Page 4919 – Christianity Today (2025)

Overcoming the Doing Addictions

Working Ourselves to Death: The High Cost of Workaholism and the Rewards of Recovery by Diane Fassel HarperCollins, $14.95 Reviewed by Greg Asimakoupoulos, pastor, Crossroads Covenant Church, Concord, California

Once upon a time there was a pastor known in his community as a conscientious caregiver. His twelve-plus years in the pastorate could best be described as goal-guided ministry in motion.

Although he was a human being loved by God unconditionally, you’d never know it by observing him. He was a human doing. Constantly.

What he did was good. But the reasons behind his efforts reeked of an addiction to accomplishment. His name was Workaholic, and he wore himself out.

If you identify with this pastor, you’ll find Diane Fassel’s Working Ourselves to Death intriguing reading. It is one of only a few volumes written in the past decade that attempts to make sense of a national epidemic known as work addiction.

According to Fassel, a management consultant based in Boulder, Colorado, you need not look far to find this disease. Whether in American corporations or churches, addiction to work is as common as any chemical addiction.

One author has called workaholism “the pain others applaud,” another “the only life boat guaranteed to sink.” Diane Fassel calls it “a progressive disease in which a person is addicted to the process of working wherein they seek work because it is their fix.” Simply said, it is an addiction to action.

The author understands her subject well. By her own admission, she is prone to workaholism. I tracked her down in Hawaii, where she says she retreats regularly to escape her tendency to “work herself to death.”

More than a catchy title for her book, the phrase is a red flag she refuses to salute. It is a flag she has repeatedly observed over two years of research.

“Everywhere I go,” she said, “it seems people are killing themselves with work, busyness, rushing, caring, and rescuing.”

Though not written with pastors specifically in mind, Fassel told me clergy are among the most notable professions where workaholism rears its ungodly head, and lives are left in ruin. She cites a convention of Protestant ministers in Iowa:

“The ministers come from farm families where the motto is ‘No one ever died of hard work.’ They believe this statement, for their experience is that hard work keeps you out of trouble and makes a positive contribution to family and community. Unfortunately something new is happening in rural Iowa. Young and middle-aged ministers are leaving the ministry-disillusioned and unhappy. Working harder doesn’t seem to help. They are burned out on caring.”

The results of her research indicate that insurance claims due to stress and addiction are greater among church professionals than almost any other segment of the population. The cleanest of all addictions in the most respected of all professions is taking the costliest of tolls.

Within the book’s 156 pages, she exposes several myths about workaholics, including the false assumptions that workaholics are always working, that workaholics can be managed with stress-reduction techniques, that work addiction is profitable for corporations, and that workaholics get ahead.

Fassel distinguishes between four kinds of workaholics.

The compulsive worker is the classic workaholic, always working, and doing so openly.

For binge workers, intensity, not volume, characterizes their pattern; between “normal” work patterns, they suddenly go on binges of work, often skipping sleep and meals as they do.

Closet workers, aware that constant working is a problem, secretly work when supposedly they’re off (for instance, saying they are going to play golf but instead doing paper work at a library).

The anorexic worker procrastinates and avoids work until the pressure of a deadline forces the issue, and then there is a rush to work and work to squeeze under the deadline.

Fassel also paints the characteristics of the workaholic’s profile: Workaholics are prone to struggle with other addictions, to have low self-esteem, to be obsessive, and to have difficulty relaxing. They can also be dishonest, judgmental, and perfectionistic.

“Essentially workaholics are no longer ‘showing up’ for life,” she says. “They are alienated from their own S bodies, from their own feelings, from their creativity, and from family and friends. They have been taken over by the compulsion to work and are slaves to it. They no longer own their lives. They are truly the walking dead.”

When preoccupied with “piles and files,” the workaholic loses touch with his inner self and works all the harder to fill a spiritual vacuum in his life. The author asserts all addictive behavior to be an effort to deny the pain associated with the absence of love and nurture.

According to Fassel, “Spiritual bank- s ruptcy is the final symptom of work- s aholism. It usually heralds a dead end. | It means you have nothing left. … It is frightening to be out of touch with a power greater than yourself and to find your disease, which you know is destructive, ruling you.”

But there is hope. “When the workaholic’s downward spiral is reversed,” writes Fassel, “spirituality is one of the first things recovering people regain.”

Recovery is the theme of the lengthy last chapter. The author concludes with practical steps to get out of the dungeon of this dysfunction. Not surprisingly, the rungs of her ladder include the Twelve Steps of AA coupled with a system for maintaining daily control.

According to Fassel, recovery begins with admitting one’s powerlessness and resisting the tendency towards isolating oneself and trying to work on one’s problems alone. The help and accountability that come from other people is a necessity.

Those who read Working Ourselves to Death won’t necessarily live happily ever after. But they do stand a better chance of at least living.

Remember the once-upon-a-pastor with which I began? T know whereof I speak, and I heartily recommend this book as “a way” to new pastoral life.

Jump-Starting a Congregation

44 Questions for Church Planters by Lyle E. Schafer Abingdon, $12.95 Reviewed by Dave Wilkinson, pastor Moorpark Presbyterian Church, Moorpark, California

The only thing wrong with 44 Questions for Church Planters is that it came too late I got into church planting over five years ago, and at the time, I could only come up with one question on my own: “What am I doing here?”

I badly needed Lyle Schaller’s help t,) know the other questions I should ask.

Schaller, a consultant with the Yokefellow Institute in Richmond, Indiana, and with the J. M. Ormand Center for Research and Development at Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina, says that 44 Questions for Church Planters grew out of two roots.

The first was his “personal frustration” as a parish consultant in facing big problems that could have been avoided with proper planning early in the church’s life.

The second root was the requests from many people like me who have been seeking a practical tool to help chart the direction of a new church.

In fact, many of the questions he addresses are fruitful for established churches, as well.

Schaller’s first questions center around the theme, “Why start new churches?” After a survey of the history of church development in America, he states his conclusion that new churches are the major key to effective denominational growth. Schaller then explores twelve theological and practical reasons for en phasizing church planting.

For instance, “Contrary to conventional wisdom, congregations usually benefit from intradenominational competition.” He says that having two or more local congregations of the same denomination usually results in higher congregational health and vitality than when there is one congregation.

“One obvious advantage of . . . intentional redundancy,” he writes, “is that discontented members of one congregation can seek a new church home without leaving that denomination.”

The heart of the book is the second chapter: “Three Crucial Variables.”

Schaller’s first crucial variable in church planting is the pastor who is the mission-developer. He writes: “Experience suggests that the best way to start a new church that will attract a large cadre of enthusiastic charter members and continue to grow in numbers year after year is to identify the right person to be the mission-developer pastor and for that minister to continue as the pastor for a minimum of twenty-five years.”

I called Schaller at home to talk more about this. “In the sixties,” he told me, “the top three criteria for the success of a new church were location, location, and location. But in the nineties, the top three criteria are clearly the pastor, the pastor, and the pastor.”

Knowing that some groups are trying to connect religious leadership with Meyers-Briggs personality types, I asked Schaller if this personality test could help identify good church planters. He explained that Meyers-Briggs is too “gentle” an instrument to give the needed information.

“The key ingredient of a successful church planter seems to be productivity,” he said. “An introverted person who is highly productive will often be more successful than a more extroverted person who is less productive.”

Schaller’s second crucial variable is vision. He writes: “To a substantial degree the vision of what that new mission can and will become creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.” He says vision will determine such things as the choice of the church planter, the timing, the choice of a temporary meeting place, the scheduling and design of that first worship experience, and the selection of land for the first building.

Schaller argues that the creation of this guiding vision is the first priority. This allows the initiating body to identify the mission-developer pastor who will further the vision.

In his introduction, Schaller claims to have reached the advanced stage of life that carries with it a “tendency to substitute honesty for tact.” We see some of this in his observation that “relatively few self-identified ‘enablers’ or ‘facilitators’ have been effective church planters.”

Leadership is Schaller’s third crucial variable. By leadership Schaller means not just the mission pastor but the denominational leaders at the local level with their “leadership skills, experience, visions, courage, creativity, and gifts.”

He writes, “Rarely can this leadership come from a committee with a rotating membership. Far more often it comes from the person with a decade or two or three of experience in church planting.”

In one chapter, Schaller proposes twelve questions designed to help a church determine its identity. For example,

-Are we a commuter or community congregation?

-Which generation are we trying to reach?

-Are we a high demand congrega¢ion or voluntary association?

-When does a new church become old?

In later chapters, Schaller discusses a host of practical questions established churches and new churches need to deal with, for instance: “The Place of Missions,” “Six Questions on Real Estate and Finances,” and “Why Is Continued Growth So Important?”

The Hartford Religious Research Center has said that Lyle Schaller is “America’s most influential religious leader among all denominations.” Schaller’s latest book is another reason why.

NEW AND NOTEWORTHY

Counselor’s Guide to the Brain and Its Disorders by Edward T. Welch Zondervan, $15.95

Is the behavior a sin or a disease? The line must be drawn in Christian counseling. So believes Edward T. Welch, licensed psychologist and professor at Westminster Theological Seminary.

He writes to lift the fog from the sometimes murky relationship between psychology and spirituality. This is a textbook for disciples of Christian therapy. It cross-examines modern medical thinking about diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, showing how even people suffering from psychological diseases with a physical root still retain some moral and spiritual abilities.

Lay Counseling: Equipping Christians for a Helping Ministry by Siang-Yang Tan Zondervan, $12.95

Can lay Christian counselors do more for people than glibly saying, “Let go and let God?”

Siang-Yang Tan, director of the doctor of psychology program at Fuller Theological Seminary, shouts an emphatic yes with this book. Tan outlines a step-by-step approach for outfitting a lay counseling program in your church. He supplies useful resources such as questionnaires, supervision ideas, and literature resources.

What Americans Believe by George Barna Regal, $14.95

In a recession, companies that lose touch with their customers’ needs fail to survive the economic downturn.

Churches also need to know their market, believes George Barna, pollster and analyst of American culture.

So he interviewed over one thousand Americans, both churched and unchurched, about their values, tabulated the results, and drafted this digest about America’s mores.

The respondents’ thoughts about such subjects as Satan and absolute truth are included as well as many charts and diagrams. Barna targets this book for church leaders dedicated to the business of church strategy.

Turning Committees into Communities by Roberta Hestenes NavPress, $2.95

Typically, the most exciting part of committee meetings is the coffee and brownies.

