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Pastors

The Changing Seasons of Ministry

Kent Hughes

Younger pastors and older pastors face different temptations and enjoy different rewards.

A pastor’s ministry is shaped by a number of factors, including the history and personality of the church served, the texture of the community, and the pressing needs of people. Add to that the age of the minister. That’s the point in this article, a chapter from Mastering the Pastoral Role, co-authored by Paul Cedar, Kent Hughes, and Ben Patterson. The book is the latest in the Mastering Ministry series co-published by LEADERSHIP and Multnomah Press.

Our youth pastor, Dennis, came to me recently. “I want to rappel off the church,” he said, “off the fourth story!” It was to be a scene for a youth video he was making, he explained.

I could have easily said no. First, it was dangerous. (I like to give my staff room to fail, but this gave a whole new meaning to the idea.) Furthermore, people could justifiably criticize me for allowing such crazy activities. But I decided the risk was worth it. Dennis is a creative guy. He relates well to the kids, and his idea was culturally hot. In addition, he was young and capable of the feat.

“Just check with the custodian,” I said, “to make sure the rope won’t come loose and the building won’t be damaged.”

So he did it. With a Santa Claus hat on his head, he backed off the rook of our four-story building and rappelled to the ground. The video was outrageous, and the kids loved it.

Rappelling off buildings, however, would not exactly impress the main people I minister to. That’s how it should be. The young minister and the seasoned pastor are, in some ways, worlds apart in their view of the church and practice of ministry-and that’s okay. Each faces unique frustrations and temptations, and each has unique opportunities to minister effectively to God’s people.

I see my own ministry as falling into two basic stages: early ministry, where I did youth work and then planted a church, and ministry now as head of staff. Here are the insights I’ve gleaned about the hazards and opportunities of each stage of pastoral life.

Frustrations in Phases

Although my ministry has been fulfilling at each stage, I also see that each period also brings with it unique frustrations that, in the end, we simply have to learn to live with.

Lack of respect. When I was a youth pastor, I longed for congregational respect. I used to say I was more zoo keeper than pastor: as long as none of the animals got out of their cages, everybody was happy. That didn’t do much for my self-esteem, and I felt alienated, like I was off in a corner with no significant role in the church.

That, in turn, nurtured a sort of reverse elitism: The future of the church lies with the youth, I’d think. This is where it’s happening. Everybody else is out of it! That attitude, of course, didn’t do much to get me the respect I longed for.

In fact, one advantage of early ministry aggravated the issue of respect. As a young pastor I enjoyed being close to people. I had considerable one-to-one contact, especially with youth and youth sponsors. But sometimes that very closeness diminished my profile as a pastor. When I became only “Hey you!” to people, they didn’t perceive me as one having authoritative answers.

And it wasn’t only the elders that didn’t respect me. Often it was the kids I spent the most time with. At one youth gathering, I found myself under playful attack. “Hey! Let’s try to drown the youth pastor!” was their gleeful battle cry. I spent much of the afternoon happily wrestling with some of my guys in the pool.

A few days later, though, I tried to speak with one of the boys I’d been wrestling with. He had been misbehaving in the youth group, and I had to confront him about it. But he wouldn’t listen to me.

“I don’t think you’re so good,” he said disrespectfully. “You’re not a good husband to your wife or a good father to your kids. So get off my case!” I believe he spoke to me that way because I had become a little too familiar with him.

Another signal of lack of respect was the relatively meager administrative support I received. During my early years, I either had no secretary or one who merely worked part time, and I had to rely on old office equipment (or no equipment at all). That hampered my ability to administrate my work efficiently, and it raised my frustration level considerably some days.

The advantage of being a “junior pastor,” of course, is that the buck doesn’t stop at your desk. If the deacons became testy about a rappelling stunt or whatever, I just ducked. The criticism would fly by and land on my boss’s desk. But during my early years of ministry, that plus didn’t mitigate my frustration.

Administrative hassles. Now that I’m further down the timeline, I have a vast arsenal of administrative tools at my disposal, but I also find the pace of change is frustratingly slow.

My youth group-and even my first church-responded well and rapidly to change. They didn’t ask all the what-if questions: “What if this happens? What if that doesn’t work? What if we run out of money?” They were ready to get involved and take risks.

If I challenged them with, “All the heathen are lost,” they would consider the matter seriously, saying, “Then I should change my life. I should join Operation Mobilization.”

When presented with a challenge to change, the people I work with now are more likely to say, “But that’s never been done here before” or “How much did you say that was going to cost?”

Motivating an established church with an elaborate structure and a long, rich history can be like turning the Queen Mary around. You can turn a speedboat around on a dime. But it takes seven miles at sea to get an ocean liner headed in the opposite direction. And the older we become, the more likely we pastor ships instead of speedboats.

The time and energy that administration extracts from me also tends to separate me from my people. My maturity and leadership now give me the opportunity to make a large difference in many people’s lives, but only if I’m willing to stay at the helm of the ship. Frankly, I’d like to be on the deck more often, chatting with the crew.

The Varied Pacing of Ministry

How we pace our ministries also changes over the years.

A holy impatience. When we’re young, it’s easier to be direct. We see clearly the problems of the church, and we have few qualms about telling people what ought to be done. We think, This is right, and I know it’s right. It’s biblical, and this church needs it. So I’m not going to let anyone stand in my way. So we barge through the front doors, trying to make change happen immediately.

Yes, sometimes we’re brash and less than diplomatic. But it’s that youthful impatience-especially if it’s directed by biblical goals-that can often win the day.

In 1970 I became convinced that the one great thing our youth needed was involvement in missions. At that time short-term summer missions was not a common opportunity, especially for high schoolers. So I wrote missionaries and mission boards on every continent and compiled “103 Opportunities” that I grandly and with much fanfare presented to my kids.

The result? Fifty-five of them spent the summer of 1970 doing missionary work, and they were spread over five continents. It was a spiritual springtime for the church, although not the one great answer I had envisioned!

Younger ministers can get away with that type of holy drive, partly because congregations expect that from us when we’re young. But as we mature in ministry, other character traits must emerge.

A godly patience. The more at home I’ve become in the ministry, the more I use the back door. Instead of barging through the front door, guns blazing, I slip in quietly, unnoticed. I’ll take someone out to lunch, listen respectfully, and in the process introduce my ideas in a non-combative mode, allowing others time for thought.

I’m also more comfortable with the fact that my plans won’t get accepted immediately. Getting College Church into a major building program without sinking the church has been a huge exercise in patience. I didn’t just stand up one day and announce that we needed to build a $6.5 million structure. I had to lay the groundwork for years.

It began, in fact, when the congregation held a meeting to discuss air conditioning. Many people were saying, “Why should we install air conditioning? It’s unbearable only ten Sundays out of the year. We’ll still come to church.” I had to remind them that a restaurant operating that way would go out of business.

In time I got them to see that we were trying to reach others besides the already committed. Patience paid off. We got the air conditioning, and now, years later, we’re building new facilities.

I may have to settle for accomplishing only a small part of the plan at the beginning of a new venture. But if it moves the church in the right direction, in a year or two the whole program can be in place.

Temptations in Time

In each stage of ministry, my spiritual life has been tested differently.

Vulnerability to flattery. I didn’t get to preach much as a youth pastor. But if someone came up after my sermon and said, “That was great! Do you know what we need around here? We need to hear more of you,” I tended to believe them.

Yeah, you’re right, I’d think. That is exactly what this church needs: more of me. When young, we’re more

vulnerable to such flattery.

Now I know the difference between compliments and flattery. If a long-time member tells me, “Pastor, that was a good sermon Sunday,” that’s one thing.

But it’s another when someone who’s been attending but three weeks says, “Boy! That was the best sermon I have ever heard!” Then my red flag goes up. It could be that they’ve never heard good preaching, but more likely they are flattering me to get my attention.

I’ve learned, then, to be cautious over the years. Experience has shown me the truth of what Solomon says-to be wary of flatterers.

Vulnerability to security. As one gets on in ministry, I’ve witnessed an increasing temptation to play it safe, to become vulnerable to the need for security, to see risk as a young man’s game. The more one achieves professionally, the more one has to lose and the greater the instinct to play it safe. That’s why some pastors are tempted to pad their boards with supportive “yes people” and hire staff who don’t threaten them.

I have consciously fought this instinct by surrounding myself with superior people, many with abilities exceeding mine. I invite them to push and ask hard questions. I allow them to spread their wings, to try new programs and fresh ideas. And when they fly, I fly-and flying is risky business!

Pastoral Care in Two Dimensions

The essence of ministry-pastoral interaction with people-also changes with the years. The same ministry gets done but in two different ways.

Pastoral contact. As a youth pastor, my phone rang constantly. I was available all the time. When I became the pastor of a small church, I involved myself in everything: Sunday school, the youth program, evangelism. Since I worked closely with everyone, they all knew me. We built the new church building together; we cleaned toilets together. People had no compunctions about calling me at any time.

Because of that close contact with people, I could invest myself into individual lives with great energy and good results.

In my early pastorate, I coached a soccer team, “The Awesome Aztecs,” and some of my players came from Jewish, Mormon, and Hindu homes. We had a great time together all season. To thank me for my efforts, the team along with their parents came to church one Sunday, and they all sat on the front row.

Pastoral oversight. When I came to College Church, I suddenly had ten times more people to pastor, but I received only a third of the phone calls. The older minister usually has more responsibility, so people say, “Well, we shouldn’t call Pastor at home. We should wait till tomorrow morning.” And sometimes they simply don’t trouble me with their problems. I regret that some people no longer consider me approachable.

Then again, even when people do ask for pastoral attention, my varied responsibilities force me to weigh my response. A woman recently asked me, “My husband and I are having trouble. Would you counsel us regularly?”

“I can counsel you a couple of times, but then I will have to refer you,” I explained. “And if you need some financial assistance, we can help with the first five or six sessions.”

I know that if I take even two or three people on for regular counseling, it will demand my full attention. I still counsel people, but not as much as I used to.

I simply no longer have the luxury of being involved with as many people. If I were to do so, I wouldn’t administrate well; I wouldn’t adequately prepare sermons. As an older pastor with more responsibility, I have to work through other people.

The irony is that although I personally give less pastoral care, more people receive individual attention. I administrate staff people who visit hospitals, counsel, and make calls into homes. Our church also offers courses that train lay people to give pastoral care to one another.

So although I’m frustrated by administration, my frustration is tempered by the fact that I can oversee the pastoral care of hundreds of people.

Learning to Preach

One of the greatest challenges of ministry is to communicate the Good News to people. It’s a complex task, and not every part of it can be perfected at once. So we should not burden ourselves trying to do at 25 what others are doing at 55. I’ve noticed, in fact, that different stages of ministry lend themselves to mastering different parts of the preaching process.

Learning to be relevant. When I got out of seminary, I entered ministry armed with all kinds of theological words. I was self-consciously bookish.

But that didn’t compute into the world of youth ministry. Kids may be the most challenging group to relate to. They’re a demanding audience. They’re not going to let you get away with being irrelevant. They want fast-paced, graphic, honest dialogue. You can get away with boring adults, but kids won’t tolerate it.

I had to learn to relate to kids on their level. My wife says my vocabulary went through a complete transformation in about a month. So I spent my early ministry years learning how to translate the gospel into contemporary terms.

In fact, I’ve come to believe that youth ministry is the best place to learn how to do that. If you can communicate with teenagers, you can communicate with anybody. As a youth pastor, I learned many speaking techniques that I still draw on today.

Crafting and precision. In recent years my homiletical style has evolved even further. With collegians I could sit on the floor and dialogue from notes written on the margins of my Bible. When I pastored a small church, I began to construct outlines with greater substance and structure. Now I write out a complete manuscript, even if I don’t use it in the pulpit. My people understand more nuances of biblical truth, and I must be clear and precise in my choice of words.

So in this stage of ministry, I’m constantly learning how to craft my sermons. I’m much more fastidious about exegesis and use of language. This is not something I had time to do when I was younger. Even if I did have time, I’m not sure it would have been worth the effort. Now it is, not only because I’ve already learned to be relevant but because my people expect it.

The Changing Focus of Ministry

How I give my energies to ministry has also changed over the years.

A singular passion. When I first started out, I thought I could change the world with my youth program. During the 1960s we sat on the floor for Bible studies, strummed guitars, and sang Jesus songs. We thought that was the answer for the whole church. If people would just sit on the floor and sing Jesus songs, they’d become like the church God intended.

That single-issue focus stayed with me into my early years as a pastor. I’d say to myself, If I can get Evangelism Explosion going, then the church will turn around. I’d preach with confident zeal, imagining one great sermon alone would impact my people for life. As a young minister, I would often devote myself fully to one thing, hoping it would make a big difference.

Early in ministry, we have the luxury and opportunity to have a narrow focus. That focus allows us to give programs the detailed attention and energy they need-especially if they are being created ex nihilo. And although my grandiose hopes for each program may have been misplaced, they each in their own way made a difference.

For example, in my first pastorate, I instituted an intern program for those considering going into the ministry. This not only provided interested people with ministry opportunities, they also received a modest amount of instruction in practical theology, which I taught weekly. The program continued for over a decade after I moved on.

A concern for complexity. As my responsibilities in ministry changed, I began to see another dimension: the church wasn’t one thing but many, and it was the coordination of the many that would, over the long run, make for effective ministry. Even after great sermons, I found myself realizing, That may have been one of the best sermons I’ve ever preached, but alone it won’t make any major difference. I’ve got to keep paying attention to all the other parts of the church’s life as well.

To put it another way, I no longer can evaluate rappelling off the church only in terms of what it can do for the youth. I also must consider how it might impact the ladies’ missionary guild or the church’s insurance coverage.

Complexities can clutter the big picture and make ministry decisions much harder. Then again, learning to look beyond the single ministry focus has also lowered my fear of failure. I’ve discovered that just as one sermon will not change history, one mistake will not collapse the kingdom of God. One bad program will not sabotage the church or destroy my ministry.

