Page 3895 – Christianity Today (2024)

Michael had a rough week—hospital visits, a deacons’ retreat, and a chronically needy church member with another day-eating crisis had gobbled up his sermon preparation time. The sermon would be another Saturday night special.

The book Michael had been reading lately came to mind. There was a great story about a dog whose leash got caught in his owner’s car door, and the high stepping trip the beagle took at speeds up to thirty-miles-per-hour to keep up with the car. The author of the book indicated the story came from a newspaper a couple of years ago. Michael reread the whole chapter of the book attached to the story.

The author, a pastor, wrote great books, and Michael suspected that some of those chapters had first been sermons. This chapter was very good, and Michael decided to use it as the basis for his sermon.

In the pulpit Michael told the story about the dog’s three-block sprint, and people laughed in all the right places. He told them the report had appeared in a newspaper. He used the author’s main points, most of his treatment of the biblical text, and a key phrase that he repeated several times. Michael added a couple of his own illustrations, and he was careful not to tell any of the author’s personal stories as his own experience. That would be unethical. The author’s name and book were never mentioned.

At the door people raved. “It’s so practical,” one woman said. “And I loved the story of the dog. Where do you get those stories?” The man standing behind her muttered a name, the author’s name.

He’d bought the book a week earlier.

Question: Did Michael do anything wrong?

David Handley: James Denning said, “No preacher can convince his congregation at the same time that he is clever and Christ is wonderful.”

We all want to be acceptable in the pulpit, and so we grasp for material, not realizing that in the rush of ministry and unexpected interruptions, which we all experience, God is preparing us to unlock the Word of God.

When I tend to grasp for other people’s stuff, it’s an ego problem; I don’t have enough confidence in God, basically, that he will honor his Word and the Holy Spirit will unlock the Word.

God had been preparing Michael at the hospital and the deacons’ retreat. He needed to speak out of those experiences. God had also prepared the people, probably in ways unknown to Michael, for that word.

I personally know these temptations. My own anxiety is significant; as a third born I never feel I’m quite good enough when I get in the pulpit. But I think what Michael did with this sermon is plagiarism pure and simple.

Mark Beeson: It’s interesting that he’s willing to say to his people “This story isn’t mine; I got it from the newspaper.” But he holds back from the full disclosure that the points aren’t his, the general topic of the message isn’t his, and he essentially borrowed it all. This is where he crosses the ethical line.

We all face the great temptation to appear more learned, more profound than we actually are. Our people and the people we’re trying to reach have undoubtedly heard better and wiser insights from sources other than us.

It’s hard for the pastor of a local church to hold to the sufficiency of what God has placed within him. I am tempted to believe that people will not settle for authentic and honest leadership from me—that they want more snap and sizzle and pizzazz than I can provide.

That’s a lie from the pit. We must have confidence that God has equipped us and prepared us to speak for Him.

Erwin Lutzer: I teach homiletics at Trinity Seminary every fall, and when it comes to illustrations I tell students, “Beg, borrow, and steal.” There are all kinds of illustrations for which we have no sources. Just simply say, “I heard a story.” Of course, don’t pretend something happened to you if, in point of fact, it happened to somebody else.

When I was younger, I was more dependent on other people’s sermons; like everyone, I was scrambling for material. But we owe it to our listeners to mention the source. “I want you to know I’ve read this great book, and many of my ideas today come from it because they meant so much to me.” After that, you can preach material from it, and people will accept it, if your heart has been transformed by it.

You’ve covered the base. You’ve not taken credit for something that really didn’t originate with you. And if you quote directly, say so.

Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Recently, my wife, Gail, and I had a chance to visit Yosemite National Park in California. We brought home pictures of us standing at the foot of some of those 3,000-year-old trees that rise a zillion feet into the air.

Think of it: 3,000 years to grow a tree. And think again: given modern machinery, the same tree can be (perish the thought!) cut down in just a few minutes.

Those trees prompted a thought about pastoral leadership and the issue of Trust— the kind of trust pastoral leaders desperately need from their people but sometimes do not possess.

No biblical leader that I can think of struggled with trust issues more than Moses. Leading a generation of people out of 400 years of slavery must have been like herding cats. Every time the man turned around, someone was questioning his judgment, his veracity, his sense of direction. You could argue that they finally broke him with their patterns of suspicion and defiance.

The apostle Paul cashed in on trust when he asked people to give him money to aid in the relief of suffering Christians in Jerusalem. He must have leaned on the trust factor when he convinced Timothy’s family to release him to mentorship.

Trust was in play when Paul gave strict orders to the Corinthians to discipline a known sinner. And—trust again—when he convinced them to take the man, now repentant, back. Trust won the day with Philemon, who was asked to receive a runaway slave back into his home—no longer as a slave but as a brother. No doubt about it: Paul’s word in most places was like gold. Trust backed that currency.

I learned quickly in my youngest pastoral years that people would follow only so far if I traded exclusively on my natural gifts: words that came easily, personal charm, new ideas and dreams. I was tempted to think that just because I had a seminary degree, because I was ordained, and because I was more knowledgeable about biblical ideas, people should have unlimited faith in me.

That stuff works well for a while, but in crunch time deeper questions begin to emerge. Did I have integrity and wisdom, or was it all froth? Was I reliable? Could I take people into unknown territory spiritually? organizationally? Charm and charisma are like a glider; they fly, but not indefinitely. And they don’t do well in turbulent times.

Crunch time might come when a leader asks people to come up with a staggering amount of money for a building, a staff addition, a project of generosity that benefits the poor. Crunch time might come when people are asked to abandon an old program and embrace something entirely new. Or crunch time might happen when a pastor has to confront the congregation with a blind spot or hardened spirit about something that requires repentance and new direction.

A young pastor goes off to an innovative church seminar, comes home with a head of excitement about new ideas, and, overnight, seeks to change just about everything. Soon after that the congregation goes on strike. The pastor learns the hard way that good ideas and promising strategies are not enough. They can’t make it without trust.

When trust really counts

More important—over the long haul—is how trust comes into play in the personal encounters of pastoral life.

Years ago I had the privilege of leading a young man to faith in Jesus. At the time he was living with a girl who was the daughter of one of our church leaders. Her family had despaired that she (or he) would ever walk in biblical light. Then one Sunday (for reasons I have forgotten) the two of them came to worship. At the end of the service, I met this couple, conversed with them, and eventually witnessed this young man’s conversion and change of life.

The young woman, raised in faith but obviously drifting, came back to spiritual life as a result. It wasn’t long before the two of them—recognizing the importance of biblical obedience—asked if I would marry them. I was delighted.

Then they cautioned me. Her father and mother, they said, would likely be hostile to their marriage. On behalf of the couple, I would have to approach the parents and gain their permission. I agreed to do this.

I recall sitting in the living room of this long-time Christian mother and father. The drama of the moment is such that even now, many years later, I can recreate my words to them. Calling them by name, I said, “I’m going to ask you to trust me. It is my judgment that your daughter and her boyfriend should marry. I believe that he is ready to be a loving and responsible husband and that she is prepared to assume the disciplines of marriage. I want you to support their desire to get married.”

There was a short quite pause as the parents took this in. Then the father said these words: “Pastor, we trust you. And if you think they are ready to be married, that this is a good decision, we’ll give them our blessing.” And they did.

This couple has now been married for more than 25 years, and the judgment we all made has been vindicated over and over. It would not have happened, however, if I had not been able to trade on trust.

The great Victorian physician, Sir William Osler once said to medical students:

“The practice of medicine is an art, not a trade; a calling, not a business; a calling in which your heart will be exercised equally with your head. Often the best part of your work will have nothing to do with potions and powders, but with the exercise of an influence of the strong upon the weak, of the righteous upon the wicked, of the wise upon the foolish. To you, as the trusted family counselor, the father will come with his anxieties, the mother with her hidden grief, the daughter with her trials, and the son with his follies. Fully one-third of the work you do will be entered in other books than yours” (italics mine).

With very little change in wording, Osler could have been talking to those in pastoral ministry. Trust makes possible “an exercise of influence.” Oh, by the way, trust makes it possible to fail occasionally. People forgive a failing moment if their overall perspective is of great trust.

The leadership connection

I have been impressed with the new breed of pastors who have a passion to launch great church-based evangelistic endeavors. I admire them, and I value their friendship. They certainly have surpassed anything I (or most pastors in my generation) could have dreamed. And they write well about the skill sets of leadership: things like vision, passion, cultural sensitivity, developing leaders, and lots of other things.

There is one thing, however, I don’t hear enough about, and that may reflect a tendency to think that leadership is mostly about skill and instinct. What don’t I hear about? Trust: that almost indescribable quality of relationship in which a leader builds and then enjoys the confidence of the people.

“We make our money the old fashioned way,” the Smith-Barney company once declared in its commercials. “We earn it!” Similarly, one gains trust the old fashioned way: it is earned. It cannot be demanded or assumed.

One of my theories of ministry has been that a pastor really does not begin to enjoy the leadership “bite” or “traction” that is necessary to get things done until he or she has been leading for about five years. Therefore my logic: the fifth year of a ministry and beyond are years where trust is all important because novelty and newness no longer exist. As my father used to remind me: people will follow you for a while because they picked you. But they’ll follow you over the longer term because they have learned to trust you.

Back to the gigantic trees in California: they’re not hard to cut down in a short period of time. Like them, trust can be forfeited in a short amount of time. I know. I once forfeited the trust of people I cared for very much. I lost some very precious friendships. And I lost my honor. To regain any of what was lost took a long time.

How to build trust

Now here’s the big question. How is trust generated? Here are seven sources I have observed over the years.

Trust builds with consistency. Consistency of message, of vision, of the management of circ*mstances. People are constantly watching. They wish to know: will you be the same person when things are going wrong? Can you hear a thoughtful “no” from the board? Will your personal responses be in alignment with the things you’ve preached from the safety of the pulpit?

Trust builds with dependability. Are you a person of your word? If you make an appointment, are you there on time? If you commit to doing something for someone, does it get done as promised? If you make a promise, make sure it is kept.

Trust builds with openness. Are you truthful about yourself? About what is really happening behind the scenes of the organization? In trustworthy people, there is an absence of slickness, slogans, and strategies that do not offer the full message. People do not feel tricked or duped.

Trust builds with a reputation for hard work. Sermons reveal a craftsmanship of serious study. The pastor gives the congregation just a bit more than what it thought it paid for. Board and committee meetings are marked with thoughtful presentations and explanations. There is a sense that the pastor is on top of the job of congregational leadership.

