Page 4251 – Christianity Today (2024)

Postmodernism is an idea that is bandied about so much these days that it has been stripped of its edge. Gen-X pundits use it to speak about the relational style of today’s young adults. Conservative commentators use it to describe today’s rampant relativism.

But trying to put a sharp definition on postmodernism is a very “modern” thing to do. Try to categorize it and it loses its postmodern essence.

For many churches, trying to ride the currents of postmodernism has become an obsession, a rationale for throwing out the Sunday-morning dress code or forgoing the hymnal in favor of PowerPoint. But reaching postmoderns is more than using pop-culture sermon illustrations or changing your music.

As pastor of an urban-based church comprised mostly of college students, I find myself smack in the middle of questions about postmodernism. I have to stay up-to-date on what’s happening, but the question is: Having identified the trends of postmodernism, what do we do with them? How should they inform our ministries?

Rather than mimic the trends of the postmodern world, we do better to figure out what those trends say about the needs and desires of our culture, and then use those insights to strengthen the incarnational nature of our ministries. Like Christ, the church is called to live in the world, to engage it, to love it. For my church, being “incarnational” has meant responding to the postmodern desire for close-knit community by adding a second service and discussing the possibility of a new church plant rather than moving into a larger building, which would take us out of the inner-city neighborhood where we’ve been developing a physical presence. For other churches, it will mean examining themselves to determine how they must live out the gospel in their unique situations.

Head, heart, and hands

Strip away the dependency on technology, the cynicism, and the relativism often tied to postmodernism, and you have a yearning for something more, something spiritual that only God’s people can supply.

We planted Cambridge Community Fellowship in 1996 with the support of my former church in Maryland. We began with about eight people and have steadily grown. Today we have 250 regular attenders.

For services, we rent space in a small Nazarene church in the Central Square neighborhood of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Located off Massachusetts Avenue, between Harvard and MIT, we are two subway stops away from Tufts University and a couple of bus stops from Boston University. Many of our attenders come from these four colleges. Another contingent comes from Wellesley College (about 20 miles away), a handful from Northeastern University, and then the rest is our post-college population, people who work in the Boston area year-round.

The building next door to us is a low-income housing project. Government subsidized housing is sprinkled throughout the community, along with apartment complexes and rowhouses occupied by young professionals and students.

Because we draw so many thoughtful college students, who are bent on inquiry, it’s hard to be superficial at our church. We have to dig deeply into issues and think through things carefully.

Ministering to a congregation so intellectually driven keeps a pastor on his toes. One Sunday I was preaching from a text and made a verbal slip about the translation of a Greek word. One of the members here is a Harvard linguistics major who knows Greek better than I do. He very kindly came up to me afterwards and said, “I’m sure it was just a mistake, but this is a better translation of that word.” Fortunately, his correction was done with great love and concern. But such an atmosphere keeps me growing.

One challenge of ministry to a young “postmodern crowd” is to move people away from a strictly intellectual phase, to allow them to experience God at the same time that they’re studying about him. We aim for a worship and prayer time that ministers to the heart as well as the head. Thus our worship time allows for free expression and asks for participation from all. We also try to ensure participation in the life of the church beyond Sunday services and weekly small groups. For instance, we urge the congregation to get involved in the city: they visit the residents at local senior-citizens’ homes, tutor area high-school students, and serve meals at a nearby soup kitchen among other activities.

Outreach to the surrounding community helps keep us grounded. Our annual Vacation Bible School draws scores of neighborhood children. And kids come to church activities throughout the year. Most come without their parents, but they often are an opening to reach the rest of their families.

Ministry to postmoderns must be connected to real-life needs and provide opportunities for them to serve as well. Being located in the city offers many chances for this type of engagement.

Disconnected desires

One fascinating thing about the city is our cultural desire to escape it. Many of us come into the city just long enough to work our jobs or visit a museum, then it’s back out to a less-populated area. We desire space and distance from others. Today people are moving much farther apart from each other in both bodily and psychological ways.

Those of us who grew up in the suburbs know that the real goal with living in the suburbs is not a cul-de-sac or endless strip malls, but having one’s own space. Suburban dwellers want sufficient distance between themselves and their neighbors.

The relentless pursuit of the American Dream has disconnected us from others. And when we become disconnected, we’re less likely to see their needs or to engage them in a substantive way. In many ways, this suburban desire for physical space is responsible for the postmodern desire for emotional and spiritual intimacy.

While longing for intimacy, however, many postmoderns have a strong appetite for motion and speed. A body in motion continues to distance itself from those around us who are in pain. Because we’re so used to moving at high speeds, we fail to connect with people because all we’re doing is moving quickly from one point to the next.

I worked for a number of years in the D.C. area, and I lived an hour away in Columbia, Maryland. I took public transportation, and in that hour that I was on the train, I didn’t have to connect with anything because I was moving so fast. The neighborhoods blurred by. At every stop, the conductor would announce the neighborhood, but it wouldn’t matter—it was not a neighborhood to me; it was just a stop on a subway route.

Our society’s obsession with speed creates a disconnection. As I move at high speeds, I rarely come into meaningful contact with others. But if I’m walking to work, I see the neighborhood people. I say hi. I see the homeless person. I see the kid out on his own. I see the drug dealers.

Moving at a slower rate, things appear differently to us. Yet our society prefers to rush on by. As Christians, we should be concerned about how these rituals are being brought into the church. Are we buying into these “postmodern” values? It’s easy to attend huge services where people don’t have to engage others if they don’t feel like it. But is this truly living out the demands of the gospel?

Post-modem values

The Internet is both a metaphor for and a contributor to our detached culture. Constantly shifting from one screen to another at such high speed, you have little time to make lasting human connection.

I first got hooked up to the Internet about five years ago. I had a 9.6 modem. You would log on, it would make that familiar screeching noise, and you could literally walk away, eat dinner, and come back before you were finally connected. Then you began the process of downloading e-mail. Again, you could go have dessert, and 45 minutes later you finally had your three pieces of e-mail.

Today speed rules on the Internet. We went from 9.6 modems to 14.4—and that wasn’t fast enough. So we went to 36.6 and then 56.6. Then you had to have a T1 line, or a cable modem, or a DSL which is advertised as being “100 times faster” than 56.6. And it happened in just five years.

Such rapid change can’t help but affect how we view ourselves and how we view life.

Today there’s such impatience that, if an Internet screen doesn’t come up instantly, we say, “I’ve got to get a new modem.”

The Internet exacerbates our short attention span. When we move from screen to screen, nothing impacts us. This is true with television as well, but it has become even more so with the Internet. There are literally millions of screens and Web sites to surf through. And it’s impossible to make meaningful connections with that many distractions. You may glance at a story about the famine in North Korea but decide that you would rather see yesterday’s baseball scores, so you switch with the click of a mouse.

This has shaped the way we view life. It’s easy to switch off reality, to click through other people’s pain. But the church cannot afford to let this happen.

Pastors cannot let their people become short-attention-span Christians. We must be long-suffering. Like Jesus, we must connect with and care for the people around us.

In our postmodern setting, we have to almost re-teach social skills and re-teach human contact. So our goal as a church is not to become as high-tech as the world; it’s to offer what the high-tech culture does not provide. We’re out to re-establish genuine human connection, not the fast-paced, Internet lifestyle. For us, this means emphasizing the importance of small groups, taking time to develop relationships with the people in our neighborhood and with other churches. What’s more, an increasing number of our people are making conscious decisions to move into Central Square permanently as visible representatives of Christ’s body.

Of course we use technology in the church as tools—e-mail and cell phones and computers—but ultimately, the gospel is about incarnational outreach—the human touch.

Beyond abstract faith

In many ways, the concept of God is abstract. But God chose not to remain in that abstract world of heaven, which is beyond our human comprehension. In the person of Christ, God came in flesh and made his dwelling among us. So Jesus made a transition from that which was comfortable, safe, and glorious for him to something that was uncomfortable, challenging, and extremely painful. Yet he did it because of his great love for people.

The theology of the Incarnation is powerful. It forces us to ask ourselves, If we are the body of Christ, should we not have those incarnational values as well? We’re not meant to live in an abstract place, separate from this world. We are meant to be incarnational, to make a human connection.

In urban ministry, this means we’re going to move into the neighborhoods—where there are places of pain and struggle—and we’re going to be involved in people’s lives. Most of our lives are spent avoiding pain; incarnation goes against that. Incarnation means we make our dwelling among people in pain.

La-Z-Boy culture

As a child, I read books about kids growing up in colonial New England. On Sundays, they would sit on hard, splintery wooden benches. They were uncomfortable and built to be that way, so that they would keep the kids alert as they learned about God.

When you compare that to the modern convenience of a La-Z-Boy recliner, or even the office chair that I’m sitting in right now, there’s a world of difference. My chair has lots of padding; it tilts back, and it adjusts up and down. It’s comfortable.

In its most rudimentary sense, comfort is not so much about feeling good—it’s about feeling nothing. When you’re really feeling comfortable, it takes away from having to feel anything whatsoever. The goal of a La-Z-Boy and the goal of form-fitting bucket seats is for you to feel as little as possible. Everything is supported and pushed in a certain way so that you feel minimum sensation.

Comfort is yet another value of our postmodern culture that goes against incarnational ministry.

We don’t want to have our La-Z-Boy lives interrupted by people in pain, because we have worked so hard to make ourselves comfortable. This postmodern desire to “feel nothing” is contrary to what the Scriptures teach. Christ opened himself freely to the pain.

“For the joy set before him,” says the writer of Hebrews, “Jesus suffered the pain of the cross” (12:2).

As a church, we’re trying to recover the biblical motif of the suffering body of Christ in order to minister to the suffering body of a postmodern culture made passive by motion, comfort, and individualism. In part, this means making a concerted effort to connect with people—the lonely child, the single mom, the prostitute, the drug dealer. Remembering the suffering Christ moves us to embrace the suffering ones among us.

Loving the ‘other’

A big part of a pastor’s responsibility is to challenge people to grow. If we are disconnected, passive, aloof and separated, there is no spiritual growth. So we teach concern for the homeless, concern for the lost, concern for those who are hurting in our world.

At times, the values of the postmodern world go completely against such unselfish compassion and mercy. But part of any pastor’s role is to increase that sensitivity.

As church leaders, we would do well to study the various characteristics of postmodern culture. But our goal is not to uncritically adopt the trends. It’s to understand what the people pursuing the trends are actually hungering for.

What people are really hungering for is community, authenticity, and genuine faith. The only way we can give this to them is to follow Jesus’ example, becoming incarnational Christians.

Soong-Chan Rah is senior pastor of Cambridge Community Fellowship Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts.srah@erols.com

Copyright © 2000 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

A friend described a pastor we all knew. "He's not made the move to medicine man. He still talks like a chief."

The pastor was widely known and deeply respected. He had retired a few years earlier, but he hadn't adapted well to his new role. With a wealth of experience to offer as an adviser, he still employed the language of the large-church office he once held.

The transition to medicine man is not easily made—especially these days, when what's cutting edge one decade is obsolete the next. We wrestle with the Paul-Timothy model of mentoring, because today, Paul has a lot to learn and Timothy has a lot to say.

We found a postmodern-day example.

The setting is an old church in an old Seattle neighborhood overlooking the Puget Sound. Under renovation, the gray clapboard building houses the offices of Mars Hill Fellowship, a ministry that draws hundreds of mostly Gen-Xers to its Sunday night services, one at a traditional church facility downtown and another two hours later at a ragged one-screen movie theater nearer the university.

Leadership editors Marshall Shelley and Eric Reed met there with Mars Hill pastor Mark Driscoll, 29, and David Nicholas, 69, pastor of Spanish River Presbyterian Church in Boca Raton, Florida, which he founded 33 years ago. Together they have formed the Acts 29 Network, a church planting ministry that trains and supports younger pastors (www.a29.org).

In their churches and church planting, both men are chiefs. In their personal relationship, Driscoll is apprentice and warrior; Nicholas is mentor and medicine man. He is also, at times, student.

Mark Driscoll: We're very different. East Coast, West Coast. Tall, short. I go back to the Reagan Administration.

David Nicholas: I go back to FDR (laughter). Our churches are very different. Spanish River is a large suburban church with a Christian school and a new performing arts theater. We draw lots of families. That's very different from what Mark's doing.

Driscoll: Our churches look different, our bands sound different, things are done differently. Besides our regular services, our church owns a venue that seats up to a thousand kids a week in three or four concerts. It's hard-core hip hop. We have metal detectors at the door. It's very frontline.

Nicholas: We have very little in common really—except Christ.

And yet you've forged a partner relationship and started a church planting enterprise together. How did that come about?

Nicholas: I met Mark through another church planter here in Seattle. He told me, "This is a great guy, but he could use some help from an experienced pastor." So I invited him to come down to Boca. He stayed four days. From that has grown our friendship and in the past two years our network for young church planters.

