We found it by accident. After the interview we were hungry, driving around looking for a restaurant, and quite honestly, lost. We had reached the outskirts of Vienna, Virginia, and decided to turn around.
Suddenly it was in front of us, just as Lon Solomon had described it: 51 acres of beautiful woodland at the edge of the Washington, D.C. Beltway. The discreet sign at the street read “National Wildlife Federation” (the previous owner), but over the entrance to the three-story brick building, bold red letters said, “McLean Bible Church.” At the far end of the building, construction continued on a 2500-seat sanctuary.
On Sunday, Solomon, the church’s senior pastor, reported to his congregation the sale of their current facility four miles away as part of a $55-million relocation. The 7,000 current weekend attendance includes 2,000 who attend Frontline, McLean’s edgy Gen-X ministry pastored by Solomon’s protege, Ken Baugh.
The only moment more decisive in the history of this congregation was nine years earlier, when Solomon asked the 250 members for a vote of confidence. Almost one-fourth voted against him. A significant number left the church. And the new vision for McLean began to unfold.
Leadership editors Marshall Shelley and Eric Reed talked with Solomon about the decade-long conflict that resulted in a church split, the near collapse of Frontline, and how all that has produced a congregation with a focused and unblinking vision.
Your vision is to “impact secular Washington with the message of Jesus Christ.” Did you come here knowing that was your purpose?
I didn’t really have a vision, but I had a passion. I have a passion for reaching secular people because I was a secular person. I wasn’t raised a Christian. I was born Jewish. I never listened to Christian radio. I was raised in the public school system. I believed in evolution, relativism, and existentialism. Until I became a believer at 21, I had no intention of visiting a church.
Well, we’ve got hundreds of thousands of people like that in Washington—well-educated but secular in their worldview. So as a pastor, I asked, How can my church reach “me”? How can we reach secular people?
How did that become the church’s vision?
The vision of your leader and the vision of your organization have to match. If they don’t, you either need a new vision for your organization or a new leader. That’s why we had a big church split in 1991.
During my first ten years here, we bumbled along. I was clueless, absolutely clueless about how to lead a congregation.
As my passion became better defined, I began sharing what I felt God was calling us to do. Not everybody agreed. We began making a few changes, but that was not what some people wanted their church to be. So we had a showdown.
What triggered this showdown?
It wasn’t only vision issues. I had made mistakes. I admit that. And I had shaken the confidence of some of the leadership.
But when I began leading with secular Washington in mind, I changed the way I preached. I stopped using Christian jargon, tried to be more culturally relevant. I had studied the seeker philosophy of Willow Creek and some other churches. Some in our church started saying I was compromising, “going liberal.”
I told them, “This is not about theology. This is about a philosophy of ministry. This is about vision of what we’re trying to achieve here. So, let’s at least call it what it is.”
The atmosphere became one of suspicion and anger. We had so much internal division, it was nasty. Things got so bad we just couldn’t keep going. Something had to give.
So who issued the challenge?
The board of elders was split down the middle over whether I should go. The chairman said, “We’ve got to bring this thing to a head. Let’s have a vote of confidence on you.” I’d been here ten years at that point. But I said okay.
He said, “Stand up and tell people your heart, your vision for this church. Then let them vote whether they want their church to go there. And if they don’t, well, then you can go find another job.” Easy for him to say. (Laughter)
That’s what we did.
We had a big meeting on a Sunday night. A thousand people showed up, but only 250 or so were members. The chairman said, “Let’s take the high road. Let’s limit voting to members only.” I was really concerned then. I didn’t think I could win a vote like that.
He said, “And what does it take to call a pastor?” Our constitution says 75 percent. He said, “Then I think you need a 75 percent vote to stay.”
I said to myself, “I’m doomed.”
Looking back, had you not done it that way, the vote would have been meaningless.
Exactly. People afterward would have said the vote wasn’t credible. So I prayed about it and I told the elder chairman: “You’re right—75 percent, members only. If I win then, no one can complain. If I lose, I’ll take it as from the Lord and move on.”
And I would have. Actually, a pulpit committee was here looking at me that weekend.
You had a pulpit committee present at your vote of confidence?
They asked if they could come, and I said, “Sure. I may be available very soon.”
But you won the vote?
