MARKS OF A GOOD PREACHING TEXT

W.A. Poovey

“All Scripture is God-breathed,” according to 2 Timothy 3:16. But when it comes to Sunday morning preaching, some passages may prove more profitable than others. Here are some characteristics of the best preaching texts.

A complete unit of thought, not a scrap of words.

Long enough to provide the preacher with some meat for his discourse, short enough to enable him to cover the material in one sermon.

As clear as possible. Some dark passages may not be helpful as texts.

Full of color. Life illumines life, and the more the text speaks of human life, the better it as the basis for a sermon.

A presentation of the gospel. Sometimes the gospel message must be seen in contrast or in fulfillment of the text, but there should be some relationship of the material to Jesus Christ.

A message for the preacher. If the text says nothing to him, then he will say nothing to the people.

A message for God’s people. Twentieth-century man is like first-century man, but he is also different. The text should speak in such a way that we can apply the message to our world.

-W. A. Poovey

Leadership Spring 1983 p. 36

- More from W.A. Poovey

Pastors

LUTHER ON PREACHING

Martin Luther

Never known as a shrinking violet, Martin Luther had many strong things to say on the task of the preacher. Following are excerpts from Table Talk of Martin Luther, a collection of his sayings edited by Thomas Kepler and published by Baker Book House, 1979. Used by permission.

* * *

“To me a long sermon is an abomination, for the desire of the audience to listen is destroyed, and the preacher only defeats himself. On this account I took Dr. Bugenhagen severely to task, for although he preaches long sermons with spontaneity and pleasure, nevertheless it is a mistake.”

* * *

“A preacher should have the following qualifications: 1. Ability to teach. 2. A good mind. 3. Eloquence. 4. A good voice. 5. A good memory. 6. Power to leave off. 7. Diligence. 8. Whole-souled devotion to his calling. 9. Willingness to be bothered by everyone. 10. Patience to bear all things. In ministers nothing is seen more easily or more quickly than their faults. A preacher may have a hundred virtues, yet they may all be obscured by a single defect, the world is now so bad. Dr. Jonas has all the attributes of a good preacher, but people cannot forgive the good man for hawking and spitting so often.”

* * *

“Who knows their subject can speak easily, for art follows comprehension of the subject. I can never compose a sermon by the rules of rhetoric.”

* * *

“Christ had an extremely simple way of talking, and still he was eloquence itself. The prophets, to be sure, are not very rhetorical, but they are much more difficult. Therefore simple speech is the best and truest eloquence.”

* * *

When Katie said she could understand her minister Polner’s preaching better than Bugenhagen’s because the latter wandered too far from his text, Luther remarked: “Bugenhagen says whatever occurs to him. Jonas used to say, ‘Don’t hail every soldier you meet.’ That is right. Bugenhagen often takes along everyone whom he meets with him. He is foolish to try to say all that occurs to him. Let him take care to keep to the text and attend to what is before him and make people understand that. Those preachers who say whatever comes into their mouths remind me of a maid going to market. When she meets another maid she stops and chats a while, then she meets another and talks with her, too, and then a third and a fourth, and so gets to market very slowly. So with preachers who wander off the text; they would like to say everything at one time, but they can’t.”

* * *

“When M”rlin, Medler or Jacob preaches, it is just as when the plug is drawn from a full cask; the liquid runs out as long as there is any left within. But such volubility of tongue doesn’t really lay hold of the audience, though it delights some, nor is it even instructive. It is better to speak distinctly, so that what is said may be comprehended.”

* * *

“When you are going to preach, first pray and say: ‘Dear Lord, I would preach for thy honor; though I can do nothing good of myself, do thou make it good.’ Don’t think about Melanchthon or Bugenhagen or me or any learned man, and don’t try to be learned in the pulpit. I have never been troubled because I could not preach well, but I am overawed to think that I have to preach before God’s face and speak of his infinite majesty and divine being. Therefore be strong and pray.”

* * *

When Erasmus Alber was about to take his departure, he asked Doctor Martin how he should preach in the presence of the prince. Luther replied: “Let all your sermons be very plain and simple. Think not of the prince, but of the uncultivated and ignorant people. The prince himself is made of the same stuff as they! If in my preaching I should address myself to Philip I should do no good. I preach very simply to the uneducated and it suits everybody. Though I know Greek, Hebrew and Latin, these languages I keep for use among ourselves, and then we get them so twisted that our Lord God is amazed.”

Leadership Spring 1983 p. 44

- More from Martin Luther

Pastors

HOW TO TREAT A GUEST SPEAKER

R. Larry Moyer

When preparing to entertain a guest speaker, three questions need answers:

1. Have you prayed for this person’s ministry?

I arrived at a particular church for an evangelistic meeting once and was impressed by two things: how much they talked to God and how much they talked to God about me. They had prayed for everything from my plane trip to my pulpit ministry, from my wife to my witness. One person commented, “I hope I get to meet your wife someday. I’ve been praying for her since the day they told us you were coming.”

Pray for the guest speaker’s family the way you would for yours if you were away from home.

Pray for the guest speaker’s health, realizing a change in time zone, water, or climate can upset the body’s system.

Pray for the guest speaker’s trip, and the dangers of delay, cancellation, and lost luggage.

Pray for the guest speaker’s messages. Time and wisdom for preparation are needed if the ministry is to be effective.

2. Have you considered the person’s gift?

I was once invited to a church for a series of prophetic messages, but I’m an evangelist, not a prophetic teacher. Because I was told up front what I was wanted for, I had the opportunity to decline the invitation. Another evangelist I know was not told until he arrived what kind of messages were expected. Much to his surprise, they were not in the area of his gift.

Four words of caution are in order:

Use guest speakers where they’re best. Consider their ability and your audience. Look at what they speak on the most. Normally, the things they do the most are the things they do the best.

Keep them at their best. Avoid too many services and too much activity. Studies reveal that delivering a thirty-minute message requires the equivalent of four to six hours of physical labor.

Don’t surprise them. Good ministry requires discipline and study. Ask well in advance and give details early.

Let speakers meditate before they minister. Allow them a few minutes before the service to collect their thoughts, and you will be the beneficiary.

3. Are you caring for the person’s needs?

Several years ago a host called me: “We’re looking forward to your meetings and are excited about what God is going to do. Our people are also looking forward to meeting you personally. In fact, we have you staying in a different home every night so you’ll get to know our people and they’ll get to know you.” Fortunately, I was able to convince him I should stay in the same place the entire week and use the evening meal to visit with a different family each night. Otherwise, my effectiveness in the pulpit could have been seriously reduced.

The better you minister to speakers in physical things, the better they can minister to you in spiritual things:

Give them privacy. Offer a choice between a home or a motel. If the speaker prefers a home, make sure it has a private bedroom, preferably with a mirror and desk.

Preserve their energy. The closer to the church they stay, the better.

Protect their reputation. Don’t put them in compromising situations. For example, avoid putting a male speaker in the home of a young wife, especially if she and he are the only ones there during the day.

Provide a car. A map, directions, and the phone number of each essential place will help.

Pay all expenses. Pay the actual cost of travel (now 20 a mile), not just the gas, and send the expense check before arrival.

Give an honorarium. The best policy is to promise a love offering with a guaranteed minimum.

