Page 4806 – Christianity Today (2024)

“Preacher,” said a man on the worship committee of one of my churches a few years ago, “I don’t mean this personally, so no hard feelings, but I think about the most boring thing we do in our worship services is pray. Therefore I propose that we eliminate as many prayers from our services as we can and fill the time with other things.”

A stunned silence settled over the meeting. “Bob,” I finally said, “you may be right. I’m not going to respond without giving what you said some thought. Why don’t we schedule a time when we can all talk about it at length?”

He appeared satisfied. After all, it was his first meeting with the committee, and he probably expected his suggestion to be shot down without dignity. Now, at least, his pastor had responded and promised to put it on the agenda for a later meeting.

I confess I did have an immediate response, even though I chose not to voice it that evening: Man, you don’t understand Christian worship at all! Christian worship is prayer. That’s what our whole service is about. The hymns, responses, readings, offering, time of commitment–they’re all a way of praying, of responding to God for his gracious gift to us.

But I knew nothing would be lost by delaying the discussion. In fact, at least two things eventually were gained. One, I was prepared for a more generous, thoughtful discussion than we might have had that first night. And, two, Bob found time to come up to speed with other committee members. Upon learning more about the theology and history of Christian worship, he sheepishly admitted that, although his boredom in worship had been genuine, his specific suggestion had been out of order.

WORSHIP IS PRAYER

Theologically and historically, worship is prayer. Jewish synagogue worship, on which New Testament liturgy originally was based, consisted primarily of hearing scriptural readings and comments on them, and engaging in prayer and praise to the God of Israel. Early Christians added to this the congregation’s celebration of the Lord’s Meal. But they recognized they were in the presence of the Holy One of Israel and that they came together foremost to pray and to praise God.

Christian worship always has been, therefore, essentially an act of commemoration in which we reconsider God’s benefits to us and make an oblation of ourselves to the God of our faith.

Most of the hymns we sing are prayers. Almost all our favorite hymns either are addressed directly to God or summarize God’s greatness and mercy. Consider “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee,” “How Great Thou Art,” “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind,” and “I Am Thine, O Lord,” whose very titles indicate direct address to the Deity, and “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” and “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing,” which are all prayerful exclamations of our faith in God and delight in his redemption.

That we sing the hymns instead of saying them alters not the fact that they are prayers. The hymnal actually is a congregation’s prayerbook and contains many of the finest prayers in our language.

Most services begin with an introit or an invocation–either one, a prayer. Then they unfold through various stages of communication with God, from the approach through the time of recognition or confession, through the restatement of the Word (God’s communication with us) and the offering (our response to his Word), through Communion (if it is observed, which is further remembrance of God’s communication) and the departure to serve, when the guidance and protection of the Holy Spirit are invoked for a final time. From beginning to end, the act of worship is an act of prayer, a convening of God’s people to remember his mercy and to respond in prayer and self-giving.

Worship aims to unite the believer with the Deity. Worship is not a mere celebration, not a horizontal rite in which people relate to one another for sociological reasons; it is a vertical rite in which the individual can get caught up in the very presence–feared, beloved, dreaded, or eagerly awaited–of God.

Thus worship is and must be prayer, for nothing short of the act of communicating with the One being worshiped will suffice to accomplish this purpose.

PRAYER: THE TEST OF LITURGY

Herein lies the perfect test to see whether the various parts of the liturgy measure up as genuine components of Christian worship. We have only to ask of a hymn, a reading, a chancel drama, “Is it prayerful? Does it conduct worshipers into the presence of the Most High? Is it appropriate as part of the content of a service directed to God?”

I test even the sermon by such a rubric. We aren’t accustomed to thinking of sermons in this way, for sermons, especially in their development in America, have had, more or less, a life of their own, apart from ritual and ceremony.

But if worship is indeed the act of coming before God, and if it is enacted as Soren Kierkegaard suggested, with God as the audience, then a sermon is out of place in worship when it does not breathe an air of prayer and sensitivity to the Deity’s presence.

Suppose I prepare a sermon on a prophetic text such as Amos 4:1 (“Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria … “) and in the course of writing vent some personal anger against certain members of the congregation. Is such a sermon really appropriate in the setting of Christian worship?

The one sure litmus test is to ask, “Can this sermon, prepared as I have prepared it, be given with a sense of prayer and devotion?” If it can, well and good. If it cannot, then I should alter or abandon it.

The fact that worship is prayer means we are obligated to be serious about what we say and do. We cannot merely play at worship, for that would involve us in the hypocrisy of which God accused the Israelites in the day of Isaiah: “The multitude of your sacrifices–what are they to me?” says the Lord. “I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to meet with me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations–I cannot bear your evil assemblies” (Isa. 1:11).

Robert McAfee Brown has suggested in “Spirituality and Liberation” that prayer–truly genuine prayer–leads to revolutionary transformations in ourselves and the world around us. We cannot consistently pray for God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven, or for God’s will to be done in our own lives, without eventually being shaken by the results.

I have long regarded the prayers of the liturgy–the formal, stated prayers–as my greatest opportunity for eventually subverting the selfish human will of the congregation and turning it to the purpose of God. While I preached only occasionally in my parishes on such great prophetic issues as our duty to the poor and homeless, our concern for victims of prejudice, our care for persons with AIDS, and our love for the enemies of our country and its ideology, I rarely missed an opportunity to pray about them.

Here, for example, is a pastoral prayer from my last year in a Los Angeles pastorate:

O God, whose grace envelopes us now like an invisible mist, penetrating our bodies and permeating our minds, help us to relax and submit to the total therapy of your presence. Forgive the mistakes we have made, the wrong choices, the weakness of will, the lack of love, the rebellion of spirit. Let the Spirit who was in Christ Jesus be now in us, drawing us back into the way of obedience and love and sacrifice. Teach us how to find ourselves by denying ourselves and how to serve you by serving others. Bless the wandering souls who have come our way today in search of truth or fellowship or inspiration. Make yourself known, both here and in other places, to those who are open to your coming, to those who sorrow, to those who are dying, to those who feel alone, to those whose burdens in life are extremely heavy. Grant your peace to AIDS and cancer patients, and hope to their families. Let your loving protection surround our young people, saving them from the cynicism and immorality of our age. Inspire your servants in the media industry with a vision of your kingdom, that they may mold the public consciousness toward those things that edify and redeem a people. Imbue our president and his cabinet and the Congress of our nation with a continuing spirit of love and unselfishness, that they may work for a world in which no child goes to bed hungry and no elderly person sleeps in the cold. Hold this church before the cross of Jesus, that it may see the true dimensions of its calling and center not upon its edifice or its distinguished history but upon salvation through faith alone and loving service to the lowliest of the low. For you are the God of all humanity and the gracious Lord of all peoples. Amen.

I reasoned that, while people might well complain about a sermon dealing with their failure to follow the summons of Christ to love our neighbors, all of our neighbors, they hardly would be unhappy at my speaking to God about it. Apparently I was right. I’ve never been reproached by church members for speaking of even the most sensitive issues in a pastoral prayer.

And occasionally I’ve breathed a little prayer of thanksgiving upon hearing some church officer, who had once appeared hermetically sealed against the idea I was praying for, come out with a similar prayer on some public occasion. Then I knew that the fullness of the gospel was getting through!

DISTINCTIVE PRAYER

But I haven’t forgotten my friend Bob and his complaint that prayer is the boringest part of worship. Even though Bob came to a new view in the course of our committee meetings, his initial reaction reminds me of the response of many church members to the stated prayers of the liturgy.

So I do everything in my power to make these prayers as lively and interesting as possible. Otherwise many people simply will tune out during prayers.

Here are some guidelines for infusing freshness and immediacy to our public prayers:

* Prepare your prayers in a spirit of prayer. The Apostle reminded us that the Spirit of God prays for us at levels we cannot attain on our own (Rom. 8:26). I ignore this spiritual reality only to the detriment of my praying. Once I’ve felt the flow of the Spirit’s power in my life, I can follow the flow as I prepare specific prayers. This makes it easier to follow the next suggestion.

* Fill prayers with important matters. This is not to say I should never pray about small matters. It often is helpful to mention the little grace notes in life, such as the beauty of flowers, the singing of the birds, and the sounds of children’s playing. But I make these the accents to my prayers, while I concentrate on the great issues of redemption, renewal, love, justice, hope, and service.

I sometimes review my prayers of the past six months to see which subjects they dealt with. The resulting list ought to include such grand themes as the gift of Christ’s death and resurrection, the empowerment of his Spirit, our care for the poor and displaced, the achievement of justice in our courts and among the nations of the world, and a sense of love, forgiveness, and compassion in our relationships.

* Be specific. Prayers become real when they deal in the day-to-day applications of the above abstractions. Instead of praying for the poor in general, I try to pray for the homeless who pass my church each day. Instead of asking God to bless the earth, I ask for conscientious use of herbicides on lawns or fluorocarbons in hair sprays. The same message gets across, only more potently.

When I attended Lenten services at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama, I was startled and impressed to hear the cathedral’s dean, Laurence Gipson, make intercession for the Alabama Power and Light Company and its employees. He did this for an entire week. Another week he prayed for the city government and its employees. The effect was galvanizing; I found myself mentioning them in my own prayers.

* Employ biblical words and phrases. This is one of the secrets of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, of its endurance as a great devotional guide and its immense popularity across denominational lines. Thomas Cranmer, the spiritual genius most responsible for the “Book of Common Prayer,” echoed the Authorized Version of the Bible in almost every phrase and sentence of his masterpiece.

Today we’re wise to use contemporary translations of Scripture in order not to sound archaic and funny to modern parishioners, but it’s still a good practice to use words and phrases from the Psalms, the Gospels, and the Epistles. They ring authentic and serve to keep us on track with the great biblical ideas.

* Use strong, short words and employ as few adverbs and adjectives as possible. Sometimes, I fear, we pray as if we felt that in addressing the Deity, we should sound learned and impressive. Unfortunately, using multisyllabic words we wouldn’t use in everyday speech only makes us sound pompous and silly.

