Church Life: The Next Generation
Dying for Change by Leith Anderson, Bethany House, $11.95
Reviewed by Dave Wilkinson, pastor of Moorpark (California) Presbyterian Church
I was warned I would be arrested if I opened the book. So I read myself my rights, pocketed a quarter to call my lawyer, and opened to the introduction. Within a few words I felt the cuffs snap around my wrist and heard the door clang closed behind me. I had to finish it. The cover of Dying for Change had described it well: “An Arresting Look at the New Realities Confronting Churches and Para-Church Ministries.”
Author Leith Anderson, senior pastor of Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, loves the church and cares for its ministry. But he’s also concerned: “An estimated 85 percent of America’s Protestant churches are either stagnating or dying,” he says. His purpose in writing this book is to help churches recognize current social trends and adapt to the new spiritual and social realities, thus revitalizing their mission in their communities.
For example, Anderson touches on the changing ethnic makeup of America, the “graying” (aging) of America, the new role of women, and the decline in the work ethic, among other relevant social trends.
Take our increasing mobility, for instance. Anderson notes that not only are we increasingly mobile geographically, but also ecclesiastically. “Once upon a time,” he writes, “churches were seen as destinations. When you found the church you wanted to join, you stayed with it through good and bad times. With the present mobility mentality, churchgoers now see specific churches as ‘way stations’ along the journey of life. They may join one church for a certain chapter of their lives but have no difficulty moving along to the next church when the next chapter begins.”
Much of the book is devoted to describing and evaluating differences between generations. I found the material on baby boomers particularly helpful. “The real boom in church attendance is coming from this generation,” Anderson writes. And he quotes studies that show the church has recovered “two-thirds of the drop-off of the sixties and seventies. High-income baby boomers (those making more than $30,000 a year) have returned in greatest numbers.”
These returning baby boomers have important characteristics that determine the kind of church that will reach them: “Those born after World War II have grown up with a sense of entitlement. They have been taught that government, education, medicine, marriage, and religion would all function with excellence.”
Anderson quotes Martin Seligman, psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania: “Our soaring expectations went beyond consumer goods into nonmaterial matters. … Work now needs to be ecologically innocent, comfortable to our dignity, a call to growth and excitement, a meaningful contribution to society-and deliver a large paycheck. Married partners once settled for duty, but mates today expect to be ecstatic lovers, intellectual colleagues, and partners in tennis and water sports.”
“This situation,” Anderson says, “offers two positives for the church: (1) Those institutions that meet the baby boomer’s high expectations will flourish; and (2) baby boomers tend to respond well to institutions that have high expectations of them.” He also says, “The baby boomer should feel ‘right at home’ in the church that holds high expectations of its people.”
I wondered about this since I recognized that many baby boomers don’t seem to be committed to church membership, devotional discipline, service, and financial support. Yet Anderson says, “Baby boomers want to be challenged, and many of them will be attracted to such a church even if they won’t join, give, or serve. They like the idea of high expectations even if they don’t personally comply.”
Another apparent inconsistency drew my attention: Anderson says leaders should clearly communicate what they expect people to give financially. However, in order to reach the unchurched he says, “Minimize money talk.”
I asked Anderson how it is possible to communicate financial expectations without “money talk.” He told me that at his church they recognize two audiences. The unchurched never hear about money. It is not mentioned from the pulpit or in the church newsletter. Appeals for money are made through special letters to members, in new member classes, and other appropriate settings (like adult classes on financial planning).
To help churches analyze themselves, Anderson suggests diagnostic questions like “Why do we exist?” “Which way do we look?” and “Who’s in charge?” He also encourages leaders to draw a picture of the formal and informal organizations of their church. The results are often revealing.
When Anderson asked seminary students to do this exercise in regard to their churches, one seminarian drew a large oval surrounded by many dots. In the middle of the oval was the name RALPH. “No doubt about who was in charge or how that church operated!” says Anderson. “Even though there was a constitution and by-laws with elections and officers, nothing happened without Ralph’s approval.”
Anderson also discusses how to introduce, communicate, and accomplish change in the church. For example, he encourages leaders to “thoroughly involve the informal organization until it owns the decision; then hold the formal vote as a ratification of a decision already made.” When the congregation owns the decision, they are more likely to follow through on the proposed change.