Roberta Hestenes, president of Eastern College in St. Davids, Pennsylvania, writes to change all that. She advocates merging the intimacy of small groups with the muscle of committees to create loving, productive communities within the local church. Hestenes packs a wallop in this small booklet, telling how to turn mundane meetings into significant ministry.

52 Ways to Help Homeless People by Gray Temple, Jr. Oliver Nelson, $6.95

Paul Simon sings about 50 ways to leave your lover, and Gray Temple, Jr. writes about 52 ways to help the homeless.

To the socially minded, Temple, rector of St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Atlanta, gives 52 rapid-fire, easy-to-follow suggestions for alleviating homelessness in America. How to investigate the welfare programs in your area and stand in a line with a street person for shelter are just two.

Reading Scripture in Public: A Guide for Preachers and Lay Readers by Thomas Edward McComiskey Baker, $7.95

Bible colleges and seminaries graduate students with skills in preaching the Bible.

They also should be able to orally recite God’s Word, contends Thomas Edward McComiskey, a Trinity Evangelical Divinity School administrator. His book teaches techniques for delivering the unique literary structures of the Bible meaningfully and accurately. This is a self-help tool for public speakers wanting to read God’s Word more fluently in public.

-reviewed by David Goetz

Golden, Colorado

CLOSE UP

A Soul Under Siege: Surviving Clergy Depression by C. Welton Gaddy Westminster/John Knox, $11.95

Author: C. Welton Gaddy is the former pastor of Highland Hills Baptist Church in Macon, Georgia. He earned a Ph.D. in Christian Ethics from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

Main Help: Gaddy narrates his descent into and journey out of depression. He identifies the emotional minefields hidden in pastoral ministry and suggests principles for preventing burnout and depression.

One practical takeaway: Gaddy discriminates between selfishness and taking care of oneself. He sees responsible self-love as a moral issue for the pastor. Eating properly, enjoying leisure, and balancing work habits are compulsory practices for emotional and spiritual health in church work.

Key quote: “Fighting limits [in pastoral ministry] is a losing battle. Accepting limits is healthy as well as wise. To ignore, defy, or deny limits is to move from the realm of seeking to serve God into the arena of attempting to play God.”

Copyright © 1992 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Like a rnan about to face a firing squad, I was sitting in the front row of the sanctuary waiting for the soloist to finish. In a few seconds I would once again stand before the congregation to preach. Fear gripped me. This fear was not pre-performance butterflies or nervous jitters. No, this fear was deeper and more debilitating and it was weekly.

On the one hand my head told me, You’ve done this for thirteen years, and the church has grown, and many people say they’ve benefited from your preaching.

But my gut said, Do you realize you have absolutely nothing new to say? These people are expecting something. They won’t tolerate a boring monologue. You’ll stand up there and make a fool of yourself. What could you possibly say that these people haven’t already heard, and from far better preachers than you!

Even before I would start my weekly sermon preparation, my dread would nearly paralyze my study. All week I would live in such apprehension, I was emotionally worthless to my family. Every Saturday night and Sunday morning I would mentally resign, telling God, I can’t go on this way. This fear is consuming my life.

Then, on Sunday morning, waiting to walk before the congregation, I once again pled with the Lord, Let me do something else with my life!

What was my main fear?

One Wednesday evening I sat in the home of a parishioners and gathered around me were twelve people, listening attentively. I had spent a couple of days preparing for this Bible study, and I was excited about sharing what I had learned. As usual I had some jitters, but I noticed that they were nothing like Sunday’s.

Driving home I reflected on the difference between Sundays and Wednesdays: most of the Wednesday evening people were freshly minted in the faith, and most of what I said was new to them. Not only that, they were eager to learn. I felt comfortable in that setting because I knew I was helping them.

I also realized that I viewed the Sunday morning congregation differently. It was populated by spiritual Ph.D.’s, people who, I perceived, were daring me to come up with something new and improved, and I didn’t feel up to the challenge. I had as much chance of meeting their expectations as I would surviving that firing squad.

Three types of listeners

After one of those Wednesday evening meetings, I realized that my congregation is composed of at least three kinds of listeners.

• The Corinthians. These people are experienced in church life but spiritually immature. They know the Bible and have heard many four-star preachers- and they come to church expecting me to be as winsome and stimulating as Chuck Swindoll and as analytic and deep as J. I. Packer. This was the crowd I was trying to please on Sunday morning.

Well, I’m not Swindoll or Packer. As high as I may stretch, I will never satisfy that crowd, and I will burn out trying. I had to release myself from their expectations.

• The Barnabas listeners. These are the spiritually mature, people who come to worship expecting to meet with God. All I have to do is lead them to the Word. The Spirit of God is so active in their lives and they are so responsive to him, they readily learn and grow. Barnabas listeners are a delight to preach to because they aren’t dependent on me. They only ask that I honestly and earnestly lead them to think and interact with the Holy Spirit regarding his Word.

• The Bereans. These are the novices, like the Wednesday evening study group. They don’t need theologically sophisticated ideas to rivet their attention. They are excited about the Lord, and they’re eager to learn the Bible. If I can manage to be clear and simple, they’ll soak up the message.

Recognizing that I preach to three distinct groups helped to ease some of my preaching fears. I’ve also taken other steps, including having others share the pulpit ministry. Now, when I stand up on Sunday mornings, I still envision the Corinthian firing squad taking aim, but I simply hope they will forgive me. The people on whom I now focus my attention are the Berean and Barnabas listeners.

-Gerald Nelson Southern Gables Church Denver, Colorado

Copyright © 1992 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Whenever I stand before a congregation, I have to suppress my natural instinct to preach. We preachers have a tendency- some innate drive-to offer answers to our listeners before they’ve even heard the questions. We want to help, but sometimes we forget the process required.

No wonder preaching has gotten a bad name. “Don’t preach at me!” a teenager shouts at his parents. “I don’t need your sermon,” a wife says to her husband. And we know exactly what they mean. People resist answers others have found for them. Now-l’m-going-to-fix-you sermons make my congregation’s eyes glaze over. When I pontificate, they cannot contemplate.

J. B. Phillips, while translating the New Testament, discovered its truth to be pulsing with life and power. He felt like an electrician, he said, working with wiring while the power was still on. This was no dull routine, grappling with the dynamic, living Word! Phillips felt the awesomeness-both the dread and the excitement-of the electric charge of God’s truth.

I’ve found over the years that I cannot merely preach if I want to convey the power in God’s Word. If I want my listeners to handle the electricity of living truth, I must somehow bring people to touch personally the power surging through the gospel. I have, then, always tried to make sure my preaching is really teaching, not so much telling people what the truth is as helping them discover truth for themselves.

Teaching: Risking Discovery

Historically, the church has preferred highly controlled teaching, often choosing the seemingly safe methods of instruction. A catechism, for example, sets up a limited number of predetermined questions to be answered. It’s a weak teaching device, however, because it does not help people discover the source of the answers it gives. Consequently, they don’t encounter the life of Christ in the catechism.

I don’t want to discredit the value of such methods, but they can’t substitute for a journey of personal discovery in the Scripture. When I use a catechism, a hymn, or someone’s witness, I do not call that teaching. I call it an affirmation. Affirmations reinforce the truth, but they do not teach; they do not help people discover truth for themselves, the essence of good teaching.

Helping people discover truth entails some risks, because we lose some measure of control. We put truth in the hands of others and have to let go; we have to trust that they will personally discover its relevance. But what if they get into spiritual difficulties? What if they stray from orthodox interpretations?

Yet, I’ve found I need to take those risks and relinquish rigid control of the text. I’ve learned to trust the Bible to be its own protection against misinterpretation, rather than rush in too quickly to protect it myself.

C. S. Lewis was a master at letting the truth of the gospel weave its way into people’s lives, giving people room to discover its truth. A man who had liked his Screwtape Letters went on to read Mere Christianity, and he was infuriated. He wrote Lewis a scathing letter.

“Yes, I’m not surprised,” he wrote back, “that a man who agreed with me in Screwtape . . . might disagree with me when I wrote about religion. We can hardly discuss the whole matter by post, can we? I’ll only make one shot. When people object, as you do, that if Jesus was God as well as man, then he had an unfair advantage which deprives him for them of all value, it seems to me as if a man struggling in the water should refuse a rope thrown to him by another who had one foot on the bank, saying ‘Oh you have an unfair advantage.’ It is because of that advantage that he can help.

“But all good wishes. We must just differ; in charity, I hope. You must not be angry with me for believing, you know; I’m not angry with you.”

Lewis responds by giving him but one thing to think about, and then he steps back. He puts the matter in the man’s hands, as if to say, “Your move.” He lets the man now continue the journey of discovery.

Although this can be risky, especially when you’re dealing directly with the Bible, I’ve found the risk small. Our congregation’s Bible study groups aren’t under close staff supervision; we don’t have time to monitor what’s going on in every group. Nonetheless, there have been very few instances where the groups have wandered into the nonbiblical or cultic edges. I believe that’s because the Bible, when it is read sentence by sentence, draws us toward its living center, who is Jesus Christ.

Instead of spoon-feeding truth to the people, then, I risk giving them the spoon, letting them discover for themselves the satisfying taste of the gospel.

Keep the Bible First

Once while traveling, my daughter and I heard a sermon on the radio. The preacher read the text magnificently; it was from Romans 8 and was about hope. The preacher then gave a series of moving, personal anecdotes about hope.

After the sermon my daughter asked, “How did you like the sermon?”

“It was moving,” I said. “In fact, one of the illustrations brought me to tears.”

Then my daughter said something I’ll never forget: “But Dad, I didn’t like the sermon because the pastor basically said, ‘Since I have hope, you should have hope.’ And that’s not gospel.”

I was so proud of my daughter. She saw that the Good News was something more. I’m glad this pastor has hope. But I need to see how that text in Romans gives me a profound basis for hope whether he has hope or not! In a way then, the pastor cheated his listeners. We were denied the opportunity to see the text and discover from it the basis of hope for ourselves.

People, of course, desire a human touch-love and compassion and hope. And they need personal stories to show the gospel in action in daily life. The only trouble is, personal stories alone don’t connect me to the real source of hope.

Personal witness and stories should be seen like all illustrations-as windows to illuminate, to help people look in on a textual treasure waiting to be discovered. If I make my discoveries through such stories, I may become unhealthily dependent on the storyteller, usually the pastor, for my spiritual growth. But if I can discover hope for myself from Romans 8, I discover it alongside the pastor. Although it takes more time, this discovery is more powerful and long lasting.

