Why Pay the Preacher?

John Chandler reprinted this article in his "3 Good Minutes" weekly email. I thought I would share it here as a follow up to some earlier postings. The article, written by Dan Hotchkiss, originally appeared in the November/December 2009 issue of Clergy Journal.

"Pastor, I've always wondered: how long does it take you to prepare a sermon? As a board member, people ask me, and I'd like to be able to explain why we pay you so much. Could you keep track of how you spend your time and put a summary in your monthly board report?"

Such a request, coming from a member of the session, vestry, deacons, or trustees, can raise the blood pressure even of experienced clergy. It is a natural request in a society that considers "the days of a man's life" as a type of property to be exchanged for salaries and wages.

Most of us know that the smart response is a non-anxious one. Possible non-anxious answers range from accurate ("I find it varies from eight to twenty hours") to honest ("I'm not sure; it depends how much looking out the window and how many false starts you count") to whimsical ("Last week's sermon about aging took me sixty years").

But non-anxious is no easy thing to be, especially when lay leaders ask us about money, time, and preaching. As a denominational executive, I used to monitor church newsletters for signs of trouble, including clues that ministers had overreacted to such questions. Some clergy counterattacked, lecturing their congregants about how mysterious, intangible, and immeasurable our work is, and how wrong it is for lay leaders to oversee us as if our work were somehow comparable to that of common...well, to their work. Few congregations respond well to condescension or to scolding nowadays.

The other troublesome response I often saw was to over-comply by keeping the requested time log and publishing it not only to the board but to the congregation in the newsletter. Such a response buys into the time-clock way of thinking. It also telegraphs anxiety, making it more likely that a harmless-perhaps even innocent-question may lead to real difficulty.

An embarrassing truth about the work of clergy is that a lot of it looks like loafing. Who else gets paid to drink iced tea with a wise great-grandmother or toast the giddy joy of newlyweds? And little that we do looks more like goofing off than preaching. I don't mean, of course, the feverish final preparatory rush or the climactic 20 minutes on the podium, but the hours of hunt and peck, preceded, in my experience, by as many hours of what might appear, to the naïve observer, to be procrastination.

And yet, that lazy-looking process-which seems to take the best preachers a full day or two to carry through-is one of the main things as clergy we're paid for. Everybody seems to know this except clergy, who tend to undervalue this one aspect of our work.

Some years ago, a university divinity school appointed a faculty committee to review the school's success in "homiletic pedagogy," that is, teaching students how to preach. The committee, looking in the rear-view mirror, saw it was not the first to plow this ground. In fact, every eight or ten years since World War II the school had asked a committee to rethink how and whether to teach preaching. Most of the committees, after studying contemporary trends, declared that preaching was passé, or almost so, and so the school should focus its attention on the Next Big Thing-lay participation, worship arts, liturgical revival, radio, TV, small groups, the Internet.

Meanwhile, in the parishes, search committees kept on listing preaching at or near the top of what they wanted in a clergy leader. Governing boards kept putting preaching high among the qualities they praised in clergy or complained about. Despite the faculty committees' confident pronouncements of a post-sermonic age and the school's best efforts to prepare for it, preaching didn't die. If anything, it grew in importance as parishioners acted more like fickle restaurant customers. Preaching, it appears, is a big part of what the people in the pews pay for.

In theory, of course, this should be true only in traditions where the pulpit stands at the center-front, as in Reformed churches. In practice, Calvinism flows wide and strong through North America, affecting Lutherans, Jews, Episcopalians, Buddhists, even-partly through the influence of charismatic movements-Orthodox and Catholic Christians. In Pentecostal churches, perhaps the most distinctive and successful kind of Christianity yet to spring from New World soil, preaching lights the fuse for the explosions of the Spirit that quieter denominations envy.

In lean economic times, boards often fail to recognize that their desire for "good preaching" means they need to pay their clergy leader, not to put in certain hours, but to play a certain role in the community of faith. The best response to questions about how long it takes to write a sermon may be the honest one: it takes a lot of time, including time that looks like work and time that looks like goofing off.

Giving Up

At that time the LORD said to Joshua, "Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites a second time." ... For the Israelites traveled forty years in the wilderness, until all the nation, the warriors who came out of Egypt, perished, not having listened to the voice of the LORD. To them the LORD swore that he would not let them see the land that he had sworn to their ancestors to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey. So it was their children, who he raised up in their place, that Joshua circumcised; for they were uncircumcised, because they had not been circumcised on the way. - Joshua 5:2, 6-7

The generation of Israelites that came out of Egypt were familiar with circumcision, because they themselves were circumcised upon leaving Egypt. So if they were familiar with the expectation, why did they not perform circumcision on their own children? Could it be that, once they knew the Promised Land would not be within their reach, they saw no reason to fulfill this covenantal expectation?