How simple are the words and phrasings in the Bible: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ ” “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” I try to select strong and active verbs, always preferring those that convey a sense of power to those that are merely florid and high-sounding.

* Vary the pace and rhythm by creating sentences of different lengths. Nothing dulls people’s senses faster than a sing-song manner of speaking that results from too many short sentences, unless it is the monotony of long, involved sentences with piled-up subordinate clauses. I break the lengthy sections of my prayers with short, staccato-like statements. Note the variety in this brief Communion prayer:

At this table, Lord, we shed our pretensions about ourselves. We know we are sinners. We know we often fail in life–at work, at school, in our relationships, in our values, in our faith. But as you reached out to your disciple Peter and clutched him from the waves, reach out now to us and rescue us. Teach us how to see your presence here. Give us thankful hearts for the mystery of this food and what it means to our faith. Send your Holy Spirit upon us to illumine the way we should think and believe when we have eaten and drunk. And bind us all together in the fellowship of your love, from this moment forth and forever more. Amen.

* Watch the tone. I find it best to create a mood of holiness in prayers through what I say, not through “holy” language or the tone of my voice. A stained-glass voice is a poor substitute for a genuine sense of the presence of God honestly felt and simply addressed.

A mood of holiness often begins with the initial way God is addressed in the phrase of the prayer called the “ascription.” Consider the following ascriptions:

O Lord God invisible, who dwells in the light and yet is not seen by mortal eye …

God of all mercy, whose wisdom has appointed us to our particular places in this life …

O God, who broods over us at night like a mother bird over her nest and rises upon us in the morning like the sun that warms the earth …

O God, who has been our refuge in the hours of the world’s suffering …

Each ascription immediately reminds us of some special quality of God, and this calls us to an attitude of reverence.

* Aim to express “sacred intimacy.” If worship is to awaken and cement the bond between the individual and God, then prayers should be phrased to facilitate the exchange. The opening prayers of the liturgy especially should set this mood, reminding worshipers of the loving nature of God and initiating the process of conducting them into life-changing personal encounters.

Here are some examples of intimate prayers from various parts of the service:

INVOCATION: O God of sights and sounds and truth and feelings, we praise you for the softness of children’s flesh, the feel of the grass under bare feet, the sweet smell of summer rain on hot pavement, the abundance of flowers in the earth, the sense of worship in a place like this. Receive us now, rich in things but poor in soul. Set us on your knee like little children. Hear the humble prayers we make and the songs we sing. And renew us for life in your beautiful world. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

CONFESSION: I admit to you, O God, that I am often distressed by the daily news: by the failure of nations to agree, by the insistent problems of hunger and war and economy; by crime and negligence and immorality. I wish my sense of the presence of Christ were stronger and I had more confidence in his eternal victory over the world. Then I would not be shaken by the winds of adversity, but would stand like a tree planted by the living waters. Forgive my weakness, O God, and deepen my faith in your Word. Through Jesus Christ. Amen.

OFFERTORY: The cattle on a thousand hills are yours, O God, and the diamonds in a thousand mines and the oil in a thousand wells. So are the homes we live in and the land we live on and the income with which we buy our food. We thank you for what we have by sharing it now with others in the world, through the work and ministry of this church and your kingdom. Amen.

* Prime your pump with selections from volumes of published prayers. Sometimes I have a hard time getting started on the preparation of prayers, even after waiting before God in a mood of meditation. That’s when others’ works can help.

I resist the temptation to borrow the prayers outright, for this short-circuits my creative powers, impedes my growth, and lessens the chances that the prayer will be suited for my congregation. But a phrase or an idea from someone else’s prayers may well become the spark that ignites my generative ability and starts me on the way to a prayer of my own.

A Texas minister I know keeps a well-worn copy of John Baillie’s “A Diary of Private Prayer” on his desk for this purpose.

In the pastorate, I kept several other excellent collections at my elbow: William Barclay, “Prayers for the Christian Year” (SCM, 1964); Horton Davies and Morris Slifer, “Prayers and Other Resources for Public Worship” (Abingdon, 1976); Arnold Kenseth and Richard P. Unsworth, “Prayers for Worship Leaders” (Fortress, 1978); Samuel H. Miller, “Prayers for Daily Use” (Harper and Brothers, 1957); and Leo S. Thorne, ed., “Prayers from Riverside” (Pilgrim, 1983).

* Surround prayers with a context conducive to prayer and praise. I’ve visited churches in which the liturgist related a number of announcements and then said, somewhat abruptly, “Let us pray.” Since prayer is usually a mood before it becomes an actuality, such treatment may preclude anyone’s experiencing the mood.

I derive much more from a prayer if it is introduced by a moment of silence or soft music, or even if it is preceded by the reading of Scripture. Carlo Caretto tells about his practice of going into the desert for an hour or more before entering the sanctuary to pray. Even a brute, he says, should compose himself before going to God in prayer. That is a good rule for public worship as well as for private devotions.

* Leave pauses and silences for private prayer within the public liturgy. “Be still,” says the ancient text, “and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10). Our Quaker friends long have understood the benefit of creative silence in the midst of worship, a time to cultivate a sense of the Spirit within the hearts of worshipers. Because many of our people are unskilled in the use of silence, they tend to become bored or anxious when left to their own devices. But the gradual introduction of such moments can help us remember the God we adore is the Mysterium tremendum as well as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

WHISPERING INTO GOD’S EAR

Are prayers boring in worship? Not if worship leaders aren’t bored with their relationship to God and the prospects of worshiping him. Our prayers ought, on the contrary, to be the most exciting moments in the agenda of worship, for they are the moments when it is easiest to break through the veil to eternity and whisper into the ear of God.

When we instruct our congregations in the true meaning of worship, they will see the liturgy from beginning to end as a spiritual service. Then, when we pour our best efforts into the heart-felt and thoughtful prayers, God, who hears from heaven, will answer in ways that will astound us.

(Prayers appeared originally in “Lost in Wonder, Love, and Praise: Prayers and Affirmations for Christian Worship,” Angel Books, 1986.)

********************

John Killinger is distinguished professor of religion and culture at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama.

Copyright (c) 1994 Christianity Today, Inc./LEADERSHIP Journal

Copyright © 1994 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

One of our students received an appointment from a bishop and the student did not feel the placement exactly suited his abilities.

I overheard him complaining about it to another student, and then the other student said, “You know, the world’s a better place because Michelangelo did not say, “I don’t do ceilings.”

Her comment stopped me dead in my tracks. I had to admit she was right.

If you and I are going to be faithful to the ministry God is calling us to, then we had better understand that. I reflected on the attitudes of key people throughout the Scriptures and the history of the church.

The world’s a better place because a German monk named Martin Luther did not say’ “I don’t do doors.”

The world’s a better place because an Oxford don named John Wesley didn’t say, “I don’t do preaching in fields.”

The world’s a better place because Moses didn’t say, “I don’t do Pharaohs or mass migrations.”

The world’s a better place because Noah didn’t say I, “I don’t do arks and animals.”

The world’s a better place because Rahab didn’t say “I don’t do enemy spies.”

The world’s a better place because Ruth didn’t say, “I don’t do mothers-in-law.”

The world’s a better place because Samuel didn’t say, “I don’t do mornings.”

The world’s a better place because David didn’t say, “I don’t do giants.”

The world’s a better place because Peter didn’t say, “I don’t do Gentiles.”

The world’s a better place because John didn’t say, “I don’t do deserts.”

The world’s a better place because Mary didn’t say, “I don’t do virgin births.”

The world’s a better place because Paul didn’t say, “I don’t do correspondence.”

The world’s a better place because Mary Magdalene didn’t say, “I don’t do feet.”

The world’s a better place because Jesus didn’t say, “I don’t do crosses.”

And the world will be a better place only if you and I don’t say, “I don’t do … “

Copyright (c) 1994 Christianity Today, Inc./LEADERSHIP Journal

Copyright © 1994 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

(Few calls provoke more mixed feelings among pastors than those from strangers asking the pastor to perform their wedding ceremony. Any pastor who’s more than a “Marryin’ Sam” knows serious theological and spiritual questions are involved in Christian weddings. But to raise them increases the chances of offending an unchurched person.

Yet these calls also offer a great opportunity if handled with wisdom. When LEADERSHIP first published this article in 1986, readers responded enthusiastically to its gentle toughness.

Recently in a phone conversation, the writer, Doug Scott, said, “I have continued to use the approach described in the article and have become more and more convinced of its gentle wisdom. Our ministry to couples through this means has been the single largest contributor to the growth of our congregation in the last seven years.)

The pattern is familiar: a couple calls the church office to say they are planning to be married and want to arrange a wedding in the church. They are not members of this church (or perhaps they were members years ago but haven’t been to church since confirmation). They may not even be members of the denomination, but they “knew someone who was married at St. Swithin’s two years ago.”

How should we respond? What are the pastoral possibilities inherent in these situations?

Many clergy dismiss such calls immediately, explaining that they perform services only for members of their own congregation. Others may see some of the couples and make a decision to perform the ceremony on the basis of the couple’s rudimentary understanding of the Christian faith. Still others act as ecclesiastical marriage brokers, performing the ceremony for any and all who ask, usually beefing up their discretionary fund in the process.

After struggling with these questions for some time, I have devised an approach, based on a number of theological suppositions, that seems to work well.

WHY ARE THEY HERE?

My primary assumption about all the individuals who call is that they have been prompted to call by the Holy Spirit. To be sure, they are probably unaware of this prompting, but in each of these situations, I assume God is giving me an opportunity to do some serious examination with the couple about the nature and quality of Christian marriage.

The couple may have their own reasons for calling the church, and each of them is woefully familiar to every minister:

“Your church is so pretty.”

“Your church is close to our reception hall.”

“My second cousin was married here by the minister who was here before you.”

Their initial reason for calling is unimportant. The Holy Spirit has prompted them to call your church, even if yours is the fourth or fifth on the list of possible places. You have been presented with an unparalleled opportunity to reach out with Christ’s love to two people who may have never before experienced it in all its fullness. I don’t dismiss such opportunities quickly.