Yes, we must be people-fluent, understanding them and communicating to their needs. But first we must be textually fluent. That means, of course, I must invest time and hard work to know the text. In fact, I have to know a lot just to raise the right questions! Good teaching comes when I understand the content and deeply know the text before I search for its implications. Then people can be connected first and foremost with the text.

Let the Urgency Come Through

Letting the Scripture speak for itself doesn’t mean I’m dispassionate about my presentation. If I want my learners to discover the text, I need to whet their appetite for spiritual things. To do that effectively I need to convey the urgency of the text.

The best calculus teachers believe a kid can’t really make it in the world without knowing calculus. The best school teachers are convinced their courses are the most important ones offered. Such teachers demand more and challenge more. They also teach more.

I want to capture a sense of urgency that says, “This is not just an interesting option. It is essential that you know.” Learners catch more than content from such teaching; they catch an enthusiasm for the truth. Excited teachers make learning urgent; bored teachers make it a task.

This means, among other things, I must be urgent about my own soul. I must be a growing, maturing Christian myself with an appetite for spiritual things. Only then can I communicate with urgency the need for my congregation to grow and mature as well.

Don’t Get to the Point

Although I’m urgent about what I teach, I’m not urgent about getting to the main point of the text. I’ve learned not to reveal what I know too soon. I’ve learned not to force the discovery but to let the natural drift of the text unfold. I’ve got to give people time to wonder, time to ponder, time for questions to emerge, and time for answers to take shape in the text.

When I preach by raising questions that spring naturally from the text itself, I enable the listener to discover meaning for themselves. It’s a little like Agatha Christie holding the solution to the mystery until the time is just right.

Take, for example, the text about Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-10. After Zacchaeus received Jesus into his home, the next line says, “They all murmured, ‘He is gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.’ ” Even though I want to highlight this detail quickly, I don’t need to tell the congregation right off why the people murmured.

So first I’ll ask them, “Why did the people murmur? Why are they so upset? What’s going on that they’re so angry with Jesus? And notice, they all murmured-that means the disciples, too. Why are the disciples upset?”

I may journey with my congregation through the various kinds of people who’d have been present in Jericho: Why would the Pharisees murmur? Why the disciples? Why the townspeople? What upsets them so? What expectations did they have that Jesus now has dashed?

Such an approach retains the text’s natural drama.

With this particular story, I can take my congregation on a journey through some Old Testament expectations of the Messiah. I can explore various ideas of what the Messiah would and wouldn’t do with a crook like Zacchaeus. I can consider why people weren’t prepared for a Messiah who came to seek and to save the lost. I can show why they were so surprised by Jesus.

It’s this surprise element in the text that is the wonderful news! When I can help my congregation make such discoveries just a split second before I actually tell them, they get excited about the Scripture and its relevance for their lives.

Let the Truth Sell Itself

We teachers are often tempted to say too much all at once, especially at the end of lessons and sermons. We throw in everything we can think of to make someone a Christian, rattling off the most precious facts of our faith-the blood of Christ, the cross, God’s love-and reduce them to hasty, unexplained sentences.

Instead, I’ve found it is far better to let the scriptural text make its own point and sell itself. And we can trust Scripture to sell itself because the Spirit is already working in people before they even come to the text.

I see this in culture: Woody Allen movies, among other examples, may not be Christian, but they force people to grapple with ultimately Christian issues. I also see the Spirit working in people’s lives: they struggle with grief and worry and meaning in life.

People come to the text not as blank slates but as individuals in whom the Spirit is already working. Since the Scripture speaks to people’s deepest needs, we can trust that it will get a hearing from people. We can be confident people will discover how good it is once they give it a try.

It’s like taking a person to Mount Hood: I’ve been to Timberline Lodge, and I know how beautiful it is. But I don’t have to brag about it beforehand to convince someone of its magnificence. When I get him there, he’ll see its beauty for himself and be impressed.

All I have to do is bring people to the door of Scripture. Once they walk through the door and see for themselves, they’re going to be struck with how relevant Jesus Christ is for their lives.

In our church’s small group Bible studies, for instance, we don’t try to be evangelistic. Our goal is to let the text make it’s own point and then enable the group to talk together about what is being read. We consciously try not to cover everything the first week but only what the text for the first week says.

Our approach is this: “Read this book like you read anything else. When you start into Mark, don’t give him an inch; make him win every point. Don’t worry about whether this is supposed to be the holy Word of Cod or not; just read it with the same seriousness you apply to your own thoughts.”

The amazing thing is that the text inevitably reveals its living center, Jesus Christ. Some weeks Mark (or Paul or John) wins, convincing people of some truth. Frankly, some weeks he loses: people leave thinking they know better than Mark. But over time, the text comes out ahead, and the Christ of the text wins respect.

A crusty engineering professor in our city was shattered when his wife died of a sudden heart attack, and just before he was to retire. She had been a Christian, and after the funeral, he came to see me. I steered him toward the Gospel of Mark and some additional reading.

After several weeks, I could see the New Testament was gradually making sense to him. My closing comment in our times together was usually, “Let me know when you’re ready to become a Christian.”

One Sunday after church, with a lot of people milling around, the engineer stood in the back waiting for me. He’s not the kind of man who likes standing around. Finally he got my attention, and he called out, “Hey Earl, I’m letting you know.”

That was it; he became a Christian at age sixty-five, convinced by the Scripture of Christ’s trustworthiness.

Letting People Hear Their Own Application

Creating opportunity for personal discovery sometimes surprises us in the way results come. One pastor struggled with the way his conservative upbringing imposed artificial spirituality on people. He refused to preach on traditional “sins”: going to movies, smoking, drinking, and so on.

One Sunday his text gave him ample opportunity to talk of such things: “All things are lawful, but I will not be mastered by anything.” However the pastor still would not mention the sins dictated by his tradition. Instead, he deliberately spoke of other addictions tolerated by his church, things such as overeating and watching too much television.

After the service one woman cornered the pastor, handing him her pack of cigarettes. “It may be lawful,” she said, “but I’ve been mastered by these cigarettes. I’ve never noticed that verse in that way before, so I’m giving these to you. With God’s help, I’m going to master them.” Without a word about cigarettes or nicotine, the text itself had spoken to this young woman.

That pastor could have preached against her cigarettes and maybe even have convinced her to quit smoking. But when the pastor does the work of connecting the text so specifically to life, such a decision is not as likely to stick.

Instead, she herself made the connection between the text and her smoking. And I have found that change goes deeper when we make the connection, when we discover God’s Word to us.

When I can help people discover that, then I’m “teaching” a great deal and preaching as I should.

Copyright © 1992 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Conventional wisdom suggests that a good Academy Award acceptance speech and a pastor’s farewell from a church have something in common: both should be short and sweet. And then you should get off the stage.

But what do you do when you tell everyone you’re leaving and then have to stick around for four months?

I recently left a church where I had served in a staff position for eight years. My wife, Becky, and I were excited about our accomplishments yet eager to begin the next chapter in our lives. I had sensed a call to ordained ministry, and that meant a move to receive additional academic preparation.

As with most staff departures, this was not going to be an easy good-bye. In this place two of our three children had been baptized, and it was the only home they remembered. The congregation was full of people who had nurtured our children and who had shared with us joy and sorrow, success and disappointment. We had been together long enough to be richly blessed, and occasionally wounded, by each other.

We faced an additional reality: I would begin my studies in February, but my denominational process required that I announce publicly my decision in September. There was no way to avoid a four-and-a half month transition-135 days of being a lame duck. Even if we had wanted it, this was not going to be a nice, neat transition, a professional leave-taking.

Becky and I set out to make the most of a long good-bye. Here’s what we learned.

Feelings to Process Before the Announcement

The first thing we saw was that emotions were snaring us early on. Though we would travel the same route several times, even before the decision was announced, we experienced the first cycle of grief: denial, anger, blame, and acceptance.

During our year-long struggle to come to the decision, we found ourselves repeatedly denying the reality of our move. For instance, we found it difficult even to think about leaving one older couple in the church who had become special, grandparent-type friends for our children. I also found myself getting excited about events I was helping plan, knowing I’d never be a part of them.

When we finally did make the decision to leave, we found ourselves torn between talking constantly about the move and trying to forget about having to leave.

We also experienced anger; in many ways this was not a move we were eager to make. Yes, we were excited about what awaited us, but we felt angry about having to leave good friends and a familiar place. Becky in particular longs for a sense of rootedness. After recent staff changes and the flurry of finishing a new building, things had finally begun to feel settled. Now we were going to move.

We also found ourselves blaming. The three recent years of constant staff changes and confusion at the church had taken an emotional toll. I wondered, had that transition been better handled by the elders, would I have thought of leaving? Perhaps I was to blame: maybe I should have gone to graduate school earlier in my career, when a move wouldn’t have been so disruptive.

Acceptance finally came, but only after many late night conversations, some confusing and frustrating, in which we honestly expressed our anger and disappointment as well as our hopes and plans.

Picking Words to Carry Us Through

We recognized that our leaving would mean different things to different people in the congregation. Some would see our move as a wonderful career step, and others would take it as not much more than another change on the church letterhead. Then again, some would have to say good-bye to special friends or people they’d come to lean on for support.

These different groups needed to be told differently, and we needed to be ready for their reactions.

No matter who we would be dealing with, we wanted to make three words hallmarks of this last chapter in that place: gracious, truthful, and open.

By gracious, we were hoping that we would be at ease in accepting the inevitable tributes, thanks, and words of appreciation that would be coming our way. But more than that, we wanted to express specifically our thanks and our love for others, both publicly and privately.

By truthful, we were committing ourselves to avoiding cliches, euphemisms, and glossing over some tough issues from the past.

By open, we meant we wanted to be “emotionally available” to the congregation, to be a listening ear to those who wanted to share their feelings before we left. Also, we didn’t want to put on a tough or pious exterior that suggested we ourselves were not torn by emotions.

Close Friends React Practically

The opening stage of our campaign went wonderfully well. Arrangements were made for dinners, desserts, or afternoon visits with eight of our closest friends. When they were people important to our children, we included our children. Though the announcement was always hard to make, each occasion was marked by the grace and openness we wanted.

We tried to keep opening pleasantries to a minimum so that we would have as much time as possible to talk about our decision. We quickly saw that often the initial comments or questions of our friends were practical ones-When will you leave? Where will you live? Why did you choose that seminary? Later we’d find that many of our answers weren’t remembered. The questions about details, it seems, provided a non-threatening way for our friends to respond initially.

As the conversation progressed, though, tears were shed, hugs exchanged, and talk made about the future of our relationships.

