Jay Kesler, president of Youth for Christ, has an interesting theory about the Christian ministry. He calls it the Bright Young Man Theory of Youth Work. According to Jay, many churches follow this theory in choosing a man or woman as youth director. They find the most outgoing, razzmatazz, charismatic, attractive, under-thirty person possible and screw him into the church socket. He shines brightly for a time throughout the church and surrounding community. Soon the moths (kids) are flocking around the light. And the church’s youth program is a success until the Bright Young Man’s energy or ability dims or until another church in the area finds a Brighter Young Man to screw into its socket. When that happens, the moths flit off to the new location.
But the change isn’t very difficult, for the moths, for the church, or for the Bright Young Man. In a Christian ministry like the one Kesler describes, the moths are more interested in the person than in the Person anyhow. And travel from church to church is no problem with the mobility of today’s teen-agers.
The church is inconvenienced some, but there’s no great problem. When Bright Young Man Number One goes, the church board simply hustles up Bright Young Man Number Two and the process continues. Of course, it’s easier for a big church to build on this theory. With its money, benefits, and contacts, Big Church can usually procure a Bright Young Man more easily than the struggling community church or the decaying downtown church. But that’s life and that’s ministry.
And Bright Young Man Number One doesn’t feel bad about the change. He can always get a job. The key is to find a location where no one has seen his bag of tricks.
I don’t think we can confine the Bright Man Theory to youth work. In many churches it has been expanded to the Bright Older Man Theory of the Pastorate and the Bright Middle-age Man Theory of the Deacon Board. Having become celebrity-conscious and beautiful-people-oriented, we have forgotten that ministry may be a long-term, gut-it-out, plug-along type of thing that requires faithful people more than it does successful ones.
But until we rediscover that concept, we’ll continue to be a Christian (?) culture of competing churches that advertise their Bright Young Men or Bright Older Men according to the same principles used to sell soap, milk, and laxatives.
EUTYCHUS VII
The Christian Option
The March 26 article by Josif Ton, “The Socialist Quest For the New Man,” was excellent! Hopefully it will be made available in reprints. Personally, I wish it could be translated into Persian so as “easy reading” we could get it into circulation among the horde of Iranian students in the Houston area. Much of their time is spent in political discussions concerning the future of Iran. Ton’s article successfully presents Christianity as a viable option to consider. Thanks for the relevancy of your magazine.
As part of his review of the book Washington: Christians in the Corridors of Power (March 26) Wesley Pippert manages to homogenize Jeremiah, Malachi, and selected sayings of Christ in his earthly ministry. From this unique blend Pippert visualizes a Kingdom of God without blemish, financed by taxes extracted from individuals, most of whom have no faith in God and far less trust of bubble heads in government espousing the worn theory that vast appropriations will ameliorate our “Christian concerns.”
Should Pippert leave his sequestered Washington retreat, he will find hundreds of churches already programmed to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, and visit the prisoners—without federal aid! Such church ministries would expand their usefulness if the hand of Washington were not so deeply entrenched in the pockets of faithful tithers dedicated to Christ. When government moves into areas the church is serving there is a breach in separation of church and state. It becomes odious when Christians in office, whose primary contribution to oppressed society operates through their church, join in the move. Seattle, Wash.
FRANCIS W. ANDERSON
The Rent-Free Myth
In your editorial “Where Do Retired Pastors Live?” (March 12) you made an excellent point, but at the expense of disseminating some false information. You referred to the “pastor’s rent-free housing,” and this just isn’t so. Instead of a minister earning X number of dollars he earns X minus $3,000 (give or take $500) and he lives in the parsonage. He is, in effect, renting from the church. His situation differs from other renters because most churches do not adequately maintain their parsonages. The minister keeps it up; he improves their property while its value appreciates with the rising cost of real estate. Having renovated three parsonages with my own time and money, and having spent the first nineteen years of my ministry without a nickel of equity built up, I appreciate the sentiment of your article, but wish to demythologize the ancient superstition that the minister lives rent-free.
Article continues below
W. NORMAN MACFARLANE
Philippus United Church of Christ
Cincinnati, Ohio
Book List Best-Seller
The March 12 issue was superb! Do you plan to compile your many “book lists” into one definitive bibliography? I wish you would. It would make a great subscription give-away—and might very well become a best-seller!
WARREN W. WIERSBE
Senior Minister
The Moody Church
Chicago, Ill.
Second Death
The article on euthanasia in the February 27 issue (“Mercy Killing—Is It Biblical?” by Douglas K. Stuart) is well done and biblically sound, I believe. On one point, however, I venture to raise a question. In his comment on the eight cases of restoration to life recorded in the Bible the author says, “… they would actually have to go through death again. It may well be that their second earthly death was as bad as the first, or even worse.” Perhaps not necessarily—not in every case, at any rate.… I am convinced that Lazarus had no dread at all of “dying a second time.” He now knew firsthand that “our Savior Christ Jesus … abolished death” (2 Tim. 1:10).
CHRISTIAN BASHORE
Gettysburg, Ohio
Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.
Our digital archives are a work in progress. Let us know if corrections need to be made.
While we pray for peace, we need moral clarity about this war.
As my doubts about his teachings grew, so did a secret fascination with Jesus.
Eastern Orthodox poet Scott Cairns reflects on his new collection, his journey of faith, and poetry’s capacity to apprehend inexhaustible realities.