Trust builds with a belief that the pastor has an impartial pastoral eye for everyone. The rich (major donors), the attractive, the young, or the influential are not uniquely favored. The pastor engages with the children, with the weak and the struggling, with the old, and with the more common person who serves in the congregation in places where recognition is scarce.

Trust builds with longevity. This simply means that the pastor sticks in there for an extended time. Relationships are built; the buildup of ministry episodes (funerals, weddings, baptisms, etc.) occurs; people see the pastor sharing their passages of life. And when that crunch time comes, they are more apt to say, “The pastor was there for me; I’ll be there for what he believes God wants for us now.”

Trust builds with an ever-deepening spirit. Somehow the congregation wants to feel that their pastor fixes his or her eyes on Jesus. They will gather confidence because they sense that the pastor’s life and leadership reflect a person who seeks the heart of the Father and speaks out of a certitude that is humble yet convinced, fully repentant yet graced, self-effacing yet competent through the power of God.

More than once I asked my congregation for second offerings which would be given in-total to people in some part of the world who had sustained a great tragedy. Trust made it possible for people to dig deep. More than once I asked my congregation to step out in faith on a new budget or building program or staff addition. Trust made them willing to do it.

And more than once I asked my congregation to swallow hard and accept something that was new or even against the grain of their instincts. Only trust made it possible.

Trust eludes a complete definition. But, as they say, you know it when you see it. And I think about that when I look skyward at an enormous California sequoia. How long to grow; how quickly destroyed.

Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Six months ago I realized our church had a problem, so I invited the senior staff to join me in a conference room. I closed the door and announced, “We’re not leaving until God gives us an answer.”

Part of a church leader’s job is to identify and define the reality his or her church is facing. As I thought and prayed about our church’s reality, I came to the distressing realization that we didn’t have the financial resources to meet the growing spiritual need around us.

“Here’s the new reality as I see it,” I said, standing in front of a flip chart. I drew a line ascending from left to right. “This line I’ll call spiritual opportunity. Never in the history of Willow Creek have we known an era of greater spiritual opportunity.

More people are willing to talk about the gospel or let you pray for them—even come to church—than ever before. Not long ago, if we asked our seatmates on an airplane if they ever thought about the spiritual life, they’d roll their eyes as if to say, Two hundred people on the plane and I get seated next to a spiritual wing nut! Today, if you ask that same question, eight out of ten people will say, “Yeah, I’m thinking about the spiritual side of life more than I ever have before.”

Then I drew another line from the same starting point, but level from left to right. “This, however, is our resource line. It’s flatter than it’s been in a decade.” Then I reminded the staff of our recent capital campaign that had stretched our people financially to their eyeballs, even before the stock market crash and 9/11.

“Resources have never been this tight,” I admitted. “But, here’s the deal. I believe that despite the new reality, despite the growing disparity between our opportunities and our resources, God wants Willow Creek Community Church to continue to prevail. I think our best days are ahead of us. This is not the time to circle the wagons and whimper and cry. We have to figure out how to minister in a way that brings God glory even in this new reality.

“Now, does anybody have an idea?”

The men and women in that room were bright, godly people. I love to gather people like that around the table and then watch God work through them to solve problems. But I had no idea how God was going to solve this problem.

2 times Y

One of my colleagues walked to the flip chart, took the pen and wrote X+Y=Z. We all groaned. “We’ve got enough problems,” I said. “Don’t confuse us with algebra.”

“No, listen,” he said. “We still want to give God glory, right? Well, John 15:8 tells us that the way to bring God glory is to bear much fruit. So let’s consider ‘much fruit’ as the end result of the equation, the Z. We have only two variables with which to bear much fruit. Let’s think of the X as paid staff and of the Y as volunteers. Those are the two variables we have to work with. We are going to generate ministry fruit primarily through the efforts of paid staff and volunteers. Are you with me?” The rest of us nodded in agreement.

“Alright,” he continued, “if the new reality is that the resource line is flat, then that dictates no increase in paid staff.” Then he said these prophetic words as he pointed to the Y. “If increasing paid staff is not an option, then the ball game will be won or lost right there.” That was our introduction to “The Y Factor.”

Ephesians 4:11-12 says, “It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, some to be pastors and teachers,” in order to “prepare God’s people for works of service.”

From the earliest days of the church, the Holy Spirit called and gifted certain people to equip and inspire others to do the practical works of service necessary for the fulfillment of the redemptive plan.

In most situations a few “equippers” are called to be paid staff, while everyone else is called to offer their acts of service as volunteers. In the dynamic synergy between paid staff and volunteers, massive amounts of fruit can be born, and therefore, much glory given to the Father.

In the Ephesians 4:11-12 equation, everybody wins. The equippers, the paid staff, have the thrill of seeing volunteers that they recruited, loved, trained, and equipped being greatly used by God. What fires up a pastor or a staff member more than that?

As the volunteers become instruments in the hand of God, they experience a level of fulfillment they hope will never end, so they win, too. And the surrounding community wins as it is served by a unified, multi-gifted force for good.

Most importantly, of course, God wins. He is honored as the architect of the plan and the octane behind the whole enterprise.

In the six months since that meeting, our leadership team has been trying to figure out how to live out the challenge of Ephesians 4:11-12 in our current reality, by doubling our volunteer team.

Two times Y. What would it take? How could we reach this goal?

2 much Y?

In the mid-nineties, when our resource line rose at a 45-degree angle to the right, we were having a ball. We learned that you can generate a lot of ministry when you’re free to hire a lot of staff.

At one point, I was invited to address a group of recently hired staff. Most of them I hadn’t yet met, so rather than presenting a prepared talk, I went from person to person and listened to their stories, then fielded questions.

All was going well until a guy in the back row asked, “Bill, do you ever feel guilty when you challenge volunteers? Do you ever feel guilty about laying heavy ministry burdens on already-busy people?” My first thought was, Who hired him? His question proved to me that he and I were on opposite ends of the ministry philosophy spectrum. My second thought was, Bill, don’t sin. Don’t let the intensity of your feelings on this subject lead you to say something you’ll regret later.

Then I said, “My young friend, you’re obviously new here at Willow. So let me describe the people you’re going to meet at our church in the coming month.” I almost added, if you last that long, but I knew that would be sin.

“You’re going to meet some wonderful people who stand at drill presses every day, ten hours a day, five or six days a week. When they go home at night, they are not feeling wildly fulfilled from all the joy and meaning they experienced standing at their drill press. For them, the drill press doesn’t deliver a lot of purpose to their lives.

“And you’re going to meet some people in real estate who show 30 homes a week. Often, not a single one of those potential buyers makes an offer, and I don’t think those real estate agents sit at home on Sunday evenings with a deep sense of satisfaction flowing from their inner being.

“You’re going to meet insurance agents who have been selling policies for 20 years, and for most of them there’s little thrill left in the daily routine. You’re going to meet car dealers and stockbrokers and bankers and bricklayers and police officers and plumbers who work hard day in and day out, and while some of them still get a kick out of what they do, many of them are just trying to put food on the table.

“The best of them are probably doing all they can to give God glory in their workplace, and the most fortunate among them may be blessed to have a significant impact on their coworkers. But few of them derive ultimate satisfaction from their jobs.”

Then I said, “We have been given the unspeakable privilege of inviting people like I just described into what might be the only involvement in their lives that makes them feel like an instrument in the hands of the Almighty, that gives them the thrill of knowing that the Creator God has used them to touch a human life.”

I looked at the guy who had prompted my diatribe. “So in answer to your question, no, I never feel guilty inviting people to become volunteers in our church. Never. In fact, I get letters on a regular basis from veteran volunteers thanking me for inviting them to serve, some of them decades ago. If ever I am tempted to feel guilty, letters like that remind me how desperately people long to play a role in the redemptive work of God.”

But can we double Y?

At Willow, we presently have about 7,000 regularly serving volunteers. How in the world are we going to increase that number to 14,000?

In our initial strategy session for this initiative, I noticed that all eyes were focused on my end of the table. Finally someone said, “Bill, in order to double our Y factor, there is a role that only you can play. As our senior pastor, you’re going to have to cast the vision for volunteers until it’s a white-hot value for everybody.

“Beyond that, you’re going to have to teach message series on subjects like, ‘Every Member Can Be a Minister,’ or ‘What God Can Do Through You.’ And those series are going to have to be good!” (differentiating them from the quality of my normal series, apparently).

I knew that staff member was right. As point leader of our church, I am the one who needs to lead a churchwide initiative of this magnitude. I need to get personally involved. I need to take God’s Word and blowtorch the volunteer value until everyone understands that it’s a really important, biblical, Kingdom value. I need to stay focused on that initiative until we see progress. I need to cheerlead it tirelessly. I need to stay on it for as long as it takes to achieve the goal. And after that, I need to throw a party and thank everybody who helped make it happen.

I’ve led similar charges scores of time throughout the 27 years I’ve been a senior pastor. The gift of leadership was given to me by God so I could help Willow move ever closer toward the goal of becoming the church God wants it to be. Like other major initiatives through the years, upping the Y factor requires heavy lifting from the senior pastor. It isn’t something I can assign to the executive pastor. It isn’t something I can give to a well-meaning layperson and say, “Give it your best shot.” The heavy lifting for many, many months will be lifting that I need to do.

But I know that when significant numbers of volunteers find their place in the kingdom vineyard and when I see all the fruit borne from their efforts, then I’ll know the inner sense of leadership satisfaction that only leaders discover. And that satisfaction is sweet.

Know your Y

As we continued to brainstorm about the Y factor, I asked a couple staff members what they would do to double the Y factor in their particular sub-ministries. Their response? Silence. As the silence became increasingly uncomfortable, I began to realize that we had been in “volunteer retention mode” for so long that we had become very good at it, but when it came to volunteer acquisition, we had become more than a little rusty.

“Umbrella of mercy over the whole room,” I said. “No idea is a bad idea.” Then I pointed to a staff member, “You, what comes to your mind? Where would you start if you wanted to add ten volunteers to your ministry?”

That person responded, “Well, uh, I’d probably wander around our lobby and talk to someone I didn’t know.”

I said, “Yeah, okay we could do that. But let’s keep going. Anybody else got an idea?”

Silence.

“Come on. Somebody.”

Silence.

Finally someone asked, “What would you do, Bill?”

So I made a comparison. “In evangelism, why don’t we just wander around the community and ask people to follow Christ?”

“Because we have more credibility if we have already established a relationship with a person,” someone responded.