These were good times, and we regretted we had not spent more time in the previous eight years “just talking” with these special people.

Planning a Few Answers

I announced my decision to the church board in late September, and within a week, the news was announced in a congregational letter and from the pulpit. Even before the news was out, though, we tried to imagine the different reactions and comments we might receive and, in the words of a therapist friend, tried to “calibrate” appropriate responses.

A few people immediately wrote thoughtful notes that, as it turned out, would be their only words on the subject. The most common responses were “I don’t know what we’re going to do without you,” “I knew you would be leaving us sometime,” and “We’re happy for you, but sad for us.”

To such people, and to the casual passing-in-the-hall mention of regret at our leaving, I’d often say, “Oh, you’ll do just fine, I’m sure,” or “Yes, I guess we all move on sometime, but it doesn’t make it any easier,” or “I am looking forward to the new challenge, but leaving you all is a very sad thing for me and the family too.”

When someone would make a special effort to talk to me about our leaving, I would tell them something of my struggle to come to a decision about the new call. I didn’t want to make Cod the “fall guy” for our decisions, but it was a good chance to teach a little bit about God’s call and our need to respond. I would tell them how my own cautious nature made responding to God’s call difficult.

In addition, I would remind them that the church would be facing some months of transition, that some things would not be the same as before, and that was neither good nor bad.

Most importantly, though, I would try to remember to thank such concerned people as specifically as possible for some way they had touched my life, for something my family would remember about them, or for an aspect of faith or hope they modeled especially well.

For instance, one couple had been particularly generous in allowing us to use their vacation home. We told them how much it had meant to use it to get away from time to time. I also spoke specifically to one person I had worked particularly close with on a major church project.

Back to Normal-Except for Counseling

Within a month, it all seemed to end. Lame duck? No way!

There was a fall stewardship campaign to run, a budget to write, classes to teach, and Christmas programs to plan. We were back to business as usual-except for a noticeable increase in the number of people asking to come in to talk about this or that personal issue. A few even acknowledged that my leaving was what finally brought the issue to a head.

One woman, someone who had attended several of my adult classes over the years but whom I knew only casually, made an appointment for what she said would be a brief conversation. She began with some kind words about my ministry. I replied with some of my standard lines.

Then she said, “There is something else I’ve wanted to talk about with you, and I want to do it now, before you leave.”

She began to unfold the story of the fear she had been living with for years. Her husband was chronically unemployed and depressed. His anger at being unable to find a job was taken out on his children, and though she knew of no physical abuse, she worried deeply about it all.

“I don’t want to burden you,” she concluded.

“But perhaps you know someone who could help me.”

I urged her to contact some agencies and family therapists that could deal with her problem.

Such conversations were prompted, I believe, in part by people’s knowing I wouldn’t be around much longer.

Strange Silence About the Move

While busy with the tasks of ministry, I nevertheless was almost depressed by what seemed to be a lack of concern for our big decision and our plans to move. I soon saw the problem, however, for what it was.

So far, all we had allowed people to do was ask questions and react to our decision. We had made our choice, and we had not asked for input from any but a very few who had served as references on applications. We had not given most of our friends anything to do, any way to help. They wanted to help, to be a part of our process, but they didn’t know how.

So Becky began to think of ways we could use; people’s offers of help, things that would really assist us, like providing meals during the final hectic weeks of packing. Others agreed to take the children for a day while we packed, or help in the actual packing. Even though we wouldn’t need the help for a couple more months, our friends were “let in” on our process, and we were given the reassurance of their support.

We also realized that we needed to “give Dermis l sion” for people, especially men, to talk to us. So in some situations we’d bring up the subject of our move and specifically ask for advice about a crosscountry move in February. Nearly everyone had some word to the wise, and most had their own stories of blizzards, icy roads, and thousand-mile detours.

Some people mentioned they were reluctant to | talk because they felt something akin to envy. A move to a new community, a return to graduate i school, and a different career direction were things l they had long dreamed about, but they were slowly slipping away as real possibilities.

One woman spoke of almost regretting her husband’s business success: “We’re so well-

established and doing so nicely, I don’t know that we will ever E venture out in a new direction, ever pull up and start over somewhere else.”

The adventurer and wanderer in her could only dream about what we were doing.

And some people were hesitant to talk to us because they suspected that we were leaving because we were dissatisfied, and they didn’t want to probe a sensitive area for us.

My first preaching opportunity didn’t come until nearly two months after our initial announcement. In the sermon I spoke about my sense of calling, weaving that in with the story of faithful Abraham and Sarah told in Hebrews 11 and the sense of call the Mayflower pilgrims experienced.

Following the service several people expressed relief to learn that I wasn’t leaving because I was angry. One kind and godly woman took both my | hands and said, “I was so glad to hear what you said. All these weeks I’ve been worried that we had done something to hurt you, and that’s why you were leaving us.”

Trying to Mend a Broken Relationship

Other, less pleasant, business needed attending to as well. My relationship with one elder had been strained to the breaking point a year earlier when he and I disagreed sharply over decisions made regarding the termination of another staff member. My concern for discipline he had heard as judgmental; his concern for compassion I had heard as compromise on Christian essentials. We had patched things up well enough to continue a working relationship, but we were each still hurt.

I had been willing to leave without dealing with the residue of hurt; I figured as long as we acted civilly, we needn’t do more. That was not to be.

Because of this elder’s committee assignment, he had heard of my decision to leave before I had formally announced it to the full board. He took it upon himself to alert other elders of my decision and offered his opinion: “It’s probably a good thing.”

After my announcement, he began to criticize routine administrative decisions I had been making for years. When the local weekly paper ran a story highlighting my years at the church and the many staffing changes that had taken place, he chastised me at a board meeting for the tone of the article. While the senior pastor and the other elders affirmed me overwhelmingly that night, I realized clearly a serious problem still existed.

I talked with this elder, and we agreed to meet for breakfast. The tension was thick as we moved quickly from small talk to the antagonism between us. We rehashed many of the year-old issues, only to find once again we disagreed. I asked about some of the more recent incidents, and he said he had done only what he thought was best for the church. We were at another impasse.

“To me, it feels as if you are carrying out a personal vendetta in a public forum,” I said.

“Well, I feel as if you’ve used your position to make me appear wrong in front of others.”

We left the restaurant acknowledging the impasse and hurt but with the hope that time might heal what we had not been able to. I felt no great sense of accomplishment or resolution, but I was thankful we had made one final attempt at reconciliation. I saw in retrospect that I had not been right in thinking I could leave the church without at least trying to deal with that broken relationship and the pain I was feeling.

Really Saying Good-Bye

Christmas time and the final six weeks before our departure marked a closing and significant state in our leave-taking. Becky and I began to be struck by the last-time quality of events: helping the men of the church put up the huge Christmas tree in the sanctuary for the last time; listening to the choir singing “Silent Night” for the last time; attending the annual Christmas Craft Workshop with our family for the last time. The last times became emotional reminders not that we were going someplace new and exciting but that we were leaving a dear and beloved community of friends.

Entering the new year seemed to signal permission for the beginning of good-byes. People who had hardly spoken of our leaving since our announcement in late September had clearly given thought to it and were ready now to say what they wanted to say.

We, in turn, were able to respond-less often now with our rehearsed lines and more often with a depth of feeling we did not have in September.

Those practiced lines had served us well in the beginning, but over the months had become self-protective barriers to honest communication.

We could have been at a farewell party every weekend evening of that last month. As an extrovert, my inclination was to squeeze in as many events as possible. Becky wisely suggested that we think of our children’s place in all this: the children deserved to have their memories of our final month be more than a succession of baby sitters.

So we put a limit on our social engagements. Those whose invitations we declined seemed to understand. We found that breakfasts and lunches with special friends could be substituted for more formal evening events. By the time we left, we felt as if we’d had some time with nearly all those with whom we wanted personal conversation.

A dynamic in Becky’s relationship with one of our good friends became symbolic of one issue we faced in our final weeks. “You know, I’m not going to say good-bye,” our friend said emphatically several times.

Becky, however, felt that spoken and acknowledged good-byes are vital. In some of our previous departures, she’d learned that when a proper goodbye isn’t said, relationships are left dangling.

Even though we hoped to see these and other friends in the congregation again, and were making plans to do so, we were leaving the kind of daily relationships we’d had. We could not have that kind of relationship again, and it was important to us, especially for the sake of the children, who were so fond of these friends, to acknowledge the fact.

Becky felt strongly enough about it that she phoned the friend. “I want you to say good-bye when the time comes,” she concluded.

“Yes, that all makes sense,” her friend replied. “But it’s still going to be very hard.” Then over the next several conversations, half joking and half seriously, she would say, “You know, I’m not going to say good-bye.”

The last week arrived. Friends came by to help

pack and provide meals. We shed more tears than we had in all our eight years there. I preached a final sermon that allowed me to say “Thank you” and “I love you” appropriately.

At a reception following the worship service, the congregation had an opportunity to respond formally and informally. We were overwhelmed by their expression of gratitude. Likewise, Becky was given a chance to say things publicly that only she could say.

Kind tributes were given by different members of the congregation with whom I had worked over the years. The last tribute was to Becky and was given by the friend who vowed not to say good-bye.

“Well, -Becky,” she began, “You told me proper good-byes are important, so here I am to wish you farewell, not only for myself but also for the whole congregation.” She continued with a tribute to ‘ Becky’s teaching in the church school, her contribution to the worship committee, and for her role mother and wife.

She concluded by saying, “Your church family thanks you for sharing your husband, your children, , and yourself with us. God bless you and . . . goodbye.”

The hugs and the tears were long and genuine. The last good-byes as we left town were painful, to be sure, but full of a quiet joy as well.

Seeing How Much We Care

We should ever be reminded that each of us is dispensable, that successors will always do things differently and often better than us. But it is no false pride to remind ourselves of how important we are to the people of our congregations, nor is it unprofessional to remind ourselves of how important they are to us.

This is what good-byes are all about. Becky and I and the congregation found that a longer good-bye allowed us to see more clearly how deeply we cared for one another. It was a grace-filled time.

Edwin Friedman, in his book Generation to Generation, writes, “Where the terminal period in our relationship with a congregation can be treated as an opportunity for emotional growth, rather than as a painful period to be shortened or avoided, the long-range benefits, for both the congregation and for ourselves, are numerous and fundamental.” Amen.

We will return to church service again in a couple of years. And after that there may be another farewell or two. Given the nature of calling committees and the like, I may not have the privilege of being a lame duck for four months again. But whether it be one month or four, I will never again be interested in a quick good-bye.