-R. Larry Moyer

- More from R. Larry Moyer

Pastors

LET’S SIMPLIFY!

Charles Swindoll

The scene was thick. The clouds were heavy and dark gray. The mood was tense. It was no time to take a walk in the park or stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue. The smell of death was in the air. A decision was essential. With paper and pen in hand, the long, lank frame of a lonely man sat quietly at his desk. The dispatch he wrote was sent immediately. It shaped the destiny of a nation at war with itself.

It was a simple message … a style altogether his. No ribbons of rhetoric were woven through the note. No satin frills, no enigmatic eloquence. It was plain, direct, brief, to the point. A bearded Army officer soon read it and frowned. It said:

April 7, 1865, 11 a.m.

Lieut. Gen. Grant,

Gen. Sheridan says, “If the thing is pressed, I think that Lee will surrender.”

Let the thing be pressed.

A. Lincoln

Grant nodded in agreement. He did as he was ordered. Exactly two days later at Appomattox Court House, General Robert E. Lee surrendered. “The thing was pressed” and the war was ended.

Simplicity. Profound, exacting, rare simplicity. Lincoln was a master of it. His words live on because of it. When assaulted by merciless critics, many expected a lengthy, complex defense of his actions. It never occurred. When questioned about his feelings, he answered, “I’m used to it.” When asked if the end of the war or some governmental rehabilitation program might be the answer to America’s needs, he admitted quite simply, “Human nature will not change.” In response to a letter demanding the dismissal of the postmaster general, he wrote, “Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.” When encouraged to alter his convictions and push through a piece of defeated legislation by giving it another title, he reacted with typical simplicity, “If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? Five? No, calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg!”

Simplicity. The difference between something being elegant or elaborate. The difference between class and common. Between just enough and too much. Between concentrated and diluted. Between communication and confusion.

Between:

“Hence from my sight-nor let me thus pollute mine eyes with looking on a wretch like thee, thou cause of my ills; I sicken at thy loathsome presence. . . .”

and: “Scram!”

Simplicity. Economy of words mixed with quality of thought held together by subtlety of expression. Practicing a hard-to-define restraint so that some things are left for the listener or reader to conclude on his own. Clear and precise . . . yet not overdrawn. Charles Jehlinger, a former director of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, used to instruct all apprentice actors with five wise words of advice:

“Mean more than you say.”

It has been my observation that we preachers say much too much. Instead of stopping with a concise statement of the forest-explicit and clear-we feel compelled to analyze, philosophize, scrutinize, and moralize over each individual tree . . . leaving the listener weary, unchallenged, confused, and (worst of all!) bored. Zealous to be ultra-accurate, we unload so much trivia the other person loses the thread of thought, not to mention his patience. Bewildered, he wades through the jungle of needless details, having lost his way as well as his interest. Instead of being excited over the challenge to explore things on his own, lured by the anticipation of discovery, he gulps for air in the undertow of our endless waves of verbiage, clichs, and in-house mumbo jumbo.

One dear old lady said of the Welsh preacher John Owen that he was so long spreading the table, she lost her appetite for the meal. I particularly like the way William Sangster put it: “When you’re through the pumpin’, let go the handle.”

The longer I study Jesus’ method of communicating, the more convinced I am that his genius rested in his ability to simplify and clarify issues others had complicated. He used words anyone could understand, not just the initiated. He said just enough to inspire and motivate others to think on their own, to be inquisitive, to search further. And he punctuated his teaching with familiar, earthy, even humorous illustrations that riveted mental handles to abstract truths. Best of all … he didn’t try to impress. Such a captivating style led others to seek his counsel and thrive on his instruction.

As a fellow struggler earning the right to be heard Sunday after Sunday, let me offer this summary:

Make it clear.

Keep it simple.

Emphasize the essentials.

Forget about impressing.

Leave some things unsaid.

Luther made it even more simple:

Start fresh.

Speak out.

Stop short.

We’ve got the greatest message on earth to declare. Most people have either never heard it or they’ve been confused because someone has garbled the issues. Jesus implies, “If the thing is simplified, they will surrender.”

Let the thing be simplified.

-Charles Swindoll

Leadership Spring 1983 p. 61-1

- More from Charles Swindoll

Pastors

RAISINS IN THE OATMEAL: THE ART OF ILLUSTRATING SERMONS

Mark R. Littleton

Anyone who must preach two different sermons on Sunday and a third on Wednesday, plus teach, give children’s sermons, and offer “a few words” here, there, and everywhere, knows the power of good illustrations. They bring fresh air to musty monologues. They grab the heart as well as the head. They help apply truth to life.

That’s why I collect, make up, steal, borrow, and beg them from everyone. My three-by-five card file of illustrations is so cherished I keep a picture of it in my wallet to show friends.

“Get a load of this baby,” I say. “Beautiful tan finish, full of laughter and babble, always ready to raise a smile. Everything from anecdotes to zoology. Of course, there are the occasional messes and 2 A.M. feedings, but its all worth it.”

Even more crucial than keeping the box full is the problem of use: how do I match the right illustration with the right situation? Too often we hear a good joke and instantly begin sniffing for a place to tell it. Any time will do, so long as it occurs in next Sunday’s sermon. We fall into the pit of depending more on our stories to hold the listener than the power of God’s Word and Spirit.

At that point, our illustrations block rather than bring understanding. After all, there is a difference between the almost right illustration and the right one. As Mark Twain said, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.”

Getting the Right Illustration

Three questions are useful in determining an illustration’s efficiency:

Does my point need an illustration? I’m the type who’s terrified of being boring, so I’ve learned to think in analogies and anecdotes. Sometimes I overdo it. If the people understand my point and don’t need further clarification, why use up my ammo? No need to shoot dead geese. My temptation is that if I’ve got a good story, I want to use it now, and if I’ve got two good stories, quotes, or poems, I want to use them all. (Once I got lost in one point with five illustrations. It was fun but foolish.) Life is too short and sermons too long to heap on the burning coals.

So in preparing a sermon, I simply ask, “When I struggled to understand this idea, did I have to create an illustration to explain it? Did I find myself saying, ‘For example . . .’?” This almost always happens when I have something abstract, cerebral, or theological at hand.

Recently in a sermon from Ephesians on “redemption through his blood,” I wanted to make the point that not even “good” people are acceptable candidates for heaven on the basis of their goodness. The natural question was “Why not?” All sorts of abstract answers swirled in my head, but I needed to distill the vaporous abstractions into something my size. My mind roamed over all kinds of things-personal experiences, quotes, analogies.

Finally, I remembered a friend’s bargain with his children, who resisted eating their vegetables. He and his wife decided to let the kids have one “most hated” vegetable they would never have to eat. But they had to eat the rest without argument. Mealtimes improved noticeably.

Suppose God gave us all one most hated commandment and allowed us to ignore that one in heaven. We would, of course, have to obey the rest. Heaven with people just one law less than perfect would be no better than earth. This analogy made the need for redemption clear to me and, hopefully, to the congregation.

Another way to determine whether a point needs illustrating is to try it out on a friend, spouse, or fellow minister. “Do you understand this point?” If our explanation leaves them cold, start searching for illustrations.

