The Elements of Pastoring

One of my favorite little books is Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. Someone recommended it to me my first year in seminary, and it has been a close companion ever since. With brevity and clarity it attempts to teach writers how to write. (Preachers would do well to heed its instructions as well. One of my favorite rules is #13: "Omit needless words.")

Some time ago (and much less formally) I began to keep a list I call "The Elements of Pastoring." If I were to think seriously about the issue, my list would be more comprehensive, but here is what I have so far:

1. Remember "The Peter Principle." ("In any hierarchical organization people rise to the level of their incompetence.")
2. Don't be careless with public worship, weddings, funerals, etc.
3. Enjoy the journey not just the destination. (A particularly difficult one for me!)
4. Be a person of grace.
5. Have something clear to say in your sermon, and say it simply and well.
6. Find your own voice as a pastor and trust it. (Stop trying to imitate the latest fads.)

What would you add to these?

On leading worship

It's Saturday night, and I have just finished going through my sermon. And I can't wait for tomorrow!

I love to lead my people in worship! I know some pastors are so consumed with the details of the service that they are not really able to worship (and I understand how that can be -- and sometimes I do get distracted by my role). But, for the most part, I truly worship with my people and I love it!

Of course, part of that worship experience is to bring them a word from God. And, fresh as I am from encountering that Word myself, I can't wait to pass it along to my folks. I am most effective in my preaching not when I focus on some "sinful" member of my congregation and try to figure out how to convince her to repent, but when I focus on my needy self and explore the text for the word of grace that I need!

I suppose that when Sundays become a burden to me rather than a joy, I'll take that as some sort of sign from God that it's time to move on to a new ministry. Until then I'll look forward to Sundays like a child looks forward to Christmas!

On church size

I know that the focus of these discussions is on the length of the pastorate, but I want to say a word about the size of one's church.

I enjoy pastoring a smaller congregation. It's certainly not as small as when I came, but we have just over 200 members. Gone are the days of my youth when I envied those in large churches! Large churches -- for all their many benefits -- bring large problems! (Not that small churches don't have their share of large problems, just fewer of them, I suspect!)

I was reminded of this last night as I was driving home after visiting one of our families who are caring for a dying father and husband. "John" has been in ill health for some time and under hospice care at home for about a month. Most recently as he has declined significantly I have been able to see him and his family at least once a day and often two or even three times through the day. I can do that because I don't have 2,000 members to look after. Granted, if I did have that many I would also have additional staff to assist me, but I enjoy the face-to-face contact I am able to have with my sheep. The thought of passing that off to my Pastor of Visitation doesn't excite me!

I used to think that pastors of smaller churches were somehow inferior to those of larger churches. I now understand that we each have our unique gifts and places. Indeed, I suspect that many pastors of large churches would be as incapable of pastoring my church (and miserable being here) as I would be in their congregations.

Wanting what you have is so much more important than having what you want (or think) you want!

On Coasting

The greatest danger I face in the ministry is thinking I've got it all (or even most of it) figured out! The truth is that ministry (like any other job) involves a lot of routines -- agendas, meetings, getting the bulletin figured out, returning phone calls, etc. But as soon as I allow it to become simply a job, simply routine, I'm in trouble!

The worst possible thing I can do is coast. And yet that's the easiest mode to fall into, because I've been doing this for so long. I've come to understand how the TV evangelists could fall into the traps that some of them have, because after a while, you begin to think that you're pretty good at what you do -- and you forget that ministry, at its heart, is what HE does through you. I can put on a "show" for a while, but pretty soon if I am just coasting in my own abilities, my humanity surfaces and I am driven back to grace!

For me, my daily exposure to the Word -- as I prepare for next Sunday's message -- keeps me humble and dependent. As I hear God speaking to Israel (or whomever), I hear Him challenging me not to coast but to rest completely on Him.