I think about the children of Israel, and I think about that person who thinks that they have sinned so badly that they are beyond repair. They give up once any hope of restoration seems beyond their reach. I just finished reading Josh Hamilton's biography, and he talks about how easy it was in 4 years of drug use to just continue to spiral downward. Once he had hit what seemed like bottom, recovery seemed like such an impossible task that he saw no reason to do anything else but just dig deeper into drugs. He talked about disappearing for days, not returning the phone calls of his wife who was at home with their newborn child. When there seems to be no hope, why bother keeping a promise?

This story in Joshua points out one of the problems with giving up: their children were delayed in receiving the promise. They had wait in their camp for several days while the men healed from their circumcision, they delaying their entry into this land flowing with milk and honey. I know we are only talking about a few days. Still, if you are standing at the gate of Disney World and it is 8:55 and the park opens at 9:00, how hard is it to wait that last five minutes?

There was another issue that arose from that first generation's giving up, a much bigger problem: their surrender kept disgrace alive. God tells Joshua after all the the men have been circumcised, "Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt." 40 years after leaving Egypt! And no one that had actually been in Egypt was still alive! Yet their lack of circumcision made it seem that nothing had changed: the Israelites were still just escaped slaves, not God's people. Even though none of this generation had ever known the Pharoah's whip, they still carried with them the disgrace.

I can't imagine how hard it must have been to know that you would never enter the Promised Land, especially to know that you would not enter because of your own moral failure. It would seem so easy to just thrown in the towel, to give up on God because there was no hope. Would Christians today be as concerned about righteousness and morality if God said that he was taking Heaven away? Of course, if our faith is only about getting to Heaven, are we missing something important in our faith?

It seems to me that the promise of Heaven is only part of a much more important promise: the promise of presence. God desires an ongoing relationship with His people. Heaven is the part of the promise that lets us know that the relationship God desires is an eternal relationship. Heaven is not the ultimate goal, the relationship is the ultimate goal. Even when the Promised Land was moved beyond their grasp, God still offered the opportunity of relationship in the form of the tent of meeting and daily manna. These people who were once slaves were still free. They were still God's people, and He still wanted to be their God. Even without the Promised Land, none of this had changed.

I know what it is like to sense that God's promise, God's reward is out of reach. I know what it is like to feel like I will never attain what I hoped to attain. And I know very well the temptation in those moments to just give up. What's the point, if I am not going to get the ultimate payoff? Perhaps the first step to overcoming this temptation is to ask the question: even if the Promised Land is gone, is the relationship still possible? Even if I can't have everything I hoped, can I still have everything I need?

Jim Valvano was a successful basketball coach, but his lasting legacy has become the words, "Don't give up, don't ever give up." To those who feel that the promises of God have been pushed beyond reach, I would say, "Don't give up, don't ever give up." The presence and the love of God are still yours to have.

Please tell me that being a minister doesn't mean I will have to do one of these videos

Interesting Thoughts

A fairly reasonable discussion of faith and communication. Any thoughts? Thanks to http://www.anglobaptist.org/blog/archives/2010/04/attack_on_relig.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=university+of+blogaria for passing this one on.

Social Justice Is Not a Bad Word

Through Twitter, I came across a story yesterday reporting that Glenn Beck called upon religious people to leave their church if their church claimed to be concerned about and/or involved with issues of social justice or economic justice. According to Beck, these ideas are "code words" to hide socialist and communist philosophies.

To start with, if you are going to leave your church because Glenn Beck tells you to, then I dare say you weren't all that interested in being in that church is the first place.

Now, let's talk about social justice. What exactly does this term mean? I don't know if "social justice" means the same thing to all people in all circumstances. Walter Rauschenbusch and the Social Gospel. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement. The development of liberation theology in the developing world. Clarence Jordan and Koinonia Farms. All of these individuals and movements, as well as many more, could be classified as representative of "social justice" movements. While there are some similarities that would connect these movements, to say that they are exactly alike would be, I believe, inaccurate.

To me, "social justice" refers to the recognition of inequalities that exist in society, the suffering that results from those inequalities, and working to change the results and/or causes of those inequalities in order to bring relief to the suffering. Notice how that sentence started - "to me". I believe that "social justice" has become a term like "Coke". There are places where people ask for a "Coke" and they are not asking for a Coca-Cola drink. They are asking for some other soft drink, probably brown in color, that has some qualities in common with Coca-Cola but is not a Coca-Cola. I think "social justice" has become, in use, an umbrella term for a wide range of ideas and actions designed to impact larger communities. My concern when I read some of Beck's comments is that he is basing his argument on an extremely narrow (and questionably accurate?) understanding of what "social justice" means and then tossing aside anything that bears the label of "social justice" without stopping to truly consider and investigate whether or not what is being tossed aside actually matches his own definition.