Many times, however, a point is clear, and illustrations only clutter the issue. Often the Bible provides its own word picture to explain the truth. Added ingredients, like day-old manna, can turn wormy and stink, spoiling the impact of an already powerful message.

What is my purpose or goal for this point? What do we want to do with an illustration? Consider some legitimate purposes-and some scriptural examples.

1. To clarify a point-Jesus’ parables of the lost coin and sheep.

2. To show a real-life application-much of the Sermon on the Mount.

3. To convict of sin-Nathan’s parable to David of the poor man’s sheep.

4. To inspire and move to action-the parables of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan.

5. To convince someone of truth-Paul reminding the Athenians of “the unknown god.”

6. To make truth memorable-Jesus’ unique sayings, such as the camel passing through the eye of a needle.

Pinpointing my purpose helps me see what I want the illustration to accomplish. If I want to convict of sin, I am not going to use a light, inspirational story. I must speak in specific terms of sins people in my congregation may not be aware they are committing. Several times I have confused people by telling something funny in the midst of a serious point, and everyone got off track. A serious illustration would have been much wiser.

What kind of illustration best suits my purpose? To answer this third question, I consult my files, library, friends, and memory for quantity. Then I select the best one on the basis of quality. That is one reason I believe in gathering illustrations by the bale. Quantity usually yields quality.

Certain general categories fit certain purposes. For instance, analogies and made-up stories are often excellent to enlighten. Object lessons, anecdotes, cross-references, and word studies are also good.

Sometimes, on the other hand, something light is necessary. In one sermon I wanted to say our world would never have peace until Jesus returned. I knew some people would take a dim view of that. I needed something light but enlightening. I tried a story about a dour Englishman seated on a train between two ladies arguing about the window. One claimed she would die of heat stroke if it wasn’t opened. The other said she would expire of pneumonia if it didn’t stay closed. The ladies called the conductor, who didn’t know how to solve the problem. Finally, the gentleman spoke up. “First, open the window. That will kill the one. Then close it. That will kill the other. Then we will have peace.” Everyone in the congregation, regardless of political stripe, could appreciate the story.

To move people to action, several ingredients are necessary. First, the proposed action must be clear. That means many quickie examples of how to do what you are asking. Often, this is preceded by “like.” “Like when your mother-in-law says . . .” Second, the illustration must end with a clear exhortation. Give an example of a person who responded correctly. People need positive illustrations of what they’re to do.

To convict an audience of something-sin, personal need, lostness-there is a different route: the listener must identify with the illustration. Personal experiences are valuable here as well as situations and roleplays-anything that involves people with the story.

For instance, I wanted my congregation to see the need for trust in God even when they don’t know all the hows and whys. I told about my diphtheria/tetanus shot when I was seven years old.

“It won’t hurt,” the doctor assured me. “Just keep thinking that it’s not going to hurt, and everything will be OK.”

But it did hurt. My arm was still sore the next day, and I demanded an explanation from my mother. Why did I have a sore arm?

She couldn’t explain the physiological causes of my pain, nor could she explain to my satisfaction how the vaccine could prevent diphtheria. Finally she said, “Mark, I know you don’t understand, but you do know I love you, and this shot was something we had to do to protect you.”

Because I trusted my mom, I was able to accept the pain.

The people in the congregation could identify-most had experienced the same feelings. Deep inside, they knew the difference between trust and understanding-and that trust sometimes must precede knowledge. But the illustration brought to the surface what they already knew down deep.

In order to convince, an illustration must have authority. Sources with unquestioned authority-scientific reports, research, statistics, quotes from well-known people-may not absolutely prove the point, but most people find them convincing.

Finally if the purpose is to make a point memorable, other elements are crucial: simplicity, uniqueness, usefulness, truthfulness, and most of all, vividness. An Arab proverb says, “The best speaker is he who turns ears into eyes.” In fact, I recall reading that proverb only once, but because of its vividness, it stuck.

Consider some of these memorable expressions that I never tried to memorize but were instantly nailed to my mind. From Haddon Robinson: “A mist in the pulpit is a fog in the pew.” Howard Hendricks: “You can’t build a skyscraper on a chicken coop foundation.” Tony Campolo: “I’m sick and tired of people playing a thousand verses of ‘Just as I Am,’ who come down just as they are, and go out just as they were.”

Using the Right Illustration

Simply placing the right illustration with the right point is not enough. Good preparation includes good declaration. Here are some suggestions for serving illustrations hot.

1. Don’t waste time getting into the story. Get in and get out. Don’t overexplain, apologize, or make other unnecessary comments such as “I found this perfect illustration the other day. . . .” Such comments challenge the listener to prove us wrong rather than to wait eagerly for the story.

2. Make sure the people know what you’re illustrating. Too often they remember the illustration and forget the point. Why? We don’t rivet the point to the illustration by repeating it before and after.

3. Make sure your illustration doesn’t overshadow your point. Many ripping good stories rip up the house and the sermon. All the people get is a good laugh.

4. Be excited about the illustration. If I’m not convinced it’s interesting and worthwhile, the audience won’t be. If I can’t generate enthusiasm about the material, I can hardly support it with the luster of a convincing rendition. Rather, I rend it to shreds.

5. Make sure it’s believable and true. On one occasion, when I had converted a devotional-guide story to first-person, my father remarked, “It sounded bogus to me.” Some speakers say that putting yourself into a story, whether you really were there or not, is legitimate. But it can also create distrust. I have heard several well-known preachers use anecdotes I’ve read in old illustration books. They tell them as though the experience happened to them. Their credibility is destroyed.

6. Make sure people will identify with the illustration. Arthur Miller, the playwright, once said that if he came away from a play exclaiming, “That was me!” it was a success. When I see myself in it, that often indicates a potent illustration.

7. Be sure of your facts. One night I referred to a book and said the author had died recently. A student in the group nearly shot out of his seat. “Good grief! I just heard him last week at seminary. You mean he died over the weekend?”

I choked, looked for the door, and confessed, “I think I got the name wrong.” Where’s the grave? I wanted to crawl in.

8. Be visual. Visual speaking creates pictures in the listeners’ minds. It uses sharp verbs and nouns, few adjectives. Lots of color and specifics. No fuzzy generalities, just hard slabs of meaning.

Illustrating sermons is one of preaching’s most gratifying and challenging tasks. If an illustration is too big for its britches, it tends to break a sermon. If it’s too little, the sermon comes across with the clout of a feather. But the right illustration, used well, makes preaching not only interesting but effective.

Mark Littleton is pastor of Berea Baptist Church, Glen Burnie, Maryland.

Leadership Spring 1983 p. 63-7

- More from Mark R. Littleton

Pastors

The Facts and Feelings of Overwork

Jack and Ann Wald

Do you live with the nagging sense that there’s always something more you should be doing?

It was Tuesday morning. Monday, my day of rest, was over, and I was sitting at my desk. As usual it was littered with mail and papers. I had phone calls to make, meetings to prepare for, and a list of people to visit. Already my appointment book was filled for the week.

It was like standing in front of a dam with twenty-two holes leaking water and knowing I had only ten fingers and ten toes to plug them. So much was happening, and my energies were so dispersed that I felt I lacked the strength to accomplish one task, let alone all of them.