By a very small percentage. Three of the six elders left and part of the congregation with them. But when it was over, we had a brand new start, a mandate to implement the vision we believed God was giving us.
Had the vision crystallized for the congregation at that point?
This was when we drafted our vision statement and our core values. The whole process took over a year. The vision statement alone took six months. I think people are kidding themselves if they think they can do something like that quickly. It takes time.
We had town meetings. We wordsmithed it. We spent months doing this. We didn’t hand it to people and say, “Here’s your new mission statement.” They were part of the process—the whole staff, the whole congregation.
So process is important.
Process is everything. You can have the right vision, the right idea. You can even have the right result. But if you process it wrong, you’ll have disaster.
We have a town meetings to discuss key issues. That’s like a congregational meeting, but nobody votes. We get the congregation together to talk, pray, get input. We’ll go back and rework the idea and have another town meeting the next month.
People need the process. They’re involved. And they have some great ideas. When it’s all done, you’ve got everybody with you. That’s how you do it, but that means you go slow. It takes months to do some stuff right.
By the time we announced that vision statement, everybody was saying “Well, of course. What other mission could there be for our church?”
So how did you turn that vision statement into actual ministry?
First, we’re very clear about our vision. Our vision statement is a simple, declarative sentence: to make an impact on secular Washington with the message of Jesus Christ. I preach on it two or three times a year. Our goal is to cross the Christian curtain, to talk to secular people, and bring them to a decision point for Jesus Christ. We focus everything we do on that.
If we can’t figure out how a suggested program meshes with our vision, we don’t do it. I don’t care how good it is. We just don’t have the manpower, resources, or time to do things that take us off our prime directive. But, if we can figure out how something will impact secular Washington, we’ll take enormous risk if we believe God is in it.
After we agreed on the vision statement, we said, “Okay, here’s Washington. Right? What are the unreached people groups in secular Washington?”
We made a list: Gen-Xers, internationals, the urban inner city, children with special needs and their families. We had about seven.
We said, “We can’t do seven strategic initiatives at once. So let’s pick one. By the grace of God, once we accomplish it, we’ll come back and pick a second one.” Over 10 or 20 years we’ll get them all done.
The first one we picked was Generation X. Don’t ask me why; it certainly wasn’t the easiest one. Very few churches were targeting twentysomethings at the time. We didn’t know how to talk to them. They didn’t fit the paradigm that we were running for forty- and fifty-year-olds.
Here in D.C. we’ve got hundreds of thousands of young people coming from Yale and Harvard and Ivy League schools. They’re working on Capitol Hill, clerking for the Supreme Court, padding their resumes. They’re here only three or four years, and then they’re off to change the world.
We decided to try to reach them for Christ, so when they leave D.C., they change the world for Jesus. That was our first initiative.
How did you convince your traditional, conservative, Bible church to start a rocking, postmodern worship service to reach Generation X?
Good leadership always precludes objections. When we go into a meeting, I try to put on the other person’s hat and ask, “Okay, if I were sitting there, what objections I would have?” So before they’re even brought up, I answer them. Once someone objects, no matter how nicely, the leader is on the defensive. If the people don’t have to ask the question, that’s good leadership. Good leaders show they’ve already considered what their people are feeling.
Starting Frontline was one of the better processes we’ve done. We had to convince our people that (a) we’re going to use a different paradigm than the one you’re used to; (b) it’s never going to pay for itself, so we’re going to subsidize it; (c) it’s perfectly okay if the thing goes in a completely foreign-feeling direction from where forty- and fifty-year-olds feel comfortable.
How do you prepare people to squirm?
A series of town meetings, again, where we shared our passion to reach Generation Xers. It was essential to demonstrate to our people that this fit perfectly with our vision statement. And I know our people have a heart for cross-cultural missions. So we explained reaching this generation in those terms.
It took six months, but by the time we were done, we had a unanimous hand vote. But then the thing went on a respirator about a year later.
So the operation went well, but you almost lost the patient. What happened?
We plunged into something we didn’t really understand. I preached all the services at first. And even after Ken came and started speaking at some services, it still didn’t work. Ken had experience with Generation X, but on the West Coast. We learned that twentysomethings in Washington D.C. are very different. Attendance was dwindling.
