When I entered my first pastorate, within six months I noticed an exciting phenomenon. At least, it thrilled me. Every Sunday morning the first four pews on the left side of the sanctuary filled with teens. Thirty to forty eager listeners, Bibles in hand, sat ready to hear what God had to say.
I mentioned my excitement at a Christian education committee meeting.
"Well, that's nice," Harry Nickles smiled. Then his mind, and his heart, drifted back over the years. "But I remember when Dr. Anderson was here, right after the war. We packed in a hundred to a hundred fifty kids every week."
Since only eight hundred kids are in the high school district, I must have looked startled.
Then Harry added, "Oh, that was at the Sunday evening service. I suppose we had more in the morning."
It wasn't the first time I had heard about Dr. Anderson's tenure. Nor would it be the last. To the best of my ability, I've reconstructed the oral history of his ministry at First Church. It doesn't always correspond to the church records, but only pastors read such things anyway.
During Dr. Anderson's eleven years:
Average church attendance was 380; Sunday school, 295; Sunday evening service, 240; and Wednesday night prayer meeting, 162.
The Sunday morning adult choir had forty-one members, and the Sunday evening choir, thirty-four.
From September to June, each year, a twelve-piece orchestra accompanied the morning service.
The Easter Week Mission Trip involved from 90 to 120 participants.
The touring youth choir contained sixty strong voices.
Mrs. Anderson's Thursday Ladies' Bible Study attracted nearly two hundred.
Dr. Anderson took six years to preach through the Book of Romans.
There were at least ten baptisms per month.
Dr. Anderson's noon businessman's prayer hour had a regular attendance twice that of the Rotary Club.
During Anderson's ministry, the mayor, all five city council members, the chief of police, and the captain of the volunteer fire department were active members.
Dr. Anderson never once forgot anyone's name.
He memorized his morning message and never needed notes.
And, Dr. Anderson always, in every situation, wore a dark suit and tie, and a white, pressed, long-sleeved shirt with cuff links.
I could go on, but you get the picture. Many churches look back with fondness on their glory days, the "Golden Years." Like the children of Israel longing for King David, the faithful in the pew never can forget when the strength of their church reached its apex.
It is my opinion that every church that is over twenty-five years old, or has had more than two pastors, has some Glory Days to look back on. If you serve in such a church, whether as pastor or lay leader, you might have times of frustration over the comparisons.
But Glory Days can be made a strength, if we follow a few principles.
Don't Compete with the Glory Days
After six months at First Church I realized that for many, present success would always be measured in comparison with the past. Dr. Anderson had been gone for twenty-two years when I arrived, but that era still lived. Parents of teens would say things like, "When I was in the youth group, we needed eight high school Sunday school teachers."
Having recently waltzed out of seminary, my solution was to set out and break the records. If Hank Aaron could pass Babe Ruth, then Steve Bly could overtake the legendary Dr. Anderson. I actually spent a whole morning making an attendance chart for 1946 (Dr. Anderson's first year at the church). His records were precise: Sunday, May 5, 1946, morning worship 312 (including 47 in the balcony, 41 in the choir, and 23 servicemen in uniform). Then I made a transparency overlay on which I would record our present progress. Thus I knew weekly how I was stacking up to the Glory Days of First Church.
I faithfully recorded attendance for two weeks, got disgusted, and tossed the whole works into my don't-bother-looking-at-this-stuff-until-you-moveto-another-church box. The truth of the matter was, the world, the community, the church had changed drastically in the forty years after 1946. Comparisons meant little.
I relaxed and quit trying to hit home runs. But I did keep my own records of attendance. They certainly don't measure everything about church life, but they measure something. And these records will help plan future programs and expansion. What I wanted to see, in all areas of church life, was steady growth.
Praise Past Accomplishments
"With a few obvious exceptions, the last successful pastorate ended on September 14, 1959."
I was sitting across a coffee cup from a friend during a ministerial association meeting. He had just blurted out his frustrations as only a meeting of ministers allows.
Heads nodded around the table. In our town, every church seemed to have its zenith of growth and vitality between World War II and 1962.
"If I hear another comment about how great the church was in the old days, I'll scream!" I knew how he felt.
Of course, churches in the past enjoyed certain cultural advantages: the lack of television, the strength and unity of the family, the cultural importance of church membership. The social differences between those days and the present make us think we've switched cultures as well as decades. In spite of the obvious differences, however, let's admit it, those were great days!