Rewards at Every Stage

On my dresser, where I can see it every morning, sits a picture of five guys, with sunglasses and slicked-back hair, on a 1968 Colorado River trip. That picture reminds me of what happened the next day, when four of them prayed with me to receive Christ. And it didn’t end there.

One of those guys, Rick Hicks, went on to direct Forest Home, a Christian conference center in Southern California, and he recently received a Ph.D. To know that something I did as a youth pastor had lasting impact, to know that more than twenty years later those guys are still committed, pursuing ministries themselves and changing lives for Christ-that is wonderful. Seasons may change, as do pastors, but the rewards are essentially the same.

The rewards, of course, continue to unfold. Recently, I received this note from a junior high girl:

Dear Pastor Hughes,

After listening to your sermon today, I recommitted myself to our Lord. I have recently discovered myself just “going through the motions.” I have since done devotions and witnessing to people. Your sermon spoke to me. Normally, I must confess, I don’t listen very well. Today I did, and you had a lot to say. I’m sure you spoke to many nonbelievers in our congregation. I have decided, if possible, to become a member of College Church (although I am only 13 years old and the only one in my family to go to this church). If you would like to get in touch sometime, my number is. . . . Thanks for your time.

Your sister in Christ,

Elizabeth

As Ecclesiastes puts it, there is a time for every season under heaven. That’s certainly been true of my ministry. Each season of ministry has its liabilities and opportunities, but in each season God has been faithful, and his work has moved forward.

Leadership Summer 1991 p. 94-9

Copyright © 1991 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

WORSHIP AS PASTORAL CARE

Paul Anderson

Giving glory to God is good for the giver.

One Saturday I met with a deeply distressed single parent. Since she had no church family, I encouraged her to worship with us on Sunday, which she did with her teenage daughter. When the two of them came to see me on Monday, the daughter, obviously pleased with the release her mother experienced in worship, said, “Mom cried through the whole service.”

Pastoral care of this woman began on Saturday and continued on Monday, but it wasn’t complete without Sunday.

I like to think I listen sensitively and counsel wisely. I know, however, I often overestimate my part and underestimate God’s part in pastoral care. When it comes to having concerns borne, people need a pastor, but they ultimately need to meet with the Almighty.

Like most congregations, we find people coming to us with deep and perplexing problems. We give them encouragement through personal counseling and support groups. But I also tell these people, “Worship with us. It will make a difference over the long haul.” I’ve found that those who maintain regular worship heal faster.

True worship is directed first and foremost to the glory of God. But such worship, I’ve noticed, is also a means of pastoral care.

Worship Counters Self-Centeredness

I met for several weeks with a young man who didn’t have serious psychological problems; he was just too focused on himself. He regularly turned conversations toward his concerns and would serve others only when it was convenient for him.

Over a few months, however, his attachment to self diminished. Now he pays more attention to others, showing more concern for their interests and needs. What made the difference?

“By praying daily and worshiping weekly,” he said, “I became more aware of my self-centeredness.”

Sometimes struggling people will find help only when they begin to look outside themselves toward heaven. Worship, because it focuses outward, can bring a healthy corrective to narcissism, as it did for my young friend. One cannot truly worship God and be fixated on one’s self.

In an entertainment-oriented culture, however, it’s sometimes difficult to keep the focus of worship on God. We’re all tempted to think, at times, I didn’t get anything out of worship today, as if worship is primarily performed for our approval.

I enjoy the story of the man who complained to the minister following church, “I didn’t like the hymns you chose today,” to which the pastor replied, “That’s okay; we weren’t singing them for you.”

Certainly, we must design services that are meaningful for worshipers. But if I want worship to help people pastorally, I must remind myself and my people that worshipers should first ask, “What does God think of my praise? What can I do for him?” The main test of worship is not how well the preacher has preached but how well the worshipers have worshiped.

The paradox is that if we design worship to meet people’s needs, we’re less likely to help them because we are leaving them in their self-oriented state. True worship, where giving to God is more important than getting, is the only worship that heals people of the tyranny of self.

Worship Dispels Loneliness

Struggles have a way of making us feel isolated. Worship, on the other hand, has a way of dispelling the feeling of isolation.

A woman who was coming off a bout with alcohol came to Christ and then started attending our church, the first time on Good Friday. She told me she was lonely. I told her, “Just keep coming, and it will make a difference.”

And although she struggled through her recovery, she’s not lonely anymore. In fact, she has enough strength and self-confidence to reach out to other lonely people and invite them to church.

Worship can cure loneliness. It sets us in the midst of God’s people, where the God who came “to save his people from their sins” (and not just me from my sin) promises to be with his people when they gather. In worship it is no longer just “me and God” facing the world; it is “God and us.”

For me liturgy is one means of driving home this reassuring truth. Confessing the ancient creeds together (especially that phrase from the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in the communion of saints . . .”) reminds us that the church is bigger than we are and has been here longer than we have. Singing the Kyrie together (“Lord, have mercy”) helps us identify with others who suffer. And the high point of our worship comes at the Eucharist, when we share together the life of Christ.

Forms that have a long tradition save us from assuming that the world centers around our needs. They put our troubles in perspective and help lonely people experience the healing that fellowship with Christian brothers and sisters, past and present, can bring.

For example, a single mother recently said she was unaccustomed to our Lutheran worship and somewhat intimidated by it at first. As she continued with us, however, she said she grew to appreciate our liturgy; it brought a needed security to her life. Her participation in worship invigorated the counseling we were providing.

Then again, a woman from a nonliturgical background who attended one Sunday told me afterward, “This place is dead.” Her candid comment, whether accurate or not, highlights the danger of liturgy. While tradition can breed security, it may appear to be the security of sleep.

There’s the old joke about a Pentecostal man who once wandered into a liturgical worship service. As the pastor preached, the man responded with, “Praise the Lord!”

A woman finally turned around and scolded him, “Excuse me, but we don’t praise the Lord in the Lutheran church.”

But a man down the pew corrected her, “Yes we do; it’s on page 19.”

Although liturgy can help, we know it isn’t the sole answer. So we try regularly to bridge the past and present, form and freedom. For example, we include free times of prayer as a part of corporate liturgical responses. We also sing more contemporary worship songs along with the great hymns of the church.

In short, worship that is grounded in tradition and responsive to the Spirit can remind people, especially people who feel isolated in their troubles, that there is a community larger than themselves with whom they can pray and be comforted.

Worship Helps People Step Out in Hope

Ralph Martin writes in The Worship of God that the act of praise is a “dialogue, involving the interchange of the divine initiative and the human response. Worship pulsates with a two-beat rhythm expressed simply as ‘we come to God’ and ‘God comes to us.’ “

When we recognize that worship is divine initiation and human response, it can become a means of unlocking people from personal moods.

When people face enormous problems, it’s easy for them to get discouraged, which leads to passivity, which, in turn, can lead to more discouragement. People become chained in a tight circle of hopelessness. Worship breaks into that circle by requiring people to do something-something positive and hopeful-to give glory to God.

King David didn’t always feel upbeat. Yet even in his discouraged moments, he could pray, “I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth” (Ps. 34:1). I believe that kept him from despondent inactivity.

Our custodian, John, became a Christian out of a life of drugs and crime. When we hired him, he was still struggling to break free from his past. Singing was one thing that helped stabilize John. In fact, we always knew where John was working because he sang all day. As he sang the songs and hymns he learned in worship, the Holy Spirit reprogrammed his mind, replacing darkness with light.

Praise enlists worshipers in active response to God-“with hearts and hands and voices.” After acting in hope, people become more hopeful.

Fine-Tuning Worship for Pastoral Care

Since we recognize these effects of worship on people, here are some ways we shape our services.

To highlight the fact that no one stands alone, I hug everyone I can on Sunday. Many don’t get that even from their nuclear family. A hug tells people they’re special, even those who make me feel like I’m embracing a telephone pole.

We also give care to specific individuals in the service. Before one Mother’s Day service, Lynn was feeling down and had requested prayer. Before coming to faith in Christ, she had left her teenage children, and although she had received a new family since, she hadn’t yet reconciled with her past.

During the service, I shared her concern (with her permission) with the congregation, and then I asked some people near her to gather around her as I prayed. “I felt loved,” Lynn said afterward, as she thanked me.

Seeing worship as pastoral care has raised my expectations for the service and changed the way I approach it. Since God can save people from all sorts of trouble, I am more careful to share the gospel as a part of each sermon.

Since God will release people from the power of sin, I lead the liturgical confession of sins and absolution with the sense that spiritual life depends on them. We pray for people by name during the service, whether the request is healing for body, soul, or spirit.

Preparing for worship, then, means more than preparing a sermon. In fact, when I find myself spending ten hours on a sermon and fifteen minutes throwing together a worship service, I’m not properly acknowledging the importance of the pastoral care dynamic of worship.

Introducing the “Wonderful Counselor”

People need God more than they need me. It is God who can ultimately encourage, change, heal, and comfort them. Worship is a primary means of helping people see God in the midst of their troubled lives. Counseling and the Sunday service, then, have the same goal in mind: to put people in touch with the healing power of God.

After one service, a woman said to me, “I don’t know why, but I started crying as soon as we started singing.” I have heard that often from new people. It is not the brilliance of singers or the professionalism of instrumentalists; it is the sense of God’s presence that moves them.

One Sunday we invited someone I thought was a guest preacher. He didn’t preach, however; he sat down at the piano and led us in worship. In a gentle and joyful way, he brought us into the presence of God.

My secretary later commented about that service: “During the worship time, the Holy Spirit was teaching me many things-things I needed to do, things I needed to say, areas I needed to give up to the Lord.

“When our guest stopped playing, I thought he was going to start preaching. What I hadn’t realized is that he had taken the entire time for worship and that he didn’t intend to preach. At first I felt let down, but then I realized how much the Lord had helped me just through the worship.”

In sum, Jesus, the “Wonderful Counselor,” knows better than I how to get through to people. He sends the Paraclete, the Helper, to come alongside people. So although I don’t schedule counseling appointments on Sunday, God often does-right during the worship service.

Copyright © 1991 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

AFTER DELIVERANCE, THEN WHAT?

Joe D. Wilmoth

Steve was desperate. Starting with marijuana almost twenty years earlier, he had gone on to try all sorts of drugs, including cocaine. He thought he was a user, not an addict-he always felt he was in control.

Now, however, he was smoking crack cocaine, and he knew it was controlling him. He had exhausted thousands of dollars in savings, pawned everything of value, spent every cent he earned, and started writing bad checks.

But mostly he was concerned about his 11-year-old daughter. He felt guilty having his drug-using friends around her, and he knew if his lifestyle didn't change soon, he would lose custody of her.

One of Steve's friends asked me if I could help. I invited him to my home to see what I could do, hoping to get him into some kind of treatment program.

It didn't take long to realize my counseling skills couldn't help Steve. Together we sought God with intense, desperate prayer. Finally I commanded any demonic spirits oppressing Steve to leave.

I didn't hear any voices or see any demons, but something dramatic happened.

The following Sunday Steve testified that God had set him free from drugs. He began to save money and pay off bills. He cleaned up his mobile home, and his daughter showed signs of better care.

Steve even approached law enforcement officers about helping snare drug dealers. Several months after his deliverance, I interviewed him on radio about his experience with drugs, and he told about the difference God's power had made in his life.

Steve had been delivered from demonic power.

Rethinking deliverance

When I began my most recent pastorate, I had a healthy skepticism about "deliverance" ministry. (I use the term deliverance to describe the spiritual power to break demonic influence.) I knew demons were real, but I was also convinced the devil got more credit than he deserved.

I had seen a few purported demonic manifestations and exorcisms, but most of them could be explained psychologically. I was particularly skeptical about the idea that some believers needed demons cast out of them.

But some in my congregation appeared to think deliverance was the cure for almost any spiritual, mental, or physical malady. Then others I respected shared their personal experiences of deliverances.

I cautiously began to rethink my position. Perhaps God was telling me to be more open toward a ministry of discernment and deliverance. Subsequent experiences have continued to shape my thinking about deliverance in pastoral ministry.

Encounters with powers

Greg became involved in Satanism while in the Marine Corps. Although that was past, he and his girlfriend still did drugs, and he played in a rock band. At her parents' insistence, they came to me for premarital counseling.

I talked to them about building a Christian foundation for marriage, and they committed themselves to Christ. Greg also acknowledged his need to be free from demonic influence associated with his Satanism and drug involvement. During my prayer for his deliverance, Greg responded emotionally. A smile appeared on his face, and he told me several times: "That felt great. I've never gotten a rush from drugs that was any better than when you prayed for me." I wasn't sure what to think of that, but the prayer seemed to help move him in God's direction.

Another example was Howard. Hospitalized for depression, Howard had encountered a series of crises-marital conflict, adultery, multiple divorces, violence, and financial instability. Rejection, occultism, and violence went back generations in his family. Just released from the hospital, Howard now faced bankruptcy.

Two people in our congregation joined me in prayer for Howard's deliverance. He was eager to gain control over his temper and be free from spiritual bondage.

Nothing spectacular happened, but Howard said he felt a physical sensation and a spiritual release when I laid my hands on him during the prayer. Although his circumstances did not change significantly, he began to respond more appropriately to trouble. Things at home seemed to calm down, and he could function on the job.

Still another example was Billy. He was only 7, but he continually left our children's workers exhausted and frustrated. Billy was belligerent, defiant, uncooperative, and generally out of control.

One Sunday morning when Billy was particularly disruptive, my wife, Zelda, went into the children's service. He was kicking, throwing chairs, and screaming, "I hate you. Leave me alone!"

Two deacons helped Zelda escort Billy outside and left her with him. She tried encouraging, pleading, and threatening, but nothing calmed him down.

Finally, in desperation, she put her arms around him and said, "Satan, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus. Leave this boy alone."

Billy quieted down at once, pushed Zelda away, and said, "Okay."