Overwork is a feeling-a subjective, internal experience of being overwhelmed by your job. Others may label it fatigue, frustration, stress, or pressure. Because we are taught to live on faith, not feelings, we tend to deny or ignore our negative feelings. Unfortunately, pretending we don’t feel overworked, when we do, does not solve the problem. Ignored, the feeling refuses to go away.

My feeling may be compounded with guilt when I’m reminded of the benefits of full-time pastoring. After all, my hours are flexible, I have the privilege of helping fulfill the Great Commission, and I have an influential position in the community and the personal lives of my congregation. Why should I complain?

But in spite of the benefits, in spite of an honest enjoyment of being a minister, the treadmill feeling still surfaces. Why?

The surprising fact is that feeling overworked has very little to do with the number of hours a minister puts in. Though some of the diverse tasks in the ministry are time-consuming, cutting back on hours does little to alleviate the feeling. It’s simply not the volume of work that makes a pastor feel overworked.

A pastor who spends seventy hours a week preaching, teaching, counseling, and administrating may not feel the slightest twinge of overwork. On the other hand, a pastor putting in 50 hours a week may feel hopelessly bogged down.

If it’s not the work load, then, what does cause pastors to feel overworked? After talking with twelve other pastors, I’ve discovered several factors.

One of the most obvious causes is that ministry involves intimate contact with people problems-problems that originate from sin. Pastors can’t just yank out the root of the problem. They need the deft skill of a surgeon to cut it away without damaging the people involved.

“I came back from vacation and immediately got four phone calls about who was and who wasn’t going to teach in the new Sunday school trailer,” said one pastor. “People got nasty over the issue, and suddenly I was caught in the middle of four personality clashes.”

It’s tiring to deal with sin. Emotional and spiritual energy is drained. Pastors who put distance between themselves and the people can’t be effective; they have to be involved. And being involved means being susceptible to feeling overworked.

This same pastor also shared how struggling with a decision whether to perform the wedding of two previously married people had siphoned off his energy as he stayed awake at night wrestling with the problem. It was not the amount of time spent deciding, or even the late hours, that made him feel overworked. It was the total involvement of himself.

Unlike an hour counseling a couple considering divorce, an hour spent chatting about sports is not emotionally draining. It’s the difference between a bucketful of feathers and a bucketful of rocks. The measured amount is the same, but the scales tell a different story. People don’t cause a pastor to feel overworked, but dealing with their hurts can.

Every day, pastors deal with life-and-death issues-spiritual salvation, physical death, depression, marital problems. The stakes are high. When the air traffic controllers were on strike, one of their chief complaints was that no one realized the tremendous stress from being responsible for the lives of people. In the spiritual realm, being a shepherd of a flock is an equally heavy load. We are entrusted with the spiritual health of our congregation, an awesome responsibility.

What is the key to dealing with the stress of this responsibility? Dave Philips, pastor of the Old Greenwich Presbyterian Church in Connecticut, says a thriving devotional life is crucial.

“I’m just like Peter. As long as my eyes are on Jesus, I’m fine. But the minute I take them off and become slack in my devotional life, I begin to be swamped by the needs and problems of people and sink into the water.”

It’s important to remember that ultimately the responsibility for people and their problems does not belong to me. They are God’s people; I am only a caretaker. When I slip into the attitude that my actions will determine a person’s future, I am replacing my role as God’s servant with the role of God himself. Reading God’s Word and spending time in prayer reminds me that the responsibility for people lies not with me, but with God.

The Pinball Mentality

Feeling overworked can also come from the unpredictable schedule of the ministry. A person with rigid work hours looks at the pastor’s freedom and says, “Boy, I wish I could have that flexibility.”

But the blessing is also a curse. A pastor has to be available when people’s needs demand it, not when it’s convenient. As a result, a pastor is never really free from his job. People’s needs do not operate on a timetable. A pastor can’t punch a timecard at 5 P.M. and say, “Well, that’s all for today.”

Consequently, time management skills are limited in their usefulness. Even if you’ve attended every seminar on the subject, interruptions are still going to wreak havoc in a neatly organized day.

“I blocked out three hours for sermon preparation one day and got interrupted four times. I basically got nothing done, and shifting gears back and forth was a tiring process,” said one pastor. Another pastor said, “I was busy all day, but I only hit 60 percent of what I planned to accomplish. That’s frustrating!”

True emergencies, however, do not cause the frustration. A call at 2 A.M. from a teenager contemplating suicide is anything but irritating. But interruptions over details can be annoying. “It’s the peripheral things-like how many cookies we need for the church social-that tire me out,” commented one pastor. “They’re important, but they’re not important.”

Interruptions make a pastor feel he’s not getting anything done. The pastor trying to write his sermon feels that all he is doing is answering the phone and attending to urgent hut not necessarily important details. He’s frustrated because his attention has been constantly pulled away from the task at hand.

It’s tempting to give up scheduling altogether and simply respond to whatever comes your way like a pinball being thrown from one bumper to another. Priorities are more difficult to live by than circumstances. But priorities can free a pastor from enslavement to interruptions and circumstances.

Nothing can take the place of a well-organized schedule and the ability to say no to unimportant requests. Planning ahead is the basic principle in dealing with interruptions. Accept them as a way of life and don’t schedule preparation for the youth retreat talk at the last minute. Procrastination only invites Murphy’s Law. Interruptions seem to multiply when there is only one hour left for a job that must get done.

The diversity of the ministry is another benefit that can trip up a pastor. Doing five different tasks in one day will make anyone feel splintered, unable to work at maximum efficiency. Dave Philips copes with the variety of the ministry by having one day for each major activity. Monday he works on administration. Tuesday, he’s involved with lay training. Wednesday is set aside for study, and Thursday for sermon preparation. Friday is his day off, and Saturday is discretionary, to relax or catch up. Sunday afternoon is for counseling and visiting. Some weeks, following this schedule is not possible, but having a day for each area does concentrate his efforts.

General priorities and goals can also minimize feeling overworked. “I’ve stopped trying to be effective in every area,” said Tom Parsons, associate pastor of St. Giles’ Presbyterian Church in Richmond, Virginia. “Last spring I concentrated on the singles program. This fall I’ve been focusing on the high school program.”

Zeroing in on the needs of a particular group enables Tom to function more efficiently and with less frustration. The group receives the full strength of his energies and expertise.

Another factor leading to overwork is that pastors are always identified with their calling. People rarely see them apart from their ministry.

“One reason why I feel overworked is that as a minister, who I am and what I do are one and the same. Anywhere, anytime, with anyone, I’m expected to be the minister,” says the pastor of a rural church.

The distinction between job and self can be nonexistent for a pastor. Whether I’m helping the local emergency squad sell sloppy joes or meeting a stranger in town, the fusion of identity with work makes pastoring a never-ending job.

A minister needs to be a whole person, not just fill the role of cleric. Taking time to be with family, developing nonministry friendships, and pursuing a hobby or sports-anything that’s a change of pace- helps bring wholeness. These activities remind me that the ministry exists without me and that I have common interests with most people in the community.

One minister is a serious photographer. When he’s trying to capture the right mood in his lens, he’s not thinking about his role as a pastor; he’s a photographer.

