Page 4774 – Christianity Today (2024)

In Antioch the edict was proclaimed during the morning of February 26, 387. When the proclamation was read outside the praeto-rium, it was received for a moment in stunned silence, broken by the wailing of women.

In the crowd were some professional agitators, the same men who were hired by the officials to applaud them during processions and by actors to applaud them on the stage. The crowd was surging against the praetorium when one of these agitators, or perhaps an officer of the guard (for no one knew exactly what happened) uttered the cry, “To the bathhouses!” Immediately the mob surged in the direction of the Baths of Caligula. In their rage, the crowd smashed everything they could lay their hands on, cutting the chains which held the bronze lanterns and then letting them crash on the stone floor, and hacking down the trees in the gardens.

The mob swung back to the praetorium, rushed past the guards and demanded the abrogation of the levy. There was no sign of the prefect [territorial Roman magistrate] he had slipped away, over the garden wall. The mob rushed through the great marble audience hall, where the prefect was accustomed to sit in state, wearing the robe and the slender silver crown of his office, under the statues of the emperor and empress. There was no prefect they could shout to.

They had exhausted most of their energy, and they might have gone quietly and sullenly from the palace if a small boy, clutching a stone in his hand, had not suddenly decided to throw the stone at the statue of Theodosius. The equestrian statue of gilded bronze represented everything the crowd detested. Soon they were all hurling stones at the statues.

There were altogether five statues, representing the old Count Theodosius, the father of the emperor, the emperor himself, the empress Flacilla, who had recently died, and the two princes, Honorius and Arcadius, who bore the titles of Emperor of the West and Emperor of the East, respectively. The statues of the emperor and the empress were torn down, smashed, mutilated, and led in triumph through the streets. Rain had fallen. The streets were thick with mud. The mob, insane with fear and joy, was chanting: “Try to defend yourself now, proud horseman!”

Meanwhile there were some who remained behind in the praetoriun busily smearing mud on the emperor’s tablets [official records] and setting fire to the heavy silk curtains hung between the marble pillars.

Deathly silence

Three hours later, the prefect led the archers into the city, and the mob dispersed. Then there was only deathly silence and pieces of twiste bronze in the mud in the streets. No one moved. The clouds hung heavy and low over Antioch, and the city seemed to have given itself up for dead. Everyone knew that in the eye of the emperor the whole city had committed the crime of laesae maiet tatis [treason]. The penalty was death.

That day the punishments began. Men arrested by the archers and th praetorian guards were summaril executed. The executions went on for days. Archbishop Flavian, a man of eighty years, slipped out of the city and made his way through the snow to Constantinople to plead for mercy at the feet of the emperor. The ringleaders of the assault on the Baths of Caligula had been put to death; most of the professional agi tators were rounded up.

Then came the turn of the leading citizens-now made hostages of the praetorian guard-examined in the torture chambers, their wealth confiscated, their wives and children thrown out onto the streets, to live as best they could. “There is a silence, said John, “huge with terror, and utter loneliness everywhere.”

All hope for the city depended upon the intercession of the arch bishop, and hardly anyone believed he would be able to cross 800 mile of barren countryside deep in snow and return alive.

For seven days John remained silent, while the executions went on. Then he could contain himself no longer.

Threatening, consoling

He began to deliver to the people of Antioch that long series of sermons known as On the Statues. In these sermons, he said very little about the statues. Most of all , he spoke of God’s mercy, and how there are things far more dreadful than death or slavery. He spoke too of his fond hope in Flavian’s intercession and his desire that the people of Antioch should embrace death, if they had to, or life, with equal courage.

He talked gently, in tones of lament, and sometimes in paradoxes, as when he said, “Strip yourselves, for it is the season for wrestling. Clothe yourselves,, for we are engaged in a fierce warfare with devils. Whet your sickles which are blunted with long surfeiting, and then sharpen them with fasting.”

He reminded the worshipers that Abel was murdered and was happy, while Cain lived and was miserable. John the Baptist was beheaded, Stephen was stoned, yet their deaths were happy. No one should fear death at the hands of the emperor. Slavery? Why should a man fear slavery so long as he was free to worship his God? Have faith in Christ and in his servant Flavian:

“I tell you, God will not suffer this errand to be fruitless. The very sight of the venerable bishop will dispose the emperor to mercy. This is the holy season. In such a season, Flavian will show the emperor the blessedness of forgiving sins, for this is the season when we remember how Christ died for the sins of the world… Let us supplicate; let us make an embassy to the king who reigns above, an embassy of tears.”

At this time, John was 41 years old; he looked 60 and resembled an Old Testament prophet, breathing forth fire and thunder, excoriating the people for their past vices, their addiction to wealth, their love of the theatre, their sensual enjoyments. If they had lived more strictly, they would not have behaved like wild beasts as they raced through the praetorium, and if they were true Christians, they would not have possessed this abject fear of the emperor and his power over them. A king is only a man. Why fear him? No kings ever entertained angels, but the Heavenly King is forever attended by them.

Again and again, on these strange days when destruction hung in the air, he inveighed against wealth and luxury:

“Abraham was rich but loved not his wealth. He regarded not the house of this man nor the wealth of another, but going forth he looked around for the stranger or for some poor man that he might entertain the wayfarer. He covered not his ceilings with gold, but placing his tent near the oak, he was content with the shade of its leaves.”

John believed that it was the desire for luxury which precipitated the rebellion. The mob rebelled for the sake of a few gold coins, and if the gold coins had been taken from them, what then? Surely they would have spent the money in the theatres, on horse races, on dancing girls, on still more sumptuous houses. Their desires dwelt on the things of teh earth; perhaps the visitation of destruction was deserved. Sodom and Jerusalem had been destroyed, and now there was God’s vengeance on Antioch! And he goes on, exhorting, threatening, consoling.

These staggering sermons, which were delivered to the people daily in church, kept the flock together. After the first day there was no more panic, though the tortures went on, and day by day the people could see the senators of Antioch, and everyone else thought guilty by the praetorian guard, dragged through the streets to prison. Yet hope filled the air: rumors had reached Antioch that Flavian had been successful in his mission of mercy. These rumors were followed by others promising the direst punishments.

Pleas of wild hermits

About the middle of Lent, two imperial commissioners, Hellebicus and Caesarius, reached Antioch with orders to make a complete report on the rebellion. They were both Christians and posessed friends in the city. They were empowered to hold a public inquiry and to put the highest citizens on trial and to execute summary judgment. The old scholar Libanius pleaded for the life of the city and was given a special place on the tribunal beside the judges.

Others came to plead, among them, some wild hermits from the mountains, saintly men who had walked barefoot, with tattered clothes and ragged beards. Crowds followed the hermits, and John especially delighted in them, pointing to their frugal lives, their asceticism, their avoidance of the temptations the world sets in front of them. The commissioners must have regarded the hermits privately as an unspeakable nuisance, for they were hammering at the doors of the praetorium, continually begging for mercy. In public, as good Christians, the commissioners were apt to regard them with veneration.

THe story is told of the aged hermit Macedonius the Barley Eater, who subsisted on only a few grains of barley a day. He had no other name. He was the most ragged of all the hermits. One day the imperial commissioners were riding through the streets when they saw the wild hermits approaching them.

“Who is that mad fellow?” they asked, and when they were told it was a mostly saintly ascetic, they dropped off their horses and went down to their knees.

According to [Christian historian] Theodret (c. 393-466), who tells the story rather wistfully, as though he did not quite believe it, the hermit regarded them sternly and gave them a lesson in Christian behavior.

“My friends,” said the hermit, “go to the emperor and tell him from me: ‘You are an emperor, but you are also a man, and you rule over beings who are of a like nature with yourself! Man was created after a divine image and likeness! Do not then mercilessly command the image of God to be destroyed, for you will provoke the Maker if you punish this image!'”

These hermits, who fell upon Antioch like a plague of locusts, begged for mercy for the city and martyrdom for themselves. When John discovered that the caves they had abandoned were now being filled with the scholars who scattered from the city in the time of danger, he was happily ironical:

“Tell me this: Where are those long-bearded fellows – those cynical lickers-up-of-crumbs-from-below-the-table, those gentlemen who work so hard on behalf of their bellies? I will tell you! They have scurried away and hidden themselves in the caves and dens of our hermits who walk boldly about our forum as though no calamity had ever threatened!”

Triumphal entry

In Constantinople, Archbishop Flavian had presented the case for the city with great dignity and sweetness. He reminded Theodosius of a similar event that had happened during the reign of the emperor Constantine. A stone had been thrown at his statue, the face of it was disfigured, and the emperor had asked to be taken to the statue. Then he stroked his own face and said laughingly, “I do not find the mark of any wounds.”

Flavian reminded the emperor that it was in his power to create the most splendid statue in the world: “If you will pardon the offense of those who have done your majesty injury, if you take no revenge upon them, then they will build for you a statue neither of brass, nor of gold, nor inlaid with jewels, but one adorned with a robe more precious than any costly silks – the robe of humanity and of tender mercy – and every man will erect this statue of you in his own heart.”

Before such an advocate the emperor was helpless. He pardoned the city; there would be no general massacre. Instead he gave orders that Antioch should be degraded from the rank of capital of Syria. The metropolitan honors were transferred to the neighboring city of Laodicea.

On the day when the news of the pardon finally reached Antioch, John gave the last of his sermons On the Statues. “Today,” he said, “I shall begin with the same words I spoke in the time of danger. So say with me: May God be praised, who enables us this day to celebrate our festival with so light and joyful a heart. May God be praised, who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think!”

On Holy Saturday [the day before Easter], Flavian returned to the city, an old man with almost no strength left in him. Lamps were lit; torches shone in daylight; spring flowers and green leaves covered the shops; the forum was decorated with garlands. The archbishop made his triumphal entry, while the crowds gathered round him, eager to touch his garments or to stand in his shadow; and then he blessed the crowd and entered the basilica. The strain of those long weeks when the survival of the city hung in the balance fell heavily on John. For many days he was ill. When he recovered, Antioch seemed hardly to have changed: evil was still abroad; the hermits had returned to their caves; and though there were no more places of amusem*nt (Flavian had extracted from the emperor a ban against theatres and horse racing), there was God’s work to be done.

For nearly ten more years, John was to remain in Antioch, delivering his sermons and writing his occasional books, and sometimes there would come to him in the middle of a phrase the sudden recollection of those terrible days when the fa*ggots were lit in the market place.

ROBERT PAYNE (d. 1983) was the author of highly praised histories and biographies, including Fathers of the Western Church (1951) and The Holy Fire: The Story of the Early Centuries of the Early Christian Churches in the Near East (1957), from which this article is adapted with permission.

Copyright © 1994 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

The dates of John Chrysostom’s birth and life until 381 are highly disputed. Many of his writings can be traced only to a general period in his life; the dates given here are generally accepted. Not all of his writings could be listed here.

