Hope Matters

Psychologist Neil Clark Warren used to say that when he did therapy with married couples, his primary goal was simply to see a 10 percent improvement in their relationships. It doesn’t sound like much, but he found it made a tremendous difference for one reason. It gave them hope. And hope is the great difference-maker.

Warren always believed in hope, even before he started eHarmony and made millions. He found that if people have hope, it is a tremendous reservoir of energy. Hope will keep people moving when they would otherwise quit. Hope is the single most indispensible, non-negotiable, irreplaceable resource required for big challenges and noble battles.

So, how’s your supply? How are you doing at hope-management?

I suppose pastors and church leaders have always needed hope, but I have been reflecting on why in particular it is needed in our day. It seems to me that hope matters uniquely in our day because many of the social structures that used to prop up what we do are fading. Pastors used to be honored as educated thought leaders in their communities. Historian and Pastor Jim Singleton told me that as recently as 1950, 10 percent of all Phi Beta Kappa’s went into church ministry. Today it is 0.01 percent.

Another friend, John Huffman, recently retired as pastor of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach. If you’ve ever visited Newport Beach, you might think anyone who lives there doesn’t need hope, since they’ve pretty much arrived at God’s favorite location. But as John was reflecting on half a century in pastoral ministry, he listed some of the most frequent complaints he would hear over the years—every one of them a hope-stabber. I’ll paraphrase a few. You’ve probably never heard any of these about your own ministry; I share them simply so you can pray more intelligently for your less gifted pastoral friends.

“I’m just not getting fed.” I always find this one a helpful constructive criticism, because it is both clear and easily corrected.

“Why can’t you preach like …?” John notes that there is always the nearby “church of what’s happening now.” He says what he did not realize for many years was that there will always be another more popular preacher within 20 minutes of your church. The important thing is to accept this truth. That way you can find who he is, track him down, hurt him, and then you’ll be the most popular pastor within 20 minutes of your church.

“Why don’t we pay more attention to …” (fill in the blank: foreign missions, prayer, spiritual warfare, the Kardashians)?

But complaints are not the only hope-robbers. Those of us in church ministry also face the reality of our own inadequacy, family pressures, financial crises in difficult economic times, an increasingly polarized culture where faith often seems to be perceived as nothing more than a proxy for political conflict, people we love who slide away from the faith or whose marriages wind up in a ditch. We wrestle with disappointment when people don’t come to church—and complacency when they do. We wrestle with being defined by our successes and self-condemned if we are not successful enough.

A very wise person suggested a great image to our staff recently. I asked him what he thought is the primary barrier people in church ministry face to finding spiritual health. I thought he would speak about how hard church leadership is, but he immediately said that our challenge is no different than anyone else’s: “Learning to depend fully on God for every moment of your life, right where you are.”

The image was this: Remember Atlas, that old character from Greek mythology who carried the world on his shoulder? Put it down. Refuse to carry the weight of the world anymore. Rely on God’s love this moment for your identity and well-being, so that they no longer hinge on outcomes.

I am a recovering Atlas.

When I remember to do this, when I take the world off my shoulders, it always results in life and hope. Hope, after all, is very different from getting myself to believe that things will turn out the way that I want them to. Hope means, among other things, a joyful dying to my need to have my life turn out any particular way at all. Hope comes when I live in the reality that the world is in better, larger, more capable hands than mine.

The ancient Greeks loved virtue, and believed deeply that suffering would produce character. But in the ancient world, only a Paul would top this list (suffering, perseverance, character) with “hope.” The Greeks were not big on hope; they did not believe the universe was kindly disposed to humanity. Paul did, because Jesus did. So Paul said hope “does not disappoint.”

Hope-management may be the single most important thing you do today. No circumstance or person is allowed to siphon it from you. When you took this job, when you answered this call—you signed on for hope. It’s much bigger than you are. Rest in it a little while.

John Ortberg is editor at large of Leadership Journal and pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in Menlo Park, California.