For me, building bookshelves on my day off transfers my mind from the stresses of the ministry to the feeling of solid accomplishment when I put the finishing touches on the shelf. It’s a reminder that there is more to my life than being a minister.

Great Expectations

Everyone who works, whether a housewife, teacher, or banker, likes to say at the end of the day, “Here’s what I accomplished.” But pastoring works on a different premise, what the author of Hebrews calls “the conviction of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.” Results in the ministry cannot be manufactured in assembly line fashion. But without visible results, pastors may feel tremendously overworked.

One pastor recalls how the lack of results in a special Lenten Bible series affected him. “I didn’t have to do it, but I thought it would be useful. I worked hard to develop it, but the response was not commensurate with the investment of time. It made me feel fatigued and frustrated.” Another pastor said, “A lot of frustration comes from not being able to measure what you’ve done. I come out of a three-hour committee meeting and ask, ‘What did we accomplish?’ “

Work without measurable achievement becomes a discouraging job. Imagine the physical and emotional weariness of a mountain climber when, after four hours of climbing, he finds himself back at his starting point. If this happens a second time, he’s going to start questioning his reason for climbing, as well as the guidebook.

It’s no wonder that pastors become preoccupied with numbers. It provides visible results. We can’t measure spiritual growth, but we can count the number of warm bodies in the sanctuary. We can’t see the effect of our preaching, but we know if giving has increased.

Lack of results in one area of ministry may not discourage a pastor if things are happening in another area. But without visible results, pastors will naturally question the value of their work. Pastors feel overworked, not because of the time spent preparing a sermon and visiting members, but because the time apparently has been spent in vain.

When I’m not seeing results, I begin to be weighed down by guilt that I’m not doing enough, and I become even more overwhelmed by the task. “If I only were working harder and longer,” goes the reasoning, “perhaps I’d see results.”

How can you counteract the discouragement of invisible results? A strong calling to the ministry in general and specifically to the church where you are can help. “With a sense of call, you get comfort and assurance,” says Paul Toms, pastor of Park Street Church in Boston. “Even if you don’t see results, you trust that God has put you where you are for a good reason.”

Knowing God has called you gives you patience to persevere. The results may be buried under the surface, or they may just take time to develop. Dave Philips says, “I’ve been here eight years and I spent a good three or four years building a foundation. Years five, six, seven, and eight have seen tremendous fruit.”

Affirmation also helps. It’s like a form of spiritual credit. Howard Varner, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Wheeling, West Virginia, found affirmation lifted him off the merry-go-round of result seeking. “A few months ago, for the first time in my twenty-one years of ministry, the church board said, ‘Thank you for what you’re doing.’ I can’t tell you how much that meant to me.”

A pastor’s drive for results may turn him into a program pusher, a spiritual salesman trying to sell his congregation on the latest evangelism method or film series, hoping that it will unlock hidden potential. Pushing a program contributes to feeling overworked. One pastor commented, “If programs are generated out of the life of the church, fine. But I served in one church where the senior pastor and I were creating programs and then having to sell them to the congregation. Having to justify a program was very draining.”

Programs that originate with the people or meet the true needs of the congregation are usually not a problem. But when pastors want to see results and think the responsibility for maintaining the life of the church depends on them, they often create programs that don’t satisfy the needs of the people. Those programs end up as deadwood.

There’s a theological issue at the center of program pushing. Who is the church? When I see myself as the church, then I place on myself not only the responsibility for initiating programs but carrying them out as well. When I see the people as the church, I am free to examine their wants and needs, allowing them to shape the life of the church.

A pastor is a leader, a visionary, a guide for his flock. But if the sheep do not follow, the pastor is not to abdicate and become a sheep. He needs to examine why they aren’t following and decide how they can be persuaded to follow.

An associate pastor who was pushing programs decided he was tired of being a manipulator and cajoling people to do what he thought should be done. When he came to his present church as pastor, he decided that if something failed because no one was interested, he was not going to fight it. He stopped imposing his agenda on the church.

He has not been inundated with requests for new programs. “Historically, this is not a busy church,” he says. But he is at peace because his definition of success has changed from having several high-powered programs to being faithful to the people over whom he has charge. He no longer feels overworked because he spends his time caring for people, not manipulating them.

Breaking the Tyranny

It’s not easy to deal with feeling overworked. We may not want to acknowledge the problem, but strong feelings that are pushed under eventually resurface with even greater intensity. Just admitting you feel overworked and being aware of why you feel that way is a big step in easing the pressure.

As one minister commented, “Learning how to cope with feeling overworked takes minutes to learn, but a lifetime to master. Feeling overworked won’t disappear overnight, but it’s important to realize there is hope. For above all, we have the assurance of Christ that his yoke is easy and his burden is light. He will help us carry the load.

OVERCOMING OVERWORK

Besides understanding the problem and admitting it exists, here are five specific ways of neutralizing the feelings of overwork:

1. Evaluate your expectations and schedule. Set aside a few hours for this task and be prepared to ask yourself some hard questions. Do your expectations for yourself and your goals match up with your abilities and limitations? Does your schedule look like that of a superman? (Your spouse may help you be honest with your answer.) Have your good intentions for church growth caused you to push programs that don’t really meet the needs of the congregation? With the answers to these questions you can begin to make some changes in your schedule by dropping unnecessary activities and modifying your expectations.

2. Negotiate a specific job description. Some church boards may be reluctant to do this, especially if they’ve never done it before. You can facilitate the process by writing up a tentative job description and presenting it as a possibility. Or you could go over a normal week’s schedule with them and let them see exactly what you do with your time. Agreeing on what is expected frees you from trying to meet invisible or unrealistic expectations.

3. Plan for interruptions. It sounds simple, but if you stop pretending they don’t happen and start writing them into your schedule you can ease a lot of frustration. Accepting them as a normal part of your routine enables you to have some degree of control over them.

4. Play deep. Have a hobby or sport as an outlet for the frustrations and tensions of the ministry. An activity with immediate and definite results can balance the lack of results and gives you a sense of accomplishment and identity outside of the ministry. It can help also give you a proper perspective on who you are as a person and remind you that some of your needs can and should be met outside of the ministry.

5. Concentrate on family relationships. Spending time with the most important people in your life not only builds self-esteem, it restores your energy and renews your vision. A healthy family life prevents the tendency to be consumed by the ministry and supplies love and encouragement from people who see you in terms of who you are, not what you do.

Jack Wald pastors United Presbyterian churches in Smithfield and Piney Fork, Ohio. His wife, Ann, is a writer.

- More from Jack and Ann Wald

Pastors

FROM THE EDITOR

Terry C. Muck

Dean Gordon Johnson was serious. “Bethel Seminary students who relieve their study with laughter usually end up as the most satisfied pastors.”

I listened to that freshman orientation talk ten years ago hoping Dean Johnson was correct. I liked to laugh. As far as I was concerned, the perfect way to end a tedious day of study was a good practical joke in some corner of the library. I was relieved to know Dean Johnson also thought that humor and religion mix.

Apparently the readers of LEADERSHIP share that bias. Hardly a day goes by without our getting a letter or reader survey commending our cartoons. This one came in recently from Maureen Rufe, an evangelist with Diatheke Ministries:

“Do you have any idea what your cartoons are doing to me? They’re giving me a wonderful sense of humor. Many adorn the walls of my counseling room, and I give them to depressed counselees-they’re smiling in no time. Humor is a wonderful medicine prescribed by God to keep us from taking ourselves too seriously.”