EARLY YEARS 349-371

349 Born in Antioch of Syria to Christian parents Secundus and Anthusa

363–367 Studies rhetoric and literature under pagan teacher Libanius

368 (Easter) Baptized at Antioch

368-371 Studies in a kind of monastic school; may have assisted bishop Meletius of Antioch

c. 368–371 Writes Comparison between a King and a Monk and several other works in favor of monastic life

c. 371 Ordained lector and serves the church of Antioch

LECTOR & DEACON 372-385

372–378 Lives in a semi-isolated state and then as a hermit until bad health forces him to give up this way of life

378–381 Lector (reads Scripture in worship) at Antioch

380 or 381 Ordained deacon (assists with sacraments); writes treatise of consolation to a young widow

381–385 Writes On the Priesthood

380 or 382 Two treatises condemning the cohabitation of clerics and virgins

PRIEST OF ANTIOCH 386-397

385 or 386 Ordained priest by Bishop Flavian of Antioch

386–387 Preaches homilies (sermons) I-X On the Incomprehensible Nature of God and Against the Jews (i.e., Christians who follow Jewish religious practices)

387 Antioch riots; John preaches sermons On the Statues

388 or 389 Eight instructions for baptismal candidates

390–397 Homilies on Genesis, Matthew, John, and 6 NT letters

397 Homilies on selected Psalms and on Isaiah

ARCHBISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE 398-403

398 Consecrated bishop of Constantinople. Takes steps to reform imperial court, clergy, and people; homilies XI-XII On the Incomprehensible Nature of God

398–402 Homilies on Philippians and Colossians

399 Gives Eutropius sanctuary and preaches two homilies on the vanity of human power

400 Homilies on the Book of Acts

402 Group of Egyptian monks (the “Tall Brothers”) appeal to John for help

403 John tried at the Synod of the Oak; convicted, deposed, and exiled; immediately recalled

403–404 Homilies on Hebrews

EXILE 404-407

404 Deposed and exiled to Cucusus (in eastern Turkey)

404–407 Writes more than 200 letters to friends

407 Sent to Pityus on the Black Sea and dies en route, at Comana in Pontus (in northeast Turkey)

State Falls, Church Rises

360-363 Emperor Julian (“the Apostate”) attempts to restore pagan religion

379-395 Emperor Theodosius I (“the Great”) gradually makes Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire

381 Council of Constantinople declares the Holy Spirit divine; Constantinople becomes second seat of Christendom (after Rome)

390 Theodosius orders massacre in Thessalonica; confronted by Ambrose of Milan, he publicly repents

394 Bishop Ninian sets out from Rome to convert Scotland

407 Roman legions in Britain withdraw to protect Italy

410 Visigoths under Alric sack Rome; empire is psychologically shaken

413 Augustine begins writing City of God, the classic philosophy of history, in response to Rome’s sack

Gerard H. Ettlinger is professor of theology at St. John’s University in Jamaica, New York. He is editor of a critical edition of the Greek text of Saint Jean Chrysostome: A’ une Jeune Veuve Sur le Mariage Unique (Sources Chrtiennes, 1968), and of Theodoret of Cyrus: Eranistes (Clarendon, 1975).

Copyright © 1994 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

John Chrysostom loved to preach. “Preaching improves me,” he once told his congregation. “When I begin to speak, weariness disappears; when I begin to teach, fatigue too disappears. Thus neither sickness itself nor indeed any other obstacle is able to separate me from your love.… For just as you are hungry to listen to me, so too I am hungry to preach to you.”

And people loved to hear him preach, and since his death, to read his sermons. He was given the posthumous title of “Chrysostom” or “golden tongue,” and it stuck. Pope Pius X in 1908 designated him as the “patron” of Christian preachers. And historian Hans von Campenhausen wrote that his sermons “are probably the only ones from the whole of Greek antiquity which … are still readable today as Christian sermons. They reflect something of the authentic life of the New Testament, just because they are so ethical, so simple, and so clear-headed.”

What was it like to hear a Chrysostom sermon? What was it about his method, style, and content that established his reputation as one of the church’s greatest preachers?

Standing Room Only

John preached every Sunday and saint’s day in addition to conducting several weekday services, which accounts for the 800 sermons still available to us today.

He began his sermons with a prayer that many Christians still pray each Sunday: “Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid; cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name, through Christ, our Lord.”

In the fourth century—indeed, until modern times—people did not sit in pews when they worshiped. Instead they stood or walked around, greeting people and exchanging news. It was to such a relatively unruly congregation that Chrysostom preached, and the people often responded with applause, or on occasion, with boos, hisses, or silence.

Chrysostom once observed that Christ did not have to contend with such ill-disciplined hearers, but the disciples always waited quietly and politely until he had finished. So John concluded his sermon by suggesting that all applause should henceforth be forbidden—and this announcement brought down the house with applause!

Though some of Chrysostom’s sermons lasted more than two hours, other sermons (such as each of his 88 homilies on the Gospel of John) took less than thirty minutes to deliver.

In one of these sermons, we gain a glimpse of church life in John’s day. Just before he gave the Gospel reading, he exhorted his people, “Each of you take in hand that part of the Gospels which is to be read in your presence on the first day of the week. Sit down at home and read it through; consider often and carefully its content, and examine all its parts well, noting what is clear and what is confusing. From such zeal there will be no small benefit to you and to me.”

This suggests that his listeners were literate and possessed copies of the Gospels.

Sober Exposition

Though Chrysostom’s delivery was dramatic, his biblical exposition was sober and restrained. He was the primary representative of “Antiochene exegesis,” a method that emphasized the literal meaning of the Bible’s text. This school opposed allegorical interpretations of the Bible, which were typical of the church in Alexandria. Allegorists, like the great Origen, went beyond the literal text to uncover spiritual meanings behind the numbers, colors, characters, and events of Scripture—sometimes to the point of becoming rather fanciful.

Chrysostom combated any interpretation of Scripture that didn’t take the literal meaning of the text seriously. Once, in attacking Gnosticism, a heresy that minimized the importance of the physical creation, he wrote, “Nowhere in Scripture do we find any mention of an earth which is merely figurative.”

His sermon on the healing of the paralytic is a good example of John’s biblical exposition.

Exhilarating Style

John delivered his sermons with all the oratorical skills he had learned from the great Libanius. Sometime before he was ordained, John wrote a book, On the Priesthood, in which he devoted two chapters to the art of preaching. In those, he reminds would-be preachers of “the great toil which is expended upon sermons delivered publicly to the congregation.” Hearers may give them scant credit, “assuming the role of spectators sitting in judgment.” The people, he wrote, often come not to be instructed but to be entertained. “Most people usually listen to a preacher for pleasure, not profit, as though it were a play or a concert.”

Indeed, despite John’s clear love for the people, his expectations were low: “It generally happens that the greater part of the church consists of ignorant people.… Scarcely one or two present have acquired real discrimination.”

Thus, the preacher must rid himself of the desire for praise yet strive for an eloquence that will gain people’s attention. Eloquence is not given by birth, but the preacher must “cultivate its force by constant application and exercise.” Chrysostom seemed to have mastered it: even though some of his sermons lasted two hours, people still called for more.

Prophetic Toughness

Chrysostom preached often against worldliness and the neglect of the poor—preaching that today we call prophetic. For example, in the 90 sermons on the Gospel of Matthew, Chrysostom referred 40 times to almsgiving, 13 times to poverty, more than 30 times to avarice, and almost 20 times to wrongly acquired and wrongly used wealth.

In one sermon he asks the rich, “You say you have not sinned yourselves. But are you sure you are not benefiting from the previous crimes and thefts of others?”

Later he says, “When your body is laid in the ground, the memory of your ambition will not be buried with you; for each passerby as he looks at your great house will say, ‘What tears went into the building of that house! How many orphans were left naked by it, how many widows wronged, how many workmen cheated out of their wages?’ Your accusers will pursue you even after you are dead.”

On another occasion he warned, “I am going to say something terrible, but I must say it: Treat God as you would your slaves. You give them freedom in your will: then free Christ from hunger, want, prison, nakedness!”

Pastoral Tenderness

Because of John’s emphasis on the duty of Christians, some criticized him for being moralistic, even Pelagian (believing that good works lead to salvation).

In fact, Chrysostom preached 32 sermons on Romans that were later used by Augustine to demonstrate that Chrysostom could not be so accused: “What is it that has saved you?” John preached. “Your hope in God alone, and your having faith in him in regard to what he promised and gave. Beyond this there is nothing that you have contributed.”

In addition, though he was harsh with his people, he always preached with hope. “Have you sinned?” he added to one sermon on repentance. “Go into the church and wipe out your sin. As often as you fall down in the marketplace, you pick yourself up again. So too, as often as you sin, repent of your sin. Do not despair. Even if you sin a second time, repent a second time. Do not by indifference lose hope entirely of the good things prepared.

“Even if you are in extreme old age and have sinned, go in, repent! For here there is a physician’s office, not a courtroom. [The church] is not a place where punishment of sin is exacted, but where the forgiveness of sin is granted. Tell your sin to God alone: ‘Before you alone have I sinned, and I have done what is evil in your sight.’ And your sin will be forgiven you.”

Sometimes after scolding his hearers, he showed them his pastoral intent:

“My reproach of you today is severe, but I beg you to pardon it. It is just that my soul is wounded. I do not speak in this way out of enmity but out of care for you. Therefore I will now strike a gentler tone.… I know that your intentions are good and that you realize your mistakes. The realization of the greatness of one’s sin is the first step on the way to virtue.… You must offer assurance that you will not fall into the same sins again.”

Without Equal

Chrysostom has had his critics, ancient and modern. Socrates, a fifth-century historian, faulted him for “too great a latitude of speech,” and modern historian W. H. C. Frend says, “He was tactless toward colleagues.”

His courage and candor earned him a reputation as a great preacher and faithful Christian. But in his day, his only reward was exile and death. In his final sermon, he seems to have seen what was coming, and he faced it with characteristic courage and style:

“The waters are raging, and the winds are blowing, but I have no fear for I stand firmly upon a rock. What am I to fear? Is it death? Life to me means Christ, and death is gain. Is it exile? The earth and everything it holds belongs to the Lord. Is it loss of property? I brought nothing into this world, and I will bring nothing out of it. I have only contempt for the world and its ways, and I scorn its honors.”

Despite his scorn of honors, such passages cause us to honor him 1,600 years later—as one without equal among the preachers of antiquity.

Carl A. Volz is professor of church history at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is author of Pastoral Life and Practice of the Early Church (Augsburg/Fortress, 1990).

Copyright © 1994 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

Sobering statistics

In 1993, the number of children substantiated by child protective agencies in the U.S. as victims of child maltreatment: 1,016,000

Percentage of these who were sexually abused: 15

Percentage of men in a national survey who reported being sexually abused prior to age 18: 16

Percentage of women: 27

– National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse

Chicago, Illinois

Copyright © 1994 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

The day I candidated at Glen Ellyn Bible Church, following the Sunday morning service, we were having lunch at the home of the chairman of the board of elders.

Suddenly, in the middle of the meal, the phone rang, and when our host returned, his face was pale. We immediately knew something was wrong.

He quickly gave us the facts: the son of one of the church families, a college-age man who had attended church that morning, had left the service before my sermon, gone home, and apparently taken his own life.

We dropped our forks and drove together to the grieving family’s home. As others gave comfort to the family, I listened, offered what I could, and avoided treading on their grief.

As the afternoon went on, my thoughts turned to the evening service. What I had planned to preach would now be out of place. This was a crisis not only for the immediate family but for the whole church.

After we left their home, I spent the next few hours planning how to lead that service. I chose a different sermon text, 2 Corinthians chapter one, and outlined a new message. My ministry that night, by necessity, addressed the pain and grief everyone was feeling.

It was not a typical candidating Sunday. But years later, one of the church elders observed, “When we came to vote on Gary’s candidacy the next week, it wasn’t a matter of deciding whether or not to call him as our pastor. He already was. We’d been through a crisis together, and he had already proven to be our pastor.”

Crises don’t come at convenient times. I can’t schedule them into my calendar. But they are a critical part of my calling, as much as preaching or administration. Not only do people need care for the devastation already experienced, they need help handling the ongoing effects. Crises have the potential to worsen and expand, like the fires and aftershocks that follow a major earthquake.

All pastors live squarely on a fault line. The question is not if a crisis will come, but when. Even though I can’t schedule them, I can, like residents of San Francisco, learn to be prepared.

