The Briarpatch Gospel: Fearlessly Following Jesus into the Thorny Places, by Shayne Wheeler

*links to amazon.com via affiliates

What is the Briarpatch?Have you ever felt what it’s like to fall down a steep ravine into a patch of briars, a collection of thorns and thistles that rub against your skin? With the concept of the briarpatch, Pastor Shayne Wheeler (of All Souls Fellowship in Decatur, Georgia) weaves together the notion that Jesus is found both in the context of corporate worship and in the briarpatch (the world which we live in). Wheeler writes, “[O]ur lives matter--to the homeless man on the corner begging for a quarter, the bald lady at church going through chemo for the second time, or the gay man who loves Jesus but has been rejected by Christians so many times that he finally given up trying. This is life in the briarpatch” (10). 

Following Jesus into the BriarpatchToo often believers in the church segregate themselves from the concerns and difficulties in their own backyards, not desiring to be stained by the concerns of the common man. Yet, as Shayne points out, the desire for healing is not some fanciful notion about heaven, but rooted in the work of Jesus. Wheeler writes, “Christ’s resurrection shows us that his life, hope, healing, and renewal are happening today, in this place, in our world” (20). Revealing the healing presence of Jesus means following him into the ‘thorny thickets of our world,’ and knowing that he will be us through turmoil, doubts and suffering.

One of the powerful testimonies of this book was its insistence that making room for people in our congregations goes a long way in helping them identify with Christ. Wheeler tells a moving story about a musician named Brian, who began to use his talent in the worship band at church while remaining a skeptic of all things religious. As time went on, Brian went from a casual onlooker to a man seeking to destroy the pastor’s arguments to a person who got swept into the story of the Scriptures (31-33). 

 Wheeler writes, “We had made room for him--not just in the pew, but in our lives” (33). Brian caught a vision of the way Jesus Christ shapes the story of the lives of his children, and in turn, he wanted to be a part of that believing community. Wheeler notes that we will always have people who don’t believe in God in our midst; it’s how we welcome them and all their questions that make the difference.   

Giving Up Self-ProtectionWheeler continues on in this second chapter to make a bold statement that relates to making room for people by writing, “..the reason most people avoid our communities of faith….is because of our own corporate self-protection and judgmental attitudes toward anyone who does not look, act, or believe like us” (35). Even using biblical language in our services without careful elucidation can provide a protective self-covering keeping others out. Instead of providing road blocks for people, we should desire to meet people where they are, displaying the power of the gospel through the trusting relationships. 

Combining a gospel focus in the midst of discussion on pain and suffering was another highlight in the book. Wheeler writes, “Through suffering and adversity we develop a hunger for change” (72). Living in constant fear of being found out leads to alienation and enslavement to our fear. Wheeler reminds us, “The death and resurrection of Jesus was precisely for frauds, sinners, and failures like you and me. We simply need to apply the truth of Christ’s resurrection to the deep places of our lives, the briarpatch in our hearts” (73). As you follow Jesus into pain and suffering, there is freedom because you are no longer tied to the power of sin and death, but find your freedom in what Jesus has done for you. 

And Other Stuff…The rest of the book is an exploration in the briarpatch of life with an eye towards loving your neighbor, bringing the gospel to bear in painful situations and God’s grace toward gays. In chapter 10, Wheeler explores the way the Christian community has responded toward gays and how we should. Communicating in mercy, Wheeler writes, “To deny God’s mercy to our gay and lesbian family, friends, and neighbors is to deny the sufficiency of the blood of Jesus for ourselves. In our judgment, we place ourselves under the judgment of God” (189). We are all in the same boat together, profaning God in our sinful attitudes and actions, deserving the full brunt of God’s judgment. How can we be judgmental and hateful toward gays when we all have fallen short of God’s glory, yet, God has saved us by his own work. Wheeler reiterates that the homosexual lifestyle is not consistent with Christian discipleship but does not deserve the title ‘unpardonable sin’ either (188). While not agreeing with everything written in this chapter, I was confronted with my own prejudices and sinful attitudes as I read about the mercy he extends every day to gays in his community.  

Deepening Relationships with Jesus Christ and His ChurchOverall, I high recommend this book to those wanting to deepen their relationship with Jesus Christ and his church. Briarpatch Gospel is a rather challenging read because it calls its readers to take stock of their own lives, their own sin, and seek to follow Jesus into the midst of thorns and thistles. Taking his cues from N.T. W right, James Davison Hunter and others, Wheeler points his readers to the grand story that God has been weaving from the beginning which falls squarely upon the person of Jesus Christ. For all of those desiring to take their place in the story, this book will be of great encouragement.

 **Thanks to Tyndale Momentum and Tyndale House Publishers for the copy of this book in exchange for review**
Spencer Cummins, MDiv 2007
Covenant Theological Seminary
Residing in O’Fallon, Missouri
Lead Editor @ E4 (Ephesians Four Group)







.