Some thoughts about sermons

It's Saturday morning, and I am sitting in my office, having finished tomorrow's sermon. I'll be back tonight to go through it a couple of times, and back early tomorrow morning to review it again (out loud) a few more times. Hearing my words is important -- what looks good on paper often sounds awkward or unnatural to the ear.

I've quit apologizing for not getting my sermons done by Thursday! First, I've been thinking, studying, and ruminating about it all week, so I knew coming here this morning essentially what I was going to say. (In fact, I fell asleep last night thinking about how I would organize the sermon.) Second, it's fresh for tomorrow. I don't have to "re-learn" a sermon that I completed days ago. Finally, I'm just a deadline guy -- it's the way I've operated for my whole life, and I'm not about to change now. At semester's beginning in college and seminary I always thought what a good idea it would be to get that term paper out of the way in the first few weeks. But, inevitably, the last week of the semester found me rummaging through the library stacks with my 3 x 5 cards, working on my papers!

My goal in creating a sermon is quite simple --— to give my people a word from God. That means I need to "listen to the text" and organize my sermon around it rather than organizing the text to fit my ideas. Clearly, my personality and prejudices color what I say, and I will focus on issues that another pastor might not, but I work very hard to keep the TEXT in capital letters and my grid in the lower case.

As John Stott says, "We come to our reading of the Bible with our own agenda, bias, questions, preoccupations, concerns and convictions, and, unless we are extremely careful, we impose these on the biblical text. We may sincerely pray before we read, 'Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law' (Ps. 119:18), but still the same non-communication may persist. For even that introductory prayer, though to be sure it is taken from the Psalter, is suspect because it lays down the kind of message we want to hear. 'Please, Lord, I want to see some "wonderful thing" in your word.' But he may reply, 'What makes you think I have only "wonderful things" to show you? As a matter of fact, I have some rather "disturbing things" to show you today. Are you prepared to receive them?' 'Oh no, Lord, please not', we stammer in reply. 'I come to Scripture only to be comforted; I really do not want to be challenged or disturbed.'" [The Contemporary Christian (Downers Grove: IVP, 1992), p. 190.]

For me the most important ingredients of good preaching are humility, simplicity, and integrity. My life needs to be congruent with the text. I don't need to be perfect, but I do need to preach to myself before I can preach to my people.

Long-term evangelism

A man whom I'll call "Dave" came to see me last week. I've known Dave for over 20 years. He's not what folks around here would call a "church-goer." Not by a long shot! He's been (as westerners might put it) "rode hard and put up wet!" But throughout the years, during some of the rough spots in his life, Dave had felt free to come by and talk. I've thought about trying to evangelize Dave in the past, but somehow it never seemed like the right time (whatever that means). Maybe I should have been more aggressive, but I'm just not the aggressive type!

But this visit was different. Dave was broken -- by another bad marriage and divorce, by business problems, and by who knows what else. "I've finally realized that I don't need another woman, I need Jesus!" And so, finally, we talked about Jesus. Dave still has a ways to go -- he still doesn't quite understand that sin is not just what we DO but who we ARE -- but he's so close to the Kingdom that he (and I) can taste it. I'm praying that he'll "get it" and take the final steps; and I'm pretty confident he will.

But my point -- again -- is that this was a contact that God has nurtured for years. And when Dave finally does stake out his faith in Christ it won't be a flash in the pan "decision" but the first step in a life-long walk of "discipleship!" And I'll have the great privilege to be there to walk with him.

It's worth it for a pastor to stay around long enough to see these kinds of relationships bear fruit!

Giving Time for Contacts to "Mature"

Sometime it just takes a while for personal contacts to "mature."

This past Sunday our elders interviewed a couple for church membership that I first met about 20 years ago. The husband was a reporter for our local paper and attended a service to cover some story he was working on. Sunday he told us that he never forgot the impression that the service made on him. So when his own church began to fall into some troubling doctrinal problems, they decided to join ours.