My second assumption when the unchurched call is that this may be the first time they have ever turned to the church for help. If they are a young couple, both sets of parents are probably still living, and there is a good chance, given increasing rates of longevity, that the grandparents are living as well. Consequently, this couple may never have had an opportunity or the need to turn to the church in time of crisis. While they may have attended Sunday school in childhood, their most recent experience of church was probably a Christmas Eve service a number of years ago. For the first time in their lives, they want something from the church, really want something.

Our initial response to their call will determine whether they see the church as cold and unresponsive, or open and responsive to those outside as well as inside its fellowship.

My third assumption is that there are some shreds of spiritual awareness that prompt them to seek marriage in the church. To be sure, a certain percentage of the couples who call want a church wedding only because “it’s tradition,” or because their parents insist. However, we must also recognize that for others, there are certain events in their lives which they see as “religious moments.” While they may want to confine their experience of God to controlled and predictable encounters, there are moments when they feel God should be included.

My fourth assumption (especially if they have no prior connection with the parish I serve) is that there may have been a problem with a previous church affiliation. Perhaps one of them is divorced and is not permitted to remarry in his or her own denomination, or perhaps one was treated harshly by a former pastor. Perhaps they themselves were difficult and alienated themselves from the life of their initial church home and have not since been affiliated with a community of faith. In any event, they may well be spiritually homeless, and they have turned to your church. They may not be looking for a church home, but they are asking to use the house.

On the basis of these assumptions, I have determined to consent to at least meet with each couple that calls inquiring about marriage.

THE INITIAL TELEPHONE CALL

I attempt to do some initial screening on the telephone, and I include a clear explanation of what can be expected from me. I determine where both parties live, their ages, and previous religious affiliation, if any. I ask if there were previous marriages, and if so, how long the divorce decree has been final, and where it was granted. Is at least one of the parties baptized? Have they sought to be married by another member of the clergy and been refused?

I explain to the caller that I will be glad to see the couple but that my consenting to see them does not mean I will guarantee to marry them. I insist that the interview be with both bride and groom, and that no other family members be present or accompany them. I explain that the purpose of the interview will be to determine whether we can speak seriously about being married in the church, and that at the conclusion of the interview, I may consent to marry them, but in all probability, no decision will be reached for some weeks. I then set a mutually convenient time when the couple can meet with me in the office, explaining that they should expect to be with me for at least an hour.

I do not make the appointment on the basis of a mother’s telephone request. When a mother calls, I simply explain that I will be glad to discuss the possibility when her daughter or son calls, but that they must take the responsibility themselves for arranging the interview.

THE INITIAL INTERVIEW

The attitude of most couples with no parish affiliation who come for an initial premarital interview falls usually into one of two categories–apprehensive or arrogant. They are either nervous, not knowing what to expect, or they are openly disdainful of this situation, which they consider a necessary evil. In any event, they are rarely comfortable. While many clergy might not try to dispel this feeling, thus retaining an edge or advantage, I try to make the couple as comfortable as possible, remembering that they will probably judge this “church business” by their impressions of who I am and how I respond to their presence.

After pleasantries have been exchanged, I turn immediately to the form that catalogs all necessary information required by the state and my denomination. I do this simply in question-and-answer form, and include questions of the date they had in mind, the names of their witnesses, and their permanent address after marriage. The last piece of information allows me to contact the church of my denomination closest to them for the purpose of referral, should they be moving some distance from this parish.

Unless the couples are very young, or there is a great difference in their ages, I do not ask why they want to be married. After interviewing hundreds of couples, I have never found one that gives me an answer other than “because we love each other.” Obviously, the age of the couple may make it necessary to determine whether this in fact is intended by the couple as a marriage or as an escape from a difficult family or personal situation. However, if they are both of reasonable age, and there are no legal or ecclesiastical impediments, I turn immediately to the meat of the interview.

My initial presentation usually runs like this:

“Let me say at the outset that I am not here to sit in judgment on you. You have decided that you want to marry each other, and since there are no legal impediments to marriage that I can determine, you have every right to do so. You have decided to marry, and I am not going to try to change your mind. Our purpose today is simply to determine whether or not this marriage should begin in the church. Now the state and the church view marriage very differently. In the eyes of the state, marriage is little more than a contractual agreement–the two of you agree, by contract, to do certain things for each other, and make promises about how you will conduct your life together. The contract is witnessed by two individuals of legal age. At any point in the contract, you may choose to seek to have that contract dissolved through the process we call divorce. That is how the state views marriage, and this can be performed by a judge or a mayor.

“The church’s view of marriage, however, is very different. So let me begin by asking: What do you really want? Do you simply want to be married, or do you want to commit yourselves to the unique responsibilities of Christian marriage?”

This presentation is usually followed by a silence of considerable length as the couple look at me with a blank stare. I have on occasion had a couple respond that they simply want to be married. At that point I reply, “I’m sorry, I don’t perform weddings–I preside at the services of the church. If I had known that was all you wanted, I could have saved you the trip in. Thank you for coming.” On those occasions, the couple, flustered by the swiftness of the dismissal, invariably back down and begin to explain what they meant by their prompt response. The door remains open.

More often than not, however, the couple, after sitting in silence for some time, ask what I mean. The opportunity for a teaching dialogue between clergy and couple has been presented. I usually proceed in a question-and-answer format designed to get at their personal spiritual development and the impact of that development on their common life. Some of the questions might take the following form:

How would you define your relationship with God? What role does God play in your daily life?

What does God expect of a couple who begin their married life in the church? Have you discussed your mutual responsibilities as a Christian couple?

How would you say Christian marriage differs from other marriages?

Do you worship together? Do you feel comfortable with the idea of praying together? Why or why not?

To be sure, most unchurched couples I’ve met with take the attitude “I try to live a good life and be nice to people,” but this avoidance of the issue must be pointed out. I make a clear distinction between being a Christian and being “nice” (or altruistic or philanthropic or compassionate). What we seek from them is a clear definition of their conception of the action of God in their lives, and their response to that action. There are some couples who just don’t seem to get the point. Here is a potential approach for clarifying the issue:

“Your relationship as a couple has a number of different dimensions–there is a social dimension (you date, share common activities and friends), an emotional dimension (you have feelings toward and about each other that satisfy each other’s emotional needs), a financial dimension (you have made decisions about your common property, how your money will be handled, who will work, and at what job), a physical dimension (the sexual expression of your emotions), and a spiritual dimension. How do you see yourselves as spiritual persons, and how do you relate on a spiritual level with each other, and with God?”

Following this exploration, the couple has usually come up with one of two answers–either they realize there is a neglected aspect of their relationship and are anxious to develop that aspect, or they state that their commitment to the Christian faith is marginal at best and that they have no intention of associating with a church following the marriage ceremony. If the former situation arises, I have an opportunity to provide direction about the development of the Christian faith in this embryonic stage. If the latter presents itself, I usually use the following approach:

“I am not a baseball fan. Understand, I believe in baseball–that is, I believe baseball exists and that there are many people whose happiness depends, in part, on the fortunes of a particular team. They go to each of the home games, wear team jackets, and put team decals on their cars. I can believe all of those things, but I am not a fan. I don’t enjoy going to baseball games, and whether the Mets win or lose is of no importance to me at all. It would be strange, therefore, if I wanted to have my wedding in Shea Stadium! You see, when you are married in the church, you ask for the blessing, approval, and support of God’s family as you begin your married life because God’s family is important to you. During a church wedding, you make promises to each other, and to God, about your life together and your life as members of God’s family.”

At that point, I discuss the specific expectations of Christian marriage and the commitments made by the couple toward the church in that ceremony. Then, “Since you have made it clear that you have no commitment to the church, do you feel comfortable making solemn promises about your future involvement with the church?”

The device is obvious. Rather than making the decision for the couple, you present the couple with the teaching of the church and ask them to make the decision. Most couples have a sense of integrity and say that they weren’t aware this was what happened in the context of the ceremony. Frequently, they say they would rather be married in a civil ceremony than make promises they don’t intend to keep. Occasionally, they say they still want to be married in the church, and at that point, you can justifiably state some expectations.

For instance: “You say you want to go ahead and make these promises to each other and to God. Each of you is willing to make these commitments to each other because you have seen some evidence that those promises are already being fulfilled. If you are serious about making these promises to God, why don’t you start fulfilling them now, and see how you feel about making a long-term commitment later. That is, let’s say that you are faithful in attending church and working at your Christian relationship, and forgo making a decision about marriage in the church until you have had an opportunity to see how it ‘feels.’ In two months, after you have attended church together for a while, let’s get together again and talk about the next step–making a long-term commitment to establishing a Christian relationship.”

At that point, some couples say they have no intention of adhering to those expectations. In that event, they have made the decision: they do not wish to be married in the church if it entails attendance and support. I then thank them for their time and wish them well in their life together. They may, on the other hand, agree to those conditions, at which point I have provided the couple with an opportunity for a deep involvement with the community of faith.

Every attempt should be made to integrate the couple into the life of the congregation as soon as possible. Usually, their involvement leads to commitment.

THE SECOND INTERVIEW

The context of the second interview is determined by the response of the couple to the conditions established at the first one. If they have expressed a desire to explore the spiritual aspect of their relationship and have agreed to a “trial period” of church involvement, we then discuss how they feel about their involvement thus far.

On occasion, couples have determined that church life is not for them, and they decide to forgo a church wedding in favor of a civil ceremony. More often than not, however, they have, through the movement of the Holy Spirit, found the richness inherent in Christian living and want to pursue their faith even further. A small percentage of couples agree to a period of church involvement but fail to fulfill that agreement. If that is the case, I express my confusion, saying, “You are ready to make lifelong promises to your partner because he or she is already, in a partial way, fulfilling those promises. If you didn’t see those promises being fulfilled, you would be skeptical about them being kept after the marriage ceremony. You have not demonstrated to me that you are ready to fulfill the promises you would be asked to make in a church wedding. Let me ask you again, are you ready to commit yourselves to a Christian marriage?”