I tried to celebrate those differences by starting a little column in the church newsletter: "The Way We Were." It was just a short monthly tidbit of trivia about how the church has grown over the years, things like how the Fall Harvest Dinner used to feed over 500 servicemen and women; a note about how the religious release hour, at one time, included every child in town; a column on the struggle to get city approval for building the sanctuary, the community's largest building in 1929.
This led to a yearly Founder's Day celebration-a picnic, grand old songs, a tip of the hat to the good work in the past, and a challenge to reach new goals in the future.
Instead of those "Glory Days" standing as an epitaph, they became a billboard of encouragement, not only to the church leaders, but to the whole congregation.
My church's Glory Days, and yours, were indeed a unique time of God's special work in our midst. They're worth celebrating. They can remind us that God has not abandoned us now, although we do have a different place and a different ministry.
Focus on Fulfilling Our Present Purpose
After they escaped from Egypt, the Hebrew people had two immediate goals: unity and survival, which Moses helped them accomplish.
Their next goals were to conquer and take possession of the Promised Land, which Joshua helped them fulfill.
Finally, they aimed to settle the land, live as daily, vibrant examples of a people in proper relation to God, and be witnesses for him to the world. Whether or not they achieved that goal under the leadership of the judges and kings is debated. But the point is: goals change!
Churches go through similar stages and, naturally, their goals change. During the formative years of pulling together a particular people of God, often the goal is mere survival. (Our records show that Rev. Augustus Stevens received $1,200 per annum, one yearling steer, and all the oranges he and his family could eat.)
At other times, the church focuses on expansion and victory over the opposing forces of this world. Those are often the "Glory Days." Back then, the Businessman's Noon Study grew from zero to seventy-five in just six weeks.
After that, the goal is to settle in the land and demonstrate how a godly people should believe and act.
Ted Clarey came to me with a dilemma. He had been asked to serve as president of the Little League Association in town. But, it meant dropping out of the Wednesday night home Bible study.
"How long have you been in the Bible study?" I asked.
"About six years," he replied.
"Then take the presidency and put some of those principles to work," I urged. "Your job, now, is to add a Christian influence to the most popular youth program in our town."
If people's goals change, so do churches' goals. As pastors, our job is to get the congregation focused and united on fulfilling our present purpose.
Give Ourselves to Our Gifts and Calling
Dr. Anderson taught a Sunday school class, preached on Sunday morning (without notes), held a leadership class before evening church, preached a full sermon on Sunday nights, often had a devotional message at the youth rally after church, led a men's noon Bible study on Tuesday, taught on Wednesday nights, and wrote a column for the newspaper every Friday. He also visited every church home at least once a year.
They tell me he started the day at 4:00 A.M.
He would have had to.
Of course, I didn't have Dr. Anderson's ministry, or his results. While we both seemed strong in pulpit ministry, Dr. Anderson excelled in community leadership and home visitation. My strengths lie in church administration, creative program ideas, and discipling small groups.
Nonetheless, I soon realized that I would need his intense commitment if I were to fulfill successfully my particular calling.
The Glory Days of First Church didn't happen by mere chance as the minister and lay leaders sat on the sidelines watching. There were many men and women who sacrificed to reach those high goals and glorious pinnacles. Dr. Anderson, in particular, became an example for me. I didn't need to follow his programs but rather his personal commitment to ministry.
I started spending the early morning hours sitting in the darkened, empty sanctuary. Prayer and study were the only ways I found to meet the challenges of each new day. Thus I aimed to match Dr. Anderson's commitment-except for that 4:00 A.M. business.
Let the Church See Present Successes
The good times are not over.
The good tree will bear good fruit. Every year may not be a bumper crop, but there will be some harvest.
We might not beat the 1954 attendance record, but we can up attendance at the Christmas program by 20 percent over last year. We might not have one hundred folks going on a mission trip at Easter, but we raised $10,000 in six weeks to drill a well in a waterless African village. In fact, it was a milestone in church stewardship.
One of the most encouraging programs involved a simple record of the year's activities. Several interested folks in the congregation were appointed as official church photographers. They recorded, on slides, various church activities throughout the year. Then at the annual meeting, a lively half-hour slide and music show was presented-the church year in review. A congregation is uplifted when they consider how God has, indeed, been working. Pictures crammed with people and activities also attract a crowd. Attendance at the annual meetings often exceeded our total membership.
When the church sees its present successes, its ministry is affirmed, and the members are prompted to diligent service.
Keep the Principle While Changing the Form
It was called B.L.T.-Bible Leadership Training. Held before the Sunday evening service, it attracted up to fifty high school students every week.