Just tonight I had a conversation with a couple I've known for 10 years or so through a community organization that we are part of. They had been talking to several of our members about our church and were impressed by their enthusiasm. I don't know if they'll decide to try out our church (I never try to "recruit" members from other churches), but if they do, it will be the culmination of years of personal relationship with them.

I could tell lots of similar stories of the benefits of "sticking around" and getting to know people in the community outside the church. These are opportunities that would never mature if the church traded pastors every five to seven years.

Satisfaction

Yesterday I baptized the third child of a couple I married 12 years ago. It's one of the most gratifying rewards of staying in one church for a long time. I hope within the next year or two to marry a couple who were both born while I have been here. What a privilege -- to see young people grow up under your ministry, get married, and begin a Christian family -- knowing only one pastor all their lives. It's one of the intangibles of a long-term pastorate.

Sunday morning

Different pastors bring different gifts to their callings -- some excel at counseling, others at administration, and still others at relational ministries. For me, everything revolves around the Sunday morning service. Not just the sermon but the service. I love to worship with my people. I enjoy preaching, but I see preaching as one (significant) part of worship.

I am not a great preacher -- I have neither the time nor the temperament -- but I think I'm a good preacher, and I work hard at it. Indeed, I have found that when pastors do reasonably well in their "public" ministries (preaching, funerals, weddings, hospital visitation), congregations often overlook a lot of their other weaknesses!

So I manuscript my sermons and then come in on Saturday nights and early Sunday mornings to go over the sermon enough times that it becomes a part of me. I don't try to memorize it, but I do want to know it well enough that I don't have to be constantly looking down at my notes.

I also believe that worship deserves the best of our efforts. Our service has a theme (an attribute of God based on the sermon text), and the music complements that theme (God is holy, creative, gracious, etc.). And I and our musicians work hard to do our best. I have often said that we don't have to be the best at what we do, but we ought to do the best that we can. Someone else may do it better, but we need to do the best that WE can, to the honor of Christ, in leading our people in worship. "Slipshod" or "careless" have no place on Sunday morning.

One final note: I prefer not to take Mondays off. I use Mondays to clean up all the loose ends from Sunday and also to take a preliminary look at next Sunday's text so I can be meditating on it through the week.

Finishing Well

I am preaching through Isaiah and have arrived at the historical section in chapters 36-39. In one of the saddest commentaries on his life, Hezekiah concludes -- reacting to the news that because of his prideful act the Babylonians will defeat Judah -- (39:8): At least "there will be peace and security in my lifetime."

So, I preached on "Finishing Well." How sad that so many live exemplary lives (as Hezekiah had done) only to be undone in their closing years by some act of foolishness. He was on guard against Assyrian power but was done in by Babylonian flattery.

I often reflect on Paul's words to the Corinthians: "...I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize." (1 Cor. 9:27) Paul was obsessed with finishing well -- and it was a healthy obsession! And apparently he succeeded. As he writes in 2 Tim. 4:7, "I have fought the good faith, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith."

If I could choose my own epitaph it would be simply, "He Finished Well."

Simplicity

Someone has said, "Simplicity is truth's most becoming garb," and the older I get the more I appreciate that insight.

When I arrived at my first church, fresh from a wonderful and (for me) eye-opening and enlarging experience at seminary, I couldn't wait to pass on all the "good stuff" that I had just received. So my poor congregation had to sit through a maze of theology and apologetics and who-knows-what-else that I dumped out on them each week.

I was so offended when one of our members -- a well-education person I had previously thought -- came up to me one Sunday after church and said (very kindly), "Pastor, we just need something to get us through the week." Now, however, I take it as a badge of honor when one of the children engages me in conversation about the sermon after the service. Or when a parent confides in me that her eight-year old really enjoys my messages.

"Simple" doesn't mean "dumbed down" or inane. Indeed, the simpler my sermons become they harder they are to produce! I work very hard to take complex and sophisticated concepts and word them in a way people can grasp and respond to. These are not "children's sermons" by any means.

