Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome - R. Kent Hughes - E-Book

Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome E-Book

R. Kent Hughes

0,0

Beschreibung

Every year thousands of God's servants leave the ministry convinced they are failures. Years ago, in the midst of a crisis of faith, Kent Hughes almost became one of them. But instead he and his wife Barbara turned to God's Word, determined to learn what God had to say about success and to evaluate their ministry from a biblical point of view. This book describes their journey and their liberation from the "success syndrome"-the misguided belief that success in ministry means increased numbers. In today's world it is easy to be seduced by the secular thinking that places a number on everything. But the authors teach that true success in ministry lies not in numbers but in several key areas: faithfulness, serving, loving, believing, prayer, holiness, and a Christlike attitude. Their thoughts will encourage readers who grapple with feelings of failure and lead them to a deeper, fuller understanding of success in Christian ministry. This book was originally published by Tyndale in 1987 and includes a new preface.

Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:

Android
iOS
von Legimi
zertifizierten E-Readern
Kindle™-E-Readern
(für ausgewählte Pakete)

Seitenzahl: 266

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2008

Das E-Book (TTS) können Sie hören im Abo „Legimi Premium” in Legimi-Apps auf:

Android
iOS
Bewertungen
0,0
0
0
0
0
0
Mehr Informationen
Mehr Informationen
Legimi prüft nicht, ob Rezensionen von Nutzern stammen, die den betreffenden Titel tatsächlich gekauft oder gelesen/gehört haben. Wir entfernen aber gefälschte Rezensionen.



Thank you for downloading this Crossway book.

Sign-up for the Crossway Newsletter for updates on special offers, new resources, and exciting global ministry initiatives:

Crossway Newsletter

Or, if you prefer, we would love to connect with you online:

FacebookTwitterGoogle +

LIBERATING MINISTRY

from the

SUCCESS SYNDROME

ALSO BY KENT AND BARBARA HUGHES:

Disciplines of a Godly Family

Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome

Originally published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1987

Original copyright © 1987 by Kent and Barbara Hughes

New edition, with new introduction, copyright © 2008 by Kent and Barbara Hughes

Published by Crossway Books

a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers

1300 Crescent Street

Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

Cover design: Luke Daab

Cover photo: iStock

First printing, 2008

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations are generally taken from The Holy Bible: New American Standard Bible, copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1971, 1973 by the Lockman Foundation.

Other Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: New International Version®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. The “NIV” and “New International Version” trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society. Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hughes, R. Kent.

Liberating ministry from the success syndrome / Kent and Barbara Hughes.

p. cm.

Originally published: Tyndale House Publishers, c1987.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 13: 978-1-58134-974-0 (tpb)

1. Pastoral theology. 2. Success. I. Hughes, Barbara. II. Title.

BV4011.3.H76          2008

2007037657

253—dc22

CH           17    16    15    14    13    12    11    10    09   08

In memory of

Joe Bayly

and for

Mary Lou

CONTENTS

Introduction

PART I A D

ARK

N

IGHT OF THE

S

OUL

1

Disapointed Dreams

2

“Hang On to My Faith”

PART II D

EFINITIONS

3

Success Is Faithfulness

4

Success Is Serving

5

Success Is Loving

6

Success Is Believing

7

Success Is Prayer

8

Success Is Holiness

9

Success Is Attitude

10

Sweet Success!

PART III E

NCOURAGEMENTS

11

Encouragement from God

12

Encouragement from the Call

13

Encouragement for the Ordinary

14

Encouragement from Fellow Workers

15

Encouragement from Reward

PART IV H

ELPS

16

How the Pastor’s Wife Can Help

17

How the Congregation Can Help

Conclusion

Notes

INTRODUCCION

Some onlookers thought it was unusual, but few noticed when the pastor wheeled into the church parking lot in a borrowed pickup truck. But everyone’s eyes were upon him when he backed the truck across the lawn to his study door. Refusing comment or assistance, he began to empty his office onto the truck bed. He was impassive and systematic: first the desk drawers, then the files, and last his library of books, which he tossed carelessly into a heap, many of them flopping askew like slain birds. His task done, the pastor left the church and, as was later learned, drove some miles to the city dump where he committed everything to the waiting garbage.

It was his way of putting behind him the overwhelming sense of failure and loss that he had experienced in the ministry. This young, gifted pastor was determined never to return to the ministry. Indeed, he never did.

