192 Months, to the Very Day: I Quit

To my beloved brothers and sisters, and friends of The Glenburn Community Church:

Still a light.

There is so much that I would like to say about the past sixteen years since I began serving as the pastor of The Glenburn Community Church. But many of those blessings are still obscured by the pain of these past five months. The blessings have not disappeared, however. The joy and privilege of having served at Glenburn will remain a part of me forever. And those blessings will again become clearer, I believe, as I bring my role in prolonging this pain to an end.

Since August 15, I have tried to serve in as pastorally a fashion as possible, while still adhering to the restrictions placed on me by our board of trustees. I have (more often than not—but I have had some dark moments) sought to answer, “What would Jesus have me do?” and bring as redemptive an outcome as possible for all concerned. In doing so, I have had two major motivations.

"Good fences make good neighbors"?
Robert Frost didn't think so.

First, I had hoped to communicate my own repentance, whether there could be any forgiveness or not. Especially with the addition of false accusations, I longed to offer clarification as well as confession. But I remained bound by having been placed on “administrative leave” and instructed not to initiate contact with any members of the Glenburn congregation. My subsequent request to address the congregation more formally was denied. And so, I have complied with this limitation until today. (Let me add here that I have been very grateful for those who have chosen to initiate contact with Shelly and me. We have greatly needed and appreciated your support.)

My second motivation is more difficult to describe without unfairly and unnecessarily disparaging the board of trustees. I cannot imagine the difficulty they faced in responding to the reports they received. It is perhaps my own ego that suggests that communicating with me might have helped them to avoid the missteps that unfortunately complicated the legalities of the situation. But those entanglements occurred, nonetheless. I take solace in the hope that the contradictory claims and accusations made were the result of miscommunication between the board and their lawyer, rather than originating in intentional misrepresentations of the facts. Still, I have been motivated as your pastor to hold our board accountable for the unscriptural, unethical, and illegal actions taken. But those efforts end today.

Resignation: when the remaining moves
merely postpone the inevitable.

Attempts to have The Glenburn Community Church legally terminate my employment have been ineffective. Therefore, I am resigning from my role as your pastor. I do so, not because I am weary of the horrific process of communicating through multiple lawyers with my brothers and sisters in Christ. Nor am I motivated by impatience in wanting to resume communication and perhaps restore our relationships. (That may be, in fact, impossible.) I would like to believe, however, that I would persevere in my responsibilities toward you, even if the mental and emotional stress of responding to conflicting claims and accusations were redoubled. Finally, I have delayed this decision because, as all of you know, I simply am a pastor to anyone I have opportunity to serve. Excluding you from my love and care is, indeed, impossible.

I will continue to pray for God’s best blessings to abound to you and yours. But I remain convinced that doing what is right and good must first be grounded in what is true. And so, given the complicated structure of our state’s legal system, I face a scriptural quandary that prevents me from serving you further. I have condensed the theology of it as best I can in the paragraph below.

Stalemate: when there are
no further moves possible.

Romans 13 requires our submission to legal authorities. The authority governing employment law is the Labor Commissioner. But the focus of the Labor Commissioner does not differentiate between the board of trustees and the rest of the church as part of a California not-for-profit religious corporation. Therefore, the substantial financial penalties would be enforced against the church, with no recourse to the errors-and-omissions insurance that would otherwise cover the board’s actions. This is where the quandary arises. In order to rectify the board’s violations of our bylaws and my contract, without harming the church financially, it would be necessary to file a lawsuit against the board. Not all would agree, but I believe that I Corinthians 6 prohibits me from doing so. (For those familiar with the passage and organizations like Peacemakers: the board declined the offers of two Christian mediators toward reconciling these issues.)

As concerned as I am for the future of our congregation, and for the impact of my own sin and these subsequent events on the testimony of the body of Christ, I am at an impasse. In seeking what is true, and right, and good, I entrust you to the care of our Lord and Savior, and whomever else He may call to serve His purposes at Glenburn in the future. May His grace and mercy reign.

