One of the biggest mistakes that can be made at a planning session is to directly or indirectly say to our leaders, “What can you do to help me pull off my objectives?”
Howard Hendricks
Visions, as compelling as they are, are not enough. It is one thing to know what this church can be; it is another thing, and far more difficult, to know how to get there. Leaders wrestle with pressing practicalities: What do we tackle first? And second? Can we afford to leave anything for later? With so much to be done, and every contemplated action a good one, how do we sort the good from the very good from the best? What is truly essential?
Offering insight on these questions is Howard Hendricks, a nationally recognized Christian educator. After ministering in a number of local churches, he joined the faculty of Dallas Theological Seminary, where he has served for the last thirty-six years. He is chairman of the Center for Christian Leadership, is in constant demand for clergy and lay conferences, and is heard daily on a syndicated radio program, “The Art of Family Living.” Dr. Hendricks is the author of three books, including Heaven Help the Home! (Victor).
In this interview you’ll see the practical suggestions, radiant good will, and relaxed humor that have made Howard Hendricks beloved by students and colleagues alike.
If you were to call the church staff and/or lay leaders together for a planning retreat, what questions would you want the group to discuss before launching another year of ministry?
At the beginning of any new ministry year, a church must evaluate its past performance. I would use three questions:
1. “What are we doing well? What are our strengths?” If you don’t capitalize on your strengths, you tend to minister on the basis of weaknesses.
2. “What are we doing that needs to be improved?” You may be doing many things reasonably well, but how much can you improve them? We are embarrassed by our weaknesses and we excuse them rather than find ways to overcome them.
3. “What are we not doing that we should be doing?” Many churches tend to do what any other human organization can do, instead of what the church alone can do. In planning a new church year, church leaders must be aware of the unique contribution the church makes to the community — the spiritual contribution.
Give us an example of a church that has a particular strength and has built upon it.
The First Evangelical Free Church in Fullerton, California, is a classic example of a church that knows its primary strength — in this case, expository preaching and teaching. Because this is understood, the pastor, Chuck Swindoll, is released to do what he is eminently gifted to do. You have to stand in line to get a seat.
On the other hand, I was in a church some time ago that has an unusual strength in fellowship. I was so impressed I said to the pastor, “How do you attract this many friendly couples to one church?”
He said, “It’s simple. You can’t get in and out of this church without somebody inviting you to lunch.”
Even though it’s massive, it’s the friendliest church on planet Earth, with a fellowship virus that has spread to everyone. Objectively, I wouldn’t say it was the greatest preaching center in the area, but it’s developed this one strength to an inspiring level.
Isn’t there a danger of emphasizing one strength to the exclusion of others?
Yes, that’s the other side of the coin. You can go overboard in emphasizing your strengths and neglect the many other necessary ministries that make up a church. A pastor needs a broad perspective. He is not the pastor of any segment in the church; he is the pastor of the total church — cradle roll, children, youth, adults, and senior citizens. One pastor can’t personally minister to all of these groups, but he can develop a leader for each church ministry. The pastor’s job is the big picture — the ministry vision.
Can you isolate the points of strength that should exist in any size church for it to be balanced, healthy, and dynamic?
Chapter two of Acts gives the heart of a New Testament church. In this context four essential disciplines stand out:
Instruction. The church that ceases to educate ceases to exist. “They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching.”
Worship. Worship is the by-product of instruction. It is impossible to worship a God you don’t know. Worship is a personal response to a divine revelation. And by response, I don’t mean shaking the pastor’s hand at the door and saying, “That was a wonderful sermon.” Real response answers the question, “What am I going to do about divine revelation?”
Service. The New Testament believers became involved in the needs of the body. Service may take a variety of forms, but it always comes out of worship. People say to me, “What we need in our church is more workers.”
I say, “No, you don’t need more workers; you need more worshipers.” I’ve never seen a worshiper who didn’t go to work, but there are a lot of people busy at some kind of religious work who have never worshiped. They are working in the energy of the flesh rather than in the power of the Spirit.
Fellowship. “They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ fellowship” — which to us is coffee and donuts. How in the world did the early church have fellowship without coffee and donuts? They had something better; they had persecution. There is no greater fellowship than being involved in the person and work of Jesus Christ while under duress.