Calling and Clarity in the New Year and beyond

Calling is central to life. It defines who we are; it directs how we live; it is why we are here.

During the recent Christmas season I was amazed to realize how intricately calling weaves its way into the Christmas story. Zechariah was called to father a child, Mary to give birth, Joseph to be married, shepherds to proclaim, and wise men to worship. Then, there is Jesus, the Creator God and King, called to be a Savoir to His people. Each called to something wonderful and powerful—some for a lifetime and some for a season…but like you and me, each was called.

Without question, our callings are wonderful and powerful, but there is another side to the coin. Calling always comes with the struggle of our humanity. Zechariah doubted his calling in light of his age. Joseph was on the brink of divorce until the Lord intervened. Simeon waited a lifetime for the pinnacle of his calling. Then again, there is Jesus, the Creator God and King, born on the dirt floor of a barn and destined for the pain of the cross. Calling is central to life, but does not always come with ease and may, at times, lack clarity.

Self-Examination of Calling

Mark Dawson, 360Life

Most of us have entered 2013 either embracing the power and beauty of our callings or wearily dragging the weight of our humanity across the threshold of the new year. Ironically, while both of these are normal and human, either can rob us of the peace and clarity that God has purposed.

While Christ intends for you to enjoy the fruit of your calling, there are times that success is euphoric and misguidely becomes our pursuit. I think the euphoria of success is what the enemy had up his sleeve in Luke 4 when he showed Christ all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time and told him he could have it all…immediately and without the pain of the cross. In a similar way, and in the same passage, the enemy sought to distract Chirst with his humanity, the need for food, and disillusionment with the Father…questioning His faithfulness to provide.

Most of us begin this new year either embracing, or struggling with, some aspect of our calling. In either case, the key to living faithfully and finding clarity in any season is not how we feel towards our calling, but rather about our affection for the One who calls. Whatever season this may be for you, I encourage you to seek Christ first. He will direct and He will provide clarity for both the joyful and difficult seasons.

Mark Dawson (MDiv ’05)

mark@your360life.net
www.your360life.net

About Mark: Mark Dawson designed 360Life to bring clarity to calling and to help people see how it weaves its way into every relationship and area of their lives. Whether considering a transition, out of touch in your relationships, stagnant in your goals, overwhelmed with your struggles, or in search of clarity—the exploration, discovery, and clarification of calling is part of our adventure as humans. Learn more about the journey and how 360LifeTM can help you by visiting my website at www.your360life.net.

You Must Vote!

You’ve probably seen the articles as to why one vote doesn’t matter, why the ignorant should not vote, and why key social advocates are choosing not to vote. Guess what? You still must vote.

 Vote Because You Believe
...that faithfulness is expressed in the seemingly irrelevant. Few of us have the influence to make our non-vote declaration more powerful than a vote. David Boudreaux in one of the above articles writes that he won’t vote because, “First--and least interestingly--my vote will never determine the outcome of a political election.”

By that logic, don’t pick up a single piece of trash off your street because it won’t make a difference in environmental care; don’t tell your children at bedtime that Jesus loves them because the world has spent the day telling them otherwise; and don’t ever give a buck, a burger, or a cup of water to a homeless person because he is just going to be hungry and thirsty again. If you do any of these things, you’re playing into the ignorance that one small act has significance, when the world knows it doesn’t!
That is exactly the point at which the mystery of the Gospel shames the prevailing logic of modernism. Those nation-conquering actions that we all dream of as children and strive for as young adults pale in value before the eyes of the coming Kingdom. On the last day, the sheep aren’t let in because they picketed more intensely, sacrificed more extensively, suffered more substantially, or were persecuted more acutely. They gave a freaking cup of water to a thirsty woman! (Matthew 25:31-46) Period. That’s it. And the goats weren’t cast into suffering because they were anti-socialistic oligarchs ruling over corporate America through boardroom influence. Our King and His Kingdom value the seemingly irrelevant expressions of care, obedience, and love.

Vote Because You Refuse
 …to make ignorance your excuse. The whole idea of having a town-hall debate filled by the undecided is a sham. In a world where information is more globally prevalent than food, anybody undecided is either willfully ignorant or actually stupid. Ignorance isn’t a sin; choosing to remain ignorant in the light of revelation is. Too many people claim ignorance as a reason not to vote or, as is more often the case, not to vote on certain candidates. If you don’t know who is running in your area, for what office, and on what historic practices, Google it! Ballots issues for most states can be found at BallotPedia. For that matter, BallotPedia tells what offices are being voted on, in what districts, and who is running for the positions.

