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I love the energy I feel around my church these days. We have new people coming. Relationships are being formed. Community is being strengthened. I’m delighted to see it.
But I’m also anxious. “Good” always seems fragile. Without warning, or explanation, or expectation something can happen that suddenly saps the energy and deflates the sails. I worry that I may not be able to do what needs doing to sustain the good.
And with that I give you permission to laugh at me. Go ahead. You and I both know that I am not in control. Success is not a burden pastors manage but a gift we receive. But we are good at forgetting that.
What has taken me decades to learn took Barbara Melosh only five years.
Melosh tells her story in her warm and insightful pastoral memoir Loving and Leaving a Church.
Those who pastor small churches rarely have their experiences published, and that alone makes this book helpful for others. The propriety of women being pastors is a concern for many, I know, but a discussion best held elsewhere. Judging from Melosh’s memoir, the experience of being a pastor is no different, regardless of the gender of the one filling the role.Melosh had become a pastor as a second career, and brought to ministry the exuberant enthusiasm and hopeful idealism that animate many new pastors. Over time, though, as she struggled to bring change, her idealism waned. People didn’t always do what she been trained to hope for. And enthusiasm was replaced with worry and with struggle and with heightened effort.
Ironically, the drive to be in control is a type of bondage. Under this burden, she grew weary. When a beloved young parishioner was diagnosed with cancer, and the church held some special services for healing, however, she began to find a place of freedom. She tells it this way.
For five years now I'd been trying to find a direction for our ministry, with the [congregation] straggling along with me. I'd run down one rabbit trail after another, in hot pursuit of transformation: the latest program for spiritual renewal, a new approach to evangelism, leadership training that would equip me to lead the charge into new life.
The literature of ecclesial self-help seemed bottomless, and I'd succumbed repeatedly to its promises. The three-minute pastor! Six strategies for stronger stewardship! Ten ways to improve your contemporary worship! Thirty-five building blocks of successful congregations! Forty days of purpose! I'd been frustrated when [this congregation was] unmoved by my exhortations to embrace the latest; now I felt chagrined that I'd tried to sell them all this snake oil.
My clergy colleagues and I often remarked ironically on the doublethink of our own practices. In compliance with denominational guidelines, we tracked worship attendance, maintained membership rolls, and took account of our shaky finances. We crafted strategic plans, set goals, and devised metrics to evaluate how we were doing. Yet the gospel we were called to proclaim stood in stark contrast to this ministry by management. Luther had staked his life on the bold claim that grace alone could save us. Our works, our will, our decisions: none of that had any effect on where we stood with God. These programs were, at best, Band-Aids; at worst, they were deadly distractions. Salvation by programming led us away from the One who really could raise us from the dead.
Success could not be measured by results, or at least not the results we could see or count. . . . I had been called to ministry, and I'd given my heart to it. But I’d been distracted by the wrong dream, deluded into thinking I could save the [church]. They already had a Savior, and it wasn't me.
We who have been nurtured by the modern ministry industry believe ourselves to be responsible for the saving and success of our churches, a burden that often destroys pastors. It’s a joyful release to be told that our churches have a savior, and it’s not us. There is contentment, and freedom, to know that all we are supposed to be are stewards, shepherds caring for God’s people.
Melosh concludes,
I was called to be faithful: to do the work in front of me, to serve the people I’d been called to serve, to love the people I’d been given to love. I had wanted more; now, in the shadow of Amy’s illness, I was beginning to realize the precious gift that was already mine. [My congregation] might well not survive as a congregation. But in the candlelight of the healing services, I saw that the kingdom of God was already among us, and in us.
Some pastors are able to program ministry, and I suppose they have the aggregate numbers to demonstrate results. Some pastors don’t stay awake at night wondering what might happen when the thread that is their ministry begins to unspool.
For me, it’s freeing to be reminded that salvation by programming can lead us away from the one who alone can raise the dead.
I need to remember that my church already has a Savior, and, mercifully, it’s not me. Only then can I enjoy what God does in the church as a gift.
Barbara Melosh, Loving and Leaving a Church: A Pastor’s Journey (United States: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018). I’m grateful to the author’s enthusiastic blessing upon my using her story.