Still your servant for Jesus’ sake (II Corinthians 4:5),

Bill

Rev. Wm. Darius Myers, DMin, CT

Embryos Are Human Lives—And So Are Five-Year-Olds

Hypothetically weighing the same as
a five-year-old child. 

My attempts to maintain my Christian integrity include regularly asking myself two questions. “What do I believe?” and “Do I do it?” These apply to a wide range subjects and are important applications of the overall question, “What would Jesus have me do?”

Why This Came Up Recently

Those two questions are at the heart of an exercise in ethics put forth on October 18 by “author” and “comic” Patrick S. Tomlinson in a series of tweets. (For other middle-aged white guys and our elders, that means short, 140-word-or-fewer posts to the social media platform called Twitter.)

Why bother with Tomlinson’s hypothetical? Two reasons. First, the question he asks has value in forcing me to consider those two questions again, this time with regard to my belief in the sanctity of life from conception through natural death. The second reason is that, with over twenty-five thousand followers, and friends of mine reposting commentaries on the discussions he has sparked, it seemed appropriate to answer his question, even for my significantly fewer friends and followers.

I admit. I would save the five-year-old.
And not just because I hope
he'll be mowing my lawn before long.

His hypothetical (You can find it here: https://twitter.com/stealthygeek/status/920085535984668672) pits the life of a five-year-old child against “a frozen container labeled ‘1000 Viable Human Embryos’” in the midst of a choking cloud of smoke in a burning fertility clinic. The question is, “Which do you save?”

Tomlinson claims that he has never received an honest answer to his question. He supposes that my choice of the one child over the other 1000 human lives in the container either makes me a monster, or proves that I do not really consider the embryos to be human lives. I disagree with his conclusion for several reasons—some of which I am going to subject you to here.

The Shifting Scenario

If you read even the comments Tomlinson allows to be posted, every time he does get someone’s honest answer, he adds another qualifier to the question. And it's a hypothetical question to begin with, which has no basis in objective reality. Still, be that as it may, it's a provocative-enough exercise to have value for examining one's integrity. But the examination should consider the integrity in his logic, at least as much as a Christian’s ethics or morality.

Logically speaking, his question can be compared to asking whether you would risk your own life to rush into a burning building to save your worst enemy. Most followers of Christ's teachings would know what the answer is supposed to be and say, "Yes." Whether they would actually do it...well, that's why we like that it's a hypothetical.

But if you deny those believers' ethical and moral claims by changing the logic of the situation you present, that's disingenuous. It's like asking whether you would rush in to save your enemy, getting the "right" answer, and then adding "but that means you'd have to stop doing CPR on his child that you just rescued from that same burning building."

"Who would burn down
a fertility clinic?"

Answering the Question as the Monster I Am

Tomlinson says he has never once received an honest answer to his initial question. He later redefines “honest” to include a willingness “to accept responsibility for their answer,” but I hope I do both. Still, my honest answer is based on several important distinctions, some of which have to do with the “facts” presented in the hypothetical scenario he presents.

The environment in which an embryo is "viable" and may potentially survive beyond the fire, and beyond the misfortune of having been conceived artificially in a laboratory, is to be implanted inside a uterus. To my knowledge, suggesting otherwise, even hypothetically, currently works only in science fiction stories (author Tomlinson’s chosen genre). Therefore, on the basis of correcting the “viable” terminology of the hypothetical, the five-year-old will always get the nod. Tomlinson counters this argument, already made by others in comments tweeted back to him, by claiming the right to create whatever reality he chooses in his hypothetical. Even granting him that right, accepting that “viable” applies with the standard definition, “capable of surviving or living successfully, especially under particular environmental conditions,” I will still save the five-year-old.

Why?

My decision to save the five-year-old does not negate the fact that each embryo is still a human life, even as frozen in a stainless-steel container. So, why save one life and leave 1000 to die? Am I a monster?