Vote Because You Want
 …good Judges more than a human king. Far beyond the next four years, we need to cast informed votes for those serving in the judiciary. Judges, once elected and promoted beyond a certain level, can remain in office for life. Consider that Antonin Scalia was first appointed Assistant Attorney General in 1974 by Gerald Ford. Today (October 31, 2012), Scalia will weigh in on whether Title 17 protects the resale of foreign-made objects legally obtained. All current Supreme Court Judges served on the Circuit Court with the exception of Elena Kagen, appointed by Barack Obama. Circuit Court elections are being held this year in Florida and Illinois.

The Judiciary is what Francis Schaeffer had in mind when he wrote, “[T]he will and moral judgments of the majority are now influenced by or even overruled by the opinions of a small group of men and women. This means that vast changes can be made in the whole concept of what should and what should not be done.” (Whatever Happened to the Human Race, 287). Schaeffer wrote on to declare that “those taking the lead in the changes involving who should live and who should die increasingly rely on litigation (the courts) rather than legislation…”

Schaeffer’s scathingly asks of Christian lawyers in A Christian Manifesto, on the issue of human dignity, “[W]here were the Christian lawyers during the crucial shift from forty years ago to just a few years ago?... A non-lawyer like myself has a right to feel somewhat let down because the Christian lawyers did not blow the trumpets clearly between, let us say 1940 and 1970” (441).
It was the Judiciary that legalized abortion with Roe V. Wade (1973) and more recently Gonzales v. Carhart (2007). It was the Judiciary that ruled Florida didn’t have to have a manual recount of presidential election ballots, sealing Bush’s victory of Gore (2000). And in 2012, the Judiciary upheld the legislation known as Obamacare. Six of the 17 milestone Supreme Court rulings (or 35%) have come in the past 12 years (5% of our nation’s history). In time, I believe successive generations will ask us, “Where were you, the Christian electorate, when Judges were being voted into positions of long and lasting power, swaying the course of culture and the lives of those under submission?”

You may not want to vote for a President. You may not even like the options for that office. But you are voting for someone who will have the power to appoint others into positions of great influence in the Judiciary, possibly even long after you are dead.

Vote Because You Must 
Yea, there’s the whole “ancestors and troops have died so you can” argument. Fine, if that works for you. There’s the “most people in the world can’t” argument. Great, if that works! There are the “care for Israel” and the “fear Iran” and the “woo China” and the “protect Korea” arguments. If it works—fine! But in the end, a choice not to vote is ultimately a dismissal of the promise of God to dignify our faithfulness in insignificance on behalf of His Kingdom and His values.

Joel Hathaway
Director of Alumni and Career Services
Covenant Theological Seminary

Pastors, what can you say about the election process and politics from the Pulpit? (a guide from the Alliance Defending Freedom)

When Crafting Ministerial Job Descriptions, Let Realty Shape Expectation!

Pastors are neither generic nor ideal. They are not universally nor uniformly gifted. There is no redundancy or irrelevance in the body of Christ. These are individual people created for a specific time for specific “works, which God prepared in advance” (Eph. 2:10).

A story goes that a wealthy farmer woke up one day and decided he didn’t want ten different horses, each doing a different task. He wrote an ad: “$10,000 for a horse—fast on the stretches, sleek on the curves, gentle on the ride, high in the step, sure-footed on rocks; able to pull nine times its weight, a plodder in the field, a sprinter in the lane; slow to tire, quick to recover; preferably attractive to the eyes.” Unable to find what he sought, he hired a breeder to “design” him such a beast, which a breeder did.

Later, someone asked the farmer, “Did you get what you wanted?” To which the farmer replied, “Yes, and no. This beast is everything I could have hoped for, but always the wrong hope during the wrong need. He is high in step during hard work, can pull nine times his weight but won’t, is slow to tire but slower to ever get started, is a sprinter when I need him to plod and plods when I need him to sprint. He is even something to look at, would he be willing to let me harness him during the daylight, which he seems to hate with fervor.”

In pastoring, as in farming, one size does not fit all. This does not go without saying. A recent survey of several hundred pastoral job descriptions (JD) shows that the vast majority of these JDs cluster around two extremes: overly generic or impossibly comprehensive.

Generic descriptions “seek a pastor who loves the Lord, loves God’s people, and is called to preach.” Comprehensive descriptions seek a (single) candidate who can do everything: teach, preach, cast vision, implement, train leaders, oversee outreach, direct, guide, pray, visit, and study; relationally inclined, results oriented, administrative, and personable.” (Both of these examples are derived from real job descriptions.)

Neither of these has in mind a real, image-bearing individual. The one expects too little and the other expects . . . well, Jesus. In either case, the result is an ideal candidate based upon some hybrid combination of qualities and traits from other known pastors. What may come as a surprise is that both of these descriptions generate from a common condition: lack of or incomplete self-differentiation.