We finally sat with a group of them and said, “We’ve been to seminary, but we still don’t know what we’re doing. Can you help us reach your generation?”
How did the congregation respond to Frontline’s initial failure?
Every church has its back-to-Egypt club: “See? It was a mistake. I knew it wasn’t going to work.”
But we’re risk takers. We tell people who become members, “If you don’t like risks, don’t come here because we’re always about one nanosecond away from disaster.” One of our core values is “We must step out in visionary faith and take risk for God.
Is risk taking part of the church’s DNA because it’s part of your DNA?
In part, but we’ve worked hard to build this value into our people. We’ve all grown in our ability to take risks for God. We’ve developed a board of elders willing to take risks. And we give people room to fail.
So one way you encourage risk taking is by not punishing people when they fail.
We say, “Whoa, it’s great you tried. That’s fabulous.” Don’t get me wrong. We don’t want to fail too much. This is not baseball. Three out of ten is not good enough when you do what we do.
If you fail too much, people lose their confidence in you as a leader. You can’t tell your congregation, “We hear God saying, ‘Go this way,'” and then have a train wreck. People begin to doubt whether you’re really hearing God. I don’t want to leave the impression that we go into things expecting to fail. We don’t try something unless we’re pretty sure we got a chance to succeed.
But we do fail sometimes, and when we do we have the integrity to own up to it. We don’t say “we misspoke” and all that Washington double-speak. We say, “You know, guys, it seemed like a great idea at the time. It didn’t work.”
In D.C. that would be refreshing.
Some of our people tell us it is. I find the most important thing you do in a crisis is the very first thing. And if your very first response is one of accepting responsibility and fully owning it, you can defuse almost any crisis.
You mentioned the elders. What is your relationship with them as you set the church’s vision?
Many leaders have a passion and are never allowed to work it out because they can never get their leadership team—their elders, their deacons—to let them.
A key point is the recognition by our elders that I, as the senior the pastor, am the chief visionary—maybe not the exclusive visionary—but the chief visionary. A lot of elder boards and deacon boards will not give that kind of empowerment to a senior leader.
One of the reasons I think God has done what he’s done here is that our board of elders lets me and our staff lead. They support us. They balance us. They ask us the hard questions. But they don’t rob us of our leadership role. They let us be the leaders God made us to be. And that is such a healthy environment to allow ministry to happen.
What happens when you and the elders disagree?
Our vision is so locked down that we don’t have any arguments about vision. Timing sometimes, but not vision. Not anymore.
We just had one of those last month. I came in and said, “I really want to do this.”
They said, “We don’t have a problem with the idea, but the timing is not good. Let’s wait.”
I said okay. God has taught me to wait.
How do you know when the decision to wait comes from fear and when it’s from God?
That’s the million-dollar question.
When God is really in something everything clicks. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t bumps along the road, but it means that there’s a cosmic clicking in that everybody among your discerning leaders senses. I wait until I feel the clicking.
We have known for some time that our present facility was too small, and we almost bought a different piece of property two years ago. I was really excited about it. I wanted it to work. But everything wasn’t clicking. The elders were saying, “I don’t know, Lon.” So I said we can’t charge unless we’ve got the whole team ready to charge.
They were right. That wasn’t the property for us. Later God made it clear that he had something better, much better. In the meantime, we waited.
One of the things people do while they wait is plan. But you don’t encourage a lot of long-range planning. Why?
We believe in long-range dreaming. There’s a difference. If you have too precise, long-range plans, you get locked into them.
For example, I never could have imagined all that God would do at McLean Bible Church over the past nine years: the explosive growth of this congregation, the success of Frontline, a radio ministry, a ministry to internationals, and relocation and the money to have it paid for by the time we move. So how in the world am I going to plan what God’s going to do five years from now? I can’t plan that, but I can dream about it.
I’m dreaming now of the things that I want to see God do next. I can tell you exactly what my dreams are, and I believe with all my heart God is going to do them. I don’t have a clue how, but I don’t lose sleep over it.
We want to set up a residential center for children with special needs. I can see it in my mind. Have I done any planning at all? No.
We want to establish a cutting edge Christian camp for teenagers here on the East coast. Do I know exactly how? No. But when the timing is right, somebody will hand us 200 acres. You say, “How do you know that?” Because I’ve walked with God for 30 years, and I know God. When God’s ready, he’ll do it.