That is, during those years between 1946 and 1958. By 1965 they were thrilled to have six kids show up. In 1968 the program was scrapped. That, as it turned out, was a tragedy for the church.
True, the B.L.T. program wasn't working. But the result was a vacuum in leadership training for the high school group.
It's a problem that has not been completely solved in the twenty years since it folded. We got rid of a program and tossed out the principle with it.
In other ministries, we've tried to analyze the principle behind past successes and keep that, even when the ministry needed to change its form.
Why did the businessman's study work in the fifties? Because Christian men need constant encouragement in discipleship from someone besides their wives. That principle hasn't changed.
The men don't flock to a noontime Bible study now, but they receive in the church newsletter, a monthly word of encouragement, and four practical assignments for spiritual growth. Plus, there is a monthly "Man to Man" meeting that emphasizes fun-and spiritual accountability.
Participation in the children's choir, or the touring teen choir, taught cooperation in ministry and the need to blend spiritual gifts to achieve a greater spiritual purpose. Maybe we don't have these choirs anymore, but we should have something that teaches those same principles to our young people, no matter what their numbers might be.
So the teens now meet twice a month, on Saturdays, to visit rest homes and shut-ins. Cookies, choruses, and plenty of smiles have replaced the cross-country tours and coordinated uniforms. But they are still learning what it's like to minister and serve.
The need hasn't necessarily disappeared just because a program proves ineffective. The secret is not to abandon the good principles of previous programs when we discard their forms.
Develop a Sense of God's Wider Ministry
Okay, so that little storefront church across the tracks that struggled for years to survive has now built a sanctuary twice the size of yours-and fills it three times every Sunday.
So you are no longer the most dominant church in town. Listen, if folks are being saved, if Christ is being exalted and honored, if the Word of God is being obeyed, then the rule and reign of Jesus Christ is expanding in your community. And that is worth celebrating.
I've found it's important to develop a sense of God's total ministry in a city, not just his use of our particular church at this particular time.
As in many small towns, whenever a commercial building was erected in our town, many of the local businesses put an ad in the paper welcoming the new facility. You know, "Henry's Plumbing wishes The Burger Palace good luck on its Grand Opening. You can check out Henry's latest fixtures at the Palace."
When the church across town finished construction on their beautiful new sanctuary, our church put an ad in the paper congratulating the hard work and sacrifice. We offered our prayers for their ongoing ministry.
A few local businessmen were shocked. "What are you doing, trying to help the competition?"
"The competition?" I explained. "The competition is the porno shop over on Third Street. The competition is Lucky's Saloon out on the highway. The competition is that drug pusher down in front of the high school on Friday nights. Hey, that church is on our side!"
It's important to look back at the Glory Days in the same way. We don't have to compete with the successful church of years ago. That church was on our side and won not a few battles for which we can rejoice.
Glory Days in Every Age
In every age, every culture, and every society resides a tendency to look back on those "good old days." For the biblical people of Israel, there could never be a highlight quite as glorious as the splendor and majesty of Solomon's temple. From its description in the Bible, its architecture still would excite our senses and expand our worship.
It's gone, of course, destroyed by the Babylonians over twenty-five hundred years ago. Its razing brought a low point in Hebrew history.
But there was another temple. Around 520 B.C. Zerubbabel led the remnant back to Jerusalem, and they built a new temple. For the very old who could remember the former temple, it was a discouraging sight. They still dwelt on the Glory Days.
God knows the sadness of such hearts. Speaking through the prophet Haggai, he encouraged his people.
" 'Who is left among you who saw this temple in its former glory? And how do you see it now? Does it not seem to you like nothing in comparison? But now take courage, Zerubbabel,' declares the Lord, 'take courage also, Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and all you people of the land take courage,' declares the Lord, 'and work; for I am with you,' says the Lord of hosts. 'As for the promise which I made you when you came out of Egypt, My Spirit is abiding in your midst; do not fear' " (Hag. 2:3-5).
Yet, are the Glory Days really past? I don't think so. Could there be anything more glorious than to know that God is with us and his Spirit alive among us?
I had twelve men sign up for the early-morning men's discipleship group. Only three actually attended on a regular basis.
Dr. Anderson, I understand, normally had an attendance of twenty-five men. It didn't matter; I was excited. I knew God was at work.
One of the three is now serving the Lord in Christian ministry. Another went back to college for a law degree and now influences the community as a judge. The third has recently become a high school principal, putting his strong faith on the line time and again.
For almost three years, it was a great little Bible study.
Come to think about it, those just might have been my Glory Days.
Copyright © 1990 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