During my stint in law-enforcement chaplaincy I was trained for first-responder rescues. In Professional-Rescuer CPR/Basic Life-Support—nothing really fancy—I was taught to apply a severe and arguably “monstrous” logic to situations such as what Tomlinson describes. (When I had opportunity to apply that logic, and made what I am convinced was “the right choice,” I did ask myself, “How did I end up here?” But that’s another story for another time. I survived, and so did the victim.)

You might want to ask the man holding the flame.
(Yes, that's really Patrick S. Tomlinson's
current profile picture.)

The key concept that applies even in Tomlinson’s fanciful hypothetical is called "triage." You save the save-able, even over the more severely injured; you choose those whose survival is most assured, even over larger numbers whose survival is questionable. The same equation applies to the embryos and the five-year-old. The child who has survived to age five also has greater odds (1:1) than the thousands of embryos that were already destined (with only a handful of potential exceptions) to be disposed of by the fertility clinic in which this is supposed to be occurring, and to which, presumably, they would be returned once the fire is extinguished.

(I will add here that believing in the sanctity of life from conception through natural death means that I also oppose the creation of so many lives that are destined for destruction in the process of this particular means of treating infertility. Again, though, another discussion for another time.)

Who Will You Save?

In either case, the surviving child gets prioritized over the already-condemned embryos, the successfully developing child gets prioritized above even the potentially developing embryos, and certainly reality gets prioritized above the hypothetical (especially when the hypothetical has no corollary in the real world).

So, who wants to apply these arguments to the life of the mother who will die without an abortion? Because while those cases occur far more rarely than most would imagine, that circumstance actually exists.

Minding Your Own Business: Why Our Opposition to Others Says So Much about Us

So many. So angry. So often.

The people who need this most are least likely to read it. I accept that. Sadly. But it may be that you have some influence with them. If so, then that makes two (or more) of us trying to replace diatribe with dialogue. In fact, though, “diatribe” is too kind a word. Defined by Oxford Living Dictionaries, a diatribe is “a forceful and bitter verbal attack against someone or something.”

Enmity’s litany has become liturgy on social media. It is not just that hateful name-calling is so endlessly repeated. There is a predictable order of claims and counterclaims following every new development. And periodically, just as with liturgical churches’ adherence to the three-year rotation of the lectionary, we complete a cycle of all the cardinal doctrines on each side, only to begin again.

The attacks are forceful and bitter. But are these forceful and bitter verbal attacks truly against someone or something? This is where I think the Oxford definition fails us. Because the attacks are against hollow shells, mere emblems of underlying hatred. In logic class they call it “the straw-man argument” when we misrepresent another’s position in order to more easily defeat it. The “ad-hominem” argument goes a step further and misrepresents other human persons as being so inherently wrong that any statement they present must be impossible to support.

As in the two prior posts in this series, I advise us to engage one another in dialogue, and determine to overcome the misunderstandings, and certain the misrepresentations. Before I tell you why I choose to pursue these dialogues, let me offer the hope I see for a remedy.

Though the Oxford definition is inadequate to describe the full extent of these hateful exchanges, it is also where I believe we may find the remedy. We readily offer diatribe against either persons for holding impossible positions on the issues (at least the way our “straw-man” misrepresents them), or against issues as being impossible to support because of those affiliated with them (at least the way our “ad-hominem” attacks choose to willfully misunderstand them).  The remedy I recommend is a renewed pursuit of relationships, indeed fellowship. Not just within the limitations of Church fellowship, but on the basis of solidarity among all human persons as created to bear the image and likeness of one God eternally existing in three Persons. (See previous posts in this series for some context.)

What the Bible teaches about fellowship is helpful to acknowledge here. True fellowship cannot help but be authentic, transparent, and vulnerable. To be authentic, I believe, means that if I say it, it should be true. To be transparent means that if it is true, I should say it. And that clearly leaves me vulnerable, since many will disparage me for the positions I hold, and attack the positions themselves merely because I am the one holding them.