We wrote this book because of this story—and many, too many, others like it. We are concerned about the morale and survival of those in Christian ministry. Pastors, youth workers, evangelists, Sunday school teachers, lay ministers, missionaries, Bible study leaders, Christian writers and speakers, and those in other areas of Christian service often face significant feelings of failure, usually fueled by misguided expectations for success.

It is true that our Christian colleges, universities, and seminaries are flooded annually with bright and motivated students. But it is also true that every years thousands leave the ministry convinced they are failures, seduced by what William James piquantly called “the bitch goddess of success.”1

We know what it’s like. We too almost succumbed to her enticements. It is our hope that the account of our subtle confusion about success, our near ruin, and ultimately our liberation through the truth of God’s Word will aid in delivering others from this unhappy goddess.

This book is an effort to encourage those in ministry. It is our gift to our fellow servants.

It has been twenty years since we wrote Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome. The young couple on the dust jacket has faded to gray over forty years of ministry. The lessons have worn well. And they have benefited thousands as the book has gone through ten printings. We have received a flow of letters and expressions of thanks with confessions like “I was ready to quit, and a friend gave me your book” or “It felt like you were reading our minds” or We’ve read it twice this last month” or “our mission team is now reading Liberating together with great profit.”

Today we are convinced that the message of this book is more relevant and necessary than the day we wrote it due to the pervasive, sub-biblical emphasis on “success” that has fallen on the church like a black rain.

It is our prayer that what we learned about success will help you gain an ever-deepening understanding of what God desires from his servants—and a liberation from the gravity of this age.

Kent and Barbara Hughes

PART ONE

A DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL

ONE

Disappointed Dreams

As I begin our story, do not suppose that this is the hardest thing that has happened to me in the ministry. It is not. The significance of my experience is not its hardness, but that it almost made me quit my divine calling.

When a man is forty-five he is said to be in mid-life, and I certainly am. It is also often said that he is in his prime, and that I am. I have been married twenty-five years to a woman who is not only my love but my soul partner. We have four children, all of whom love Christ and want to serve him in their callings. 

Twenty-three of our twenty-five years have been spent in ministry. Preaching is my passion. Even on vacation, I enjoy books that have to do with the history of preaching and homiletic thought and theology. I feel as if I am doing the thing I was born for. 

The ministry has made it possible for me to experience what some would (unwisely!) call success, as I have traveled widely, spoken to international conferences, written several books, and sat on the boards of Christian organizations. 

Those who have served alongside me these past twenty-plus years say that they see me as a capable, solid, even-dispositioned pastor who has a positive approach to ministry—and all of life. And without hesitation I can say that they are right. Though I am not unfamiliar with dark moods, such times are rare in my life—and always have been. 

All of this is what makes the following account so enlightening.

I was not feeling well as I stepped from the car onto my broiling southern California driveway and walked, briefcase in hand, toward the shade of the front porch. There Barbara cheerfully greeted me through the kitchen screen.

Aware of my gradual depression, she had been observing me with increasing concern. My gait had lost its characteristic energy and I often appeared downcast. Barbara knew that it had to do with my work, for she observed that when things were going well at church I was OK, but otherwise I was discouraged. If church attendance was up, I was up; if it was down, so was I. And the numbers had been going down for a long time.

What Barbara didn't know was that I was seriously wondering whether I should continue in the pastoral ministry. Neither was she aware that the doubts troubling  me were  actually so repugnant that I could not bring myself to verbalize them. Nor could she know that as I further suppressed them, my depression itself had become increasingly ugly.

A covert, unarticulated animosity had crept through my soul. It was hidden from all. Years of honestly cultivated Christian civility served me well—for inside I was a very angry man.

The focus of my resentment was God himself, the one who had called me to this. I had given everything—all my time, all my education, years of ministry and true Christian devotion (he knew?)—and now I was failing. God was to blame.

Beneath my pastoral veneer, dark thoughts moved at will.

Inside I was embarrassed and fearful. At night, as I drifted off to sleep, the beneficent faces of my well-wishers would slip in and out of focus—always smiling. They seemed benignly to watch me sink into a pit of miserable despair.

I wanted to quit.

How had I come to this? In retrospect, I can now see that much of it had to do with my expectations, which went back to the very week when as a twelve-year-old I meet Christ at summer camp. . . .