A Horse for Every Need
The dangers of each extreme are more similar than different. Churches that post the generic description are not being honest with themselves (or potential candidates) about the other pastoral and personal needs that the church and the community will make upon a minister: visitation, weddings, funerals, midweek Bible studies, and so forth. In fact, this generic description seems to be focusing simply on the character of the candidate­—love for Jesus, love for God’s people, desire to preach and teach—without any expectation of competency. Failure to be more specific about the real needs of this church is a recipe for resentment and frustration.

Churches that expect everything are equally unrealistic. Candidates will come forward and one may even be picked. But the expectation of competency is so intense that the new pastor is almost certain to burn out, fail morally, or leave the ministry altogether after just a few years. These are not speculations on my part; many stories of actual people line the pages of my journals and fill up the content of my prayers: burned out, frustrated, resentful, angry, and depressed pastors who have left the ministry (or simply become ineffective) in part because of the discontinuity between what they are gifted to do and what they were hired to do (or so they thought), and what they are daily tasked with. These are real men, husbands, and fathers who, because of their perceived—and sometimes real—failures in ministry, have completely left the church.

It is important to hear that I do not believe churches are intentionally misleading pastors or deliberately setting up unrealistic expectations. The job descriptions that many churches generate grow out of sincerity and genuineness, which makes them potentially all the more detrimental to the pastoral candidate and specific congregation.

By contrast, taking the time to prayerfully seek wisdom and thoughtfully weigh the counsel of trusted parties—in order to develop a truly differentiated job description that takes into consideration the actual needs of the church, considers the unutilized gifts of members in the congregation, and leaves room for the unique expressions of ministry that God has built into the real person who will finally accept the call—is an expensive endeavor. It costs time, energy, and will require a more honest view of ourselves and our churches. Many questions will be asked, some of which may not even have answers. This process will cost us efficiency, even as it challenges the assumption that all problems are ultimately formulaic, analytic, and resolvable with sufficient data.

A Better Way
1. Document the Needs of the Church – Yes, everything. What are all the needs? No, this does not constitute a completed job description. It is just the beginning of the process. Then scale the needs: which are essential, which are important but not essential, and which are simply preferential? The list is incomplete if the essentials are reduced to a list of theological distinctives. After the needs have been documented and scaled, ask who else in the church has gifts which could be used to meet some of the needs. Ephesians is clear: your pastor will fail if the expectation is that he does all the ministry. Paul writes that God gave pastors, leaders et al to the church “to equip his people for works of service that the body of Christ may be built up” (Eph. 4:12)\

2. Get Input From Trusted People in the “Field” – Once the list of essential duties and character attributes have been compiled, run it by pastors you know and trust. These individuals will be able to “test” the job description against real people they know and the reality of what will be required to fulfill the duties.

3. Solicit Candidate Recommendations from Trusted Sources – Hopefully, these trusted people can also recommend appropriately qualified and gifted people for the position, thus helping to build an initial list of candidates.

4. Build a Real “Good-Fit” Profile from the Feedback – Based on the feedback from the trusted people about the JD, adjustments can be made. More importantly, based on the candidates they recommend, you can begin getting a sense of the type of person, his gifts and competencies, necessary to meet the needs of the specific situation. What are the common traits between all the recommended candidates? Which real-life candidates do people who know your church believe to be a good fit? This information can help build a “good-fit” profile against which you can compare other, future candidates.

5. Open the Search Process Publicly – This is often the first step churches take after compiling a list of congregational needs. However, skipping steps 2 through 4 will require committees to look at more candidates from day one, and have to build their own sense of “good-fit” based on no cluster of related data. And candidates who apply may not have thought through whether they are a good fit or not, throwing that work on the committee. But once a “good-fit” profile has been established, comparing other candidates is not as difficult. Knowledge of the common, necessary elements helps shepherd committees as they prayerfully consider others who will apply.

I said that this process is costly, but I do not believe it is more costly than the process that has been historically adapted. The same amount of work has to be done, but the quality of the work and the ability of those doing it are greatly improved, as are the results.

This process does not guarantee that a church will call the right candidate, or even that a pastor ends up in a healthy church. What it does is to provide churches with quantifiable data based on reality, on real people in real time and space with real strengths and struggles. It provides churches with a better understanding of themselves and their candidates. Without these or similarly thoughtful steps in the candidacy process, the job description can quickly spiral into a collective of desired pastoral traits borrowed from a myriad of respected pastors, none of whom are actually called to that church at that time.

Joel Hathaway is director of alumni and placement services for Covenant Theological Seminary. Over the past six years, he has evaluated hundreds of job descriptions, consulted with over fifty churches, and advised and assessed nearly 500 pastoral candidates. He is certified in the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) ©. If your church is seeking assistance in the pastoral search process, please contact Joel at Joel.Hathaway@covenantseminary.edu.