Driscoll: What holds us together is friendship. David is for me an anamchara.

The Celts described the anamchara as the person you journeyed through life with—not as the mentor or the apprentice, particularly—but the person you did community with. He might have more authority or experience, but he still would listen and believe that there was something beneficial in the life of even a novice.

The heart of the relationship is encountering Christ through that person and together figuring out what Christ has called us to.

How do you do this over such long distance?

Driscoll: We talk all the time. David is my pastor. He prays for me. He invests in me. He doesn't tell me what to do, but when he sees things in my character or theology that need to be challenged, he speaks to that very directly.

I desperately need that. I tend to be stubborn and aggressive. I need someone strong speaking into my life, saying, "Think about this." But it has to be predicated on friendship and love.

Nicholas: Mark is about forty years younger than me, and he's been a Christian only twelve years. I have experience. I have a good knowledge of Scripture and theology and a practical bent toward ministry, but I don't say, "Mark, don't do it that way." Frankly, his approach to ministry does not appeal to me at my age, but he's reaching his generation in ways that I'm not. I'm learning from that, and I respect him for what he's doing.

I wouldn't say I'm a great trainer. Mark and I, we just talk. He's always mentioning a book he's just read, so I'll order the book. That feeds my spirit. Mark is impacting me and growing me, too. I hope I never stop being a learner.

You're a better model than teacher?

Nicholas: Yes.

What are you modeling?

Nicholas: I've become much more evangelistic as I've gotten older. I have an urgency to preach and to share the gospel.

Driscoll: He gets that in at a Wendy's drive-thru: "What would you like?"

"I'd like you to get saved."

Nicholas: As Mark and I discuss all the time, the gospel is the hub around which everything revolves.

Driscoll: Every time I talk with David, it's "How are you doing? How is your family? Anybody come to Christ?"

And that's what he tells me—how he and his family are doing, and then who he shared the gospel with that week. There is something about that that's fun and contagious.

Nicholas: That's what I'm about. And I hammer these young guys with it. I figured out years ago that in church there are two tensions—outreach and nurture. And without outside effort, nurture always wins. Christians say, "What are you doing for me?"

So as pastor I have to push evangelism. I get the gospel in every week and my people say, "David is an evangelist." I don't know if I am or not, but I have a heart for the lost. And God keeps bringing me into contact with people I would never expect to meet who need to hear the gospel.

About a year-and-a-half ago a couple in Boca Raton was having a discussion. Rebecca had recently come to the Lord and was attending our church. She asked her husband, "Are you going to church with me tomorrow?"

He said no.

She asked again the next morning. "No," he said. "You go, and take Justin with you." So she went to get Justin, their seven-year-old son, dressed.

Rebecca returned to the bedroom. "Your son said he will not go to church because his father won't go."

The father, Nicko, replies, "I'm not having this." So he gets up, gets dressed, and demands the same of the boy.

They come into our church.

Nicko said as soon as the music started he started crying. He could not compose himself during the whole service. Well, somebody in our band recognized him as the drummer for a heavy metal band. And so our music leader went over to him and said, "Nicko? I'm Brian." They went out to lunch, and Brian shared the gospel with him.

I met Nicko, shared with him, and Nicko has come to know Christ.

I was preaching in the Chicago area last summer. Nicko's band was in concert there. Nicko had a driver bring him to the church where I was preaching on Sunday morning. The next night my wife and I went to hear him at the Aragon Ballroom with 4,500 screaming 20-something males. Just incredible. God brings us to people like that. I could go on and on about people who have come to Christ.

Do you have to learn a new language to reach a different generation?

Nicholas: The generational thing is driven greatly by music. Who comes to my church and who stays depends on two things: the personality of the pastor and the style of music.

Mark may disagree, but I think Generation-X has a culture all its own. Just as denominations are mostly hom*ogeneous, Gen-X churches are mostly hom*ogeneous. They have a mindset: this is the way to do church. They have candles. Sometimes they have lots of candles. Sometimes they have incense.

When I was at one of our Acts 29 churches in Houston a couple of weeks ago, the pastor let people go up and draw something, and then he put it up on an easel. It sat there while he preached.

Driscoll: In some services, people make pottery and paint. There's art surrounding the whole congregation. It's connecting image to experience.

Nicholas: I don't understand that. I'm asking myself, What is that a picture of?

But they love it, obviously.

Driscoll: I don't believe you demark a generation according to age.

It's a modern marketing technique to divide people by age and make assumptions based on that. It's an attempt to take complicated wholes and break them down into simple parts, but it's very superficial.

David has 20-year-olds at his suburban church in South Florida, and I have 20-year-olds in urban Seattle, but they think and value and experience life in substantively different ways. Age is not what determines values or lifestyle.

What does distinguish the difference between your churches?

Driscoll: Philosophical mindset and worldview. How we come to truth. How we come to faith. Our value system. The postmodern person values community more than the individual. Instead of concept, there's value for practice in the body. I don't view generation as the primary issue.

Do you think it's fair to say that younger people bring different expectations to their church experience?

Driscoll: Yes, there are different expectations, but the biggest factor is that our area is still pre-Christian. It's more like Acts 17, Paul at Mars Hill. Everybody is spiritual, but no one understands God. No one understands the gospel. And so when these people come to faith, they come out of Wicca, they come out of the tech scene, hard core music, hom*osexuality. They have no idea what church is or what a pastor is.

Is that a good thing?

Driscoll: That's a wonderful thing because I get to define for them the pastoral role. And it is not pastor as therapist. It is pastor as missionary.

Nicholas: Not merely nurturer.

Driscoll: Too often the pastoral function is performed by someone without a heart for lost people. Although we have some good prophets and some good priests, the church doesn't have a lot of missionaries—at least in the West. We tend to think of missions as an overseas adventure. There's missions right here.

The city I'm in is one of the least churched cities in the United States. It's highly pagan in its essence. We need missionaries who can plow some hard soil and plant some seeds here.

You approach your work as a missionary. Is that one of the changes in the pastor's role today?

Driscoll: Context determines the pastor's role. If you're in an area that has tremendous poverty and injustice, pastors may need to play a prophetic role. If your community is reeling from some trauma, then a shepherd is needed. I reject any concept of a universal approach to ministry.

The only way that we can talk about church in a pluralistic context is to talk about its mission, its goal and values, and its Savior. But practice? We can only talk about that locally.

That means the way I pastor is driven by the setting. If I were somewhere else, I would have to adapt my skills to fit that culture.

Aren't the effects of today's trends and the ministry situations they create for most pastors similar enough for us to identify some new ways we should do ministry?

Driscoll: No, I don't think so. Observing young pastors across the U.S., I see tremendous variation in the ways they do ministry.

Our temptation is always to take an approach and turn that into a system, and I think that's the death of what the Spirit of God is trying to do. God puts the right people in the right places and then hones their gifts in their context.

Nicholas: If you were in Boca Raton—

Driscoll: It would be completely different. Whether a pastor is in a rural context or urban, or modern or postmodern, mono-cultural or multi-cultural—those variables really define the pastoral role.

So what do we say to someone trying to understand what's happening in ministry right now?

Driscoll: In the church today, there is such a glaring need for someone to define how to reach Gen-X and how to do postmodern ministry. That's what everybody wants to hear. But as soon as I start talking about the gospel, Christology, and the pastor's missionary contextualization, they say, "No, no, no, just reduce it to something simple."

It can't be done. You need to open your Bible. You need to wrestle with God.

Mark, we saw you deliver that message in a dramatic way at a conference on Gen-X ministry. You were scheduled to preach at a dinner, but instead you prayed a prayer of repentance, for about 20 minutes. You sounded like an Old Testament prophet. What happened?

Driscoll: There were a thousand people there looking for answers, and what they were being told grieved me deeply. I felt like the speakers were selling their journey rather than encouraging other people to go on their own journey. They took descriptive situations and made them prescriptive.

Most of today's well-known postmodern ministry leaders didn't begin with some grand strategy. They began on their knees—with God, with the gospel—and God turned it into something glorious. But suddenly they were assuming that the things they had been through in starting a new ministry were normative for all people.

When I got up to speak, God gave me this weird revelation. I saw what was taught in all the breakout seminars. I hadn't been to any of them; I was leading my own. But God showed me what the speakers were saying that robbed God of his glory. I saw that people were believing those things. And I knew God wanted me to come as an intercessor.

So I started repenting. It just kept coming and coming, and it got to the place where I didn't know what to do. I've never had anything like that happen before.

And when I was done repenting of those things, I didn't feel like preaching, so I walked away. There was nothing intentional about it, or malicious. It was totally out of my control.

Some were there who really wanted to know how to minister to younger adults. Are there skills you'd suggest they hone?

Driscoll: It used to be that the big would eat the small. Now it's the fast eating the slow. Survival is more about speed. How quickly can you learn? How quickly can you adapt? If you're resistant to that, then you start to atrophy and die—whether as a person or as a congregation.

In a pluralistic context—where the world is morphing and moving in many directions—you can't talk about culture. It's not about Gen-X culture or postmodern culture. It's about cultures. Plural. Many cultures changing rapidly.

Churches need pastors who continually adapt to the local context. If there is a skill set needed for this time, it's adaptability.

Copyright © 2000 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

The young woman standing before us looks a lot like Morticia Addams. Like the classic TV character, her hair is long, black, and stringy. Her skin is typing-paper white, except for her lips, which are painted black, matching her floor-length sheath. She is pierced. She is the worship leader.

In this incarnation, Morticia's warm contralto is replaced by an intense soprano that hugs a melody line of only three or four notes. Her tango is a rich, rhythmic amalgam of classical, grunge, and funk, produced by the band behind her: cello, bassoon, violins, flute, keyboard, guitar, bass, and drums. The sound is neo-classical funk, a little bit Celtic, a little bit rock-and-roll; Isaac Watts' hymns set to new tunes. To untuned ears, it is strange, stirring, not that singable, and in this setting, very right.

This is Seattle.

The place is a Seventh-Day Adventist sanctuary, rented on Sunday for two services. The congregation—numbering about 150 in the early service—is mostly under 30, college students, a few artists, perhaps, and young professionals, some with small children. The service depends heavily on liturgy, including the Lord's Prayer, the Nicene Creed, and a question from the Heidelberg Catechism. The Lord's Supper will be served, as it is every week. A trim young man with short blond hair, a former Army Ranger, greets by name each person who comes to the table. He peers into the eyes of each communicant. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?"

A pop quiz. A pause. "Um, no one?"

"That's right. This is the body of Christ, broken for you."

This is Grace Seattle.

The blond man is Tom Allen, the pastor. He is warm. His style is unadorned, but over lunch he is passionate about his ministry. He is hesitant to be labeled. Labeling a ministry "postmodern" violates the tenets of postmodernism, he observes enigmatically. But Allen knows what he's about, and the mission of the church he founded two years ago. Allen wouldn't say his work is a paradigm shift. He considers it an "indigenous church" in a community he's made his own.

Allen is finding a hearing among a largely unchurched age group. George Barna reports that two-thirds of people under age 35 shun all organized religion. He's finding support for his very untraditional endeavors from a very traditional denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America. And he's finding an audience in a city that historically has been indifferent to the gospel.

If it can work in postmodern Seattle—the city that gave us Microsoft, Starbucks and grunge music—then maybe it will work in my town.

Contextualizing the gospel isn't new. And the reinvention of American Protestantism isn't new. But this generation's incarnation is. Right now it has that new car smell. And this version offers some lessons for pastors driving older models who struggle to keep it on an ever-changing highway.

Haphazard, but focused

The walls of the Paradox Theater in a rundown section across town are draped in black. The carpet is older than most of the attenders. There are baggy jeans and bare midriffs and a gallery of body art. This congregation looks much like the cartoons drawn by those who fear Gen-X ministry.

It is steamy in here. The garage fan at the front is moving only hot air. The band is delayed. Their first service at a rented church facility a couple hours earlier probably ran late. The guy setting up PowerPoint and the video projector is having trouble. "Welcome to Technical Difficulties R Us," he says into the mic. Down front he has only the light from three votive candles. In the back, the glare from a single bare bulb is blinding, and if there were any seats available for latecomers, which there aren't, they wouldn't be able to see them.

The service starts 15 minutes late, but nobody seems to mind.

It's Sunday night, and this is the second service staged by Mars Hill Fellowship, a three-year-old church plant in Seattle. Pastor Mark Driscoll is away this night, but that hasn't affected attendance. Every seat in the musty theater is filled and some worshipers hug the walls.

The band cranks up. Their sound is raw and edgy. The words, black on white in some extreme Mountain Dew font, spill off the screen. The crowd listens more than sings. One leader prays, using words from a 16th century prayer. And another man brings up his girlfriend and proposes marriage to her—one-knee, ring, and all—the most intimate public act of his life before a crowd he himself said earlier he hardly knows, but this is the Paradox. And she accepts.