I have rarely had to refuse a couple. Usually they decide on their own either to commit themselves to the church or to seek a civil ceremony. From their response to the situations presented them, I tell the couple, in effect, that they have already made the decision about whether or not they really want to be married in the church, and that I agree (or disagree) with their decision. We then can plan the wedding itself, including a time for in-depth marital counseling.

THE COUNSELING PHASE

A significant portion of the premarital counseling process involves directing the couple toward full involvement in the life of the congregation. Pastors of other denominations might use a different approach, but I invariably urge the couple to attend adult inquirer classes that lead to confirmation. If they are lapsed members of my denomination, I suggest they request to be transferred from their home parish.

But more important, I emphasize not only technical membership in the church but active involvement as well. Themes centering on stewardship of their time, talent, and treasure fit naturally into the premarital program, and I see that they are directed toward programs or service groups within the congregation that would further heighten their interest and participation. In planning any fellowship or social function, I make sure the couple in question receives a personal invitation, either a handwritten note or a telephone call, from another member of the congregation, thus making them feel more a part of the parish family.

The congregation I serve is open and responds warmly to the presence of newcomers. The couple quickly feels at home. Should they be moving some distance from my church following their wedding, I contact the nearest church of my denomination and refer them to the pastor.

By using an approach that places the onus of the decision on the couple rather than the minister, I feel I fulfill a number of desirable goals. This approach provides an attitude of openness and caring; offers an opportunity for growth, teaching, and commitment; and most of all, allows the couple to have equity in the nature of all their commitments to each other and to God–they make the decisions and, having made them, are far more likely to fulfill the obligations inherent in Christian marriage.

********************

Douglas Scott is rector of Saint Martin’s (Episcopal) Church in Radnor, Pennsylvania.

Copyright (c) 1994 Christianity Today, Inc./LEADERSHIP Journal

Copyright © 1994 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

DREAMS OF GLORY

“Ambition in Ministry” by Robert Schnase Abingdon, $11.95 Reviewed by Dave Wilkinson, pastor, Moorpark Presbyterian Church, Moorpark, California.

“I came across a new book,” said Ed, looking straight at me, “that would be good for our pastor’s group to read and discuss. It’s called Ambition in Ministry.”

Everyone in my accountability group nodded. Why does he want us to read a book about ambition? I wondered. How does he know about my secret desires?

Then I read the book and discovered Ed knew my inner thoughts because he is a pastor and, like me, has an itch for recognition, advancement, and power. So does Robert Schnase, pastor of First United Methodist Church in McAllen, Texas, and author of “Ambition in Ministry.”

Schnase confesses this book grew partly out of his own needs.

“I wrestle with these issues as do all conscientious pastors,” he writes. “This is my attempt to sort out for myself all of the influences upon me, and the motivations within me, and to reflect on the spiritual and theological commitment I have made as an ordained minister.”

EMBRACING THE TENSION

In Chapter 1, “Achievement and Appetite,” Schnase lays out his theme: “This book has grown from two convictions: first, that tension is an inescapable feature of ministry; and second, that from this tension can come life and growth.”

Ambition, says Schnase, is not inherently wrong. A person can be ambitious for the good, driven to excellence by a desire to improve their gifts. “It is not wrong,” Schnase explains, “for a person who preaches an effective sermon to 100 people to desire to preach that sermon to 200.”

But ambition can easily go awry. The desire to be better can turn into the competition of being “better than So and so.”

“When James and John decided to move closer to Jesus,” Schnase writes, “it was a commendable and inspired ambition. But when they decided to sit closest to Jesus, their focus changed. Rather than looking to Jesus, they furtively glanced over their shoulders at the other disciples, anticipating that their own spiritual accomplishments had markedly overshadowed every one else’s. Pride redirects ambition.”

In a phone conversation, Schnase told me that the people who worry him the most are those who don’t seem to struggle with their own motives.

“That’s an indication,” he said, “that they are blind and are likely to be blind-sided.” Someone maturing in ministry, he believes, is will ing to embrace the tensions rather than deny or ignore them.

That means being more reflective about what we do.

HARNESSED AMBITIONS

Each of the six chapters is followed by questions for personal reflection or group discussion. Schnase specializes in poking the fleshly drives of ministry for career- driven pastors.

“If we break free of the ‘up is better’ metaphor,” writes Schnase, “we realize that other questions should determine whether we make a move. Maybe the operative question is not, ‘Does this move me up?’ but, ‘Does this move me closer?’ “

Closer, that is, in terms of the usefulness of our talents in the new position, the satisfaction we find in our work, and the effect moving onward and upward will have on our family.

And what about the church family? How does our ambition affect the body of Christ?

“The last thing our high-strung, workaholic, career-driven suburbanites need,” Schnase writes, “is a high- strung, workaholic, career-driven pastor. Families suffocating under the anxieties brought on by their materialistic drive for success do not need their compulsive behavior applauded by their spiritual leaders.”

So the key chapter, believes Schnase, is the final one about accountability. “Perhaps career-conscious pastors,” he writes, “need to admit, ‘I must watch my ambitions. I could easily drag my family across the state every two years, chasing the shadows of my soul, pursuing higher salaries and larger churches.’ “

Schnase calls pastors back to, among other things, grace, the Sabbath, and autonomy. “[Autonomy] is the capacity,” he says, “to balance and resolve opposing demands within ourselves and between ourselves and others.

“Autonomous pastors enjoy an inner confidence that allows them to risk and grow and provide fruitful and challenging ministry without an over riding fear of failure or disapproval.”

I couldn’t help but ask Schnase, “How did you feel seeing your name in print? Is it your goal to become a world famous teacher on humility?”

Schnase laughed. (Whew!).

Aware of the paradox, he said, “As a genre, though, these books don’t have a wide appeal. Pastors don’t pick them up in front of other pastors unless they are in a close, covenant fellowship with them.”

Even if you have to go out of town to get a copy or order one in a plain brown wrapper, I encourage you to take the risk.

IN NEED OF DETENTION

“Why Nobody Learns Much of Anything at Church: And How to Fix It” by Thom & Joani Schultz Group, $22.99 companion video, $24.99 Reviewed by Craig Debinski, pastor, Temple Baptist Church, Perth Amboy, New Jersey.

The sickness of American public schools has metastasized to the church. The result–nobody learns much of anything.

Second-rate Christian education is the subject of “Why Nobody Learns Much of Anything at Church: And How to Fix It.” Thom and Joani Schultz of Group Publishing in Loveland, Colorado, believe for too long church education has followed the secular model, which has lost sight of the real goal of education: “to help prepare kids for the real world and inspire them to become lifelong learners.”

The book’s companion video, though too brief, interviews children and teenagers about their Sunday school experience. Their two main criticisms: “Boring” and “We sit in chairs a lot.” The video shows the simplistic teaching methods used by many teachers–crossword puzzles and dot-to-dot drawings.

THAT’S THE PROBLEM.

Fortunately, the book is not short on solutions, and the video shows several teachers creatively helping their students learn biblical truth. A class, for example, is studying Ephesians 4:29, which commands, “Do not let any unwholesome thing come out of your mouth.” The teacher hands to a circle of junior high students a paper cutout of a person.

“Say something insulting to the man,” the instructor says, “and then tear off one portion of his body.” The students do so, passing the cutout around the circle. Then, the group is told to say something kind to the now- torn-up cutout. As the cutout is passed around again, they’re supposed to tape the torn body part back on. This proves much more difficult than tearing it off. The application is obvious.

During the subsequent debriefing, the teacher asks open-ended questions like “How did you feel when you insulted the man?” and “In what ways does the Bible passage relate to your actions?”

The result: they actively learned about the effect of their words.

Now that’s education!

THE ROCK OF CALVARY

“Starting a Seeker Sensitive Service” by Ed Dobson Zondervan, $9.99 Reviewed by Chuck Stober, pastor, Coal Creek Community Church, Louisville, Colorado.

Ask yourself three questions: Do you believe your church is trapped in its subculture? Do you view yourself as a missionary in a non-churched land? Do you have a passion for evangelism?

If you answer yes to all three, you are ready to target the unchurched. A good place to begin is by reading “Starting a Seeker Sensitive Service.”

In this how-to book, Ed Dobson, pastor of Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, details his reasons and methods for targeting seekers. He has done so in the most unlikely of places: a traditional, midwestern church.

Dobson and his team of “Ditch Diggers” combine topical messages, rock- and-roll music and live drama ala Willow Creek with a new twist: a question-and-answer time at the end. The service is called “Saturday Night–A Place to Answer Questions.” While seated on a bar stool, Dobson delivers relevant messages, and then answers written questions (related to that night’s topic) from the audience.

Dobson doesn’t just trumpet his successes.

He reveals some growing pains over the past five years: being picketed by those opposed to rock music in church and his nearly disastrous proposal three years after the service was created to make Saturday Night as traditional as Sunday morning.

He also tells how growth in the ministry forced the development of a singles ministry, discipleship programs, Bible studies, and a Wednesday night indepth-teaching service. As Dobson describes things now, Calvary’s combined “Saturday Night” ministry is close to being a church within a church.

All in all, Dobson casts a great vision. But, I must admit, when he listed the resources with which he started–a large church from which to recruit a highly talented supporting cast, an initial six-week budget of $15,000 (now it’s $50,000 a year including $27,000 for advertising) and full support from the church board–my dreams for the same were deflated a bit.

Yet he does offer help for the church with limited resources. He recommends several “starting small” ideas: Don’t hold a seeker-sensitive service every week. And, instead of media advertising, teach churched people to mix with the unchurched and invite them to the service.

These are methods any church with a heart for evangelism can implement.

MANAGING GOD’S EMPLOYEES

“Behavior Mismatch” by Rebecca B. Mann AMACOM, $19.95 Reviewed by Chuck Stober, pastor, Coal Creek Community Church, Louisville, Colorado.

It’s not easy managing God’s employees.