I can still remember the growing lens of my flashlight illuminating the delicate pages of my tiny Bible. After lights out in the musty, gym-sock air of my sleeping bag, trembling with joy, I read and reread the great texts of salvation. I had come to know Christ!

Although I was not quite a teenager. I knew that I was called to preach. So sure was I that the next day I let everyone know. When I went home, I announced it to my family and gave testimony to it before the whole church. It was a precocious announcement, but it was of God. The call was never to leave me. It gave profound direction to my young life. God had saved me and called me, and in my youthful egocentricity, I assumed he was going to do great things through me.

Because of this my teenage years were full and focused. I wholeheartedly entered into the life of my local southern California high school and church—all the while happily growing in my pastor-to-be persona.

When just sixteen I preached my first sermon on Jonah and the Whale. I gave it a double title: “The Chicken of the Sea, or God Has a Whale of a Plan for Your Life!” So it was a sermon of dubious wit and doubtful quality! The mere doing of it established my identity as one called to the gospel ministry. Many kind and affirming people in my church predicted I would be a “good” preacher. And with their predictions, my anticipation of future success increased. 

Despite my immature pride, my call was an intensely serious matter to me. Virtually everything I did was with an expectant eye to the sacred goal of ministry.

I went to Whittier College. There I became deeply involved in studies and preparation for the pastorate. I directed Youth for Christ clubs, did some street preaching, and organized evangelistic outreaches to students at other colleges.

Meeting and marrying Barbara—my cheerful, outgoing. ministry-minded wife—deepened my commitment and the sense that the best times lay ahead.

Choosing to begin a family as college ended meant increased pressures. I attended classes, worked forty hours per week, and together Barbara and I began an exciting ministry with young married couples in our church that carried over into our years at nearby Talbot Theological Seminary. To be sure, our single-mindedness left us tired, but we were happy. 

Seminary was all I had hoped for and more, There is a distinct romance to biblical study. “The Queen of Sciences,” With its epic history, magisterial doctrines, delicately nuanced theology, its Greek and Hebrew. And I entered the romance completely, for studying the Scriptures and learning about Christ were heaven to me. Lifelong friendships with godly professors and students strengthened our resolve to serve God with all that we had. Seminary confirmed for me the rightness of my vocation. It also had the effect of heightening my expectations of success. 

During seminary I began a memorable ten years of ministry in my family church, first as youth pastor and then as associate pastor. This was the sixties—restless, unsettled, but a time of wonderful spiritual harvest. Our Bible studies overflowed with teenagers honestly and earnestly seeking truth. Many not only met Christ but went on to become missionaries and ministers. 

The highlight of that ministry is framed in a five-by seven photograph hanging in the hallway of our home. The photo was taken in 1968 in Parker, Arizona, during our high schoolers’ Easter Outreach week. It was snapped in the intense low morning sunlight of the Arizona desert, which gives it almost surrealistic detail. In the background is the turquoise ribbon of the morning-lit Colorado River. In the foreground are five young men posed on a boat trailer. They are tan, windswept, and holding beers with postured male élan. Three of those young men would confess Christ that morning. Today two of them are in the ministry and the other is now a prominent Christian counselor. That picture demonstrates for me the sovereign, ineluctable power of God. Those young men, before that week completely unknown to me, not only were revolutionized by God’s grace but have led unusually productive Christian lives and have been my good friends for almost twenty years. 

If only all of Christian ministry were as triumphant as that photograph. Unfortunately, ministry is messy. One experiences a wide range of disappointments and criticisms in ten years of aggressive Christian service.

Even so, those were productive and satisfying years. But, having reached the age of thirty-two, I realized it was time for me to begin an active pulpit ministry. God’s call was clear. And I looked forward, with an anticipation that had been years in the making, to what God would do.

The church I served decided to mother a new church with me as the founding pastor. In this adventure, the sponsoring church and its pastor were wonderfully magnanimous. Together we produced an excellent multimedia presentation to communicate to the congregation the potential of the new work. When the pastor urged all to respond who felt the call of God to commit themselves to planting this new church, twenty families decided to go with us. To top that off, the church gave us a gift of $50,000 to get us started.

What a way to begin a church! Optimism ran high. As the fair-haired boy, I was told by friends that great things were about to happen, and it would not be long before the new church would be larger than its mother. Such talk enlarged my expectations. I believed it.

The people who gathered with us to begin the church were terrific. We left our initial meetings amazed at the array of gifted, hard-working, visionary people the Lord had brought with us. With such people we expected to grow. 