“It’s the same thing with volunteer acquisition,” I said. “You have a much higher likelihood of moving someone into service if they know you and trust you.

“I think every one of us knows at least five people who love God and the church but for some reason don’t serve. We ought to develop candidate pools from people we know who fit that description.” People nodded their heads in agreement.

“Then what would you do?” I asked.

One person said, “I’d call them and try to draft them.”

I said, “Wow. Would you really? You’d make a cold call and just say, ‘Hey, I’d like to recruit you. Will you sign up?'”

“Well, Bill, what would you do?”

Casting the Y vision

“I’d invite that person out for a cup of coffee,” I said, “and get reacquainted a bit. Then I’d say, ‘Hey, Fred, you know I work in the Promiseland ministry. The 90 minutes I spend with kids in Promiseland each weekend are the best 90 minutes of my week. When I teach a kid from an unchurched family how to pray, when I tell a kid from a broken home that God loves them, when I take some kid who’s scared and tell him that he doesn’t need to be afraid because God is his friend … well, nothing beats that. I mean it when I say that the best 90 minutes of my week happen Sunday morning at nine o’clock in my Promiseland classroom.’

“Then I’d have every word of the next part carefully planned: ‘Fred, we need some extra helpers in Promiseland. I don’t know if this is something you’d be interested in. But would you be willing to come with me one time to see what God is doing in Promiseland?'”

Telling Fred about the weekly experience in Promiseland casts a positive vision of children’s ministry.

Asking Fred for a one-time visit lowers the fear that he might get permanently roped into something before he even understands what he’s doing. Asking him to come with me assures him that he won’t be left alone in a roomful of pant-leg-clingers.

When our junior high director tries to recruit people for junior high ministry, he doesn’t approach them and say, “I know all junior high kids have a frozen brain for three years. I know they all act weird. But would you sign up to spend every Saturday morning for the rest of your life in a big room with about 1,000 of them?”

Instead, he says something like this: “I want you to know what I’ve committed my life to. I’ve committed my life to serving a group of kids who are caught in an era of confusion and uncertainty, and who are trying to make decisions that will impact the course of their entire lives. I spend every Saturday morning on the front lines of a battle for the hearts and minds of these kids who matter to God. It’s hard work; I won’t pretend otherwise. But I can’t imagine anything that would give me a greater feeling of fulfillment. I’d like to invite you to come to Sonlight Express next Saturday morning and take a look at what God is doing in the lives of our kids.”

No arm-twisting. Just a powerful vision and an open invitation.

Connect the Y’s

Let’s say Fred comes to Promise-land, and afterward he says, “This was the greatest experience of my life. I loved it. I’d like to come back next week.” Well, that was easy, right?

But here’s a more likely scenario: Fred says, “Well, it did feel good to be involved, but the truth is I’m just not that comfortable with kids. I can’t see myself signing up to serve six-year-olds for the rest of my life.”

So Fred would like to be involved, but Promiseland isn’t a bulls-eye fit. So what’s the next step?

To debrief. To ask questions and offer assistance.

“I can understand that, Fred,” you say. “Can I help connect you to a ministry that would fit you better?”

Often the first place I invite people to serve is not the option that best fits their gifts and passions. It’s likely, in fact, that they don’t even know their gifts and passions. So I try to help them discover how and where God has wired them up to serve. Sometimes this process takes a year or more.

It also requires constant debriefing. Does this seem like a better fit? Do you feel more useful or effective here? Are you feeling an increasing sense of God’s pleasure? Are you getting closer to being able to say, “This is what I was born for”?

Recently I was talking to a volunteer who I helped through this process some years ago. He said, “I feel sorry for any volunteer who isn’t me.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Because what I’m doing now is why God put me on planet Earth. It’s a perfect fit with my gifts, my interests, my experience, and my passion. I want to do this wherever God calls me, in whatever church, for the rest of my life.”

That is the experience that every child of God longs to have. Our role, as pastors, is to create a culture in which the value of volunteerism is upheld and where staff members and lay leaders are taught how to move church members into the best possible volunteer niches. At Willow we have a long way to go before we reach our Two Times Y goal. But each volunteer we add means that one more Christ-follower is discovering the thrill of serving, and one more spiritual need is being met.

Bill Hybels is pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois.

Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Last spring Edward Mullins, rector of Christ Church Cranbrook, served a 90-day suspension issued by the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan. He was being investigated for an increasingly common but confusing charge—plagiarism. Mullins’s messages were found conspicuously similar to the words of Jim Cymbala, Texas pastor Phil Ware, and sources from the Online Pulpit.

Mullins’s story has served as a catalyst for the debate about preaching and plagiarism. Some have declared Mullins’s actions unethical and Mullins himself unfit for pastoral ministry. Indeed, just a few months prior to Mullins’s suspension, the pastor of Central Presbyterian Church in Clayton, Missouri, resigned after admitting to homiletic plagiarism.

Others have rushed to Mullins’s defense, such as a church member quoted in The New York Times: “People come to church for his sermons, whether they’re his, they’re incorporated, or however he does it. He puts the message forth that needs to be put forth.”

Others have claimed that what he did was perfectly legal—after all, he paid for the online sermon material. In fact, the Internet has made “borrowing” sermon material from others far easier. And, perhaps, more common.

Richard Stern, a Lutheran minister and professor of homiletics at St. Meinrad School of Theology told Louisville’s Courier-Journal, “People tend to drift into it. They get pressured (telling themselves), ‘I’ve had three funerals and two weddings; I don’t have a sermon ready, so I’ll just look in this book or go on the Web.'”

But the question isn’t simply whether it’s easy or common or understandable, but is it right? How can preachers effectively and ethically incorporate into their sermons the great insights from others?

Does anyone not borrow?

As the newspapers reported on Mullins’s suspension, they found several people who defended his practice of preaching others’ material. The New York Times reported fellow Episcopal rector, Harry Cook, suggested that every pastor borrows at least some preaching material: “If plagiarism of the sort that Ed Mullins is accused of is punishable, there would be no one preaching on Sunday.”

Reba Cobb, an executive with the Atlanta-based Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, discovered painfully just how pervasive plagiarism has become. After delivering a message at a national gathering of Baptist Women in Ministry in Fort Worth, Texas, Cobb was accused of preaching someone else’s sermon.

Cobb, in turn, confronted the research assistant she hired to help write the sermon. She discovered the researcher had plagiarized the entire message. When Cobb went to the researcher’s source for the sermon, she discovered that he, too, admitted to lifting the sermon from yet another. Cobb finally tracked her twice-plagiarized sermon back to a 1979 message delivered by a Methodist pastor from Indianapolis.

To be sure, the problem is not a new one. Back in 1735, the Rev. Samuel Hemphill was critiqued by one of his parishioners, Benjamin Franklin, who remarked, “I rather approved his giving us good sermons composed by others than bad ones of his own manufacture.”

And while Franklin sarcastically criticizes Hemphill for copying others’ work, he brings up an important point: many of our sermons would be much improved if we included the insights and thoughts of others more eloquent and wise than ourselves.

Borrowing others’ ideas does help to communicate the gospel, and the availability of great messages on the Internet is a good thing. As one pastor put it: “Who owns wisdom? As I see it, all truth is God’s truth. Books are published to pass along ideas. By passing along those ideas, I’m fulfilling the intent of the author. You don’t publish ideas hoping no one will use them. Truth isn’t to be hidden under a bushel.”

Not everyone who uses others’ material plagiarizes, and there’s a better way to utilize the collective wisdom of great preachers than to preach it as your own.

What is fair attribution?

The ministry of citation

In the debate over whether to give credit and how to cite references, we often lose sight of the pastor who simply wants his congregation to value his preaching.

We preachers sometimes hesitate to divulge our sources because we’re reluctant to admit we are not self-sufficient, spiritual superheroes. We want our hearers to see us as founts of overflowing wisdom, rather than cracked, clay vessels.

Unfortunately, our desire to hide behind the façade of “the preacher who went to the mountain and returned with a word from God for the people,” as I heard one TV producer remark recently, actually undermines our congregation’s spiritual growth. By failing to acknowledge the people who have influenced our thinking and the limitations of our own wisdom, we miss the opportunity to teach through authenticity. By our unwillingness to publicly recognize others’ influence in our lives, we unwittingly short circuit their impact on the lives of those within our ministry.

Earl Palmer of University Presbyterian Church in Seattle freely recognizes those who have influenced him. Everyone who knows Earl knows how he has been influenced by C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, and Karl Barth. People don’t think less of Earl because he reads and liberally quotes these three. Instead, countless people have been inspired to read and study his trio of thought-shapers because of Earl’s attribution, and they’ve been changed because of it.

Revealing your sources

One Sunday, Bill approached the pulpit and told his people he was going to be preaching on Nehemiah. He’d heard a tape series by a popular radio preacher, and it had both inspired and challenged him.

“I want to tell you how I’ve personalized the truths of that series,” he said. “I’m not going to try and quote the pastor on the tapes, but I undoubtedly will, because this series has had a big impact on me.”

At the door after the service, one older man remarked, “Pastor, I’ve heard that series of tapes—and it is good. But what I heard today was even better, because it became flesh in a man I know and respect.”

Bill told us he learned a valuable lesson about borrowing that day: keep your motives pure, and communicate truth by making your sources clear.

Another preacher, Mike, said he discovered the same lesson when he shared the sources for his sermons through the bulletin, handouts, and citations on the printed versions of his messages. He found that people were eager to dig into the sources.

“People started e-mailing me with their favorite quotes and illustrations on the subject, or asking for additional explanation,” he said. “It was like opening up an extended conversation.”

Examining our motives for how we do (or don’t) credit our sources forces questions like “Am I attempting to deceive anyone in this message?” and “Am I portraying myself in any way that is not truly me?” Being open about our sources also may cause us to ask, “Have I been relying too much on the works of Wesley, Calvin, Swindoll, Lucado, Graham, or anyone else lately?”

Anyone who stands in the pulpit regularly will wrestle with this issue—especially on Saturday night, after a week full of surprise meetings, drop-in visitors, and emergencies.

Few preachers set out to plagiarize, but the urgency of the moment can often cloud the clarity of the choice. Choosing, before we get to that moment, to always share our sources and influences freely will ensure our motives stay on track.

Where credit is due

David Seamands, who for years was the campus pastor for Asbury College and Asbury Seminary, once jokingly remarked, “I have to get my sources right, because these sermons will be preached again in student pastorates all around.”

