It’s Just Not Working

We had just commissioned 83 new members. It was a proud moment. The newly initiated throng made their way off the platform, while I moved closer to the congregation to begin my sermon.

“This is great, isn’t it?” I began. “But before we get too giddy about new members, let me ask you a question. Why should we bring 83 new people into something that isn’t working?”

It was the first time in thirty years of ministry I had admitted something I was leading wasn’t working. It appeared to be working, but it just wasn’t.

“Something is wrong,” I said. “It has been tormenting me for several years. All the formulas, strategic planning, mission statements and visionary sermons are not making disciples.” Indeed, I was haunted by it. Where was the personal transformation after all the effort we put into weekend services, Bible studies, small groups, and outreach events?

We were stuck in the same rut that so many churches find themselves in—religious activity without real transformation.

Successful and unsatisfied

You may say, “I’ve read Bill Hull’s stuff, I know what he has to say about discipleship.” But could it be that like me, you’re tired of discipleship because you don’t see it working? Could it be that like me you left something important out? Like me, could it be that you have been seduced by a false vision of leadership?

Although I preached and wrote about discipleship, I felt like an ice skater gliding over the ice. Beneath the surface I could glimpse transformation, I just couldn’t get at it. The icy barrier was church infrastructure, traditions, and the institutional community. But it was also a leadership model that insists pastors be managers of church growth rather than shepherds helping people go deeper into the life Christ has for us. Yes, too often these models are mutually exclusive!

At age 50 I found myself successful but unsatisfied. I was hooked on results, addicted to recognition, and a product of my times. I was a get-it-done leader who was ready to lead people into the rarified air of religious competition. Like so many pastors, I was addicted to what others thought of me.

One morning over coffee and Frosted Flakes, I was reading about the success of one of my favorite people, Rick Warren. I read that he was selling more books than I had brain cells. The more I read about his impact, the less significant I felt. I was like the inflatable man who had been blown up by the previous day’s recognition, but reading the article pulled the plug and the air slowly went out of me until I disappeared behind the paper.

I was disgusted by what I felt. I knew my attitude wasn’t right. Like Jonah I knew I was on the wrong ship, heading in the wrong direction, for the wrong reason. I knew that I needed to jump. And jump I did.

Breaking the pastor

As I stood before the people that morning, I was prepared to pour out my soul, even my desperation. I was nearing the end of a three-year reshaping of my person, and I had morphed in such a way that I could never go back. Bill Hull, the Disciple Making Pastor (at least the guy who’d written a book by that title), had been broken by God.

For three years people had been steadily leaving our church. It was the most painful experience of my pastoral life, and so many times I wanted to run away. But God spoke to me powerfully one morning as I lay prostrate on my office floor. “Bill, I am going to break you; don’t run.” I wanted to run, I prayed about running, I asked others about finding a better fit (a.k.a. running), but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Most of the people who left the church hadn’t left because of conviction but because of feelings or the opinions of friends. Believe it or not, people don’t usually do a lot of research, and then act in accordance with biblical truth, when choosing to leave a church. As more people departed, it felt like a plague had descended on us, but it wasn’t just poisoning our community—it was eating away at my soul. During this time I poured my life into three younger men, and one by one they also left the church. I felt betrayed and wounded.

Through my “dark night of the soul,” I gradually realized that something was missing in my life. It was the same thing that my church growth generation has missed. I had forgotten that my life as a leader should be a reflection of my relationship to Christ. Leadership is not about competency and productivity, as we have been led to believe. Our culture values action over contemplation, individualism over community, speed over endurance, fame over humility, and success over the satisfied soul.

I came to see that I was not leading the way Jesus led. His life was characterized by humility, brokenness, submission, and sacrifice. My life was characterized by pride, competence, control, and convenience. I began to understand the value of brokenness as God’s way of leading us into a life of humility. And I became fed up with my addiction to the false values of our culture. To use Pascal’s words, I was tired of “licking the earth.” I was tired of it and so was the congregation.

After three years the plague that had swept through the church began to subside. Attitudes began to change. What happened? Well, what happened started within me, and then it spread.

Melting the congregation

Through pain, meditation on Scripture, prayer, and learning from others, I chose a new life. I chose the life of Jesus—a new commitment to humility, submission, service, and sacrifice. I chose to finally trust Jesus’ way of leading. My new commitment included the determination to love those who had rejected me, and to live this out publicly. I chose to become more honest and intimate in my sermons and conversations.

When I began to express the truth of my inner life, it seemed like the entire community gave out a sigh of relief. Once I admitted that something was wrong, that real transformation wasn’t happening, the masks came off. This was the first step toward getting back on the way.

In my sermon after welcoming the 83 new members, I shared what God had taught me during my three-year journey of transformation.

I told the church that the Great Commis-sion is more about depth than strategy, and being spiritually transformed is the primary and exclusive work of the church. I told them believing the right things is not enough—being a Christian means actually following Jesus. We don’t drift into discipleship or amble our way half-heartedly down the path of obedience. It is a choice. I told them we had accepted non-discipleship Christianity and we must confess this sin to the Lord.

I ended my sermon by telling them that I was going to evangelize them. I was going to call them to choose the life of following Jesus, the life of spiritual formation, the life that is the answer to the weakness of the church and the boring ineffectiveness of our lives.