By the way, I really don't believe in special sermons for children. The ones I've seen usually only serve to bring the service to a halt and draw the congregation's attention to the cute giggling children, while the pastor pulls out some object lesson that (according to most developmental psychologists) is beyond the grasp of most of his listeners! Young children have a hard time sorting out the "object" from the "lesson!" A good sermon, carefully crafted, should speak to the whole family of believers, not just the adults with post grad degrees! (At the very least, it should provide an opportunity for parents to talk with their children at Sunday dinner.)

I was humbled some years ago when, after the service, a member handed me a slip of paper with this quotation from Ecclesiastes 12:10 in the Living Bible: "For the Preacher was not only a wise man, but a good teacher; he not only taught what he knew to the people, but he taught them in an interesting manner." That's true simplicity.

A Word-centered ministry

If I have a passion in the ministry, it is to preach the Word. It's the only source of authority that I have. I can say all sorts of clever, "relevant" things, but if I'm not declaring God's Word to people I'm no different from any other social commentator or motivational speaker.

So I found it encouraging the other day when a number of us from church were attending an out-of-town family wedding conducted by another pastor. During the wedding, the officiant gave a very down-to-earth talk to the couple on the realities of marriage. But here was the source of my encouragement: one of my members came up to me during the dinner and said, "That was a very practical talk, and it was all probably true, but he made no effort to tie what he was saying to Scripture."

To be sure, Scripture was read in the service, but it was almost an ornament -- there for effect but of little real use. Ironically, another friend told me recently of going to a Unitarian wedding where the "scripture reading" was from "The Velveteen Rabbit." While we would never consider replacing Scripture, we don't seem to mind ignoring it!

And while I'm on this rant, another pet peeve: Churches that loudly proclaim their belief in the Bible but rarely read much of it in a worship service! I've been in services where the only Scripture read was a verse or two by the pastor before his sermon. "Devote yourself to the public reading of scripture," wrote Paul to Timothy (1 Timothy 4:13).

Are we having fun yet?

Ministry is serious business. We're dealing with life and death issues and, more significantly, with eternal issues. That's why I don't care for the sort of whimsical pulpit style that seems to me unbecoming of a pastor.

But while we take our work seriously, we don't have to take OURSELVES seriously!

A sense of humor (appropriately expressed!) can go a long way toward dissolving tensions in meetings and relationships. If a member knows that I can laugh at myself (never at someone else's expense), she's much less likely to take offense at something I say or do. My people and I laugh a lot together -- and that makes it easier to cry together when we need to.

Someone has said that God must have a sense of humor -- after all, he created the giraffe! So if God can smile, shouldn't his pastors?

(By the way, there's a huge difference between humor and sarcasm. One is life-giving, the other deadly.)

Relax!

A panicked wife called and had to see me as soon as possible. I'd been working off and on with this couple for quite a while -- lots of complicated issues that I won't try to describe. After talking with her, I had an excellent sense of what was happening and called the husband to talk things over with him. When the two of us got together, I had the feeling that these were two completely different relationships! The two of them saw the situation from almost directly opposite viewpoints. And I was confused!

Years ago, I would have been the panicky one! "How do I 'fix' this?" But I've learned over the years that when I feel confused about a relational issue, I need to step back and take the pressure off myself. This is not my problem -- it's the couple's problem.

As it turns out, by the time the three of us could get together, the two of them had had a long talk together and had resolved many of the issues on their own. It was a good reminder that while I can help people on their journey, they're the ones who really have to do the heavy lifting in the relationship. The pastor who makes other people's problems HIS problem is going to be crushed under the load. My problem is to help my people get through the predicaments of their lives not take them upon me.

By the way, the distinction between a problem -- an issue that has a "solution" -- and a predicament -- a tangle of issues for which there is no one or simple solution -- is a helpful one to maintain. Too often pastors offer "solutions" for predicaments and are frustrated when they don't "work." Predicaments have no solutions. One simply (or not so simply!) works through them toward a resolution.