Yet discussions on the “do’s and don’ts” of citation when using sermon aids and outlines, Internet illustrations, and other forms of “help” can quickly turn into the kind of “jot and tittle” discussion for which the religious people of Jesus’ day were infamous.

Preoccupation with following every Turabian standard for citation can drain the lifeblood from even well researched, original sermons.

Whatever rules we suggest for referencing others’ work, they must be understood as guides, not masters. What is presented on Sunday is not an academic paper or research for a juried journal. It is an attempt to be a voice of hope, encouragement, reproof, admonishment, grace, and truth. Just as failure to cite correctly can undermine the integrity of a message, preoccupation with citations, proper sources, and footnotes can cause our listeners to miss the point.

Sometimes brief recognition—such as Bill gave on his Nehemiah sermon—or a casual citation, such as “I appreciate what Jim Collins wrote in Good to Great … ” suffices. If further citation seems necessary, you can include full citation in the bulletin or sermon notes. This gets all the information into the congregation’s hands—and lets people know you’re not pretending to be something you’re not—without cluttering the sermon with footnotes.

After David Seamands joked about getting his sources right, he quickly added, “But more importantly, I have to fan the fire of the Spirit at work in these young pastors and future Christian leaders—for I know if the Spirit was at work, truth will work its way out!”

When it’s your stuff taken

Of course, it is possible that you may one day turn up on the other side—and someone is “borrowing” from you.

We both have had experiences where we have heard or read things by others that originated with us. At first, there is a feeling of being miffed: “Why didn’t they recognize me?” Then comes humility, the realization that someone was really paying attention to what we said. Imagine that!

David Owen, the Methodist pastor from Indianapolis whose sermon was plagiarized several times over 22 years, seemed unfazed by it. When the Courier-Journal asked if he had any negative feelings about the incident, Owen said, “No. One would prefer attribution, but generally whatever I print or write or say is for the whole church.”

While it is right and good to both cite correctly and be cited correctly, we must finally agree with Paul, who challenges our desire to possess and control when he says, “whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in that I rejoice.”

Anyone remember where he said that?

Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Sam is the only kid he knows of who goes to church, who is made to go to church two or three times a month. He rarely wants to.

This is not exactly true. The truth is he never wants to go. What 7-year-old would rather be in church than hanging out with a friend? It does not help him to be reminded that once he’s there he enjoys himself, that he gets to spend the time drawing in the little room outside the sanctuary, that he only actually has to sit still and listen during the short children’s sermon.

It does not help that I always pack some snacks, some Legos, his art supplies, and any friend of his whom we can lure into our churchy web. It does not help that he genuinely cares for the people there. All that matters to him is that he alone of all of his colleagues is forced to spend Sunday morning in church.

You would think, noting the bitterness, the resignation, that he was being made to sit through a six-hour Latin mass. You might wonder why I make this strapping, exuberant boy come with me most weeks, and if you were to ask, this is what I would say.

I make him because I can. I outweigh him by nearly l00 pounds.

But that is only part of it. The main reason is that most of the people I know who are doing well psychologically, who seem conscious, who do not drive me crazy with their endlessly unhappy dramas, the only people I know who feel safe, who have what I want—connection, gratitude, joy—are people in community. And this funky little church. It is where I was taken in when I had nothing to give, and it has become in the truest, deepest sense, my home. My home-base.

My relatives all live in the Bay Area and I adore them, but they are all as mentally ill and as skittishly self-obsessed as I am. Which I certainly mean in the nicest possible way. But I do not leave family gatherings with the feeling that I have just received some kind of spiritual chemotherapy. I do when I leave church, though, it’s like something horrible inside of me is healing.

Believe me, church was the last place I would have ever imagined wanting to be; and so I understand why now it is the last place Sam wants to be. I think he would almost rather spend Sunday mornings getting his teeth cleaned.

“Let’s go, baby,” I say cheerfully when it is time for us to leave for church, and he looks up at me like a puppy eyeing the vet who is standing there holding the needle.

The church in the wild hood

I did not mean to be a Christian. I have been very clear about that. My first words upon encountering the presence of Jesus for the first time 12 years ago, were, I swear to God, “I would rather die.” I really would have rather died at that point than to have my wonderful brilliant left-wing non-believer friends know that I had begun to love Jesus. I think they would have been less appalled if I had developed a close personal friendship with Strom Thurmond. At least there is some reason to believe that Strom Thurmond is a real person. You know, more or less.

But I never felt like I had much choice with Jesus; he was relentless. I didn’t experience him so much as the hound of heaven, as the old description has it, as the alley cat of heaven, who seemed to believe that if it just keeps showing up, mewling outside your door, you’d eventually open up and give him a bowl of milk. Of course, as soon as you do, the next thing you know, he’s sleeping on your bed every night, and stepping on your chest at dawn to play a little push-push.

I resisted as long as I could, like Sam-I-Am in Green Eggs and Hams—I would not, could not in a boat! I could not would not with a goat! I do not want to follow Jesus, I just want expensive cheeses. Or something. Anyway, he wore me out. He won.

I was tired and vulnerable and he won. I let him in. This is what I said at the moment of my conversion: I said, “Okay! Come in. I quit.” He started sleeping on my bed that night. It was not so bad. It was even pretty nice. He loved me, he didn’t shed or need to have his claws trimmed, and he never needed a flea dip. I mean, what a savior, right?

Then, when I was dozing, tiny kitten that I was, he picked me up like a mother cat, by the scruff of my neck, and deposited me in a little church across from the flea market in Marin’s black ghetto. That’s where I was when I came to. And then I came to believe.

Champion dwarf tossers

Enter Sam: I got sober, I got pregnant, don’t ask me how that works, it is just the way it was. And as some of you may know, there were these tiny little problems. For instance, the father was—comment se dit—not that enthusiastic about my having a baby, and I had no money. But I’d been going to this little church for a while by then, and when I announced during worship that I was pregnant, people cheered. All these old people, raised in fundamentalist houses in the Deep South, cheered.

It was so amazing.

They almost immediately saw me as the incubator who was going to bring them a new baby, to have and to hold. So they set about providing for us. They brought clothes, they brought furniture, they brought me soul-food casseroles to keep in the freezer, they brought me assurance that he was going to be a part of this family. And they began slipping me money.

Now, a number of the older black women live pretty close to the bone financially, on small Social Security checks. But routinely they sidled up to me and slipped bills in my pocket: 10’s and 20’s. It was always done so stealthily, so surreptitiously, that you might have thought that they were slipping me bundles of cocaine, or blueprints for the submarine. One of the most consistent donors was a very old woman named Mary Williams, who is in her mid-80s now, so beautiful in her crushed hats and hallelujahs, who always slipped me plastic baggies full of dimes, noosed with little wire twists.

I was usually filled with a sense of something like shame, or dereliction. But then I’d remember that wonderful line of Blake’s, that we are here to learn to endure the beams of love, and I learned to take a long deep breath, and force these words out of my strangulated throat: “Thank you.”

Eventually Sam was born. I brought him to church when he was five days old, and they all passed him around, from one set of arms to the next—I’ve said somewhere else that it was a little like watching a team of champion dwarf-tossers in action. They very politely pretended to care how I was doing but were mostly killing time until it was their turn to hold Sam again. They called him “our baby” or sometimes “my baby.” “Bring me my baby!” they’d insist. “Bring me my baby now!”

I believe that they came to see me as Sam’s driver, or roadie, or sherpa, the person who brought him and his gear back to them every Sunday.

Mary Williams always sat (and still sits) in the very back by the door, and during the service she praises God in a non-stop burble, a glistening dark brook. She says, “Oh, yes.” “Uh-huh.” “My sweet Lord.”

Sam loves her, and she loves him, and she still brings us baggies full of dimes. Every Sunday I nudge Sam in her direction and he walks to where she is sitting and hugs her. She smells him behind his ears, where he most smells like sweet unwashed new potatoes. This is in fact what I think God may smell like, unwashed new potatoes, a young child’s slightly dirty neck. Then Sam leaves the sanctuary and returns to his drawings, his monsters, dinosaurs, birds.

I watch Mary Williams pray sometimes. She clutches her hands together tightly and closes her eyes only most of the way, so that she looks blind; and she is so unself-conscious that you get to see someone in a deeply interior pose. You get to see all that private intimate resting. She looks as if she’s holding the whole earth together, or making the biggest wish in the world. Oh yes, Lord. Uh-huh.

The dime drop

Last Saturday I was driving Sam and his great friend Josh over to Josh’s house, where the boys were going to spend the night. And for whatever reason, Josh changed his mind about wanting Sam to stay over. It was a terrible, wrenching experience for me: My boy has so little armor. He started crying and I tried to self-will and manipulate Josh into changing his mind, but he wouldn’t, and Sam wouldn’t stop wanting to spend the night. Sam wept. He said he wished we’d all get hit by a car. Josh stared out the window nonchalantly. I honest-to-God thought he might be about to start humming. It was one of those times when you wish you were armed so you could stab the kid who has hurt your child’s feelings.

“Sam?” I asked, “Can I help in any way?”

“No,” he said. “I just wish I’d never been born.”

I cannot for the life of me figure out where he gets this s***.

“Shall we pray?” I asked finally, “as a family?” You know, when all else fails, follow instructions, right?

And he said yes. I was totally surprised.

I said, “Out loud?” He said yes.

So I prayed that God help us find a solution, and help us remember in the meantime how much we all cared for each other. We drove along in silence for a while, and I waited quietly for the plates of the earth to shift; waited for any small free-floating brown-bag miracle that was looking for a place to roost. After a while Sam said, “I guess Josh wishes I had never been born.” Josh stared out the window: dum de dum.

To make a long story short, Sam did end up spending the night. Josh’s mother insisted that the invitation be honored, and they had a wonderful, somewhat quiet evening together. I did not know this until later that night, after they had gone to bed. What I did know, though, was that the next morning, we would all go to church together, me, Sam and Josh. I would bring them drinks and snacks, felt pens, papers, Legos.

What I did know was that Mary Williams would be sitting in the back near the door, in a crumpled hat. I knew that Sam would hug her, that she would close her eyes and smell the soft skin of his neck, just below his ears, like it was something holy, which of course it is. And also that we were due for another baggie of dimes. It had been a little while since her last dime-drop, and just when I think we’ve all grown out of the ritual, she brings us another stash.

She doesn’t know that I am semi-famous now, even semi-affluent, and no longer really need people to slip me money.

But what’s so dazzling to me, what’s so painful and poignant, is that she doesn’t bother with what I think she knows or doesn’t know about my financial life. She just knows we need another bag of dimes.