Why Sharing Information is So Terrifying, Essential

In working on a “Ten-Year Project”( working title), a leader sought to collect 20 data points on 650 graduates from one specific institution of higher learning to see if a predictive model could be devised. The model would help identify the best candidates for a specific degree program on the front end. In attempts to prevent confounding variables, he contacted four other institutions to compare some of their results in the same area.

E-mails introduced the field of research and benefit to all the schools. Follow-up phone calls explained the goals and outcomes. All input would remain anonymous, while all data and findings would be shared with participating institutions. All the information being sought from the other schools was publically available in annualized statements, but not broken down by program. Program-specific information would be essential for comparative analysis. There were no legal concerns, no public shame or threats to institutional security to fear. This was an offer of full cooperation in which the initiating school would provide the same data to all the other schools. The result: nothing. No institution was willing to provide the requested information. Why is sharing information so terrifying?

Because We Don’t Have It

Information is too . . . concrete. Data is too easily . . . .analyzed. And so, as a protective measure, we don’t seek it, don’t capture it, and even if we do, we don’t ask the right questions about it. It takes a lot of individual differentiation and emotional health to be able to capture the very thing that might end up showing how poorly we have performed. That is true whether you are a mom-and-pop business, a Fortune 100 company, or a school. Opening up data means you might be proven a failure. If you show what you are spending, what you are getting in return, how well your product is performing in the marketplace, what your retention of key employees (or turnover) is—you are immediately open to an apples-to-apples comparison. And the results might get ugly.

So, instead, we hide our data or simply choose not to capture it. Educational institutions don’t talk about graduates placed in their respective fields of study, or even about degreed graduates. They just talk about “alumni”—and use the loosest definition for that: anybody who took a single course at that institution, ever. In the business world, the pattern is to spin whatever metrics make us look best. For example, Toyota claims about its cars that “80% of all vehicles sold in the past 20 years are still on the road.” Great—so how many is that? How many did Toyota sell in the past 20 years? I seem to remember that the 1990’s weren’t great years for Toyota.

Of course Toyota doesn’t answer that question for us. Someone has to piecemeal together the information that is available. For example, in November 2006, USA Today reported that Toyota was eyeing 15% global market share (total), or 14% for vehicles under the Toyota brand (excluding those sold by Daihatsu and Hino Motors). This 14% represented a sale of some 75 million vehicles worldwide in 2010. Then, in January 2011, Autoblog reported that Toyota expected sales to jump to 13 million in 2011. Is that global? Who knows! The point is, you actually have to read Toyota’s annual reports for two decades to actually find the answer.

Back to the educational industry. Nothing says we might be failing like actually being able to compare reality to reality, using the same terms, in the same ways. And so, we don’t capture that information.

Because Others Might Steal from Us

So long as nobody knows how well (or poorly, as the case more often is) we are doing, then others won’t want to copy us. This “close your eyes and hope for the best” approach to institutional health is ignorance reinforced by ignorance. The thinking goes like this: “If the competition knows what we’re doing and how well it’s working, they will copy us. Then, we’ll have to come up with something new.” The whole thing smells of complacency. This kind of thinking is the beginning of the end of relevance.

Revealing the outcomes of our endeavors—that enrollment numbers or sales are up or down—is actually the first, needed step toward perpetual change and improvement. Systems have to stop being afraid of the possibility that others are going to copy them. Imitation is the highest form of flattery. Then again, if one is part of a system that is always changing, then competitors are only ever imitating the last best thing. Messages can be copied. Institutes can be mimicked. Core values of organizational life give the flesh and blood behind these forms that will ultimately grow and retain our customer base and constituent loyalty.

Because we’re Not Prepared to be Held Accountable

Necessity is the mother of invention. Ignorance is just the stepbrother of stupidity. And as we are honest about the state of affairs, then we can begin to listen to the voices of others who might actually help us move in the direction of new growth. But this takes a great deal of self-reflection and a higher commitment to our constituents than to our personal opinions.

And this is another reason why information isn’t shared. Sharing information means empowering others to act. When people know how well or poorly our company is doing, there can be calls for accountability. The façade is gone. The fear associated with this process is a fear of self-protection. Self-protection requires the maintenance of the façade: nobody gets past the showroom.

Fear is a stupid reason not to look at the truth. People who think they have cancer and don’t go to the doctor aren’t cancer free. They are just ignorant. Companies that pretend that their sales are just fine, and never bother to see how they compare across the industry, aren’t doing just fine. They’re dying. Organizations, companies, and institutions—like organisms—are either growing or they are dying. There isn’t a condition called “holding steady” in real life.

Self-reflection requires a willingness to critique, analyze, and even—if necessary—to abandon endeavors that aren’t working. This is hard to do, especially when the endeavor—the marketing campaign, the product placement concept, the established idea—comes from you personally. This reveals a lot of maturity. It displaces fear, helps establish trust, and even positions us to learn from the sharing of information.