Melosh, p. 158-159
Salvation by Programming
More (the second item):
Our pastor yesterday referred to the Hebrides Revival that began in late 1949 and continued for several years. When I asked him for his sources, he told me to look it up online. And this is a very slightly edited version of what I found that recounted much of what our pastor told us. From https://www.revival-library.org/revival_histories/evangelical/twentieth_century/hebrides_revival_2.shtml:
<blockquote>[I]n November 1949, this gracious movement began on the island of Lewis. Two old women, one of them 84 years of age and the other 82-one of them stone blind, were greatly burdened because of the appalling state of their own parish. It was true that not a single young person attended public worship. Not a single young man or young woman went to the church. They spent their day perhaps reading or walking but the church was left out of the picture.
And those two women were greatly concerned and they made it a special matter of prayer.
A verse gripped them: "I will pour water on him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground" [Isaiah 44:3]. They were so burdened that both of them decided to spend so much time in prayer twice a week. On Tuesday they got on their knees at 10 o'clock in the evening and remained on their knees until 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning--two old women in a very humble cottage.
One night, one of the sisters had a vision . . . and in the vision she saw the church of her fathers crowded with young people. Packed to the doors. And a strange minister standing in the pulpit. And she was so impressed by the vision that she sent for the parish minister. . . . [And she]said to the minister, "You must do something about it. And I would suggest that you call your office bearers together and that you spend with us at least two nights in prayer in the week. . . .”
Well, that was what happened. The minister called his office bearers together and seven of them met in a barn to pray on Tuesday and on Friday. And the two old women got on their knees and prayed with them.
That continued for some weeks--indeed, I believe almost a month and a half. Until one night . . . they were kneeling there in the barn, pleading this promise, "I will pour water on him that is thirsty, floods upon the dry ground," when one young man, a deacon in the church, got up and read Psalm 24: "Who shall ascend the hill of God? Who shall stand in His holy place? He that has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul unto vanity or sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing (not a blessing, but the blessing) of the Lord."
And then that young man closed his Bible. And looking down at the minister and the other office bearers, he said this . . . : "It seems to me to be so much humbug to be praying as we are praying, to be waiting as we are waiting, if we ourselves are not rightly related to God."
And then . . . he lifted his two hands and prayed, "God, are my hands clean? Is my heart pure?" But he got no further. That young man fell to his knees and then fell into a trance . . . and is now lying on the floor of the barn. And in the words of the minister, at that moment, he and his other office bearers were gripped by the conviction that a God-sent revival must ever be related to holiness, must ever be related to Godliness: “Are my hands clean? Is my heart pure?” . . .
When that happened in the barn, the power of God swept into the parish. And an awareness of God gripped the community. . . . An awareness of God: that's revival. That's revival.
And on the following day, the looms were silent. Little work was done on the farms as men and women gave themselves to thinking on eternal things, gripped by eternal realities.
Now, I wasn't on the island when that happened. But, again, one of the sisters sent for the minister. And she said to him, "I think you ought to invite someone to the parish. I cannot give a name, but God must have someone in His mind for we saw a strange man in the pulpit, and that man must be somewhere."
[Through a series of events,] it was decided that I should go [and] I was on the island within 10 days.
I shall never forget the night that I arrived at the piers in the mail steamer.
I was standing in the presence of the minister whom I had never seen and two of his elders that I never knew. The minister turned to me and said, "I know Mr. Campbell that you are very tired—you have been traveling all day by train to begin with and then by steamer. And I am sure that you are ready for your supper and ready for your bed. But I wonder if you would be prepared to address a meeting in the parish church at 9 o'clock tonight on our way home? It will be a short meeting and then we will make for the manse and you will get your supper and your bed and rest until tomorrow evening."
Well, it will interest you to know that I never got that supper.
We got to the church about quarter to nine to find about 300 people gathered. I would say about 300 people. And I gave an address. Nothing really happened during the service. It was a good meeting. A sense of God, a consciousness of His Spirit moving but nothing beyond that. So I pronounced the benediction and we were leaving the church I would say about a quarter to eleven.
Just as I am walking down the aisle, along with this young deacon who read the Psalm in the barn. He suddenly stood in the aisle and looking up to the heavens he said, "God, You can't fail us. God, You can't fail us. You promised to pour water on the thirsty and floods upon the dry ground. God, You can't fail us!"
Soon He is on his knees in the aisle and he is still praying and then he falls into a trance again. Just then the door opened—it is now eleven o'clock. The door of the church opens and the local blacksmith comes back into the church and says, "Mr. Campbell, something wonderful has happened. Oh, we were praying that God would pour water on the thirsty and floods upon the dry ground and listen, He's done it! He's done it!"
When I went to the door of the church I saw a congregation of approximately 600 people. Six hundred people--where had they come from? What had happened? I believe that that very night God swept in Pentecostal power-the power of the Holy Ghost. And what happened in the early days of the apostles was happening now in the parish of Barvas.