Now the context of the paragraph at the end of this chapter is evangelism. It begins with people being added to the church daily, and it ends the same way. If the church ever loses its evangelistic thrust in the process of teaching, worshiping, serving, and fellowshiping, these disciplines will degenerate into ends, rather than means to an end.
What can pastors do to help their leaders set priorities with attention to these four areas?
One of the biggest mistakes that can be made at a planning session is to directly or indirectly say to our leaders, “What can you do to help me pull off my objectives?” These people are more than elders or staff members; they’re parents, spouses, business people, members of the community. Until we start ministering at that level, we are going to focus upon what they do rather than who they are.
The key is to care about people as people. One of our leading Dallas businessmen came in to see me the other day and said, “You know, everybody and his brother wants my money, and I’m delighted to invest it in the Lord’s work, but doesn’t anybody know that I have needs?”
But how can a pastor pay attention to instruction, worship, service, and fellowship, and also give this kind of personal attention? Isn’t it more than the pastor can do?
The pastor can’t do all this. The pastor-teacher’s primary task is to be an equipper of the saints for their work of ministry. He’s committed to a ministry of multiplication, not addition. He’s not doing the work of ten, he’s equipping ten to do the work.
Many of our board members aren’t involved in spiritual ministry; they’re involved in activities that others in the congregation can do. If a Christian leader is going to make a spiritual impact, he must surround himself with a group of people into whose lives he’s pouring his own — which, by the way, is a tremendous blessing to him.
I spend an incredible amount of time with students, but I don’t do a lot of other things. You can’t do everything. I can’t write all of the books I would like to write. I can’t go to all the places I would like to go if I’m going to build something lasting into the lives of my students.
Describe instruction, the first discipline you mentioned.
We have the idea that instruction has to take place within four walls. They might be one of the greatest barriers to learning. For example, I can teach for hours in a classroom, walk down to the snack shop, sit down with a student, and get involved in a conversation that will change his life. That doesn’t mean I should abandon classroom teaching, but some of my most effective teaching has been done in my office, over at the snack shop, and out at my home.
I told Dr. Walvoord once, “I don’t know why you pay me, because I don’t really do that much in class. I do most of my work outside of class.”
He said, “Well, we could solve that problem.” (Laughter)
So as church leaders establish priorities, they need to ask themselves about the degree to which they are discipling others.
Discipleship can be a fad. Wherever I go, I discover it’s the “in” term. But where are the results? It doesn’t make any difference if you change the label on an empty bottle. True discipleship is a commitment, a lifestyle.
One of the questions I ask a pastor — I love to do it particularly when I’m leaving — is, “When I come back, I am going to ask you to show me the core of people whose lives you are building. Who will be here when you are gone?” The answer comes from effective preaching and discipling.
One day at a pastors’ conference my subject was, “Have You Never Read Ephesians 4?” I said, “You say, ‘Of couse I’ve read it. I’ve preached on it.’ Jesus Christ said eleven different times to the most well-read people of his time, ‘Have you never read?’ Of course they had read; they spent most of their life reading, but they didn’t apply what they read.”
When I finished, a little old man sitting up front came to me, tears of joy pouring down his face, and said, “Sir, I want you to know that I have spent thirty-nine years doing the work of the ministry, and three years equipping saints for their work of ministry. I’d like you to know I’ve accomplished more in the last three years than the first thirty-nine.”
Suppose a pastor says, “I’d like to instruct the saints to do the work of ministry, but I’m not sure how to start.”
How did Jesus Christ train his men? The Lord Jesus sent his disciples out after he had carefully instructed them in how to minister. When they came back they were higher than a kite. The text says they rehearsed everything that had happened. And he was excited with them.
On another occasion they went out on their own and struck out. Jesus bailed them out, performed the miracle they had blown, and the text says, “The disciples took him aside and privately asked, ‘What happened?’ He said, ‘This kind comes out by prayer only.’ ” Prayer? What in the world does prayer have to do with it? You see, they had cast out demons before and they had done it successfully. Now they were learning they had been spending too much time using their gift and not enough time developing the spiritual resources to maximize their gift.
Based on those accounts, what specific things would you do to equip your leaders?
I’d do a number of things. I’d start a Bible study that revolved around passages such as Acts 2, Ephesians 4, and Matthew 28, and get them involved in a discovery process. We tell people too much and don’t let them discover things for themselves. We don’t hear an “Aha!” often enough.