And that is why I make Sam go to church.

Anne Lamott is a best-selling author and commentator for National Public Radio. According to Christianity Today, she is “funny, nutty, fast-talking, born again,” and to the people in her liberal circles, “Jesusy.”

Copyright © 1997 by Anne Lamott, reprinted with the permission of The Wylie Agency.

Lamott will be a featured speaker at the National Pastors Convention, co-sponsored by Leadership, in San Diego, February 26-March 1, 2003. For more information, visit the website: www.NationalPastorsConvention.com

Ken Ulmer’s rousing sermon stirred the hearts of attenders at the National Pastors Convention last year. He again will be a featured speaker at NPC, February 26-March 1, 2003, in San Diego. Bishop Ulmer leads Faithful Central Bible Church, which recently purchased for a worship center the Great Western Forum, former home of the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers. This message was featured on Preaching Today audio, our monthly selection of the best in contemporary preaching, and was published online at PreachingToday.com.

Jeremiah 1:4: “Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying: ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.'” Then he says in verse 9: “Behold, I have put My words in your mouth. See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms” (NKJV). God says: I formed you, I sanctified you, I ordained you, and I set you over the nations. But before all of that, I knew you.

And then God says the words that will change your life: I put my words in your mouth.

You are where you are on purpose. God does not move by accidents. He moves by providence. And he has providentially ordained and assigned you where you are today. You are not there by accident. You are not there because some committee voted on you. You are not there because denominational strings were pulled. You are there because God has set you in place, and he set you there that he might be glorified in and through you. And one of the ways he does that is to place his words in your mouth.

God says he has placed his word in your mouth. He says to Jeremiah:

I touched your mouth, and I put my words in your mouth.

His word entrustedThis suggests, first of all, that God entrusts his word to my mouth.

Jeremiah realized being one who speaks the word of God is an awesome task, so Jeremiah, as many of us do, resisted and began to wrestle with God. He talked about how unqualified he was. Moses did the same thing. Moses was used mightily by God and only had two things—a stutter and a stick. But that which he spoke from his mouth were the very words of God.

God says to you, pastor, that he has placed his words in your mouth. Not his voice, but his words in your mouth through your voice. So when you stand to speak the word of God, you speak not your words but his word. When you stand to speak his words with your mouth in that house at that time, God sounds like you.

He does not say he puts his thoughts in your mouth. He’s already settled that. He says: “My thoughts are not your thoughts. I’m not asking you to handle my thoughts. Your motherboard does not have enough memory space to hold all that I would speak to you. You’d blow a fuse, and your mind would automatically delete some stuff. So I’m not trying to help you to think my thoughts. Just speak my words. I speak my words through you, because I entrust my words into your mouth.”

Have you realized how much God must love you that he would use you as a vessel and a vehicle for his word? Do we ever stop as pastors to consider the awesome task we have? God does not call you to stand on Sunday morning and shoot from the hip. He does not ask you to spend all week thinking of stuff to say. He says: I’ll place my words in your mouth; you just speak it.

His word endangered

Not only does he entrust his word to my mouth; he endangers his word to my mouth. God takes a risk when he puts his word in my mouth.

God risks that I will taint his word with my weakness. He takes the risk that his word will be tainted when it comes through my life. He takes the risk that it will be tainted by my weaknesses, by the residue of sin in my life. He risks that his word would be tempered by my weaknesses, that I would not speak words of compassion through the bitterness of my experience.

He risks that his word might not come through because of my fear. When I become obsessed and concerned and consumed by how the sheep will receive the word, I might back off and back up and not declare totally what God has given me. He takes a risk that I might see their faces and back up with fear.

He takes a risk that I will compromise his word. He takes a risk that I will be intimidated by those who would hear his word.

And yet, he says: I put my word in your mouth.

God risks that I will claim his words are my words. He takes a risk that once he puts his word in my mouth, the arrogance of my humanity would claim that his words are my words. That I would become the focal point. That I would imply that I’m the source. And yet he says it’s his word in my mouth.

God risks that I will claim my words are his words. Flip side. He takes a risk that I will make my word his word.

His word never returns void but will always accomplish that for which it has been sent forth. His word never fails. The heavens may pass away and the mountains crumble, but his word will never pass away. His word is never wrong. So when I stand with his words in my mouth, when I speak his words through my mouth with my voice, then that which his word declares must be true. If I speak his word and declare that you are healed, if it’s his word, you’d better be healed. When we imply our words are God’s words and they do not come true, we leave behind a battlefield of broken and scarred people.

My son’s godmother, Jean, several years ago had cancer. She had been in and out of the hospital, and after being very sick, she came to church one Sunday morning. And when Jean came to the service, the Spirit of the Lord was there. The anointing of the Lord was there. People were celebrating. They were rejoicing. Everyone was so glad to see Jean back.

And I stood in the midst of that celebration and that high, heavy anointing of the presence of God and I said, “Oh, praise the Lord that Jean is back today.” Everybody celebrated. And I said, “Jean, thus saith the Lord: God would have you know that your sickness is not unto death.”

All the saints celebrated. They rejoiced—Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!—because the word of the Lord had come forth.

Three weeks later Jean died. My daughter came to me with tears in her eyes and said, “Daddy, what happened? You said that God told the church Auntie Jean wouldn’t die. Daddy, what happened?” With tears in my eyes, I held my daughter and said, “Baby, Daddy was wrong.”

When God puts his word in my mouth, he takes a risk that I will say my words and declare they are his words. How many times have we as pastors spoken out of the sincere desire to encourage, and yet we’ve made our words appear to be God’s word? The body of Christ is in danger today, because words God has never spoken are being declared. And men’s and women’s lives are being broken and crushed and disillusioned, because we’re speaking our words and claiming them as his words.

His word empowered

God entrusts his word to your mouth, pastor. God sovereignly chose you as his holy mouthpiece. For reasons known only unto him, he chose you. And you stand before the people of God with his word in your mouth.

You must never back off of it. You must never twist it and turn it. You must never compromise it.

You declare it, and you declare it with boldness, because when God puts his word in your mouth, he not only entrusts his word to you, he not only endangers his word, but he empowers his word. It’s not you. It’s the power of his word. He is looking for a mouthpiece, one who will submit to him and allow the power of his words to come forth. He is looking for someone who will speak the anointed word of God.

It is a high and holy trust. It is sometimes a frightful trust. But it is a demonstration of the very power of God, because when he speaks, things happen. When he speaks, sick folk get well, depressed folk get encouraged. When he speaks, salvation goes forth. There is power in his word.

God promises to bless his word.

He never promised to bless my word about his word. For the degree to which I stand with his word in my mouth, I stand with the very creative and delivering and salvific power of God. You don’t have to spend all week thinking of stuff to say; if you stay in the word of God, you won’t have enough time to say it all. His word is what changes lives. His word is what brings forth deliverance. His word is what lifts up bowed down heads. His word is what dries tear-stained eyes. His word is what saves families. His word is what brings back wayward children. His word is what encourages us as we walk along the way.

It is the power of his word.

My life in his hand

For God’s word to be in your mouth, your life must be in his hand.

So watch what God says: I place my word in your mouth. If you place your life in my hand, we can do something. By my sovereign will I have placed you. I may have set you before thirty. I may have set you before thousands. I may have set you before a Sunday school class. I may have set you in one-on-one discipleship. But I have set you there because I put my words in your mouth. I have put my words in your mouth to touch and change lives. And you cannot change lives until you’ve been changed yourself by the power of the living God.

So, pastors, go forth realizing that you have his word in your mouth, and his word in your mouth can touch and change lives if your life is in his hand.

His word, my mouth; my life, his hand.

It’s his word in my mouth, and my life in his hand. That’s what makes the difference. The difference in your life and my life depends on whose hand it’s in. The difference in your ministry and the ministry that is ineffective is whose hand it’s in. It’s not about the numbers; it’s about the anointing. It’s not about the size; it’s about the sovereign power of God. Because the thing that makes the difference is that you will speak his word in your mouth, and you will live your life in his hand, because it all depends on whose hand it’s in.

A violin in my hand will get you some squeaky noise; but a violin in Itzhak Perlman’s hand will get you the music of the masters.

Marble in my hand is just a piece of ugly, dirt-covered stone; but marble in Michelangelo’s hand will get you a magnificent David.

A peanut in my hand is just a small snack; but a peanut in George Washington Carver’s hand is peanut butter and shoe polish.

A basketball in my hand is worth about $29.95; but a basketball in Shaquille O’Neal’s hand and in Kobe’s hand and in Michael’s hand with hang time is worth about $30 million.

A tennis racquet in my hand is a dangerous weapon; but a tennis racquet in the Williams sisters’ hands is a tennis champion.

A golf club in my hand means “look out, there’s trouble coming”; but a golf club in Tiger Woods’s hand wins the Masters. It all depends on whose hand it’s in.

A rod in my hand may beat off the dogs; but a rod in Moses’ hand will part the Red Sea. The jawbone of an ass in my hand is the remains of a dead donkey; but a jawbone in Samson’s hand will destroy the Philistines. A slingshot in my hand is a kids’ toy; but a slingshot in David’s hand will drop the Goliaths in your life, because it all depends on whose hand it’s in.

Spit and clay in my hand will get you a little mud cake; but spit and clay in Jesus’ hand will open blinded eyes. Two fish and five loaves of bread will get you a couple of fish sandwiches in my hand; but in Jesus’ hand it will feed the five thousand. Nails in my hand might get you a little birdhouse; but nails in Jesus’ hand hanging on the cross between two thieves on a hill called Calvary is salvation for the world, because it all depends on whose hand it’s in.

You ought to take those hands and put them together and bless the Lord. Thank him that he’s called you to be a pastor. Thank him that he’s put his words in your mouth. Thank him that the anointing of God rests in your life. Thank him that he’s picked you up and turned you around.

Thank him that he’s placed you before his people with his word in your mouth.

Ken Ulmer pastors Faithful Central Bible Church in Inglewood, California.

Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastor Kathy, can I come over? I have something to tell you,” Monica asked. I was glad she was coming soon; such phone calls create a sick feeling in my stomach. Was it serious? Anything I had done?

The phone rang again. My husband Roger inquired about my day.

“Monica’s coming over to talk to me.”

“What about?” he wondered.

“I don’t know.”

Soon the doorbell rang, and I let Monica in. We sat on the couch, facing each other, while she played with the buttons on her shirt. Her eyes focused mostly on the floor.