I don’t mean to say that we don’t plan. We do. When we see God opening a door, we plan to go through it.
This will bother those for whom vision means extensive planning.
Oh, it does. But I am convinced that the secret to ministry in a world that’s changing as fast as ours—with a God who never does things the way you expect—is to dream big and leave the field wide open. Sense where he’s leading in your heart. Dream the dream. Share the dream. Excite the people about the dream. And then be completely free for God to do it anyway he wants to do it.
And I’ve found it is always better than anyone could have planned. Why plan it when God always does it better anyway?
Still an Atheist. … for a While
A fellow came up after a service a couple of years ago and said, “Can I talk to you a minute?”
I said, “Okay.”
He said, “Would you come over here in the coat closet?” We walked into the coat closet.
“I just want you to know something,” he said. “I’m an atheist. I’ve been coming here for a few weeks. And I don’t agree with one thing you say.”
“That’s fine,” I said.
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
“No,” I replied. “It doesn’t bother me in the least. I’m just glad you’re coming. But I’ll tell you this. If you keep coming long enough, you will agree with me.”
“That will never happen,” he said.
I said, “Okay. Let’s see. You keep coming and let’s see what happens.”
I told him we want our church to be a safe place where people can explore their spiritual lives and make an informed decision about Jesus Christ. It has taken many years to create that atmosphere.
About a year later, he catches me in the lobby. “I just want you to know I’m still coming. I agree with a little bit now, but most of it I still don’t agree with.”
“That’s fine,” I said.
“I just wanted to update you.”
I said, “Thanks for the update.”
I saw him in the lobby again a while back. He had gotten married in the meantime and had a baby.
“Remember me? I’m your atheist friend.”
“Yes, I remember you.”
“I just want you to know I still have not committed my life to Christ. But I’ve got to be honest with you. I am getting closer.”
I don’t know how long it will take for this man to come around. But, if he keeps coming, the Spirit of God is going to get him.
—Lon Solomon
Advancing the Frontline
Handing the vision from one generation to the next.
Lon Solomon has a passion for Generation X. “This is a wonderful generation, I’ll tell you. This generation has been misrepresented in the media. We are finding they’re much more conservative than their parents. They’re much more open to being taught about God than their parents were at that age. You have to teach in a way that makes sense to them, but they will accept truth straight up.”
And he has a vision for reaching them.
“The biggest problem is not that the generation can’t be reached, or that we don’t have young leadership that is passionate about reaching them. What we need are senior leaders who will create the kind of environment to allow these younger leaders to prosper inside a traditional church.”
And that’s what Solomon has done.
In 1994, Solomon, brought to McLean Bible Church Ken Baugh, a Californian more than fifteen years his junior, to share his ministry. Baugh pastors Frontline, a ministry targeting those under 35.
Frontline’s two Sunday evening worship services are percussion-driven, cutting-edge, multi-sensory experiences with a thoroughly postmodern mindset. The ministry has its own identity and its own pastoral staff, but Frontline is never far from the church that birthed it and continues to nurse it.
It’s a church within a church.
Several high-profile Gen-X ministries have started as separate church plants or departed from mother churches, but Baugh prefers to work from inside the existing church. “I felt God’s call on my life to help the modern church bridge the gap to the postmodern world, and you can’t do that from the outside,” Baugh says. “You’ve got to be part of it.”
And Baugh is never far from his mentor and senior pastor. They travel together, speak at conferences together, and schedule each month a day-long vision-sharing session. That relationship, both men say, is what makes their cross-generational ministry work.
“We have principles for ministering to postmoderns that guide Frontline, but it’s really driven by the trust the leaders have in each other,” Baugh says. “McLean’s senior leadership has really empowered us. That word is so overused—empowerment—but when it’s being lived out, it does work.”
Solomon sees this as part of an ongoing process. “If I don’t empower some younger leader, then who will I hand the baton off to? Everything we have worked for as a team would be lost.”
The pair has taken this message on the road. “At every conference we do together, Ken has a line of young leaders who want someone to give them a chance. They don’t want to take the senior leader’s job. They just want to reach their generation and want somebody to believe in them and give them the freedom to do that,” Solomon says.
“That’s all we’ve done here.”
—Eric Reed
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