When I changed from a strategist to a shepherd, when my teaching was filled with love rather than data, the congregation began to melt. They sensed that something prophetic was happening, and it changed our church.

The big surprise was that the higher I set the bar, the more eager they became. I preached about the nature of Jesus’ call on our lives, and the need for genuine community, for transformation. I called them to choose the life of Jesus—the life of discipleship.

One Saturday, at a special training time, 120 people made that commitment. They chose the life of intentional discipleship, committed obedience and to the practice of spiritual disciplines, and agreed to meet with one or two others regularly over the next year to go deeper into the transformation Christ had called them to.

True, there were many in the church who did not make this commitment to a structured plan of discipleship. I recognize now that discipleship is a way of life, not a program. It is about community and relationships and an environment of grace. So those who did not “choose the life” were not to be devalued. As their pastor I was called to love them as well. Part of the transformation in our church included extending and receiving this kind of acceptance.

Through brokenness and honesty, the icy barrier in our church began to melt, and the life of spiritual transformation we had longed for began to be seen. Some of us have made significant progress as committed disciples of Christ, others are still just beginning the journey.

The experience of seeing and admitting the futility of my former efforts was a gift to me . Starting among those wonderful people, God has reshaped my soul and given me a new message, and this transformation would not have been possible outside that community.

The full story of Bill Hull’s transformation and the journey of his church toward spiritual formation is told in his book Choose the Life: Exploring a Faith that Embraces Discipleship (Baker, 2004).

Bill Hull pastored 20 years and lives in Long Beach, California. He founded T-Net International, a ministry devoted to transforming churches into disciple-making communities.

There’s more to it than doing good deeds. Our inner-city church in Indianapolis offered many ministries to the poor: a soup kitchen, a sports ministry, free Thanksgiving turkey dinners. A back-to-school program gave out shoes, coats, and book bags. We were proud of our reputation as “the church that stayed” instead of fleeing to the suburbs. Nevertheless, something was wrong. None of our outreach programs was leading people to faith in Jesus Christ. Residents we touched were not entering into the life of the church. We remained an enclave for affluent, educated whites. What was wrong? While wrestling with this question, I happened to read Luke 5, the story of Simon Peter, who spent all night fishing without catching any fish. As he sat frustrated on shore, Christ told him, “Put out into deeper water and let down your nets.” I was struck by our church’s similar situation. Where was the “deeper water” we needed to go? I identified four places. 1. Deeper relationships Many of our outreach ministries were impersonal, treating people like clients rather than friends. For 12 years, for instance, we operated our soup kitchen as a take-out window. People lined up for bowls of soup but couldn’t enter the building. The doors were locked. What message did that send? So we unlocked the doors and invited people to eat inside the church. Some of our members began coming each day to sit and eat lunch with the guests. Before long, some of the neighborhood residents were helping out in the soup kitchen. One of our key volunteers, a retired professor of social work, told me: “All my life I taught classes about the poor. Now, they’re my friends!” 2. Deeper invitations Jesus calls us to fish, not to be ichthyologists. We weren’t catching any fish. For years our church had a recreation ministry where children learned to play football, basketball, and baseball. But we didn’t try to share the gospel in a deliberate way. A leader of the community told me: “My son grew up playing sports at your church. He wanted to join the church, but no one ever invited him.” If the goal is leading people to Christ and transformation, we’d missed it. So we made changes. Leaders of the program committed themselves to evangelism and discipleship. We took a group of neighborhood kids to a summer camp run by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes where some made commitments to Christ. We prepared devotional materials for teams to use before practice. We began offering a midweek “huddle” time to disciple youngsters who had become Christians. 3. Deeper investments It is not a bad thing to hand out Christmas baskets, but lifting people out of poverty requires deeper investment. Studying our neighborhood, we realized the greatest need was for education: many children near our church were illiterate. Unable to read or write, they soon dropped out of school and were lost to the street culture. Giving them book bags wasn’t enough; they needed a school that would equip and protect them. After much planning, we purchased an abandoned school building, and in 1998 the Oaks Academy opened its doors with 53 students. Enrollment has since grown to more than 220, with a student body racially and economically mixed. In recent years, the church has also started a medical clinic and Christian legal clinic, both requiring generous investments of money and talent. 4. Deeper faith Our greatest need is for deeper faith—to believe what God wants to do. After the miraculous catch of fish, Peter fell before Jesus and exclaimed, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” Peter was overwhelmed by Christ’s power and presence. As our church ventured into deeper waters, we witnessed that same power and presence. For the first time in our 150-year history, a significant number of African Americans began attending. Our staff—previously all white—became multiracial. Some of our members opened a Christian coffee shop in the neighborhood, and soon the Unleavened Bread Café became a gathering place for all sorts of people, from the district attorney to drug dealers. God exceeded our dreams. Yes, before sailing into deeper waters, you need to count the cost. You’ll exceed your comfort zone. We exposed deep undercurrents of fear, pride, and prejudice. Would we become a “black” church? Could we afford these new ministries? Would starting a Christian school hurt the public school system? We faced resistance. And after five years, I resigned due to the persistent conflict. But I’m pleased with what we did. Moving into deeper water led to transformation for our church and for the neighborhood. —Peter Larson is now pastor of Lebanon (Ohio) Presbyterian Church.

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