Over 100 young people were at the dance in the parish hall and they weren't thinking of God or eternity. God was not in all of their thoughts. They were there to have a good night when suddenly the power of God fell upon the dance. The music ceased and in a matter of minutes, the hall was empty. They fled from the hall as a man fleeing from a plague. And they made for the church. They are now standing outside. Oh, yes--they saw lights in the church. That was a house of God and they were going to it and they went. Men and women who had gone to bed rose, dressed, and made for the church. Nothing in the way of publicity--no mention of a special effort except and intonation from the pulpit on Sabbath that a certain man was going to be conducting a series of meetings in the parish covering 10 days. But God took the situation in hand--oh, He became His own publicity agent. A hunger and a thirst gripped the people. 600 of them now are at the church standing outside.
This dear man, the blacksmith, turned to me and said, "I think that we should sing a psalm." And they sang and they sang and they sang verse after verse. Oh, what singing! What singing! And then the doors were opened and the congregation flocked back into the church.
Now the church is crowded--a church to seat over 800 is now packed to capacity. It is now going on towards midnight. I managed to make my way through the crowd along the aisle toward the pulpit. I found a young woman, a teacher in the grammar school, lying prostrate on the floor of the pulpit praying, "Oh, God, is there mercy for me? Oh, God, is there mercy for me? " She was one of those at the dance. But she is now lying on the floor of the pulpit crying to God for mercy.
That meeting continued until 4 o'clock in the morning. I couldn't tell you how many were saved that night but of this I am sure and certain that at least 5 young men who were saved in that church that night are today ministers in the church of Scotland having gone through university and college.
At 4 o'clock, we decided to make for the manse. Of course, you understand, we make no appeals--you never need to make an appeal or an altar call in revival. Why, the roadside becomes an altar. We just leave men and women to make their way to God themselves--after all, that is the right way. God can look after His own. Oh, God can look after His own! And when God takes a situation in hand, I tell you He does a better work. He does a better work.. . . .</blockquote>
The story continues. Truly astonishing!
I am praying for this kind of outbreak on our island of Ambergris Caye in Belize.
Your post, here, Randy, is very timely. It reminds me of two items I've been meditating on over the weekend.
First, this from an email our eldest daughter sent on Friday. She quoted from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Why-Pray-John-F-DeVries/dp/0978855159/"><i>Why Pray?</i></a> by John De Vries, founder of Mission India (missionindia.org). Beginning at p. 70:
<blockquote>After the set period of prayer, the church secretary contacted all 160 homes, asking the same question and using the same approach. By phone she told them who she was, explained that the church was willing to include all who lived in the neighborhood in their prayer program, and asked if they had any specific prayer requests for which the church could intercede. She also offered to have a couple call if the neighbors had matters they would like to talk about for prayer. When she called the 80 homes that had not been prayed for, she found that only one person responded with a prayer request. But when she called the 80 homes that have been deliberately prayed for, she found to her amazement that 67 of these families responded with prayer requests, and more than 40 of them asked for visits from the church!
This is what Jesus had in mind when he spoke about “rest.” When we are yoked to Jesus and we begin on the foot he begins with—that is, prayer—our task is lifted up in the wind of the Spirit and supernaturally sails along.
I learned this lesson in a unique way in my work for Mission India. While attending a prayer seminar, I was challenged to choose, if I were a pastor, between hiring a full-time director of music or a full-time “pray-er” for the church. It took me only a moment to decide that I wanted the “professional” intercessor. I got so excited about the idea that I challenged the board of Mission India to change the job description of one of our staff members to be exactly that….
I shared this story with a friend in India, who then told me that God led him to do much the same thing in the same year—1992. He had labored with his little mission in a city in the heart of India for about ten years, and fewer than twenty little house churches had started. He and his wife were burned out and tired. He then decided to hire “professional” intercessors and to begin his mission work in prayer, not with human effort. A few years later, he had twenty-two people reporting for prayer work every day! And the mission exploded to more than 160 little house churches in those few years.
Are you being “carried” along by Jesus on the wind of the Holy Spirit, or are you trying to carry Jesus along? It may be so simple a model as being out of step with the Savior. To be yoked is to be in step—and when that happens, we find that the task is easy and light, for He is pulling with us. When prayer is first and work is second, we are in step with Jesus. With the work arising out of prayer, we shift from working in human power to working in divine power.</blockquote>
--More in a moment.