SEPARATE CRISES FROM PROBLEMS

First we must know what truly is a crisis. If we treat every problem as a crisis, we will be full-time crisis managers. Every pastor has had calls in the middle of the night from someone who wants immediate attention for a relatively minor problem. The key is to be available to such people, helping them deal with their own problem, while not overresponding.

If the person calling considers his or her situation a crisis, then I treat it as one, at least initially. I give such people my full and immediate attention; I respect the feelings and validate the pain they feel; I show I care. And I’m available like this until I can see where things stand.

Empathy at this point is critical. I try to react not based on how I feel about others’ problems but on how I would feel if I were they. Their mountain may be a molehill, but if they see it as a mountain, I need to help them work through those feelings and get a better perspective.

Communicating such care while assessing the situation may take only five minutes. Then depending on the need, I can set an appointment or make other plans to attend to them. In this way, I can manage the problem without dismissing the person’s pain.

And if it’s an authentic crisis, I can take more immediate action.

MANAGE YOUR REACTION

I once received a call at 3 a.m. to come and help the family of a man who had just killed himself with a shotgun.

Initially, all they knew was that a shot had been fired and the man was hospitalized. It was my job to drive the wife and her three children to the hospital and then, when I discovered exactly what happened, inform them that he had taken his own life.

In situations like this, my first challenge is to manage my own reactions.

I typically face two kinds of crises: those I feel confident and qualified to manage because of my experience and training, and those that intimidate me. Each has its own temptations.

When I feel comfortable, I get impatient. I know the nature of the problem before the person stops talking. I know what needs to happen. I know how people tend to respond. And I know how to fix things. I want to start giving advice prematurely.

When I’m intimidated by the situation, I want to do something, anything, because I’m the pastor. I feel like if I don’t take control, I’ll appear f*ckless. Under that pressure I usually blunder.

To manage my reactions, I keep two things in mind:

Stay calm. I won’t be much good to people if their crisis becomes my crisis. In a situation where I can neither touch bottom or keep my head above water, I have to remain calm. If I overidentify with the people’s fear, panic, and insecurity, I will be unable to minister. I want to be able to feel what they feel, to tell them those feelings are normal, but I want to keep a clear head. How?

My answer is to acquire skills and training. I must have something to offer people. Burnout hits pastors who repeatedly face situations that outstrip their competence.

When I was in seminary, I also worked as a real estate agent. One day my partner put me in an uneasy situation. A woman who had worked with his daughter was dying of cancer. The doctors had told her she had only a few weeks to live. She didn’t know Christ.

He said, “You have seminary training. Would you call on her?”

“Yes, I’ll gladly see her,” I replied. Inside, however, I felt queasy, dubious of my ability to say anything that would help her.

Later I sat in the parking lot of the hospital, marshaling my strength, thinking, Nothing I have done to this point has prepared me for this. I prayed and decided the one thing I could do was listen. If nothing else, I could give an attentive ear and pray with her. With that in mind, I walked into the hospital and took the elevator to her room.

It didn’t take much small talk to get down to her real need. I said, “I don’t know what you’re going through, and I really want to hear.”

“It started as ovarian cancer,” she said. “Then it spread throughout my lower tract. The pain is like the harshest pain a woman goes through in labor, but this one never stops. At first I fought against taking pain medication because I wanted to be clear-minded when I visit with my 13-year- old daughter. But then the pain got to be too much.”

By the time we finished talking several hours later, she had prayed to receive Christ. When I walked out of the hospital, I was totally spent. I got in my car and slumped in the seat with my eyes closed. I knew the Lord had helped me minister to this woman, but I also knew I lacked the competence to handle all the issues involved in helping people in crisis. Then and there I decided to pursue all the crisis skills possible.

Though I have followed through, I don’t always have total control of my emotions, and at times I feel uneasy and at a loss. That’s good. It keeps me depending on the Holy Spirit for effectiveness. I never enter a crisis with the idea I’m going to solve it. I use the skills I’ve learned. Yet only as the Holy Spirit applies them to the person in need can they take hold.

A crisis is an opportunity. In a sense I’ve learned to look forward to crises–not to the harm they cause, but to the good that God brings as a result:

1. People grow. One night a member, Mary, called to tell me her 39-year-old husband was dead. While they were on vacation together, he had suffered a massive heart attack.

She had no one to help her. My wife and I stepped in, and over the next few days we became extremely close to her. Until then, she had been only marginally involved in the church. As she experienced Christ’s love through us and the church, she began wanting to share it with others. Now Mary has become heavily involved in caring for others in need. Her crisis was a tragedy, but she emerged a stronger person and a more committed believer.

2. Relationships deepen. Most people never forget that the pastor was there in their hour of deepest need. Our family is now as close to Mary as to anyone in the church, although before her crisis I knew her only as the red-headed women who sat with her husband in the third row. After pastors leave a congregation, the people who keep contact are often those whom they helped in crisis.

3. A sense of satisfaction fills me. Since crises are part of my calling, and since I have invested considerably in crisis training, I get fireman-like satisfaction from entering the burning houses of people’s lives and walking out with them on my shoulder. This isn’t the messiah complex at work but a legitimate sense that I am doing something significant, doing what God called me to do.

I can’t immediately see the fruits of other pastoral labor, but when counseling in crisis, I often see tangible results very quickly.

DECIDE YOUR STEPS

I may not be able to plan for a specific crisis, but I can decide ahead of time what steps I will take once a crisis presents itself. Here is what I try to do:

Offer appropriate touch and presence. In the midst of the suicide tragedy on candidating Sunday, one woman from the congregation came to the family home and just sat on the couch with her arm around the shoulder of the grieving mother. For the entire afternoon, I don’t think she said ten words. But the mother later told me, “I drew more comfort from that than anything.”

Presence is powerful.

Pain and trauma isolate a person, particularly in medical crises. A patient is in alien surroundings, treated by some personnel more like a problem than a person. People in pain want to withdraw, like a turtle into its shell. But isolation intensifies the pain.

So those in crisis first need others to be with them. Meaningful touch helps pull crisis victims out of isolation. Although sufferers can dismiss our words, touch–the language of crisis–has innate authority.

Resist giving advice.

One of the biggest mistakes a pastor can make is to prescribe answers and solutions in the initial stages of a crisis. At this stage, crisis victims need description, not prescription. So I let them fully describe what has happened, what they’re feeling, what they’re going through. Few things communicate compassion and concern more than unhurried listening.

This means resisting the temptation to offer even good advice. We all know that cliches usually cause more pain than comfort. When crisis victims hear pat answers, they feel we don’t understand the depth of their trauma.

Even truth, given prematurely, can do more harm than good. Although this may be the fiftieth person we’ve counseled about grief, to the person going through the grief, it feels like a unique experience. So telling a widow, “You are not the only one who has experienced this; others in our church have gotten through this, and so will you,” only belittles her loss. Later, the person may want to get in touch with others who have gone through the same thing, but in the beginning, the person needs to simply express how this experience is like nothing else.

Sometimes I don’t listen well because I prejudge the situation or the person. I did this once with a couple in a marital crisis. They were not a part of the church, so I didn’t know anything about them when they came to see me. But the wife, a seething volcano of anger and bitterness, made it difficult to like her from the start. She even made fun of the church, calling our worship a “dog and pony show.”

I felt she was a lost cause, and frankly, I wanted to get rid of them gracefully. As counseling continued, however, I discovered some of the roots of her anger. She had suffered sexual abuse as a child. The more I learned, the less I wanted to write her off.

Rarely are counseling situations clear from the first session. The longer I counsel, the more I know about human nature, and ironically, the less I feel I can prejudge people. More than ever, I listen for the factors that make this person and problem unique.

Clarify the situation.

Medical crises require quick decisions about procedures to be done, organs to be donated, life-support systems to be used.

A death forces kin into dozens of decisions about funeral arrangements, the distribution of possessions, living arrangements, financial planning, and legal matters.

Unemployment requires a person to reassess retirement, education, self-identity, where they live.

Crisis victims make handfuls of life-changing decisions, and usually in a compressed period of time. One of these decisions alone is stressful. Add them up, and it’s bewildering. Tack on emotional shock, and it’s crushing. Not surprisingly, decision making can cause people in crisis to freeze. They desperately need someone who can objectively identify the issues, sort the priorities, and clarify values.

When a person in church loses a loved one, I drop everything to be with the family. I also accompany the family at the funeral home and inform them, “I want to help you understand what the funeral director is doing.” We go into the casket room, and I help them clarify what it means to buy a casket, that their feelings for their loved one don’t have to be expressed in a lavish casket. I help them assemble documents.

I’ve learned a key principle about how assertive I can be in helping a family deal with doctors, funeral directors, and lawyers: If these professionals are not making sense to me, they are almost certainly not making sense to the crisis victim, who is normally too intimidated to ask many questions. So I ask on their behalf. And because I’ve gone through these things before, I can help interpret the technical language and procedures and decisions.

These aren’t the only things I clarify. People need help interpreting their feelings. Is anger the fountainhead of this man’s marriage problems, or is anger masking guilt over some failing? Is the broken person at a funeral simply grieving the loss or resenting the increased responsibilities? The job of clarification and interpretation is one of our most important.

Do damage control.

Crises can easily get out of control. Most people can deal with only one crisis at a time, but every crisis has the ability to spawn other emotional, financial, occupational, family, and identity crises. Victims can quickly lose hope. When a person is vulnerable, when everything is already shaky, the “offspring” of crises can do incredible damage.

Take marital arguments. One couple came to me right after the wife learned of her husband’s adulterous relationship. He had been involved for three years with his secretary. I knew I wasn’t going to save their marriage in one session, but I did need to contain the forest fire.

First, I wanted to keep them from tearing each other apart. In addition, they had three kids. I knew she probably wanted to march home and say, “Look what your father has done.” She probably wanted to call up the other woman, whom she knew well, and tell her off. She could have kindled an inferno. She could have moved out of the house and cut herself off from everyone. Each of these could have created additional crises, and that was the last thing they needed right then.

So in that first visit, we addressed the bare minimum. I needed to hear their story, trace how the adultery developed, and let her initial anger and his defensiveness blaze in a place where they couldn’t incinerate each other. She needed to hear me say, “It’s right for you to be angry at him.” He needed to hear, “What you’ve done has not irreparably harmed your marriage or your life. There’s still hope for you.” And we tried to contain the flames to the smallest possible area.

Today, they are holding their own. They’re s till clearing away some of the charred timber, but they’re making it.

Show the next step.

A woman called me and, sobbing, said, “I have to see you today.” I agreed to see her immediately.

When she came in, I learned she was suffering intolerable guilt over two abortions received before committing her life to Christ. In a single day, due to a conversation she’d had with a friend who didn’t know her situation, it became a crippling issue.

In that first meeting I assured her of Christ’s forgiveness and began to walk her through the grieving process. As we finished that session, I assured her, “Let’s talk again next week.” Her emotions were so tender, I knew she would require consistent support to keep her from tumbling back into debilitating guilt.

People in crisis, who tremble before a dark future, need light shed on the next step. They need to look forward to care and attention in the immediate future. So I always conclude my initial care with “I’ll call you tonight,” or “We’ll meet at my office on Tuesday at three o’clock.” I specify what I’m going to do next, and I don’t put that too far in the future. How far depends on how they have responded to my initial attention.

I don’t overwhelm them with a detailed plan for solving the crisis. I tell them, “We’re going to take this one step at a time.”

Most can’t see much beyond the next step anyway.

Identify unique cases.

As much as all crises require a similar approach, not all crises are alike. Each type of crisis requires unique skills, attention, and focus.

Death: In addition to listening and empathy, I find people are helped by knowing the stages of grief. That way their mercurial emotions aren’t so baffling to them.