"Okay what?" she responded, startled by the sudden change.

"I be good," Billy said.

Zelda took him back to the children's service, where the workers accepted him reluctantly. They reported later that, to their amazement, he had behaved perfectly through the rest of the activities.

Why doesn't deliverance stick?

Experiences such as these with Steve, Greg, Howard, and little Billy helped convince me that there is a place for deliverance ministry in the church. But I've also seen that deliverance is only part of the story.

Steve, who had such a dramatic deliverance from drugs, moved out of town. He's reportedly been growing and using marijuana again.

Greg has moved, too. He left town soon after his girlfriend attacked him with a knife after finding him in bed with another woman.

As far as I know, Howard functions adequately enough, but he still lives from crisis to crisis.

And Billy may not be throwing chairs during children's church, but the last time I saw him, he was angry and defiant once again.

I saw God's power touch each of these people. I believe they were all set free from evil forces. But that initial "power encounter" was not a cure-all for any of them.

Deliverance is a valid, even crucial ministry of the church, but it has built-in limitations and dangers. For example, an overemphasis on deliverance from demons encourages people to avoid their own responsibility. They can blame the Devil for their sins and look for deliverance as the quick fix.

Deliverance from demonic influence is not God's ultimate goal for his children. His higher purpose is that believers become like Christ. One of the most familiar biblical passages on spiritual warfare (Eph. 6) does not emphasize dramatic crisis experiences, but putting on Christian virtues.

Not a one-step journey

Deliverance can get people started in the right direction, but it is not a one-step journey to Christian maturity. If deliverance is to lead to lasting change, it must be accompanied by repentance, responsible action, and reinforcement.

Repentance. People must assume responsibility for their sins. Whatever influence demons may have exerted, at some point they yielded to that influence. They must admit their own role and then turn away from sinful behavior. Without repentance, deliverance cannot last.

Greg wanted to hold onto his sinful pleasures. He did not see his encounter with God as the end of an old way of life and the beginning of a new life. He was looking for one more high, another "fix" to make him feel good.

Responsible action. Spiritual disciplines help a struggling believer replace long-held, false perceptions of self and others with the truth of God's Word. We are not puppets whose strings are pulled by either a demon or God. Rather, we are rational beings with God-given responsibilities.

Our church developed a 10-week, one-on-one discipleship program for new converts. New believers grew in Christ as they met weekly with mature individuals who helped them understand how to live as a Christian.

I arranged more than once for someone to work through the New Life series with Steve, but he kept missing his appointments. He wouldn't take any responsibility for maintaining his deliverance.

Reinforcement. Christian growth should take place in the context of a caring Christian community. Those struggling with life-controlling problems especially need others who will love, accept, challenge, and hold them accountable for their behaviors and attitudes. Various 12-step programs are one way of providing this support.

I tried to get Steve involved in our New Life program to provide this kind of reinforcement. I hoped to see him build relationships with people who could have a positive impact on him. Steve, however, continued to associate with his drug-user friends. He said he wanted to be a good influence on them. Instead, they began to pull him back into their lifestyle.

Billy experienced God's power at church, but then he went home to a dysfunctional family torn apart by violence, incest, and instability. Until the family changes, Billy's problems are likely to continue. Our behavior can be influenced either positively or negatively by others.

A fast start is not enough

A steady diet of disappointments like those with Steve, Greg, Howard, and Billy could devastate a pastor, but other stories tilt the balance the other way.

Greg's former girlfriend has grown as a Christian and enrolled in college. Now she hopes to become involved in full-time ministry.

Sid, who was delivered from alcohol addiction years before I ever met him, is still dry and living for God.

George was a drug addict and professional criminal. For several years now he has headed up an effective prison ministry.

Deliverance is necessary for ministry in a culture permeated with drugs, violence, occultism, and New Ageism. But deliverance is not a panacea. It's not enough to get people started with a bang if I don't help them persevere over the long haul, guiding them through repentance, responsible action, and reinforcement. We must seek to lead people beyond deliverance into spiritual maturity by God's grace, manifested in both the miraculous and the mundane.

-Joe D. Wilmoth

New Life Assembly

Marksville, Louisiana

Copyright © 1991 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

To Illustrate…

PROVIDENCE

Late one evening a professor sat at his desk working on the next day’s lectures. He shuffled through the papers and mail placed there by his housekeeper. He began to throw them in the wastebasket when one magazine-not even addressed to him but delivered to his office by mistake-caught his attention. It fell open to an article titled “The Needs of the Congo Mission.”

The professor began reading it idly, but then he was consumed by these words: “The need is great here. We have no one to work in the northern province of Gabon in the central Congo. And it is my prayer as I write this article that God will lay His hand on one-one on whom, already, the Master’s eyes have been cast-that he or she shall be called to this place to help us.”

The professor closed the magazine and wrote in his diary: “My search is over.” He gave himself to go to the Congo. The professor’s name was Albert Schweitzer.

That little article, hidden in a periodical intended for someone else, was placed by accident in Schweitzer’s mailbox. By chance his housekeeper put the magazine on the professor’s desk. By chance he noticed the title, which seemed to leap out at him.

Dr. Schweitzer became one of the great figures in this century in a humanitarian work nearly un-matched in human history. Chance? No. Providence.

-Dan Betzer

Fort Myers, Florida

in Pentecostal Evangel

EVANGELISM

One Mercedes Benz TV commercial shows their car colliding with a cement wall during a safety test. Someone then asks the company spokesman why they do not enforce their patent on the Mercedes Benz’s energy-absorbing car body, a design evidently copied by other companies because of its success.

He replies matter-of-factly, “Because some things in life are too important not to share.”

How true. In that category also falls the gospel of salvation, which saves people from far more than auto collisions.

-Jim Beranek

Parkersburg, Iowa

DISAPPOINTMENTS

Over a hundred years ago, in a Scottish seaside inn, a group of fishermen were relaxing after a long day at sea. As a serving maid was walking past the fishermen’s table with a pot of tea, one of the men made a sweeping gesture to describe the size of the fish he claimed to have caught. His hand collided with the teapot and sent it crashing against the whitewashed wall, where its contents left an irregular brown splotch.

Standing nearby, the innkeeper surveyed the damage. “That stain will never come out,” he said in dismay. “The whole wall will have to be repainted.”

“Perhaps not.”

All eyes turned to the stranger who had just spoken. “What do you mean?” asked the innkeeper.

“Let me work with the stain,” said the stranger, standing up from his table in the corner. “If my work meets your approval, you won’t need to repaint the wall.”

The stranger picked up a box and went to the wall. Opening the box, he withdrew pencils, brushes, and some glass jars of linseed oil and pigment. He began to sketch lines around the stain and fill it in here and there with dabs of color and swashes of shading. Soon a picture began to emerge. The random splashes of tea had been turned into the image of a stag with a magnificent rack of antlers.

At the bottom of the picture, the man inscribed his signature. Then he paid for his meal and left. The innkeeper was stunned when he examined the wall.

“Do you know who that man was?” he said in amazement. “The signature reads ‘E. H. Landseer!’ ” Indeed, they had been visited by the well-known painter of wildlife, Sir Edwin Landseer.

God wants to take the stains and disappointments of our lives and not merely erase them, but rather turn them into a thing of beauty.

-Ron Lee Davis

in Mistreated

NEEDS

For two years, because of severe tendonitis in both wrists, I could not pick up my young daughter, carry a log, or even open a twist-off pop bottle. To make matters worse, my wife and I, with help from family and friends, were building a major addition to our home when the tendonitis developed, so I couldn’t even use a hammer. I wondered whether I would ever regain full use of my hands.

But our remodeling went on. We installed a second-story window on one blustery evening with the help of some Christian friends and a man named Willy, a retired military musician.

Afterward, before the window crew began eating dinner, I prayed a simple prayer. Willy listened carefully and watched how the rest of us interacted. Later, as he was leaving he said, “People don’t help each other like this anymore.”

I replied, “Sure they do!”

Willy came back to our house, day after day. He dug up our septic tank, cut diseased trees, and simply spent time with us. I could sense he understood my pain and our need. One afternoon as he and I walked and talked in the woods, I discovered why.

For most of his life Willy had lived for his music, but a devastating ear problem developed, preventing him from listening to music of any kind. As a result, rather than being put off by my injury, Willy was drawn to me because of our common ground. And before we went separate ways, Willy became a Christian.

As I look back, I don’t know if I would have taken time to talk with Willy had my wrists been well. Most likely I’d have been hammering nails or running a chain saw. So “all” I could do was listen and talk. But in God’s plan that was enough.

-Stephen W. Sorenson

in Discipleship Journal

PARDON

During the presidency of Andrew Jackson, George Wilson, a postal clerk, robbed a federal payroll from a train and in the process killed a guard. The court convicted him and sentenced him to hang. Because of public sentiment against capital punishment, however, a movement began to secure a presidential pardon for Wilson (first offense), and eventually President Jackson intervened with a pardon. Amazingly, Wilson refused it.

Since this had never happened before, the Supreme Court was asked to rule on whether someone could indeed refuse a presidential pardon. Chief Justice John Marshall handed down the court’s decision: “A pardon is a parchment whose only value must be determined by the receiver of the pardon. It has no value apart from that which the receiver gives to it. George Wilson has refused to accept the pardon. We cannot conceive why he would do so, but he has. Therefore, George Wilson must die.”

George Wilson, as punishment for his crime, was hanged.

Pardon, declared the Supreme Court, must not only be granted, it must be accepted.

-George Maronge, Jr.

Birmingham, Alabama

INDEPENDENCE

On November 20, 1988, the Los Angeles Times reported, “A screaming woman trapped in a car dangling from a freeway transition road in East Los Angeles was rescued Saturday morning. The 19-year-old woman apparently fell asleep behind the wheel about 12:15 a.m. The car, which plunged through a guardrail, was left dangling by its left rear wheel. A half dozen passing motorists stopped, grabbed some ropes from one of their vehicles, tied the ropes to the back of the woman’s car, and hung on until the fire units arrived. A ladder was extended from below to help stabilize the car while firefighters tied the vehicle to tow trucks with cables and chains. ‘Every time we would move the car,’ said one of the rescuers, ‘she’d yell and scream. She was in pain.’

“It took almost 2 1/2 hours for the passers-by, CHP officers, tow truck drivers, and firefighters-about 25 people in all-to secure the car and pull the woman to safety. ‘It was kinda funny,’ L.A. County Fire Capt. Ross Marshall recalled later. ‘She kept saying, “I’ll do it myself.”‘”

There are times when self-sufficiency goes too far.

-Scott Harrison

Bloomington, Illinois

HOLDING ON

On a commuter flight from Portland, Maine, to Boston, Henry Dempsey, the pilot, heard an unusual noise near the rear of the small aircraft. He turned the controls over to his co-pilot and went back to check it out.

As he reached the tail section, the plane hit an air pocket, and Dempsey was tossed against the rear door. He quickly discovered the source of the mysterious noise. The rear door had not been properly latched prior to takeoff, and it flew open. He was instantly sucked out of the jet.

The co-pilot, seeing the red light that indicated an open door, radioed the nearest airport, requesting permission to make an emergency landing. He reported that the pilot had fallen out of the plane, and he requested a helicopter search of that area of the ocean.

After the plane landed, they found Henry Dempsey-holding onto the outdoor ladder of the aircraft. Somehow he had caught the ladder, held on for ten minutes as the plane flew 200 mph at an altitude of 4,000 feet, and then, at landing, kept his head from hitting the runway, which was a mere twelve inches away. It took airport personnel several minutes to pry Dempsey’s fingers from the ladder.

Things in life may be turbulent, and you may not feel like holding on. But have you considered the alternative?

-Greg Asimakoupoulos

Concord, California

JUDGMENT

In Is It Real When It Doesn’t Work? Doug Murren and Barb Shurin recount: Toward the end of the nineteenth century, Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel awoke one morning to read his own obituary in the local newspaper: “Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, who died yesterday, devised a way for more people to be killed in a war than ever before, and he died a very rich man.”

Actually, it was Alfred’s older brother who had died; a newspaper reporter had bungled the epitaph.

But the account had a profound effect on Nobel. He decided he wanted to be known for something other than developing the means to kill people efficiently and for amassing a fortune in the process.

So he initiated the Nobel Prize, the award for scientists and writers who foster peace. Nobel said, “Every man ought to have the chance to correct his epitaph in midstream and write a new one.”

Few things will change us as much as looking at our life as though it is finished.

-Rex Bonar

Olathe, Kansas

What are the most effective illustrations you’ve come across? We want to share them with other pastors and teachers who need material that communicates with imagination and impact. For items used, LEADERSHIP will pay $25. If the material has been published previously, please indicate the source.

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Leadership Summer 1991 p. 48-9

Copyright © 1991 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

SEARCHING FOR REAL PRESENCE

George Mallone

I have led plenty of church services in which people came, yawned their way through the hour, and scooted out the door to more exciting activities. I believe I know why.

Earlier in my pastoral ministry, I majored on the transcendence of God, emphasizing his holy otherness. I described the sacraments as “mere symbol” and believed that only at the eschaton would the kingdom of God dawn. Nevertheless, I began to sense I was catering only half a meal to my congregation.

I realized that people in our culture, me included, were yearning for God’s immanence: his real, manifested, experienced presence. Theologically, I knew that he is present everywhere at all times, but I also knew that we didn’t sense his presence as much as we would like.

I had to admit that I had been talking like a theist but acting like a deist: praying but not expecting God to truly come. Being a functioning deist takes a lot of pressure off-once you learn to preach a sermon, once you learn to run a service, pastoring is no big deal. I didn’t have to worry about what God would do. I had things well under control.

However, I had neither the ministry nor the satisfying relationship with God that I wanted.

Consequently I now have a different priority for a church gathering-not that attenders applaud my sermon or savor the music, not that members tithe or build relationships, as important as these things are, but that we meet God. The sine qua non for me has become: Does God manifest his presence?