Competence

I have always maintained that pastors may not feel "qualified" or "capable" of fulfilling the pastoral role, but we can be (by the gifts and power of the Spirit) "competent" to do so. So, for me, overconfidence has never been an issue, though pride has! And there's a huge difference between the two. (And, of course, we will always be more competent in some areas than in others. Wisdom comes in understanding that a great leader has great weaknesses as well as great strengths.)

This issue of competence was brought home to me recently while helping a married couple work through some problems in their marriage. They were in a virtual panic over an issue that had arisen between them. Years ago I might have shared in that panic -- or at least been somewhat bewildered by their situation. But over the course of 30 years of ministry, I've been through this many times, and I felt quite competent to deal with it (I suppose much like a physician who has done a procedure enough times that it becomes second nature). And I believe that my own sense of competence contributed to helping the couple relax and understand that this wasn't the end of their world. In fact, it was -- as I thought it would be -- the beginning of a new and positive phase in their relationship together.

One of the benefits of a long-term pastorate is really getting to know your people and being able to cut through a lot of peripheral issues because of the relationship you've developed with them over the years. Had this couple gone to an anonymous counselor, I suspect it would have taken a lot longer for the three of them to work through the issues. (I'll return to this theme sometime in the future, because I'm convinced that this lack of anonymity between pastor and members is sometimes very helpful and sometimes not!)

Vacation

We're leaving tomorrow on vacation -- and I can't wait! I'm truly ready. But I have to confess that I find vacations difficult. I don't think I'm a workaholic, but I do find it difficult to let go for more than a few days. Even now, despite the fact that my vacation started three days ago, I'm in the office "just checking on things!" God, help me to grasp the reality of the 4th commandment!

Ministry is suffering

To some degree, I attribute my longevity in our church to a growing understanding of what ministry is all about. As a young man with dreams of large churches and numerical "success," I was devastated by the trials and struggles I faced in ministry -- struggles with my image of ministry, with people under my ministry, and with the circumstances of ministry itself. I was overwhelmed with a sense of inadequacy and failure.

As I have grown as a person and as a pastor, I have come to appreciate that despite all the joys and satisfactions which accompany pastoral ministry and keep me going -- that the call to ministry is at its heart a call to suffer. Jesus commanded us to take up our cross (not a set of golf clubs) and follow Him, so we should not be surprised when we have to trail Him through Gethsemane and Golgotha on the way to the empty tomb.

Sometimes we suffer with our people -- we weep with those who weep. Sometimes we suffer on behalf of our people -- ignoring our admonitions and counsel, they bring grief on themselves, their families, and on us and the church. And sometimes, of course, we suffer from our people -- either from those who directly oppose us or from the "well-intentioned dragons" of which Marshall Shelley so eloquently writes. We neither seek nor enjoy such suffering; but we must grow to understand that it is a normal result of following Jesus. If we do not, it will crush us.

As I started this vocational journey over thirty years ago, I was often encouraged by my deep personal assurance that God had called me into ministry. I sometimes joked with people that I was more sure of my inward call to ministry than I was of my salvation. But as I struggled through some of the great trials of ministry (and through my own personal issues), I found ultimately that it was the confirming outward call which sustained and carried me. Somehow (notwithstanding all my self-doubts and weaknesses) God really was using my ministry in the lives of my people. I began to see those providential events that had brought me here and were keeping me here (despite my best efforts to manipulate them). I came to understand that while I could do many things with the rest of my life, this was the only thing I truly wanted to do.

Great rewards in unexpected places

Listening to a program on public radio this morning reminded me of a wonderful experience I had several years ago. I had been counseling a young woman from the community who (among many other issues) had had an abortion and then later gave birth to a son whom she had given up for adoption. So she was grieving for the child she had lost and for the one she had graciously given up to another family. She desperately wanted to know how her grown son was doing, but because of the adoption arrangements made years before she had no way of contacting him.