Domestic violence: Over the years several abused wives have called me, saying they’ve been beaten, and they’re scared it could happen again. We don’t waste time scheduling an appointment for this afternoon at three. Instead, I tell her to call the police and get to a shelter, where I will make contact with her.

I give immediate and specific direction with domestic violence because the participants have a confused, skewed understanding of their situation. Wives often feel responsible. In addition, after being hit, they assume, Well, this was an isolated thing. It won’t happen again. Things will get better. But things usually get worse.

Child abuse: The law requires I report any abuse I have witnessed or heard about. But when it comes to relaying second-hand information, I only report what I have witnessed or heard: “A woman reported to me today that her child is regularly beaten by the woman’s husband,” not “I know a child who is being beaten by his father.” It’s the legal system’s job to figure out exactly what’s going on. It’s my legal responsibility to report what I’ve heard.

Marriage conflict: Anger is often the biggest roadblock to progress. After letting a husband and wife vent their anger at one another, I try to get them to take a step back to see a long-term solution to their crisis. Only then can we can begin working constructively.

Loss of job: For the unemployed, a large part of the crisis is self-identity, especially for a man. He assumes all the family’s financial responsibility is his, and he’s dropped the ball. Since society says, “A man is what a man does,” he feels like a loser. He may even be hearing that from his wife or kids.

I have two immediate objectives in these cases. First, I help the person feel worth outside of his or her ability to provide financially. Second, I find the immediate financial pressure point–a mortgage payment, a tax penalty–and help the person figure out how to deal with it.

Threatened suicide: Most people who threaten suicide feel they’ve lost control of everything–except death. So the last thing I do is try to wrest control from them by saying, “Don’t do it. It’s wrong. Think of all the people you would hurt.” That just reinforces their despair.

I let them take control, even in the conversation. “Tell me what’s going on in your life.” I affirm the one positive action they’ve just taken–calling me–“It was great of you to reach out to someone. It’s important for you to do that.” I let them feel they’ve taken some control of their lives already, that calling was a good thing.

LIFE-DEFINING MOMENTS

Since the early days of my ministry, I have intentionally sought opportunities to help people in crisis. I have volunteered as chaplain of hospitals and with the police and fire departments. I have gone out of my way to build a network of relationships outside of the church in organizations such as Rotary Club so that people in the community with a crisis but without a pastor can call me. I emphasize to the congregation that despite the size of our church, I am available to them in a crisis.

Why bring more problems upon myself? Crises are life-defining, path-setting moments for people. If someone stands at their side, representing Christ and offering compassionate help, they often will draw closer to God. And that, finally, is what my ministry is about.

Copyright 1994 Gary Gulbranson

Copyright © 1994 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

GETTING THE PREACHER CONVERTED

How to preach evangelistically–and how not to. Gordon MacDonald on Will Willimon’s newest release.

“The gospel is not a set of interesting ideas about which we are supposed to make up our minds. The gospel is intrusive news that evokes a new set of practices, a complex of habits, a way of living in the world, discipleship.”

This is William Willimon, dean of the chapel and professor of Christian ministry at Duke University, in the latest of his thoughtful writings on preaching.

The key word is intrusive because that is exactly what Willimon thinks we need to understand when we present Jesus to those outside the faith. Intrusive suggests a message unlike any other, something akin to a loose cannon on the deck. Something that invades the souls of unsuspecting people and, while being preached, may affect those inside the church just as much as it affects those outside.

BORN-AGAIN CHURCH

At its beginning The Intrusive Word: Preaching to the Unbaptized (144 pages, Eerdmans, $10.99) offers the story of Verleen, a single mother of two children living in the “projects.” Verleen is the sort of person many Christians believe need to be reached, but nimb (not in my backyard–read “church”).

The significance of Verleen’s story lies in the fact that she, representing the unbaptized, not only began to engage the intrusive Word of Christ when she heard it for the first time, but, as a result, the “baptized” (even the preacher) were also engaged, in ways none expected. The rest of the book is built with that story in mind. If you’re a preacher, you’ll want to read the story to your congregation. I did, and they loved it.

Willimon is not overly impressed with those who have gone out of their way to understand evangelism and church growth, marketing and “seeker-sensitivity.” He doesn’t think the gospel needs to be defended. Just preached.

Amazingly, this college professor isn’t greatly concerned that the preaching of Jesus be acceptable to the “thinker” because, ultimately, one does not think his or her way to faith. And while Willimon is masterful at putting the evangel into terms the hearer can perceive, he suggests that we should not be surprised when some folks simply do not understand it. Perhaps they never will. That’s sad, but okay.

“Alas, most allegedly evangelistic preaching I know about,” Willimon writes, “is an effort to drag people even deeper into their subjectivity rather than an attempt to rescue them from it. This spells big trouble for most of my preaching. Too much of my preaching begins at what I judge to be ‘where people are.’ Then, in twenty minutes, I attempt to move them to the gospel.”

This is quite an admission for one of the best preachers in America to make.

On the one hand, we pursue faith in a day when the large majority of professing Christians appear to have ceased caring about evangelism. Not that they do not thrill at the sight of a Billy Graham crusade. And not that they don’t express approval for those who still engage people in persuasive conversations. But it seems many have been subtly affected by a cultural pluralism that says, “I’m glad I have Jesus, and you have Shirley MacLaine. Now we’re both happy. What do you think about the Celtics’ chances this year?”

On the other hand, we have a bevy of sparkling communicators who have given us “worship services” designed for the unbeliever who has tired of (and withdrawn from) the traditional church. This “worship,” marked with marvelously produced contemporary music, drama, and sound/light displays, could thrill any of us.

I put the word worship in quotes because, while I thoroughly enjoy it and admire the folks who do it, I don’t think it’s genuine worship. It’s not much different from the innovative efforts of Young Life Clubs thirty or more years ago. Wonderful stuff. Praise, maybe. Pre-evangelism, in certain cases. But not worship.

To those culturally induced to loosen up on persuasion and to those who have gone the extra mile to wrap the gospel in the most scintillating packages, Willimon has written a first-class book.

The subtitle of The Intrusive Word (Preaching to the Unbaptized) warns that Willimon has his eye on the subject of evangelism. But one had better be careful; the author has readied an ambush. Before we learn how to preach to the rest of the world, Willimon suggests that we need to take a look at ourselves. Perhaps, in the largest sense of the word, we, the so-called baptized, need to “remember our baptism” before we can be of any use to those who still need it.

Remember our baptism? Willimon: “I contend that, through evangelism, through repeated confrontation with the intrusive grace of God, the church can be born again.”

The church? In need of being born again? It is a quote exemplary of the way William Willimon forces the reader to think about things about which some may have grown complacent.

BORN-AGAIN PREACHER

Willimon, a Methodist, contends that evangelism’s goal is to bring people to baptism. But in preaching to the unbaptized, a remarkable thing is likely to happen. The preacher and the baptized may experience transformation also. Implication: if one is not calling others, one just may not be making significant moves toward Christ.

“We preachers so want to be heard” Willimon writes, “that we are willing to make the gospel more accessible than it really is, to remove the scandal, the offense of the cross, to deceive people into thinking that it is possible to hear without conversion.”

But the Word, he proposes, will come when and where it wants, to people of God’s own choosing. And those of us in the church may not always feel comfortable with the “Verleens” of the world who enter and are drawn to the fresh Word of Christ. Their initial witness may sound embarrassing to church-shaped ears. But we may all be in for a surprise. In their baptism into faith, we may find ourselves in need of re-baptism.

“Everyone is in the conversion business,” Willimon notes. Every time one person communicates with another, there is an element of persuasion involved. Why should the church be embarrassed by the notion that it has been called by Christ to offer a new version of reality whose starting point is the cross and the One who died there?

I think you’re going to like this one–and at the same time, maybe, not like it. Having read through it several times, I found myself appraising some of my latest sermons. I found evidences of a lack of boldness, a slight hint of intimidation, even a moment or two of apology. I think I saw a tendency to guard the gospel I was preaching from being too intrusive, too confronting. And then I read Willimon again … and repented.

– Gordon MacDonald, pastor

Grace Chapel, Lexington, Massachusetts

A-RIVER-RUNS-THROUGH-IT MINISTRY

Doing away with pastoral technology? David Hansen may not have all the answers, but from the beginning, he obviously has a few.

The Art of Pastoring: Ministry without All the Answers (180 pages, InterVarsity, $10.99) opens with Hansen’s arrival at one of the yoked Montana parishes he served for nine years. He scans the bookshelves and files of his predecessor, which show an interest in church growth, the charismatic movement, small groups, and sundry theological movements of the 1970s. Then, in speculating on why this pastor eventually lost his faith, Hansen peers into the man’s soul: “Ultimately perhaps he confused following Christian movements with following Jesus Christ.”

He then turns his sights from trend-driven to task-driven ministry. This is fostered, he says, by “academic theology,” which “summarizes pastoral work this way: pastors do things.” This is a problem because it makes pastors want to become professionals, to become experts at doing things expertly. Hansen concludes, “Better to be a follower of Jesus, and no expert at that.”

That, in sum, is this book’s theme: following Jesus, not pastoral “technology.” But what exactly does that mean?

PASTOR AS PARABLE

Well, just as Jesus is a Parable of God–the unique and authoritative Parable–so are pastors parables of Christ to their people. “Jesus is communicated through us because of the likeness we share with him in our everyday life.” And that means that pastors must learn to follow the Way of the Cross, the life of self-denial.

To show what self-denial looks like for a pastor, Hansen spends not a few chapters talking about what he as a pastor does: Preaching, Prayer, Sacrament, Leadership, Leaving. Along the way, he is refreshingly honest about some of the temptations he faced in his first nine years of ministry, for example, with sloth (going fishing instead of visiting a dying parishioner) and heresy (flirting with universalism).

In addition, he effectively weaves in intriguing stories from his rural pastorates: baptizing a cancer-stricken woman in a stream when the Montana sky was “big and July-blue”; visiting a blind, 105-year-old woman as she contemplates death; conducting a funeral for a member of a motorcycle gang, with the denim-and-black-leather gang in attendance.

When Hansen talks about what he knows–rural ministry–he’s on target. But he takes cheap shots at ministries that usually characterize suburban churches. He couches his critique in the first-person plural, but it’s hard to believe he includes himself when he says, “We pimp short cuts. Everybody wants them. People pay good money for them. … Entertainment, management, and counseling are valid activities in their proper arenas, but for pastoral ministry they are easy outs, quick fixes, short-term satisfaction, shortcuts that bypass the cross.”

It sounds prophetic, and I’m even a member of Hansen’s school of prophecy: pastors and churches are often too enamored with technique. But there is no ministry without some technique. How could one possibly do ministry without, for example, organizing the congregation and giving counsel to troubled souls? It’s not simply a question of technique and programs versus following Jesus Christ.

The Art of Pastoring wisely warns us against making technique an idol. But I, for one, need more: guidance to discern how to use technique faithfully.

– Mark Galli

contributing editor, Leadership

RIDING THE WILD BULL

Garry Wills’s book looks at what makes an effective leader.

Simple statements and definitions on the far side of complexity are gold, while simplistic statements and definitions this side of complexity may be reassuring but worthless.

Here’s a new book that is simple yet complex: Garry Wills, in Certain Trumpets: The Call of Leaders (336 pages, Simon & Schuster, $23) offers simple principles of leadership hewn out of the complexity of historical leaders. Wills’s attention to the ambiguity and risks of leadership makes his historical tales gold, especially for those of us in congregational leadership.

The introductory chapter is worth the price of the book. It offers several insights into the art and work of leadership. Wills begins by stating that leadership is a process of “reciprocally engaging two wills, one leading (often in disguised ways), the other following (often while resisting). Leadership is always a struggle, often a feud.”