Why do it, then? I choose to pursue these dialogues, primarily because of the role to which Christians are called as ambassadors. We are supposed to be representing the nature and character of Jesus Christ in a culture where He is often both misunderstood and misrepresented. I am deeply troubled by both those misunderstandings and the misrepresentations. I am even more troubled by the fact that I recognize both those misunderstandings and misrepresentations in both groups: those who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ, and those who do not. Worse, I see those who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ willfully misrepresenting others’ positions, which suggests strongly that these “Christians” patently misunderstand the Lord they claim to serve.

And so, a secondary reason I pursue these dialogues so vigorously is this: so many others who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ are so deeply engaged in such vehement diatribe as to discourage mere contact with Christians. This means that those who may actually seek understanding and a representation of Jesus Christ are less likely to attend where such “followers” are more likely to gather (a lot of churches, mostly). As a result, all of us are effectively being excluded from environments in which the kind of fellowship I have described is most likely to occur.

So, in case I have not been clear, I will continue to pursue dialogue, even with those who continue to propagate diatribe. And when you ask, as you likely will, “Why are you sticking your nose into my business?” I will direct you to these three posts.

Inspection and Introspection: Stick Your Nose into My Business

Just where I'd invited you to put it!

In my last post, I expressed my belief that my fellowship with God through Christ is enhanced not only through fellowship with other Christians, but in the fellowship of non-Christians. Fellowship in that last category, of course, is not based on our mutual faith-decision to be followers of Jesus Christ. But I pursue it as a natural result of my belief in the solidarity of all human persons created, as I believe we are, to bear the image and likeness of one God, eternally existing in three Persons.

As I wrote before, while I have been contemplating this call to fellowship, my sense of integrity demands I do more than contemplate it. And yet I do not pursue this fellowship as consistently as I would like—even with those claiming to follow Jesus Christ. In fact, I sometimes find it easier to pursue understanding and agreement with non-Christians, where some imagine that fellowship should be less likely to occur. But I am often enlightened by those of you who disagree with me about the nature, character, and role of Jesus Christ in our history, present, and future. Why? Because I can only lead my life, make my choices, and face the consequences of the choices I make. From you and others, then, I gain greater perspective into the many lives I cannot lead, choices I cannot make, and consequences I will not face.

I admit, I do look at your life, your choices, and your consequences as cautionary rather than exemplary. That means I watch for warnings in your life that might help me avoid similar outcomes in my own. As a follower of Jesus Christ, I can be expected to consider your life, choices, and consequences as inescapably wrong. What you might not expect, however, is that I consider my own to be the same. I just hope to avoid the pit you dig, or at least recognize that I am digging a similar one, perhaps earlier, and perhaps with enough awareness to put down my shovel.

And that brings me to the repentance and confession portion of the program.

As part of our fellowship, I have not always been clear about inviting you to participate in the same kind of mutual inspection and introspection I have offered to you. To be clearer about that, here are two questions I think we each need to answer.

The first question has to do with the easier task of inspection: what do I see in you that leads me to wonder about, question, or even oppose you? It may be a belief or behavior, your position on an issue, or any number of other aspects, again, into which I might stick my nose.

The second question, though, is less inviting for me to consider because it requires introspection (inspecting myself): what do I see in myself about the issue you have raised? What is it in your position that leads me to wonder about, question, or even oppose my own view? I think that my emotional reactions to some things is primarily a means of avoiding this second question. I can get so upset over what I see in others that I am effectively distracted from asking whether I am as right as I think I am. And I do think I am. But I have been wrong about that, too.

Before this sounds like I am asking permission to be judgmental of you, remember that I want you asking the same questions of yourself, with regard to what you see, wonder about, question, or even oppose in me. In this way, we might engage in a fellowship that is authentic, transparent, and vulnerable—even if we are not mutual followers of Jesus Christ. I hope we can continue to attempt it.

As for those who claim to be mutual followers of Jesus Christ, there is more to say about the nature of a fellowship that is authentic, transparent, and vulnerable, and the terrible cost of doing so…that is only exceeded by a decision not to do so. More later.