A thirtyish elder is preaching in Mark's stead, but sticking to Mark's schedule. Tonight's topic is the Tabernacle, explained from Exodus one verse at a time, in great detail, with cross references. The style is said to be typical of Mars Hill. Some take notes, many are impassive, but nobody leaves as the sermon far surpasses the evangelical standard of a half-hour. If this is the A.D.D. generation, their Ritalin has kicked in this night. Two hours after the service ends, some are still hanging around outside the theater, talking. The service seemed haphazard, but the attenders were focused. This is the paradox.

Haphazard, but focused. That may be an apt description for ministry aimed at young people. Many pastors are doing many things. (Leadership Network, a church training and research think-tank, estimates there are 1,000 young pastors starting independent, generation-targeted churches in the U.S. right now.) The innovators all have strong opinions, but this is an inexact science. It's so new. And it's not just in Seattle. Pastors everywhere feel the urgency to reach a younger generation. Just when we thought we understood boomers, we're about to miss the opportunity to reach their successors. The generation parade marches on, and it's speeding up.

Target a generation or a mindset?

There is disagreement over which term to use: "Gen-X ministry" or "postmodern ministry"? And what's the difference?

Gen-X ministry is defined by the age group. The 66 million people born between 1965 and 1983 (some would narrow the bracket, ending the "bust" as early as 1978) have driven the movement to establish new ministries. Now, Generation-Y is emerging. Some call them the "millennial generation," those born after 1980 who are coming of age and stepping into the spotlight at the opening of the new millennium. At 88 million strong, they will soon push Gen-X to the chorus line if age remains the criterion. So the discussion is turning to postmodern ministry. The issue is not age, it's how you think.

Postmoderns, called "pomo's" in some circles, are non-linear, multi-sensory thinkers, whose synaptic patterns are more like the Internet than the encyclopedia.

The analysts tell us postmoderns value relationships, yet they are skeptical because their parents—about 50 percent—divorced. They are delaying marriage. Trust is hard won. They are tribal, sticking more closely to their peers because of a perceived lack of meaningful intergenerational guidance. They expect to be heard, not because of age or experience, but just because they're there. Youth's right to a voice, won in protests by boomers, is the inheritance of successive generations, and they exercise it.

Postmodern people are tolerant of many things, including multiple paths to God. Truth, in this era, is relative, and the standard for measuring truth is personal, individual experience. That seems ironic for people who value community, but irony is to be expected and ambiguity is a virtue today.

"There are significant things in our culture that are changing, and if we don't pay attention to them, we are the fools," said Nancy Ortberg, a teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago and area director of Axis, the church's Gen-X ministry. "But the way postmodernism is being depicted, there is the danger of making the church scared of reaching this generation because they sound almost as if they've landed from another planet."

Shape shifting

Postmodern ministry is taking many shapes. Some began as college-age Bible studies within existing congregations. Some high-profile ministries are operating on a church-within-a-church model, where a second worship service is designed for a younger audience. It usually has separate leadership, preacher, and worship team. That is the model for Axis.

Like everything else at Willow Creek, Axis is about excellence. This train runs on schedule. The service is in many ways like its older brother's: there's drama and video, the sermon is relational. The music is edgier and the people doing it all are younger, but for the most part, it looks and smells like Willow. (On this night, that's Salisbury steak, the main offering in the food court.)

"We don't use the term 'church within a church'," Ortberg said. "It sounds divisive." The challenge is to keep the congregations connected. "We're taking steps to do that. We're inviting older leaders to mentor younger leaders. Axis meets with the congregation in the main auditorium for our mid-week service. We're trying to share the DNA of the church and yet have room for unique expressions of how the Holy Spirit is working in this generation."

Todd Hahn is pastor of Warehouse 242 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hahn's church launched with 80 in October. It now averages 500. His congregation began as an alternative worship service at Forest Hills Presbyterian Church in 1997. In an amicable agreement, the younger group became a separate, daughter church last year. "I used to get called on to teach workshops on how to do church-within-a-church because we had done it," said Hahn. "But I don't anymore. It didn't work for us. I'm not sure it's the best model."

The Next Level Church in Denver began as a college ministry connected to Applewood Baptist Church. Trevor Bron started the work in 1993. In three years, "Saturday Night Community" had taken on its own identity. "We realized that we were not a college ministry any more. We were a generational ministry," Bron said. "The things we had in common were our cultural experiences, the way we were raised, and the television programs we watched. That was our common bond.

"We had become a church-within-a-church. We weren't trying to be a church, but people were coming and that was the only church they were willing to go to," Bron said. Attempts to connect his congregants to the mother church didn't work. After a year of prayer, Applewood's pastor agreed to support Bron's launch of The Next Level Church. It started with 800 people. Three years later, it averages 1,800 each weekend.

In most cases, the defining issues in the creation of postmodern congregations are leadership styles, the inability of an older pastor to connect with younger listeners, and music. The flashpoint in their separation is, as the younger leaders see it, the unwillingness of older leaders to let go. Hahn urges, "Whatever kind of ministry you do, expect that ministry to fit within scriptural boundaries and within the mission and values of the church, but after that, give them space and don't control it."

Willow Creek was founded in 1975 as a new model for reaching lost people. That isn't the issue for postmodern ministry, Ortberg said. In most cases, it's style. "We don't need a new church to reach each generation. We need the church to respond to each generation. I think that's a critical distinction." Willow Creek has given her ministry lots of freedom to experiment and for younger people to find their place in leadership, she said.

Ortberg's challenge is keeping the team together and moving in the same direction. She tries to bridge the established boomer leadership of her church and the Gen-X Axis team. "We've got to figure out a way for churches to grow old together, to continue changing enough at the front end to minister to new generations and to be influenced by them," Ortberg said.

They will change your church

The question for most pastors is not, Do we start a postmodern ministry? Postmodern ministry is not about age groups anymore. For those contemplating a Gen-X ministry, that train has already left the station and train Y is building up steam.

Some younger church planters will start new congregations reflective of their generation. They always do. And most will grow old with their constituents. They will also watch as in 15 or 20 years, another generation says "I don't like your music" and starts its own worship service.

The questions for pastors of existing congregations are (1) How do we welcome younger people into leadership? and (2) how will they change our church?

Here are some ways your ministry will be affected by postmoderns:

1. The quest for authenticity begins. The hallmark of faith in this generation is authenticity. Everyone uses the word, most struggle to define it. Authenticity is when your inside matches your outside, one person said. It is two parts integrity and one part self-disclosure. It is not soul-letting without a tourniquet, but a willingness to share from one's faith experience for the benefit of others is required. So is a thick skin. Inauthenticity will be checked.

Begin with one or two twenty-somethings. Get to know them over coffee.

2. The ending of the age of anonymity. Authenticity is practiced in community. A generation that esteems community will expect it of the church. New structures for encouraging community will spring up, and postmoderns won't ask permission. Existing organizations will take on new relational aspects. Boomers wanted to slip in and out of church undetected. Postmoderns want to hang out and be known. All this talk of story and resonance is born from the need to share who we are. Community is the embodied apologetic of authenticity. In this age, people must get to know the people of God before they get to know God.

3. The journey is the thing. This is an outcrop of authenticity and community. It also results from the appreciation of ambiguity and paradox. Without a pot of answers at the end of the rainbow (so few believe in answers anymore), the joy must be found in the journey. Church will become less about the body of knowledge and more about the band of pilgrims.

Expect a renewed interest in the ancient. Generations without roots need connections to something older than they are. Ancient texts, prayers, and liturgies will be embraced as our Christian family history and reinterpreted by their new adherents. Churches that have eschewed creeds will need to affirm something older than Fanny Crosby.

4. A roll-up-your-sleeves faith. This generation is missional, passionate, intense, and for the duration of youth, energetic. The result is a hands-on kind of faith. They expect the church's giving and sending to be matched by going and doing. Postmoderns want to make a difference, and they want to see and know the person for whom they make a difference. Incarnation is a key word here.

5. Participation gets a new face. Participation in worship once meant lusty singing and hearty amens. Not any longer. For a generation that spent 23,000 hours watching TV before they turned 18, participation can look passive. Church has no remote, worship no joystick. Some postmoderns are adding new forms of artistic expression to worship. Corporate readings are making a comeback. Expect development of new ways to participate.

Your new power source

Leading postmodern people starts from a different position, not one of status or authority. The same spirit that dismissed "sir" and "reverend" has discharged your right to lead because you are the pastor. Nancy Ortberg calls it leadership from a different power source: "I have experienced the transforming power of Christ in my life; and because I have been transformed, and I know the sins I struggle with, I can offer you that same power. I want to be in community with you."

Leading postmodern people means adopting a new position: I'm a slightly older person who can learn from younger people and who just happens to be the pastor. It means adopting a new preposition: with. We can't do ministry for them, but rather, we do ministry with them.

"We're so excited. We just invited a 39-year-old to our elder board," the pastor said. The question was, how is Generation X affecting your leadership style? He missed the point—and the age bracket—entirely.

The first step is to make room at the table. Chad and Heather must take their place alongside Hubert and Edna as you pray together. Make a place on the platform, too. The best signal about who you welcome to your church is who you welcome to your pulpit and your orchestra pit.

Eric Reed is associate editor of Leadership.

Brave New Worldview

Postmodern ministry takes a different shape in Britain, where it began.

While postmodern churches in the United States are less than six years old, such pioneering churches in Britain have a longer track record. Missiologist Tom Sine offers his observations.

In the last 12 years, a new generation of leaders in Britain is engaging postmodern culture. They are relational and experiential, involve the arts, more into narrative than propositional theology. They are more tribal and local than "regional churches" of the previous generation. In the U.K., they tend to display more global awareness than their U.S. counterparts.

The service at St. Mary's Anglican in Ealing is an example. Two Youth for Christ staff members planted a church-within-a-church there in 1993. Midway through an hour of Celtic music and prayers, we heard the sounds of chains and gears. A giant block of ice was lowered on a scaffold. It represented the frozen hearts of countries in the northern hemisphere, we were told, who were indifferent to global poverty and the national indebtedness that kept many people from having the basic necessities. The pastor urged the congregation to support Jubilee 2000 and lobby the British government to forgive the debts of poorer nations.

He then invited each person to bring a candle and place it under the block of ice. It represented a personal commitment, the thawing of our own hearts to the plight of our neighbors.

Fasting from designer labels

In the U.K. many leaders of postmodern ministries see the church as domesticated by modernity and needing reform.

On "logo fast night" at The Warehouse in south London, no one is allowed in wearing any corporate logos on their clothing. Inside about 140 young people worship with hands raised and eyes closed. The music is a loud mix from two DJs. The leaders call the young people to seek first the kingdom of God and to avoid the addictions of consumerism.

We watched as an attractive young woman brought three expensive items of clothing to place on the altar. Attenders had been encouraged to give clothing that could be sold to help the poor. This was the first time, the pastor said, that he had seen this woman not "dressed to the nines."

Thirty of these young believers have committed to a subsistence lifestyle. They work no more than 25 hours per week for pay, giving another 15 to 20 hours for ministry. This is one of many such groups who are committed to changing the world by serving Christ and their neighbors.

Tom Sine is the author of Mustard Seed Vs. McWorld: Reinventing Life and Faith for the Future (Baker, 2000).

Copyright © 2000 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

At the members’ meeting of our church in May 1996, we faced a daunting task. The sixty or so of us there needed to go through a list of 256 names—more than half our membership—and remove them from our church roll.

We had been working on this for months. Some had suggested I simply make one motion to dismiss all the people at once. I decided against that. We had taken them in individually; we would dismiss them individually. It would be a kind of Chinese water torture to good ends. We would all be reminded of the significance of church membership.

The first challenge came when in the first few names there were a pair of twin boys who had been brought up in the church—thirty years earlier! One of the older members put up her hand and said, “But we know where those boys are!”

I believe God’s Spirit specially prompted our chairman of deacons, who responded calmly with just a touch of humor, “The problem isn’t that we don’t know where they are, but that they don’t seem to know where we are.”

Silence for a moment. Then gentle laughter.

The blockage broken, we were free to go on through the list, removing from membership even children and grandchildren of those sitting there in the meeting. Those who were perfectly able to attend but had not been doing so for months, even years, we removed.

I took pains that night, and throughout the process, to emphasize that what we were doing did not mean that we didn’t love these people. It didn’t mean they weren’t welcome here. There was no place in this world where we would love to see them more than back with us in church. It didn’t mean we thought they weren’t going to church anywhere. We just knew they weren’t coming to church here.

What membership means

Church membership is our public and corporate assent that a person is living as a disciple of Jesus. We could not realistically give that for people we did not see regularly.

We had labored for months to contact every member by phone and by letter. Some we simply couldn’t find. In the letter, we asked for members of the church to sign the church’s statement of faith and the church covenant.