Because We are Moving Toward Irrelevance

The moment we stop assessing how we are doing—as a company, a church, a school—we have become irrelevant. No, that doesn’t mean we cease to exist immediately; it means that we’ve stopped learning. This is something that dead people do: they stop learning. In fact, it’s a key difference between the living and the dead. Ask your coworkers, “Are we continuing to learn?”

When I lived in the Mississippi Delta (in the late 1990s), my primary care physician—Dr. Duff Austin— was a 69-year old man who had been practicing medicine since . . . well, before the time of computing. But he never stopped learning. He was one of the most well-read, up-to-speed doctors I knew, and remained so until his death a few years ago.

The moment we stop learning is the moment we start dying. True learning comes through curiosity—questioning why things are the way they are, and asking how to make them better. It is exhausting because it means never being content with where you are or what has been accomplished. And the only power that is really going to hold our feet to the fire of accountability is openness about reality: our metrics, our data, and our analysis.

When we stop sharing information, we become an encyclopedia: filled with useful data as static as the day is long. Irrelevance waits for us, sitting at the end of complacency and pride—of a sense of final accomplishment. Atrophy is just one workout away—our last workout. Institutional assessment, organizational evaluation, and corporate growth all depend upon staving off atrophy and complacency.

Don’t believe me? Ask Iomega, Novell/Corel, Woolworths, Lionel, Orion Pictures, Pan Am, Rolls-Royce Limited, Auburn-Duesenberg, Studebaker, or the other truly innumerable companies that once lead their industries and eventually gave way to irrelevance, dissolution, and finally, to history. Ask the thousands of churches that slowly went from 2000 to 20 in the course of a few decades, and eventually ceased to exist. Even so, their records indicate they are large, thriving churches with as many as four times the number of members as are regularly in the pews in a week.

So, what questions do you need to ask about your church, company, or organization? How up to date are the rolls, enrollment numbers, member participants, etc.? Who is in a position to analyze the metrics being used, and the adequacy of information being captured by them? \

It's never too late to ask good questions, but doing it tomorrow always puts understanding one day further out from today.

by Joel Hathaway, Director of Alumni and Career Services, Covenant Theological Seminary

The Hunt: One Man's Journey to Secure a Pastoral Call



Jeff Zehnder (MDiv '09, ThM '11) with his wife JoAnna, their daughter,
and Professor Jerram Barrs.

In our current economy finding a pastoral position, whether for the first time or not, can be challenging. Anecdotally, many churches report that they have received up to 70 applications for a posted position. Even discounting the applicants who are constantly “dipping the toe in the new-call pool,” I commonly hear of positions receiving upwards of 30 applications. This can be a great discouragement to those seeking pastoral positions—but knowing how to engage well with the process can make a big difference between success and failure.

There are four steps to the placement process: preparation, deployment, engagement, and reflection. These steps are not independent of one another, and are not necessarily consecutive. On the contrary, because these steps are performed with each engagement in the placement process, one may realistically be involved in every step of the process with different churches at the same time.

Jeff Zehnder (MDiv ’09, ThM ’11) recently went through this process and shares his experience. He came out of a Lutheran background and had few connections with the denomination in which he was trying to get placed (i.e., the PCA).

Jeff, tell us a little about your search for a ministry position?
After getting my MDiv from Covenant Seminary, I searched for a pastoral position for about a year and half. I sought assistant/associate and solo pastor positions. I also looked at a handful of other ministries,  such as a college chaplaincy and pastoral positions outside the PCA that would accept a man with Reformed and Presbyterian convictions. My main hope was to become an assistant or associate pastor, though youth ministry was fine, too, if God wished.

How did you approach the placement process?

I went through what became three rounds of searches. With each round I sent out at least seven applications and kept an Excel file of all the churches I was connecting to, when I contacted them, and who I spoke with. I found organizing it in these 'rounds' made it easier for me to put my energy behind it and also to weather the (what became) successive disappointments of not finding a position.  I called and e-mailed a number of the churches, especially those I was most interested in. I usually tried to talk to a decision-maker there, in order to develop more of a connection than just a form in an e-mail inbox. As a result of this work, and by God's grace, I received some phone interviews, and four in-person interviews (for churches in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and Oregon). But ultimately they all ended in a negative response.

So how did you find out about the job you ended up getting?

Somewhere in the middle of the third round of searches, by God's grace, something happened that I did not expect. I ran into an MTW worker I knew from a trip I took to India during my time in seminary. She lived in Atlanta but was visiting a friend in South Carolina. My family and I, being St Louis-based then, were in South Carolina visiting our old church. We met this woman from MTW quite surprisingly at a lunch in the home of retired friends of ours. During that time, I mentioned my search for a pastoral position. She said, ”Well, my home church was looking for a pastoral intern some time ago, but didn’t get any response. So they took the posting down.”

You hadn’t really been looking at internships up to this point, had you?