Copyright © 1992 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

One Sunday last fall, I witnessed two events, stark in their contrast but sharing something significant.

I worshiped that morning at the Cadet Chapel of the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York.

“Chapel” is dramatically underdescriptive of the massive Protestant cathedral, sculpted of stone and overlooking the verdant Hudson River valley. As a worshiper, you’re surrounded by stained-glass reminders of Christian history-images of Christ and the disciples, plus saints throughout the centuries.

Above the chancel, light filtered through the glass, spelling out the noble words of military tradition: Duty. Honor. Country.

The service began with the Cadet Choir proceeding down the center aisle as the congregation sang, “I love your kingdom, Lord, / the house of your abode, / the church our blest Redeemer saved / with his own precious blood. “

Then followed a hymn, a prayer of confession, The Lord’s Prayer, a reading of Hebrews 4:12-16, and a solo, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path,” which led into my reason for being there.

I serve as a board member of the American Tract Society, which for 123 years has given Bibles to first-year cadets. After the Presentation of the Plebe Bible, we were ready for the sermon. And Chaplain Richard Camp did not disappoint.

“Rally! Rally! Rally!” he began, referring to the fall tradition at West Point by which any cadet, anywhere on campus, will shout those words to start a noisy and impromptu pep rally for the football team. The rallies take place during unscheduled parts of the day. And, as Chaplain Camp reported humorously, they may even happen after taps, in at least one case, quite a while after taps and atop the roof of the Camps’ home!

He went on to describe the task, likewise, of Christians: to stir up “enthusiasm” in the original sense of that word-being filled with passion for God.

For this sermon, Chaplain Camp had the home-field advantage, and he made the most of his setting to drive home the gospel.

Just a few hours and several miles down the Hudson later, I found myself in a decidedly different environment, downtown Manhattan, for what was billed “An Afternoon in Central Park with Billy Graham.”

Whatever home-field advantage the gospel may have had in the morning was gone that afternoon.

New York City, with its 500,000 registered heroin addicts and 2,245 homicide victims in 1990, is hardly a natural worship center.

Central Park is a marketplace of competing ideologies. As I walked to the event, leaflets were thrust into my hands by people pushing environmental awareness, mysticism, baptismal regeneration, and militant Calvinism (a tract called, “The Myth of Free Will”).

– A small army of police officers and paramedics were stationed around the park. Hot dog, ice cream, and t-shirt vendors had set up shop.

I wondered what it would be like to preach the gospel amid the competing voices.

The Graham organization had worked hard to spread word about the event. Promotional brochures had been distributed in sixteen languages. Large ads in newspapers proclaimed, YOU RE BORN. YOU SUFFER. YOU DIE. FORTUNATELY, THERE 5 A LOOPHOLE. They went on to invite people to hear Billy Graham’s message of hope.

Prominent New Yorkers, including John Cardinal O’Connor and Mayor

David Dinkins, endorsed the event. Jewish leaders, while not endorsing it, at least agreed not to protest it.

Various ethnic radio stations agreed to broadcast the event live, providing simultaneous translation in Korean, Spanish, and three Chinese dialects.

The event itself reflected the multicultural milieu. Guests as diverse as Johnny Cash, The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, Sandi Patti, The Korean Children’s Choir, Nicky Cruz, and Cathy Lee Gifford took part before Billy Graham took the podium to speak to 250,000 people, some sitting on the lawn, some standing, some just milling around.

His message was characteristically simple, based on John 3:16. “People get increasingly irritable and pushy in their effort to guard their own turf,” he said. “There’s little space for others, let alone God. To be without God in New York is to be terribly lonely.”

In contrast, he offered something that’s in short supply these days. Hope. Based on an eternal relationship with God.

As I walked away from that event, I couldn’t help but contrast the polished reverence I’d experienced in the morning with the gospel amid the chaos I’d seen in the afternoon. Two more different settings would be hard to imagine.

Yet in each, there came a moment when it was time to pull together all that was happening, to connect the external setting with the interior of the soul, to give the public event meaning for private individuals.

And at the climactic moment of each event, it was not music or drama or group therapy or video we wanted. The situation called for a word, the spoken Word, the time-tested Word, simply articulated by one person.

In short, the common element was good preaching.

I walked away convinced anew that the power of preaching is unsurpassed for applying God’s truth to our deepest needs.

Marshall Shelley is editor of LEADERSHIP.

Copyright © 1992 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

I stood in our compact, two-car garage one Saturday morning, the floor around me covered with the remnants of a preschooler’s play: a ransacked doll house that looked like a teenage block party, wiffle bats and balls, two Big Wheels (one with plastic tires worn smooth and flat), a big green tricycle with blocks on the pedals. I was just about to yell at my daughter, “Jeannie! “

You see, this was my garage. My cars sat in the driveway because I couldn’t get them in the garage, where they belonged. Besides, I hate messes.

But just before I yelled, I realized, You won’t have a messy garage long, because that 4- and that 2-year-old won’t be around long. Someday you will walk into an orderly garage that will stay however you leave it because there won’t be anyone around to mess it up. You’d better enjoy it whiLe you can.

It was a sobering, teary moment that stood me well during the next fifteen years of parenting.

It also contained d principle for ministry: raising kids is messy, but the mess is worth the kids. Later I found a Scripture that captured the same idea: “Where no oxen are, the manger is clean, but much increase comes by the strength of the ox” (Prov. 14:4, NASB). As someone else has said, “No manure, no milk.” The proverb is a straightforward statement about cost and production; you can’t have the latter without the former.

Sometimes we feel that we would gladly forfeit the profit in exchange for a neat, clean stall. We hate messes. Neatness takes priority over life: Better to shut off than clean up. Kill the ox and save time and work.

A thriving ministry has no shortage of messy stalls:

-Smudge marks along the hall leading to the Sunday school classrooms, the result of a growing children’s ministry.

-Complaints from old-timers who feel like it’s not their church anymore now that so many newcomers have made the church their home.

-Nervous neighbors worried about the teens crowding the church grounds on weeknights.

-Budget overspending because the needs and opportunities outstrip the original vision.

-Overcrowded parking lots and members upset about parking on the street.

-A shortage of children’s workers because classes must divide again.

-The discomfort of some members with minorities joining the church, with kids who act differently from theirs.

-Disagreement with young people about music and worship styles.

The solution to these problems is easy-lock the doors, shut out the kids, offend the teens, snub the neighbors, stop ministering, stay home- die. The ultimate orderliness is solitude, or death. When the children leave home, the garage stays clean. When a mate dies, no one disturbs a thing.

Dead or dying churches and ministries may be neat and predictable, but there’s no profit, no life. Untaxed rooms cost little to maintain; lifeless repetition lures no curious crowd. Dollars can be controlled, and orderliness can be king.

Though we often complain about the kind of problems listed above, we should instead celebrate them as signs of life. Every living ministry is messy, but I am learning to view the smudges on Sunday school walls as fingerprints of the present and living Lord.

Johnny V. Miller is president of Columbia Bible College and Seminary in Columbia, South Carolina.

Copyright © 1992 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

I visited San Francisco for the first time in July 1978. Eager to see the sites-Fisherman’s Wharf, Nob Hill, and Lombard Street-I took a three-and-a-half hour minibus tour.

At Coit Tower the tour guide described the great quake and fire that reduced San Francisco to rubble on April 18, 1906. According to her, “It had been another dry year. When the quake hit at 5:03 A.M., it not only leveled many of the old city’s reinforced buildings, it also ruptured underground water sins. This enabled the raging fire to burn virtually unchecked.”

‘Since then,” she said, “the city has worked diligently to build strategic water reservoirs throughout the Bay area should another catastrophic quake

Preachers, too, need strategic reservoirs for emergencies. Few things panic speakers more than facing dry sermon on Saturday night, with nothing coming out of the homiletic spigot.

Yet how does one go about building these reserves? Finding answers to that question has been a lifelong interest of mine. As a preacher and adjunct professor of preaching, I’ve searched for down-to-earth ways to help both budding and experienced reachers dig cisterns for holding illustrations for night emergencies.

Stories and anecdotes

I’ve found one key is a system for filing illustrations.

By accident I discovered the simple, expandable, and inexpensive system described in Dan Baumann’s book, An Introduction to Contemporary Preaching, and over the years I’ve modified it.

To start, I would gather some letter-size file folders, a packet of four-by-six index cards, a three-ring notebook, lined three-hole punched paper, and a set of 26 dividers for alphabetic thumb tabs.

Let’s say the first illustration I decide to save deals with the topic of theology. I take a file folder and label it ILL.A, A meaning the first folder. When the ILL.A file has 25 illustrations, I start a second folder, named ILL.B, which will hold the next 25; ILL.C for the next 25, and so on.

Back to the theology illustration. I record it on a four-by-six card (or staple the clipping or copy to a card) and at the bottom of the card print A-l. In other words, this is the first illustration placed in the ILL.A file folder. Subsequent illustrations in the file will be labeled A-2, A-3, on through A-25, without regard to their particular theme.

Next, I title a sheet of notebook paper THEOLOGY, and place it in the three-ring notebook under T. I write A-l in the left margin, and then describe the illustration in one brief sentence. I think through this sentence clearly because it will be used to jog my memory later.

A key filing principle is “the longer it takes to store the information, the faster the retrieval.” The opposite is also true. Failure to carefully file illustrations at the outset leads to wasted time in recovery.

Since, like a multifaceted jewel, good illustrations often shed light in several directions, I consider whether the illustration speaks well to any other subject and usually cross-reference an illustration at least once. The theology illustration could probably also illuminate the doctrine of God. So I take a second sheet of paper, write the word GOD on it, write A-1 and the same one-sentence description, and file it under G in my notebook.

Many illustrations can be cross-referenced in more than two places. For example:

A theologian met an astronomer. The astronomer was frustrated with the theologian for making religion too complicated. He said, “Why are you fellows so obscure? You talk about supralapsarianism this, and traducianism that. You quibble over fine points of predestination and God’s omniscience. For me, religion is simple; it’s the Golden Rule: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you..’ “

“I understand your frustration,” replied the theologian. “You astronomers often confuse me with your talk of expanding universes this and exploding novae that. You’re always talking about astronomical perturbations and galactic anomalies. For me astronomy is simple: it’s ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star.’ “

This story could apply not only to theology and God but also to religion, the Golden Rule, and doctrine. But I’ve discovered that two cross-references are sufficient for me to track down a particular illustration quickly, so I don’t complicate the process.

