Leadership doesn’t equal certainty. True leadership sees the inevitable ambiguities of ministry yet has the spiritual sensitivity and resolve to advance through them.
— Ben Patterson
When she said, “Now, Pastor, nobody wants you to succeed at this church more than I do,” I inwardly groaned. I knew what was coming.
After a year as pastor, I had felt deeply that the church must focus on building leadership for the coming years. So at the previous board meeting I had asked, “I want to find ten men who’ll meet with me for a year to study and pray, on the premise that they would go and disciple other men in the church. I want your endorsement for making this my main focus of ministry, with a goal of discipling fifty men over the next five years.” They approved what came to be called “Project Mustard Seed.”
But now they were having second thoughts. One Sunday morning a board member pulled me aside.
“I think Project Mustard Seed is a great idea,” she began, “but maybe if you waited two or three years, the timing would be better. Right now, since you’re new, you really need to spend time visiting all the groups in the church and making them feel supported.”
I didn’t believe that would be a good use of my time. I felt the time for getting to know the congregation had passed; now it was time to develop leaders for the future. But that’s when I began to wonder, How much of Project Mustard Seed is what Ben Patterson wants, and how much really comes from God?
Even during a family vacation that year to England, the trip of a lifetime, the inner debate never stopped. Two or three times a day, whenever a quiet moment came, that Sunday morning conversation would bubble to the surface. Then I would agonize, again and again, about whether I had made the right choice: Was it too late to back out? What about the men I’d already asked to participate and who were excited about the program? Suppose the board withdrew its endorsement?
From that episode I learned that leadership doesn’t always equal certainty. Naturally, we are able to press ahead when we have no doubts. But we live as imperfect people in an imperfect world. True leadership sees the inevitable ambiguities of ministry yet has the spiritual sensitivity and resolve to advance through them.
Here’s how I’ve learned to minister despite uncertainty.
Picking Your Fights
The older I get, I’m more sure of less, and I’m less sure of more! But one thing I’ve learned is that certitude has a price. The good and wise leader has a clear idea of what issues are worth paying that price (and I suspect it’s a fairly short list), and what issues aren’t. In my own ministry I’ve found that, while I may have strong convictions about a subject, it doesn’t mean it’s always necessary or even advisable to express my certitude in public.
Congregations in America today want it both ways. On the one hand, people in the pews want the confidence and certainty of a Churchill or Patton, a leader who provides clear answers for their complex lives. But they are also pulled by the cultural impulse that extols individuality, that says “different strokes for different folks.”
The church where I grew up required members to sign a thirty-point doctrinal statement. My congregation would consider that an intolerable infringement on their rights. American Christians don’t have much stomach for a pastor with a long list of certitudes.
So the issue boils down to two questions: When do I want to be perceived as certain, and when do I want to avoid that perception?
I want to be certain about fundamental doctrines. All but one of Paul’s thirteen epistles are written to churches or pastors, and he returns again and again to the theme of preaching a pure gospel: “Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming” (Eph. 4:14).
The church in America today is tossed back and forth, so it’s vital that we help steady the ship.
Then again, I don’t speak ex cathedra about programs or policies. The Scriptures contain no doctrine of “pastoral infallibility,” no mandate to equate your word with God’s. But our stature can tempt us, from time to time, to draw a line in the sand about a particular (and personally heartfelt) program or policy of the church, saying, “This is what God wants, so choose ye this day whom ye shall serve.” If any problems arise, however, your credibility suffers. People know better.
I find it helpful to be clear about my expectations. Recently I had an engaged couple in my office for counseling, and as always I asked them, “What are your expectations about the relationship? Things will go smoother after the wedding if you voice your expectations now.”
In the same way, I’ve always approached my church callings as wedding engagements: both parties enter the relationship with expectations, which ought to be expressed up front.
When I was called to my current pastorate, I was candid with the board: “I can’t lead this church if you won’t let me lead it according to the way I’m put together. If you want Ben Patterson as your pastor, there are certain things that come with the package, things you’ll have to live with.” I didn’t tell them my style of leadership was necessarily right for every church, but it was right for me.
For example, I need time to read and think and pray. I’m not good at tending institutional machinery — I have to delegate that to someone else. I also need the freedom and latitude to take action without tremendous amounts of consensus building. I want to win, and not just keep from losing — even if it means I sometimes shoot from the hip and make mistakes.
“That’s what you get with Ben Patterson,” I told the board.
I also try to remember the difference between vision and timing. In one church I served, we went through two building programs like clockwork. When a third building project presented itself, my confidence was soaring. We jumped in with both feet, put out brochures, did stewardship meetings, and went whole hog to get the project built in two years.
I was sure about it and talked often and confidently about God’s vision for this new building.
But the building didn’t get built in two years as predicted. Years later, my successor in that church is just now getting that project together again.
Was my vision wrong? No, but my timing was. Instead of being built in two years, right now it appears the Lord had five to seven years in mind.