Anyone who has attempted to ride the wild bull of congregational leadership will break into a knowing smile.

Wills, professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, differentiates between two popular concepts of leadership. One is a Periclean model that relies on the person leading as being more virtuous, more insightful than those that follow. This person leads by dictating what must be done to willing followers who recognize his/her superiority.

The opposite is the “Dale Carnegie style” that seeks to discern the opinion of the people and then play to it. This simple dichotomy helps in assessing my leadership style. It also helps to assess the theories offered to pastors in so-called “leadership conferences.” Calls to be the “hero pastor” and at the same time to meet the “felt needs” of the people fill lectures on Christian leadership.

Trinitarian leadership

Wills risks offering us a fresh definition of leadership. He states that “the leader is one who mobilizes others toward a goal shared by leader and followers. … Most definitions on leadership are unitarian. But life is trinitarian. One-legged and two-legged chairs do not, of themselves, stand. A third leg is needed. Leaders, followers, and goals make up the three equally necessary supports for leadership.”

When I read this definition for the first time, it was as if someone had turned on the lights inside my leadership-theory-pounded brain.

Wills recounts how different leaders lived in this trinitarian context of leadership. Using historical material, Wills does his usual fine job of getting beneath the narrative of history to what is really going on. Half of his sixteen examples of leadership come from religious figures, including Martin Luther King, Jr., King David, Dorothy Day, Pope John XXIII, and Andrew Young.

Finally, at the heart of Wills’s thesis is an insight crucial for those willing to call themselves Christian leaders. Quoting Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Wills reminds us of the lines of Welsh seer Owen Glendower, who boasts that “I can call spirits from the nasty deep.” His bravado is quickly deflated by the slicing truth of Hotspur, who responds, “Why, so can I, or so can anyone. But will they come when you call them?”

Wills poignantly frames a critical insight for his readers: it is not the noblest call that gets answered, but the answerable call. Presenting an answerable call to the people and context in which one ministers is truly the most difficult and important task of pastoral leadership.

For faithful pastors, it is sometimes difficult to steer between the ditches of strong visionary leadership and that of consensual-responsive leadership. How much easier and cleaner the fall into a prophetic leadership that relies on the authority of the “word” God has laid on me as I impose it on my people. How much more comfortable to merely play to the prejudices and needs of my people as I am loved for being a good chaplain.

Garry Wills’s Certain Trumpets provides simple principles for the work of leadership without falling into simplistic directives. Wills’s blaring herald of trinitarian, shared leadership provides the necessary guidance to keep our aspirations for faithful ministry out of the ditch.

– David Alan Galloway, rector

Christ Episcopal Church, Tyler, Texas

AUDIOTAPES: ANY GOOD?

Reviews of two new series

Of late, audio-magazine subscriptions have found their way into the Christian publishing market. For many a busy pastor, the sighs of regret emitted in front of a stack of unread books have been replaced by the sound of a cassette slipping into a tape deck.

To these helpful tape clubs like Preaching Today, The Pastor’s Update, and Shared Ministry, add one more.

Encouragement for Pastors Only is produced by LifeEnrichment of Aurora, Colorado ($12 per tape, $125 per series). The aim of this twelve-tape series is to “strengthen Christian leaders in all their relationships at home, in their life work, and in their leisure.”

Wes Roberts, founder and president of LifeEnrichment, is the host. His years in the pastorate and as a church consultant have helped him identify issues that threaten effectiveness and integrity in the ministry. His casual-conversation approach is assisted by a variety of guests whom he interviews on the phone or in their living room or office. Guests include comedian Ken Davis, counselor Harry Schaumburg, Darryl DelHousaye, Jim Kallam, and Sid Draayer.

The titles of the tapes include: “When Pastors Need Counseling,” “Affairs,” “Raising Kids in the Ministry,” “Unloading Personal Secrets,” and “Humor in the Pastorate.”

In addition to winsome introductions for each topic and repeatable quips between interview segments, Roberts has collected cuts from the albums of Christian artists that underscore the theme being addressed. The music of musicians like Steve and Annie Chapman, Steve Green, Richard Allison, and Terry Clark woven through each presentation set this series apart from the other tape clubs on the market.

Wes Roberts states in the initial tape, “The pastor is supposed to move from sickbed to administrative meeting to planning to troubleshooting to budgeting to audio systems to meditation to worship preparation to newsletter to staff problem to missions projects to conflict management to community leadership to study to funerals to weddings to preaching. He is supposed to be administrative executive, sensitive pastor, skilled counselor, dynamic public speaker, and spiritual guide.”

It is to address these unique pressures that LifeEnrichment offers this helpful series.

– Greg Asimakoupoulos, pastor

Naperville Covenant Church, Naperville, Illinois

A friend recently asked me, “Do you have an older pastor you can go to for advice, a mentor who has been where you still need to go?”

I had to confess that I didn’t, and that I wouldn’t know where to begin looking.

His reply was pointed, “You need to find one.”

I’m working on finding a mentor, but in the meanwhile, I’ve discovered a competent substitute: Focus on the Family’s cassette series, Pastor to Pastor ($24 per two-tape volume). Created in 1992, it is designed “for pastors who desire to succeed not only at church but at home as well.” Mailed bi-monthly, each two-tape volume contains interviews conducted by H.B. London, Jr., former pastor and now assistant to the president of Focus on the Family.

Currently, there are ten volumes in the series, which contain interviews with church leaders (Leith Anderson, Chuck Swindoll, Jerry Bridges, for example). Though the interviews are informal, London asks good questions–the same questions I would ask if I had the chance. The listener may feel he or she is talking over coffee with ministry veterans.

Topics range from leadership to terminations, from the pastor’s devotional life to sexual purity. For example, John Maxwell, pastor of Skyline Wesleyan Church in San Diego, details the “three times when people will change.” People change when they “hurt enough to change, learn enough to change, and receive enough empowerment to change.”

Another example is Bobb Biehl’s “Top Ten Questions You Should Ask Yourself for the Rest of Your Life.” Here are just three: “What am I good at?” (as opposed to “what is expected of me?”), “What is one thing I should resign from or quit doing?” and “What are three things I can do in the next ninety days that will make a 50-percent difference?”

Person-to-person contact, though optimal, isn’t the only way to receive sage advice. When an older pastor isn’t available, these audio cassettes are “the next best thing to being there.”

– Chuck Stober

free-lance writer

Louisville, Colorado

Copyright (c) 1994 Christianity Today, Inc./LEADERSHIP Journal

Copyright © 1994 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Whenever you fall, pick up something.

– Oswald Avery

The pioneers are the guys with the arrows in their backs.

– Erwin Potts, head of McClatchy Newspapers, which has been reluctant to take on new ventures

Any revitalization of faith in this country will have to start with prayer, in which we gain a sense of the living presence of God.

– George H. Gallup, Jr.

We’re in need of a spiritual revival.

– Norman Lear, TV producer and founder of People for the American Way

We grow and mature spiritually through adversity not when everything is going smoothly. … [I]n a time of adversity or trouble, the Christian has the opportunity to know God in a special and personal way.

– C. Everett Koop, former U.S. Surgeon General

God is more anxious to bestow his blessings on us than we are to receive them.

– Augustine

… [T]he pendulum is swinging back from self-expression to self-discipline. But if we are serious about this, it means we will have to sacrifice some measure of the freedom we now have to do anything we want if it feels good.

– Michael Horowitz

If your religion does not change you, then you should change your religion.

– Elbert Hubbard

Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.

– Francis of Assisi

It would be rash to say that there is any prayer which God never grants. But the strongest candidate is the prayer we might express in the single word encore.

– C.S. Lewis

In matters of style, swim with the current. In matters of principle, stand like a rock.

– Thomas Jefferson

God loves us in good times and bad. … But he is even more real in our lives when we are having tough times.

– Joe Gibbs, former head coach of the Washington Redskins

All the wrong people are against it, so it must be right.

– James Carville, presidential adviser

Copyright (c) 1994 Christianity Today, Inc./LEADERSHIP Journal

Copyright © 1994 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

I am by nature a skeptic. I have my doubts. Some people seem predisposed to accept stories about mysteries or the inexplicable. I’m just naturally skeptical.

I don’t believe in Bigfoot or Stonehenge or the Loch Ness monster. I don’t believe Elvis is still alive and working as a short-order cook at Taco Bell. I don’t believe in any of the JFK conspiracy theories. I don’t believe extra-terrestrials periodically visit the earth and give rides on their spacecrafts, partly because they never seem to land in Pasadena and give rides to physicists from Cal Tech; they always appear to a dirt farmer and his wife in Idaho who are missing a few teeth and whose parents are first cousins. I don’t believe the budget will be balanced, or that Elizabeth Taylor will stay married this time, or that a stomach belt will melt off pounds and inches while I sleep so I can always retain my boyish figure (though I have hopes).

I have my doubts. I am part of the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, post-credibility-gap generation. I don’t give my trust easily.

This skepticism is not an altogether bad thing. If I trusted every offer that came along, I would have re-financed my house every day for the past two years.

But it is not altogether helpful, either. It gets in the way of prayer. It can create barriers in my intimacy with God. It can corrode my vision for the future. And I don’t think that I’m the only one who suffers from it. In fact, I think that those of us involved in pastoral ministry are especially prone to it.

SEEN THIS PERSON?

He is a high-profile guy. He has been a successful pastor. Sought-after speaker. Church consultant.

He has the kind of ministry to which people in our profession generally aspire. He is in demand. He is important.

One of the striking things about him when he speaks is his impressive certainty. He tells many stories, when he speaks, about answered prayer and growing churches. He is wonderfully assuring to the people who listen to him, who want badly to believe, and who do believe, but who don’t believe perfectly, not all the time.

I heard him some time ago at a Christian college conference discussing “world views” of well-known people. He quoted a poet who said she periodically surveys the world and asks herself if there is meaning and hope beyond cruel, physical reality, and finds that she answers yes about 70 percent of the time. The speaker quoted her in a contemptuous way, as if to say to the audience, “How sadly typical that a member of the so-called intelligentsia would go through life without 100-percent, full-time assurance of supernatural truth.”

But when he is behind closed doors, the closed doors of his hotel room if he’s talking with someone he knows well, behind the closed doors of his heart, he is a different man.

He is deeply cynical. He is cynical about the people to whom he speaks. He is cynical about the organizations with whom he consults. The kinds of things he says publicly about God and faith do not play out in his private conversations, and they would sound hollow if they did. There is little sense of wonder in him–about God, life, or people. He is cynical about other church leaders because he believes them to be as ego-driven and career-obsessed as he himself is. He is disillusioned about his family life, and although he is considered a champion of family values, “valued” is precisely what his family does not feel.

He prays sporadically, mostly in crisis. There have been moments when he thinks his prayers really have been answered. However, for the sake of the ministry he tells the stories of these answered prayers, tells them often, embellishes them slightly with each retelling until eventually he no longer believes in them himself.

One gets the sense that he speaks about God in his professional capacity, but that when he is offstage and relaxed and speaking candidly about “reality,” he thinks in terms of money and positioning and rivalry and success. The difference between him and the poet is that she at least could be honest about her assessment of the probabilities, while his forced expressions of assurance (and condescension for those who lack it) place his soul in a far more precarious position.

He is like the title character in the Wizard of Oz. He lives behind the curtain. He pulls off the special effects and gets people to believe. They see the fire and smoke; they tremble from a distance. But he knows the truth. It’s a show. There is no magic. There is impressive technology but nothing supernatural. He lives behind the curtain.

What he really trusts in is hard to sum up, but the word success might come close.

I will tell you his name. It is Legion.