I’m ruthless when choosing “fileable” illustrations. Lame materials waste space and don’t get used. They take time to insert and later to wade through-and pass over-on a hectic Saturday night. I restrict my filing to bell ringers.

Saving an illustration is akin to selecting a piece of quality art. I like to think about it a while before buying. Through trial and error I’ve learned it’s wiser to collect patiently a limited number of masterpieces than scores of mediocre pieces.

Quips and quotes

Many have said to me, “That’s a great way to store illustrations and anecdotes, but how do you go about saving one-liners?” I used to use the same method, but it simply didn’t work. It was too cumbersome and time consuming for quips and short quotes. Now I simply carry a spiral note pad in my briefcase at all times. Whenever I read or hear a provocative thought, I immediately record it, including the date and the source.

Since I find my best quips and quotes while reading books or magazine articles, I often jot them down in sequence, always carefully noting the page num- L ber and identifying the source after the last entry from a single source. You can fit a huge number of one-liners and even sizable quotes into a single eighty-page spiral notebook.

Illustrations and quotes from books

Years ago I discovered the retrieval value of indexing my books. Whenever I find a memorable illustration, I bracket it and write ILL in the margin. Then I turn to the blank pages at the back of the book and write ILL at the top of the page. There I record trigger sentences and page numbers for future reference.

Whether you do any more than that depends on your memory. In years past I would finish a book, index it as described, and pass it on to my secretary for recording and filing. But I have since concluded that for me that was both time consuming and unnecessary.

I usually remember where to find a book illustration. I’ve discovered that even with a personal library of 2,000 volumes, I can quickly recall in what book a particular illustration or quote is located. I’ve also found that I identify with the style and storytelling methods of certain authors, and as a result, a relatively small number of writers generate the lion’s share of my book illustration stash.

If, however, you find yourself forgetting good material, tying those book illustrations into the system has the advantage of keeping all your illustrations indexed in a single place (the three-ring notebook). Instead of indexing in the back of the book, in your three-ring notebook write the book title and page number and then a trigger sentence. There is no need for a four-by-six card in the file folder.

When in doubt about whether to file, I remember the words of the Chinese philosopher: “The weakest ink is stronger than the strongest memory.”

-Gary Gonzales

Spectrum Ministries

Upland, California

Copyright © 1992 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Every three to four weeks, my associate pastor does something significant. She doesn’t do much the rest of the time. No one in my congregation would even identify her as a staff member. But about once a month, they welcome her ministry.

I’m the sole pastor of a small-town church. I’m also the secretary and sometimes business manager. There’s no way this congregation can afford an associate pastor, so the one we have works for free.

Every week in the classroom, pulpit, and living room, I try to speak and live the gospel. I work hard at teaching and preaching, visiting and spiritual direction. In all I do as a pastor, I want to help draw people further into a grace-filled life, a life marked by prayer and worship, witness and joy.

But I know I can’t do it all.

Larger churches, faced with this dilemma, hire an associate pastor, someone who can specialize in outreach or education or youth ministry. I don’t have that luxury, but I do have that unpaid associate pastor: the church newsletter.

Every three or four weeks I spend a “staff day,” working on the newsletter. It’s a simple, one-page, both-sides affair that lets me talk about the gospel in ways I can’t in pulpit or living room. I take seriously its associate pastor role. For those hours of thinking and writing, I give myself to another task: I stop being pastor and become an associate with a one-line job description: telling gospel truth in a new way.

Our newsletter has two parts. The first page lets me take something in our common life and expand on it, showing how God is working in the mundane things of life in West Yellowstone, Montana. The back page shows the working out of the gospel in the events of the congregation: weddings and funerals, potluck suppers and classes, decisions of the elders and announcements of events.

Page one is slow work, thoughtful work. It demands that I stay alert to what’s going on around me. I have to notice the way God shapes and works with life. I look for a way to connect God’s grace with the lives of my people, a chance to interpret the faith in a new way. I don’t want the newsletter, with great potential for pastoral care and spiritual direction, to become merely another piece of information in an information-saturated culture.

I often use parables on page one. Parables were used by Jesus to portray the gospel in terms his listeners could understand. While his listeners didn’t always get the point of the parable, they walked away unsettled and wondering. They mulled things over. They asked questions.

That’s the type of response I long to evoke with the newsletter: taking the commonplace and ordinary and making it extraordinary, showing the possibilities of grace in the humdrum.

In 1988 Yellowstone Park was burning. All summer long we lived with smoke, firefighters, arguments, evacuation alerts, and the sadness of charred earth and blackened trees. Those controversial fires gave cause for thought and discussion. A late summer snowfall in the midst of the fires became the focus of that month’s newsletter:

Long forgotten, Sunday’s snowflakes surprised us. inured to summer’s dry heat, the slowly cooling days and nights should have warned us: we missed their message. Ever forgetful, we thought low humidity and constant sun were our only weather.

Then, gracefully, Lord’s Day snowfall sent spirits soaring: fire’s enemy, those gentle white flakes sizzled against ember and flame, sheer numbers overwhelming stubborn coals until forest, once green and now black, became white.

By Monday it was gone. Like some peculiar manna, this heaven-sent September snow disappeared quickly, invisible by the second day, unable to be stored or preserved, leaving us gazing upward in hope of more and suddenly alert to another climate, aware that heat and sun aren’t the only forecast for our lives.

We tend to think that the future will be like the present-only more so. What we know now is what we will know: today’s hot sun determines tomorrow’s weather too.

But Sunday’s snowfall says otherwise.

Gracefully, snowflakes fell. Climatic conditions changed, and we realized that the future isn’t some poor extension of today.

Undeserving though we are, the snow fell on us. Unplanned and uncaused, those tiny white flakes helped accomplish what aircraft, sprinklers, fire lines, and tractors couldn’t: for a while the fires were slowed, and some were stilled.

Undeserved grace falls every day. Intensified each Sunday as we attend to the words, “Let us worship God,” grace flakes down, drenching us each Lord’s Day. God gives himself to us, as unstintingly as those hurried snowflakes, until we find ourselves covered, white, clean: sin’s fires quenched, embers of anger and sloth dead.

At times we can be surprised by grace, that slow, certain gift of God that remakes us. We are inured to ourselves, so grace is often missed or avoided. But as surely as that surprising snowfall last Lord’s Day, God comes to us, the undeserving, changing the weather of our heart. Alert now to God’s climate, today and tomorrow become shaped, not by us, but by the deep love and acceptance of God, illustrated quietly last Sunday in minute flakes of snow.

My associate pastor was doing something I couldn’t do in the pulpit. (Perhaps others can; I can’t!) I don’t talk that way over coffee in someone’s living room. But my unpaid associate gets away with it.

In the mountains of Montana, snow is a part of the vernacular almost six months of the year. Snow removal-shoveling, plowing, clearing rooftops- is something everyone in my congregation knows.

In an article titled, “Space for God,” written during Lent, I tried to make our common experience of snow removal become a way of understanding the faith and Lent:

Ladders lean precariously against eaves and rooftops. More daring souls eschew ropes or handholds and stand on the pitched surface, snow shovel in hand, saws and hand plows at the ready. The less intrepid among us rig lines, wondering if they’ll hold if feet should slip.

With four to five feet of snow overhead, residents work to lessen the load. Cutting, then sliding, blocks off the roof, we bend and shovel, bend and shovel, stopping occasionally to gaze west to Lion’s Head or east to the cut in the horizon where the Madison River flows-until roofs all over West Yellowstone reappear. In days they’re covered again.

Such snow provides good insulation. It looks beautiful as wind sculpts and shapes. Cornices hang ever further.

But left alone, the deepening snow is benign and beautiful. Visitors must scurry

no longer inside and out: no lingering under roofline. Roof beams strain under the load, and warmer, wet snows increase weight. Leaks begin.

The only solution is cutting, sliding, scraping, and shoveling-sweat and a tired back. The occasional view of mountains and a rooftop view of West Yellowstone are rewards.

Other rewards are equally important, if less visible: the leaks that didn’t occur, the visitor not buried, the roof beams left unstrained, the chimney pipe not bent or moved by shifting snow.

Roof shoveling is a normal winter activity here. It is Lenten work, clearing away a beautiful and terrible insulation in order to remove strain and protect guest; clearing space so roof and house maintain their integrity; making room for snow yet to come, so collapse will not occur.

Lent is the heart’s snow removal season. Lent tells us to cut and shovel, slide and push until anything and everything that crowds us, compresses us, and thus reduces us, is gone.

Lent concentrates time as we prepare for Holy Week and Resurrection. Lent stimulates us to remove the impediments, clear the clutter, shove aside the snow piles or anything else that is crowding our space for God. Lent sees only the essential and demands commitment to one task: clearing space for God.

With part two, the associate pastor shows another aspect of grace. Announcing weddings and Easter breakfasts, thanking faithful workers and alerting people of new events, the back page speaks the language of grace through the work of the church. This isn’t obvious parable work Gospel often seems far from “Our Annual Spring Cleaning and Barbecue will be held . . .” But spring cleaning and teacher recognition is the necessary back page to metaphor and parable on the front. God’s grace is always worked out in the ordinary and the commonplace.

We attend to the ordinary (“The Church Treasurer reports that our giving is falling behind our spending . . .”) as one expression of the extraordinary (“God gives himself to us, as unstintingly as those hurried snowflakes, until we find ourselves covered, white, clean . . .”).

Page one’s gospel parables work one way, coming in the back door-surprising, questioning, probing. Page two’s gospel works another way, using the front door-activities are announced and projects planned, showing hands and feet given to grace, expressing love for God in ministry and service.

Nearly every church has an unpaid associate. She requires discipline and motivation to get her going. But getting the Associate Pastor of Gospel Parables working is part of my job as head of staff. Increasingly it’s a duty I enjoy.

-Steve Trotter Community Protestant Church

West Yellowstone, Montana

Copyright © 1992 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Planning the Funeral

Usually two problems arise in planning funerals. First, bereaved families know little or nothing about the desires of the deceased concerning the funeral. Second, the minister seldom has sufficient information about the deceased to write an inclusive life summary and eulogy.

Robert Watkins, pastor of First Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, has developed two different forms for gathering this kind of information. One form is distributed to the congregation and allows them the opportunity to plan their own funeral. The other questionnaire collects information for a relevant funeral sermon.

Although some people refuse to think about their finite nature or preplanning their own funeral, Watkins believes it essential for the church to provide that opportunity. He does this in two ways.

