safely out of town. At that time I was having enough trouble hiding other things without it being discovered I was stealing sermons as well.

The question is not whether we use material that originates with others. Of course we do. The question is whether we should give credit or not.

Sometimes we don’t want to give credit. The author may be someone who has a bad reputation-or whose works might lead people astray. In such a case, I find it easy to say, “Although I certainly don’t recommend the ideas of Hugh Hefner, I was intrigued by an interview in last night’s paper where he said … “

On the other hand, giving credit often strengthens the message. It lets your people know you are reading-and listening. In short, it adds authenticity. Even though Richard Foster is a legitimate scholar in his own right, he is relatively unknown. Therefore, when he quotes Saint John of the Cross, Brother Lawrence, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, or his fellow Quaker Elton Trueblood, it adds credibility to his scholarship. In fact, had he not quoted so widely, many of us would not have read his books.

I am impressed when I attend a mainstream Protestant church and hear the speaker quote a charismatic or Roman Catholic-and give credit. I am attracted when I hear a Pentecostal quote a traditional evangelical. It lets me know the person is hearing what God is saying to the rest of Christendom. In short, the credits often mean as much as the material quoted.

“I was listening to a Charles Swindoll tape last week, and he told of the time … “

“I wish all of you would read Henri Nouwen’s book The Wounded Healer. In the chapter on ‘Ministry to a Hopeless Man,’ he describes a fascinating encounter between … “

“Three years ago LEADERSHIP magazine interviewed Dr. Richard Halverson, chaplain of the U.S. Senate. In the interview … “

Perhaps the original material grew out of something informal, such as a staff meeting or home Bible study. If the originator of the idea is local, that is even more reason to give credit and thus encourage the person.

“Last Monday night in our home church meeting, Brooks Watson pointed out something he had learned a number of years ago in engineering school. … “

“In our staff meeting Art Bourgeois touched my heart when he began praying for … “

Giving credit, instead of distracting from your sermon, often leads your listeners into the situation. They wait eagerly to hear what you have gleaned from others.

Courtesy demands a certain amount of credit, and ethics demands you not retell a story as if it happened to you-unless it really did. If you’re afraid the audience will think you stole a story when you didn’t, a simple technique will get you off the hook. All you have to say is: “In his book Where Eagles Soar, Jamie Buckingham confesses the difficulty he had demonstrating physical love to his aged father. It brought to mind a similar experience I had with my own dad. … ” From that point on, the story is yours, even though it might sound identical to the one I wrote about.

All preachers have a way of picking up cute phrases, vivid word images, clever bits of dialogue, even snappy one-liners they heard or read from someone else. Certainly Billy Graham didn’t coin the phrase “The Bible says,” but at least for this generation, he made it popular.

Such snatches are below the threshold of requiring attribution. But there is a level that enters the forbidden zone of plagiarism. It happens when we take credit for something valuable which is not genuinely ours.

Recently I heard a preacher at a ministerial convention tell an uproariously funny story of being invited to speak at a strange church and discovering, upon arrival, that it was a drive-in church. His congregation was a large field full of automobiles. He had no eye contact and no way of knowing if anyone was laughing at his jokes. His final dismay came when the pastor whispered in his ear that it was all right to give an invitation for people to accept Christ. He could even pray for the sick. If the people blinked their headlights, they had been saved. If they tooted the horn, they had been healed.

(“Yes, dear brother, I see those headlights out there.”)

I don’t remember the point he was making, but his story was great. As we were leaving the auditorium, I overheard one pastor say to another, “I just got my illustration for next Sunday.” I didn’t ask, but I doubted seriously if he intended to give the original preacher credit for the story.

But for that matter, it doesn’t make much difference. Back in 1974, Kenneth A. Markley, a Rosemead Graduate School psychologist, published the original story in his book Our Speaker This Evening (Zondervan). Dr. Markley, however, had not mentioned the horn blowing. That was added by the 1983 preacher to spice up an already good story and perhaps clear his conscience of being a plagiarist.

I wondered, walking away from the auditorium, how many preachers would add yet another twist-maybe turning on the windshield washers if you wanted counseling or releasing the hood latch if you wanted to donate to the visiting speaker’s missionary fund.

Professional writers have strict guidelines concerning plagiarism. One definition is found in A Handbook to Literature by Thrall and Hibbard (Odyssey, 1960): “Literary theft. A writer who steals the plot of some obscure, forgotten story and uses it as new in a story of his own is a plagiarist. Plagiarism is more noticeable when it involves stealing of language than when substance only is borrowed. From flagrant exhibition of stealing both thought and language, plagiarism shades off into less serious things such as unconscious borrowing, borrowing of minor elements, and mere imitation.”

Writers and musicians understand this. But while they can copyright words and notes, they cannot copyright an idea. It is in this area that the blacks and whites blend to gray, and each preacher must determine the difference between what is illegal, merely unethical, or permitted.

I remember asking a colleague if anyone ever plagiarized his sermons. He said, no, he’d never said anything worth repeating.

On the other hand, why would anyone publish a book of sermons if he didn’t want them used?

Corrie ten Boom used to say that everything she had written or said was public property. She didn’t want credit. She felt the glory should go to God, who gave her the ideas in the first place. She also felt copyrights were of the Devil. On occasion, her publishers had to hold her down, or she would have given carte blanche permission to reprint her material without even asking, much less paying a permission fee.

But Tante Corrie was a unique breed. She never did understand why someone would publish something “to the glory of God” and then get upset when another of God’s servants used it without giving the author credit. After all, she used to say, that’s why we put it in print in the first place-to be used.

On the other hand, she was always giving others credit. When she and I wrote Tramp for the Lord, I had to struggle to keep her from naming everyone she had ever talked to about an idea.

Perhaps that’s a good rule to follow: Everything we say is free, and we expect nothing in return. Everything we borrow we try to give credit-not because credit is due, but because God has a way of blessing honesty.

Jamie Buckingham is senior minister of Tabernacle Church, Melbourne, Florida.

Leadership/ SUMMER QUARTER 1983 p. 61

Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Apple PodcastsDown ArrowDown ArrowDown Arrowarrow_left_altLeft ArrowLeft ArrowRight ArrowRight ArrowRight Arrowarrow_up_altUp ArrowUp ArrowAvailable at Amazoncaret-downCloseCloseEmailEmailExpandExpandExternalExternalFacebookfacebook-squareGiftGiftGooglegoogleGoogle KeephamburgerInstagraminstagram-squareLinkLinklinkedin-squareListenListenListenChristianity TodayCT Creative Studio Logologo_orgMegaphoneMenuMenupausePinterestPlayPlayPocketPodcastRSSRSSSaveSaveSaveSearchSearchsearchSpotifyStitcherTelegramTable of ContentsTable of Contentstwitter-squareWhatsAppXYouTubeYouTube