He is no one person in particular. I have met him, in one form or another, many times, and so have you. What is worse, of course, is that I meet him from time to time in myself.

For it is one of the dirty little secrets of pastoral ministry that it is an occupation full of closet skeptics. It is an ironic fact of our trade that the very people who are paid by the church to build faith–in some sense even to have faith–are sometimes the most skeptical people in the congregation.

In fact, I think this is no coincidence. I think there are reasons why we are especially vulnerable to skepticism, and that wise people in ministry take special care to combat it.

WHY ARE WE SKEPTICAL?

I suppose we are skeptical partly because we minister as finite, fallen people in a fallen world where much goes unexplained.

A couple comes in for counseling. They desperately want a child, they have prayed fervently, they have waited twelve anxious, doubtful, barren years. Then one day it happens: the liquid in the test tube of the home pregnancy kit magically changes color, and their prayers are answered, and they have a perfect, healthy baby. A little boy. And they believe.

When he is 3 years old, this answered prayer is playing with an orange soccer ball. It lands on a crack in the sidewalk and bounces crazily to the left. It didn’t have to happen that way; a little more breeze, a little nudge from God, and the ball would have missed the crack. It could have bounced to the right, but it didn’t; God didn’t nudge it; it went to the left. And to the left meant into the street. He never saw the car.

And now they are alone again, his mother and father. Their world landed on a crack and bounced away with an orange soccer ball. And now their answered prayer hurts more than their unanswered one.

Pain is not the only story in this world, not by a long shot. But it is part of the story, and it is not safe to gloss over it too glibly, too quickly. Honest ministers never have. Old Testament scholars tell us the most common form of psalm is the lament. A few thank-you notes get thrown in here and there, but more psalms are addressed to the complaint department than anywhere else. It may be that our skepticism is not too strong but too weak; or at least that we are too afraid of the consequences to face it as fearlessly as does the psalmist.

Frederick Buechner writes: “There would be a strong argument for saying that much of the most powerful preaching of our time is the preaching of the poets, playwrights, novelists because it is often they better than the rest of us who speak with awful honesty about the absence of God in the world and about the storm of his absence, both without and within, which, because it is unendurable, unlivable, drives us to look to the eye of the storm. The absence of God is not just an idea to conjure with, an emptiness for the preacher to try to furnish, like a house, with chair and sofa, heat and light, to make it livable. The absence of God is just that which is not livable. It is the tears that Jesus wept over Lazarus and the sweat he sweated in the garden and the cry he choked out when his own tongue filled his mouth like a gag.”

This is surely a part of the story. It is important to speak honestly about prayers that don’t get answered (at least in the ways we want), and hurts that don’t heal, or else we place ourselves and our hearers at risk for skepticism when we bump up against the real, fallen world.

WHAT’S THE DEEPER REASON?

However, the truth about my skepticism is that it does not result purely from a courageous decision to look life squarely in the eye. I said earlier I am a skeptic by nature. That may be getting me off the hook too easily. There is not (at least yet) any evidence of a genetic predisposition toward skepticism.

There are darker sides to my skepticism. Skepticism carries with it a kind of built-in excuse for spiritual entropy. It provides a twisted kind of justification for a failure to love, and love is, after all, hard work.

This more-destructive form of skepticism is a disease not so much of the intellect as of the will. It is not the doubting of Thomas that leads to a search for the truth; it is the doubting of Pilate (“What is truth?”), which is less a question about truth than an affirmation that truth cannot be found, an excuse to wash my hands of the whole thing and simply pursue my agenda.

Partly, this is a risk of education. When I was growing up, I had a vague idea that to become a pastor more or less conferred spiritual maturity on you. There were simple answers to difficult questions, and pastors were well-informed and quite certain about them. The discovery that this is not so produces a kind of disillusionment that may lead to a much deeper and more informed faith, but may also lead to a shallow skepticism that ceases to search for truth at all.

I long for the former. I remember a college philosophy professor who deeply influenced many of us; we were quite convinced of his near omniscience. (A friend of mine once thought he caught this professor in a logical flaw; we asked him why he didn’t point it out in class, and he said, “Because I was afraid that if I did, he’d prove I didn’t exist.”) But what influenced us most was his conviction that true education was not simply questioning all things but ultimately was about the construction of a life of faith.

We are especially vulnerable to skepticism in another way, which Helmut Thielicke called “the ministers’ disease”:

“The man who studies theology … might watch carefully whether he increasingly does not think in the third rather than in the second person … This transition from one to the other level of thought, from a personal relationship with God to a merely technical reference, usually is exactly synchronized with the moment that I no longer can read the word of Holy Scripture as a word to me, but only as the object of exegetical endeavors. This is the first step towards the worst and most widespread ministers’ disease. For the minister frequently can hardly expound a text as a letter which has been written to him, but he reads the text under the impulse of the question, ‘How would it be used in a sermon?'”

So we are tempted–in a way unique to our profession–to allow means of grace such as Scripture to become tools for career enhancement. When I find myself reading the Bible primarily in terms of how I can use it to speak to others rather than how God wants to use it to speak to me (not as much as pastor but as his child), it is a diagnostic indicator that I may be coming down with ministers’ disease.

I am vulnerable to skepticism because I too live behind the curtain. I see the fight between the soloist and the keyboard player. I preach sermons on intimacy while still in an unresolved (and sometimes, on my part, unfairly fought) conflict with my wife.

I am in danger, I suppose, of becoming skeptical about the church because I am so close to it. The first time I was invited to take part in a public worship service I remember hearing the pastors joke beforehand about which one brings in the biggest offering when he preaches. For me, the offering had always been an awesome thing (partly because it was the only time I saw that much money in one plate). I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong to make jokes about the offering. I have been at churches where on some Sundays the offering is very nearly a joke in itself. But the notion of the offerings–grateful people yielding to God a tangible part of their lives–contains elements that should awe us. And our sense of wonder and awe is sometimes worn down by sheer familiarity. My faith is probably in more danger of being de-sensitized than de-mythologized.

I suspect that many times the reason I can be cynical about other people’s motives is because I am so intimately acquainted with my own. To the degree that I am in ministry to win applause, it will be difficult for me not to project the same intentions on others.

WHAT CAN I DO?

However, I am not a helpless victim of skepticism. One of the prayers that has become most important to me is the prayer of the desperate father in Mark 9:24, “I believe; help Thou my unbelief.”

One of the things that helps me most is to talk about my doubts and skepticism and criticism with a few close friends. The first time I did this was pretty threatening: I was afraid the friend with whom I shared my doubts (we went to seminary together) would be shocked. Instead his response was, “What? You too?” The honest discussion of our questions that day had the effect of deeply affirming my faith. Much of the power of my skepticism gets drained in the simple act of confessing it to somebody else.

It also helps to let people in my congregation know my faith is not perfect. This is not to say it’s appropriate to ventilate in the pulpit every doubt that comes along. For a pastor in a major faith crisis to get up and say, “I’m not sure today that God even exists. Sermon’s over; go home” would be clergy malpractice of monstrous proportions. But I will occasionally say, “It’s important to me that you understand my faith is not perfect. Sometimes I have questions I can’t answer. I don’t always give my trust easily.” This helps lessen my temptation to pretend. It also gives people who listen permission to discuss their own doubts.

One step that has aided me much was to find a spiritual director who could help my prayer life. I shared with her one time how my doubts could make it hard for me to receive anything from God in prayer. For instance, when praying I would have doubts that God could be really speaking to me since my life was so imperfect. Or I would wonder if this was really God speaking or simply my own thoughts and feelings.

“You need to practice discernment,” she said. “When you pray and sense God may be speaking, and then doubts come up–do these doubts move you closer to love and joy and intimacy with God, or farther away?”

The answer was clear: these doubts were keeping me from receiving anything from God in prayer.

“Then it would appear that these doubts are not of the Spirit,” she said. “It may be wisest simply to set them aside in prayer and open yourself to the possibility that God really is speaking to you.” As simple as that advice was, it freed me to believe that prayer–my prayer–really was an interactive, personal conversation in which God was not just listening but participating.

The early church fathers had a standard spiritual discipline for the cultivation of greater faith that applies especially to pastors: silence. One of them put it like this: “When the door of a steambath is continually left open, the heat inside rapidly escapes through it; likewise the soul, in its desire to say many things, dissipates its remembrance of God through the door of speech, even though everything it says may be good.”

Sometime ago I had an experience in prayer that was, for me, a powerful and unusual thing. I told several people about it, but this had an unexpected consequence. Gradually, the experience became less a shared moment between God and me and more an impressive moment I could use to demonstrate to people how spiritual I was. The mere talking about it changed it, robbed it of its value to help me. Silence, as Henri Nouwen says, is a way of tending the inner fire, which protects us from the coldness of skepticism.

I also find I need regular doses of simply reading good theology. Some time ago I went to a conference that suggested that being a “successful pastor” rests largely on having “the gift of faith”–defined more or less as being able to visualize having a large church with lots of parking. And in the back of my mind I was inclined to feel some distress because my mental visualizer does not always work reliably. It has too many channels. I get cable.

While that was still in my mind, I was reading Martin Luther. Luther told once of a woman tormented by doubt who said to him, “Dear Doctor, I have the idea that I’m lost and can’t be saved because I can’t believe.”

Then he replied, “Do you believe, dear lady, that what you say in the Creed is true?” She answered with clasped hands, “Oh yes, I believe it; it’s most certainly true!” To this he responded, “Then go in God’s name, dear lady. You believe more and better than I do.”

Luther reflected on this encounter: “It’s the Devil who puts such ideas into people’s heads and says, ‘Ah, you must believe better. You must believe more. Your faith is not very strong and is insufficient.’ In this way he drives them to despair. We are so constructed by nature that we desire to have a conscious faith. We’d like to grasp it with our hands and shove it into our bosom, but this doesn’t happen in this life. … We should hold to the Word and let ourselves drag along this way.”

Sometimes the best way to deal with my skepticism is with a healthy dose of perspective and humor. Luther noted that he was often tempted by the Devil to doubt because he knew his sinfulness: “I am of a different mind ten times in the course of a day. But I resist the Devil, and often it is with a [synonym for flatulence] that I chase him away. When he tempts me with silly sins I say, “Devil, I broke wind yesterday, too. Have you written it down on your list?”

I don’t mind being skeptical about the Loch Ness monster. And if the Cubs should pull through one of these years, I’ll be pleasantly surprised. But when it comes to God and the church, I don’t want to go through life a skeptic. I want to leave a legacy of faith.

Copyright 1994 John C. Ortberg, Jr.

Copyright © 1994 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

When Jesus was baptized and, led of the Spirit, went into the desert to find Satan, he dragged Satan from behind his rock and put his heel on him. Satan was not stalking Jesus; Jesus was stalking Satan. Jesus wanted us to know he’d overcome the Enemy and temptation. There have been days in ministry when I needed to know that.

When I married my husband, Stuart, he was not a pastor. Only later did he abandon his first career for ministry. Now, after more than thirty-five years as a ministry spouse, I can say it’s tough not to lose heart in ministry. Satan is after our hearts, our ministries, and our marriages. He is, to be blunt, after us.

Saying the hard things about ministry is like a preacher’s mentioning divorce at a wedding. We want to think of positive things: “better … richer … health.” But it can be beneficial for the bride and groom to hear surprising words–even negative words–that they themselves speak: “worse … poorer … sickness … death.” It can be a positive thing to talk of negatives.

In that light, I’d like to talk about the three temptations we face in Christian ministry. In his ministry, Jesus faced temptation in three general areas: his legitimate needs, his spiritual gifting, and his personal worship. I’ve learned to face my temptations in ministry by looking at how Jesus dealt with his.