After stressing the importance of visionary leadership, he concludes by outlining the essential steps of responsible change: “Define the issue, get the facts, consider the alternatives, make the decision, and Do It!”
That is also not a bad way to summarize the spirit and content of this engaging book.
A Christlike BIAS in Preaching
Learning to Preach Like Jesus by Ralph and Gregg Lewis, Crossway, $8.95
Reviewed by Doug Jackson, pastor of First Baptist Church, Fountain Hills, Arizona
“Since I have to stay awake during the sermons I preach,” says Ralph Lewis, “I always thought it only fair the congregation stay awake, too.” But Lewis hasn’t left it at that; he helps them stay awake. And now he’s written a book, Learning to Preach Like Jesus, that suggests principles by which others can do that as well
Lewis, professor of preaching at Asbury Seminary in Kentucky, wrote the book with his son Gregg, editor-at-large for CAMPUS LIFE magazine. “A textbook is anathema to him,” quips dad Ralph. Consequently, Gregg kept the prose readable, while Ralph made sure there was something worth reading.
In the introduction Lewis (meaning Ralph, from now on) states his reason for exploring the preaching style of Jesus: “Didn’t the people abandon cities and towns to listen to his sermons in the wilderness? Didn’t the common people hear him gladly? Can’t we learn something from his example then?”
Lewis answers affirmatively and so devotes a third of the book to analyzing Jesus’ sermons through four filters: (B)rain appeal (left or right); (I)ngredients (analogy, dialogue, parable); (A)ttitude (respect for listener needs, seeking authority versus assuming it); and (S)tructure (concrete examples before abstract principles).
(Although the ingredients of the acronym BIAS are central to the book, Lewis didn’t string them together as such until after the book was finished-“My left brain kicked in too late!” he said.)
I have found myself applying this BIAS analysis to my own manuscripts, and with good results.
Brain Appeal. “People don’t give a snap whether you can tell a sigma from an aleph,” says Professor Lewis. “They sit behind a computer terminal all week, and come Sunday, they want some relationship, some feeling.” That’s where the right brain (that part of the mind more at home with the senses, emotions, and visual imagery) comes in.
For example, Jesus’ statement about gouging out an offending eye appeals to the right brain. The left, the rational, logical part of the mind, simply puzzles over a statement like that; it doesn’t make sense. But our intuitive half grasps it at once as a vivid picture of the importance of purity.
Ingredients. Lewis tells about a former student, a native African, whose elders sent him to America to learn “to preach like the white man.” Unfortunately, that meant unlearning the storytelling style of untrained native pastors. “I keep remembering,” the student said, “how some of those uneducated national pastors can hold a congregation entranced with parables and stories.”
The recipe of Jesus’ preaching, Lewis contends, contains these ingredients and more: analogy (“You are the salt of the earth”), comparison (“The kingdom of heaven is like . . .”), and questions (“Can a blind man lead a blind man?”).
Attitudes. Lewis introduces us to two street preachers, one from New York and one from Chicago. The New York preacher, by his own confession, has seen no converts in twenty years. The Chicago man gains twenty in a single session. The difference, Lewis says, lies in their attitudes.
One carries a King James Bible and thunders about people trapped in sin. The other carries chalk and easel, and sketches a picture of a bug caught in a spider’s web. The New York preacher begins with doctrine and tells people what to believe. The Chicago preacher starts with the needs of his listeners and leads people to draw conclusions for themselves. In short, one man assumes the authority of his message over the people, while the other assumes he must gain a hearing.
The latter attitude was Jesus’. For example, he tells the poverty-stricken peasants of Galilee, “Blessed are the poor.” And when he talks about the pearl of great price, he leaves off the moral, trusting the inductive processes of his hearers.
Structure. Lewis also demonstrates that Jesus structured his preaching so that the concrete led to the abstract. Giving up one’s tunic and turning the other cheek are mentioned before the abstract admonition to “love your enemies.” The image of lighting a lamp only to cover up its rays precedes the principle: share your faith.