We informed them that if they were not regularly attending, and if they failed to sign and return the statement and covenant, it would be recommended to the congregation that their names be removed.

Our letters produced all sorts of replies. Some people were happily active in other churches; some were going nowhere. We learned that ten of our members were deceased. One member had become a Unitarian and was upset at being contacted at all.

Why did we do this?

1. For the sake of the absentees. If they were members elsewhere, and it had never been conveyed to us, then we were simply making our records accurate. If they were going nowhere, or to some non-evangelical church, then they needed to be reminded of the gospel that they once affirmed and the commitments they once held. One dear lady who had not come for 20 years (though living nearby) told me her struggles. After being assured of her welcome, she has once again joined us on Sundays.

2. For the sake of those coming regularly to church. They need to be reminded of the seriousness with which Christ takes the church, and the importance, therefore, of their participation. The New Testament warns Christians not to forsake the assembling of themselves (Heb. 10:24-25). Paul wrote his letters assuming that Christians would be present and active in their local churches, using images of the church as a building and a family.

Perhaps his most famous image is the church as a body, the body of Christ. And where did Paul get this marvelous idea? I think he got it on the road to Damascus. In Acts 9, when he was struck down by the appearance of the Risen Christ, Jesus didn’t say to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you going to persecute Christians?” but “Why are you persecuting Me?” It was Jesus Christ who taught Paul that the church in Damascus was his body.

3. For the health of the church corporately. It is not good for a congregation to have half its members AWOL. It is deceptive and dangerous. Unchecked absenteeism communicates the wrong thing about what it means to be a member of the body.

Paul cries out (1 Cor. 5) that Christ our Passover Lamb has been slain, and that all that is needed to complete the feast is for us to be the unleavened loaf; the loaf uncompromised by tolerating unrepentant sin. It is not the adulterous man that Paul rebukes here; it is the church that tolerates his sin, coddles his self-deception, and allows the name of Christ thereby to be blasphemed.

I was concerned that we were lying about God. How could we send people out to share the Good News of forgiveness and new life only to have other “members” undoing our witness?

Is member A telling them about new life in Christ while member B is known not to go to church, to be greedy or corrupt or immoral, and all the while in good standing in the church?

Church discipline properly practiced is one of the most powerful evangelistic tools God has given us. It aids in highlighting the nature of true conversion, the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the urgency of the issues involved. It helps reveal the church as the powerful witness Jesus meant her to be when he told his disciples in John 13 that the world would know that they were his disciples by the love they had for one another.

4. For the sake of God’s glory. We should not lie about God or misrepresent him with our lives. We may take his name in vain with our words, or with our lives when we claim to be his but live as if we aren’t.

Before this congregation called me as pastor, I stood before them and answered questions. One question was about certain kinds of evangelism that I thought tended to produce false conversions. I told the congregation if I came here as their pastor, I ultimately wouldn’t be working for them, but for God. At the end of time I will stand before God to give account of my ministry.

At that great day, I said, I have no intention of standing before him, holding the hands of 300 people I’ve never seen in church, yet the record indicating that the church I was responsible for listed them among the faithful. I told them that any kind of evangelism that tends to produce people who take their salvation for granted while they’re uninvolved in the life of the congregation is hurtful to the spread of the gospel, and potentially dangerous for them and the congregation.

Of course, this discussion should raise questions about many things, not least of which is how we assure people of their salvation with only the slightest evidence.

It should also cause many of us to re-examine our way of taking in new members. Do we make sure that they know the gospel? Do we take time to hear their own testimonies and to watch their lives? All of this our congregation is doing now. And because of that, we trust we will never have to discipline half our members again.

For more information on congregations trying to take the radical nature of conversion seriously, visit www.churchreform.org. How have you dealt with inactive members?

Contact Us

Mark E. Dever is pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington D.C. DMEDever@cs.com

Copyright © 2000 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

A friend wrote in his church newsletter that a series of books he’d just read changed the way he viewed ministry. His wife, he reported, said it changed him.

We were curious.

“What is this terrific series that has transformed your ministry? Is it Maxwell, or Anderson, or Schaller? Is it purpose-driven or tsunami-driven? What’s it about?”

“Mitford,” he replied, almost sheepishly. “It’s a small town in North Carolina, a quirky mountain village. The main characters are an Episcopal priest and his dog. The people are odd, and this pastor, he—just—loves ’em.” The Mitford series of novels, by Jan Karon, is a publishing phenomenon.

But this was so out-of-character for this aggressive, goal-oriented pastor. Once a manufacturer of bomber jets, he came to ministry later in life. In 12 years at his only pastorate, he has relocated the church to 20 acres out by the interstate, personally supervised construction of new facilities, hired staff, and watched his sweet neighborhood church triple in size, becoming a dynamic regional ministry.

Now he was talking fiction. Labradors. County fairs. Orange marmalade cakes.

“I couldn’t read these books fast enough,” he said. “I’ve fallen in love with pastoring all over again.”

We were fascinated, partly because we knew this man’s take-no-prisoners approach to ministry, and partly because we’ve heard from others lately who aren’t sure what it means to pastor in this new era.

Pastors are expected to be so many things. Premodern Paul said he was “all things to all men.” His postmodern counterparts find that list getting longer and longer. The pastor is at various times chaplain, cheerleader, coach, CEO, visionary, fundraiser, preacher, plumber, spiritual director, fellow struggler, disciplinarian, confidant, and urgent care coordinator.

The complexity of the task is compounded by the uncertainty of our times. How do we preach to emerging generations who hear languages we don’t speak? How do we minister in cultures we barely recognize? And should we do it all at Internet speed?

Searching for answers, at least one pastor journeyed to Mitford. But even Mitford has its underside. You see contrary elders and church politics, windfall and poverty, abuse and abandonment; the conflict of youth with age, and church secretaries with technology; disasters, romance, and gossip. (You’ll feel right at home.)

And through it all, Father Tim finds a way to shepherd his flock. He is sometimes gentle, sometimes stern, but always prayerful and mostly loving.

In mythical Mitford, you meet a pastor who loves pastoring. But would we find the same in Chicago? or Seattle? or Jackson?

We did. As we asked pastors how they handled the task in changing times, we found some moved up, some downsized, some reshaped their preaching. Most are reinventing themselves. And all we met still love whatever it is they do—that’s pastoring.

The editors

Shepherd

Pastural Ministry

E. Glenn Wagner

Weary of models and movements, I needed to go back to basics.

One pastor brought his staff to a conference. Not his associates—his long sheep-stick with a crook on one end. He got a lot of looks at first, but it made his point. “I am convicted that I have not been living, functioning, or walking as a shepherd,” he said, to a rumble of amens from the 4,000 pastors in attendance. “But that’s what we’re called to be.”

I hear the same thing from many pastors today who are tired of managing and marketing their churches. There is a hunger to return to our root identity.

One man I talked with recently was ready to quit after only three years in ministry. He had tried various models of leadership, but he recognized that he was called to love what God loves, the sheep. He wanted to do that again. He is not alone.

Unashamedly sheepish

Three years ago I returned to the pastorate after serving as vice president of Promise Keepers. My time with the men’s movement confirmed my commitment to ministry based on relationships.

Men gravitate to tasks rather than relationships. Most of the existing men’s ministries relied on programs. It’s not easy to establish a men’s group on relationships, but it’s through community that truth is built into men’s lives. Most churches don’t have a bona fide men’s ministry, because it takes a lot of work to break through to the first three or four guys. That can only be done by modeling it. The leader must develop relationships with a few guys based on the people rather than what they together will accomplish.

That modeling, called shepherding, has become foundational for my pastorate.

There’s something about the Middle Eastern tender of herds that still communicates safety and care, even to our twenty-first century listeners.

I think the need to model the shepherd is even greater today, because few people trust their leaders. Boomers responded to the need with growth principles based on corporate leadership. By and large, the CEO model removes the leader from those he leads.

So the cry is not for leadership; the cry now is for authenticity, and Generation X is singing that song louder than anyone else.

I know how to do complex budgets and strategic planning; and we do all of that at Calvary, but it’s not the basis of our ministry. This was a large church when I arrived, and they were accustomed to church growth methods. I found a receptive audience, however, when I started talking about the shepherd’s heart. I warned the leaders here that this kind of pastoring is messy. It means involvement in people’s lives. It means pain when sheep are disobedient. It means guarding them from wolf attack and weeping when some are devoured. It means being as concerned about the one as the ninety-nine.

For pastoral staff, shepherding means spending more time with the people who are on the fringes of the church community. I have a pastor friend who reserves one day each week for meeting with people who are not leaders in the church. He contacts them from a random list of church members. He knows he can’t pastor everyone individually, but he can have a personal acquaintance with many of his congregation. Shepherding means the pastor does not invest himself only in the leaders, the elders, and the good givers.

At Calvary our pastoral staff regularly has meals with new members, with people from other staffers’ ministries, with all ages. We work at building relationships among the pastoral staff, support staff, and elders. Every year we study about shepherds and sheep, and we covenant together to serve in the same humble way as the herdsmen. We want to smell like sheep, because we spend time with the sheep.

The congregation is beginning to understand that they have the same responsibility. We are all undershepherds to the Chief Shepherd. He tells us today what he told Peter, “Tend my sheep.”

E. Glenn Wagner, pastor of Calvary Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, is the author of Escape from Church, Inc.(Zondervan, 1999). He will be a speaker at the National Pastors Convention in San Diego in February. www.NationalPastorsConvention.com

Parson

Deliberate Downsizing

Why I gave up a big church.

Terry Swicegood

Last year I resigned as senior minister of one of the largest and most prominent Presbyterian churches in the country. I was not forced out of office. I did not abscond with church funds. I did not run off with the secretary. I quit because I was miserable.

From the time I was first ordained, I aspired to lead a large church. After pastoring successively larger congregations, I arrived at my dream church. I found out quickly it wasn’t nearly as fulfilling as it appeared from a distance.

The church had 3,700 members. It’s impossible even over a long ministry to know 3,700 people intimately. I longed for pastoral relationships, but I spent most of my time keeping the wheels of the organization greased. I was required to be astute politician, motivational speaker, discerning psychotherapist, visionary leader, and institutional fund raiser, with rarely a full day off.

The pastor in that demanding Eastern seaboard setting is like a circus juggler who runs up and down the line keeping 25 plates spinning on poles. Just as he gets a few plates spinning at one end, the plates at the far end begin to wobble. Even if he has done his best, the audience will feel that he isn’t a good juggler if he lets a plate crash.

In a large church very few members really know the pastor’s heart. They form their opinions based on sermons, what the pastor writes in the newsletter, and how they are greeted at the door. Many of those opinions are light years away from reality.

For me, one of the most important aspects of ministry is to be known, loved, and respected by the congregation as I desire to know, love, and respect them. That is difficult to pull off in a crowd.

I resigned without a clue as to what I would do next. It was the hardest and scariest thing I’ve ever done. But finally, my future turned on this question: “What brings me more security—holding this job or honoring my soul?”

Listening to the mockingbird

A few weeks after my resignation, I was contacted by a church of 500 members in central Mississippi. Within four months, I received a call to be their pastor. I have been here more than a year now, and I am rediscovering what it means to pastor.

In my new church, I have the opportunity to know a few people in a deep way, rather than know many people in a shallow way. I get to teach a Bible study once a week, something I had been unable to do for years. In every death in the congregation, every birth, every illness, I am involved.

I have to confess I do miss some things about big church: I miss the wonderful music. I miss the abundant financial resources. And I have to say I miss being a real player in the city. My ego still is adjusting to the downsizing.

But my soul is at peace. I am where I need to be. I am doing the things for which I entered the ministry—listening, preaching, teaching, caring.

Not long ago I visited with a young man in our congregation. He is permanently confined to a wheelchair because of a wasting disease. He spends much of his day at the window looking out at the six bird feeders in his backyard. He watches as birds come and go. Bird watching is deeply meaningful to him as his life has become diminished.

I found an article on mockingbirds and was so impressed by it I took it by my friend’s house and read it to him. It was titled, “How Does the Mockingbird Know What to Sing Next?”

We sat together for a long time—something I never could have afforded in my bustling large-church ministry—and I pondered some of the deeper mysteries of life: how the mockingbird chooses from its repertoire of 180 songs, why this young man is stricken with an awful disease, and why my ministry turned out so different from what I had expected.

We watched the birds, we shared communion, and I was glad to be a pastor once again.

Terry Swicegood is pastor of Briarwood Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) in Jackson, Mississippi.

Crisis Manager

Inheriting the Pulpit of a Legend

We would survive the shock, if I could lead people who still call me “baby.”

Cheryl Sanders

I was putting the finishing touches on a manuscript dealing with the life and leadership of the man who had been my pastor for most of my life, Dr. Samuel G. Hines, when the phone rang.