Can anything be done to facilitate such presence?

Certainly, we cannot manipulate God with formulas. But our immanent God, who wants us to know him, hear his voice, and feel his compassion, has made himself accessible. In our church we intentionally seek to access God’s real presence in four ways.

Invocation

Traditional invocations have tended to be wakeup calls, arousing the faithful to the start of a worship service.

I became more serious about invocations after I noticed what was happening when I prayed for individuals. When I invoked the Lord’s presence in the lives of needy people, usually I would see God touch them in some discernible way. I decided if that happens with individuals, why not in a large group?

So now our services begin with a faith-filled invitation for God to participate. Certain traditions pray, “Come, Holy Spirit,” followed by the searching injunction to “find out what pleases the Lord.”

Although I have prayed many invocations in my ministry, the current difference for me has been offering the invocation with faith and expectation. We want people to know that we fully intend to meet God in a special way in this service.

We also give opportunity for the Spirit to come. We still maintain order and structure in our service, yet with sufficient flexibility that the Spirit of God can do what he chooses, when he chooses.

For example, as we began ministry time at the end of one service (invocation isn’t restricted to the beginning of a service), I asked the Lord to come and minister to people’s needs and then said, “Is God impressing thoughts on anyone’s heart?”

One man stood in the back of the room and said, “God has given me two words: heart and surgery. Somebody here is having heart surgery, and I’m to pray for you.”

I asked, “Is that word for anyone here?”

No one responded, and we continued on.

Later we learned, however, that a man and woman in the room had a baby slated for heart surgery the very next day, but they were too frightened to say anything. The revealed message helped those parents know that God cared about their circumstances.

Worship

In our worship we value intimacy with God. That’s not easy to achieve, however. Sometimes even our songs can obstruct because the worshipers are more touched by the tunes than by God, enamored with the melody, the sentiment, or the song leader.

Granted, even hymns sung without divine intimacy have benefits-they catechize; they inspire; they uplift-but we insist on seeking real presence.

We’ve found that intimacy in worship comes most readily, though not solely, through second-person songs. They directly address God with the pronoun you (“You are worthy great Jehovah”).

First-person songs (“I once was lost, but now am found”) focus attention on us, and third-person songs (“He owns the cattle on a thousand hills”) sing about God rather than to God. Nothing wrong with either, but they make intimacy more difficult.

Our primary songs are those second-person songs that focus on God’s person and character, addressing him in words of exaltation and affection.

We still delight to sing first- and third-person hymns-after we have led people into a sense of intimacy. For example, this Sunday we have already planned to sing, “On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand.”

As we sing, we invite people to sense and respond to the nearness of God. Some raise their hands. Others kneel or lift their eyes upward. Even facial expressions can indicate something is happening, something deeper than a state of relaxation.

It is not uncommon for people to tell me after a worship service, “I don’t know what is happening. When I come and worship, all I want to do is cry and lift my hands to God.”

Lord’s Supper

The theological epicenter of Christ’s presence is the Lord’s Supper. In addition to rehearsing the historical centrality of the cross, we are releasing the present benefits of the cross. Through Communion, we actively participate as Jesus imparts his grace in forgiveness, healing, and the palpable sense of his presence.

I realized we were making a big mistake by restricting this vital sacrament to fifteen minutes once a month. We were limiting access to God’s immanence. So now we serve Communion weekly.

As worship continues, people go to any one of six serving stations in the back of the auditorium, receive Communion and often prayer from the servers, and then return to their seats.

This lasts approximately ten minutes, but sometimes we plan an extended Communion for the entire service. People receive prayer during this time spontaneously, either by their own request or at the suggestion of the server.

Personal prayer ministry

After believers have worshiped, participated in Communion, and heard the Word of God, they need an opportunity to both receive ministry and respond to the preaching. Since the Word heard without obedience leads to hardness of heart, they need to respond in specific, tangible ways.

In addition, those in need shouldn’t wait for another meeting or counseling appointment if Jesus is present and wants to help them now. I am increasingly amazed at how personal prayer cements the preached word and further accesses people into the presence of Jesus.

So at the end of every service we conduct “ministry time.” People may pray for one another in the congregation; they may come forward for prayer. We have trained a group of people to pray for those in need.

Becky had major emotional problems. Desperate to prevent hospitalization, others had referred her to me. I said to her, “Jesus will come when we invite his presence. He will reveal things you need to know and, we trust, heal the longstanding hurts in your life.”

I sensed her faith, and so I continued, “As I pray for you, the Holy Spirit will let you see something, hear something, or feel something. When this happens, tell me.” No sooner had I invited the presence of Jesus than she saw a vivid image of Jesus extending his hands toward her. At this point I led her in prayer to receive God’s love.

Becky did not have to go to the hospital that afternoon. From that day on she gradually progressed as one of our teams continued to pray with her weekly. I have seen hundreds of such encounters at the end of worship services through the ministry of trained prayer teams.

You would think that after a while people would stop responding. Yet it never fails, when we invite people to receive this ministry, they always come. People want to be touched by God.

Recently I had lunch with a man who had visited our church. I asked him, “What did you like and dislike about our service?”

He replied, “I disliked the fact that in your church, I didn’t know any of the songs. I felt like an outcast.”

“I understand that,” I said. “We need to be more sensitive to that. What did you like about us?”

“I like the fact,” he replied, “that you expect God to come. You really expect he’s going to come.”

He’s right. For if God doesn’t come, why should anyone else?

-George Mallone

Grace Vineyard Christian Fellowship

Arlington, Texas

Copyright © 1991 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

GIVING THE DEVIL MORE THAN HIS DUE

Marguerite Shuster

Sometimes exorcism causes damage not deliverance.

A while ago, a certain school of wisdom proclaimed, "When in doubt, cast it out!" The slogan referred to dealing with demon possession or oppression and assumed (1) that there may be doubt whether a person is so afflicted, and (2) that exorcism can, in any case, do no significant harm and therefore might as well be tried.

I've personally dealt with a few cases of demonic possession over the years, and while pursuing my Ph. D. in psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary, I immersed myself in the psychological and spiritual literature pertaining to it. Let me briefly show why I affirm the first assumption and dispute the second.

Four Cases

Consider the following people I've known (names and identifying details altered, of course):

1. Joan, a woman of unremarkable appearance and behavior and an active member of her mainline congregation, was serving on an educational committee interested in exploring paranormal phenomena. Some members of the committee considered such phenomena hokum; other members thought them dangerous and to be avoided.

Joan, however, had actively pursued a variety of psychic experiences-palm reading, tarot cards, and seances. She thought the committee should endorse them as an important but neglected aspect of human potential. Indeed, she considered them to be a gift of God and used various scriptural references to support her view.

2. Dave, in his early twenties, was brought to my office by his father, with whom he still lived, after one of Dave's several psychiatric hospitalizations. He was obsessed with the thought that the Devil was attacking him. He was terrified that the Devil was stronger than God. While he was in the hospital, he would awake at night screaming, "I've been damned! I've been damned!" sometimes becoming so violent he had to be restrained. Although he was heavily medicated, his preoccupation with the Devil consumed his waking moments.

3. Larry, a man in his thirties, suffered chronic physical illness and had an erratic work history, an unstable marriage, and a childhood marked by abuse. Though he no longer engaged in it, he and his family had often used Ouija boards and experimented with other psychic and occult paraphernalia and practices.

He also drank too much, occasionally becoming violent or acting seductively toward young women. He came to my office consumed by diffuse rage and full of guilt.

4. Theresa, an older woman, was furious at her support group. At one meeting, during the time of sharing before prayer, she declined to talk about her troubles. It was obvious, though, that she was in distress and that she was seeking help, but since several people had just joined the support group, Theresa did not yet trust them enough to talk.

Her suspicion was heightened when, during prayer, one young man laid his hands on her head and prayed that any demons might be cast out so that she might be free to talk about the painful material she was withholding. Afterwards, she vowed she would never again attend a group where such a thing could take place.

Each of these individuals would call themselves Christians, though their theological convictions would differ greatly. Each of them but Joan had endured extremely painful experiences and were in present difficulty. Joan and Larry had had considerable contact with the occult; Dave and Theresa were dealing directly with the thought of Satanic oppression. I could sense deep psychological trouble in Dave, Larry, and Theresa and also overwhelming rage in Larry and Theresa.

I do not doubt that sometimes demonic presence may manifest itself dramatically. But in any of these cases, should we suspect direct demonic activity? In each of these cases, there is room for doubt.

The Devil's Wiles

I take seriously the Gospel accounts, and therefore the possibility of demonic possession or oppression. Further, I believe Satan has a profound investment in human misery of all kinds. That does not mean he works solely or most effectively by means of possession.

Scripture gives no list of criteria for discerning who might be "possessed"-a rather strange omission if such a list were vital. The only "test" of spirits given is doctrinal (1 John 4:3) and addressed to a specific historical situation of encroaching heresy. (Note that in the Gospels, the demons had no trouble confessing the identity of Jesus.)

Further, Scripture tells us that one of Satan's characteristics is to hide-indeed, to present himself as an angel of light.

Even as dramatic a symptom as the presentation of a new personality with a new voice and new skills or knowledge does not necessarily mean the presence of an evil spirit: Multiple Personality Disorder is a known psychiatric syndrome, and I have personally known at least two persons so afflicted in whom I witnessed the radical shifts but suspected no demons.

Thus, it should come as no surprise that we may frequently experience uncertainty and have need of a spiritual gift of discernment to guide us. Even discernment itself is risky: How do we test private, unsharable certainties? How do we accurately discriminate genuine, spiritual discernment from our own idiosyncratic psychological processes? Again, we find considerable room for doubt.

The Troubled, Ill, and Oppressed

Among the cases just described, I personally believe direct demonic involvement was likely in Joan and Larry only.

Despite Joan's unremarkable behavior, when I was in her presence, I experienced a presence of evil that I had felt only once in my life. Her unorthodox theology and her occult involvement suggested demonic influence, but the powerful sense of evil was determinative. She was not asking for help, however, and I have no idea what has become of her.

Larry, by contrast, was seeking help. In his presence, too, I sensed something evil. In addition, he had sensed something other than himself intermittently taking control in his life. When we prayed together, nothing dramatic occurred, but the atmosphere seemed palpably to clear, and he reported experiencing a feeling of peace.

This brief interlude by no means solved his problems, but the temporary relief he experienced seemed to be of a spiritual nature. (I grant, of course, that relief could be explained in psychological terms.)

Dave's distress, on the other hand, seemed to be a fairly typical manifestation of paranoid schizophrenia, a psychosis whose origins are largely biological. Persons so afflicted are often preoccupied with demons. "Demons" may not be a bad symbol for them to use-such people are fighting a battle that is significantly beyond their abilities-but it's not the same thing as demonic possession. In fact, it seems to be a general rule that people who rave about demons are not likely to be possessed.

And Theresa I see as an extremely ill, troubled person, disabled by her history and psychological make-up, who makes people uncomfortable with her manipulative, angry behavior, but whose trouble would likely only be increased by any type of exorcism.

More Harm Than Good

If we attempt an exorcism, we should not assume that the worst that can happen is nothing. On the contrary, serious psychological damage can be done by ill-advised exorcisms.

The nature of the damage depends upon the personality structure of the person affected. In a highly suggestible person, exorcism can actually produce the symptoms it is designed to relieve.

For instance, if one asks such a person if he experiences thus-and-such (hears voices, loses control, etc.), he's likely to believe he does and may act in accord with that belief. Such persons are extremely vulnerable to psychological manipulation (intended or not), all the more so in a highly charged group setting.

With the highly conscientious, over-controlled, introverted person, the very idea that one could be influenced or possessed by a demon may heighten feelings of badness and guilt. After all, even if she rejects the hypothesis that demons are involved, such a person may think, I must be a terrible person if someone sees what I do as so evil that they would attribute it to Satan!

The self-indulgent, not-so-introspective person may find the hypothesis of demonic influence a convenient way to deny personal responsibility for what he wants to do-"the Devil made me do it." While this danger is frequently mentioned, I suspect that when a person says, in a dismissive way, "the Devil made me do it," the self-serving and not very plausible nature of the excuse becomes apparent.

These dangers are not trivial. And they are the dangers we face when working with people on the less disturbed end of the psychological spectrum-whose problems are no worse than a neurosis or perhaps a character disorder. When we try to help more disturbed people-those suffering from a borderline personality or a psychosis-the dangers become much greater.

Take Dave. Suppose I have correctly assumed he is a paranoid schizophrenic, and that, as a matter of fact, no direct demonic agency is involved. Suppose, however, that someone attempted an exorcism on him, assuring him that he could be delivered. And remember: Dave was obsessed with the thought that perhaps the Devil is stronger than God.

When the exorcism fails (as it must, if only paranoid schizophrenia produces Dave's symptoms), then Dave's worst fears have been reinforced-God did not in his case defeat the Devil-and his last state is decidedly worse than his first, no small matter in a person as ill as Dave.

On the other hand, in such a case, one ought not to make the opposite mistake of trying to argue Dave out of his delusions by assuring him that his perceptions are mistaken. Denying a paranoid person's delusions doesn't work. It simply persuades the person that one belongs to the group that is plotting against him.

In a situation like this, I would reassure Dave that I take his concern about the Devil seriously, and I would add that God is stronger than the Devil and can protect him. I would pray for the Lord's protection and healing, and remind Dave that the Lord can also work through a doctor's counsel and prescriptions. Such an approach may lack drama, but it has the merit, at least, of not making a sick person sicker.

Theresa is not quite as disabled as Dave, but she too is gravely ill. The very idea that she could have demons in her head tormented her for days and raised for her, too, the question of whether Satan might be stronger than God. She dealt with the trauma by avoiding it, by letting her anger mask her fear, and by trying to build a thicker wall of defenses to shield herself against the prospect of demonic oppression.