I’ll never forget one time when I was studying a passage of Scripture with a group of men, and one of them said, “Hey, hold it! I’ve got the picture! Jesus Christ never became blind to his objectives. He was always on target!”
I said, “Okay, why don’t we come up with our objectives?” The next time we met they came with their lists. We lined them up, and I said, “You prioritize them.” For the first time, some of them began to focus the gospel upon their daily lives.
One man quietly said, “It’s hard for me to believe this, but something that’s number two in my priority list is number twenty-two in my life.” The impact upon his life of that confession was twice as great because he had discovered it.
We need to spend more time in our retreat and board meetings praying, studying, and sharing. I was meeting with a church board one night when it really got heavy. Finally the pastor broke down; I mean he broke down and wept like a baby. In between sobs he said, “Men, I just can’t carry this load.”
Then one member said, “This isn’t your burden; this is ours.” That launched a discussion that went until midnight about our ministry responsibilities as lay leaders.
Worship was the second discipline. You said instruction leads to worship. How?
Worship is a personal response to a divine revelation. You haven’t worshiped until you’ve responded.
I had an elder who would have failed an audition for a deaf choir, but during the hymns he would stand down in front of me with a hymnbook open, mouthing the words. One day I said to him, “Mr. McFadden, what are you doing?”
He said, “I’m worshiping.”
I asked, “You mean you’re repeating the words?”
He replied, “That’s right. Remember, Pastor, you haven’t worshiped until you’ve told God your personal response.”
As long as people continue going out of our churches saying, “My, that was a wonderful sermon,” they will know nothing of worship. When a person meets you at the door and says, “Pastor, isn’t he a wonderful Lord?” you’d better shout “Glory!” because you might have met one worshiper.
How can we prepare people for what should happen on Sunday morning?
I happen to have the crazy idea that preaching should precede rather than follow the worship service. Preaching should be followed by sharing, application, prayer, and other worship responses, and that requires careful planning and training.
We should prepare our people for change. Individually, we are predestined to be changed, conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. Corporately, the church should be the most revolutionary agency on earth, and yet it is often set in concrete. People come unglued because the service didn’t start with the Gloria Patri, or the Lord’s Prayer was in the wrong place. Board members, who are the opinion shapers, must set the worship pace and say to the people: “This is what we are going to do and this is why we are going to do it.”
What should church leaders consider when discussing the discipline of service?
I see service as what goes on in the office or factory Monday through Friday. The average layperson has the idea that his vocation is his penalty. That’s what he does five days a week in order to “serve the Lord” on Sunday. Actually, what takes place on Sunday should equip him for the service he’s going to perform all week.
We also need to recognize that within the church many of our people are overworked and undertrained. I find more and more people who do not enjoy church work — they endure it. My goal for a local church would be to help every member serve Christ, in at least one way, outside as well as inside the church. The average lay person isn’t serving in that way because he’s not trained to do it; but once he’s properly trained, it’s amazing how he will begin to enjoy it and become comfortable with it. How you enlist a person usually determines how he or she will serve. A moratorium should be declared on at least three ways of enlisting people. One is the public announcement read on Sunday morning: “Beloved, next Tuesday we are going visiting. Please show up. Last week nobody showed up. Won’t you please come this week?” Usually, no one will come the following week except the two people you should never send visiting!
Another one is last-minute conscription; it’s the situation where the Sunday school superintendent slips in during the adult class opening exercises, taps the person on the end of the row, and sentences him to the junior department for life. The moral of which is, “Don’t sit on the end of the row.”
The third scene is a desperate C. E. director who approaches a sincere, goodhearted person and says, “We’ve been all over the building looking for someone to take the high school class and we can’t find anybody who wants to take it. We’ve lost six people in the last seven months, and now we’re coming to you. Will you take it?” If this goodhearted Christian says, “Well, I don’t have much time,” the C. E. director usually responds, “That’s all right. It won’t take much time.”
It has always fascinated me that when we take people into a local church — the time of their greatest motivation, namely, their willingness to unite with the church — we tell them to sit down, keep quiet, and listen. After we have made spectators of them, we try to reverse their orientation to one of participation. The time to give members some responsibility is when they join the church. People need to know we’re not operating the Church of the Sacred Rest.
Would you go so far as to say that everybody in the church must have a place of service?
Precisely.
Have you ever seen a church like that?