Dr. Hines was dead. Amid my shock and grief, a question immediately arose: What would I preach on Sunday?

I knew even bigger questions were coming: What would happen to the church? And what role would I play?

I grew up at Third Street Church of God in Washington D.C. My maternal grandparents became members here shortly after migrating from North Carolina in the 1920s. My parents married here in the 1950s. I was born into this church, came to faith and was baptized here. As a youth, I was active in almost every organization. And after completing a doctorate in theology at Harvard, I had returned to Washington to take a teaching position at Howard University, and I returned to Third Street as associate pastor.

Now, I knew, I would be called on to lead my church family through this trauma. I didn’t know where my service would ultimately lead.

Prepared for the crisis

Dr. Hines had a storied ministry. After 25 years, Third Street was his church. And it was my church, too, but in a much different way. Dr. Hines had welcomed me to the staff and had given me responsibility for leadership development and Christian education. But on some level, I was still the child who had grown up there.

Some still referred to themselves as “aunt” and reminded me that they knew me when I was in diapers years earlier. Gaining acceptance as their minister would not be easy. I wondered if my previous experience would be enough.

while in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I had served two years as interim pastor of First Church of God in Boston after the pastor and some members left to start another church. My ministry there was one of crisis management. That church wanted someone to stabilize the situation. Their pressing need was righting the ship rather than plotting a course. And they were willing to follow because I was willing to lead.

“We don’t know if you can do this, but we want to give you a chance,” one member told me.

Together we gathered our strength, picked up the pieces, and rebuilt the church’s confidence. After two years, I had learned much about ministry; the church was ready to call a new pastor, and I had proven myself in troubled times.

This is not a test

I was already scheduled to preach for Dr. Hines that Sunday. As his associate, I sometimes filled the pulpit in his absence. He was to have minor surgery.

“He was in recovery,” the caller told me. “He suffered a massive heart attack and never regained consciousness.”

I stared at the phone. I knew at once that I must go to the hospital to console his grieving family; but it would fall to me, too, to console a grieving congregation, and again, to pick up the pieces.

While we waited for the church to convene a pulpit committee, I shared leadership responsibilities with another associate and the chairman of the church council. I handled the pulpit and they chaired the meetings. The lessons I learned in Boston were life-saving. We focused on the immediate issue—coping with the loss of a beloved and revered leader—and decided that long-range plans could wait. I discovered in the process that I must not make too many assumptions. While it was true that I had grown up at Third Street, there were many things I didn’t know from a pastor’s point of view.

After the committee was elected and had met for several months, they asked if I would agree to be presented to the congregation as the candidate for senior pastor. I was surprised, but I agreed. I also wondered how this would sit with those who still called me by my childhood nickname.

The vote was not quite unanimous, but overwhelmingly positive. The church extended to me a call to a full-time pastorate with a three-year contract. The confidence the congregation vested in me during those traumatic months has supported my new role as senior pastor. In the years since, we have expanded our transportation and food ministries, purchased property, and developed plans to expand our sanctuary and make the facilities accessible for the disabled.

I have moved more slowly than an incoming pastor without family ties might have in the area of vision. Many in the congregation were concerned that Dr. Hines’s focus on urban outreach and reconciliation should continue. I have sought to honor my predecessor by honoring his vision. After all, I was a stakeholder here before I was a pastor. Now people are beginning to ask, “What is your vision?” They seem ready to hear it and ready to support me in movement toward that vision.

They know that this is my home. I baptized my husband and children into the membership, and now a fourth generation of my family is serving here.

In times of crisis and upheaval, a pastor needs to embody calm dependence upon Christ. That is the calling I embrace.

Cheryl Sanders is senior pastor of Third Street Church of God in Washington, D.C., and professor of ethics at Howard University.

Spiritual Director

Guiding the Self-Serve Church

I couldn’t pastor everybody. How would I help members help themselves?

Michael Foss

The pastor, a converted Jew, posed the question: “If you had to choose between right thinking and right living, which would you choose?”

He raised the issue after telling a group of us pastors about his family, most of whom died in the holocaust. He talked about our tradition—how right thinking we are, what great theology we have—and how silent we were as the Nazis killed millions of Jews. He contrasted Protestant Christians of the time with Jehovah’s Witnesses who stood two by two on street corners in Berlin, denounced Hitler’s regime, and were arrested and taken away. “Right thinking?” he asked, “or right living?”

Odd as it seems, that was a turning point in my ministry. It confirmed what God had been pointing out to me for several months. I needed to change the way I pastor.

A great gulf fixed

George Barna, George Gallup, and others have documented the huge inconsistencies between what American Christians say they believe and what they do. I have seen it in my own congregation, a growing church in the Minneapolis suburbs. They needed a faith that affected life in every aspect, from sanctuary to boardroom to bedroom.

To be honest, I didn’t see that. I was hearing them say, “Can you give me some tools to take my faith into my workplace, to my family, where I play softball?” My people were confused about what Christians do.

And they were confused about what pastors do. There may have been a time when the expectations of pastors were clear, with emphasis on preaching and chaplaincy. But today a pastor cannot be with his people every minute, know the intimate details of their lives, and anticipate their every spiritual need.

And, frankly, he shouldn’t.

When I read Paul’s letters, it is intriguing how much spiritual direction is given and how little pastoral care is provided. The presumption, it seems to me, is that if the community of faith is growing in relationship with Jesus Christ, the community of faith will begin to provide the kind of pastoral care that’s necessary. The pastor’s job then is to equip the congregation to continue to grow, and to correct them so they’re growing in a direction that’s healthy.

The way I had been doing ministry was inadequate. My work was reactive. I suffered from the “busies.” I was so mired in the minutiae of ministry that I couldn’t get above it to provide visionary leadership. The congregation needed to learn to minister to each other.

I needed to become a spiritual director.

Clearer expectations

I told my wife of my conviction.

“It’s risky,” I confessed, considering aloud how to break this to the church. We had been here less than three years at the time, and the look in her eyes told me she didn’t want to move again. “I’m absolutely certain this is what God is calling me to do, but I don’t know if Prince of Peace will follow. I need you to pray with me and affirm it.”

She agreed. We prayed for several weeks, and I felt compelled to proceed. I went to the board.

“I believe we as leaders first have to practice our faith, and that means we grow together,” I said. I was increasingly convinced that we must embody whatever role God was calling us to before attempting to lead the congregation there.

Then I met with the staff. “If you want to be part of this team, you must be committed to mutual spiritual growth.”

Finally we took it to the congregation and started preaching it. I was blunt. “There is no way that in a church of 9,500 members that five pastors can be present for every spiritual event in your lives. You will have a crisis, and we will do everything we can to equip you to face it.

“You are being honed by God to share your gifts. That means being in relationship with those inside the church and outside the church, developing a network of care, committing to your own growth, and calling others to spiritual growth.”

We developed the “six marks of discipleship” and we’re posting them everywhere. We made laminated cards the size of a driver’s license and gave one to every member. We started teaching on the spiritual disciplines in sermons and classes. And we lift them up again and again.

We decided to teach people to exercise the muscles we call faith and to do it regularly. The marks may seem like a checklist, but faith won’t grow if it’s not exercised; and it won’t be exercised if it’s not on our “to do” list. By changing the way we live, we are more likely to change the way we think. Theology will follow practice.

To be sure, there was some hesitance in the early stages. That is normal. But resistance helped us clarify our language. And some people who wanted to continue a codependent relationship with their clergy were forced to look elsewhere. But once the congregation got it, they moved faster than I ever imagined. The results are pretty amazing.

Guiding Lite

I realized the effects of my new role when a member of a particular small group had a crisis. He didn’t call the pastoral staff, he called his small group. That happens often now. I sometimes feel a twinge of guilt when I’m not on the scene for a ministry crisis; but as a spiritual director, I have had to give up my need to be needed. I’m helping others to need and to call on each other.

And I’ve had to give up having all the answers. Spiritual direction is about coming alongside another—not taking over their journey. In the course of living, the disciple encounters questions and the director points to where answers may be found. That’s equipping.

I’m also more accountable to others. I ask staff members, “Is God far or near?” They ask me, “How’s your prayer life? What did you get from your Bible reading?”

My move to spiritual director has elevated what I do as pastor. In the world in which we live, the spiritual is so often denigrated for the material and the institutional. This provides strong affirmation for the pastoral office by saying that the spiritual work we do is the most vital. And in a world with growing spiritual hunger, it is our best opportunity to guide people to life-changing faith.

Michael Foss is pastor of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Burnsville, Minnesota. He is the author of Power Surge: Six Marks of Discipleship for a Changing Church (Fortress Press, 2000).

Missionary

Senior Pastor 3.0

I could grow old with my generation or I could reinvent myself to reach the next (and the next).

Sam Williams

I was born in 1943. I began pastoring in 1965. During my lifetime the church in America slipped from cultural majority to waning influence in a religious plurality.

Some of my peers have adapted. The rest have overseen the decline of their ministries. Whether one likes the shifts in our society is irrelevant. Understanding them and fitting ministry to them is necessary to remain effective.

I pastored three churches. The first was a traditional church of the builder generation. The next church—mostly boomers—transitioned from traditional to blended worship. The most recent was an emerging postmodern/Gen-X ministry. Ironically, the older I got, the younger my congregations became. This is because I decided to become a missionary to my culture rather than grow old with my generation.

Ministry just got messier

The catalyst for this decision came midway through my second pastorate. My wife and I received what we believed to be a call to missions. After doors didn’t open to overseas ministry, we realized God was calling us to become missionaries right here.

That would require of us the same kinds of significant changes foreign missionaries make to communicate the gospel to the lost. They learn a new language and culture. This contextualization of ministry is not to make the message more palatable, but more understandable. Missionaries cross whatever barriers are necessary. They don’t require the lost to become like them in order to be saved.

This mindset has touched every aspect of my ministry:

1. My preaching style has gone through three phases, from a rather loud “three points and a poem,” to a conversational “topical exegesis,” to a relational story-telling style. All are biblical styles and each has been effective in its time and place. I would rather have not changed. It’s hard enough to learn how to preach once. Three times is cruel and unusual punishment. I wouldn’t have done it for anybody but Jesus, and the people for whom he died.
2. Evangelism is different today. The pre-evangelized, biblically literate unsaved of my early ministry, like the God-fearers at Pentecost, only needed to hear what to do. Seekers in our present culture, like the pluralists at Mars Hill, require more time and “reasoning,” Paul’s method of evangelism. The evangelistic message never changes, but I have found that my evangelistic effectiveness is related to my understanding of the people. Those with whom I share today are at a very different place from people 35 years ago.
3. The organization of the church changed from a hierarchical structure in which a few made decisions for many, to a flat structure in which the “freedom to decide” accompanies the “responsibility to do” ministry. Leadership of staff changed from command and control to a highly relational team model. Leaders are motivated more by doing what is meaningful than by doing their duty.
4. Discipleship has shifted from taking everyone through an identical process of classes and workbooks to the dynamic experience of uniquely and personally building spiritual truth into people’s lives. It’s harder, messier, and difficult to measure; but, it’s more effective in a culture that needs relationship more than certificates.

America has become a mission field in my lifetime. I decided to become a missionary in my own culture. And that’s one decision I would never change.

Sam Williams recently retired as pastor of Bay Marin Community Church in San Rafael, California. He is now a consultant living in Boulder, Colorado.

Copyright © 2000 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Several years ago, a generous church member invited me to go with him to watch a heavyweight fight in Las Vegas. I couldn’t help but notice the signs. They’re everywhere: big signs, little signs, blinking, flashing, moving signs, even talking signs. It was dazzling.

They don’t have a lot to say, but they definitely know how to say it, I thought.

It’s just the opposite in the church. We have everything to say, but we don’t always know how to say it. We fail to communicate God’s truth in a way that is both biblically based and culturally compelling. Consequently, many people view church as a dry, yawn-filled environment. And too many Christians, even church leaders, are just droning through life—doing the same thing the same way and expecting a unique result.

As a young person, I remember saying to myself, “If that’s what being a Christian leader is all about, then no thanks.”

Ten years ago I moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area to begin a church. We started with core group that shared the same vision: to keep God’s unchanging truth the same, while communicating it in a radically different style. As we reached out to the people around us in creative ways, people we could never have dreamed of touching began attending. We wholeheartedly believe that, more than any other venue, creativity should be at its best when Christians are together within the context of the local church.

Creativity is biblical. In fact, it’s the fifth word in the Bible: “In the beginning, God created.” God invented creativity. He thought it up.

Jesus modeled it, always changing his approach. “He did not say anything to them without using a parable” (Matt. 13:34). He spoke from hillsides, boats, and beaches. He drew in the sand, turned over tables, picked up a coin, pointed to a sower, and set a child on his lap. Ultimately, he used the cross to communicate his love for us.