After reading about sermons modeled on Jesus’ example, I was ready to see one. Lewis obliges by including four of his own efforts. The first is a Communion meditation, and it begins, “Did you pick up a hammer as you entered the chapel? All of us are going to carve our own tombstone.” In this and other sermons, we find more of the same engaging style.
In referring to a problem in a similar field, Mark Twain observed (with my translation included): “Whenever the literary German [expository preacher] dives into a sentence [text], that is the last you are likely to see of him ’til he emerges on the other side of the Atlantic with his verb [point] in his mouth.”
To put it another way, Learning to Preach Like Jesus can make Sunday’s transatlantic crossing more enjoyable and powerful for the preacher and the hearer alike.
The Sensible Samaritan
Ministries of Mercy by Timothy J. Keller, Zondervan, $11.95
Reviewed by William H. Leslie, MidAmerica Leadership Foundation, Chicago, Illinois
During the mid-1960s, I faced the difficult task of convincing my downtown Chicago congregation to continue our Sunday-afternoon tutoring program. We had completed five months of tutoring our church-school children, and the kids and I were excited about their progress. At our annual meeting, however, one deacon asked that we vote on whether to continue tutoring in the fall.
Frankly, the request astonished me. The reading level of our children was four years behind children in other parts of Chicago. If they couldn’t read or appreciate the Bible, how could they become mature disciples of Christ? Moreover, they would need to read if later they were to hold well-paying jobs. Besides, our church supported missionaries in Africa, Costa Rica, and Nevada (with Native Americans) who were teaching people to read. So why not in our church?
Others worried, however, that we had embraced “the social gospel,” and they made their concerns known. Finally, the vote was cast: the membership approved by one vote the motion to extend the program.
I could have used Tim Keller’s book back then, because it cogently addresses the theology of “ministries of mercy.” But Keller’s book has one other advantage: it’s one of the few books available that shows how the local church can set up such ministries in their communities.
Keller, pastor of the 400-member Redeemer Presbyterian Church in downtown New York City, argues, by means of the parable of the Good Samaritan, that “a life poured out in deeds of mercy is the inevitable sign of true faith.” He shows us that word and deed are inseparably linked in Scripture. Far from being in opposition, evangelism and social concern are complementary. Ministries of mercy enhance the evangelistic mission of the church by becoming bridges to people beyond the church fellowship, making visible the love of God.
Nonetheless, we must not value deeds of love simply as “bait” for witnessing. The ministry of mercy “is not just a means to the end of evangelism.” Jesus mandated both the Great Commission (“Go therefore . . .”) and the Great Command (“Love your neighbor . . .”).
In answer to the probing question “Who is my neighbor?” Keller paints a remarkable picture of the wounded Samaritans of our nation. While they constitute a much larger group than the materially disadvantaged, Keller begins by sensitizing his readers to the poor.
Their need is graphic: The numbers of people living in poverty, he reminds us, are going up, not declining. One of every seven Americans is classified as poor. More than a million new households joined their ranks in the 1980s.
In addition, Keller points out that more than a third of the homeless in our nation are families with children, so that an estimated 500,000 American children have no place to call home.
After dispelling some popular myths surrounding poverty (myths such as: the poor refuse to work, no poor people reside in suburbs, most of the poor are African-Americans or Hispanics), Keller concludes this section by encouraging churches to expand their vision: “Only the ministry of the church of Jesus Christ and the millions of mini-churches (Christian homes) throughout the country can effectively attack the roots of our social problems facing this nation.”
In the final seven chapters, Keller sets forth practical ways to implement this biblical mandate. Vernon Grounds, on the book’s jacket, notes that this volume “equips the reader to mobilize, not merely hypothesize.” And so it does.
Keller likens developing congregational ministries of mercy to growing a garden. First, the church must be “fertilized” by exposing members to the biblical teaching about mercy. Next, one “digs up” the ground by identifying a group of able volunteers to form a task force. This task force begins by caring for the needs of people within the church as well as undertaking a survey of their community.
Finally, ministries of mercy are “planted” in the community surrounding the church, initially on the church site. Eventually these ministries spread into the community through grassroots mission groups, ministries initiated both by the church leadership and the rank and file.
Yes, I wish I had had Tim Keller around as I started ministries of mercy in that Chicago pastorate. Fortunately, it’s not too late for others, because, unfortunately, today there is more need than ever.