“I don’t know how to say this. Do pastors have to keep things confidential like priests do?” I reassured her that I would keep her concern confidential.*

“I’ve been having an emotional affair. It didn’t get physical. Well, mostly not. I’m just not sure if God will forgive me.” She raised the ideas of venial and mortal sins she had learned in her Roman Catholic upbringing.

I told her of God’s promise in 1 John 1:9 to forgive whatever she confessed. Mildly reassured, she continued.

“Do I tell Keith? Is that part of being forgiven? Do I have to admit it to him? I can’t imagine what he will do if he finds out.”

I paused. Monica’s concerns grew out of her husband’s recent expressions and behavior. He had already accused her of being unfaithful. How would he respond if Monica shared her confession? I also thought of Keith’s behavior through the years, the comments about other women, the desire to choose the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with the best looking babes.

“No, Monica, I don’t think you should tell Keith right now,” I said. “I don’t think he’s ready for that kind of transparency at the moment. You may get to a place someday where you can tell him, but I wouldn’t do it now.”

Monica looked relieved, yet still troubled. She wondered if she was forgivable without admitting her sin to Keith.

When Roger came home from work, he asked what Monica had wanted to discuss. I told him I couldn’t talk about it. As a pastor’s spouse, this wasn’t new to him. But since he knew a lot about Monica and Keith’s marriage, I’m sure he made some mental hypotheses. We avoided the issue so I wouldn’t betray Monica’s confidentiality.

The next day I was still thinking about Monica’s confession. Had I given her sound advice? I called one of my seminary mentors, and explained the details to him. Listening to all the dynamics, my mentor confirmed my conclusion. Getting his support gave me more confidence in my decision, but it didn’t make it any easier to keep it to myself.

A few months later, Monica attended an Emmaus Walk. During her retreat, she struggled again with her sin and her cover-up. Discussing the issue, I again reassured her that it was not in the best interest of her marriage to tell her husband.

“You might feel better,” I cautioned, “but think through how he would react.” During that weekend, seeing his support of her, I had a glimmer of hope that the relationship might grow to where Keith could handle the truth. I sure hoped so. The albatross around both of our necks had begun to stink.

Part of Monica’s Emmaus experience included a call from God to continue to work on her marriage. She felt God told her to trust Keith. When he came to pick her up, however, she thought she smelled alcohol on his breath. He denied drinking, and she blew up. As he insisted on his innocence, Monica felt terrible about accusing him. Had she blown her call to trust so soon?

The roller coaster ride continued, until one day Keith erupted at Monica and left the house never to return. In the aftermath she began to understand he had never really been off drugs and alcohol. Her suspicions at the end of her Emmaus Walk had been accurate after all.

Still married but separated, Monica soon learned of Keith’s sexual relationship with a neighbor. She called for support. Monica and her best friends Lynn and Andrew huddled on a front pew at church. Roger and I sat across from them on the altar cushion.

Monica expressed her disgust at the revelation. The woman involved had attended our church. Monica’s daughter and her daughter were friends. How could Keith do this to her? What about their daughter’s embarrassment?

Roger, Lynn, and Andrew shared Monica’s revulsion. Meanwhile, I had my own internal struggle. Was it fair for everyone to know of Keith’s unfaithfulness, but not Monica’s? Would Monica be able to maintain the façade of the wounded wife? I feared looking at her, afraid that my face would betray my ambivalence. But I did not reveal her past. Throughout the aftermath of Keith’s affair and the eventual divorce, I maintained confidentiality. I wouldn’t damage Monica’s trust.

That came in handy in the coming months, when I learned of questionable behavior with Monica’s new relationship. Had I blown her trust over Keith, I would have lost the right to confront her later.

I haven’t always gotten this right. Monica’s story stands out to me as one of the times I kept a high standard of confidentiality, despite the strain over a long period of time. But other times I have blown it, saying too much to Roger, or to someone else, and lost the privilege of ministering to the person.

One time, my sharing information with Roger alienated a parishioner I was counseling and resulted in his withdrawal to another counselor and church. I grieved my poor judgment and my inability to draw boundaries in the right places.

For me this has become the critical issue. I can’t risk that loss of trust. If I had lost Monica, she may never have trusted a pastor again.

One of the most effective deterrents to breaking those boundaries comes from my accountability partner. I have to answer the question, “Do you confidentially pass on to another what was told to you in confidence?” Knowing I have to face that question keeps me thinking carefully about any restricted information. Like a lab rat, I want to avoid the sting of a negative confession, so my behavior benefits from modification.

Is there a marriage loophole?

Although I kept Monica’s story confidential from Roger, on other occasions I want to inform him of someone’s burden. His gift for intercession makes him a valuable ally to my ministry. Sometimes I ask permission to share a prayer concern.

When Vanessa shared her childhood sexual abuse, I coveted Roger’s prayers for her recovery. Yet I knew that the details of her experience did not need to be disclosed. So I asked Vanessa’s permission to recruit prayer from Roger and other lay leaders on her behalf. Then I explained exactly what I would say.

“Vanessa, I will simply say that you were sexually abused as a child, and ask for prayer for your healing. I won’t include any details. Is that acceptable?” If she is uncomfortable with any facet of my explanation, then we modify until she approves it.

I only share such prayer requests with people proven to be trustworthy to not talk further about the situation, but only to pray. Those number few indeed.

After just a few visits to our church, Lana spoke to me privately. She revealed that her son Randy practiced a hom*osexual lifestyle. She wanted to tell me this right away and gauge my response. Partly she wanted to see if her involvement in our church was welcome, and partly she wanted to know what might be said when Randy visited the church with her.

I explained that although I consider the hom*osexual lifestyle a sin, our posture toward hom*osexuals is one of love and respect, wooing them to Christ like any other person. Because I had written some articles on this issue, I was able to reassure her of my position not only verbally, but in writing. I also assured her I don’t make derogatory comments about hom*osexuals from the pulpit. She didn’t need to worry about the content of a sermon if Randy showed up.

Randy did occasionally attend church with her, and we developed a gracious relationship. He expressed his thankfulness to the church for our care for his mother. I visited Randy when he found himself hospitalized.

Again, I had not shared this knowledge with anyone, including Roger. For a while, Randy tried living a heterosexual lifestyle, but returned to his former preference. Then Lana asked me to pray because Randy had opened a gay bar, and she was concerned about this further immersion into the gay lifestyle.

Lana said, “I’ve told Michelle. I told her not to tell anyone, but if it violates her marriage vows not to tell her husband Jerry, she can tell him.”

Michelle serves as Lana’s accountability partner. She had been a good support to Lana. However I knew the attitude Michelle’s husband Jerry would probably take, and didn’t relish the thought of him learning about Randy. What did their marriage vows have to do with honoring someone else’s confidentiality?

My understanding of marriage includes not keeping secrets from my husband that relate to our relationship. However to be a pastor, or even a friend of integrity, I must be able to maintain the personal issues of others even from my spouse. I wished the laity would keep this same standard.

In all the years Lana had been at our church, I had never disclosed her secret to my husband. I didn’t need to do so now, unless she chose to have me share this need for prayer. Why had I worked so hard to keep this in confidence, if she was willing to tell others?

My daughter Nora, a sophom*ore in high school, recently expressed a similar frustration with her friend Karen, who shared with Nora her struggles with her bipolar disorder.

Nora asked me, “What do you do when what the person shared with you is really bothering you?”

I suggested she talk to someone who doesn’t know Karen.

“That helps some, but sometimes it helps to talk to someone who knows her, and can help me figure out how to respond to her.” Nora discussed Karen’s struggles with a friend who knows Karen, but goes to another school and wouldn’t be involved in the daily issues of relating to her.

Then Nora expressed yet another frustration. Before a school camping trip, Karen narrowly avoided hospitalization for depression. Nora had been careful not to tell a couple of their school friends about Karen’s struggle, for fear they would treat her differently during the trip.

“I was so careful not to tell the others about Karen. Then Karen told them herself.”

I understood Nora’s dismay. When Lana told Michelle about her son Randy, and gave her implicit permission to tell Jerry, I wondered why I had been so careful all those years to keep this from Roger.

The need to unload

Certainly I understand how draining maintaining confidentiality can be. When Ralph came to me for counseling, I had no idea what deep problems he managed to conceal. He described his father putting a clothespin on his penis as punishment. My stomach churned as he described this incident. Another time his parents locked him in the basem*nt. His grandfather fondled him repeatedly. After a few sessions, I determined Ralph needed long-term counseling with a professional therapist.

Referring Ralph to a therapist didn’t exorcise the demons left behind by his stories. At times like that, I need to talk to someone myself, to dislodge the webs of painful images that remain. I call my therapist friend Mark or a mentor who can listen, pray with me, and help lift the darkness from my own soul.

Next week or the week after, I’ll again find myself the recipient of the deep dark secrets of one of my laypersons. My goal is to act with integrity in guarding their privacy and maintaining their trust. Regardless of how others may respond, I hope to be able to say to my accountability partner, “No, I didn’t pass on to another what was said to me in confidence.” Not even to Roger.

* Throughout this article, names and identifying details have been changed. Kathy Callahan-Howell will be a featured speaker at the 2003 National Pastors Convention. For info visit: www.NationalPastorsConvention.com.

Kathy Callahan-Howell is pastor of Winton Community Free Methodist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

The conference speaker was clear. “There are five essential questions of congregational life,” said the Rev. Lloyd John Ogilvie, “five questions that must be asked and answered sequentially. If you skip any of them, the best that your church will ever do is limp.”

With that opening line, I began to take notes.

When I returned from that conference, however, I kept those questions to myself. They guided me personally, but not the church as a whole.

Now, 20 years after speaking at that conference, Lloyd John Ogilvie is the chaplain of the U.S. Senate, and I’m in my fourth church. Yet when I came to my current pastorate, I decided our whole congregation needed the reprioritizing influence of those five, fundamental questions. I hoped the church would seek and take ownership of the answers. I didn’t realize how dramatically these questions would transform us.

Many churches try hard to “do church” the best they know how. Yet those churches are often directionless (like we were), relying more on doing what’s familiar than on what would help them grow. “The reason is,” Ogilvie said, “that 95 percent of churches never ask themselves the first question.”

Start with the end

Two years ago, at our annual all-church retreat, I instructed the entire church to stand in a circle. Then I took one little girl into the middle of the circle, handed her a rubber ball, and told her, “Throw this ball as hard as you can at the target.” And then I stepped out of the circle.

The girl stood there, confused. She turned and looked, but there was no target. Nowhere to throw that ball “as hard as you can.”