For us, it’s so tempting to fall into sameness. We ignore Christ’s example and do the same thing week after week, and people grow tired of it.

How can we claim to follow an innovative God and be so boring? The church must be creative because people need it. How will Christians grow and mature if the church is stuck in a rut?

Stoking the creative engine

Here’s an example of how the process works in our church.

In our community, lots of families go out of town for spring break, but the singles tend to stay home. And half our weekend attenders are single and in their twenties and thirties. So when I asked during a staff meeting, “What would be a good series topic for March?” someone suggested doing a series on spouse selection.

As we talked about it, someone pointed out that who you marry is the second most important decision of your life. Another person added that the series would be just as important to married couples who need to prepare their children. Everyone contributed, from the preschool department to business administration. In fact, I’ve realized that the most creative ideas often come from those who are not even remotely connected to the ministry we’re discussing.

We pulled out flip charts and laptops and began to write down ideas, beginning with what to call the series. (I believe that titles are too often overlooked, but they are your first chance to capture and hold someone’s attention, and should not be ignored.) We soon came up with “The Ulti-Mate,” God’s ultimate mate for your life.

From there we started sharing dating stories and listing biblical principles. By the end of the meeting, we had a solid concept and basic outline for an entire sermon series.

In a later meeting, our creative team, those responsible for the music and visual arts helped me frame the ideas into three messages.

For the first message, I wanted to talk about how people’s fallacies about dating are like nursery rhymes. for example, “Hickory, dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock” illustrated how the incessant ticking of the biological clock causes both men and women to rush into a serious relationship before they’re ready for the commitment of marriage.

I was going to recite the rhymes myself at various points in the message, but one of the team suggested having children do it. That creative idea took a lot more work—finding children able and willing to get on stage at all three services, practicing, and coordinating how the rhymes would flow in concert with the message.

Aside from the audience “aahing” over the cute kids, having children recite the rhymes created a unique memory for listeners. The visual and emotional effect created an important connection between listener and message.

For the second weekend, we planned to discuss defective dating. The idea came up of comparing premarital sex to taking a car off-road. We have a pretty big stage at Fellowship Church, and I wanted to drive a car across it to illustrate the point. Our team’s response was, “Ed, driving a car on stage is a pretty tall order for just one point. Can you use it for the whole message?”

I went back to Starbucks, where I do much of my studying, and came up with several bad habits of ineffective daters. Each habit linked to a different part of the car: looking in the trunk illustrated finding the emotional baggage of the person you’re dating, looking behind the wheel symbolized finding out who’s driving (Jesus, or someone else?), taking the car off-road was a word picture of misusing God’s gift of sexuality.

Of course, we had to find a car. We wanted something luxurious and expensive to show that God has the ultimate spouse in mind for each person. A man who has been investigating Christianity and attending our my small group for a while owns a car dealership, so we called him up to see what he could do. The next day he brought a new Mercedes 500 SL to the church. He said he was thrilled to help.

Creative cramming

Beware: creativity can have a dark underbelly. If not kept in its proper place, it can spin wildly out of control. And even with the best intentions, problems will occur and you will make mistakes. Accept that and don’t let fear of failure paralyze you. Learn from your mistakes and move forward. Here are a few of the cautions we keep in mind.

1. Help! Message overboard. This is by far the most dangerous pitfall. Creativity must be controlled by the rudder of relevant biblical truth. The Bible should drive our creativity; creative technique must not drive the biblical message. Biblically-driven teaching is the priority that never changes. I am motivated to be creative by seeing people come to Christ. Don’t fall into the trap of trying to top yourself, getting bigger and flashier, at the expense of your message.

If an idea doesn’t serve to underscore the theme, then it’s not necessary. If you have to explain it too much, then it’s probably a distraction, and best avoided.

2. Stranded in a sensory storm. It’s possible for a service to be too busy. Too many elements, even if they are all good ideas individually, generate a sensory storm that clouds the message.

Know when enough is enough and even cut back at times. Every so often— usually after a particularly multi-sensory weekend—we go back and do a simple, unadorned service. A basic meat-and-potatoes message will make the more creative services stand out.

3. Breaking the bank. It’s easy to get excited about creative ideas and start throwing cargo-holds of money at them, but it’s better to involve the people around you. When we had the sports car idea, we looked around for someone who had access to one rather than trying to rent one.

It’s a fallacy that you have to be a big church with lots of money to be creative. For eight years we met in rented facilities, where creativity was needed more. Plus, creativity can be more intimate in a smaller church. Since the audience can see a small object or photograph, a bigger visual is not necessarily a better one. When our church was smaller, we did a “Juicy Fruit” series on the fruit of the Spirit. We handed out pieces of the gum to illustrate the sweetness of spiritual fruit in your life.

4. A long day’s voyage. Creativity is fun. It turns boring routine into something challenging and exciting. At the same time, creativity is draining. The process of implementing a creative idea takes an enormous amount of time, thought, and energy. For me, there is nothing so demanding as thinking creatively. It requires both commitment and a tireless work ethic to take God’s truth from the complex to the simple.

5. Flee the shallows of creative sameness. It’s possible to get stuck in a rut even while being creative. Looking back, I can see that at times we floundered, doing the same “creative routine” every week—a drama during every service, playing the same style of music, in the same way, with the same order in the worship service. We needed to spice things up with something like a cello or the bagpipes.

6. Navigating without a map. Creativity naturally involves risk-taking, but make sure that what you do is culturally relevant and within moral and ethical bounds. I would not use certain words, phrases, or movie clips, no matter what kind of point it could make, because I don’t want to popularize something that promotes immorality. Given recent events, I would not fire a gun on stage, even with blanks. If you’re considering something that’s at all controversial, run it by some spiritually mature, trusted friends who will tell you the truth. Some illustrations, controversial or in poor taste, are not worth the fallout. As the leader, you must draw the ethical map, based on Scripture, and make the creative coordinates clear.

Worth the risks

Despise the dangers, creativity has been well worth the efforts.

I once wanted to do a series on animals of the Bible and why God included them in Scripture. At a staff meeting, I asked each person to research two or three animals and their significance.

The result was astonishing: I got reams of reports on animals. We called the series “Animal Planet.”

One message, “Camel Filter,” focused on Matthew 19:24—”it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” We found a camel, Harpo, and I was going to ride him through the auditorium and up on stage. Harpo refused to go in the church doors, so we taped me riding him through the parking lot and showed it on the side screens. (I suppose the illustration worked better that way, anyway.)

We kicked off the series with Pet-a-palooza, a community-wide event. Everyone brought their pets one Sunday after church. We had trainers and groomers, food and games, and a petting zoo. It was a great time.

Recently we challenged our core believers to be more evangelism- driven. We called it “Lifelines.” We decorated the stage like a ship, with a railing draped in ropes and an anchor at one side. We showed video clips of dramatic water rescues.

My point was that too many Christians are content to sit on the deck, soak up the rays, and work on their spiritual tan, while their friends are drowning all around them. Instead, we should be throwing out lifelines. We may be the only lifeline in their life. I told the members to look under their chairs. There each person found a Life Saver candy. It symbolized someone they knew who needed a lifeline. I said they could only eat it after developing a relationship with that person and seeing them accept Christ.

The message to be a lifeline is powerful by itself, but it becomes personal and memorable when linked by a creative illustration to actual people who need a Savior.

Getting started

Don’t be overwhelmed by the prospect of huge changes. Start with the little things.

For example, sometimes I speak sitting on a stool; sometimes I use a lectern; sometimes I use nothing at all. We rework the bulletin for every series, changing its size, shape, and color scheme. In a recent service led exclusively by our worship team, our worship guide was fashioned after a compact disc cover. Try changing the order of your worship service or get off the platform and walk the aisles during your message. Do whatever it takes to keep people interested in God’s Word.

A close friend of mine is a personal trainer. When we exercise together, he always changes the workout. We never do the same thing the same way twice.

I asked him, “Henry, why are we changing? One day it’s curls standing, the next day curls on my back. Why do you change it?”

“Ed, have you heard of the Confusion Principle?” he asked. “If you stay with the same workout, your muscles get used to it and stop growing. But, if you confuse them—work them in different ways—they’ll get stronger and grow.”

So I’ve tried to apply this principle in the church. Change the way the choir sings and at what time during the service they sing. Change the time you serve Communion. Maybe change your attire a little bit. Change the bulletin and use it as an outreach piece. I’m not talking about radical stuff now. Small tweaks will take you to giant peaks.

When people come to your church, they should be sitting on the edge of their seats saying, “What in the world are they going to do next?”

Ed Young pastors Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas. www.fconline.orgedy@fcmail.org

Copyright © 2000 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

My job is to pray for you, whether you’re a Christian or not.

Every pastor has gotten the question. Sometimes it’s direct: “So what exactly does a pastor do?” Other times it comes indirectly: “Would you be willing to … (fill in the blank)?”

A couple weeks ago, I heard a beautifully succinct summation of pastoring. I was worshiping with a congregation made up mostly of twenty-somethings who had not been raised in church. As the service began, the pastor introduced himself and his calling.

“My name is Tom,” he said. “I’m a pastor here. It’s my job to pray for you, whether you’re a Christian or not, and to talk with you about Jesus, whether you’re a Christian or not. That’s what I do.”

It’s just that simple, and it’s just that complicated. Because talking about Jesus leads us into all aspects of life. And when we pray for people, the deeper, unresolved parts of their lives inevitably surface. It has always been this way.

Around A.D. 400, famous North African bishop Augustine described a pastor’s job: “Disturbers are to be rebuked, the low spirited to be encouraged, the infirm to be supported, objectors confuted, the treacherous guarded against, the unskilled taught, the lazy aroused, the contentious restrained, the haughty repressed, litigants pacified, the poor relieved, the oppressed liberated, the good approved, the evil borne with, and all are to be loved.”

How’s that for a job description!

In fact, a vice president of human resources for Motorola once told me, “Pastors have more transferable skills than they realize.” Especially supervising volunteers. “If you can describe your experience working with volunteers, you’d be surprised how quickly that gets the attention of [hiring] managers.”

So, the next time someone asks you what you do, just give them the ABC’s of the pastor’s task. A pastor is …

Ambassador, advocate, administrator

Baptizer, building usage consultant

Confidante, confronter, community builder

Discussion leader

Encourager, emotional baggage handler

Funeral companion

Grace giver, grounds inspector

Historian

Interpreter

Justice seeker

Knowledge dispenser

Latent gift discoverer

Mediator, missionary

Nurturer

Organizer, opportunity spotter

Public speaker, problem solver

Questioner, quarterback

Reviewer, Robert’s Ruler

Spokesperson, spiritual director

Teacher, trainer

Unifier, utility player

Volunteer coordinator, vision caster

Wedding ceremony presider

X-traordinary ingenuity with limited resources (like figuring out a way to use the letter X)

Youth advocate, Yule celebrator

Zeal stoker, zoo keeper (okay, so it just seems that way).

We recognize the simplicity and complexity of ministering in the name of Jesus. In this issue of Leadership, we explore how pastors today are faithfully representing the Eternal One in a world constantly morphing through time and trends.

Leadership is also convening a gathering of pastors, February 13-17, 2001, to explore this theme. We’ll do our best to make you laugh and make you think. You’ll be stretched and encouraged to develop your own unique ministry, whether you’re in a city, suburb, small town, or rural area.

Details at www.nationalpastorsconvention.com

Marshall Shelley is editor of Leadership.

Copyright © 2000 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

It was 1954. My letter appeared in the Richmond, Virginia, morning newspaper decrying the recent Supreme Court decision ending “separate but equal” schools. I wanted to be with my own kind; Negroes felt the same way, I said confidently.

It was 1979. My wife and I joined the NAACP-sponsored march down the main street of the capital city of South Carolina. We stood before the capitol, which flew the Confederate flag alongside the national and state flags. “Why are you here?” a reporter asked, noting that only a few whites had joined the march. “We’re here because we support the NAACP in its quest for racial justice in our country,” I responded.

It was March 2000. At Ozark Christian College, where I currently serve as librarian, we had just completed our third annual Racial Reconciliation Week. I, along with faculty colleagues, had helped produce James Weldon Johnson’s “God’s Trombones” and a dramatic presentation of Bishop Joseph Johnson’s magnificent vision of Revelation 7:9, as recorded in his book, The Soul of the Black Preacher. A black chaplain from the Missouri state prison would follow with a stirring call to action. “We gotta go through!” he said, referring to Jesus’ compulsion to go through Samaria where he ministered despite cultural, gender, and racial differences.

It was Easter Sunday, 2000. That morning I preached to the saints gathered at the Handy Chapel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Joplin, Missouri, a tiny congregation that I had volunteered to serve as a pulpit-supply preacher. That Sunday, I talked about Jesus from Revelation 4 and 5: Where is he today, and what is he doing? The congregation was generous and loving in their response to this white preacher’s earnest, albeit very vanilla, effort.