What Kind of Church Are You? Identifying the one unifying factor determining ministry success

There are many different kinds of churches. You probably know that I am a proponent for integrity in the Church, seeking reconciliation toward unity instead of the usual process of continuous fragmentation. Therefore, feel compelled to add that there are too many different kinds of churches. But we can have that discussion some other time. There is a more essential point I hope we can consider here.

But first, let me ask: what kind of church are you? Does that seem like a strange question? Let me explain for just a moment.

I recall it being Ron Frost (Ron is an educator with Barnabas International and one of our special presenters during doctoral studies at Multnomah Biblical Seminary.) who first suggested to me that individual Christians are just as much church as are any group of Christians congregating in any number of churches. We each represent the body of Christ, and are each responsible for responding as the body of Christ. We are also responsible to congregate together, so please do not mistake me for advocating some sort of isolated religious practice that could be accurately called “Christian.” But even as we consider the various kinds of churches, please understand that I am asking what kind of church you are.

Several Kinds of Church: Governing Structures

In order to accomplish the tasks of vision-setting, decision-making, and ministry operations, there are three primary structures churches employ. Where decisions are centralized in a hierarchy of individuals fulfilling these functions, it is called an episcopal structure. (Which is not necessary limited to the Episcopal Church, a name applied to some offshoots of the Anglican Church or The Church of England.) This term, from episkopos in the Greek, means that there is one key person responsible to over (epi) see (skopos) the life and ministry of a given congregation. Where groups of mature Christians serve this function together, the term used is presbyterian, from the Greek presbyteros, or “elder.” (Again, this applies to other denominations that those which use the word Presbyterian in their titles.) When the tasks of vision, decisions, and ministry are discussed and decided by all those who gather in a given local organization, that form of “church government” is referred to as congregational.

 

Many congregations and denominations employ some combination of these structures, with varying leaders or groups of leaders in specific areas of ministry. But one form or another usually dominates most of any particular church’s function.

Many More Kinds of Church: Ministry Emphasis & Personality

So, are there just three kinds of churches? No. In addition to a variety of governing structures, churches pursue differing characteristics as their primary mood, ministry purpose, or perceived personality. For example, in most communities there are churches that openly advertise themselves as being the simple church, or the easy church. There are exciting churches, happy churches, and friendly churches, and not only are there significant differences among them, it can be frustrating to discover only months into your attendance that what you thought was a friendly church is intolerant of anyone who fails to fit the happy-Christian mold.

It is not merely mood and personality that determines the character of a local church. Some Christians gravitate toward a dogmatically-exclusive church, while others seek out a tolerantly-inclusive church. Of course, either of these might also be a politically-active congregations but pursuing very different platforms.

Again, there are hybrids here, just as with governing structures. Among the congregants in any one place, you will find different reasons for choosing the same body to which they choose to belong. But the children’s ministry church, the youth group church, the singles’ studies church, and the senior citizens’ road-trip church tend to be more uniform in composition. Still, there can be a surprising range of ages, socio-economic levels, and other demographic categories found in community-service churches, theological debate churches. And all this may be irrelevant to those who define their Christian experience by the musical styles of their worship team. Those, of course, range from classically-trained flamboyance in hymn-accompaniment, through grunge-rock mystical mumblings, to what one astute observer referred to as her church’s version of “The Country Bear Jamboree.”

Two Key Categories of Church

No matter what governing structure is implemented, nor what emphasis or personality results, each ministry in every local congregation falls into one of two categories.

The first is more prevalent. Usually, whatever the governing structure may be, there are distinct decisions about what that gathering of Christians will do in order to serve the purposes they believe God has called them to fulfill. They then pursue any number of activities they believe are appropriate to the task, and they pray that God will bless their investments and fulfill their expectations with the appropriate results. The temptation to pursue specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timed (SMART) objectives usually leads to counting “nickels and noses,” evaluating ministry-success in terms of “butts in the pew and bucks in the plate.”