Some borderline persons, however, who already have difficulty keeping clear the boundary between themselves and others, may have that difficulty deepened if someone suggests by an ill-advised exorcism that their feelings, thoughts, and actions are not their own but those of a demon who inhabits and controls them. Exorcism will feed into their psychopathology and make it more difficult for them to keep their own identity clear. Again, exorcising such persons leaves them significantly worse off than they were before.

Discerning the Demonic

Since psychological troubles can masquerade as spiritual conflict, one should not assume the demonic in cases of strange behavior. At minimum, we should get a history of the person who is in difficulty-if, that is, the person is seeking help.

In such a history, I would note particularly any occult pursuits by either the individual or his or her family, or any deliberate pursuit of parapsychological phenomena: such activities, even if only engaged by one's family members or in childhood, are not only forbidden by Scripture but often suggest serious spiritual problems. Pursuits, however, should not be confused with spontaneous experiences: many people occasionally experience parapsychological phenomena, like precognitive dreams or clairvoyance, without suffering spiritual harm.

If the person has been seriously abused or has suffered great disappointment or pain, one may want to explore carefully whether the suffering was so great that he was tempted not only to wish evil on a perpetrator of pain but even momentarily to want help from or protection by evil powers.

Also, a person who has willfully engaged in known sin can give an opening to Satan.

And if a person seems significantly hostile toward or fearful of things pertaining to Christ, that too may be a sign of demonic activity-but just a sign.

In fact, none of these bits of history ensures anything. Each is no more than a possible clue.

When the clues, however, suggest the possibility of demonic involvement, I may gently suggest to the person, "Sometimes people find themselves fighting a battle even bigger than they have supposed. Would you mind me praying to the effect that it any evil spiritual powers were involved in the problems you've described, those powers might be bound?"

If I state the question carefully, contingently, and matter-of-factly, I can usually avoid traumatizing the person and giving her problems she didn't have before. If however, I have misjudged the case and the person seems deeply wounded or troubled, I would normally back off, and quickly.

The only exception would be if, by a gift of discernment, I judge that the spiritual battle has been engaged at exactly that moment. That is a rare, rare instance in which the sense of evil is pervasive and unmistakable. In that case, I may rebuke the powers of darkness directly and verbally.

In all other circumstances where I suspect demon possession or oppression but where it's not appropriate to verbalize it, I usually pray silently. Demons, as spiritual creatures, can "hear" whether I speak aloud or not. If one argues that one must speak aloud in order to engage the will of the allegedly afflicted person, one must weigh that consideration against the risk of harming someone who is merely psychologically troubled.

At all costs we must avoid manipulation or an overly authoritarian manner. We must never suggest that "I'm a spiritual person who knows something about you that you don't know." In addition, we must be aware of our own inner psychological dynamics; we may be confusing our ability to discern, say, anger with our ability to discern evil spiritual power.

And we must certainly eschew blaming the victim by saying, "Well, if you really wanted to be delivered, you would be." That's much like the line of the would-be but frustrated healer who tells the sick person, "If you had enough faith, you would be healed."

While it may be true that a person who does not wish to get well may remain ill and that a person who does not wish to get rid of a demon may keep it, it does not follow that all ill persons lack faith or that all psychologically troubled persons have been unwilling to let go of some demon. The problem may be entirely different.

In sum, when in doubt, be careful. The enemy may sometimes gain a great deal more from an exorcism unwisely undertaken than by an exorcism left undone.

Copyright © 1991 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

Ambassador for an Inscrutable God

Richard Doebler

It’s hard to publicly represent a King who keeps his own counsel.

I wish I'd missed a recent phone call.

"You've got to listen to this radio broadcast tonight," the church member urged. "It's the story of a 'miracle man.' It's fantastic! He died, saw a glimpse of heaven, and then came back to life-all because faithful friends were praying. Isn't that tremendous!"

"Yes," I acknowledged, with less enthusiasm than he. "Tremendous." What was I to make of such a call? Was this to help me believe for more of the miraculous? Why did I feel subtly accused, painfully reminded of the shortage of spectacular answers to prayer in my ministry? I wondered if my caller wished I would join the spiritual elite and begin raising the dead.

Time has not erased my disappointment from a spring day more than twenty years ago. Our high school baseball team trailed by a run with two out in the bottom of the ninth, and my coach sent me to the plate to pinch hit. With the pressure on, I swung at a curve ball and struck out.

Going to bat in the ninth is nothing, however, compared to stepping into an intensive care unit, called by a desperate family to pray the equivalent of a home run. All too aware of what is at stake, I pray before I pray officially: "God, if ever I needed a hit, I need it now."

Then I perform my role as a minister, God's representative to a family with its back against the wall. I pray with them for healing. I give them a reassuring hug.

"I'll be praying for you," I say as I leave the room. "God's in control!"

Then, sometimes only hours later, I get word that the patient has died. I walk back through the corridor, the echo of my footsteps punctuating the sterile air, mimicking the empty echoes in my heart: You didn't connect. You struck out.

How can we pastor on those occasions when our faith-filled aspirations are not matched by the outcome? When our cry for a miracle is met with massive disappointment? When I've gone on record imploring God to act in a certain way, and he chooses to respond in ways counter to my request?

In the churches I've served, all in the Pentecostal tradition, an unwritten job description seemed to define my role: "Full of faith, able to move mountains, influential with God." I suspected that they, like I, were frustrated by the lack of visible results. Too often my requests for miracles were like ostriches trying to fly. The prayers were genuine but ungainly. They didn't get off the ground.

Guessing at God's Response

As pastors we're supposed to represent God. We're ambassadors embodying the power of the Almighty to weak and needy people. But frankly, I've found it hard to represent God, particularly when I feel off balance, uncertain what God will do.

Sometimes I've felt like the Lord is throwing curves, and I'm usually missing. Not that I haven't kept on swinging. I've prayed frequently for miracles. I've sought God when conventional wisdom said there was no hope. Medical doctors might give up, I'd tell myself, but I know the Great Physician. City hall might close the door, but I've got the keys to the kingdom.

My spiritual heritage taught me, in the words of an old chorus, "God has a thousand ways to answer every prayer."

And at times, he's answered visibly. I remember praying at the bedside of Roxanne, a young woman horribly injured when a drunk driver hit her car. I asked God to heal her.

For weeks she lay in a coma. The doctors did what they could, but they couldn't offer hope for her recovery. Then one day Roxanne began to wake up.

Eventually God healed her. She has since married and had children. She still has scars, but she lives a normal life. She is a miracle that people can see.

When I was 4, I stood on my grandparents' back-steps and watched my father run to the car: "Richard! Tell Grandma to call the hospital. Tell them it's an emergency!"

With his left hand, he held his right arm together-its bones, nerves, and blood vessels ripped apart by a tractor's circular saw. A mere scrap of skin and tissue remained unsevered.

I told my grandmother the news. Then I began to sob, feeling so helpless and afraid. Grandma made the call, and then she held me, comforted me. And she prayed. My fear subsided as faith grew. I knew God would answer.

In 1954, medical science could not do what it can today. Even if they could sew his arm together, the doctors said, it would never function properly. Still they did what they could while my family prayed, and God responded. I saw God heal my father's arm, which, though weaker, has functioned well. After the accident, he was accepted to medical school. Later he used the fingers on that arm to do surgery.

Yes, I've seen God answer prayer in unmistakable ways. That has encouraged me to continue praying. But because God's answers aren't predictable, I don't always feel like a paragon of faith and confidence.

For example, Ken and Debbie had wanted children for nearly eight years. When they requested, I prayed that God would give them a child. But it took a visiting minister, a friend of mine, to pray with confidence.

Though I stood alongside praying with him, I wouldn't have dared to announce as he did, "A year from now, you'll be dedicating a baby to God." (They actually dedicated Kendra thirteen months later, but that was close enough by my reckoning.)

I didn't want to be presumptuous in my prayers, but I couldn't keep from wondering, Was his confident assertion part of the effectiveness of his prayer?

A pastor friend of mine-who admits to zero business acumen-pulled off a real estate coup for his church that made area developers drool. "How did you get such prime land at that price?" they asked. Some added, "We've wanted to get that land for years."

Stan just shrugged. "We prayed, and God did it for us." Property makes a tangible monument to the miraculous: "Hitherto the Lord has helped us."

But far more often than I care to admit, heaven has responded to such requests from me with silence. As a church-planting pastor, I'd pray, "Lord, please help this young church. We can't make it without you. I can't make it without you." I marched around a piece of property. "God, let us possess the land where the soles of my feet tread."

If it worked for Stan, why not for me? Despite our high expectations, we never got the land. And with each setback, my fears grew. I began to think of worst-case scenarios. We'd better not set our sights too high. We'll only be disappointed.

Yet even in my darkest moments, people still called on me, expecting a man of faith to answer. I still carried a Bible filled with promises for God's people.

"Hang on," I'd tell them. "Don't give up! God can do anything." And I believed what I was saying, in my head if not always in my heart.

What do you do when you haven't seen a miracle for a while? How can you be God's representative at those times when you have no idea whether he will grant your request or not?

God used several experiences to help me see more clearly. I've found it possible to minister on behalf of God Almighty, even as I struggle with the questions and fears.

Obedience, Not Certainty

I've learned first to be available and obedient to God. He wants me to minister to hurting people even when I can't answer their questions. So I try to do my part and let God worry about his part. God calls me to compassion, not certainty; God calls me to obedience, not omnipotence.

Cory taught me that lesson. Debilitated by a combination of MS and diabetes, she was, at 37, completely dependent on others, confined to her bed or wheelchair. MS robbed her of muscle control and prevented her from writing or working with her hands. Diabetes had left her blind so she couldn't even read. She was depressed.

Sitting next to her bed, I asked in the most positive voice I could muster, "How are you doing, Cory?"

"Terrible," she sighed. "I'm no good to anyone. I can't do anything. I don't know why God doesn't just let me die. I'm ready to go, and there's no reason why I should be left here any longer. Why won't God take me home?"

My heart ached with Cory's frustration. "I know it's hard, Cory, but if God didn't have a reason for you to be here, then he would take you home." She stared at the ceiling with blank, unseeing eyes. "The question is not if God can use you, Cory, but how. We just have to pray to know what God wants to make of your life."

"Yes," she protested, "but . . ."

She didn't have to say any more. My arguments couldn't disprove her useless muscles, her insulin syringes, her vacant eyes. My explanations failed to convince even me. My heart screamed, If I were you, I'd feel exactly the same way!

Despite not having satisfying answers for Cory, my calling as pastor demanded that I remain obedient to God and compassionate to her. Ministry continues even in the absence of miracles.

Cory taught me that I needed faith simply to obey, simply to pray. I needed faith that holds steady when everything else, including explanations, crumbles around us. Faith does not mean I've got all the answers. Faith means I act in obedience even when answers aren't apparent.

I've also come to see God doesn't ask me to heal Cory. Nor does he ask me to explain his specific purpose for her life. All God asks me to do is to be available, to show compassion, to pray. He wants me to obey, even though I may not be certain about what he's doing.

Once, in a transparent moment, a popular contemporary faith healer acknowledged that his results, if analyzed carefully, could only claim about a 10 percent success rate.

That encouraged me. It brought miracle-working closer to my level. Nobody bats 1.000. I realized it's okay to keep on asking and believing, even if we strike out nine times out of ten. In fact, it's not only okay, it's essential. Without stepping up to the plate, without asking, we wouldn't even get one out of ten.

Praying in simple obedience has a side benefit: God lifts a tremendous responsibility off my shoulders. It's not my reputation on the line; it's not my ministerial statistics at stake. I don't have to defend God or explain him. But I do have to obey him.

Faith, Not Adequacy

I'd prefer to wait for ministry until I feel totally equipped and spiritually empowered. But I'm not always given the luxury of waiting. Pastors are often forced to act out of urgency rather than adequacy.

When 3-year-old Melissa faced surgery to correct a congenital heart abnormality, I was called to pray for her. I didn't have time to wait until I was "endued with power from on high." The surgery was scheduled, and the clock was ticking. I had to pray even though I felt unprepared.

When people ask pastors to pray, they don't usually think about whether those pastors are filled with faith or fear. Desperate people know when they need prayer. So they rely on pastors to rise to the occasion.

I went to the hospital before Melissa's surgery, not because I felt great spiritual power, but because it was the right thing to do. I read the Scriptures and offered assurances to the family.

I wanted Melissa healed. I knew God could rearrange her deformed heart chambers. And surgery after surgery, God prolonged her life beyond the expectations of her doctors. I believed God's work was in process. I thought her improving prognosis confirmed his will for her good health.

Then suddenly, four years later, Melissa died. On the operating table, facing yet another ordeal, Melissa's heart gave out. Why didn't God finish what he'd started? My questions again mocked me and dared me to pray again for anyone else.

Will I ever feel adequate for such situations? Probably not. But I've come to see that if I wait until I feel adequate, I will never accomplish anything substantial in ministry.

God also showed me that ministry isn't limited by my perceptions. By faith we can see some of God's obscure ways-ways that transcend our understanding.

I realized that God's work had indeed been done through Melissa's short life. Like valuables washed ashore after a ship goes down, good things rose from the wreckage of what seemed to be unanswered prayers. God helped me glimpse a little of the supernatural perspective.

Melissa's family, for example, throughout her short life, was challenged and stretched. Denied physical healing, they affirmed spiritual growth. Difficulties drove them to God. Pain taught them to trust. These were miracles for eternity, not just answers for earthbound requests.

Melissa's church family had grown, too. Watching Melissa, the church's priorities and values were strengthened. Caring and support for Melissa's family blossomed into ministries of meals, babysitting, and other hands-on encouragement. The members of Christ's body shared their pain.

During her struggle, the church gained new appreciation for the value of "things not seen." When Melissa, still 3, stood before the congregation and sang with poise and confidence, My heart belongs to you, Lord . . . I lift it up to you, Lord, and sing alleluia, most eyes in the place filled with tears-and faith.