No, but I decided at this point that it was worth looking into anything that might be promising. I e-mailed one of that church’s elders and gave him a link to my placement website. But I never got an answer.

Did you give up pursuing the lead?
A month passed, and I decided to e-mail the church again. It turns out that the elder I e-mailed had overlooked my first message by accident. He then put me into contact with the pastor. And in time I learned that by ”internship,” what they meant was pretty flexible: they just wanted to bring in a younger man to give him experience. After I had several conversations with them and  flew out to visit the church, they decided to bring me on as their intern.

How have things developed since then?
A year and a half has now passed since this church brought me into rural industrial Western Pennsylvania back in November 2010. The church has showered my family with support and gifts and love. The head pastor is a diligent shepherd with some forty years in ministry and has been generous in giving me tasks to gain experience. Just two weeks ago, by God's grace (and after a fairly grueling examination process), I was ordained as the church’s associate pastor. We flew in my beloved mentor and friend, Prof. Jerram Barrs, to preach. It was the capstone of a long work of God that began in eighth grade. 

What takeaways do you have from the placement experience?

The search process was a transformative time for me. God tested my sense of call and he also tested my patience, which can run in short supply. Experientially, he allowed for me to see what the degree of my commitment was to the work he had called me to do. I remember today that it is God who led me into this work. And it is God to whom I report still.  

I’ve also developed sensitivity for those who are in the waiting/applying stage, especially people who come from non-PCA backgrounds. I not only lacked a thick network of connections in the PCA, but also found I lacked some of the way of speaking and even humor that some PCA churches have. This was not a defeating problem, of course, because not all churches are looking for that sort of person. But there are five main lessons I’d share with others:

1.       Believe you are a pastor of people today. This was the most transformative change in me during this time. At some point during seminary, I decided I would act like a pastor. This meant I would start assuming responsibility (as a pastor would) for the spiritual health of the people God has put all around me, in church, work, and neighborhood. With my wife, JoAnna's, help, I had the delight of shepherding our neighbors in St Louis at an apartment complex in Manchester, Missouri, across from a Wal-Mart. And it is reasonable to assume that this decided attitude—”I am a pastor now”—translated into how I carried myself in interviews.  

2.       Take advantage of the ”waiting time” for other activities you will not be able to pursue later. For us, we had such delightful time to spend with our daughter and also our neighbors, time I struggle to find now. I also acquired a Master of Theology (ThM) degree during that time, completing a goal I had desired for some years.   

3.       Continue to be diligent and keep tweaking your ability to look for a position as you go. JoAnna and I continued to learn about little things that I needed to improve upon in myself.  

4.       Take advantage of job-searching opportunities that God is peppering all around you. Mine was a Sunday lunch in South Carolina while on vacation in a chance meeting with an MTW worker who normally lived in Atlanta.  

5.      Put Psalm 31:3 on a note card, and memorize and pray it. Train yourself to believe it. A classmate of mine showed me this verse providentially right after I myself had found it and begun to memorize it. It states, ”You are my rock and my fortress. For your name's sake you will lead me and guide me.”

by Joel Hathaway, Director of Alumni and Career Services at Covenant Theological Seminary 

Getting Ready for Somebody’s last General Assembly

 “We can end up thinking that the doctrine of the church is more important than the gospel or, worse still, that the doctrine of the church is the gospel. The tendency to make our issues - of which ecclesiology and 2K are just two examples -- into the gospel is always a danger.“ Carl Trueman (www.reformation21.org)

“Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?’” Matt. 11:2-3

The 2012 PCA General Assembly will be the final assembly for some pastors. In addition to faithful saints in the final months of their natural lives and those who suffer an untimely death due to illness or accident there will also be a few tragic train-wrecks of ministry. Ministers who, next week, will vote on the business of the denomination and, by next year, will be selling insurance or real estate.

I’m not speculating. Such has been the case for each of the last 10 years that I’ve been at General Assembly on behalf of Covenant Theological Seminary. There are the very public cases, like that of Jason Stellman, who months ago was prosecuting Peter Leithart on charges of deviating from the reformed faith. But there are others, like the (multiple) pastors recently removed from the ministry because of moral failure. Another pastor, after four consecutive two-year stints at different churches, is now working in a non-ordained ministry capacity. And there are more, only you won’t see them at GA this year. They won’t be there.

Ignore the Economy
None of these men, or the handful of others that I could reference, left the ministry because of money. That is, none of them left ordained, pastoral ministry because they couldn’t pay their bills. I greeted many of these men last year in Virginia Beach, and now couldn’t reach them by phone if I tried. They came to GA, visited, voted, debated, argued, and maybe even laughed and cried a bit. But already they were walking ghosts of the men they once were. Emptied of passion by the unending and thankless service provided to their local congregations and contexts.