A preplanning form, with an explanatory article, is included periodically in the church newsletter. Sometimes he mails a pastoral concern letter that includes a questionnaire for funeral planning. In either case, individuals are urged to complete a preplanning form, share a copy with several family members, and leave a copy on file in the church office.

The planning form asks people to state their preferences on such matters as

-Name of funeral home.

-Person or persons to be notified upon death.

-Where the body should lie in state.

-Whether the casket should be open or closed.

-The location of the funeral service (church, funeral home, or other).

-Name of preferred clergyman.

-Suggested Scripture and hymns.

-Suggested musicians.

-Designation of memorial gifts.

Immediately upon hearing of a death, Watkins checks church files for a completed funeral planning form. If it is on file, he sends a copy to the next of kin. Most families try to comply with the wishes of the deceased, but he does not intervene in their decision.

Periodically the plans need to be revised. Recently, a woman wrote a note saying she had spoken with a soloist and secured his commitment to sing two of her favorite hymns. Prior to that she had requested that those two hymns be played from recordings by Tennessee Ernie Ford and Elvis Presley. Watkins felt thankful for the revision.

Watkin’s funeral sermons try do four things: express thanksgiving for the life of the deceased, console the grieving family, personalize the service with anecdotes from the life of the deceased, and read appropriate Scripture with the family in mind.

Before writing the funeral sermon, Watkins recalls what he knows about the deceased and then phones key people and visits family members to augment his memory. He asks such questions as

-What was the age of the person and the cause of death?

-Are there relatives or friends of the deceased to whom I should minister?

-Are any young children among the grievers?

-Did the deceased have favorite Scriptures or hymns?

-What words or characteristics describe the deceased?

-Are there any special requests from the family in regard to the content of the funeral?

-Are there other significant circumstances I should know about?

“Families don’t seem threatened by my questions. Most people appreciate the opportunity to help prepare the funeral,” he says. “From the data, one specific word, Scripture, or memory usually surfaces as a theme for the sermon.”

In one case, every conversation mentioned the man’s intense love of gardening. Gardening became the theme for the sermon. A woman who had been affectionately called “Queenie” inspired the sermonic phrase, “Take courage! The queen is in her mansion.” The funeral sermon text for a man who had administered seven large coffee farms seemed obvious-the parable of the good steward.

Discussion of the life of the deceased allows grievers to face the reality of death and to savor the memories of a loved one.

“While I dread the pain and grief ofevery funeral,” says Watkins, “I cher ish the privilege of providing a meaningful worship experience for those who grieve.”

Celebrating Life

As a parish pastor, I have long thought that what people do best is funerals. There is wisdom, protocol, and caring there. Even the liturgy has a dignity that Sunday mornings find hard to achieve on a regular basis. Imagine my surprise when my community added an improvement to the standard arrangement.

A woman in my congregation had fought breast cancer for five years, and now the doctors had withdrawn the hope they had previously offered. A socially innovative friend had the idea of giving a reception while the honoree was still well enough to receive guests.

Time was of the essence. Three women initiated a phone web to issue invitations, and a restaurant arranged a buffet with only a two-day notice.

When the day arrived, several hundred people arrived at the restaurant at 5:00 P.M. each giving a donation to cover costs. They formed a receiving line to greet the honoree, who sat in a wheelchair with her head wrapped in a turban and oxygen lines trailing discreetly behind. There were no testimonials, and weepers were ushered quietly away. At the end of an hour and a half, all guests were invited to leave.

Some people expressed discomfort with the idea of such a party, but many others gratefully welcomed the opportunity to attend.

As I circulated, I noted some clear advantages. Normally the isolation is severe at this stage of a terminal illness. This woman was able to greet her friends who saw her looking her relative best. The party brought a note of thanksgiving and celebration along with the sorrow for the imminent loss of a woman who had given a great deal to her church and community.

Her party showed all of us another way to celebrate life even as we drew strength to face the inevitable, which came a month later.

-Donna Schaper Riverhead, New York

Serving the Spiritually Single

Many adult Christians in my congregation are ‘spiritually single’-married to unbelievers,” says Ronald Hotrum, pastor of Sodaville Evangelical Church in Lebanon, Oregon. “Our ministry to the believing spouses began with a men’s prayer group whose focus was unbelieving husbands. Since then we’ve added another dimension.”

That other dimension is linking each spiritually fractured family with a believing couple. Each person with an unbelieving spouse has a specific couple to turn to for prayer and endure agement, as well as prayer for the conversion of the spouse.

Hotrum prayerfully selects spiritually mature couples from the congregation to match with the spiritual singles. He contacts a couple and suggests they begin a ministry of encouragement to the spiritually fractured family.

Hotrum calls these families “The 6:2 Crew,” after the verse in Galatians: “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

He communicates with The 6:2 Crew in a monthly letter. The program is never mentioned from the pulpit or in any church publications. Only members of The 6:2 Crew know who is serving in this way.

Twenty families are now served by The 6:2 Crew, and with positive results. Spouses are more frequently present for worship and special events, and they seem more comfortable in the congregation. One husband, in his seventies, recently professed faith in Christ. Another began attending church when he brought his newborn for the first time.

The 6:2 Crew families report that new friendships have been formed and that their family prayer times are enlivened by intercession for their new friends.

Media for Missions

Using a television talk-show format, the Crossroads Church in Concord, California, produces a fast-paced mission banquet that attracts people to hear about missions.

An elevated platform at one end of the fellowship hall is furnished with a couch, some plants, a movie screen, a video camera on a tripod, and a television set on either side. Tables are arranged so that the assembled congregation can view the platform while seated.

Following the meal, one of the church “comedians” begins the program by welcoming everyone and telling a couple of missionary jokes. Then he introduces the pastor, Greg Asimakoupoulos, who sits behind the desk and introduces the missionary, who sits on the couch. The pastor then conducts an interview, asking the missionaries to describe their backgrounds, current assignments, and recent anecdotes of God’s grace in their lives.

Each missionary is invited to show a few slides on the movie screen or show a video clip, which is transmitted to the two monitors.

A soloist or ensemble will then present a musical interlude, and then the youth group will present a “commercial,” featuring the project for which money is to be raised. Following the commercial, the pastor goes into the audience with a microphone and allows people to ask questions of the missionary. If more than one missionary is to be featured, this format can simply be repeated.

The video camera operator tapes the program and broadcasts it on the monitors, creating a studio-type atmosphere and aiding those who cannot see and hear all that is happening on the platform.

At the close of the program, the audience can be invited to give brief on-camera greetings to missionaries. A video tape of the entire program can be duplicated for sending to missionaries.

There’s new excitement about the mission banquet since Crossroads Church took a hint from the media.

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Copyright © 1992 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

When I first entered the pastorate, I considered preparing and preaching Sunday’s sermon the essence of ministry. Everything else was secondary. The notion of sharing my pulpit was unthinkable, tantamount to a denial of my calling.

But it wasn’t long until I discovered that there was much more to being a good preacher than just preaching. From the beginning, people looked to me for far more than a weekly sermon. They wanted from me counsel, administration, vision, recruitment, and a host of other skills that had little or nothing to do with my pulpit prowess.

And to my surprise, all that other stuff really did matter. When it was handled well, our ministry flourished. When handled poorly, we struggled.

It was then I first began to think about doing the unthinkable: sharing my pulpit with another preacher. Four years later I decided to go for it.

Here was my thinking: By turning over some of the time spent preparing and preaching sermons, I would be able to give better direction to our overall ministry. That would result in a healthier church and spiritual environment, and in the long run, my sermons would be more effective, even if less frequent.

I was right.

Now, seven years later, I’m more convinced than ever. I doubt I could ever again return to the days of being a one-man show. Sharing the pulpit has been too beneficial. It’s proven to be one of the best things that ever happened to our church and to me.

Here’s why-and what it took to make it work.

What It Did for the Church

One of the most significant things it did for our church was to make it more stable-by making it less dependent upon me.

Let’s face it: attendance and giving at most churches rises and falls with the presence of the senior pastor. Any prolonged illness or move to another church usually results in a dramatic dropoff.

That’s because many church members have bought into the preacher, not the church. So when the pastor is gone, they’re gone.

I’ve seen this first-hand nearly every summer. Along about August, we always receive a flood of visitors from other local churches. Invariably their visits correspond to their senior pastor’s vacation. Knowing a “second stringer” will be in their pulpit, these folks figure it’s a good time to check out another church.

Frankly, I find it appalling that so many people identify more with their preacher than their church. But there is not much I can do about it. It’s a well-entrenched fact.

What I can do is try to tie people into more than just me. Sharing the pulpit (which in our case means having a second pastor preach between 20 and 30 percent of the morning messages) has helped mitigate the problem by giving our people the chance to buy into two preachers. And most have.

As a result, when I now leave for a conference, mission trip, or vacation, we hardly miss a beat. There is never an appreciable drop in attendance or giving. Things keep right on going.

That’s not to say that my long-term absence or move to another church wouldn’t have an effect. Of course it would. As the initiating leader of our ministry and staff, I’m a vital cog in the wheel. But it wouldn’t hobble our ministry nearly as much as if I were the only “first-string varsity preacher” our people knew.

Should I be removed from the scene, our people wouldn’t be faced with a sudden parade of strangers in the pulpit (or an ill-equipped associate, learning on the job). They’d simply get an extra dose of “the other preacher,” someone they’ve already grown to love and respect.

The church has also benefited in other ways. For one, they’ve received a more balanced presentation of Scripture than I could ever give on my own.

While Mike (the other preaching pastor) and I share the same core theological perspective, we often approach life and Scripture from different angles. I’m more practical and oriented to the bottom line. He’s more of an intellect and a scholar. Thus each of us ends up seeing things and reaching people that the other misses.

There’s one benefit that, frankly, caught me by surprise: sharing the pulpit increased the spiritual authority and power of the rest of the staff.

In many multiple-staff churches, the typical man or woman in the pew looks at the ministry staff this way: one real pastor and a bunch of helpers.

Much of that has to do with the power of the pulpit. Whoever has the privilege of preaching regularly is usually seen as the head honcho. When it’s time for a wedding, baptism, or funeral, that’s the person most people want. When it’s time to seek help or advice, they usually prefer to talk to the one who’s been talking to them.

All of this tends to undercut staff effectiveness by relegating staff members to second-class status. If I’m perceived as the only real pastor, then the rest of the staff have to work overtime just to catch up.

But sharing the power and the prestige of the pulpit has helped me break down that kind of thinking. It has sent a clear message that I’m not the only real pastor around here.