During a training session with a volunteer worship leader, I asked him to plan several weeks in advance and lead weekly rehearsals. The result, I explained, would be twofold: quality worship and a God-honoring pursuit of excellence. He interpreted my worship philosophy, however, as the pursuit of (in his words) “slickness and glitziness.” His expectations for worship–unrehearsed, spontaneous, folksy–didn’t match mine.

Eventually he left the church.

Rebecca B. Mann, professor of management at Maryville University in St. Louis, has written “Behavior Mismatch” to help managers with their people problems. She writes for the business community, but I found her advice easily transferable to the corporate side of church life.

Mann steers clear of the “bad boss/ problem employee” scenario. Instead, she introduces the concept of a “behavior mismatch.” This occurs, she says, “when the actions of one person do not meet the expectations of another–often, when a supervisor looks at the world in one way while the staff member takes a different view.”

The main benefit of Mann’s analysis is her help in clarifying the underlying problems when conflict erupts. Three major factors–Individual, Psychological, and Organizational–she says, can create a behavior mismatch.

Take, for example, the Psychological Factor–issues like employee self-esteem, personality type, and motivation. She suggests reflecting on the problem by asking, “Does the job description fit the person’s temperament? Is the problem one of self- esteem (global belief about one’s self) or self-efficacy (particular belief about one’s ability to perform a task)?”

That last question was pertinent to the conflict of expectations between the worship leader and me. Instead of feeling threatened, I would have been wise to try to understand the hidden dynamics creating the frustration. I didn’t. Perhaps the worship leader didn’t believe he could perform up to my expectations. Consequently, we parted ways.

“Behavior Mismatch” offers pastors a way to oversee problem volunteers–professionally and compassionately.

THE FUTURE OF MILKING AND MINISTRY

“21 Bridges to the 21st Century” by Lyle E. Schaller Abingdon, $12.95 Reviewed by Robert Morgan, pastor, The Donelson Fellowship, Nashville, Tennessee.

Only Lyle Schaller could relate the amount of milk produced by “the average dairy cow” in America to the growth of the nation’s churches.

Yes, he actually does that, and much more, in 21 Bridges to the 21st Century.

This book speaks to those of us who fear we’re caught in a society whose fast-forward button is permanently pressed. Schaller explains why we feel that way, and he warns that the sudden acceleration of change in our world is rapidly altering the way churches, denominations, and seminaries minister.

“The third millennium will bring a radically different context for ministry,” Schaller cautions, “and numerically growing congregations and denominations will be those who make the changes necessary to respond in a meaningful way to society’s religious needs.”

He couches his implications in superlatives.

The most significant single change is the movement from low-expectation to high-commitment churches. High-commitment churches, Schaller told me over the phone, are those that model a Christianity with expectations. These churches expect their adherents to grow in discipleship and in the allocation of their resources–time, energy, and money–to the ministries of that congregation. Prospective members must complete orientation courses, and church attenders are called to an ever-deepening religious pilgrimage.

The most startling change in church ministry involves the amount of property needed for thriving churches. “If possible,” Schaller suggests, “acquire twice as much land as your most optimistic and farsighted policy-maker believes is necessary.”

The most divisive issue in thousands of congregations is the changing practices of music and worship–from passivity to motion and emotion. Schaller compares it to the shifting popularity in juvenile sports from baseball, “a relatively passive, slow, and low-energy sport,” to soccer, a “fast-paced participatory game in which most of the players frequently touch the ball.”

The biggest cloud on the horizon? The increasing legal restrictions many communities are placing on local congregations.

And the dairy cattle? Less and less of them are producing more and more milk. “One result has been the closing of hundreds of farming community churches.”

Nothing, it seems, is lost on Lyle Schaller.

NEW AND NOTEWORTHY

By Steven D. Mathewson

Dry Creek Bible Church

Belgrade, Montana

“Exit Interviews”

by William D. Hendricks

Moody, $17.99

Meet Diana, Robert, Vince, Julia, and an assortment of disillusioned ex-church attenders. These are people Bill Hendricks, a consultant in communication and media, interviewed to discover why people give up on church.

The main problem: people crave spirituality and can’t seem to find it in the institutional church. But Hendricks doesn’t stop with the problem. He dispenses ideas such as dispatching a team of lay people from the church to scout out and listen to the disenchanted. The hope is that less than perfect churches can better minister to less than perfect people.

“Play It Safe”

by Jack Crabtree

Victor, $8.99

Youth ministry is a matter of life and breath. Too often, student safety is not taken seriously until someone gets seriously hurt, believes Jack Crabtree, a veteran Youth For Christ director.

His book is for youth group leaders who want to keep their lively teenagers alive–and safe. Crabtree covers issues like insurance, vehicle safety, camping and retreat hazards, and high adventures such as bicycle trips and backpacking. Since most accidents happen at home, he reminds youth group leaders to “safety-proof” their facility.

“Accountable Leadership”

by Paul Chaffee

ChurchCare Publishing, $12.95

Ministry on the brink of the twenty-first century presents a legion of legal, financial, and ethical issues. How can a busy leader do justice to these inescapable realities?

Paul Chaffee can help. Ordained in the United Church of Christ and editor of The Pacific, Chaffee guides church leaders through the blizzard of laws, procedures, and standards of conduct. He gives, for example, the steps for submitting payroll taxes and suggestions for screening prospective employees.

“How Your Church Family Works”

by Peter L. Steinke

The Alban Institute, $14.75

When church people gather, emotions happen–and organize. But emotional systems are inherently anxious, observes Peter Steinke, director of the Interfaith Pastoral Counseling Center in Barrington, Illinois.

That anxiety can bring out the worst in church people. Especially when a pastor leaves or change is introduced. During upheaval, the most effective leaders, believes Steinke, are those who stay true to their beliefs and act on them. This keeps them from becoming part of the anxiety–and the problem.

Copyright (c) 1994 Christianity Today, Inc./LEADERSHIP Journal

Copyright © 1994 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

They were a thirty-something couple with a long history in the church. I knew them well–I thought. Imagine my surprise when, one morning after worship, they cornered me.

“That taped music has to go!” they snarled. “Whose idea was it anyway?”

Before I could mumble a reply, they abruptly walked away.

I didn’t get to tell them the music was my idea (whew!). After all, our organist was sick, our substitute possessed questionable ability, and besides, we had wanted soft pre-service music to encourage contemplation. Why not play a gentle Windham Hill-type praise tape as people entered for worship? I thought it would set the mood for worship–background music is, after all, a way of life in our society. The actual worship service included only “live” music.

What’s the big deal with taped music anyway?

As any pastor knows, musical style is perhaps the biggest deal driving people’s emotional response to worship. Many churches are a maelstrom of musical tastes, personality types, and worship preferences.

In an era of cultural diversity, how can one church find and develop its own authentic voice? With so many options available and so many individual preferences, how do we decide what will be our accent?

Our church grappled with this issue. Here’s what we learned as we found our worship voice changing.

CHOOSE REALITY OVER FANTASY

Our church voice cracked a few times as growth brought changes. Sidestepping the hard choices, however, was not an option. The only way out was through. It was fantasy to deny or avoid the issue of diverse worship styles. So we faced the issues–and we faced the music.

Our traditionalists tend to believe that real music is at least 100 years old or composed by a musical Ph.D. They are good people, often the backbone of the church. Some represent decades of faithful membership and service. Their commitments are strong, and so are their opinions.

Others are more contemporary but just as emphatic. They can act as if music more than ten years old is out of touch. Influenced by popular culture, these good people are at home with jazz, rhythm and blues, or rock ‘n’ roll. Hearing the truth of God declared in their musical voice enthuses them like traditional music never will.

We had people at both ends of this extreme–and in between. So we couldn’t ignore the problem. We began by taking several steps to clarify the issues.

1. We asked ourselves the hard questions. Should our worship be for churchgoers or the unchurched? Should we use an organ or synthesizer, guitar, and/or (gasp) drums? Should we sing hymns, praise songs, or both? Do we focus on the theological or the relational? The intellectual or the emotional? Do we use hymnals, bulletin inserts, overheads, slides, faxes or modems? (Who knows what the future holds?) Where does drama fit in? Must age boundaries prevent some from enjoying others’ music? How can we deal with passionate people who threaten to leave if we change–or don’t change–the music?

2. We admitted that our culture is saturated with musical options. With television, radio, cassettes, and CD’s, today’s options are an endless musical smorgasbord. And the sheer volume of music can keep the most narrow musical appetite gorged for a lifetime.

Just as people channel-surf through stations to find their music or program of choice, we’ve found people “church surfing” to find if our style of worship music fits their own preference.

3. We became intentional about worship style rather than reactionary. We surveyed our church to find out, among other things, the music Hillcrest people listened to. “Classical” and “popular contemporary” tied for first place, “Christian” came next, followed by “country western” and “rock ‘n’ roll.” While we did get some write-ins for “rap,” “grunge,” and “alternative,” a fairly accurate musical profile of the congregation emerged.

We also asked what type of music people preferred in worship. The top vote-getter was “more contemporary music.” Then came “more congregational participation.” Next came “stay the same,” followed by “more hymns” and “more traditional music.”

These responses confirmed that we were (and still are) a diverse congregation. Some desire worship that is predictable and dignified. Others prefer worship that is spontaneous and emotional.

The reality was that we were a congregation with wide and varied tastes. Our differences wouldn’t go away by wishing.

Admitting these things was the first step to getting past the illusions.

CHOOSE VISION OVER VACUUM

Knowing we had a congregation with eclectic tastes didn’t solve our problem. We had to decide on a course of action. The action began one day at breakfast with one of the younger musicians in the church. He issued a challenge.

“Garth, I know you have a heart for worship,” he began, “‘and a music ministry that reaches all types of people–both inside and outside the church. But few know your passion. Some think you’re trying to invade their musical turf with new and threatening sounds. Others think you’re going too slow and capitulating to the status quo. You have to communicate a vision for worship and music that reflects your heart and passion.”

He was right. I knew we weren’t on the right musical track, but then I’d never articulated a direction others could follow. So I began to pray for wisdom. How could our music mesh with our church personality and who I was as their leader?