Becoming a reconciler

What produced such a change? The cry for racial justice was not heard during my youth in Virginia. The last lynching in Virginia occurred in 1921 about one mile from my father’s house, where my aunt lives today. I visited that spot with my uncle. I asked, “Was my father among the scores of men here that night?” He said he probably was. My memory flashed back to a time when my mother showed me a picture of that lynching which she had hidden away in an old trunk. She told me that I must never tell anyone I had seen the photograph.

Southside Virginia, where I lived, was close to 50 percent black. We engaged in the typical segregationist practices of that day in our schools, theaters, and neighborhoods.

I recall the first time I broke a cardinal rule of Jim Crow society and addressed a black man as “Mister,” doing so in the presence of my mother. She scolded me.

“Call them by their first names,” she said.

Shortly after, I left home to attend a Christian liberal arts college in Richmond. Later I would attend a Bible college in Florida. Not once during those educational experiences did anyone decry racial prejudice or racism. The “rightness of whiteness” was never challenged.

I entered the gospel ministry with my prejudices intact. I recall sitting in a ministerial meeting in Marion, North Carolina, where a local “liberal” minister suggested the creation of a biracial committee to handle local tensions. The chair called for a second to the motion. I remained silent, as did the rest. I feared the personal and professional consequences of merely seconding his motion.

I also recall preaching on the Sunday following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. I had heard the commotion that followed his death—glass breaking, sirens howling, the yelling, all just a few blocks from my home. But I was silent that morning. I feared the elders. One elder, in particular, did not believe Negroes had souls. And he was not ashamed to share that opinion.

Seeing the need for further training, I entered Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky. It was there that I first realized that God was working on my heart concerning the race issue through both professors and students.

I could not help noticing a student named Merle. Merle associated with blacks. He attended a black church. Blacks visited his apartment. He lost his job driving a school bus because of his relationship with the black community.

I left Kentucky and moved to New York City—quite a change for a small-town Southern boy. While living in Manhattan, I visited Merle, who had moved to Harlem to become an associate minister in a large black church. Again I could not ignore his bold commitment to multiracial ministry.

A church in Brooklyn, mostly black, invited me to be their supply preacher. The several months there were formative for me.

I quickly learned how to adjust my style of preaching and relating to people to fit my new environment. I found myself preaching differently from the typical conversational style of most white preachers. I tried to bring energy to my effort, building in cadence and allowing time for response from the congregation. I also attempted to have a strong closing, which did not “dribble down” into an invitation. While the congregation was not accustomed to a “whooping” style (the sing-song form of delivery that often provides the climax for many black sermons), I did not feel I could just speak conversationally and get by.

While avoiding anything that might be interpreted as mimicking a traditional black preacher, I simply aimed to be true to myself with the understanding that there was always room for a little more passion in my delivery.

Learning sovereignty, and rejection

Later my wife and I moved to Columbia, South Carolina, where I took a position in the library of a Bible college.

A call came to the college asking for a Bible teacher to come to a local black church to teach an evening Bible class. I volunteered. A temporary role turned into a three-year assignment.

That assignment led to a new church relationship. After several months, we made the decision to join the church. It was a church founded by freed slaves who had pulled out of a prestigious “first church” in that capital city. We were the church’s first white members.

It was a formative decision. I came to a new appreciation of the sovereignty of God as celebrated in black congregations.

We also experienced rejection. When we joined the choir, we overheard one woman say, “They don’t belong here.” One usher avoided speaking to us for the entire time we were there, turning his back when we approached. This was good for me. It helped me to experience the rejection that this man had been experiencing from whites all his life. I needed that education.

From conviction to action

Healthy cross-cultural ministry comes about through developing relationships. Those relationships can only come about with the passage of time and with time spent together.

I’ve come to realize that whites have to avoid “taking charge.” We are so prone to doing that. We also must avoid the perception that we are going in to “help.” Rather, we should understand that we are going to be helped by our black brothers and sisters.

Whites must come to genuinely appreciate black church traditions and expressions of worship and ministry. The white way is not always the right way.

As a white Christian, I lay most of the burden on whites for successful multiracial ministry. At the same time, our black brothers and sisters must give us a chance to earn their trust.

Relationships across racial lines must be based on understanding and empathy. Guilt and pity are the worst possible grounds for such relationships. You might ask: “How do I make friends cross-culturally?” My answer: How do you make friends with anyone? That’s how you make friends cross-culturally. Go in humility, be willing to learn, earn trust, give it time—and relationships will develop.

I needed to develop an understanding and appreciation for African-American history and culture. One way I did this was to read books like The Autobiography of Malcolm X, or the marvelous biography of the late Medgar Evers by his wife, Myrlie, or the writings of evangelicals like Tom Skinner and John Perkins.

And nowadays, one can go on the Internet to view sites like www.Africana.com.

First steps

Newsweek in 1989 reported that racism is still the biggest domestic issue of all. But it continues to be under-addressed. Too few ministers and Christian writers include racism on their lists when naming the social ills facing our nation.

A first step toward reconciliation is putting it on our agendas, and into our sermons and Bible-study lessons. As Christ’s ambassadors, we must be faithful to expose racial insensitivity and disrespect when we see it, to challenge racial stereotyping in conversations, in jokes, and in sermon illustrations, to speak against racial injustice wherever we find it, and to take action to make racial reconciliation a reality whenever possible.

How do you take action? I can speak only from my personal experience. Here are a few ways I have tried to be faithful to the call of justice and reconciliation.

1. At two colleges where I served, I was instrumental (along with others) in bringing to fruition annual Black History Month observances.
2. When one of the most popular preachers in our denomination made a remark about “watermelon music” during a sermon, I took exception. I wrote him a letter, which he followed up by a phone call, offering a weak apology but never really owning up to the racial perceptions reflected in his remark.
3. I have written letters to several newspapers and magazines, either commending or bemoaning issues as they relate to race relations in the community and nation.
4. Periodically, I post or distribute to our faculty and students articles addressing racial issues.
5. I promoted the Birmingham Pledge to our students and faculty. Over 200 persons signed the declaration, which committed them to racial reconciliation.

These are small steps, but they begin to translate convictions into actions.

The church needs God’s viewpoint on justice. We must read the Old Testament prophets for more than the fueling of millennial speculation; we must read to understand God’s great compassion for the poor and those being treated unjustly. We must ask for the help of our brothers and sisters of color in fully understanding God’s Word. We must pray for God’s power to break down the walls that separate us.

I don’t tell my story to lay a guilt trip on anyone. We are not responsible for what happened 200 years ago. We are responsible, however, for what happens today.

William Fraher Abernathy is librarian at Ozark Christian College in Joplin, Missouri, and an ordained minister.w_abernathy@hotmail.com

Copyright © 2000 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

I’ve performed weddings both B.D. and A.D. (Before Diana and After Diana). Weddings A.D., it seems to me, are burdened by higher expectations. Couples and their families seem to think theirs should be a princess wedding replete with celebrative devices.

Many now use wedding consultants. Liturgical accouterment and even mini-rings for children of a previous union are common. No one throws rice anymore; they release balloons or blow bubbles.

One other change is obvious. Now the majority of couples that come to me are unchurched. Largely the product of a generation of adults who, in the ’60’s and early ’70’s, embraced a laissez-faire attitude toward religion, they come with little or no religious background. A surprising number tell me they believe “all religions are basically the same.”

Their attitudes often suggest “We’re here to arrange for goods and services.” They have already been to the florist, the dressmaker, the reception hall, and the caterer. Their meeting with the minister is just another wedding necessity.

This can be humbling and maddening. It can also be a tremendous opportunity for ministry! Here’s how my approach has been refined over 25 years.

Usually the bride phones the office: “I’m calling to see if you marry people who aren’t members of your congregation.” The question itself is telling. Here in the suburbs of Philadelphia, many churches have adopted an unyielding policy to deal with the barrage of unchurched couples seeking a church wedding: members only.

These congregations miss one of the most productive and satisfying opportunities for Christian education and evangelism in our time. Perhaps for the first time in their lives, the couple really wants something from the church.

Opening the conversation

I don’t answer the question right away. “It’s interesting you ask,” I tell the caller. “These days, most of the couples who seek a wedding at Saint Martin’s are not affiliated with this parish. I’d love to meet with you. What is a good day for both of you?”

By asking for an interview, I take control of the conversation’s direction and ensure that I will have time for exploration and discussion before answering the question.

If a parent calls to see if I am willing to discuss a son’s or daughter’s wedding, I give the parent my e-mail address and ask to have the couple be in touch. Young couples find this form of communication convenient. In fact, I recently married a couple who had a personal Web page where they included not only my photograph, but their discussions of the content of our premarital preparation.

In my first contact, I ask for some specific information that will help me in preparation for our visit:

Has either of you been married previously? These days, many of them have, and my denomination has established certain procedures to deal equitably with a former spouse and any children. Couples may not be willing to volunteer this information during a telephone call. If there was a previous marriage, I ask when and where it was dissolved, paying particular attention to time frame, looking for red flags. (“Well,” one bride said, “my divorce isn’t final yet, but it will be by the time of the wedding.”)

Are you currently members of a congregation elsewhere? Couples often admit that they belong to another church but feel their own church building is too large, too plain, or too remote, physically or spiritually. “I drive by your church every day,” a bride will say, “and I think it is so beautiful.” If they do belong elsewhere, I ask if they have approached their own pastor about being married.

“We’re both Roman Catholics, and we take our faith seriously,” a groom once told me. When I asked why they weren’t being married in their own denomination, he replied, “Our pastor won’t marry us in [the chapel of a local private secondary school] because the school has a Protestant affiliation.”

“Why is being married there important to you?”

“My grandfather designed and built that chapel. Honoring my grandfather’s work is as important as my denominational loyalties.”

I said that sounded reasonable and offered to speak to the man’s pastor on his behalf. After some delicate conversations, the pastor consented to do the ceremony in the desired location, with a few restrictions. To this day, some 12 years later, the bride and the groom stay in touch because I helped make their dream possible.

So, are both your families excited? I ask this as innocently as possible. At times one will hint of tension. “Well, my mother has been a little difficult, but on the whole everyone is very happy for us.” I make a note to explore family dynamics when we’re together.

The first interview

Twenty years ago, I met couples with a business-like manner. Over the years, however, I’ve discovered that generous hospitality is more important. Many who come have an experience of church that is less than welcoming: “My family left the church when I was a boy because the minister wouldn’t perform a funeral for my uncle who committed suicide.”

“My pastor won’t marry us because my fiance is divorced.”

“I went to a religious school and was turned off by my teachers.”

Many of these reasons are simply excuses for dis-affiliation, but whatever the reason, it is accompanied with significant emotional content. Thus, I begin with the assumption that when they come to me, they come wounded or scarred.

More often than not, some forgiveness is needed if the couple is to re-engage a community of faith: their forgiveness of the church, or the church’s forgiveness of their absence. I want each couple to know that when they come to my office, they are entering an atmosphere of acceptance and welcome.

Like the loving father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, my mood is one of excitement that they’ve returned for this occasion.

After refreshments and small talk, I beg their indulgence while I fill out an information form asking “the same types of questions you’ll see when you apply for your marriage license.” The form asks not only for names, addresses and dates of birth, but also information about baptism, confirmation, present or past congregational affiliation, parents’ names and marital status, their hoped-for date, names of witnesses, and anticipated address following the wedding.

Putting pad and pencil aside, I say, “Okay, now for the important stuff—tell me the story. How did you meet and fall in love?”

I’ve never had a couple who didn’t beam upon being asked. Before they have a chance to respond, I say, “You should know that I collect love stories. I have to be honest and tell you that I have never heard a love story that tops mine, but I’m willing to give you a shot at the prize.”

By sharing stories, we move the focus from any feeling of obligation to prove themselves worthy of a church wedding to a simple celebration of their meeting and romance.

Most of these stories are predictable. “We met in a bar” or “We were introduced by friends.” Still, I have found something in every story to comment on with pleasure, usually in question form. “What was it about him that made you want to see him again?” or “I’ll bet the friends who introduced you felt pleased with themselves!”

After the stories, I move to the key part of our meeting. “I want you to know what we think marriage is all about,” I begin. “As far as the state is concerned, marriage is simply a contract, an agreement that two people enter into in the presence of witnesses. Believe it or not, it has the same legal power as the decision to buy a house or an automobile. Now, the church recognizes the contractual element of marriage, but we think it has a far deeper dimension. “You see, we believe that your marriage is a receptacle for God’s movement in life, a contract with three parties, not two. In the wedding, the church affirms that we already see God at work in the two of you. So, let me ask you a difficult question. Where do you see God at work in your relationship?”

Not surprisingly, a few seconds of silence usually pass as the couple gives me the deer-in-the-headlights look. My next act is contrived, but incredibly important. “I’ll tell you what. Let me give you a few minutes to think about that while I refill your coffee cups.” They may not want any more coffee, but they always seem glad that I leave them alone for a few minutes.