No, but I’ve seen one close to it. I saw a church go from about 34 percent participation, which is high, to 93 percent. They committed themselves to the idea that everyone in the church was going to have a responsibility. No exceptions. They matched person with job and began to develop a realistic training program.
What is a realistic training program?
A good combination of input and involvement, a hands-on type of thing. Learn to teach by teaching. I’ve never heard of a correspondence course in swimming, yet this is similar to the methodology we use in trying to prepare people for service. I like the idea of apprenticeship. If you develop workers with the idea of long-term commitments, you’ll train some real experts. I can give you hundreds of illustrations.
For instance, the greatest nursery teacher I know is a person who has been teaching for thirty-eight years. If there is anything to be known about teaching nursery children, she knows it. Even more exciting, she’s trained another twenty-five or thirty people in her skills. I’ve heard her say, “I’m no good with adults; they threaten me.” But she loves little kids and they love her.
How do you reshape the thinking of those members who have already developed “spectatoritis”?
In a number of ways. Many churches have used questionnaires effectively — a means by which people can indicate the service areas that interest them. There is one warning I give to churches using surveys: Follow through! I recently had lunch with some upset people who had filled out an interest survey last winter, expressed interest in several areas of service, and were still waiting to hear from the church. It will be a cold August day in Dallas before they sign up for something again.
How you follow through is important. I recommend that a committee examine the data, match the jobs with available people, and — this is the key — go to the prospect personally and say, “The committee has spent a lot of time thinking and praying about the matter, and we feel that God would have us approach you about the possibility of working in such-and-such a position.”
We enlisted a neurosurgeon to serve in our college department in this manner. Three of us made an appointment and went to see him. When he saw us he said, “Good grief, what is this?”
“Well,” we said, “we have a challenge for you.” Before we could continue, he called his nurse and told her not to disturb him for any reason. We described the task as clearly as we could, and then very straightforwardly told him, “Doc, it will take everything you have and then some, but we think you’re our man.”
That night he couldn’t sleep. His wife asked, “What’s the matter?”
He replied, “I have to make an important decision. I’m struggling with the fact that three Spirit-led men came to my office and said, ‘We feel that God would have us approach you about the possibility of taking the college class.’ How can I view that lightly?”
What’s important for church leaders to reexamine about the fourth priority, fellowship?
First of all, we tend to stifle fellowship — which means to share in common — by gravitating toward vertical rather than horizontal relationships: professor and student, teacher and disciple, pastor and parishioner. We need more horizontal relationships that are developed around commitment to the same goals. Regardless of our station in life, all of us are in the process of learning and maturing.
Second, the average lay person doesn’t think that his vocation has spiritual importance. Most physicians, salespersons, and business managers think their “secular” tasks are unrelated to the body of Christ. Our faith commitment to each other should be the great equalizer. Because we are members of the same family, it’s very important to me, the pastor, for Jim, an elder in our congregation, to do good work at the local television station. I am going to pray for him and support him in his work.
How can a pastor demonstrate this kind of fellowship in a tangible way?
I’ve asked lay people if their pastor has ever shown up at their job. They usually respond, “Don’t kid me.” Once I was at Dick Halverson’s church, and he said, “How would you like to make a call with me?” We went out to a junior high school where one of Dick’s members was the principal. He was expecting us, and had some sandwiches brought up from the cafeteria. After lunch, we studied the Word and spent some time praying together. Just before we left, Dick said, “Let’s take a walk.” So the three of us walked all the way around the block. After we had returned to the front door, Dick said, “Let’s pray and claim this place as your center of ministry.” Dick was as concerned about this man’s ministry as he was about his own. He sought to help equip him to function as a Christian leader in society. That’s how you develop fellowship.
It’s easy to forget our spiritual opposition. We can leave a planning meeting without realizing there is a power totally committed to blocking or destroying what God wants us to be and do. Good strategy demands that we size up the enemy forces. How do we do this?
The Devil is a better student of us than we are of him. Paul said in 2 Corinthians that we are not ignorant of his devices. We know how he operates. But that’s an admonition few people take seriously.
I’m afraid we have something of a cavalier attitude toward the Devil. The older I become, the more I am aware of the subtlety of Satan. Just when you think you have him figured out, he slips up on your blind side.
When you are doing what Jesus Christ has called you to do, you can count on two things: You will possess spiritual power because you have the presence of Christ, and you’ll experience opposition because the Devil does not concentrate on secondary targets. He never majors on the minor.
Neither should we.
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