LEADERSHIPS humor druggists are the artists who supply us with cartoons. Some of them are pastors, some are not. They have different styles, personalities, and interests. In three years of publishing, we’ve used 250 cartoons drawn by over forty different artists. Three of those, because of both their quantity and quality, have become regulars.

Rob Portlock, a milkman in Lompoc, California, has had forty-five cartoons published in LEADERSHIP. Rob, now thirty years old, has wanted to be a cartoonist for as long as he can remember. He started sending editorial cartoons to a local newspaper five years ago and then realized some of the same issues he addressed in the political arena applied to church administrators.

“I think God used that time of editorial cartooning as a way to help me be more sensitive to my church life. Doing cartoons has helped me be more realistic about my own walk with Christ. And I really get a thrill when a LEADERSHIP reader gives me a call to thank me for one of my cartoons. I even got a letter from a Christian magazine in China that wanted to reprint one.”

Larry Thomas never drew a cartoon in his life before one of our staff members saw a promotional piece he did for a Christian magazine. We asked him to take a crack at some LEADERSHIP cartoons. The result has been a continuous string of well-crafted winners.

Larry is a forty-four-year-old freelance artist living in Elgin, Illinois. He was born in Kansas and spent three years in the army’s psychological warfare division, illustrating leaflets and propaganda material in Southeast Asia. Since then he’s held a variety of art jobs, the most recent as executive art director of David C. Cook Publishing Company, before going into business for himself last year.

“I think LEADERSHIP cartoons give church leaders a miniature vacation,” says Larry. “That’s how I feel when I’m working on them. I sit at my art board and start jotting down one-line descriptions of church activities-not even funny activities. After I get a number of these, I start twisting them around, looking for the humorous angle. At the same time I start doing real quick sketches, and pretty soon something clicks.”

Mary Chambers was a portrait artist three years ago when her father, Boyce Mouton, a Christian Church minister, asked her to draw some cartoon ideas he had. They sent them to LEADERSHIP, we bought most of them, and the team of Mouton-Chambers was born.

“My dad’s a minister, my husband’s a minister, and my father-in-law’s a minister,” she says, “so I love ministers dearly. But they do take themselves a bit too seriously sometimes, so I love to pick out the little quirks that show they’re really very human.”

Sensitivity to detail has always been one of Mary’s traits. She loved studying Greek at Ozark Bible College, and she also speaks French and Spanish. Right now she speaks “young child” fluently to her three- and one-year-old children.

“My dad thought up the ideas for my first cartoons, but pretty soon I started getting ideas of my own, and finally I began drawing them. The first one came from watching my husband practice his sermon in front of the bedroom mirror. I was pretty sure almost all ministers do that (especially young ones) but not one in ten will admit it.

“So I drew a dramatic minister saying, ‘Brimstone!’ with a flamboyant gesture in front of a full-length mirror. I showed it to my dad, and he said, ‘What’s this? That’s not very funny.’ But I sent it in anyway.”

We thought it was so good we blew it up to a full page, and it won the Evangelical Press Association’s cartoon of the year award.

One of the keys to growing in mature Christian commitment is the ability to see things truthfully-the warts, the petty jealousies, the failures only a fallen nature can create. Before we can do anything about our shortcomings, we have to raise them to a conscious level.

A good cartoon can make us aware of an inadequacy, and do it in such a way that the tension is relieved instead of aggravated. What a wonderful gift that is-the freedom to laugh about such deadly serious business.

Rob Portlock, Larry Thomas, and Mary Chambers love to make people laugh. But when we asked them why they like to draw cartoons, the answers always boiled down to life-changing ministry.

“God uses it,” said Larry Thomas.

We pray he’ll continue to use it in LEADERSHIP.

Terry C. Muck is editor of LEADERSHIP.

- More from Terry C. Muck

Pastors

Starting Out and Staying In

Douglas J. Rumford

Young pastors long for respect, but at least three battles have to be won first.

I’ve sometimes wished I could hibernate for about ten years and emerge as a more mature, experienced pastor. While our culture idolizes youth, most churches also desire the wisdom and experience of age. The perfect pastor is thirty-five with at least twenty-five years of experience!

Age and experience are, of course, significant in many careers, but the ministry possesses an age dynamic different from other professions. Young pastors are immediately thrust into positions of leadership with people their parents’ and grandparents’ age.

In my second year out of seminary, I was invited to speak at a church renewal weekend. After my first message Friday night, an eighty-two-year-old member told my wife, “When I saw how young he was, I was sure he wouldn’t have anything to say to me. Fortunately, I was wrong.” When my wife relayed the message to me, I winced because I understood her initial impression. After all, what right do I have to teach a person nearly three times my age?

Three primary issues challenge the young pastor’s self-concept from the start: idealism, inadequacies, and intimidation. How we respond will do much to set the tone for future ministry.

The Test of Idealism

“My idealism was shot the first week I arrived at this church,” one friend told me. A trustee had taken him aside his first Sunday and said, “I’m sure you have great ideas for things to do here, but most of the people will be happy if you just stick to preaching.”

Graduates leave seminary and Bible college ready to change the world. They carry a pocketful of programs to lay on some unsuspecting congregation. Visions of superchurches dance in their heads. All this is fine. In fact, this energy and motivation stoke the engines necessary for ministry start-up. J. I. Packer once said, “A task without vision is drudgery; a task with vision is ministry.”

But how does the congregation view a young pastor’s idealism? Much depends not so much on the ideas themselves but on the tone with which they’re presented. If the people sense condescension-“Have I got a plan for you!”-they’ll likely reject the plan. A congregation is really asking the pastor, “Do you understand us?” They want to see that the pastor truly knows them and is seeking their best interests. They won’t simply sign up for the pastor’s ego trip.

Another concern is the cost. Congregations want to know if these plans and their implications have been clearly thought through. They realize that they may be left with a half-built program tower that can’t be completed.

Whether a congregation responds with outright rejection or the subtle frustrations of heel-dragging, the young pastor’s ideals will be challenged. This is natural, and this realization alone can be a comfort. Nevertheless, the wrong reactions to this testing time can undermine effective ministry.

One negative response is resentment. The lack of receptivity can breed impatience and a spirit of accusation. In Life Together, Bonhoeffer counters this attitude: “A pastor should not complain about his congregation, certainly never to other people, but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to him in order that he should become its accuser before God and men.”

A second negative response is shifting the accusing gaze from the congregation to yourself. Unrealized ideals may germinate seeds of disillusionment. Initiative erodes. The call is questioned. The pastor is tormented with doubts: Am I doing enough? Is this really where I belong? Am I being wasted here? The choice seems to be between forsaking the vision or moving on in search of a more fertile field.

But there’s another alternative: refashion the vision. Shared vision involves lots of time, study, and discussion. The foundation must be laid. One pastor came to a church and within his first year proposed they begin the Bethel Bible series for adult education. The congregation thought differently. The defeat hurt, but he took a different approach. He began to whet their appetites for Bible study through small groups and short Bible courses. Three years later, they eagerly entered the Bethel program.