When I return, they often seem a little shaken. I rephrase the question. “So,” I say in a cheery voice, “where do you see God in each others’ lives?”

“I’m not sure we’ve ever thought about our relationship in those terms,” one will say.

“Well, tell me what it is about each other that you find holy. When you look at him, or when you look at her, what awes you the most?”

Haltingly, the words start to come. Compassion. Empathy. Adoring love. Selflessness. Sacrifice.

“See?” I say. “These are God-words. Maybe you never thought of each other this way, but these characteristics you are talking about, these attributes, these are things that describe the presence and activity of God in your life. You’ve loved God in each other for a while now and didn’t even know it.”

Most couples look bewildered. This is new to them. So I explain further.

“You know, almost 2,000 years ago, a Christian known as Justin Martyr said that each human being possesses ‘seeds’ of God. It’s the same thing the Old Testament was trying to describe when it says that we are made in God’s image. Basically, it means that you are more than just flesh and blood, more than your history and experience, more than just your family’s genetic pattern—you are ‘God-stuff,’ too. Let me see if I can give you some evidence of that.”

Most couples, by now, are both fascinated and confused by this new idea.

“Why are you really here today, in a church?” I ask. “If all you wanted was a wedding, you could pay a judge $50 and have it done. Why go to a church, why sit down with a minister to arrange a church wedding?”

They usually sit quietly, no doubt hoping I have the answer to the question.

“I think God has brought you here to me. I think that ‘God-stuff’ in you has led you to believe that this marriage is so important that God has to be involved. Furthermore, I think God is interested in more than just your wedding; he may be inviting you to a deeper level of relationship than the one you already enjoy.

“That diamond on your finger has a number of facets—a number of ways of seeing the fire inside the stone. Likewise, your relationship has a number of facets as well.”

Then I discuss four primary aspects of human relationships: emotional, social, physical, and material. I ask the couple to describe how they experience feelings about one another, how they engage family members and friends in their relationship. I briefly discuss how the Christian tradition sees the gift of sexuality as an expression of love through touch. I ask them if they have established any financial goals, or if they have begun to deal with issues of common property.

They normally have already explored these facets of their relationship to some degree. Then I ask them about the spiritual dimension of their relationship.

Usually this stops conversation cold.

“I thought spirituality was an individual thing. I mean, I believe what I believe and she believes what she believes,” said one groom, summarizing the beliefs of his generation about matters of faith.

The door is now open for some fundamental teaching about the spirituality of marriage.

“This is the part of your relationship that I think God is inviting you to explore,” I say, explaining the methods and benefits of prayer, worship, stewardship, study, and an ongoing relationship with the church.

“Let me tell you one of the things I have learned in 25 years of ordained ministry. Emotions change. Social interests and extended relationships change. The way we express love through touch changes. Money comes and money goes. But God always stays the same. When a husband and wife are grounded in God, their relationship endures. Like it or not, you are what the Environmental Protection Agency calls an ‘endangered species.’ Divorce is so prevalent, I believe, because most marriages are grounded in emotion, or sex, or money, or common interest. The ones grounded in God tend to endure.”

By this time, we have been talking for more than an hour. They have been exposed to concepts radically different from those they came with. It is time to make a deal.

The deal

“Look,” I usually say, “I know that a lot of what I have said is new to you. You need to talk about this. I’d like to suggest a way we can proceed. I’m here to help you decide if you should be married in this church. I don’t think that you can make that decision until you see if this community of faith feels right to you. Come to worship here for six weeks, then let’s meet again. In fact, we can make an appointment right now. In six weeks you’ll be able to tell me whether this is the church for you.”

Couples frequently express some anxiety about the length of time. They want to “firm things up.” In that case I say, “I understand. I’ll put your wedding date on my calendar right now and promise to hold it open. If you come here for six weeks and feel that this congregation is the one you want to make your church home, we will go ahead with our plans. But if you feel that this church isn’t right for you, and you can identify the thinking that brought you to that decision, I’ll help you find the right church. I’ll suggest a congregation that may be more appropriate for you. I’ll even call the pastor and ask him to be in touch with you so that you won’t have to make any more cold calls. Either way, I won’t leave you stranded.”

My reasoning? Couples who attend worship faithfully for six weeks give God the opportunity to enter their relationship in powerful ways. Members of our congregation are intentional about welcoming new people. By the time the couple attends three or four weeks, they are known by name and have been engaged not only during worship, but during our fellowship hour that follows.

Sometimes I get a blunt response.

“Look,” one groom stated categorically, “we’re not interested in joining your church. We just want to be married.”

With a smile I said, “I’m really grateful you feel free to be honest with me. It seems you have answered your own question. You’re really not interested in this church other than as a venue for your wedding. But of course, churches aren’t public arenas for social celebrations. A church is a community of faith. We welcome you to join our community. It sounds as though our time together has helped you define some of your priorities and needs. Best wishes to you both. I’ll keep you in my prayers.”

It is, admittedly, a swift dismissal, but my role is not to persuade but to invite. If the invitation is declined, I will honor their decision.

More often than not, the couple accepts the deal, and we make a date for a second interview. On their first Sunday, I make sure to direct members of the congregation, especially those in the couple’s approximate age group, to welcome them.

The rule about exceptions

Sometimes an inquiring couple lives some distance from my church. Perhaps their families live in this area, and they simply want a wedding in their home community.

In that case, I emphasize the importance of finding a church home where they live. “I want you to start visiting churches in your area,” I say. “I can give you a list of Episcopal churches in your community along with the names of their clergy. Find the one that feels best and let me know where you will be attending. I will then call the pastor, explain that you are planning to be married here, and ask him to get in touch with you.”

The second interview

At the second interview, I immediately recap our first meeting. “Last time I asked you to worship here for six weeks to see if this was a community with which you could identify. Okay,” I say, filled with genuine anticipation, “the ball’s in your court. Tell me what the two of you have been thinking.”

If the couple has been faithful in attending and has come back for the second interview, they usually have been touched at a deep level by worshiping together and talking about incorporating the life of faith in their relationship. They are eager to proceed.

True, some couples never return. They may have attended for a week or two and then simply disappeared. They may not even call to cancel the second appointment, and I am left waiting, like the king waiting for the wedding guests in Jesus’ parable. At these times, I temper my disappointment with the realization that their freedom to make choices does not negate the value of my invitation.

On rare occasions, a couple comes to the second interview having failed to attend church in the intervening six weeks. At these times, I believe blunt is best: “I really don’t think you can proceed without the experience of worshiping here. That would be as irresponsible as buying a car without looking at the features or asking the cost. So, let’s set another time when we can meet after you have worshiped in this place for a while.”

If they refuse or express reluctance, I suggest that they seem to have made a decision, that they are only interested in a wedding, not in Christian marriage. I wish them well and promise to keep them in prayer.

For those who proceed

For couples who want to be married here and to join the community of faith, I say, “Let’s do two things today. Let’s talk about all the mechanics of getting married here, then let’s explore your mutual spirituality.”

This includes describing our pre-marital preparation program, choices they will have to make about the shape of the service itself: music, flowers, rehearsal, etc. Then, I give them a half-sheet of paper and demand that they post it on the refrigerator. The sheet is entitled “Father Scott’s Ten Rules about Weddings.”

The remainder of our time is spent discussing my first five “rules” in some depth, including suggestions about how they can pray together, study together, and “sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” together. Then we set a date two months prior to the wedding when we can finalize arrangements for the service itself.

Before they leave, I offer this statement: “The most important thing for you to remember about the rest of your engagement is this— when you have a problem, a question, a family issue, or when you just need to talk, I want you to call. Believe it or not, I have a stake in your relationship, and I’m here for you.”

In the last 20 years, I have never had to refuse to marry a couple. In vesting them with the decision to be married in my church, I have pushed each couple to embrace the responsibility for their own actions. In the process, my congregation has been blessed with many fine men and women (and eventually children) who may have come looking for a wedding, but stayed to build a marriage.

Douglas G. Scott is rector of Saint Martin’s Episcopal Church in Radnor, Pennsylvania.dgs1234@msn.com

Father Scott’s Ten Rules about Weddings

Post this on your refrigerator.

1. This is your wedding. It should be the way you want it to be, within the bounds of Christian marriage, our church’s tradition, and the dictates of good taste. Expectations of family and friends are always a secondary consideration.
2. The only things necessary for a wedding in this state are a bride, a groom, a license, and two witnesses. Anything else (dresses, flowers, etc.) is simply ornament and unnecessary for a beautiful and moving wedding ceremony.
3. Relationships are more important than ceremonies. A wedding lasts 15 minutes. A marriage lasts a lifetime. My primary concern is with your relationship with each other, with God, and with me.
4. A wedding is supposed to transform two individuals, not into a couple, but into a church. The only reason for a couple to seek Holy Matrimony in the Christian faith is because they want Jesus Christ to be the Lord, not only of Life, but of their household as well. Christian commitment cannot be realized without a mutual commitment to holiness of life.
5. Couples must worship together to maintain a mutual spiritual foundation. Participating in the life and work of a church makes marriage stronger. Attendance at worship is necessary for the vitality of a relationship both before and after a wedding. Couples who wait until they have children to become active in a church wind up with “kiddie” religion.
6. Weddings should be fun. If you are not enjoying the process of planning your wedding, you are doing something wrong. See me for corrective measures.
7. Something will go wrong at your wedding. Something always does. Count on it, and when it happens, don’t let it bother you. It will give you something to talk about for years.
8. Many couples miss their own wedding. The swirl of emotion and excitement tends to obscure a couple’s ability to enjoy the wedding. Take great care to work on calm centering before the ceremony so that you may enjoy it fully.
9. Everyone gets the jitters. But feelings of dread, regret, remorse, or depression may indicate a deeper problem. Problems can be solved! Call me and talk about it.
10. Alcohol and weddings don’t mix. Alcohol has been at the root of every significant problem I have experienced in years of weddings. You may think a glass of champagne prior to the ceremony is harmless, but alcohol added to the stress of the day can have disastrous results. Abstain.

Copyright © 2000 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Are we Christians in North America overemphasizing the need for leadership in the church? We’re awash in leadership seminars, leadership books, leadership videotapes, leadership consultants. We have conferences, consortiums, courses, kits. The unspoken assumption seems to be “If only we increased our level of leadership skills, we would usher in the kingdom.”

For too many years in the church, leadership was undervalued and almost despised. But the solution is not to swing too far the other way. Leaders must be trained and skilled, but this truth can be blown out of proportion. By overemphasizing leadership, we underemphasize other crucial gifts, such as service, prayer, and teaching. By overemphasizing skills, we may under-emphasize character. We shouldn’t be surprised, then, when we find giant leaders with midget souls.

In an Age of Institutions and Enterprises, leaders have become more needed for our complex organizational lives. Leaders remain essential for any project of scale. But they are not essential in order to pray, to listen, to read Scripture, to give to the poor, to love.

Our near-obsession with leadership, I suspect, stems as much from our culture as from Scripture. Our culture values size, activity, results. We’re impressed by bigness. And only leaders can grow the size, catalyze the activity, and build the numbers. We must never forget, though, as Malcolm Muggeridge writes in Something Beautiful for God, “Christianity is not a statistical view of life. That there should be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over all the hosts of the just is an anti-statistical proposition.”

Missionary statesman J. Oswald Sanders called for caution more than three decades ago and quoted Stephen Neill: “If we set out to produce a race of leaders, what we shall succeed in doing is probably to produce a race of restless, ambitious and discontented intellectuals. To tell a man he is called to be a leader is the best way of ensuring his spiritual ruin, since in the Christian world ambition is more deadly than any other sin, and, if yielded to, makes a man unprofitable in the ministry.”

Sanders concludes with words that sound like a prophecy: “The church needs saints and servants, not ‘leaders,’ and if we forget the priority of service, the entire idea of leadership training becomes dangerous.”

Counter to much conventional wisdom, Dann Spader, director of Sonlife Ministries, explains that “Jesus’ model is not to make leaders; it’s to make disciples. Nowhere in the Bible does it tell us to make leaders. It says to make disciples, and then to choose leaders.”

This explains why in the 20 centuries of Christian writing, from Justin Martyr to Julian of Norwich to Jonathan Edwards, you find precious little emphasis on leadership skills. What you find over and over are exhortations for all Christians to pursue holiness, renounce self-centeredness, endure suffering, pray. Yes, some writers present extended teachings on leadership—Gregory the Great and Richard Baxter come to mind—but even then, they focus less on skills and more on character.

The sages apparently believed that God will raise up leaders; our primary work is to make sure the ones he raises up become like Christ.

Kevin A. Miller is editor-at-large for Leadership.kevin@christianitytoday.com

Copyright © 2000 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.