The temptation to imitate was strong. For all the conferences, tapes, and articles I’d encountered, however, I felt we could not merely import someone else’s successful style. Better to do what we could with what we had, right where we were. Above all, we had to be authentic.

I looked into Scripture and church history. I reflected on my own musical tastes. I analyzed the culture we were trying to reach. (Having teenage daughters was a great help here!) I considered various forms of worship we might incorporate. In short, I prayed for a vision so I could lead the church in worship.

According to Jack Hayford, “The leadership of the worship life of a church ought to be essentially pastoral–it is the pastor’s role to lead people in worship.”

When I felt God had showed me where we should be going, I communicated that vision with my staff. There was some disagreement, but their evaluation helped refine the vision. Next I consulted the elder responsible for worship and music. His suggestions helped clarify the presentation I made to the Council of Elders. Finally, we took it to the entire congregation. (See “A Vision for Worship.”)

Though a few voices dissented, most affirmed our direction. This vision proved valuable, giving us a compass as we sailed into new musical waters.

CHOOSE PRINCIPLE OVER PERSONALITIES

Music can be incendiary. Martin Luther wrote that music is effective in driving the Devil away. Maybe that’s why the Enemy seems to make church music the target of so much opposition.

Strongly held musical tastes run deep. Unfortunately, what is deep is not necessarily wide. One person’s musical appreciation often is exclusive (and sometimes hostile). Such hard-held opinions limit both the power of music and the power of God.

Pastors who attempt a broad range of musical tastes can find themselves in the cross hairs of some musical vigilante. Antagonists can be young or old, charter members or newcomers, classically trained or raised on rock. Musical passion is not confined to one group. But when that passion is expressed in ways that are, shall we say, less than edifying, we encounter trouble.

One week two couples, separately, came to see me. One held more traditional views, and the other more contemporary. Yet both informed me that they were probably going to leave the church. Neither couple felt they were hearing enough of their preferred worship voice. They wanted their own style of worship, even if it meant excluding someone else’s.

That’s when I found our vision for worship so helpful. When persuasive and persistent people object to the direction we’re going, I can feel intimidated. But with clearly defined, well-focused principles guiding our worship, I can point to the vision our leaders have endorsed. It gave me leverage and confidence when facing off with strong personalities.

By choosing principles over personalities, we found that the exit door for the disgruntled few became an entrance door for many more.

CHOOSE STRETCH OVER STATUS QUO

The God of all Creation, in whom we live and move and have our being, isn’t dull. Consistent? Always. Monotonous? Never!

Why is it, then, that we prefer to stay on one worship track, taking a sentimental journey and eventually forming a musical rut?

Let’s be honest. Stretching beyond our personal musical and worship bias can be risky. Stretching usually hurts at first. But regular stretching causes muscles, even musical ones, to limber up and eventually get stronger. A fan of contemporary music, for example, may have to stretch to embrace a Bach cantata. The person who prefers classical may have to stretch to worship with a praise band. But the exercise can bring spiritual conditioning

Some churches intentionally settle into one particular musical groove, one that fits their ministry niche. Others, however, settle into an unintentional rut, jealously protecting their comfort level. But when status quo is job one–whether contemporary or traditional–we usually find myopic vision and hindered mission.

We tried to make our diverse preferences a strength rather than a weakness. We wanted a tapestry of musical forms woven together. So our vision for worship seeks to blend our church’s marvelous musical heritage with more contemporary expressions.

I regularly remind our folks, “Today’s classical music was yesterday’s contemporary music.” Each generation finds expressions in the cultural forms of its day. Then it adds its own contributions to the worship repertoire.

Gerrit Gustafson writes in “Worship Today:” “The church of the future must become transcultural. The evangelical church must learn to sing spiritual songs; the charismatic church must rediscover hymns, the traditional church must begin to sing a new psalm. The young church must respect the older church and vice versa. Bridges of cooperation and counsel must be built between black and white churches. The stagnating pools of our cultural prejudices must be flooded by the river of His divine purposes. … If worship styles have been the source of divisions among us, let’s turn the tables and allow God’s design for worship to be a source of unity among us.”

But I found I needed help in implementing that kind of vision.

CHOOSE PACING OVER POWER

That help came from the church leaders. In our attempts at innovation and balance, more than one elder looked me in the eye and said, “Garth, I appreciate your vision and passion, but you’ve got to work on your timing. Wait for the rest of us to catch up with you.”

I had to learn the art of teamwork. (Again!)

Several months ago we were holding our annual stewardship dinner. We had planned our opening music to be upbeat. As the evening arrived, however, our church chairman expressed some concern. As people began entering, he came with an urgent look on his face.

“Garth,” he said, “I don’t think this will work. We’ve tried so hard to bring everyone along, but now, on the night when we’re asking people to make commitments for the new year, we’re jeopardizing everything with this music.”

I thought the music was great. The musicians had practiced long and hard. Should we pull the plug just to appease those who might be offended? Would we alienate our musicians? Or should we let the music roll and risk an uproar among many faithful supporters?

By now, hundreds of people were streaming into the banquet room, and the program was about to be begin.

At such moments there’s not much time for contemplation. Our chairman waited, watching me. It was time to call an audible.

My decision had nothing to do with music style. Rather, I decided on the basis of our team style of leadership. We needed to be on the same page. Even though I thought the music was fine, I sensed his anxiety and respected his intuition. Since I was committed to lead from unity rather than division, I submitted.

I told our music minister to drop the opening musical segment. Disbelief with a mixture of “Are you kidding?” and “How dare you!” filled his eyes. He didn’t argue, however, because he too was committed to being a team player. After he told the musicians that most of their numbers were being dropped, I figured I’d have to pick up the pieces later, so consequently didn’t enjoy much of the dinner. Every time I glanced over at the musicians’ table, I could see their frustration.

Midway through dessert I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Steve, our music pastor. I couldn’t imagine what he wanted–except maybe to tell me he was turning in his keys on Monday. Instead, he asked if it might be possible to put the canceled music at the end of the program. That way, those who liked the music could stay, and those who didn’t could leave.

I thought his idea was brilliant. After the closing prayer, our musical team presented their “opening” musical segment. Some people left, but most stayed, enjoying the music and the fellowship in an informal, but fitting finale to a wonderful evening.

This incident illustrates the built-in tension always close at hand. Our commitment to lead in partnership helped me trust another church leader’s intuition, even though I thought it meant we’d lose ground. By our willingness to lose a little, however, we moved closer to winning it all.

CHOOSE INSTRUCTION OVER OBSTRUCTION

Paul’s advice to young Timothy (I wonder if those two liked the same music?) includes these words: “Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments … instead … gently instruct” (2 Tim. 2:23-25).

There will always be those who oppose anyone initiating change. Rabbi Edwin Friedman warns in “Generation to Generation” that sabotage is the one thing any effective pastor can count on. This seems especially true in areas of music and worship. The emotions are volatile. Personal tastes obstruct vision and values.

Rather than fighting, how about instructing? A true God-given vision doesn’t fear controversy. It welcomes the opportunity to grow. In our case, we’ve been pushed to learn what true worship is all about.

Ongoing instruction has also pushed our leadership to review constantly our own motives: Is this vision God-given? Or just a personal pet project?

I’ve become more aware of my own musical motives. I’ve had to check whether the changes we were making really reflected a desire to please God and bless his people or merely a desire to be “on the cutting edge.”

This process has kept us in touch with Scripture, our people, and God.

LOOK UP NOT BEHIND

Few of us will ever develop a music ministry inspiring media attention. We move ahead doing what we can, where we are, with what we have to worship the living God in spirit and in truth.

We keep at it … where we are. Oswald Chambers said, “Never say, ‘I am of no use where I am.’ You are certainly of no use where you are not!”

But we have something to look forward to. It’s the place, to paraphrase C. S. Lewis, where the music is “further up and farther in.” All music on earth is a tin-eared echo of the music of heaven. The promise of what yet will be should keep us from pride that elevates one style over another, from excluding people with another point of view, and from giving up when musical dreams don’t quickly come true.

Heaven sets the tone, steadies the rhythm, and creates the harmony for worship here on earth.

Recently, though, I wondered if we weren’t getting close. Our worship included an organ prelude, a multi-generational orchestra, and a band (with keyboards, guitars, and drums). We had hymns, Scripture songs, and praise choruses.

Behind me a new believer sang newfound truths of the faith in a majestic hymn of praise. First-graders to my right quickly grasped the repetitive words of a praise chorus, though most of them couldn’t read. An older widow nearby sang softly, eyes closed and tears glistening her beautiful face. Teens sang to a familiar beat, but with words that went to their hearts.

Frankly, I can’t say that we’ve reached our goal. Nor can I say that everyone enjoyed all the music that Sunday morning, But I can say I was thrilled to hear the sound of different voices who, though not always together, were together. I set aside my pre-sermon anxiety and joined in the worship.

And I couldn’t help wonder how it all sounded to the heavenly Audience to whom we were singing. Some day that’s going to be all that matters.

Practicing for it now, I suspect, may be worth the effort after all.

Copyright (c) 1994 Christianity Today, Inc./LEADERSHIP Journal

Copyright © 1994 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

While I appreciate the sentiment of choruses that call us to “forget about ourselves and magnify the Lord and worship him,” I also know that none of us worships in a vacuum.

When Isaiah saw the Lord, high and lifted up, he didn’t forget himself, he was immediately self-aware, overwhelmed with his own unworthiness.

Our circ*mstances become part of our worship; our mind, emotion, and will are gifts we bring to the Almighty.

Two weeks ago was my turn to experience what many of you experience regularly, I’m sure.

Our congregation’s regular worship leader was out of town, so I was filling in. As we were singing a medley of “All to Jesus I Surrender” and “There Is a Redeemer,” I was thinking about the words, but I was also scanning the faces in front of me, each a unique story.

Those stories included:

* the joy of a just completed adoption

* the oppression of mental illness

* the eager anticipation of childbirth

* the anger of divorce proceedings

* the satisfaction of a college athletic scholarship

* the uncertainty of a pending job transfer

* the excitement of newfound faith

* the anxieties of unemployment

and a couple hundred other situations both happy and sad.