The joy comes from seeking God’s will together. We learn from each other. One of our elders said to me recently, “I began to get more excited about my church work when I realized you ministers didn’t have a corner on the market of God’s will.”

The Exposure of Inadequacies

The weaknesses of even the most capable pastors are exposed on the barren heights of ministry. How can I call these people to prayer when my own prayer life is so erratic? How can I expect to lead God’s people when I can’t control my anger? I can hardly balance my own checkbook; how am I supposed to understand the church budget? Where will I ever get the wisdom for these counseling problems? What do I do when I run out of good sermon ideas?

Soon the realization dawns: the ministry is an impossible task. The magnitude of the responsibility is staggering-to minister to the spiritual, intellectual, social, and emotional needs of people of all ages, in all stages of spiritual development. Eternity hangs in the balance.

In the plan of God, realizing our inadequacy is actually the stepping stone to effective ministry. We remain mired in discouragement only until we realize that we are inadequate and always will be. God planned it that way! Feelings of inadequacy loosen their chilling grip when we see that they are actually messengers of God’s grace. In The Person Reborn, Paul Tournier writes, “In this world, our task is not so much to avoid mistakes, as to be fruitful. To be more and more able to recognize our faults, so as to be better able to understand the price of God’s mercy, and to devote ourselves more completely to him, makes our lives more fertile. … Our vocation is, I believe, to build good out of evil. For if we try to build good out of good, we are in danger of running out of raw material.”

The glory of God is his use of frail, earthen vessels to bear eternal treasures.

A friend of mine became senior pastor of a 600-member church at the age of thirty. In spite of his outward success, he was plagued daily by feelings of inadequacy. As he prayed about this, he felt led to call two of his lay leaders. When they arrived, he said, “I’d like you to lay hands on me and pray for my healing.”

They were somewhat taken aback. “Pray for your healing? Why? What’s wrong?”

“I’m shattered by a feeling of inadequacy.” He went on to describe how this feeling focused his attention on himself. It robbed him of all freedom and confidence in the Lord.

“When they laid hands on me,” he told me sometime later, “I was healed of my feeling-but not of my inadequacy itself! My inadequacy is a fact; we’re all inadequate. But God released me from my fears and discouragement to be a servant to the body of Christ.”

In addition to stimulating dependence on God, our inadequacy also calls us to rely on others. As much as pastors may preach on community, it will not happen without interdependence. And interdependence cannot happen without the disclosure of weakness and need. The pastor-on-the-pedestal ends right here.

We admire successful people, but we don’t feel close to them unless we know about their struggles. Perfection, real or perceived, imposes distance; weakness unites. Someone said, “The only nice thing about being imperfect is the joy it brings to others.” Beyond the cynicism, there’s a profound truth: when we admit our inadequacy, it helps forge a mutual ministry between pastor and people. Far from being a curse, openness about our shortcomings can strengthen all involved. We can call forth others’ gifts to compensate for our weaknesses.

The Threat of Intimidation

A young pastor can feel intimidated by the pillars of the church-the large givers, the successful professionals, any number of people. Few young pastors are paralyzed by intimidation, but there’s usually one group or person the pastor perceives as a threat to his leadership. Often these thoughts aren’t rational. But neither is intimidation. Evidently, Timothy struggled with this. Paul wrote, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young” (1 Tim. 4:12). The greatest danger of intimidation is that we begin to devalue ourselves.

To compensate, some young pastors use distance. They become formal and careful to “follow the book” so that there’s no risk or cause for accusation. Others respond with drive. They turn on the bravado and forge ahead with great shows of confidence. Others respond with reluctance to take up God’s call. We see this reticence in Jeremiah. When God called him, he cried out, “Ah, Sovereign Lord, I do not know how to speak; I am only a child” (Jer. 1:6). But the critical factor in God’s eye isn’t chronology; it’s call.

Our identity in Christ is our greatest asset. When we let go of defensiveness, we can enjoy the freedom of accepting ourselves and others and building a partnership with the people of God.

Rob is a sixty-two-year-old businessman in our congregation who I always felt was antagonistic. During my sermons he would sit with arms folded and brow wrinkled. He seemed to be saying, “I dare you to say something to me.” After about a year, he seemed to soften. Following a service he said to me, “I think you have what it takes to be a preacher. I’d love to hear you in twenty years.” I could only think, Do I write off my preaching for the next nineteen years?

Then last Christmas I received a note from Rob in response to a sermon I preached on peace. He wrote:

At age sixty-two, I’ve probably got at least thirty-five years on you, and time and circumstances have had a better chance at me. So I was pleasantly surprised to listen to your sermon and application of John 14:27.

I’ll not be around when you reach age sixty-two, but if I could, it would be interesting to hear you preach again on this verse. You’ll probably say about the same thing, but with pauses as you remember all that has happened in your life, and those you have known and loved-and what peace they have found in this life.

Rob has taught me much. He has shown me the need to consider the depth and breadth of experience in the people I serve. “You’ll probably say the same thing, but with pauses”-what a profound insight into the meaning of maturity. The firmly believed but quickly spoken words of youth will grow weightier and fuller as we experience God’s faithfulness over the years. It will be time to slow down and savor his grace.

Youth is something we all outgrow-much to the regret of many. Personally, rather than fight the fact of age, I want to enjoy the process of maturing daily in Christ. I don’t expect the problems of idealism, inadequacy, and intimidation to disappear with the passing of time; they’ll just change clothes. One principle remains: when God calls, we dare not let youth, or age for that matter, be a barrier. There’s no time to hibernate, only time to grow.

Douglas J. Rumford is pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Fairfield, Connecticut.

- More from Douglas J. Rumford

Pastors

IDEAS THAT WORK

Dale McClure

Help for weak congregational singing

After four weeks, Jim knew something was wrong. The people in the “daughter” church weren’t singing like they had in the old congregation.

Jim was the lay music director of our mission church. A month earlier we had begun the new congregation with eighty people, and already the attendance was over 100.

They had one problem, however-weak congregational singing. Many of Jim’s members were the same people who had participated in the exhilarating worship at the mother church. There, enthusiastic singing seemed easy and natural.

“It’s not the same,” he said one day on his lunch hour. “What can I do?”

As we talked over burgers and fries, we discovered that what we did at the mother church of 800 could be done with his 100. In fact, these principles could be adapted to almost any congregation to encourage better singing.

First, good congregational singing starts with the congregation knowing why they are singing.

Each Sunday we determine if the purpose of the service is worship, instruction, fellowship, or evangelism. While all these functions of the body of Christ may overlap, or may sometimes occur simultaneously, we try to focus on one or two functions. After we have determined the function, we make sure that everything in the service supports the function-including the congregational singing.

If our goal is worship, then our congregational singing will be songs of praise, adoration, or thanksgiving. If our goal is instruction, then we choose songs that amplify and reinforce the particular biblical doctrine or principle for the day. If our goal is fellowship, then the content of the songs is not nearly as important as whether the people enjoy singing them. If the goal for the service is evangelism, we choose songs that proclaim the gospel in a manner that is easily understood by unbelievers.

And in the service, either at the outset in a statement from the pulpit, or while introducing the songs, or in the printed bulletin, we tell the congregation why and to whom we are singing these particular songs.