I explained to the church, “This girl is us. We don’t have a defined place to pour our efforts. We have no target.”

This set the church up for the first key question, What kind of people does God want us to produce in this body of believers? The biblical answer to that question is “Go and make disciples.” But what does a disciple look like? What target are we aiming for?

To answer this question, we began with a Bible study on the mandate to make disciples. This is the job of every church and every believer. Then I instructed everyone to go silently alone, pray, and write down what traits of a disciple God reveals.

Prayer and study becomes crucial at this point, as the question asks, “What kind of disciples does God want?” Not “What do I think makes a good disciple?”

Then we wrote the answers on a board for all to see. The people were amazed to see the diversity and comprehensiveness of the answers. Being a disciple affects many areas of life!

In my church and in others I have consulted, I have watched congregations become electrified as they define these traits and then begin to own responsibility for imparting them. To have these traits identified as the target gives meaning, energy, and clarity of vision—in short, purpose—to the church’s efforts.

We then grouped the 55 or so traits we came up with into 10 categories and distributed the list to every leader in the church with the following instruction: “Everything you do has to aim to produce these kinds of people.” We also made bookmarks out of the list and distributed them to everyone in the congregation.

I asked each of our leadership teams, “Do you see which of these traits and categories you are responsible for?” Each team identified certain areas that they and their ministries were uniquely positioned to address. They began to take responsibility to produce a specific fruit within the congregation.

Answering this one question was the turning point in our church. It gave us a clearly defined value system—this is what we’re doing here.

Creating key experiences

The second question addresses the practical level of programming: What kinds of experiences do people need to have in order to become those kinds of people?

Too often we start with this step, without asking the first question. When we do, programming is usually a matter of what we did last year, what we did at our last church, an idea that sounds nice, what we can afford, or the pastor’s newest whim.

Before the all-church retreat, our Christian education ministries determined their curriculum by the popularity test—in other words, “What would you all like to study next?”

After we identified the specific kinds of people God wanted us to produce, our education ministry finally had a specific target to aim for. So the Christian education team partnered with the youth and children’s ministries to develop a core curriculum that would introduce and help people move toward our identified traits of disciples.

Today, nearly half the adults in the church have completed the core curriculum, and we use the traits of a disciple in our introduction-to-the-church groups.

Planning our programming around the traits God wants us to produce in believers lends purpose and urgency to our ministries. It also provides a bonus: we now have a reason to say no to things that don’t fit.

Our fellowship team, which oversees church trips and get-togethers, used to plan elaborate, often expensive events. But after we identified “evangelistic character” as one of our key traits of a disciple, the fellowship team rethought the outings. Were the expensive events helping our people become more evangelistic? Or were they primarily events for insiders, excluding people by costing so much?

The fellowship team reworked the event schedule, planning instead more potlucks, picnics, and pizza parties. They also planned Christmas ornament and cookie exchanges—all events that cost a participant less than ten dollars. They wanted to free people from the expense to begin inviting others, and thus grow in evangelistic character.

Our ministries began to reflect our purpose, but one more question was needed to ignite our purpose with passion.

Boosting more leaders

The third question asks, What kinds of leaders (plural) are needed to provide those kinds of experiences? Asking for leaders, this question is not referring to the pastor. Making disciples, in each of the many areas Christianity affects our lives, is too big a job for one leader alone.

When they answer this question, churches realize they need several passionate, gifted, and trained leaders to provide “those kinds of experiences.”

Our Christian education board recognized that in order to provide life-changing instruction, we needed trained and knowledgeable teachers.

So they partnered with the children’s and youth ministry to put together a series of training classes for teachers.

Then, we asked every teacher in our Sunday school, children’s, and youth ministries to take the classes. Our goal was to train leaders to provide the experiences our people would need to grow as disciples.

For one summer, we got substitutes for all the teachers to allow our teachers to take the classes and therefore meet our new requirement.

We had two responses to the new requirement. Some of our teachers were volunteers who were simply filling holes. In the goodness of their hearts, they were working in ministries they weren’t particularly passionate about, but where a need was apparent.

Many of these volunteers didn’t take the classes, and, to be honest, we had a slump in teachers for three to six months.

We had to scramble to keep some classes going.

But when we made the new requirement, we were sure to explain why we did it. It wasn’t a legalistic new “rule,” but an earnest effort to improve the quality and effectiveness of the education ministry.

That led to the second response.

New teachers, people who were passionate about children and Christian education, but who previously weren’t certain of the church’s commitment, began to step up. “I want to take this class,” one of them said, “because now I realize how important this is.”

We now have people lining up to take the required classes, and we’re not short of teachers any more. More important, the people who are becoming teachers are no longer stop-gap volunteers; they are people who are passionate and gifted in Christian education.

Different kinds of captains

The pastor’s role in the church also needs to be examined if the church is going to work together to accomplish its purpose. And so the fourth question is What kind of pastor is needed to train those kinds of leaders?

This question is particularly helpful when a church is searching for a new pastor. Recently another church in that situation asked me to consult with them during their search. The church was hurting, despondent, and desperate. They hadn’t had a pastor for a long time, and they were unsure of what kind of pastor they should be looking for.

I led their leadership in a full-day workshop on these five questions. But before we began, I said, “Let’s look at your ministerial profile. What kind of pastor are you looking for?”

As we reviewed their expectations, I realized they were looking for a cross between Jesus and James Bond.

But after leading them through the first three questions, and establishing what God was doing in their church, they realized that they didn’t need James Bond as their pastor. They needed someone who was skilled in rallying people to a common vision and training them to accomplish it. They didn’t need an all-powerful pastor. As we discussed the questions, they told me, “We need a coach.”

One church may need a coach, another may need a shepherd, and another may need an executive. But by asking question three, and then question four, a church can learn to rightly divide the duties of pastors and lay leaders.

And when a resident pastor asks what kind of pastor is needed to train his church’s leaders, it invites him to analyze his or her gifting, time allocation, skill development, and continuing education opportunities. But that leads me to the fifth question, which happens to be most pastors’ favorite of the five.

The power to say “no”

The fifth question is What kinds of experiences does the pastor need to have in order to be that kind of pastor? Practically, this means churches begin to ask themselves, “What can we do to help our pastor become who God wants him or her to be?”

At my current church we’ve established a committee to handle pastor-parish relations (PPR). The committee’s job is to field the concerns, wants, compliments, and complaints of the congregation, and to mediate between pastor and parish. At the same time, they also listen to my concerns, and try to help me be a healthy leader.

In first meetings, we generally say to each other, “Okay, give me your bad news and your gripes, then I’ll give you mine.”

After asking this fifth question, however, the PPR has begun asking me, “Are you actually taking your time off? Is the church giving you adequate time to study? Pray?”

What a difference!

One PPR meeting illustrated clearly the change questions four and five have brought to our church. The committee brought to me a concern held by some in the congregation regarding visitation: “We think you ought to visit every newcomer to our church.”

Oh, boy, here we go, I thought. “Let me forecast what that’s going to mean long term,” I said. “If we continue growing the way we have, that may mean five or more visitors every week. Now most of those folks work during the day, so I’ll need to visit with them at night. Then there are the meetings I have with the board, with this committee, and others, most of which also occur at night. Now, what will that mean for me personally?”

“There won’t be any time for your family,” one member said.

“Bingo.”

The first four questions helped us define what kind of pastor our church needed; the fifth helped us realize what that pastor needed to do and not do.

The committee realized I could not be the kind of pastor God had in mind for them and hold to that expectation. Their pastor needed a healthy family life, sufficient time off, study, prayer, training, and so on.

Instead of burdening me with that expectation, the committee helped me communicate the need for our congregation to take up a newcomer orientation program.

Finally, this fifth question has helped me determine my own priorities. If given a choice between seminars on coaching or on making pastoral calls, I choose the former, because that’s the kind of pastor this church needs, and that’s the kind of experience I need to be that kind of pastor.

For the last 20 years, these questions have advised me. Now they’re helping my church define its purpose. They’re diagnostic when things begin to feel “flat.” They function like a plumb line when there are too many “good ideas” under consideration.

And they’re helping us keep the role of pastor and laity in proper perspective while giving me the space and accountability I need to grow.

I suppose focusing on questions isn’t a novel idea. Some of the most dynamic moments in Jesus’ ministry were precipitated by the right questions.

“Who do people say that I am?”

“Whose inscription do you see?”

“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I say?”

In each case, a question prompted a moment of transformation—the kind of transformation we like to see in our churches.

We’ve become a church with a shared and driving vision of discipleship. We’re developing new, passionate leaders, while our veterans refine and reinvent our ministries to better accomplish common goals.

We have a solidified vision of who we are and what we want to do; and it began by asking five simple questions, in order, just like Dr. Ogilvie said.

Roger Jenks is pastor of Fox Valley Area Christian Church in Aurora, Illinois.

Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

“Words are cheap.”At least that is what we keep hearing. It is certainly what contemporary society has taught people to think. So what is the value of a sermon?

Is it just more words?

Preachers spend hours and hours carefully constructing their sermons in the belief that words are not cheap, but are costly, powerful, and even dangerous.

Just two words, “I do,” have the ability to create a marital covenant that will last a lifetime. And just a couple words of anger can do a world of hurt. In his book Modern Times, Paul Johnson has demonstrated that the killing fields of Cambodia began with just words being tossed around in a Parisian coffee shop.

Words are like TNT. Combining them in careless ways can have devastating effects; putting words together carefully can rearrange a life.

Few now believe this. Before worshipers make it into a sanctuary, they have been bombarded with words all week by a society that no longer values them. Marketers have domesticated words into jingles, like circus elephants pulled out of the wild to balance balls on their heads. Words pouring out of car radios are only background noise. In the course of a day, we pass hundreds of advertisem*nts peddling things we don’t need. On the Internet unwanted words pop up and must be “closed.”

The boss uses words to motivate, if not manipulate. The guy in traffic uses words to curse. And in every congregation there are some who heard tender words like “I love you,” only to discover it was, well, just words.

Then on Sunday morning the preacher says, “Hear the Word of the Lord.” And every word-weary person there hopes somehow these words will be different.

How do we in the pulpits reassure the congregation that God really knows how to use a word, that these are sacred words, and they have the power to change a life? Clearly, it begins with the preacher being convinced.

The first recorded use of words was at the creation of the world. “And God said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light.” That sets a high standard for how words are to be handled. With a few carefully chosen words, creativity and redemption can begin to shove aside the darkness and chaos of life.