Consider for a moment, though, that even if the way we keep score were to change, other aspects of that first category’s description might still require some revision. Several improvements may come to your mind. But the first and foremost among them is what, in keeping with E.M. Bounds’ chapter, “A Praying Ministry Successful,” points to the foundational perspective and essential activity of churches in the second category. This second category contrasts distinctly with churches whose leaders define their objectives of success, set goals along a path toward those objectives, make ministry-shaping decisions along the way, and pray for God to bless their efforts.

As Bounds writes, where the objectives of success is “holiness” as evidenced in “transfigured hearts and lives,” it is not in the board room, but in the prayer closets of a church’s leaders (whether one, some, or all members of the congregation are considered such). What brings about these results? It is that “their prayers entered into and shaped their characters; they so prayed as to affect their own lives and the lives of others; they so prayed as to make the history of the Church and influence the current of the times.”

Still Just One Kind of Christian

Three major forms of governing structure, unlimited and ever-growing types of personalities, and myriad minutiae of doctrine over which we divide from one another—there are so many ways to categorize the (too) many kinds of churches that you and I may choose to be. But what Jesus promises to the two or three gathered in His name, agreeing together in prayer, is still available today. For whatever other adjectives you think may properly modify “Christian” (usually a denominational or traditional identifier), would there be greater unity in the body and greater effectiveness in our ministry together if the main distinction could be that we are “Praying Christians?”

Perhaps, but I hope we would never call ourselves that. I object to so many other adjectives on the grounds that they serve primarily to define divisions among Christians. But I will critique this one for a completely different reason: redundancy. If we claim that being a Christian means having a relationship with God through Christ, and that where there is a relationship there must be conversation, then why would the idea that Christians are praying need to be emphasized. We are praying, or we are not Christians. So, why are we not praying together?

Tenuous Tenure—Part Four: Finding Your Traction in the Pastor-Parish Rotisserie

http://findingtractionfilm.com/

This post continues thoughts that began in “Tenuous Tenure—Part One: The Dangers and Damage of the Pastor-Parish Rotisserie.” This post examines the third of three stages of ministry that occur in the development of a pastor’s relationship to a congregation, and to the development of new churches within the community in which they are planted. Those pastors and new churches who survive the first stage, “Putting Out Fires,” do so largely because they have learned an important skill that is based on an important shift in perspective: “Spinning the Plates.” Those who manage to supply sufficient spin and survive their fifth anniversary as a pastor, or their tenth anniversary as a new congregation, do so largely because they have developed the disciplines necessary to “Finding Your Traction.”

External Causes for Wheel-Spinning: Feeding Off of Fragile Fellowships

When successful, the transition into this third stage results in “Finding Your Traction.” Where unsuccessful, the ministry of a parish pastor or the continued congregating of a newly-established ecclesiastical franchise begins to resemble any mighty American muscle car immobilized by mud and simply “Spinning Your Wheels.”

But in the usual responsibilities of a pastor toward their congregation, or of a church-plant toward the community whose needs they decided were unmet by previously existing congregations, the wheel-spinning is often a result of smaller, solo-pastorate congregations becoming “feeder-churches.” Some of us trained during the early days of the church-growth movement were actually encouraged to ensure that our churches became the ministries feeding off of the results of ministries in these smaller churches.

It's a long road, and it leads through rough territory.

In hopes of provoking prayerful consideration by friends who know no other paradigm than the past thirty years of “bigger-is-better” ecclesiology, I dare to call this phenomenon the church-growth movement’s multi-staff metastasis. This spreading cancer routinely drains actively-involved Christians from their engagement as devoted disciples in a local body of Christ, collecting them into a cesspool of spectators gathered for pious performances in emporiums of religious goods and services. There, the swelling ranks of paid professionals evaluate and report their success by estimating the crowd of “average Christians” attending their events and programs.