When I first decided to try it, we were in the process of hiring our first full-time staff member. When he came aboard, there’s no question that most folks saw him as a second stringer with little spiritual authority in their lives.

But once he began to preach regularly (and do it well), they began to view him differently. He became the “other pastor,” not just my helper or substitute. And with that change in perception came a marked increase in his spiritual authority and power in their lives: they came to him for counseling, for weddings and funerals, and they often mentioned how his sermons had helped them.

That didn’t particularly surprise me. What surprised me was that once the mold was broken for him, it carried over to everyone else on staff. As we’ve grown and added additional staff, that same sense of elevated respect and spiritual authority has been granted to each new member of our ministry team (even though none of the others preach).

Apparently, sharing the pulpit has sent a couple of important messages: (1) I’m not the only real pastor around here and (2) when we hire a new pastor, we’re hiring the real thing, not a second stringer.

How the Senior Pastor Benefits

However, the church isn’t the only one that has benefited. I have too, perhaps even more so. To begin with, it’s given me a chance to regularly recharge my creative batteries.

We each have a reservoir of creativity. For some of us it runs deeper than for others. But for each of us there’s a bottom. Unless we’re able to periodically replenish it, sooner or later it runs dry. When that happens, the joy goes out of preaching, for us and our listeners.

I once served in a ministry where I was responsible to teach five or six different Bible studies every week. For a while it was exhilarating. But after three or four years I began to fade.

It’s not that I ran out of passages or topics to teach. I ran out of creative and thoughtful ways to present them. The result was a marked increase in truisms, cliches -and a little plagiarism!-and boredom all around.

Now I use my breaks from the pulpit to rekindle my creativity, to catch up on non-preparatory reading, to reflect, and to dream new dreams. Breaks recharge my creative juices in a way that another week of sermon preparation cannot.

I also use my non-preaching weeks to regroup emotionally. Preaching is hard work, and it takes its emotional toll. It’s no small matter to stand up and presume to speak for God. No wonder we’re known to take Sunday afternoon naps and Mondays off.

Yet for me, the actual preaching and preparing of a sermon isn’t the hard part. I love it. The hard part is always knowing I’ve got another one due in a couple of days. That keeps me on edge and always pushing.

During my first four years at the church, I preached every Sunday except for my vacations. That meant that, no matter where I went or what I did, next week’s sermon was always percolating in the back of my mind. I’d wake up in the middle of the night to scratch out an outline. I’d take note pads on vacation. At conferences and seminars, I’d disappear for a few hours to hammer out that final point or closing illustration.

The result was a slow but steady drain on my emotional reserves. As much as I love study and preaching, it was too much of a good thing. Too often, by the time my vacation rolled around, preaching had become a chore instead of a privilege; I was reading the Bible for sermon material, not personal growth. Furthermore, most of my ministry was on automatic pilot.

That hardly ever happens anymore. I find that my regular breaks from the pulpit get me off the sermon prep treadmill before I’ve reached a point of emotional exhaustion. Though I often end up working just as hard and even harder during my non-preaching weeks, it’s the change in routine that makes the difference. Preaching can hardly become monotonous when it’s periodically taken away. In fact, I always miss it, and I invariably return with heightened enthusiasm for proclaiming God’s Word.

Sharing the pulpit has also helped me follow through better on my responsibilities as the church’s leader. Like most pastors, I have a love/hate relationship with administration: I love what it accomplishes. I hate doing it. I didn’t enter the ministry so that I could juggle budgets, supervise a staff, crank out policy statements, or return phone calls. But that’s part of the package, and if I want to do a good job, I have to do those things well and in a timely manner.

Still they aren’t a lot of fun. If I can find half an excuse, I’ll put them off until next week. And preparing next Sunday’s sermon has always been a great excuse.

That’s where my weeks out of the pulpit come in. When I’m not scheduled to preach, I no longer have an excuse to let things go. Those important-but-noturgent administrative matters that have been pushed to the side finally have a chance to rise to the top of my to-do list. And miracle of miracles, they usually get done.

I’ve often been told that one of the secrets to our congregation’s health and growth has been my excellent administration. But little do people know that what they’re so impressed with would never get done if I had my way-or if I had a sermon to prepare every week.

What It Takes to Make it Work

As valuable as sharing the pulpit can be, it can also be a disaster if done poorly or naively. We’ve all heard horror stories of an idealistic co-pastorate gone bad or a trusted associate who turned into an Absalom at the gate. That’s probably why so many of my mentors recommended against it, and why so few pastors try it

But I’ve found it to be neither difficult nor dangerous as long as I pay careful attention to four key factors.

• Mutual respect and trust. The first thing I look for in a person to share the pulpit with is someone I can respect and trust. The second thing I look for is someone who respects and trusts me.

The power and prestige of the pulpit is too great to give to someone I’m not sure about. Once they have that platform, it’s hard to take it back.

Before turning the pulpit over to Mike, I had known and watched him for four years. Like most of our staff, he was hired from within so his loyalty and integrity had been tested by time and through actual disagreements. I knew I was putting a Jonathan, not an Absalom, in the pulpit.

Bringing in an outsider is a lot trickier. No amount of interviewing and candidating can guarantee that two people will work well together once they’re actually on the job. Only time will tell. That’s why I’d wait at least one year before starting to share the pulpit with a newly hired staff member. I’d want to confirm that the person I thought I’d hired was the person I actually got.

Make no mistake, sharing the pulpit can be tough on a shaky relationship. That’s because people tend to choose sides-even when there isn’t a contest. Both Mike and I have found that when some people compliment us, they suggest subtly a criticism of the other person: “Mike, your sermons are meaty” or “Larry, your sermons are practical.” It’s not that they are trying to be malicious or drive a wedge between us; it’s just their way of saying, “I like you best.”

That’s no big deal as long as we understand what’s happening and share a genuine respect and love for each other. But if either of us lacks that respect and if we begin seeing ourselves as competitors instead of co-workers, those kind of comments would widen the rift, serving as encouragement and confirmation of the ugly things we were already thinking.

Of such stuff coups and church splits are made. And that’s why I11 always wait until I’m certain of the relationship before sharing the pulpit with anybody.

• Good preaching. The second thing I look for is someone who’ll do a good job in the pulpit.

I realize that something as subjective as “good preaching” is hard to define. But for our purposes, let’s define a good preacher as someone the congregation thinks is worth listening to.

I know of one church where the senior pastor tried to share his pulpit with a warm-hearted and greatly loved associate. Unfortunately, he was also a pedestrian communicator. Attendance dived.

The best candidates for pulpit time aren’t always next in line on the staff hierarchy. They might not even be on the staff. I know of one church where a part-time youth pastor was the one tapped to share the pulpit. I know of another where a lay preacher was clearly the best person for the job. (Obviously, in a solo pastorate it would have to be a lay person, perhaps a gifted Sunday school teacher or someone serving in a parachurch ministry.)

The key is to find someone the members feel good about and who can help them grow. If you do that, people won’t care where that person fits in the staff hierarchy.

In a smaller church, it’s possible to get by with some on-the-job training. When I first brought Mike aboard, he had never preached a sermon in his life. But I knew from his success as a Bible teacher at a Christian school and various home Bible studies that he had the gift. All he lacked was experience.

At the time, we were barely pushing a couple of hundred in attendance. We were small enough that everyone knew Mike. Even if his sermon missed the mark, they appreciated the spirit and effort behind it. They were ready and willing to grow with him.

Now that we’re five or six times that size, most of our people have no way of knowing the person behind the performance. That makes them much less tolerant of someone learning on the job. In other words, the larger a church gets, the more matched in preaching skills the preachers should be.

• Proper billing. Once I’ve found the right person, I still have to make sure that he gets proper billing. Otherwise, he’ll always be seen as my substitute, someone who’s giving them less than the best.

I’ve found one of the most effective ways to present someone as the other preacher rather than my stand-in is to be highly visible whenever he’s scheduled to preach. To do that, I’ll often make the weekly announcements. That lets everyone know that I’m in town and healthy. It also sends a clear message that he’s not just filling in because I’m unavailable.

That proved to be particularly valuable when I first started sharing the pulpit. In fact, when I went out of town, I often came back early just to show my face. Though it’s something I no longer need to do, it paid high dividends during those early days.

It’s also important not to give away all the Sundays nobody wants. To assign someone to preach during my vacations and holiday weekends is hardly sharing the pulpit. It’s dumping the dogs!

Not announcing who will be in the pulpit from week to week has also been helpful (though it’s no secret if anyone asks). Since I’m trying to get across the idea that we have two first-string preachers, I don’t want to make a big deal whether or not I’m speaking on a given week. Publicizing when I will and won’t be in the pulpit would only encourage people to think of the other preacher as a substitute

Finally, I’m careful how I talk about our roles. I always introduce myself as “one of the pastors.” I never call Mike “my associate.” He’s the “other pastor” or “one of the other pastors.”

None of these techniques are as vital as mutual respect and good preaching skills. Still they’ve gone a long way toward establishing the credibility of the other person in the pulpit.

• Meeting congregational expectations. Every congregation has expectations (mostly unwritten), tampered with at great peril. To share the pulpit successfully, it’s important to know what these expectations are and to meet them or find a way to change them.

For instance, our people expect me to be in the pulpit on Christmas and Easter. I can give away any other Sunday without hearing a complaint. But let me fail to preach on either of those days and I’ll have a small uprising on my hands.

How much of the pulpit can be shared will also be dictated by congregational expectations. As Lyle Schaller has noted, churches that place a greater emphasis on the sermon and the personality of the preacher, rather than the Eucharist and the office of the minister, will have a harder time adjusting to an equal interchange of preachers.

In our case, we’re sermon-centered. So when I first started sharing the pulpit, I was pushing it when I was out of the pulpit 15 percent of the time. Now, I’m out as much as 30 percent, but that’s probably as high as it will ever be able to go here.

The pastor of one church never missed a Sunday during his long tenure. Even during his vacations he shuttled back and forth on weekends to be in the pulpit. As you can imagine, that built in the congregation some incredible expectations. When a friend of mine became this pastor’s successor, the best he could do was to turn over some Sunday nights and his vacation weekends. Anything more would have been interpreted as shirking his duties.

The key in any situation is to know what will and won’t work there and to adjust accordingly.

Preaching, I’ve discovered, is only one part of being a pastor. It may be the most important part, but it still is only a part. When I learned to share that part with a trusted and skillful colleague, it not only made me a better preacher but also a better pastor.

And it made our church a better church.

Copyright © 1992 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.