My thoughts strayed to each of these folks while we sang, “Thank you, oh my Father, for giving us your Son, and leaving your Spirit till the work on earth is done.”

Later we sang, “Here I Am, Wholly Available,” and my mind wandered to the other activities of the day.

During the Sunday school hour, I’d helped lead a discussion in the young adult class to gather feedback for our Pastoral Search Committee.

The afternoon would include practicing with Canticle, our vocal ensemble, always a time of upbeat praise. Then an evening service featuring a report from missionaries.

That night, since no other pastors were available, I was asked to sit with a couple in a mortuary as they made arrangements for a loved one’s funeral.

Then, with Susan, my wife, we’d briefly visit the home of a long-time member in the final stages of cancer.

Were all these thoughts distractions preventing me from worship? Most pastors I know have Sundays (and minds) as filled as mine was that day. Are they unable to worship because of the press of ministry?

No, such opportunities are merely the context for worship, part of any church leader’s “reasonable service,” which is presented every week as a holy offering to God.

This issue of LEADERSHIP marks a time of transition. I’m happy to announce that Kevin Miller will become editor of the journal starting next issue.

Kevin knows LEADERSHIP well. He was associate editor from 1986 to 1990, writing on subjects as varied as “Vision and Reality” and “Fund-raising Consultants: Getting the Pros and Not the Con.”

For the past four years, he was editor of our highly respected, award-winning sister publication Christian History. He has also served as executive editor of “The Christian Reader,” a lively digest featuring articles showing everyday Christians living out their faith.

In addition to his professional experience as an editor, Kevin and his wife, Karen, are active lay ministers at the Church of the Resurrection in West Chicago, Illinois. There Kevin has preached, led worship, and coordinated a prayer ministry.

After working beside Kevin for eight years, I know you will enjoy his insight, foresight, and humor as he takes day-to-day responsibility for the content of LEADERSHIP.

As for me, I won’t be going far. I’ll oversee several of the magazines here at CTi, including LEADERSHIP, as executive editor, involved in planning, titling, and evaluating. You’ll see me contributing to “The Back Page.”

But I’ll also focus on some new projects, including a newsletter for pastors to use with their boards to help the whole leadership team work together more effectively. We hope to give you more information about this tool before the end of 1994.

Let me say a word about the rest of the LEADERSHIP editorial staff. All are deeply involved in the “reasonable service” of local church ministry.

Associate editor Rich Doebler leads a small group, teaches a Sunday school class, and helps train new leaders in workshops at Community Christian Church in Naperville, where his wife, Sharon, is on staff as director of elementary children’s ministries.

Assistant editor David Goetz and his wife, Jana, have led the singles ministry at Glen Ellyn Covenant Church, where Dave has also taught church history and culture in adult Sunday school classes and, says he, “taught Aquinas’s Summa Theologica with the help of Salerno Butter Cookies to the two-year-olds.”

Editorial administrator Bonnie Rice and her husband, John, have helped plant Creekside Free Methodist Church, where he is treasurer and a member of the pastor’s cabinet. And both have been active in music ministry and small group leadership.

Editorial assistant Cynthia Thomas hosted a church-planting Bible study in her home, and the newly formed Family in Faith Christian Church (Missouri Synod Lutheran) began Sunday services last October.

Among such ministry-minded people, it’s great working together to publish honest and hope-filled accounts of what we call “the first draft of next century’s church history.”

Copyright (c) 1994 Christianity Today, Inc./LEADERSHIP Journal

Copyright © 1994 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

A few months ago in this space, I wrote that the rapid secularizing of America would lead inevitably to tyranny. An ominous warning—though I was thinking of a process taking five to ten years. Little did I dream that events would so quickly overtake my prophecy.

America already had the highest rate of violent crime in the world, rising 560 percent in the past 30 years. But in recent months it has exploded. Every day’s headlines report new outbreaks.

• Three Dartmouth, Massachusetts, schoolboys surround a classmate and stab him to death—then laugh and trade high fives.

• An Oakland teenager chases a woman down the street brandishing a knife, while onlookers chant, “Kill her! Kill her!”

• A Long Island man starts shooting randomly on a commuter train, turning it into a death trap.

It is not just the extent of crime that terrorizes America but its random, gratuitous nature. In the past, lawbreakers were motivated by some recognizable human emotion: hatred, greed, envy. But today’s headlines tell of youngsters who murder without motive, without remorse. What we are witnessing is the most terrifying threat to any society: Crime without conscience.

Polls show crime soaring to the top of public concern. Pundits are clamoring for action. And politicians are doing what politicians do best: spending more money. At this writing, Congress is wrestling with a bill to finance more cops and more prisons—to the tune of 22 billion dollars.

Having worked in hundreds of prisons around the world, I am convinced that this crisis will not be resolved by more cops and cells. The only real solution is the cultivation of conscience.

In The Moral Sense, criminologist James Q. Wilson contends that conscience is innate. This is, of course, what Paul teaches in Romans 2, that all people have a “law written on their hearts.”

But conscience must be trained just as children must be trained to speak a language. It begins in the family, where parents teach their children by precept, by example, and by the behavior they require. As Aristotle wrote, “We become just by the practice of just actions.”

But with divorce and dual careers, parents spend 40 percent less time with their children than parents did a generation ago. And their job is made harder by a loss of public standards of virtue. Modern thinkers have rejected the very idea of objective morality: Darwin, who reduced morals to an extension of animal instincts; Freud, who regarded repression of impulses as the source of neurosis; Marx, who disdained morality as an expression of self-interest.

Under this onslaught, commitment to a common morality has crumbled. Public-school teachers are trained to withhold moral judgment in classroom discussions. When children are raised in this climate, their moral sense remains unshaped, untutored. Like feral children who cannot speak, many children today cannot draw moral distinctions.

This is the hidden root of violent crime in America: Our culture has bred a generation without conscience. And it means that the front line in the war against crime is not in Congress or the courts. It runs through every living room in America, where parents teach their children right from wrong. It runs through every classroom, where teachers pass on a culture’s common moral heritage. It runs through every film and movie, where virtue is either mocked or praised.

When truth retreats

Christians are uniquely equipped to bring this message to our secular neighbors. And we had better do so before it is too late. As Francis Schaeffer used to say, when truth retreats, tyranny advances. The loss of moral truth weakens social restraints, unleashing criminal impulses. And as crime soars, so does public fear. In the end, people welcome the strong arm of government to quell the chaos—at any price.

Shadows of impending tyranny darken the horizon. In Puerto Rico, the National Guard is conducting military-style raids on housing projects. At night, with helicopters whirring and searchlights beaming, camouflaged troops with M-16s are breaking down doors to confiscate arms and narcotics. Most Puerto Ricans support the action.

Here on the mainland, when D.C. Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly asked for the National Guard to patrol the nation’s capital, she was applauded. Several cities have imposed curfews for young people—a form of martial law of dubious constitutionality. A Miami Herald poll found 71 percent support for police roadblocks to track down drugs—even though they violate the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure. People shell-shocked by incessant crime welcome higher levels of police intrusion.

Christians must move to the forefront of the debate over crime, which will surely intensify in the coming months. We must expose the illusion that security can be purchased through more police, more prisons, more draconian punishment. While these things play a role in containing crime, they are palliatives. We must aim our attack at the root. We must carry the crime debate onto moral grounds, where our secular culture fears to tread.

The task is urgent. If we do not learn to cultivate conscience—if truth continues to retreat—then tyranny will surely advance. To end the war of all against all, the state will unsheathe the power of the sword against every citizen.

And the saddest thing is that it will come as a welcome relief.

IRAN

Top Evangelical Leader Murdered

Haik Hovsepian-Mehr, superintendent of the Assemblies of God Churches in Iran the past 13 years, was murdered January 19, three days after helping to secure the freedom of an Iranian Christian about to be executed.

Hovsepian-Mehr, 48, disappeared en route to the Tehran airport. Police claim they found his stabbed and bruised body on a street January 20. Officials did not turn over the body to Hovsepian-Mehr’s family until January 30—after he had been buried in an Islamic cemetery. Police said they had been unable to identify Hovsepian-Mehr, even though he was the nation’s most prominent Protestant as chair of the Evangelical Ministers Association.

The denominational leader had alerted Christians throughout the world about Assemblies of God evangelist Mehdi Dibaj. Dibaj, 59, had been sentenced to death for refusing to renounce his Christian beliefs, but he was released from prison in Sari on January 16 following an outcry from Christian organizations and human-rights groups. Dibaj had been imprisoned for ten years.

Hovsepian-Mehr had refused to comply with new laws designed to discourage Muslim conversions. Muslims in Iran are now prohibited from entering churches, and Christian services must not be conducted in Parsee, the official language of Iran.

ARGENTINA

Accused ‘Family’ Members Released

Twenty-one members of the Family, an aberrant sect formerly known as the Children of God, were released from custody in December after an Argentine Federal Court of Appeals ruled they had been wrongfully arrested.

Sixteen men and five women had been seized along with more than 100 children in September raids ordered by federal Judge Robert Marquevich. But an appeals court said Marquevich had operated out of his jurisdiction. Similar raids on Family communes have occurred in France and Australia in the past two years.

Evangelical cult-watching groups say the Family’s long-held policy of free sex among members has created potentially abusive situations for children (CT, Oct. 25, 1993, p. 93). The Family admits that in the early 1980s some communes experimented with sex between adults and children.

Marquevich asserted the inspections of children taken in the seizure revealed that 9 of the 137 showed signs of being subjected to “cruel and atrocious maltreatment,” including sex abuse. But Family spokesman Nigel Nelson says “appointed forensic experts examined the children and testified that they were absolutely free of any signs of abuse.”

By Joe Maxwell.

GERMANY

Irreverent Ads Create Uproar

Political, religious, and social groups in Germany have galvanized to protest ads satirizing Jesus Christ and his 12 apostles in various states of undress.