And we did things “right.” Our denomination retained a church growth expert who instructed us in the broad principles and minor subtleties of growing churches. They sent me to seminars on church growth. We obtained aerial photographs and demographic projections commissioned ethnographic studies, consulted with the County, and chose the target community with painstaking and prayerful premeditation. 

Beginning a new church is exhausting work, and we went for it with all we had. I found myself attending meetings, strategizing. canvassing, counseling. preparing sermons, and borrowing pianos. pianists. projectors, and pulpits. Then came the Sunday ritual of preparing the rented facilities for worship services—sweeping out the trash from the community center. helping Whitey Cary unload the big storage trailer containing the pulpit, microphones, hymnals, rugs, rockers, and playpens, and then in the evening working in happy Christian bonhomie with the entire congregation to disassemble and pack up our church for another week. 

From the start, we had everything going for us. We had the prayers and predictions of our friends who believed a vast, growing work was inevitable. We had the sophisticated insights of the science of church growth. We had a superb nucleus of believers And we had me, a young pastor with a good track record who was entering his prime. We expected to grow.

But to our astonishment and resounding disappointment, we didn’t. In fact, after considerable time and incredible labor, we had fewer regular attenders than during the first six months. Our church was shrinking, and the prospects looked bad—really bad.

So as I walked up my driveway on this hot summer day in 1975, after more than a decade of ministry, I began to lose my equilibrium. My long-established world of bright prospects and success had melted around me.

I was in the darkest, deepest depression of my life. My memory of this time is of a gray horizonless sea. A faint light falls from a threatening sky and I am treading water alone, sinking. Soon I will be below the surface. Melodramatic, to be sure! But that is how I felt. I wanted out. 

Seeing Barbara’s smile through the screen, I brightened, as always, and for the next few hours I was preoccupied with my happy young Family. But after dinner, when the children were in bed, despondency crept over me once again. 

Except for my wife, it seemed that no one cared. And on this hot summer’s midnight of soul, I was ready to talk.

TWO

“Hang On to My Faith”

Late that night when the children were soundly sleeping and the only sound was that of insects flapping against the hot screens, I began to reveal the depth of my calamitous misery to Barbara. As I spoke, my eyes burned red with frustration and anger. Dark thoughts mounted within, waiting their escape. 

Barbara’s attempts to soothe me received predictable responses. When she said, “Honey, your sermon really spoke to me last week.” I responded, ”Yes, but I’ll just be on trial again next week.” Again, she tried to cheer me up. She said that in her study of Genesis she saw that Noah had preached for 120 years without a single convert. My dark-humored response was, “Yes, but there wasn’t an other Noah across town with people flowing into his ark!” Barbara was terribly frustrated too—and with obvious good reason. But unlike me, her faith did not waver. And on this hot September evening I poured out all my dammed-up. hidden feelings.

What came forth was repugnant and offensive—truly mean. “Most people I know in the ministry are unhappy,” I said. “They are failures in their own eyes. Mine as well. Why should I expect God to bless me when it appears he hasn’t blessed them? Am I so ego-centered to think he loves me more?”

I wasn’t exaggerating the situation. Conversations over the years at pastors’ conferences supported my thoughts. A few moments of personal exchange with a pastor almost invariably revealed immense hurt and self-doubt. Most pastors were unhappy with themselves and their work. And I secretly agreed with many of their self-assessments. 

I went on: “In cold statistics my chances of being a failure are overwhelming. Most pastors do little more than survive in the ministry in piddly little churches.” I rehearsed how a professor had stood before my seminary class and said that eight out of ten will never pastor a church larger than 150 people. Those were the statistics. And if true, they condemned most pastors to subsistence living unless their wives worked outside the home. “The ministry is asking too much of me,” I said to Barbara. “How can I go on giving all that I have without seeing results, especially when others are?” I had been working day and night with no visible return. Everyone needs to see results. Farmers see their crops grow. It is their proper reward. I could see others’ “crops” grow, but my field bore nothìng.

If not that, then how should I measure my success? “If I were in the business world,” I thought aloud that night, “it would be measured by the size of my bank account. Life’s successes are measured quantitatively. How can anyone be expected to do otherwise? 