In these and other ways God worked, answering prayers we hadn't thought to pray.

Trust Not Fatalism

Still there are times I can't see anything that even remotely looks like God is involved. On such occasions I'm learning to leave room for whatever answer God gives. This is not fatalism. It is trust.

Because my experiences with God have not been consistent, I've often been tempted to lower my expectations: Pray a little, pray a lot. It doesn't matter. Que sera, sera.

Trusting God with the results, however, whatever they may be, increases my expectations without demanding that God fulfill them. Trusting God helps me recognize his work and honor him in whatever way he may choose to answer. He may change the problem, or he may change me. He may answer now or later.

A friend of mine pastors an active church in California. During one evening service, the congregation felt an extraordinary urgency to pray for a missionary and his family in drug-terrorized Colombia, that the family would be safe and their ministry fruitful.

Soon after in Medellin, Colombia, the missionary's daughter, hurrying to return home, flagged a taxi. But when the cab pulled to curb, a sudden impulse caused Robin to change her mind, in spite of the driver's irritation, and walk into a nearby shop.

The woman behind the counter stared at her. "I dreamt about you last night," she said. "You're not Colombian. You're American, aren't you?"

Robin affirmed the clerk's impressions, and the woman continued, "Why would you want to come here? It's war here! Most people here want to go to your country." Her question was legitimate. Drug cartels had offered a $4,000 bounty for each dead policeman. In one month more than a hundred police officers plus many innocent bystanders had been killed in terrorist violence. The store clerk's question, however, allowed Robin to tell her about God's love for Colombians-love that had motivated her family to come.

As they walked toward the door a few minutes later, the city rocked with the concussion of a powerful explosion a couple miles away. Robin later discovered that terrorists had packed a car with explosives and parked it in front of the police headquarters-on the very route she would have taken. The car bomb exploded in jammed traffic about the time Robin would have passed by.

Some might view Robin's inexplicable impulse, the dream of a stranger, the significant conversation about God's love, the deadly explosion, and the prayers of people far away as coincidence. Not Robin. She believes that because of the prayers of a church in California, God protected and directed her in Colombia. If that congregation had shrugged their shoulders and taken a fatalistic view, the outcome would have been different.

After hearing that story, I'm recommitted to praying even when visible results aren't always as evident as they were for Robin.

We can be involved in ministry even when we don't have all the answers. God works in spite of our uncertainties and fears. So when I'm called on for miracles, I'll trust God with the answers-whatever they may be-content to know that he trusts me with the praying.

Copyright © 1991 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

IDEAS THAT WORK

Thrifty Visibility

Church-growth specialist Carl George tells the story of going to a consulting appointment in metropolitan New York and calling the pastor for directions. “I’m not going to tell you,” the minister said. “Just come to town and ask the first person you see how to find our church.”

Skeptical but curious, George drove into the city and stopped at the first gas station. “I don’t know anything about churches,” the attendant responded. Then he paused. “Unless you mean the one that’s always got something going on. I’ve seen their flyers, and here’s how to get there . . .”

His story convinced me that any church can find an affordable way to enhance its community image. The key is not necessarily big bucks (even our church could afford flyers!) but continual positive visibility.

The results touch the heart of why we exist as a church: the more positive publicity we do, the easier our friendship evangelism becomes (“Sure, I’ve heard of your church”) and, perhaps just as significantly, the more excited our people become about their church.

Over the last three years, our cash-strapped congregation has found several inexpensive but effective ways to help shape our community’s perception of us.

Streetside Signs

We’ve created a number of movable but professional-looking signs that we set up each Sunday along the curb at the place we rent for worship.

“Real” churches, who may sport gorgeous, permanently mounted signs, could profit by doing likewise since a new, catch-your-eye display often receives more notice than something that’s the same year-round.

We’ve made basic directional signs (“Newcomers always welcome at . . .”), seasonal signs (“Start over with God this Christmas Eve”), and special-event signs (“Join us for our annual Family Day at Community Park”). By themselves they draw few visitors, but we know they make a difference because of how many of our people’s acquaintances respond when told about our church, “I know-I’ve seen your signs.”

These top-quality signs cost us only about $10 each. How? First, our parish bulletin details a “do-you-have-in-your-garage?” list. Most churches, including ours, have pack rats who are happy to donate these materials.

We start with a scrap of 1/4″ or 3/8″ plywood (any grade as long as it’s relatively new). We cut it to about 3′ X 3′ so no one can say it’s too big to transport in their car! After sanding it, we apply primer-making certain to seal all edges-and two generous coats of high-gloss white enamel. Exterior trim paint works great.

Then, using a sign-making computer program (in even tiny churches someone will have access to the equivalent of “Print Shop”), we print our carefully planned message. With scissors, tape, and Liquid Paper, we arrange the wording until we have a sharp-looking miniature of our future sign. Next, we enlarge it on a photocopier until we have a group of 8 1/2″ X 11″ sheets that fit together into the exact size of our finished sign. Finally, we make transparencies of each sheet, place them on an overhead projector, trace them onto the prepared plywood and then paint our outlined lettering. Voila!

By planning far enough in advance, most or all of the above steps can be delegated to capable people in the congregation.

Free Newspaper Publicity

Our people used to get discouraged that our church finances could never afford even the tiniest newspaper advertisements. Then we found something that people notice more than ads: photos.

Most newspapers contain boring, dismal-looking religion pages because editors and pastors alike have other concerns that are far more urgent. Both of our local newspapers, however, are usually delighted to print (even adding their by-line!) a quality black-and-white photo and accompanying brief story about some current, interesting event in the life of our church.

What’s of public interest in the life of a church? Almost anything about the people: the graduating high school seniors whom we honored and prayed for one Sunday in church, the children who are in a mini-choir or who were recognized for Scripture memory, the person who’s retiring and was honored at a church reception.

It costs us an average of $5 a picture (assuming two usable prints for each roll of 24 shots we take), an amount we can usually squeeze in once per month.

If the photo is a good close-up of the person (don’t put the pastor or church building in it) and if the news blurb opens by talking about the person (not the times of the church services), then there’s a good chance the paper’s religion editor will run it for free-and that community people will see it and register the name of our particular church.

Newcomer-to-Town Mailings

Some of the most spiritually receptive people are those who have recently moved to the area. The unchurched are sometimes open to starting afresh with God. Gallup polls tell us that a significant percentage of the unchurched say they would visit a church if invited. Those who are already committed Christians will be looking for a new parish home.

Many companies specialize in providing lists of such address changes. They’re sold at monthly prices of $25-$100 per 5-digit ZIP code. The price range depends on how many people relocate to a given area each month.

This cost was too high for us, so we searched for similar lists that were free: from utility companies, real estate abstracters, county tax assessors, or chambers of commerce. We discovered that one of our local newspapers, in its Sunday real estate section, lists all new homeowners.

Every few weeks, then, we computer-generate personalized letters to these neighborhood newcomers. Although few new residents have followed through with a visit, our people feel good that their church, despite our very limited means, is on the cutting edge of making ourselves available as soon as someone moves to town.

Mass Mailings

Most churches immediately dismiss the idea of a community-wide mailing because they think they can’t afford the postage. We’ve discovered how to cut the standard first-class letter postage by some 80 percent, enabling us to do three mailings to more than 10,000 homes each. Even though the response rate is low (less than 1 percent), each mailing still translates into a handful of visitors and at least one eventual member!

How do we do it? The U.S. Postal Service’s bulk rate for non-profit groups is less than a penny per letter if the letters are pre-sorted by carrier routes (if, when we take our mailing to the post office, it’s organized so that each tray contains one mailman’s route alphabetized by street names). We obtain the listing of streets and route numbers from each local post office or by requesting multiple ZIP code areas (up to 8 are free) from the U.S. Postal Service National Address Information Center at 1-800-238-3150.

We generally involve 90 percent of the congregation in preparing our mailings. We make it easy and appealing by dividing the work into one-hour projects that can be picked up one Sunday from a centrally located table and returned the next. We place each hour-long step in a grocery bag. Most everyone can handle one bag; some take five or six. We do this for a month, and, if we’ve organized wisely, our coordinator can put it all together in a couple of evenings.

Our people have rallied behind these mailings because they feel like evangelists but in a way that doesn’t scare them or, frankly, doesn’t overly inconvenience them. After all, people can do much of the work while watching TV: hand-addressing, affixing return-address labels, sealing envelopes, alphabetizing streets, or licking stamps (we use pre-canceled stamps, which makes our literature seem less like junk mail than a printed indicia).

The content of our bulk mailings have ranged from formal invitations (to an Easter service) to postcards (regarding a Christmas Eve service). No recipients seem to notice that we use “junk mail” rates because our literature (outside and inside) seems high-quality and the content of our wording impresses them that we are a very personable fellowship.

Streetside signs, newspaper photos, newcomer letters, mass mailings-all this publicity has made a difference both in how our people feel about their own church and in how our community views us.

A good public image will never get anyone to heaven, but it sure gives us more of a chance to invite our neighborhood to experience the life-changing, good news of Jesus Christ. Yes, even on our still-very-limited budget!

What’s Worked for You?

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Ideas That Work

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Copyright © 1991 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

THE BACK PAGE

William Willimon

One fall Sunday, when the students had first returned to campus, I said, “Welcome. This is your chapel. I want you to feel . . .”

What was it I wanted them to feel? I almost said, “I want you to feel at home.” But I didn’t. It’s hard to feel that way in Duke Chapel-Gothic, massive, and dark. It makes you feel small. The organ thunders. The space overwhelms you.

When I climb into the pulpit, I bolster my courage by telling myself I’ve only got to hang on there about twenty minutes, and that this really isn’t that big a deal.

It doesn’t work. I still get the shakes. I keep stomach medicine in my Gothic washroom. The place is threatening.

Some Sundays, even though we’ve got everything planned and the order of worship all nailed down, the Almighty still manages to reach in here, grab us by the neck, and shake us.

It doesn’t happen often. But it does happen. Knowing it can happen keeps me reaching for the Maalox.

So I tell the students, “Back home, in Sunday school, they tell you about the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son and how kind and good Jesus was. But you’ve got to wait until you’re old enough to hear a strange, dark text like this one (Heb. 12): You have not come to what may be touched but to a blazing fire, darkness and gloom, a tempest, the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg it to be silent.”

Such worship is threatening. It was so scary that even a man like Moses said, “I tremble with fear.”

I daresay that’s not a common experience today. We upholster churches like great carpeted living rooms, where every hard edge is cushioned and preachers pad around in slippers lest someone be even mildly disturbed.

Mostly, we exit church no different from when we entered, once again reassured that God is silent, or, if not silent, at least speaking in a voice that sounds like our own: “Friend, are you lonely? Is there something missing in your life? Would you like to have peace, joy, love, self-fulfillment, happiness, good health, good sex, good times? Come to Jesus.”

God: good friend, cheap therapist.

As pastors, we’re mostly relegated to the “helping professions,” chaplains to the occasionally afflicted, strokers of the status quo. The earth is not shaken by such secular silliness.

Even in the time of Moses, some tried to remake God-earth-shaking, fire-filled God-into their own image. While Moses was on the mountain, trying to listen to God without being blown away, others in the valley were recasting gods more to their liking.

We make gods because we need them. We take every dream we wish to be fulfilled, and call that God. Our religion is rated by its utility. “What will this do for me?”

It comes in more sophisticated varieties. Some theologians vote biblical images up or down solely on the basis of their effect. If the Bible’s word clashes with my sensitivities or my needs (as I define them) then let’s change the Bible’s terminology. Not much shaking going on. I don’t tremble if my little god talks just like me.

See that you do not refuse the one who speaks. … Let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire.

This is a real God, not some pale, idolatrous projection of our ego. I’ve seen this God drive people out of graduate school and into the jungles of Honduras. I’ve seen people repent of their behavior even in a world that lives by “if it feels good do it.” I’ve seen it!

At the base of the Duke Chapel pulpit is an emblem, three triangles, symbolizing the triune God: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. One student, on parents’ weekend, was heard to ask his old man, “Why have they got the warning symbol for nuclear radiation on the pulpit?” Sure enough, it does look like the international warning symbol for radiation. But it’s a symbol for the living God.

So I tell students, “Take care. Don’t come around here without lead underwear, because I (and the choir, the organists, the architect, and everybody else who conspires to get God in here) intend to do everything in my power to expose you to this consuming fire.”

When I was in seminary, they told us, “The task of the preacher is to close the gap between the Bible and the modern world.” The preacher is supposed to hold the Bible in one hand and today’s newspaper in the other, and in twenty minutes bridge the old, outmoded, irrelevant world of the Bible and the new, fresh, modern world where we live.

No! Whenever we do that, the traffic invariably motors one way over that hermeneutical bridge. It’s always the modern world telling the Bible what’s important.

I’ve decided, since being in Duke’s beautiful, dark, overpowering chapel, that my task is to reverse the traffic, to let the Bible ask the questions, to dare students to listen to this troublesome voice more than to their own, to widen the gap between them and God rather than to close it.

Because it’s in the gaps-the threatening dark, open spaces-where we’re stripped of defenses, our modern secular veneer peeled away, naked and unsteady, that we are free to roam, to hear a new word, to envision a new world.

There, free from the slavery to what is, we’re able to rise above our present situation, to be saved, to soar.

William Willimon is dean of the chapel and professor of Christian ministry at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

Copyright © 1991 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pastors

THE POWER AND THE PRESENCE

A Leadership Forum

Christian ministry without the supernatural is like a day without sunshine . . . or air . . . or ground to stand on. Only when Christ’s presence is experienced by pastor and people does ministry have any meaning.

Rut what exactly do we mean by “experiencing” the supernatural? What can pastors do to help people live in light of spiritual realities? And how about the dark side? How can we take the Enemy seriously, without fearful preoccupation?