Germany’s Otto Kern clothing marketer printed an ad in that country’s edition of Elle magazine, which depicted Jesus at the Last Supper as a woman dressed in a shirt and blue jeans, with his apostles as bare-breasted females, and wearing only Kern’s jeans. The ad caption reads, “We wish jointly with Jesus that women learn to respect men.”

Other versions of the ad include a male Jesus wearing open-fly jeans amid bare-breasted, jean-clad female disciples, and another female Jesus with male, Chippendale-style disciples, arrayed only in the jeans.

Germany’s Office for Unfair Competition has vowed to take legal action against Elle and Otto Kern to block further ad bookings. The German Advertiser’s Council has denounced the ads as “offensive, and blasphemous, lacking any professional or moral restraints.” Religious leaders from the Vatican, the European Evangelical Alliance, and many German churches have condemned the ads.

PEOPLE AND EVENTS

In Brief

A bomb struck the World Concern compound in Mogadishu, Somalia, February 6, and gunfire followed. No injuries were reported. World Concern Africa director Craig Anderson says violence against humanitarian agencies in Somalia has increased in recent months, including banditry, grenade attacks, and hostage taking.

• The Bible League, an international Scripture-placement organization, which is active in 90 countries and based in South Holland, Illinois, and World Gospel Crusades, an Upland, California, ministry that distributes Scripture booklets to entire countries, merged in January. Offices will be maintained in both locations. The first project of the joined organizations will be distributing Scriptures to 7 million homes in Colombia.

• The Best of Gregorian Chants, a collection of recordings by the Benedictine monks of Santo Domingo de Silos monastery, has made it to the top of Spain’s pop charts and brought some unwanted publicity to the monks. The compact disc, released two weeks before Christmas, has sold nearly a quarter-million copies. EMI-Odeon, the company that produced the collection, plans eventually to release it internationally.

• Thomas K. Phillips became president of International Students, Inc. (ISI) March 1. He succeeds Gordon Loux, who left ISI last summer. More than 100 of ISI’s staff members work with local churches and others to share the gospel with the more than 500,000 international students and visiting scholars in the United States. Phillips, 46, is the former director of counseling and follow-up for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Evangelical churches, their members, and neighbors in need have found common ground as the Los Angeles area rebuilds after a January 17 earthquake, which has become the second-costliest natural disaster in U.S. history after Hurricane Andrew.

“If God has not given us this moment to show our good works, then what will be that moment?” asked pastor Jack Hayford of Church on the Way in Van Nuys, one area hit by the temblor that caused an estimated $15 billion to $20 billion in damage. “God has broken down a wall of blocked communications between ethnic groups, believers and nonbelievers, and rich and poor.”

The 6.7 Richter-scale earthquake, which lasted but 30 seconds, caused at least 62 deaths and more than 9,000 injuries. It left 20,000 people homeless. Federal officials say nearly 10,000 houses, apartments, and mobile homes were destroyed, with another 46,000 damaged.

Churches damaged

The temblor also damaged numerous churches, including Calvary Chapel of the San Fernando Valley, the White Oak Evangelical Covenant Church, and the Salvation Army’s San Fernando Corps. Calvary Chapel has continued holding services under a tent in its parking lot.

“Our building is pretty much history,” associate pastor Dennis Onken says of the 30-year-old, wood-frame structure. “The church is doing very well spiritually. Meeting in the tent is like having a good old-fashioned revival. Even though the building is history, thank God the church isn’t a building.”

Capt. James Halverson, the Salvation Army’s commanding officer in Van Nuys, has not had time to think of the damage to his church because of long lines of people outside the building looking for food, water, diapers, and pup tents. The Salvation Army became a leading provider of relief when the city of Los Angeles asked the agency to run several “tent cities” and shelters for those left homeless. An extensive contingent of volunteers amassed for nonstop service in the quake area.

Speedy relief effort

The funneling of relief supplies has been a key element of the efforts of numerous church groups.

• World Vision, based in nearby Monrovia, has pledged $121,500 through 35 churches in the area. World Vision is targeting churches that have been hit hard by the quake. Spokesperson Cathy MacCaul says, “We just want to empower the church and enable them to respond in a disaster situation.”

• Feed the Children, based in Oklahoma City, has brought 980,000 pounds of goods—28 truckloads—to the Los Angeles area and will continue after the main relief efforts officially end. “People’s needs go on for a long time when you lose a house and the ability to prepare meals and the ability to get up and brush your teeth every day,” spokesperson Brenda Jones says. “It takes a long time for people to put their lives back together.”

• World Concern in Seattle has brought tons of supplies to quake victims, goods that were distributed by the Salvation Army. The group’s appeal for funds touched the hearts of even young donors, including an entire school in Bellingham, Washington. Nine-year-old Sean Green raised $800 by himself and spearheaded a drive that raised tons of food.

• Operation Blessing, a project of the Christian Broadcasting Network, sent $60,000 in cash and 10,000 blankets to quake victims.

• Food for the Hungry of Scottsdale, Arizona, brought 30,000 pounds of supplies to quake victims. Field worker David Mercer says the group was able to help a father and his three young children, who were terrified to go back to their damaged apartment. “They were forced to live outside of their apartment and had very little access to water and food,” Mercer says. “They viewed the supplies we brought as a gift from God.”

Along with meeting physical needs of those hurt by the quake, some groups concentrated on postdisaster assistance.

Beyond physical needs

“The biggest need is for providing professional advice and friendship support for distressed survivors who need immediate help,” says Joy Witte of the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “They need someone to talk to, find out what services are available to them and how to find them.” Witte says the group hopes to raise $100,000 to help rebuild three severely damaged Christian Reformed Church buildings.

World Relief, based in Wheaton, Illinois, organized a “Critical Incident Stress Reduction” workshop for volunteers in the quake zone, many of whom had their own circ*mstances to confront. In addition, the group convened a meeting of 100 area pastors under the name United Christian Response to plan long-term rehabilitation efforts.

By Mark A. Kellner in Woodland Hills, California.

God’S Wrath Upon p*rnography?

California’s $3-billion-a-year p*rnographic movie industry is viewing the earthquake as God’s personal destruction of America’s most wicked city, some p*rn producers say.

The quake was centered in the cities of Northridge, Chatsworth, and Canoga Park, which are home to nearly all of the U.S. soft-and hard-p*rn video industry. Every one of the primary p*rn studios and distributors, a total of around 70, suffered damage. The headquarters of the largest, VCA Pictures, collapsed, destroying equipment and master copies of several films. At least for the moment, high-level p*rn studio executives and models are edgy.

An executive at World Modeling, a San Fernando Valley agency supplying actors to the p*rn industry, says clients are backing away from X-rated acting as a result of the cataclysm.

“Our clients have a definite lack of motivation,” says the agent for p*rn actors, who requested anonymity. “It’s put the fear of God in them. I’m telling you, it’s enough to give you an attack of religion.”

“Can you imagine how the fundamentalists are going to leap on this when the smoke clears?” says a p*rn film director who works for many Northridge studios and asked not to be identified. “They’ll say it’s God’s retribution.”

“It seems as though the earthquake forced these people to get honest,” says Jack Hayford, pastor of Church on the Way in Van Nuys. “It has stirred many to the deepest points of introspection, and if just one of them is turned away from the filth they’re involved in, it is a major victory.”

Hayford, along with Hollywood Presbyterian Church pastor Lloyd Ogilvie, and Los Angeles Archdiocese Cardinal Roger Mahony have sent a letter of protest against the Valley-based p*rn industry to the California legislature, asking lawmakers to draft a bill eliminating its most notorious offshoot, child p*rnography.

By Perucci Ferraiuolo.

Evangelist Billy Graham made his second trip to North Korea in two years in late January, amid escalating political tensions between the East Asian communist country and the United States over nuclear weapons.

During the six-day visit to the capital, Pyongyang, Graham was received by North Korean President Kim Il Sung, the country’s 81-year-old socialist strongman. While refusing to disclose details of his three-hour meeting with Kim, Graham said discussions covered political and religious topics.

The 75-year-old evangelist also conveyed a message from President Bill Clinton to the North Korean leader. Kim entrusted him with a reply for the American President. There are no diplomatic relations between the two nations. While stating his principal reason for visiting North Korea was to preach the gospel, Graham’s trip coincides with the lowest ebb in U.S.-North Korean relations in recent years. The two nations are engaged in a bitter standoff over reports that North Korea may have developed a nuclear bomb and over Pyongyang’s refusal to allow international inspections of its nuclear facilities.

“One of my reasons for going at this time was to express my concern for peace in the region and to make whatever small contribution I could to better relations between our two nations,” Graham told reporters in Hong Kong. He visited North Korea under the auspices of the government-sanctioned Korean Christians Federation and remains the only foreign Christian minister to preach in North Korea since the nation’s formation in 1948. His first trip to North Korea was in April 1992.

The evangelist was invited to preach in the newly opened Protestant Chilgol church near Pyongyang. He became the first foreigner to address a public meeting at Pyongyang’s Great People’s Study House, speaking on why Christians are to be a moral and spiritual influence in society. He also spoke to more than 400 students and faculty at the Kim Il Sung University and was interviewed on national television.

Prior to his North Korean visit, Graham spent ten days in China following an evangelistic crusade in Japan (CT, Feb. 7, 1994, p. 46). While in Beijing, he held private discussions with political and religious figures, including Religious Affairs Bureau director Zhang Zhengzuo and the head of the official Protestant Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM), Bishop K. H. Ting. He also preached in Beijing’s Chongwenmen TSPM church and in an independent house church.

In light of reports of continued police harassment and persecution of some unregistered church members, Graham said he felt the plight of some Chinese Christians was “terrible—almost unforgivable,” but added that God was “using them to further the gospel in China.”

“I talked to a leader about two years ago in China … and I said, ‘Why is Christianity growing so fast in China?’” Graham recounted. “He said, ‘Because we are persecuting them.… But we are going to stop it, because they are growing so fast that the more we persecute [the churches], the faster they grow.’”

By Andrew Wark, News Network International, in Hong Kong.