“Those who really make it in the ministry are those with exceptional gifts. If I had a great personality or natural charisma, if I had celebrity status, a deep resonant voice, a merciless executive ability, a domineering personality that doesn’t mind sacrificing people for success, I could make it to the top. Where is God in all of this?” I defied Barbara to disprove me. “Just look at the great preachers today. Their success seems to have little to do with God’s Spirit; they’re just superior people!” 

Suddenly I found myself coming to a conclusion that I didn’t want to admit. Though I knew it had been brooding in me for quite some time, now it was finally coming out. “God has called me to do something he hasn’t given me the gifts to accomplish. Therefore, God is not good.”

There. Finally, I had blurted out the thought that had tormented me. It fell between us, ugly and misshapen, into the silence of the hot night. I knew I had been called by God; I had never been able to escape that call, nor had I wanted to. But now I felt that I was the butt of a cruel joke. I was a failure. I wanted to quit. And in aching desperation I said to my dear wife, “What am I to do?”

How distressing it must have been for Barbara. I had always been the one on whom she could depend—and I was faltering. But I will never forget her kind and confident response. “I don’t know what you’re going to do. But for right now, for tonight, hang on to my faith. Because I believe. I believe that God is good. I believe that he loves us and is going to work through this experience. So hang on to my faith. I have enough for both of us.”

That night I went to bed exhausted. Barbara stayed up long into the morning hours reflecting on our conversation.

“Hang on to my faith.” Had I really spoken those words to Kent only a few minutes earlier? Sitting alone at the kitchen table, I wondered now if I had simply been mouthing pious bravado.

What about my faith? Was it strong enough to survive on its own or had Kent married a spiritual dependent? If Kent’s faith failed, would mine shrivel and die like a parasite separated from its host?

My earliest recollections of placing my faith in God are associated with a promise. Mrs. White, the Good News Club teacher holds up a tiny leather book with colored pages but no words. As she turns the pages, she explains the way of eternal life and promises us our own Wordless Book if we memorize the verses each page represents. My childish imagination is captivated. And so it was that I first learned about the love of God. Along with the tiny prize, I received Christ as my Savior. Young as I was, it was true faith.

My parents were blue-collar Protestants who seldom attended church. They had six children, twice as many Problems, and never enough money. Hardworking and proud, they always tried to manage on their own. I seldom saw them turn to God. During my high school years my father was seriously injured. Unable to cope with the resulting long-term unemployment, he developed a serious drinking problem. As a result our family was thrust into a time of protracted and painful insecurity. This time of instability was used by God to temper and strengthen my faith. I learned that God was a good God who keeps his promises even when life is difficult.

No, Kent did not marry a spiritual dependent! My faith pulsated with life and love for the God we both felt called to serve.

But in my present sheltered atmosphere, surrounded by good church people who seldom challenged my faith, was I getting spiritually soft? Was I becoming like the conductor at the train station who has never gone beyond the boundaries of his own city, but imagines he has traveled far because he is always calling out destinations for others? Was I piggybacking on my husband’s spiritual journey?

I suddenly felt a chill. “Hang on to my faith,” I had said. And now the real question was: Did I have faith for both of us? Was my faith now as strong as it had once been?

But God had prepared me for this. During the months I had observed my husband’s inner struggle, I had become increasingly dependent upon the Lord. And with this reliance had come a pervasive sense of well-being. God was with me. And the conscious refrain of my lips and my mind had been “God is good.”

Reflecting on the angry thoughts Kent had expressed, I wavered. As I sat in my brightly decorated kitchen, surrounded by yellow gingham and blue chintz, my spirit grew dark, I began to feel some of Kent’s despair. Maybe we had believed a lie. Perhaps I was sell-deluded. Maybe I should have encouraged him to quit the ministry and cast off whatever it was that was destroying our faith in God.

I felt alone and afraid. I needed reassurance. So I did what I have always done when confronted with fear. I picked up my Bible. My fingers trembled as they traced its gilded edges.

“O God,” I cried, ‘help me.”

C. S. Lewis once said that God whispers to us in our joys, speaks to us in our difficulties, and shouts in our pain. I needed his shout.

“Please, Lord, give me a word of encouragement right now.”

Though I’ve never been one to play Bible roulette (and do not recommend it), I took a deep breath and slowly, tremulously opened my old King James Bible. My eye fell on a verse underlined in red. As long as I live I will never forget the soaring, dancing excitement that swept over me as I read eighteen simple words. “Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand” (Psalm 37:24). God didn’t shout—he leaped off the pages!