Educating our congregation to the purpose of the service, how their singing relates to that purpose, and to whom they are to sing are the first steps toward good singing.

The second thing that contributes to strong congregational singing is clear leadership.

The leader needs to be visible. Whether we use a single song-leader, a leader playing an instrument, or a full choir and orchestra, visibility is important. By seeing the leadership, the congregation responds better than to an unknown source from behind a screen, from an organ well, or from a balcony.

The leader must be audible. For the nonmusician in the pew, it is not enough to see a conductor. The song-leader needs to sing. I was a composition major, not a vocalist. My voice teacher said my voice was made for cooling soup. I will never be a soloist, but I use my voice to lead our congregation to better singing.

If the leader’s voice is weak, use a microphone. If you lead from a piano, organ, or some other instrument, make sure your voice can be heard above it. If a choir is leading, make sure they are audible. The leader needs to give clear signals as to tempo, starts, and stops. The leader should use standard conducting patterns if possible.

Nonmusicians in the congregation are more comfortable about what to do when they follow a leader. It is much easier to follow when that leadership is clearly understood, easily heard, and highly visible.

A third important contribution is good accompaniment.

Good accompaniment starts with the introduction, which should establish the key, set the tempo, and remind those who don’t read music of the tune. Long or elaborate introductions are seldom necessary. Two to eight measures (first and last phrases) are usually sufficient.

We vary the instrumental accompaniment often, using instruments other than piano and organ. For instance, we use classical guitar and flute for “Blest Be the Tie That Binds” and folk guitar for “Jesus, Name Above All Names.” We use a full rhythm section (drums, bass guitar, rhythm guitar, and percussion) when we sing “The Lord Is Good.” Our string quartet accompanies us when we sing “Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee” and “O How He Loves You and Me.” The brass section is a natural for “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” and “And Can It Be.” Our congregation loves to sing with a full orchestra; therefore, we assemble one often. Our people are most enthusiastic when the timpani roll, the violins are playing above the staff, the cymbals crash, and the woodwinds trill on “Crown Him with Many Crowns.” It often moves me to the point of visualizing what it will be like with Jesus.

We sing a capella, too. No instruments accompany us when we sing “Fairest Lord Jesus” or “I Love You Lord, and I Lift My Voice.”

Accompaniments for various instrumental combinations are available from several different publishers. We have purchased and use the orchestrations for Great Hymns of the Faith from Singspiration. We also like the instrumental edition of Baptist Hymnal from Convention Press. Lillenas publishes 500 Hymns for Instruments as well as an orchestration to their Praise and Worship hymnal. I write many of our own orchestrations so that our particular combination of instruments will be used to the best advantage.

A fourth thing that has helped our singing is the use of special arrangements for the congregation.

I often make very simple arrangements by putting together medleys of related choruses, making modulations within a song, reharmonizing a last stanza, or adding a descant.

For example, we sing “The Lord Is Good,” “God Is So Good,” and “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” in medley-all in the key of D. Sometimes we add a second chorus of “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” in E-flat. We almost always make a key change on the last stanza of “Amazing Grace” and “Jesus Paid It All.” The reharmonization of “The Comforter Has Come” makes the song come alive for our people. Some other excellent reharmonizations are printed in Hymns for the Family of God from Paragon.

The same hymnal is a good source of descants. On a last stanza, try having the congregation sing the melody while sopranos and tenors in the choir sing a descant. Descants can also be found in Festive Descants for Joyful Worship from Lexicon Music, and Descants for Choir from Lillenas. An easy way of creating your own descant is to have the sopranos in the choir sing the tenor part up one octave. Descants can create excitement in the singing.

Since our congregation is accustomed to all these “weird” changes, they tackle even more difficult things like published choir works. They have sung along with the choir every time we have done the finale to the Gaithers’ Alleluia. They have almost memorized Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus.” We have sung two medleys from Hymns Triumphant and several selections from the Praise III and Praise IV choral collections. They also sing the congregational parts in Ronn Huff’s Exaltation. All these more complex arrangements have met with avid interest and excellent participation even though they were originally meant for choirs. We simply print the lyrics in our bulletins (with permission from the publishers if they are copyrighted) or buy preprinted song sheets and have the choir lead. Then after a few times through, everyone is singing.

Perhaps most important for strong congregational singing, however, is that the people know their singing is important.

A congregation can sense how important their leaders think singing is by how much time and energy is put into its preparation. Because we make such a production of the congregation’s singing, they know we value it.

If leaders have the attitude that the choral anthems and solos are the truly important pieces of music, the congregation will feel it. If the music leadership feels that the anthems and solos support and lead up to the congregation’s music, then the people will respond with more energy.

How congregational singing is used will communicate its importance to the congregation. When it is used as “filler” or as an opportunity to stand and stretch or to get people settled or started, people will sing with little enthusiasm. When congregational singing is used purposefully, people will put forth much more effort.

This is shown by where the congregational singing is placed in the service. It is not unusual for one of our worship services to have everything (sermon included) lead up to when the people rise and loudly sing praises to God. When it is the focal point of the service, our people know it is important.

Jim and I talked about other things, like the choice of a good hymnal, using sources other than the hymnal, the effect of acoustics, the importance of seating people close together, and rehearsing a congregation. We also talked about how much time it takes to develop a singing church. All the talking made our hamburgers cold and the french fries limp, but it was worth it. The ideas began working for him just like they worked for us.

Dale McClure is minister of music at South Evangelical Presbyterian Fellowship, Englewood, Colorado.

- More from Dale McClure

Review of ‘The Vertict’

The Verdict

Twentieth Century-Fox; produced by Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown

Films intended to capture the affections of members of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are generally released late in the year. An example is The Verdict, starring Paul Newman, directed by Sidney Lumet.

Courtroom drama, once a popular genre, is a convenient stage for conflicts of good versus evil, rich versus poor, justice and injustice, and power versus truth. Such issues confront us all, both inside and outside the church, and, indeed, plague the church itself. In dealing with this, The Verdict works well, and without being preachy or descending to what might be called “junk-thought.”

Newman plays Frank Galvin, a lawyer who has degenerated into an ambulance chaser and an alcoholic. His remaining client is a young woman in a permanent coma from brain damage suffered while giving birth. While not conceding negligence, the hospital (Catholic, as is Galvin) offers a generous sum to the relatives, who press Galvin to accept. But though settling out of court would bring him a tidy (and much-needed) sum, Galvin sees a chance to restore his practice to respectability, pull his sodden life together, and fight for what he sees as the truth. He opts to prove negligence in a trial, pitted against a master lawyer named Concannon, revered in Boston legal circles as the “prince of darkness,” who marshals his considerable powers and staff on behalf of the medical profession. The conflicts and complications build to an emotional showdown.

The Verdict also features strong supporting roles by veteran actors Jack Warden and James Mason and the directing and cinematography are very good. Rated R for rough language, the film takes its time, making the audience work. Viewers who do not like to think during movies might say it “drags.”

People who know medicine and law can probably find loopholes in the story details. And the mandatory romantic subplot is less than effective. While these problems may rob it of an Oscar, they do not stop The Verdict from being craft at its most careful, and certainly worth seeing.

Reviewed by Lloyd Billingsley, a writer living in Southern California.