And this year, others will come. Others who are equally shell-shocked by the sin of their congregants and communities, angry, depressed, afraid, battle-worn and sin-weary and, above all, alone. In such environments, the fight against their own temptations and doubts are, at best, feeble. At worst, these men have given up fighting. This will be their last General Assembly.

Don’t Ignore the [Spiritual] Economy
The solution isn’t another committee or new initiative by an agency. More seminars—as beneficial as those are—aren’t the answer. I don’t claim to have the answer, but I know some of what it must include. It must include a pastor being able to say to another pastor, “Can I tell you what I’m struggling with and have you pray for me? Can I trust you with my heaviest burdens? Will you be my friend, my brother in arms?” Listen, these pastors don’t need another man to “be their pastor”. You don’t have the capacity or the solution. These men need to be listened to, for someone to ask questions, to pray, and to cry.

This week, the wife and daughters of a deployed US soldier stayed at our house. For five hours this woman talked with my wife after all the children were in bed. This soldier’s wife is tired, worn out, and living with the daily recognition that her husband’s name might show up on a KIA list. Above all, she’s alone. Civilian wives don’t seem to get it at all, while fellow soldier wives get it all too well. This woman recounted how regularly conversations with other military wives sound like this: “If your husband comes home without some of his limbs, which limbs would you rather he lose?” If it sounds gruesome, it is. And it’s reality.

But the spiritual reality of the Christian battle isn’t treated with half as much seriousness. Based on the conversations I overhear or am involved with (e.g. nearly a hundred each year), the biggest issues are how to maintain the church budget, or pay off the new building, or start a building campaign; or what overtures are up for debate, or how secular the culture is getting. I am praying for the day when I get to General Assembly and it’s assumed by all that these men of Gospel ministry are soldiers coming back from war. Some are just tired. Others have been dismembered. This is the gruesome reality of the spiritual economy of ministry.

Brothers in Arms
Pastors aren’t congregants. They are human with the same struggles and proclivities, temptations and hardships. But they are different. A layman in a corporate position who confesses adultery may lose his marriage, but often he’ll still have his job. An elder who confesses sexual temptation may lose everything. And the wall of risk is so steep that few are willing to try and climb it.

Too many of the fights tend to be about rules and regulations. Is another guiding principle really the answer to the bleak disposition that most pastors face? No. They need brothers who will fight. Fight—not just about the business of the PCA, nor even primarily—but fight for them, for their marriages, for their ministries, and for their spiritual condition. Some will suggest we need Jesus. Yes we do. And when the word of God sounds void, and the Redeemer seems far away, and the Father is seemingly silent to our prayers—Jesus is the hands of a brother that hold us up.

History in the Making
I first attended General Assembly in 1981 in Fort Lauderdale, FL. I’m a pastor’s kid (PK). The next GA I attended was in 1990 in Atlanta. What I recall about both was the image of my father and other pastors sitting around a table for dinner, engaging in exchanges that were mostly devoid of personal narrative or struggle, and centered instead on corporate solutions to church problems, achievable through (judicial) litigation and (floor) legislation.

The last decade has had less litigation and fewer legislative actions. But for many pastors, General Assembly remains one more place where pastoral proficiency—measured in the size of one’s budget and congregation—veneers the gray decay of spiritual lethargy.

History Repeats?
Left unchallenged, some such men will say, “Since the Christ isn’t doing enough, I’ll be the Christ” and climb the mountain of self-advancement. Others will say, “I am not the Christ, but I’m not sure anymore there is One” and will find self-protective recluse in indulgence. Others will drum the drum of orthodoxy and shift the perpetual crosshairs of critique until there are no more allies, only temporary alliances. Others will pass out their ministry days looking great from a distance, but leaving the tatters of broken familial relationships in their wake.

These are no imaginary men of speculative choices. These are evangelical, reformed, orthodox pastors who have confessed—at the end of their ministry—by phone, by email, some in person, and on blogs. What they could not find while in the ministry—namely, brotherly support—they will at least seek one last time in confession and resignation. And what some of them won’t even say then, their children will and do. Remember, I’m a PK. As far as many PKs are concerned, I’m a safe place. And these are their farewell stories to the church, to spouses, to friends, and sometimes to an alumni director.

A Different Path
My hope is that, in such a temper of sober reflection, we would come to GA this year on the lookout for the broken, the maimed, the weary and depressed pastor suffering spiritual PTSD—not so we can report them or feel good about ourselves. But that we might do good—for why should we “withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in [our] power to do it”? (Prov 3:27). My hope is that we would come ready to ask how people are struggling, where they are hurting, and how we can love them best. My hope is that we would come ready to share the same thing. My hope is that we would come with more questions, greater concern, and more compassion than in years past when we have come with answers, solutions, and resolutions. My hope is that this would not be the last General Assembly for any of our pastors. Because, God forbid!—it could be my pastor.

Joel Hathaway
Director of Alumni and Career Services
Covenant Seminary