In this way, disciples once devoted to one another in their mutual service in the communities to which Christ calls them can sometimes barely remember how they once seemed satisfied in “such a small, unsuccessful church.” Meanwhile, the spectacle presented by “high quality professionals” distracts them from regretting their new role as mere donors. The sycophantic symbiosis of mutual self-congratulation lets attendees admire their “ministers” who, in turn, attend to whatever the attendees most admire. Those on stage serve those who gather; those who gather serve those who perform. And those outside the happy pairing of actors and audience (that would be, in my estimation, the community to which Christ calls us in service, and often even the Christ that calls us as well), enter the equation less and less often.

Count the blessings of smooth roads, and keep running...

Internal Causes for Wheel-Spinning: The Failures of Feeder Churches

This third stage of ministry development requires similar skills of pastors within the congregations they serve, and recently-planted churches within the communities they serve. When either has overcome the firefighting (see the “Putting Out Fires” post) and plate-spinning (see the “Spinning the Plates” post), the relative stability of wheel-spinning may actually be attractive. Though the scenery never changes because there is no forward progress being made, the engine still makes a lovely sound, and the passengers are never jarred by bumps in the road. And yet, the tenuous balance between patience and boredom is rarely sustainable, even where there seems to be an unlimited supply of fuel (a consistent influx of new residence to the church’s service area, for example) to keep the wheels whirling.

Finding your traction means first overcoming the frustrations and fatigue of realizing the absence of active servants who were once among your beloved fellow-believers, but having departed (silently, for the most part) for greener, and passive pastures. Finding your traction means developing a pattern of preparing new participants to fill the vacancies voided by what will always seem like disloyal defectors. And finding your traction means evaluating success by the actual ministry being accomplished in the communities to which Christ has called us, rather than in the stability of a particular roster of Christian servants. Few and rare are those who refuse to be seduced by the simpler, easier, more exciting, or less time-consuming options offered elsewhere.

...and on into the night.

Where We Go to Find Our Traction

Remember that we are considering congregations that have reached their tenth anniversary, and pastors who have served more than five years in their current position. Only those who have surpassed the firefighting and plate-spinning stages have built the equity necessary to accommodate a more definitive approach to proclaiming “this is who we are.” And that is where the traction is to be found, whether it is a congregation that has become established, or whether it is an individual Christian servant who has become incorporated into the congregation being pastored.

A strong sense of vision and mission in service to Christ and others will not eliminate sheep-stealing poachers from offering a more comfortable Christian experience to even those who strongly support the current purposes being served by a given congregation. But the statement “this is who we are” assumes that the loyalty of members within a local body of Christ transcends the tasks and structures of particular ministry activities. The congregation’s vision and mission evolves together as certain needs are met and other needs arise. The consistent focus on Christ’s calling to serve together in His purposes also sustains the movement forward, despite the addition and subtraction of individual members of the body. New gifts and talents expand the congregation’s abilities; what appear to be losses may serve to refine and refocus the congregation’s areas of service.

What Lies Ahead

Are there further stages of ministry for pastors and recently-planted congregations? Probably so. But while my tenure at The Glenburn Community Church has allowed me to recognize where I go in finding my traction here, my two experiences in church-planting ended with the dissolving of each congregation before their tenth anniversary. (Again, I have seen some reach the third stage in their ministries sooner or later than the averages. But both of those in which I served failed due to the fatigue of their primary plate-spinners.)

Is there a fourth stage of ministry beyond what appears to me to be the ultimate maturity of this third stage? Yes, I believe there is. For congregations, perhaps the fourth stage involves the eventual evolution beyond being led by their founding pastor. For pastors, it may involve the eventual adjustments and accommodations to injury, illness, or infirmity, where mere delegation (to and with those who share in developing and implementing vision and mission) must give way to the outcomes of true discipleship. There comes a day when one’s calling shifts to passing the torch either as a consultant, or decedent.

As a Death Pastor, I will suggest that the transition is preferable when you decide to pass the torch while you can still be available as a consultant.