The Scariest Time

We’ve seen that scene in movies a hundred times. A defenseless young woman is alone in a house where some unseen monster is loose, and what does she do but venture alone down darkened halls and into scary rooms. Invariably, she opens the door to the basement–which always looks like a dungeon–and steps into our deepest fears.

We want to cry out to her, “Don’t go there! This is not a good place to be!”

Sometimes, in real life, we feel like shouting the same counsel to friends who are venturing into unsafe places, particularly at vulnerable times.

In the case of an individual with a job to do, a most dangerous time is when he/she is feeling under-motivated.

When a friend confided that he was feeling under-challenged and unfulfilled in his job, I went into my fatherly mode and said, “You’re earning a paycheck that pays the mortgage, puts groceries on the table and provides for your family. That’s challenge and fulfillment enough for any man.”

Twenty-four hours later, a minister friend e-mailed a prayer request concerning his work. He’s having the kind of relationship difficulties we all encounter from time to time on large church staffs. I told him of my earlier conversation and suggested that might apply to his situation also.

People who study such things tell us that the demand for “fulfillment” and “challenge” in the workplace are relatively modern phenomena. Until the last generation or two, when we suddenly began to feel a sense of entitlement concerning all things, people went to work to do a job and earn a paycheck. Whether they felt satisfied, fulfilled, challenged, or motivated never entered the conversation. No employer saw it as his duty to help workers achieve their full potential. They were doing a job.


My dad started working inside a coal mine when he was 14; that was 1926. For the next 35 years, he never missed a day due to an accident. When dad worked the evening shift, the first half of each day, he grew a crop on the farm. His work ethic was typical of most people of his generation. His father-in-law, my maternal grandfather, Virge Kilgore, worked a large farm while at times running a well-drilling business and sometimes keeping a small store. They did whatever it took. Their goal was to provide for their families.

I am sometimes stunned to see healthy, normal, otherwise well-balanced people walking away from well-paying, meaningful jobs that provided adequately for their families because they could not get along with one or two people in the office or plant or because they found the work dull.

In most cases, I have been only a remote spectator of such odd behavior and did not insert myself into their situations to offer my sliver of wisdom. In the case of these two friends, however, I ventured what I hope is a small dose of common sense to head them off at the gulch.

In the life of a church, the scariest time is the interval between pastors.

In our denomination, and with the system almost all our churches follow, a pastor leaves for another church and his former congregation laboriously elects a search committee to find his successor. They assemble resumes and conduct a search and eventually recommend the new pastor. It takes a minimum of six months and usually a full year or more. It’s not a great system.

No doubt many of our church leaders look at their friends in the United Methodist Church (or denominations with similar hierarchies) with longing, and wish we had a bishop to appoint the new guy. The old preacher moves out and next Sunday his successor fills the pulpit. No time lost.

Okay, it’s not an ideal system either. Congregations need time to adjust from one leader to the next, a few weeks to mourn the absence of the former guy and at least a similar period to begin to hunger for the next.

The congregation I belong to illustrates a point that spurred this article. In the Spring of ’04, I left that pastorate after nearly 14 years. By the first of January of ’05, the church welcomed the new pastor, Tony. A couple of years later–I’m uncertain about the exact dates–he resigned to teach full-time at our seminary, and later moved to a large church in another state. By the summer of ’08, our church welcomed its next pastor, Mike. Both Tony and Mike are super fellows, great friends, wonderful ministers, and I treasure each of them. This is not about them.

The problem is something about human nature that occurs in our churches which are without shepherds: The sheep wander.

Some quit coming to church. I cannot tell you the number of times I have bumped into people who were active in the congregation when I was pastor and asked about them, only to hear, “Well, we haven’t been to church lately.”

Some who stay quit doing their jobs. I bumped into a friend on the street and asked if she was still leading a certain ministry at our church. “No,” she said. “I was tired and no one seemed to even know I was there, so I decided to take a rest.” When no one contacted her, she dropped out altogether.

The staff grows lax in their leadership. A pastor in another state e-mailed me to say, “A family from our church moved to your city and I sent them to your church. They marked their visitors card they would like to be contacted, that they had questions about the childrens ministry (or choir or whatever). They went three times and no one ever called, so they ended up joining that huge non-denominational church.” I grieved.

During intervals when the church is between pastors, congregations are sitting ducks for the enemy’s tactics. Dissension flares up over inconsequential matters, people slack off in their financial stewardship and attendance, would-be leaders step into the void and try to remake the church the way they think it should be.

My friend James pastored a thriving congregation for a full quarter-century. He was one of the best preachers I had ever heard and since I was a young, green, fresh-from-the-seminary pastor a few miles away, I quickly latched onto him as my mentor. As impressive as he was, his congregation was equally remarkable. For the size town, their numbers were high, their giving was strong, the fellowship was warm and loving, and their ministries were effective.

When James left for another ministry, most pastors who knew that church felt its next shepherd would be stepping into a great situation. Not so. Within weeks of his departure, the leadership began to bicker. Soon a small faction which had remained dormant during James’ tenure–he was a strong leader and they had made no headway changing him–rose up and asserted themselves. They wanted to take the church in entirely new directions, even to the point of changing denominations. Eventually, the church split, with the dissidents pulling out to begin a new congregation. The members who remained were half their former number and tormented with guilt and anger over what they had just gone through.

The church never again regained its former health or vitality.

“But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd.” (Matthew 9:36)

Down times are scary times, both for individuals and for congregations.

When a pastor I know left his wife, his family, and the church he had served a full decade, someone observed, “He was bored. The church was doing well, the challenge had gone out of it, and he was having his mid-life crisis, I suppose.”

Dangerous times, no matter what we call it or how we cut it.

We all need renewal from time to time. Every worker does, every pastor does, every husband and wife does.

“…be transformed by the renewing of your minds…” (Romans 12:2)

“Wilt thou not revive us again, that thy people may rejoice in Thee?” (Psalm 85:6)

4 thoughts on “The Scariest Time

  1. Sadly the same thing that happened in James’ old congregation has happened all over the same county. I remember several strong churches which have dwindled to mostly older members (some of whom caused to problem). Our SS class is studying Richard Blackaby’s book on Grace where he talks about graceless Christians. (It’s in MasterWorks curriculum, SBC) Just started it this week and I see a lot of us in it.

    This was a poinient (sp) article. We all need it.

    Lara

  2. A good word of caution for all of us involved in leadership. I’m reminded of Jesus’ warnings to the churches of Ephesus and Sardis in Rev. 2-3. How easy it is to slip into those patterns! Thanks for the wake-up call.

  3. It really bugs me that so many Christians have no sense of calling to drive them. I’m not sure what I would have done without being driven by God’s call when I was twelve. I learned not to tell my wife I was bored when the Lord was listening. I ran into all the usual problems and some new ones (yeah I prob created some). But I had the sure knowledge I was where God wanted me, so He and I worked through it. I preach that laymen can have the same strong calling in whatever field they work. Few seem to pick up on it, but those who do find the same reassurance I have.

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