THE TEMPTATION IN LEGITIMATE NEEDS

Food is a valid need, but for forty days and nights, led by the Spirit, Jesus went hungry. Satan had a suggestion: “If you’re the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.”

Food is a legitimate physical need, but God hadn’t provided any for Jesus in that place at that time. The question: Would Jesus accept the will of his Father that this was a period of privation designed for his spiritual profit, or would he take matters into his own hands and use his own powers to meet his needs?

Shelter also is a legitimate need, but on many nights, the only roof Jesus had over his head was the stars he had made.

Relationships are a legitimate need. Yet Jesus was lonely–it’s lonely at the top–and often went into the desert alone.

It’s tempting to lose heart when our legitimate needs aren’t met. Some Christians believe God will never allow our needs to go unmet. Yet, when God dictated it, Jesus lived with some unmet needs.

For ten years God called Stuart and me to a place in ministry where we received an inadequate salary. Many of my legitimate needs weren’t met. Many of our children’s legitimate needs weren’t met.

It was tempting, as Jesus was tempted, to take matters into our own hands and resign from that mission position. But we had to answer the question: Would we accept a period of privation as our Father’s will? Could we see that he wanted us to depend upon him so that we might benefit and grow spiritually? Could we see that lean times can be part of his kingdom plan? We finally came to the conclusion that until God led us out as surely as he had led us in, we were to stay put.

If God leads us like this, we have to face the question, Do we know how to be poor?

“Of course,” we say. “We were seminary students.”

But what if we are called to remain poor? Do we know how not to lose heart then? Poverty can become extremely wearing, especially on the spouse who carries incredible stress taking care of young children. It’s hard to live on food stamps. It’s hard to put your kids in Head Start when other ministry families can afford nursery school.

I remember how hard it was for my husband, who wanted to provide better for his family. I remember his pacing up and down our tiny mission house saying, “If only I’d stayed at the bank.” We couldn’t get our kids’ teeth fixed. We lived in other people’s clothes, hand-me-downs. It’s tough never to have enough.

I desperately wanted a musical instrument for our youth work, so I put an advertisem*nt in the paper. A kind lady who had a lot of money called me. I thought, I’m going to get my piano, and got so excited. She said, “I just got a new piano. Would you like our old one?”

In that instant, something happened to me. I said, “No, I’d like your new one.”

I didn’t get either piano, which serves me right, I guess. But I had gotten fed up with God’s work getting the old piano. Those are the times we can lose heart.

When we’re deprived of legitimate needs, we have to live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. At such times, all we can do is remain focused on God, fixed in his Word, and full of the Spirit.

I think the temptation not to do this becomes strongest when we see ministry affect our families. I remember being 3,000 miles away from our parents, who were dying of different diseases. We didn’t have the money to get in a plane and visit as often as we needed to. When my mother-in-law came to visit, she discovered one of the many cancers that eventually took her life. She had little money, no insurance, and no one to look after her at home. We had just arrived from England, so we had no money. We entered eighteen months of cancer surgery, chemotherapy, and medical care with no resources. We nearly lost heart.

When our legitimate needs are not met, we find ourselves tempted to abandon our call to ministry, to escape the time of privation. It is necessary for us to hang in there on the Word of God.

THE TEMPTATION IN SPIRITUAL GIFTING

The second kind of temptation for Christian leaders comes in our spiritual gifting. Satan tempted Jesus to use his gifts “for self-aggrandizement,” as John Stott puts it. Satan tempts us in the same way, and the greater our gifts, the more Satan has to work with. He’ll say, “Do something mega. Use your abilities to get the crowd. Throw yourself around the temple. Make a splash.”

When we get it right and do our best, our gifting can become a snare. John Stott says that a pulpit is a dangerous place for any person, because there we can lose our heart’s focus. We can, for example, learn techniques and hone skills that allow us to speak powerfully, yet apart from the Holy Spirit. That’s scary! It is possible, as G. Campbell Morgan wrote, to be “homiletically brilliant, verbally fluent, theologically profound, biblically orthodox, and spiritually useless.” If we focus on our gifts–homiletical ability or theological accuracy–instead of the Giver, God may say, “Preach on, great preacher, but preach without me.”

Yes, through my spiritual gifts I can give a solid speech, a nice sermon, a good word. But will it change people? Will marriages be mended? Will demons be cast out? Will God’s kingdom come?

Only if I resist the temptation to use my gifts to do something big, to make a show, to build a name for myself. Our words must worship God before they can go out into our world and make a difference.

Some years ago I was asked to write a daily devotional book. I thought, This will be easy. I already write in my journal. I can do that without taking time out from my other commitments. At the end of the year, I figured, I could just take my daily prayer diary and have an instant devotional book. At the end of the year, however, I found I was only a quarter of a way through the book. That experience taught me two things: I wasn’t daily, and I wasn’t devotional.

It took me two-and-a-half years to complete that daily devotional. At the end of that time, I wrote this in the front:

Give my words wings, Lord.

May they alight gently on the branches of men’s minds,

bending them to the winds of your will.

Give my words wings, Lord.

May they fly high enough to reach the lofty,

low enough to breathe the breath of sweet encouragement upon the downcast soul.

Give my words wings, Lord.

May they fly swift and far,

winning the race with the worldly-wise to the hearts of men.

Give my words wings, Lord.

See them now nesting down at your feet,

silenced into ecstasy,

home at last.”

I learned that unless my words have worshipped, they will never win the race with the words of the world.

But if Satan can tempt us through the expression of our spiritual gifting, he can also tempt us through the limitation of that same gifting. Sometimes we may be called to serve in a work that is well below our abilities. Then our giftedness can lead to frustrations that make us lose heart.

Before entering ministry, my husband was a bank inspector. At age 25, thanks to his photographic memory, he was assistant to the chief inspector in a British bank. He was offered a world of opportunities in that profession. But then he was called to a mission that had old-fashioned typewriters and sometimes an untrained staff. Their hearts were right, but the resources weren’t there.

I saw a poster about that time above a mission secretary’s desk: “We, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much for so long with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.” That pretty well described our situation.

In such settings, we may feel frustrations that our gifts are underutilized. Then we will be tempted to prove our abilities, to show our stuff. We will feel swayed by the expectations of people around us. People expected Jesus to teach a certain way, to behave a certain way, to wave his miracle wand, to prove his points, to build his empire. Yet Jesus came, according to Isaiah 53, to be unspectacular and unhysterical, not to raise his voice in the streets, to refuse to publish his miracles.

Stuart and I know what it’s like to serve in a mega-church, with its own set of temptations, and I’ve learned that if God calls us to a mega-ministry, we need to pray for a mini-mindset, or we’ll end up a mega-nuisance to God’s kingdom.

THE TEMPTATION IN PERSONAL WORSHIP

When Satan came out from behind his rock, stamped his foot, and shouted to Jesus, “Worship me!” Jesus faced his Enemy and overcame temptation.

This third temptation is the hardest, I think. It’s that power encounter, no-holds-barred, when Satan comes and demands: “Stop worshipping God and start worshipping me.” He begins with the direct attack, tempting us to link into any power other than that of the Holy Spirit. Then he asks us to worship him: “Ask me for anything, and I will give it to you.”

I don’t think Satan has ever come to me that directly until recently. I had fallen into a trap, ordering a catalog of merchandise advertised on the television. A yogurt machine was offered in this little booklet as a prize, so I sent in a little slip–and I won! Then, when the little booklet came back, there was a prize offer for a toaster. Since mine had just died, I sent in the little slip–and I won! Without giving any money, I won five things straight.

Then one day, shortly after we had appealed for funds to build a new sanctuary, I drove into our church parking lot, which sat next to the building site. Suddenly Satan was right there in the car with me, and he said, “Ask me. Ask me, Jill. I’ll give it to you. I’ll give you the million dollars.”

In that still, horrible moment, I knew he’d come out from behind his rock and said, “Worship me. Just for a minute. Just see if I can do it.” That’s what he said to Jesus.

Satan comes with many kinds of offers, including offers of money, sex, power, to interfere with the things of God’s kingdom. Satan has the ability to give such things.

One of the strongest and most alluring offers is the temptation for illicit sexual pleasures. Satan says, “Be queen for a day. Be king for a day. I’ll give it to you.”

I once described sexual temptation that way while speaking at a conference for pastors and their spouses. I spent the rest of that conference counseling people who, since going into ministry, had bought the lie and lived as king or queen for a day.

One young wife said to me, “I never thought it was possible that I could do this. It happened while my husband was in seminary. He still doesn’t know. Should I tell him?”

Another extremely pretty woman said, “I thought I could never do that. Then this man came to live next door, and my husband was traveling for the mission, and I was very lonely.”

I said, “Like Bathsheba?”

“Yes, like Bathsheba,” she said. “And when I met King David, I fell.”

She lost heart, her husband lost heart, and their marriage fell apart. Today they’re out of the ministry.

In these three areas of temptation, Satan’s strategy is basic. He simply wanted to stop Jesus from doing the things the Father had sent him to do. Satan wanted to prevent Jesus from being the obedient, suffering Servant, with his heart focused on the Father, fixed in the Word, and filled with the Spirit.

Satan’s devices haven’t changed. I believe the more we try to be like Jesus and focus on God, the more we try to be holy, the more Satan will focus on us.

The role of minister can be hard, as can the role of minister’s spouse. And yet, the One who overcame Satan’s temptations is the One who can give us heart. He never lost heart, even though he hung from the cross. That’s why he can offer his heart to us. Paul, who knew all about hardship and stress, said, “Since … we have this ministry, we do not lose heart” (2 Cor. 4:1).

If we stay focused on the Father, fixed in the Word, and full of the Spirit, we will be able to face hard times and overcome temptation. We will not lose heart.

Copyright 1994 Jill Briscoe

Copyright © 1994 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Our church had met in a storefront for five years when we decided we needed more room. For several years, we had eyed the property across the street, a building that needed major remodeling. We offered $25,000 and finally settled on a price of $35,000.

Any mortgage would seriously tax our church budget, and the cost of remodeling still lay ahead. We needed to paint inside and out, erect walls for office space and classrooms, fix the roof, and lay new carpet. To save money I served as general contractor and carpenter. We were anxious to move in, so the remodeling was a high priority for the church and my daily schedule. After a quick morning devotion–a fast reading of a psalm and a “Bless me today, Lord!”–I rushed to the job site, where I hammered nails, called subcontractors, took estimates, and directed volunteers, often until eight o’clock at night.

Only after that, when I was done with the building project for the day, did I start my pastoral work: writing sermons, visiting in homes and at the hospital, and phoning leaders to plan services.

After a few weeks of this schedule, I paid the price. I wasn’t just tired; my body screamed for rest. I felt emotionally distant from my wife and children, and they were obviously unhappy about not getting more of my time. Worst of all, I felt as though God was a star system away.

But I also felt I had to finish the project soon. To reach the neighborhood as we had envisioned, with a medical clinic, gym, and larger facilities for Sunday services, we had to sacrifice. I kept telling myself, I have to pay the price. So I kept pushing.

Around that time, I bought “Ordering Your Private World” by Gordon MacDonald. (I didn’t have the time to read, but I knew I needed help!) The book stopped me in my tracks. As I read one page in his book, I was sure MacDonald had been looking over my shoulder for the past several months:

“A driven person is usually caught in the uncontrolled pursuit of expansion. Driven people like to be a part of something that is getting bigger and more successful. … They rarely have any time to appreciate the achievements to date.

“Driven people are usually abnormally busy. They are usually too busy for the pursuit of ordinary relationships in marriage, family, or friendship – not to speak of one with God.”

The scales fell from my eyes. I had pursued the building project like someone who was driven, not called. But that was only the symptom of a deeper problem.