Through a series of extraordinary events (that I can only ascribe to God's providence in an Internet age!), this young man (who was also desperately wishing to meet his biological mother) found me and asked if I would put him in touch with his birth mother. Through another equally extraordinary series of events, I was finally able to bring them back together. (When I first saw him, I realized that I could have easily picked him out of a crowd -- he is certainly in his mother's image!) What a privilege for me to be a part of that process!

I wish I could tell you that "they all lived happily ever after." Unfortunately, the young man has had some legal and emotional problems that have brought pain to his family and now to his biological mother. But, even so, she wouldn't trade meeting him and keeping up with him for anything.

There are privileges in being a pastor that other people can't imagine. (Challenges and struggles as well -- but incredible privileges and joys.) And for me, this was one of greatest of my ministry.

Fear, anger, and the ministry

I've been thinking about the connection of fear, anger, and depression -- especially in my early (pre-midlife crisis) ministry. So much of my life was driven by fear: fear of failure as a parent and as a pastor; fear of not enough money for the church or for our family (and, obviously, those two are closely related!). And, I believe, that fear led to a lot of anger -- directed primarily at my family (never, at least overtly at church members) and now, I have come to understand at myself (and probably covertly at God -- though only rarely was I able to identify that aspect of it at the time). And, I am now beginning to appreciate, that anger turned inward was probably the primary cause of the severe depressions that I experienced up through my 40th birthday. There were likely some physiological contributors, but I believe that my own unexpressed anger was probably the root cause. And so, as I came out of that awful year of midlife crisis in which I tried so hard to leave the pastoral ministry, I discovered that this is what I truly wanted to do. And that great sense of contentment (as well as my letting go of the inward anger that had so controlled me) led to the "mysterious" disappearance of my depressions. It wasn't really a miracle (though it certainly felt like one!) as much as it was a decision not simply to accept my vocation but to choose it as my will as well as God's. Nor was it simply a coincidence or a growing out of the depression. It grew out of my being willing to rest my full weight on Jesus -- which, if I recall, is my standard way of defining faith!

The obstacles that seemed so fearsome in years gone by are just that -- gone by! And the energy that I consumed in worry was so wasted. But maybe not. Maybe I can look back from time to time on Ebenezer and laugh at myself -- just as surely as God was smiling at my little-faith.

I still have those child-like fears from time to time. But I think I'm learning to look past them and see them not as great mountains but bumps in the road that we'll get over. I will always feel inadequate for the tasks given to me, but I have developed a certain comfort level with what I can do and what I can't, with who I am and who I'm not. It would be nice if I had found that serenity earlier in my life, but I'm not sure that's possible. There's no shortcut to maturity.

The Value of a Long Pastorate

Long pastorates (like long marriages) are not much in vogue these days -- nor do they come easily -- but both are wonderfully rewarding. What can be better than seeing the children I have baptized grow up in the Lord, go to school, and then come back to be married? Or to see children who have sat under my ministry grow up and sense God's call to their own ministry? The downside, as I have often said, is that I also have to "live with my mistakes" when it would be so much easier to escape to a different church and let my successor mop up after me.

Long pastorates (particularly in a rural setting where membership turnover is minimal) also lead to a trust between the pastor and members that carries you through stressful times. When we were starting our first building project, a deacon (an older man) said to me, "Why should we do this? You're just going to get us into debt and then leave." As we built our latest addition, the only person who asked if I would be staying around was our banker.

Similarly, when we've gone through the painful work of church discipline, I have been able to draw on a track record of trust and friendship that gives members confidence that their leaders won't act hastily or do something that would bring harm to the body. Even when people don't always understand or agree with hard decisions we have made, they have been able to draw on the reservoir of trust that we've accumulated over the years to carry us through those bumpy times that inevitably come in the life of a church.