To address such questions, LEADERSHIP gathered three pastors and a theologian:

-J. I. Packer, the theologian, is professor at Regent College in Vancouver, British Colombia, and senior editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. He’s perhaps most well known for his book, Knowing God (InterVarsity).

-Jack Hayford is pastor of Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California. He has written several books, including Moments with Majesty (Multnomah) and Prayer: Invading the Impossible (Ballantine), and hymns, such as the widely sung “Majesty.”

-John Huffman is pastor of Newport Beach Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, California. Previously he served at First Presbyterian in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is author of Joshua, a volume in Word’s Critical Commentary series.

-Charles Swindoll is pastor of First Evangelical Free Church in Fullerton, California. He has authored many books, including Growing Strong in the Seasons of Life (Multnomah).

These men, we discovered, know a great deal about the ordinary and extraordinary dimensions of ministry.

Leadership: What do you mean when you use the term supernatural?

Chuck Swindoll: Supernatural is a word I use to describe something that happens beyond human ability. Sometimes when I preach, for example, people experience the Lord’s presence. I can’t produce that with mere human eloquence. That, to me, is the anointing of God.

In many ways, the supernatural is indefinable. That’s what makes it so magnificent. We can’t get our arms around it. It’s like getting your arms around Shamu the whale. It is so beyond us.

When talking about it, we can’t get away from the word awesome. We’ve cheapened that word to refer to everything from a good skateboarding routine to a high dive off a cliff. But I mean in the deepest sense-an experience that is awesome, a surprise, bringing spiritual delight.

Jack Hayford: Everything we do in ministry is related to the supernatural. Otherwise we pastors don’t have anything to work with. The supernatural is not something to be trivialized. We can’t manipulate it. Then again, it’s not so unpredictable and inaccessible that we can’t expect God to act supernaturally in our lives.

We may experience it as a special manifestation or as a daily reality.

Even though we expect supernatural things and look forward to them, they’re always a delightful surprise. To use an analogy, my kids just arrived from Wisconsin. My wife and I knew they were coming, but when they arrived, it was no dull or predictable greeting.

I don’t mean that we can predict a supernatural event as though it were an airline flight, but I do think worshipful people can expect God’s supernatural works with some regularity.

John Huffman: The people in my mainline Presbyterian congregation don’t use supernatural in this way, although they do know something about supernatural things.

In our society, many people are caught up in oriental mysticism and essentially define God as themselves. Whatever they happen to feel is, for them, God. I think it’s important to establish from the beginning that God is wholly other. He is not the same as us. We are creature-not Creator. God is above creation.

Instead of supernatural I prefer the phrase above nature.

And if God is above nature, he is above my feelings. His involvement in my life is supernatural. I live in a natural realm, empowered by the transcendent God, whether I happen to feel that transcendence or not.

That’s especially important to me when I face uncertainty, as I do now. My middle daughter, who just graduated from Princeton University, has Hodgkin’s disease. She’s been undergoing chemotherapy and will have to have a bone marrow transplant.

While I was officiating services during Holy Week-participating in Maundy Thursday communion and Good Friday services, and then preaching three times on Sunday-I was burdened for my daughter. I didn’t necessarily feel God’s supernatural presence. But I had to claim the objective truth that God was in and above all that was going on around me.

J. I. Packer: I don’t make much use of the distinction between the natural and the supernatural. I think that the word supernatural in most people’s minds is associated with things that are comparatively trivial: channeling, white and black witchcraft, pyramids, flying saucers. Supernatural is not a word that naturally suggests to such folks the living God.

Instead I like to talk about the distinction between the created and sustained order of the known and unknown world and the powers of redemption. I keep the word supernatural to refer to the work of the living God who permeates this world with a power that saves people and will ultimately redeem the whole cosmos. As a Calvinist, I do believe that God finishes what he starts!

Leadership: When have you experienced the supernatural in ministry?

Huffman: One active member in the church told me this week that my Sunday sermon didn’t do much for her or, for that matter, for another person she had been speaking with.

But another person told me, “My daughter brought a friend to the service, and that friend prayed to receive Christ when you gave an invitation!”

To me that is God working in a way that is above the natural processes, in what appears to have been a so-so sermon. I did my homework, but to one person it was inadequate. To another, it was more than adequate; it was life changing.

Swindoll: I’ve seen a few enormous conflicts between Christians. In some cases, the atmosphere became so heated, I feared a fist fight might break out.

Naturally, during such times, I’ve asked church leaders to pray and to try to reconcile the battling members. But I can think of one case where human ingenuity solved nothing. Instead, the two men who were at odds simply reconciled. In a matter of minutes, they came together, set aside their grievances, walked over to each other, and embraced. They acted upon the truth they knew and had heard for well over a year from others in the church.

To me, that sudden transformation was nothing less than a supernatural work of God.

Hayford: I went into this past Easter Sunday having never felt weaker-not physically, just aware of the fragility of my humanity. I had done my homiletic homework. My spiritual life was in order. But I went into Sunday feeling about as spiritual as the back wall of a handball court.

When I awoke and prayed Sunday morning, I prayed until I felt a quickening at the physiological level. In other words, I decided I was going to praise God until I got a little happier than I felt. It was a Pauline “stir up the gift” time of praise.

I didn’t feel any stronger, but I sure felt more like it was Easter! Anyway, we had about 130 make decisions for Christ, which for us is a massive response-supernatural in my book.

I went home saying, “Lord, I don’t know what to say other than you’ve done an awesome, awesome thing.”

Leadership: Have there been times in your ministry when you needed God’s supernatural intervention and he chose not to do so?

Packer: One of our children has been unable to work for years because of fierce depressions. That is a situation in which my wife and I have longed to see a supernatural intervention, but, pray as we will, God has not acted that way.

Huffman: Chuck and I have a dear friend for whom we claimed God’s healing. All of the biblical criteria were met-confession of sin and faith, among others-and we saw this friend die at the relatively young age of 51. In fact, we shared in his funeral service.

That’s why, even with our own daughter, I hesitate to claim the kind of healing I want. I know the sovereign God is going to heal her in his way, in his time, and that healing may be death and eternal life, which I believe is the finest healing.

But I’m not about to stop praying specifically for the healing I want, in my way, in my time. But undergirding that is an attitude: “Not my will but thine be done.”

To me it takes a deeper understanding of faith to live at that level-trusting God, who doesn’t always function on my time table in exactly the way I want.

Leadership: What is the role of human effort in triggering God’s intervention? Does it require our effort, or is it entirely unpredictable?

Huffman: Human effort is involved, but we can’t guarantee how God will respond. Nor can we assume that if someone isn’t healed, it’s due to some human fault.

I’ve known people who have received genuine and miraculous healings. But I’ve known sick people who have been deserted by Christians who gathered and claimed healing. When the healing they prayed for didn’t occur, these patients became an embarrassment, and the people who had prayed for them moved on.

Hayford: We can neither deny the imminent possibility of the Lord’s miraculous invasion nor say we can guarantee it. We need to tolerate our apparent failures-and I emphasize apparent-and endure our successes humbly, acknowledging God rather than touting them as the evidence of our spiritual prowess.

We have remarkable things happen at the church with some degree of regularity, perhaps six or eight things a year. But we don’t make an issue of them, because the immature-those insecure in their faith-will look to the human element more than to God as the ultimate cause of the miraculous.

Packer: Even when human effort seems to fail, it doesn’t mean that nothing supernatural has taken place.

A pastor friend and his wife had a “miracle baby”-she wasn’t supposed to be able to get pregnant, yet she did. But when the little girl was born, she was so severely deformed that she lived only a week.

Courageously, my friend preached about her death the next Sunday morning, mentioning how people had told him that they had prayed that Joy Ann would be miraculously healed, and were sure she would be, and he must not be in any doubt about it.

A golden sentence in that sermon was his comment, “God healed Joy Ann by taking her to heaven.” That was God, not ignoring, but answering the prayers that had been made.

People act as if this world were the only one, or at least the most important one. But it’s the next life, the endless life that really matters. As Christians, we need to say loud and clear, as Jesus did, that the other world exists and that life here must be lived as preparation for it.

Christians and their children die, not out of life, but into life. And death, whether late or early, is a healing in the most profound sense. The supernatural bridges the two worlds.

Hayford: Also, when you encourage people to expect God to act supernaturally, you run the risk of sounding as though you can manipulate God into responding to human appeals or actions. You also run the risk of setting people up for disappointment, because God, in fact, isn’t manipulated by human action. Nonetheless, I believe we can expect God to act supernaturally and prepare for him to do so.

We’ve tried to school our people to be unafraid to ask for anything and to praise God whatever happens. Then, just as important, not to feel that we’re rationalizing when our requests aren’t granted, which takes another level of faith.

Faith has a number of levels. There’s the faith that prays, the faith that gives God credit for answers, the faith to live with the results you didn’t want, and the faith that finally decides you weren’t just rationalizing.

Packer: When healing isn’t granted, the supernatural may still be experienced in other ways. That, surely, is the message of Paul’s experience with his thorn in the flesh-he asked for its removal, and his prayer was answered with the assurance that though the thorn would remain, the Lord’s grace would enable him to go on living and ministering, in a strength not his own, as if the thorn wasn’t there.

My colleague in theology at Regent, Klaus Bockmuehl, died of cancer two years ago. We prayed many times for his healing, but it didn’t come.

What did come, however, was movement from a sort of despairing hopelessness, which was his first reaction to the diagnosis, into a marvelous spiritual poise.

He never lost it, even when his body was dreadfully eaten away and he couldn’t pray or even think for any length of time.

His last public action, a month before he died, was to give the address at our annual convocation. He spoke from a wheelchair and read the opening and concluding paragraphs-somebody else had to read the rest because he didn’t have the strength.

But the poise was there, and great peace and insight, too. His speech was a beautiful statement about learning to listen to God when strength runs out and being content to be weak and quiet so that God may show himself to be great.

I saw that as an answer to prayer, a supernatural manifestation of power that we would not have witnessed, and Klaus would not have known, had prayer not been made.

Leadership: When invoking God’s power, is there strength in numbers? If more people pray, will God more likely act?

Hayford: I don’t think there is any formula. But at the same time, I’ve seen God use concerted prayer to do wonderful things.

An Assembly of God pastor friend, Wesley Steelberg, had a terrible heart condition that forced him into early retirement. He couldn’t walk across a room without help.

He had been invited to attend a campus ministries gathering, since he had been instrumental in the spiritual life of the group’s leader, Bob Weiner. It was an opportunity for Bob to honor his spiritual father. So my friend went, but he had to be carried into the main hall when the service began.

At one point in the service, before 2,500 to 3,000 college kids, just as exuberant as they could be, Bob Weiner said, “You know, I feel we’re supposed to pray.” So they all prayed earnestly.

Pastor Steelberg said he could only describe what happened to him as a kind of electric shock that went through his body. He was completely and miraculously healed. He lived several more years in full health and died without unusual discomfort.

But the question is not How many prayed? The more important question is Would God have healed if they hadn’t prayed? I don’t think so. I believe the healing was a gift the Holy Spirit wanted to distribute just then. Yes-he distributes miraculous gifts as he wills, but we can receive them only if we ask.

Huffman: There’s a simple pastoral dimension here to consider as well: I think asking hundreds or even a few dozen to pray can become an invasion of a person’s privacy. Some people have the right to keep their prayer concerns within the confines of close friends and family. They have a right not to tell the whole world or the whole congregation about something intimate.

Swindoll: The power is God’s; it’s not in the number of those praying. If you’ve got just two or three who “agree together” on an issue, it can work miracles.

A friend of mine had a malignancy in his tongue. The X-ray showed it. The biopsy proved it. So he decided to go to the Mayo Clinic to see what could be done. Before he left, he called me and said, “I’m asking several of my closest friends to pray for me. Will you?”

I said, “Absolutely.”

So my wife, Cynthia, and I agreed together to ask God to remove this cancer from our friend. I suppose the other friends prayed the same kind of prayer. All of us, of course, wanted God’s will to be done.

My friend arrived at Mayo and went through their tests. But they couldn’t find evidence of the cancer. It had completely disappeared, and it never returned.

I can’t explain that. But I know that the miraculous is not dependent on large numbers.

Packer: In either case, there’s no reason to suppose that these healings would have happened without prayer, because the Lord has established a link between our praying and his acting.

He likes to give in answer to prayer because he then achieves two things in the same action: he gives us a good thing he wants us to have, and he strengthens our relationship with him because first we asked, and now we recognize this gift as his answer. Answering our specific requests is a specific gesture of love.

Furthermore, it’s the Lord who stirs people’s hearts to pray. So Bob wasn’t manipulating God when he decided to ask the group to pray for Jack’s friend. It was Bob responding to the Spirit’s evident desire to give a special gift of healing at that time.

Leadership: God is omnipresent, yet we talk about moments when he seems “especially present.” What does that mean?

Swindoll: Our director of music, Howie Stevenson, often refers to the prayer of a Presbyterian elder: “Lord, let something happen in our worship that is not in the bulletin.” I love that, because often it’s the unexpected in worship that reminds me that God is present.

That kind of spontaneity cannot be programmed. In the midst of sharing the background of a hymn, tears may come to Howie’s eyes. Other times, we’ll decide suddenly to sing an extra hymn. Occasionally I’ll decide, in the middle of worship, that we need some silence.

And it’s often in those moments when God seems most present. And we can’t repeat them mechanically in the following service.

Packer: I’ve experienced God’s presence most powerfully in worship situations, often during the singing, I suppose because when we sing to him, we are looking hard in his direction.

I have also experienced God’s presence vividly under the preaching and praying of Spirit-filled men of God. Singing, praying, and preaching are basic channels for corporate realization of his holy presence.

Hayford: I’ve had two remarkable experiences of God’s presence.

One time was when I was dean of students at LIFE Bible College. I had just finished praying with one of the students. We lifted our eyes, and we both saw a kind of silvery mist in the room. We watched it, and then it went away. We both recognized it as a visitation of God.