NEW AND NOTEWORTHY
Equipped to Care: A Youth Worker’s Guide to Counseling Teenagers
by William J. Rowley, Victor, $7.95
You counsel youth. You’ve had a seminar or two in youth counseling, but you want something more, although something less than an M.A. in psychology. Where do you go? To William Rowley’s Equipped to Care.
Rowley, a licensed family therapist, discusses the unique dynamics of 1990’s adolescence, how to develop friendships with youth, how to get teenagers to talk, and how to work with the teenager’s family.
“Teenagers have a secret,” Rowley writes. “They turn to other teenagers to find out how to be a teenager, and they listen to adults to learn what adulthood is all about.” This book teaches caring adults how to speak effectively with inquiring youth.
Pastoral Care Emergencies: Ministering to People in Crisis
by David K. Switzer, Paulist Press, $9.95
Early one morning in his first pastorate, David Switzer heard the doorbell of his parsonage in this rural community ring. “I went to the door,” he writes, “and there stood a woman in her robe, her hair in curlers, weeping hysterically.” The woman, it turned out, was distraught about her crumbling marriage.
Switzer, now professor of pastoral care at Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, has written a book to help pastors deal-psychologically and spiritually-with such crises. He shows the unique contributions that Christian pastors and counselors make in emergencies, and he spells out specific courses when visiting the ill, ministering to the dying, and dealing with family crises.
These many nuggets of wisdom encased in stories from pastoral life will help pastors handle, among others, those disheveled guests at the parsonage door.
The Frog in the Kettle: What Christians Need to Know About Life in the Year 2000
by George Barna, Regal, $14.95
If you place a frog (church) in water at room temperature (society) and slowly heat the water, the frog will stay in the water until it boils to death. Put positively, if the church becomes alert to the changes heating up our culture, it can respond to the challenge.
So says George Barna, futurologist and president of Barna Research Group. In this book he briefly describes dozens of changes occurring in the lifestyle, faith, attitudes, and perceptions of Americans-from the number of microwave ovens Americans own to how many Americans say that religion is important to them.
Not all trends listed here are sure bets. But Barna has given pastors plenty to ponder for the next ten years.
Preaching for Recovery in a Strife-Torn Church
by Jerrien Gunnink, Zondervan, $7.95
Conflict-management people have taught pastors the first thing to do when entering a church torn with anger, resentment, and hurt: listen. Jerrien Gunnink tells pastors how to do the second thing: preach.
Gunnink, a Reformed Church in America pastor with 35 years of ministry experience, pastored such a church. He decided that he should employ his strongest gift to heal the crisis. But he also concluded, “No one prepared me for this kind of preaching in homiletics class.”
Through trial and error and research, he learned-and shares here-the qualities necessary in the preacher, how and when to confront, the importance of positive preaching. He also lists appropriate sermon texts and themes.
Effective Church Accounting
by Richard J. Vargo, Harper & Row, $29.95
This book is as dull as a budget that ends in the black, and just as good.
Richard Vargo, professor of business at the University of the Pacific, Stockton, California, offers clarity for churches beleaguered by the babel of church books. He discusses the necessary points of allocating resources, controlling assets, choosing an accounting system, and creating financial reports that communicate effectively.
It’s more than a “Bob Cratchit, green-eyeshade view of the accounting function,” as he calls it, for Vargo regularly speaks of accounting in the context of the larger goals of the church.
If Ministers Fall, Can They Be Restored?
by Tim LaHaye, Zondervan, $8.95
Although the moral failure of ministers is not normal, neither is it uncommon. Churches and individuals are devastated. For congregations without formal procedures for responding to such events, Tim LaHaye, president of Family Life Seminars, has written this book.
LaHaye discusses why ministers fall, as well as how to avoid sexual temptation. He describes what a church should do immediately after a minister falls-from discovering the facts to preparing for the media to anticipating the immediate future. Then LaHaye argues that fallen ministers can be restored to full ministry.
Moving beyond theory to practice, LaHaye also suggests a model for restoring fallen leaders. He then shows how one church did just that.
-Reviewed by Mark Galli
associate editor, LEADERSHIP
Copyright © 1991 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