Strategies for Straddlers
One season during my high school football days, our coach installed an incredibly high-powered offense — any professional team would have been proud of its complexity. We gave it our best shot, but the complex system was hard for us to learn. Our school was favored to win the opening game, but when the whistle blew our guys ran around the field not sure where they were supposed to go and who they were supposed to block. It’s a game we should have won over a smaller high school, but our squad was beaten.
A few days later we sat down to watch a film of the game. On play after play, you could see everyone hesitating on the line of scrimmage. By this time the coach was screaming at us, “If you’re going to make a mistake, at least do it aggressively!” Over the years my coach’s words have stuck with me. Sometimes in ministry, we’re not sure what we’re doing, and we hesitate, letting circumstances control us.
Or worse: in some situations pastors have given up altogether. I was visiting one church where only fifty people were scattered across a sanctuary that seated 250. The congregational singing was weak and half-hearted. I wondered why the pastor, who was leading the singing, didn’t say, “Let’s all get up and move closer together.”
Yet as I sat through the service, I started noticing other signs that the pastor had simply given up. The board where the hymn numbers are posted was empty, the sanctuary needed fresh paint, and the sign outside didn’t list the times of the services — dozens of little things that said, “I’m too tired for this, and what difference does it make anyway?”
It’s easy to get discouraged and give up when you’re faced with uncertainty. But it’s not all that difficult to adopt strategies of leadership that help project the confidence of a Churchill (a confidence church members want and need), even when on the inside you really feel more like Hamlet.
• Let us reason together. Few topics are harder to preach than predestination. Even the apostle Paul had to shrug his shoulders on this subject and say, “Who has known the mind of the Lord?” (Rom. 11:34). So when I preached a sermon last year on predestination, I began by admitting, “I really don’t know if anything I’m going to say is true, but this is a doctrine that believers need to deal with, and I’m going to share with you a progress report about my own current thinking on the subject.”
Though the hard-core Calvinists were disappointed with me, most of the congregation was glad somebody admitted the subject was open for discussion. “All I can do is give you my best interpretation for now,” I told them, “and I make no promise that if I preach again next year I won’t have a new point of view. But we need to come to grips with this issue, because making no decision is in itself a decision.”
Throughout my sermon the tone of the message was, “Here’s what I see, what I feel. Let me tell you why I believe this way, why I’m excited about it, and why I think you should be excited about it, too. Let me try to persuade you, as one Christian to another.”
I would never take this approach with fundamental doctrines, but it works with vital doctrines that don’t affect salvation. I am forthright about my interpretation, but I give my people the right to disagree with dignity.
At the same time, I’m under no obligation to lay out all the alternatives to my views, being evenhanded with each, suggesting the congregation choose the alternative that best suits them. That’s not leadership but an invitation to indecision and paralysis within the church.
I once saw a Christian drama group put on a skit about pastors and their churches called, That’s What We Pay You For. A committee comes to the pastor telling him that they’re upset that in a sermon he gave them two or three possibilities for interpreting a passage. They don’t care for that; they’re looking for guidance: that’s what they pay him for.
A sermon is not a lecture but an occasion where I am called to persuade people to make a deeper commitment to Christ.
• When the vision gets cloudy. A friend of mine took a pastorate at a small church in California that shared a building with another congregation. He was convinced the church should build some equity so that someday it could construct a sanctuary of its own. My friend was willing to go fifty-fifty with the congregation in buying a home to serve as a parsonage, with a large enough yard for church picnics and a big family room for small meetings and Bible studies. The church would build equity, the congregation would gain a sense of identity and esteem, and later the house could be sold for the down payment on a new sanctuary.
However, just as the people started getting enthusiastic, my friend began to get cold feet. Did he want to live in a home that wasn’t really his? What about the financial and tax complications of going fifty-fifty on the deal? What if he left the church someday? Would the financial entanglement make it harder to leave? Would the church find it harder to recruit a new pastor, since he might not want to be tied to a parsonage?
He had boldly brought forth his idea, and now his credibility as a leader might be at stake if he pulled back. “The people would have thought I was just jerking them around,” he later said. “They would have been reluctant to follow my other ideas for fear of being let down again.”
My friend adopted a strategy of passivity. He just stopped bringing the parsonage up at the monthly board meetings. If the lay leadership wanted to pursue it, he was prepared to go along. Yet nobody was charged enough to press ahead. Soon the matter died, and my friend wiggled off the hook with his credibility untarnished.
You can’t use this strategy often, nor on key decisions that are already in motion (e.g., a building contract has been signed). But once in awhile it gets us out of a jam when uncertainty strikes hard and for good reason.
In general, I try to follow this guideline: I don’t back out of a decision because it’s becoming unpopular and causing me grief. I feel free to change my mind, though, if people are becoming embittered or losing their faith over the issue. That doesn’t settle by itself my uncertainties, but it does help me analyze them better.