This doesn’t mean the preacher has to make the earth move on Sunday mornings. Our calling is not to do God’s work for him, only to speak his sacred words. We do that neither by dazzling the congregation with eloquence, nor by reducing the sermon to an exegetical lecture. We just speak the holy words of Scripture.

This is what distinguishes preaching from teaching. Biblical teaching has the responsibility of talking about the Word of God. Preaching proclaims the Word.

Teaching is done with lots of textual analysis, word studies, theology, and hopefully some good discussion with the students. By contrast the preacher has little time, or calling, to do more than speak the holy words.

This doesn’t mean that preachers cannot use illustrative material in the sermon, and it certainly doesn’t mean that we don’t need to do all of the careful biblical study. But it does mean that none of the preacher’s own words can get in the way of the kerygmatic, life-changing power of the Word of God.

The best way preachers demonstrate this power of sacred words is to insure every sermon brings the congregation into an encounter with Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. Only then are we convincing in our claim that words are not cheap. It cost the Savior his life to make clear that God’s words can be trusted, that he was dying to love us.

His words have the power to bring home those who have lost their way because they trusted the wrong words.

It doesn’t take many words to communicate this life-changing message. Just say something that boils down to “In Jesus Christ, you are forgiven.”

Craig Barnes is Leadership editor-at-large and professor of pastoral ministry at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Mike was a troubled, homeless man with few friends. For several months he visited our church’s food ministry, which served meals to more than 50 homeless people each weekday.

Mike wanted me to give him a ride to visit some relatives’ graves at a nearby cemetery. In fact, Mike had asked me for the ride several times that summer, but I had been putting him off.

One afternoon I was about to leave for lunch when Mike asked again. Why don’t I just get rid of this commitment now, so I can get on to other things? I thought. So we got into my car.

After we visited the gravesite, I asked Mike where he’d like to be dropped off. He named a rock quarry that was on the way back.

As I pulled over next to the quarry, Mike asked me to pray for him. I put the car in park, and then he asked, “Would you put your arm around my shoulder while we pray?” I’m accustomed to laying hands on those I pray for, so I put my hand on his shoulder and closed my eyes.

According to the doctors, it was a miracle I ever opened them again.

“You need to die”

A sudden movement startled me. And then I felt my neck and torso awash in warm liquid. When I opened my eyes, I was stunned by the blood. Everywhere. I looked at the car, at my hands, my shirt, covered in blood.

Then I turned and saw Mike pulling back his hand to strike another blow with a knife. I lunged for his hand to stop his swing. He kicked at me to free his arm. We wrestled in the car, battling over his lethal weapon.

I remember thinking, I need to get this fight out of the car, into the street. Maybe someone will see us. The door sprang open and we tumbled out the driver’s side into the street. The knife fell away.

But Mike continued to hit me. We wrestled. We boxed. My shirt, shoes, and undershirt came off in the struggle, and still I continued to gush blood from a knife wound stretching four inches across my neck.

He tried to pull me into the woods, away from the street. And when I used a high school wrestling hold to subdue him, he picked up a rock and bashed me in the head.

“Why are you doing this?” I cried. Then, oddly, in the midst of our struggle, I told him, “Mike, you need to repent of this!”

His eyes were dark and vacant, filled with murder. “And you need to die,” he said.

But when a truck drove by our car, my attacker bolted into the woods. Another motorist drove by, looked at me, and left—to call the police, I hoped.

I slumped to the ground. I had lost far too much blood, and I figured my time was short.

Life flashes

As I sat there, knowing I was bleeding to death, my mind wandered. Do I have enough life insurance for my family? Will I bleed more quickly if I move? Why didn’t I give a better good-bye to the kids this morning?

They say your life flashes before your eyes in the moments near death, and it does. I felt the Spirit of God searching through my days, looking at my life through the lens of eternity. The moments were brief, but I sensed the Lord doing so much work in me. It was like a spiritual download that had to be opened one file at a time over the weeks and months that followed. Only now, looking back, can I put words to what I felt.

I saw myself standing before the judgment throne of Christ. And I knew from the look in his eyes that he was asking me, “How much love did I pour out on you? How much of it flowed out of you to others?”

And I was convicted. What about all these things? Sermons, ministries, good deeds? But all he wanted to know about was love. And I had very little love to show for my life.

I had flashbacks of listening to my wife, but not hearing her heart. Of competing against my fellow pastors, instead of carrying them in my prayers. Of almost telling my teenage son I loved him, but leaving the words stuck in my throat.

I realized I had been consumed with the busyness of pastoring. My ministry had lost its Christ-focus and was driven instead by a hundred other demands. Now, before eternity’s penetrating gaze, none of that mattered. God wasn’t searching me for duties done in his name; he was searching me for love.

I wanted to say, “No, Lord, not now! Give me another chance to come to you later with a basketful of love. Not with this pea-sized heart I have now.”

Even as the Spirit was bringing me under such heavy conviction, he also gave me a foretaste of the love he was awakening within me. As Mike slashed me with deadly intent, God moved me to love my attacker. Why else would I call Mike to repentance as he was beating me?

In the middle of our fight, I was given peace that expelled the anger I normally would have felt. I fought violently to preserve my life, but not to harm Mike. I’ve been more angry at my children spilling milk than I was at my attacker that day.

I apologized later to my wife. “I’m sorry I didn’t put up a very good fight.”

Though heavily convicted of my past lovelessness, I found hope that God was going to make me into a new man. I’ve since realized that when I allow God to move within me, he enables me to love anyone, even my mortal enemies.

That realization has since changed how I pray, how I parent, and how I pastor.

Shielded by musk ox

A new heart is little good if there’s no blood to pump through it, and I began to worry that I wouldn’t have any left by the time help came. Or would it come? I wasn’t sure the passing motorist actually went for help, or if he just went.

So I staggered into my car and drove three-quarters of a mile to the first public place I could find. I parked the car and laid on the horn until help arrived.

The ambulance that carried me to the hospital called ahead to assemble a team of doctors to treat me. I had lost nearly 20 percent of my blood.

Mike’s knife had sliced between two of my vertebrae and nicked a minor artery in my spine, but miraculously missed my spinal cord, vocal cords, and jugular. I was in the emergency room for more than eight hours.

The healing I was receiving during six days in the hospital was more than physical. Immediately after the attack, I felt defiled, as though I had been dropped in the pool of Satan’s schemes and emerged still covered in his slime. And I was too weak to shake it off.

One of the paramedics that treated me was Jim, a man from our church. I asked him to pray for me. And as he did, the other medical personnel backed away and gave Jim the time and space to minister to me.

As Jim prayed, I could feel the love of God piercing the darkness that I had been through. It birthed hope in me, hope that I might live, and hope that I might get my chance to love again.

Later two visitors from my church sneaked past the ER nurse to see me. They found me covered in blood, sweat, and even vomit from a brutal test that was necessary to survey the damage, but they came to me, loved me, and told me they were praying for me.

As a pastor, it’s my inclination to always want to give to others. But lying helpless in that hospital, I could only receive. I discovered, as a broken man, physically and spiritually, how powerful, how glorious, and how healing the love of the Body of Christ can be.

Earlier that year, I had been teaching on community, building an analogy from the musk ox. While most herd animals leave their weak and wounded behind, the musk ox form a protective circle. They stand shoulder to shoulder, with their heads and horns outside the circle, and the weaker oxen hidden inside, shielding them from attacking wolves.

After the attack, one of my elders said to me, “Tom, when you talked about the musk ox at the beginning of the year, it was all theory; but now it’s becoming reality.”

In the weeks that followed, I received thousands of prayers, flowers, letters, cards, and e-mails. Several pastors came to see me in the hospital. One pastor prayed that God would give me a stronger voice through my healing.

I wondered how I could return to our ministry to the homeless. Could I get past the fear to reach out with the love of Christ? At one point, it seemed that stitching my throat together was the easier part of my recovery.

In the midst of my pain, the Holy Spirit brought to my mind a line from a Fanny Crosby hymn:

Down in the human heart,
crushed by the tempter,
Feelings lie buried that grace can restore;
Touched by a loving hand,
wakened by kindness,
Chords that are broken will vibrate once more.

I prayed that song a thousand times in the days after I was attacked. And God answered my prayer.

My first love

My daughter said to me recently, “Dad, you’re starting to show some gray hairs.”

“You’d have some gray, too,” I said, “if you’d seen the ghost of Christmas past.” Through the attack, I felt like God gave me the chance to look back at my life and ministry in the light of eternity.

Like Ebenezer Scrooge, I saw how loveless I had been. And it has changed me. My church has a new pastor.

I’m much more willing now to reach out and hug someone in my congregation. I’m more aware of the need for gentle and encouraging words. I’m no longer afraid to weep with compassion in the pulpit.

I was preoccupied tending to ministry demands. I worried about people leaving the church, and about how smoothly the service ran. Now I’m only passionate about two things—growing our love for God and growing our love for others.

One way I’ve discovered a new love emerging is when I make hospital calls. I now stop before I enter a hospital room and do three things:

I check my motivation. Am I here out of duty, or am I like Jesus, moved with compassion before administering healing?

I ask God to fill me with his love. I recognize I don’t have great reservoirs of love, so I confess it, and God gives me new love for others.

And I ask God to be actively present, to minister through me.

When I’m in hospitals now, I no longer depend on my training or experience; I seek a fresh dependence on the Spirit.

God has shown me his ministry of love and invited me to leave my ministry to join him in his.

Beginning again

After fleeing through the woods, Mike apparently noticed that he was covered in my blood. Somewhere he found a stream or pool to wash in and continued his flight, which led him to another cemetery.

There caretakers noticed the bedraggled and bruised man sneaking through the graveyard. They called the police, who were already combing the area. They caught him before he left the cemetery.

Back at the hospital, the Cook County district attorney came to visit me. “I’m sorry this happened to you, Mr. Severson,” the D.A. said after seeing my wounds. Then as he left, he said to a policeman, “This will be attempted murder.”

Mike is still jailed on a $1 million bond and awaiting trial.

A couple of months after the attack, I resumed my duties as pastor. The church had given me a couple of months off to heal and sort things out.

One day shortly after returning, I was walking into a Wal-Mart and mentally going through my to-do list—this person is struggling, this ministry needs more staff. I felt the burdens of ministry encroaching again. They were all good things, but they were stifling the precious lessons of love I had learned.

Then I felt the Holy Spirit speaking to my heart: “Tom, you’ve loved me in death. Now, just love me in life.”

Tom Severson pastors Elgin Vineyard in Elgin, Illinois.

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