I was spellbound, actually feeling that if I peeked over my shoulder I might see God. I looked at my Bible again and read the line Just before the one underlined: “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way.” God’s presence was so utterly palpable I thought that if I reached out I might touch him. Instead, his everlasting arms reached out and enveloped me.

The oppression was gone and with it, the doubts. God’s presence was accompanied by the exhilarating awareness that he indeed did absolutely love and care about us. And with that assurance came tears. “Yes, Kent,” I wept, hang on to my faith.”

No one will ever convince me that reading that particular verse at that moment in time was mere coincidence. I know the transcendent God visited me right where I was. It was all I needed. With that I joined Kent in bed and fell asleep reciting the promise: “Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand.”

The next few days found Kent fluctuating between relief and uncertainly. Glad that he had finally put words to the dark, unsettling thoughts that had grown within him, Kent still battled unanswered questions. While I did not know the answers, I was confident they were to be found.

Later that week I attended a denominational women’s meeting where I encountered two friends whose husbands had recently left the ministry. They were together, and what a stunning pair they made. Their studied California chic exuded prosperity—as it was meant to do. We are doing g-r-r-r-reat! I could almost hear them purr. In the course of conversation I asked about their spouses, and one replied, “He’s never been happier. He’s selling life insurance now.” She added, “it takes a special kind of man to be in the ministry. You just can’t measure your success, And every man must be able to do that in order to have a good self-image.”

My mind raced! She echoed my husband’s present struggle. Yet I knew there was something terribly wrong with her thinking.

“I’ve never thought of Kent as extraordinary” I responded. “just called.”

“Well,” she said with a slight tremor in her voice, “If your church doesn’t grow” (and I knew exactly what she meant by that-she meant grow big), “Kent is going to feel like a failure.”

With that, I became angry, though not at my acquaintance. I was angry that her husband—who at one time felt the call of God to preach the gospel—was now selling insurance. I was angry that the same dark force was presently working on my husband.

I decided I wasn’t going to allow it.

I don’t know why” I said with surprising energy, “but You are wrong, and I’m not going to rest until I find out why!”

At home that night I related my conversation to Kent, and our spiritual adrenaline began to flow. The problem had a global dimension. Many people were being affected. We thought of our seminary friends, couples who had said yes to the call of God—and were presently discouraged in ministry. Some were quitting.

The problem was “success.” That was what we had to think through. It was a subject we had never attempted to define—not specifically.

I found the tablet on which I had earlier recorded Kent’s thoughts and wrote three questions that we considered key:

Can a man be a success in the ministry and pastor a small church?

What is failure in the ministry?

What is success in the ministry?

The two of us sat staring at our list. Expressed in black and white the questions suddenly seemed so cold and crass. What in the world had brought us to ask such questions?

Barbara and I spent considerable time together reflecting on what had brought me to such despair. We replayed the many voices from our past—college chums, church friends, social acquaintances—that had offered advice in some form or other. None of the input was bad in itself, but the underlying premise of the advice, in aggregate, was deadly. Barbara and I summarized the thrust of this counsel:

Marketing. When the church first began, my denomination sent me to an institute for church growth. There I was taught the pragmatic foundations of numerical growth. Very high on the list of essentials was the marketing principle of visibility and accessibility. Simply stated, it is this: if you want to sell hamburgers you must make sure that your store is visible to the community and easily accessible. The great hamburger chains live and die by this rule. Smart preachers will do the same. And their churches will grow.

Sociology. In the early stages of planning our church, the church growth expert emphasized that my wife and I must be the right match for the community. He perused the area, met with us observing how we dressed, and asked what our tastes were in such things as clothing, furniture, and education. After analyzing our answers, he pronounced us “perfect for the work. 

The idea, of course, was the “homogenous unit principle.” Likes attract and win likes: doctors best evangelize doctors; mechanics, mechanics; athletes, athletes. Our family was just right to lead a growing church in our community.

Stewardship. In the back of my mind I believed that “a church that gives grows” and “a church that gives to missions will be a growing missions church.” Giving meant growth. (Thus, I retained a hybrid strain of the prosperity gospel in my unarticulated thinking.) Giving meant getting more people—numerical growth. 

Godliness. Also unspoken but firmly rooted in my thinking was the belief that if our people were truly godly and thus exhibiting the fruits of the Spirit, their spiritual ethos would attract both the lost and the searching. Our church would grow.