• The realistic cheerleader. I’ve always hated cheerleaders who, when the score is 48-0 in favor of the other team, still shout, “Hey, hey, what’dya know, get that ball and go, go, go!” At that point, the players need to hear something like, “We still love you guys!”
Sometimes the church takes a real beating; it looks as if the game is turning into a rout, and as pastors we’re not sure whether the team can make a comeback. We’re tempted to lead cheers like, “We’re looking forward to a great year!” or “God is going to give us the victory!”
What’s needed is an honest look at an uncertain situation combined with confidence about what God can do: “I don’t know how it’ll turn out, but we are looking to God for guidance” or “This has been hard, but we’re going to see God’s hand in all this.” I call it realistic cheerleading.
• Writing it down. It’s astounding this power God has given us of being able to put feelings into words, of giving names to things so we can understand them better and gain the victory. That’s why I keep a personal journal; it’s a place to lay out all the confusions I feel, all the uncertainties, the angers and the fears, to confess them before God in written prayer.
For example, take the night I realized the building project I had been so anxious for was going to grind to an unceremonious halt. When I came home, I began reading the Psalms, and I got to Psalm 132:
O, Lord, remember David and all the hardships he endured.
He swore an oath to the Lord and made a vow to the Mighty One of Jacob:
“I will not enter my house or go to my bed —
I will allow no sleep to my eyes, no slumber to my eyelids
till I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling for the Mighty One of Jacob.”
It describes David’s struggle to find a place for the Ark. He won’t rest until he gets it done.
I wanted to build a sanctuary for God. Our church had studied the theology of worship. We had studied the theology of space. From that we had developed a wonderful theological document. And then we drew up plans that expressed perfectly what we believed about worship. I was so excited about it, but it wasn’t going to happen.
After I read about David’s struggle, I started writing in my journal — two pages in which I poured out my feelings and questions: “Lord, why did you bring us so far in this thing? Everything seemed so clear up to now; it was going so well. But it has stopped! I’ve been here fourteen years, and I wanted this to be an exclamation point to my ministry. Now it looks like an asterisk. Lord, help me — help me to continue pursuing this, or help me let go if I need to let go of it.”
In taking up pen and paper, the shadows gain shape; I demystify them, give them the human discipline of sentence structure and syntax, and arrive at a way to face the problem.
• Sometimes he speaks. We all want to be like Jonah and have God audibly tell us, “Go to Nineveh.” No mistake there! Though clear signs don’t come as often as we want, I’ve never been convinced to despair. I am not a Deist, who believes God keeps his distance and lets us solve our own problems. Once in awhile, especially when we’re attentive, God clarifies our uncertainty.
Earlier I mentioned my doubts about Project Mustard Seed, my program to disciple a small group of men in the church. While I was on vacation in England, I continued to stew over the problem: Should I take the one person’s advice to slow down and get to know the congregation better? Or should I reach for the future by training new leaders?
On the final day of our vacation, I toured the annual flower festival in the small Welsh village where we had stayed. As an outreach to the community and a surprise to me, the church that hosted our visit had set up a display with my book, Waiting, which had just been published in England. And there by a stack of my books was a flower pot with mustard seeds sprinkled all over the top. I wept because, for me, it was such a powerful confirmation of what I felt God wanted me to do.
• The certainty of presence. Walter Wangerin’s The Book of the Dun Cow is an allegory set in a barnyard with animals as characters (and perhaps the most vivid description of evil I’ve ever read). In the story, the Holy Spirit is represented as a dun-colored cow that appears at unexpected moments. As characters gaze into her liquid brown eyes and feel her warm breath, her presence nurtures and reassures. Only occasionally does the cow speak, but most of the time she’s just there, quietly grazing and observing you with her deep liquid eyes.
I can’t conclude this section without stating the obvious, because it is the obvious I have to keep reminding myself of: there are no guarantees in life. My family, my health, my church can be devastated in a moment. But one thing is certain: God is present. And the most reliable strategy for facing the uncertainties of ministry is to trust in the God who is always there, quietly gazing at us with deep liquid eyes. As Psalm 73 puts it:
When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered,
I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.
Yet I am always with you; You hold me by my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
Over the Falls
In discussing the issue of vocation at life’s different stages, Karl Barth notes that younger pastors are usually the ones who boldly plunge ahead, while older men often play things close to the vest — they’ve been through the mill before, or perhaps they have more to lose.
Then Barth asks the rhetorical question, “Does the river slow down as it approaches the falls?”
The answer, of course, is that the river gains speed, rushing fastest at the very moment it plunges over the edge. I want my ministry to pick up speed as I go along. I don’t want to be careless and wantonly make mistakes; I want to use the wisdom God has given me to follow the bends that life presents. But as I face uncertainty, I don’t want to trickle off into some side stream. I want to be like that river, rushing toward the falls — and when I go over the edge, I look forward to falling into the arms of God.
Copyright © 1993 by Christianity Today