The other time was two years into my pastorate at Church on the Way. One Saturday night I was alone in the sanctuary, and I walked to the front to set the thermostat before I went home. I turned around, and I saw that same mist.

Swindoll: What did you do?

Hayford: Well, I almost feel embarrassed that I didn’t do something more colorful or godly, like fall down and cry, “Holy!” But actually I was so stunned, I just stood in questioning silence until the mist disappeared. Then I went home to dinner.

But I did have a clear impression during that moment that the Lord was speaking to me. You wouldn’t have heard it if you’d been in the room, but I felt the Lord saying, “I’ve given my glory to dwell in this place.”

The next morning, instead of our usual attendance of one hundred, we had 170. From that moment the church began to grow dramatically.

Swindoll: I’ve never had that particular experience. But I have sensed God’s presence almost with a chill. I don’t know how else to put it. It has happened maybe a half dozen times in my life.

Usually I’m frightened by it. I don’t shake, but I’m frightened. There is a wave of reassurance. God is here. He’s in this moment. There is a benediction of his presence that quiets me. It comes especially during times I’ve been unsure, or when I’ve been wondering about God’s will about a major decision. It brings a calming influence.

Huffman: I’ve experienced something similar. Early in life, I tended to have such moments in a natural setting-on the beach or in the mountains. More recently the experience is tied in with music.

Recently we had Haydn’s “Creation” performed at our church. It was during the war with Iraq, just when the oil wells had started burning in Kuwait and that terrible flow of oil was pouring into the Persian Gulf. In the middle of that music, I thought of the beauty of creation and how we defile it. I sensed the holiness of God and the power of Christ who will eventually redeem the whole creation.

Leadership: How do we distinguish between the presence of God and emotion evoked by human ingenuity? In worship, for example, how much spiritual awareness is the result of dimming the lights or softly playing the organ during prayer?

Swindoll: It’s something I’m concerned about. I don’t fear our weaknesses; I fear the talent of pastors and church staff. With resources in drama, music, lighting, and sound, we can practically re-enact the resurrection! (Laughter)

But when the lights come on, all you have left is paper mach‚, and people ask, “What was that all about?”

Hayford: In Western culture, we are unfortunately disposed to labor that distinction more than I think God does. He made us with a capacity to experience his presence at many levels. In fact, there is a panoply of possibilities: our physical, spiritual, emotional, and intellectual selves. And they each feed into one another. Finally, they can’t be separated.

For example, I like to lift my hands when I praise God. It’s a physical response, but it arises out of something emotional. And that emotion is connected to my intellectual perception that God is praiseworthy. Sometimes it’s the emotion that elicits the raised hands, and sometimes it’s the raised hands that stir the emotions.

In any event, the Bible often links the presence of God to things physical, emotional, and intellectual. I don’t think you can finally divorce them.

Huffman: For me, a place, a physical location, often communicates the presence of God. The older I get the more Gilgal places I go back to.

I was in Boston three years ago doing some sabbatical work. In Cambridge, about a mile from Harvard Square, my dad had a church for eighteen years, Cornerstone Church. It has since been torn down and replaced with an apartment building.

But while in Boston, every Tuesday and Thursday, I purposely would drive from Gordon-Conwell Seminary into Harvard, down Mass Avenue, and past that apartment building just to remember the lives that were changed by the services of that church.

That congregation no longer exists. In fact, I can still remember the night my dad came home practically weeping because some of the men he led to the Lord, deacons in his church, told him they were going to leave the church. They had moved out to Lexington, and they had started a little chapel in a home, which they eventually called Grace Chapel.

Now Grace Chapel is the dominant church in that area, and my dad’s church, where these men came to the Lord, no longer exists. God was obviously present in a powerful way then, but it wasn’t to be known for years hence.

When I visit such a place, I am tremendously lifted and renewed. When I go to a place where God has met me before, I often find he meets me again.

Packer: The Gilgal place only has value if, in fact, the Lord did meet us there before in a momentous way. Some have more Gilgals than others; some experience more dramatic Christian lives than others. We need to remember that it is God in sovereign grace who creates the experiences we remember and which become the means of his meeting us again.

Hayford: If there is any way to ensure a visitation, a presence, in the fullest sense, it arises out of worship, from a desire to seek the Lord and his exaltation. That can happen in jubilant praise or in awesome silence meditating upon the richness of God.

And I believe God is just looking for people who will say, “Lord, we love you, and we really want you to move among us today, and we are opening ourselves to that.”

Leadership: So how do you help your people experience the presence of God in worship?

Hayford: I seek to cultivate in people a desire to humble themselves before the Lord. And I believe that many physical and verbal expressions in worship help us do that.

For example, about once a month we have an opportunity to kneel in worship. Now that’s not a part of many traditions. Other traditions kneel several times in every service. But when we do it, something always seems to happen for people.

Actions like raising hands for verbalizing praise is another example. That involves a commitment to humble yourself. You’re saying, “I am expressing myself right up in front of not only God but everybody.”

Now if that becomes just a self-righteous performance that people go through because it’s part of the Sunday calisthenic, then it’s meaningless. But if it is understood that we’re presenting ourselves to the Lord, that by such actions we’re confronting our disposition to hold ourselves back from God, then it becomes a genuine humbling.

And when the humbling takes place, people experience the presence of God powerfully.

Packer: The Lord has promised that he will be found by those who seek him with all their heart. I don’t think, in my circles, that we say that half enough.

No doubt we are sometimes set in dry places, for reasons we may or, like Job, may not be able to discern. But if we seek him regularly, surely we shall find him regularly. If at the start of a prayer time I do not feel his presence, I should tell him so-“Here am I, Lord, seeking you, waiting for you. Shine your light upon me, touch me, come to me. I need you”-and both Scripture and experience tell me that he responds to such prayer.

Surely we ought to say to ourselves and to our people, “The ordinary Christian experience is knowing the presence of God.”

As Paul said, “The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.” That sentence is in the present tense. Paul is not talking about a particular momentary experience but about a regular condition of the Christian believer.

Swindoll: God loves things done decently and in order. And I’ve found the best settings, the best songs, the best arrangements are the simple ones.

Normally we finish our Communion services in absolute silence: no organ, the lights dimmed. We do this to break away from visual interruptions; we don’t want people focusing on non-essentials, like what someone is wearing or that a light is out or if the organist misses a note. Instead we want their complete attention on God.

Then we’ll close with the familiar “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” That simple procedure opens people to the presence of God as much as anything we do.

For many people church is the one place they can be quiet. It’s one place the television is not present. There is no radio going. So we’ll have a discipline of silence-three, four, as much as five minutes. Absolute silence in worship can cleanse the soul and put us in touch with God.

Huffman: We can also teach people to prepare themselves for worship. I don’t do it as often as I should. Every two or three years, I’ll do a sermon on preparing for worship: about how much sleep you get the night before, where your focus is, what you are looking for, how you relate to those who are there, how you approach a hymn.

Leadership: There is another side to the supernatural that we’ve yet to discuss. What does the phrase spiritual warfare mean to you?

Swindoll: I think of Ephesians 6 where we are told to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. It is an engagement of the enemy. What makes it so insidious is that we cannot see him. We cannot touch him.

Hayford: Spiritual warfare is the kingdom of God engaging the powers of darkness. And I tend to think of it in personal, specific terms. It has to do with me, in this moment, in this circumstance, having to win a battle over some personal struggle, temptation, or difficulty.

There is, of course, the broader context, the age-long struggle. But most of the time I think of it in personal terms.

I try to remember that here, in my town, in my work, in my circumstances, Satan is trying to probe and find an entryway into my setting. I want to recognize the custom-made attacks made against me and the church.

Of course, I mustn’t give the devil more credit than he deserves. Dr. Vincent Bird, my mentor, used to say, “Lots of people have the spirit of suspicion and call it the gift of discernment.” Nor does a wise leader announce it every time he suspects demonic attack.

Still, I don’t want to hide from its reality, and I want to be bold to identify it and then take a stand against it.

Leadership: Can we lose this battle?

Hayford: Calvary accomplished the victory, but there is the ongoing struggle to apply its triumph to an ever-widening circle. And the church has been endowed with the authority to wage that warfare.

Swindoll: And we don’t have to enter the battle frightened or intimidated. We have the victor as our captain. We approach the battle as conquerors.

It’s the same thing as with the children of Israel. They were given the land. They didn’t need to worry about having it as their own. It was theirs to claim. But when they stood in unbelief, they lost what God had won for them. In terms of our battle with Satan, the victory is ours. We just have to act in faith to claim it.

Huffman: I think we can lose it. He has won it, but we can lose it. I see more and more colleagues my age who are losing their privilege to minister because of obvious sin. We all struggle with sin internally, but they’re doing things that cut their Achilles’ heel.

When we think we have it made, that our reputation is secure, that’s when I believe we’re most vulnerable. There’s a security in reading Romans 8-nothing can separate us from Christ’s love. But there is also a kind of melancholy that sweeps over me when I read the biographies of persons who did not finish the race.

Leadership: Describe a time in your ministry when you felt you were in the midst of spiritual warfare.

Hayford: When the Spirit of God began blessing our church, when we were beginning to grow so rapidly, a couple of long-time members became increasingly unhappy. They began talking with others and soon the staff felt clearly that they were sowing a “spirit of division.”

Since I felt the Spirit’s influence so strongly, I felt moved to ask another pastoral staff member to pray pointedly with me. We declared “the dominion of Jesus Christ” over the division.

We prayed that the evil spirit would be removed without the removal of these people. But if they refused to allow themselves to be divorced from that spirit, then we asked God to take them out with it.

And recalling Jesus’ commanding of the spirits not to tear the child, I added, “And, Lord, don’t let the church body be torn.”

Within six weeks those people left the church. There was no stir whatsoever. It was as though they’d never been there, although they had been a part of the church from the beginning. Nobody asked, “Where have they gone?”

There was no question in our minds that the Lord delivered our church from that attack.

Swindoll: There have been times I have felt a severe oppression. Interestingly, it will often be felt as well by my wife, whose discernment is often keener than mine; she will observe discouragement or oppression or pressure.

Sometimes it will come because I’m dealing with this very topic, say, preaching from Ephesians 6. To be known is one of the least favorite desires of our enemy. And when you expose him and give examples and warn people, then strange events often occur-an onslaught of critical letters, an inability to communicate, staff unrest. Such events usually converge like sand in an hour glass into one concentrated period.

As a result, my wife and I go to prayer. If I am able to address an individual who is causing trouble, I will do that privately. But more often than not, I simply have to seek God’s direction to get through that tough period.

That type of oppression has occurred maybe a dozen times in my thirty years in ministry.

Leadership: How do you communicate the reality of spiritual warfare to your congregations?

Huffman: My former church was versed in spiritual warfare; they understood the language, almost to the point that they were inoculated to the reality of it.

Then I came to Southern California to a more mainline tradition. Now when I use the biblical language of spiritual warfare, it jars people. At one point, a chairperson of one of our committees took me aside and said, “Now, you don’t really believe in a personal Satan, do you?”

I certainly do. But obviously the challenge is to communicate to my post-enlightenment congregation a reality they tend to consider only medieval or first century superstition. C. S. Lewis, of course, did one of the better jobs in Screwtape Letters. But the challenge continues.

Straightforward expositional preaching has seemed to work the best, especially as I’ve worked through Ephesians. And the congregation has come along.

Swindoll: We tend to fall into extremes. Either they don’t believe there is a personal devil, or they fear the devil and his demons are in everything. I’ve heard people talk about a “demon of nail biting” or a “demon of backaches.” That’s ridiculous.

We’ve got to communicate a balanced understanding, solidly based on Scripture, not just experience.

Huffman: I also find myself ministering to an increasing number who buy into supernaturalism, but only the New Age, occultish, unbiblical variety. So my task with them is to clarify the difference between that and the supernatural that comes from Christ.

Hayford: I’ve found it fruitful to discuss the issue in our Sunday night service. Two or three weeks before I do, I announce I will speak on the topic, and I’ll mention the questions that I’ve heard people asking, such as Is demon activity really taking place today? What’s happening in the occult-mind control or demonic activity?

I’ll do that once every eight or nine months, and the place is packed.

Packer: However we go about it, I think we’ve got to be fairly blunt in asserting the reality and constant, unwearied activity of the devil. We have to rub people’s noses in Ephesians 6 and tell them, “Look! This is the war we walk into when you come to faith. It’s Satan’s war with the Creator, and now that we’re on the Lord’s side, Satan will be after us as never before. Watch out! He will try to pull you down any way he can.”

Then we need to describe to people (and remind ourselves) what forms temptation takes: either inducements to unbelief-discouragement, giving up, actually denying God’s truth-or allurements to moral transgression. It’s all in Ephesians 6.

Leadership: How should we respond to spiritual attacks?

Packer: Know your weakness. Know your enemy. Know your Lord. Those three things summarize it, I think.

Most of us don’t know our weaknesses. We don’t know where we’re vulnerable. And that’s where we get tripped up.

We’ve also got to be realistic about the tactics of Satan. Paul says we are not to be ignorant of his devices. One translation renders it: “I’m up to his tricks.”

And we must know how to draw on the resources God has given us, which means learning to put on the armor described in Ephesians 6. For instance:

The belt of truth is God’s revealed truth, learned from Scripture and taken honestly into our hearts.

The breastplate of righteousness is consistent obedience and a conscience kept void of offense.

The shield of faith is the habit of looking to the Lord when we are under attack. Peter could walk on water while his eyes were on the Lord rather than on the waves.

The helmet of salvation is assurance drawn from God’s promise to keep us to the end.

And prayer is our support system. We are wise to lean on our spouses, colleagues, and Christian friends, asking them to pray for us and help us through. That’s fellowship, and we are told, all of us, to live in fellowship. No Christian is meant to be a Lone Ranger, a self-sufficient hero, in the spiritual battle. We can’t do it, and we shouldn’t try.

Copyright © 1991 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

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