I realized that I knew a lot about God–I had a master’s degree in Bible–but I didn’t know God intimately. Like stars and planets in the night sky that I only occasionally lifted my head to wonder at, God was distant. I wasn’t content with that. So in 1985, I launched out on a journey toward a deeper walk with God.

QUEST FOR INTIMACY

Elder Christian statesmen like John Stott and John Perkins inspire me because they show that intimacy with God can keep growing throughout our lives, that greater intimacy is indeed a journey. Since that fall of 1985, I have gradually discovered a deepening sense of closeness with the Lord. Perhaps some of what I have learned can help you.

Follow your feelings.

Of course, pastors often must tell Christians not to follow their emotions (they are the caboose, and all that). But intimacy is a feeling. Though we can’t base our assurance of salvation on emotions, feeling close to God is important. It makes our relationship with God fulfilling and our faith contagious.

What helps me feel closer to God? For years the mainstay of my daily devotions was Bible study. Although vital to true knowledge of God, Bible study doesn’t normally foster intimacy for me. The key for me is waiting quietly on God until I sense his presence.

Get born again.

Bill Leslie, pastor of LaSalle Street Church in Chicago for several decades, felt burned out at one point in his ministry, so he went to a Catholic retreat center. He talked to a nun about how he felt. She listened patiently, and then she said, “What you need is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.”

Ouch! Bill was a card-carrying evangelical. That experience jarred him and convinced him he needed to deepen his relationship with the Savior.

Ministry is more than constructing buildings and leading people to Christ. It is knowing God and being the person he wants me to be. Out of that flows ministry. When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus didn’t begin, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Rather, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” I wasn’t exempt from this command just because I was doing ministry. I needed to make first things first.

Follow the cycle of intimacy.

Knowing God is a process that can no more be exhausted than the exploration of the universe. There is always another blazing aspect to discover in God.

John 14:21 describes the stages in the cycle: “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.” Stage one: if we love God, we obey his commands. Stage two: if we obey his commands, he reveals himself to us. Stage three: when he reveals himself to us, we know him better and love him more. Then the cycle repeats itself, with our love and knowledge of God growing ever deeper and stronger.

Unless accompanied by obedience, prayer and Bible reading cannot bring intimacy. At one point in their history, the Israelites rigorously practiced spiritual disciplines. They were fasting, worshipping in the Temple, seeking the Lord. But God told them, in Isaiah 58, that he had another kind of fasting in mind. They needed to follow the spiritual discipline of obedience: to stop oppressing their workers, to feed the hungry and set prisoners free. God promised to come near those who obeyed him.

Of course, no one obeys perfectly, but deliberate, ongoing disobedience breaks the cycle of intimacy as surely as eating the apple sent Adam and Eve packing from the Garden of Eden.

Journal morning thoughts.

I am not a natural writer. Journaling is the last spiritual discipline I naturally gravitate toward. But a number of writers I had been reading recommended the practice, so I decided to try it.

I’ve never stopped. Ten years later I’m still journaling nearly every day. While the street lights are still shining bright on Ogden Avenue, I wake up, walk the cracked and vaulted sidewalks to church, crank up the footrest on my easy chair, and sloppily write in a spiral notebook things (unlike John Wesley) I never want anyone to read.

The thoughts I have when I wake, shower, and shave are the first thing I record in my journal. Early morning thoughts are significant. Worries, anger, new ideas, plans–they cluster at dawn, before the press of daily events, and in my journal I process them. My journal is one place where I can be completely honest with God.

Where I journal, pray, and read Scripture is important. On Saturdays I have tried to wake up early and journal at home, but even though I’m up before my family, it doesn’t work. I don’t get the same settled feeling in my spirit. I’m restless. Just as seeing a deep-space supernova is more likely if an astronomer is 7,200 feet above sea level at the Cerro Tololo observatory in Chile, so my best times with God come when I’m at my right place: my office.

Don’t unnecessarily upset family rhythms.

For one six-month period, I fasted one day a week. My family eats together every night, so on fasting days I sat at the table and talked. That was awkward. I tried cloistering myself in the bedroom to read and pray during meals. “For a while I’m not going to eat with everyone on Mondays,” I explained to the kids (trying not to sound super-spiritual). “While you’re eating, I’m going to be alone with God because I want to know God better.” My spiritual quarantine upset everyone. My wife was frustrated at having to handle the meal and children alone, and the kids wanted to see me.

After six months the fasting hadn’t helped me feel significantly closer to God, but it had increased family stress. That spiritual discipline finally went out the window.

I still believe in the benefits of fasting (which I have since concluded benefits me most when I fast in three- to five-day stretches). Fasting over important decisions helps me stay focused. I have never come down from Mount Sinai with tablets in my hands, but I usually get a deep, settled peace.

I also fast about specific needs. When I taught high school, I met with another coach in the athletic equipment room during lunch hour; instead of eating, we prayed for the troubled marriage of a friend. After nine months, that marriage had recovered.

My most refreshing spiritual discipline is keeping an agreement made with my wife years ago. We have promised each other to take a week away together every year with no children, no agenda; we want to simply enjoy each other. We pray and read the Bible together, rest, and play tennis. It is the highlight of our marriage and my spiritual life.

Get quiet and make time.

To have intimacy with God in my quiet time, I can’t do without two things: (1) quiet, and (2) time.

As a student at Wheaton College, I was a fellowship fanatic. I love being with people. One year I went on a wilderness retreat. Retreat organizers told us to bring only three things beside our clothes and toiletries: a Bible, a notebook, and a pen. For three days they required that participants spend their time alone with God. I had never spent half a day away from people and alone with God! I quickly learned how dependent my relationship with God was on others. I also learned that spending quantity time with God enhances intimacy, and that I could enjoy the quiet and the luxury of time with God alone.

There is no substitute for time. I can’t rush intimacy. When I have been away from my wife for several days, five minutes of conversation at the dinner table does not restore our sense of closeness. We need one or two hours together. What we discuss isn’t as important as spending the time with each other.

I have a friend who talks about how much he enjoys “wasting time” with God, that is, spending unstructured, unhurried periods with the Lord. Although I often use a prayer list, I also like following no agenda, just as one of my favorite activities with family and friends is just hanging out together. Fellowship with God isn’t rocket science. It has to be led by the Spirit and informed by the concerns and feelings on my heart at the moment.

In some of the most intimate moments my wife and I have shared, we haven’t said anything; we sit or lie together, holding hands or arm in arm, enjoying each other’s presence. So it is with the Lord. “Be still, and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10) is a verse that shapes my time with God as much as any other. Such stillness energizes me. Along with journaling, my greatest sense of closeness to God comes when sitting in silence before him until I feel his presence.

Differences for pastors

Bringing up the subject of “spiritual disciplines” usually brings up guilt in people. We all feel we could do more in this area. In addition, pastors are often troubled because they feel that the pressures of pastoral life encourage them to cheat God.

I believe, however, that we need to accept that our practice of spiritual disciplines will be different than the practice of our parishioners. In particular, there are three areas that trouble us, but here’s how I deal with them.

First, I’ve come to accept that pastoral life is a ride on the Screaming Eagle. One day I’m ministering to a young man in prison for murdering a storekeeper; the next day I perform a wedding; the next day, a funeral. We can talk about balance and order, but pastoral life isn’t balanced or ordered!

That means I’ve decided I’m not going to feel guilty when I have to miss a day of devotions. If I don’t do them before 7 a.m., they don’t happen, or at least they don’t have the same benefit. When I can’t fit in my quiet time, I feel cheated. I miss my time with the Lord. But if I am legalistic about spiritual disciplines, they no longer are spiritual disciplines for me, just mere duty.

Second, I merge daily devotions with sermon preparation. I know some consider that a problem, but it works well for me. I often read and meditate daily on my preaching text for the coming Sunday. My best preaching is a reflection of how I’m growing and what God shows me in my times with him.

Third, I allow myself to think about church during my quiet time. For some, this becomes a temptation to refuse to get personal with God, to keep playing pastor even in his presence. But I am a pastor, and so much of what I do is pastoral. Often as I wait in God’s presence, ideas come like a meteor shower in my mind, and many are from the Lord: program ideas, insights into church problems, people to call. I write them down in full when the inspirations come and sometimes act on them immediately.

Recently as I was praying, the name of one woman in our church came to me. I wasn’t sure why, but I sensed I was supposed to call her. When I did phone, she told me she had been struggling for several days. She desperately needed someone to talk to. She was shocked that I called just when I did.

Closing the open door

It’s no surprise that my spiritual lows come when I’m busy, preoccupied, focusing my attention on everything but God, and my spiritual highs come on “sabbath” days of rest and relaxation. God instituted sabbath not only because the human body needs physical rest, but more so because human activity frustrates intimacy with the Creator.

That means that at times I’ve had to take forceful steps to make this happen.

As a people-person and activist, I’ve prided myself on having an open-door policy. So for years, people regularly interrupted my devotions, but it didn’t bother me much. When I started my journey of knowing God, I knew something had to change; I had to find uninterrupted time with God. So I started coming to church earlier for my morning devotions.

Then people who wanted to see me learned a good time to catch me was early in the morning. Still, I kept my door open and kept coming in earlier and earlier to be alone.

One early morning as I was in my office praying, a drug addict named John, to whom I had been ministering for months, came to my door and said, “I don’t have any money for the train. Can you give me a ride to work?”

“I’ll give you some money,” I said.

“I’ll be late for work. I need you to give me a ride.”

He pressed his plea, and so finally I drove him. When I returned to the office, I never was able to resume my devotions.

I woke early the next morning looking forward to my devotions. I settled into my chair at the office and began reading the Bible. Minutes later John showed up again at my door. Same request. Again I refused. He begged me, and once again I grudgingly interrupted my time with the Lord to drive him to work. Once again I couldn’t resume my devotions later in the day.

The next morning, John reappeared at my open door. “I’m not driving you to work,” I said firmly. “I have a commitment.”

“Coach, you have to! I’ll be fired if I don’t get there on time.”

“That’s too bad. I have a commitment.”

John pleaded and pleaded with me. Finally I said, “Okay, okay, I’ll drive you to work, but if you come to my door tomorrow, I’m not driving you. You’ll just have to lose your job.”

The next morning I was not surprised when John stuck his head in my office (with that kind of persistence, how could he not succeed in life!). But this time I held firm. Angrily he rushed out to take the train, and he didn’t lose his job.

That experience seven years ago was a turning point for me. Though contrary to my nature, I started saying no to people to guard my time with the Lord. I now close and lock my outer office door during devotions. When someone knocks, I don’t answer, nor do I answer my phone. I have told the congregation, “If you come knocking on my door early in the morning, I’m not going to answer. I need to be alone with God. I don’t want to know about God, I want to know God.”

Just a couple of years ago, I found myself deeply discouraged about the work at the church. Frankly, I debated quitting ministry at Lawndale. So, feeling like the despondent Elijah when Jezebel had designs on his prophetic skin, I went off by myself to a retreat. I fasted, prayed, and waited for three days to hear from God.

There were no temblors or bolts of lightning, but when the three days were up, the tide had come back in. I sensed God saying, Be still. Know that I am God. You don’t have to solve all of Lawndale’s problems or save everyone you meet. Love me, and we’ll work together. Just keep going.

Returning home, I talked it over with my wife, and we decided to stay. We are now in our twentieth year of ministry at Lawndale Community Church. My eight-year journey in pursuit of intimacy with God is what enabled me to work through that dark night of my ministry. Often it is difficult to find time for God in the midst of church life, but closeness with God is the basis for lasting ministry.

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Wayne Gordon leads outreach for Lawndale Community Church in urban Chicago.

Copyright 1994 Wayne Gordon

Copyright © 1994 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.