But even more than that, the reality is that the church has been concerned with social justice long before social justice became the popular term it is today. Go all the way back to the Torah, and you will see Moses commanding the Israelites to insure that all people, regardless of wealth or social status, get a fair hearing in the meetings in the city gates. Prophets like Micah chastised Israel for neglecting justice and kindness: while Israel was more concerned with sacrificial ritual, Micah said in Micah 6:8 that what the LORD required was not rams or oil or firstborn children, but that God's people "... do justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with your God?" When we move into the New Testament, we see Christ identifying himself with the hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, and imprisoned and identifying His people as those who met the needs of the hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, and imprisoned. In Acts, we are told on a couple of occasions that the believers held nothing of their own but shared all their belongings in common so that no one among them would have need.

I believe these are Biblical examples of "social justice". Should believers really walk out of churches that take these ideas and put them into practice?

I will not deny that there are times and occasions when churches and believers can become so concerned with issues and doing works and taking up causes that they neglect their identity as the body of Christ and forsake the proclamation of the good news of salvation. There is a danger at times of the church trying to be the savior of the world rather than allowing Christ to be the Savior of the world. However, I do not think that a concern for social justice contradicts a church's message and identity. As I look at the Scriptures I mentioned above as well as the fuller witness of the Bible, I believe that to be who God calls us to be requires a concern for justice. I think it would be a tragic mistake to let "social justice" become a bad word within the church.

Dangerous or Messy?

My wife called to tell me the parking lot at Wal-Mart is packed this afternoon. Big sale? No, just the weather forecast.

Right now, I think they are calling for just about everything to blow into town between tonight and Saturday morning: snow, freezing rain, rain. After last weekend, most people around here have had enough of winter weather I believe. Still, the rush for bread and milk has begun. And then there are the inevitable decisions to be made: will the kids go to school? I have already had to inform one group that I was supposed to meet with tomorrow that I may not be able to get to the meeting 45 minutes away from where I am.

Still, as I read the forecast, I wondered how much of this preparation and worry is really appropriate. They really still don't know exactly what it will be like. Yes, there could be some dangerous conditions, but it is just as likely that things could just be a slushy mess. Of course, either way, does that change whether or not people want to get out in it? Even if things are not as treacherous tomorrow as they were last weekend, I still read the forecast and think to myself, "Man, it is going to be nasty. I really don't want to get out in that."

Makes me wonder ... what's the difference between dangerous and messy? I think that is sometimes a difficult line to identify. There are obvious dangerous situations that we should avoid, but I wonder if there are also messy situations that we would just rather not deal with, so we don't.

This afternoon, I delivered some food to a man who had called the church asking for help. I went to his house and he was waiting outside for me. There were several bags of food, and I offered to help him carry the food in a couple of times, but he politely refused. Instead, we stood outside talking for awhile. His clothes were dirty and it was obvious that he hadn't bathed in quite awhile. Yet his first words were to warn me to be careful tonight because of the ice. He talked about losing his job at the grocery store and not being able to find a new job. He asked how things were going at my church. He told a little bit of his own story and his struggles.

As I stood there, I found myself fighting a battle between the body and the spirit. The body wanted to run away from the smell and the dirt. The spirit wanted to stay right there as long as I could, spend time with this man, hear his story, offer at least some sense of community if I could not offer any more lasting comfort. Finally, I got back into the car and drove away, yet the battle waged on. Part of me was glad our visit was over, yet part of me was thinking about other ways to offer this man some help in the future.

It would be so easy to run away from any further interaction with this man and his family. Yet, honestly, to do so would be because I wouldn't want to get messy and not because I felt there was any threat. I don't believe that is a reason to stay way. Christ again and again walked among the people with "messy" lives. As I left his house to go back to my own church, I passed several other churches. I found myself asking, "How much do we Christians actively seek to avoid the messy? What are we missing in doing so?"

I think we confuse our fear of the dangerous and our fear of the messy, making them the same thing. I met a man today who reminded me that we may miss meeting Christ if we run from the messy.

Preaching: What Is It Good For?

Ethicsdaily.com recently reported the results of a survey carried out for the College of Preachers in England. This story, headlined "Sermons May Be Popular But Rarely Lead to Action", says that a survey of 200 churchgoers revealed that fewer than 17% say that sermons frequently change the way they live or help them develop a fresh look at controversial issues or recent events. The same study showed that 2/3 of people look forward to the sermon and over half say that sermons frequently give them a sense of God's love and help them understand Jesus. One of the conclusions that the College of Preachers has drawn from this research is that sermons are "better at helping people to reflect than challenging them to act" and that "too much preaching is doing too little to motivate people to look at the world differently and therefore live in it differently."

It should be noted that this is a pilot survey of only 200 people from 16 churches in England. It is hard by any means to declare this an extensive study. However, I still find myself confronting strong but mixed reactions to this story.

A lot of discussion and feedback I hear about sermons focus on the question of whether or not people "like" the sermon. To me, if we talk about liking a sermon, then we are not expecting a sermon to challenge us but instead we are expecting the sermon to be in line with our preconceived notions and ideas. This can become an issue when we talk about the ministry as a profession. I once heard another pastor say that he would love to work another job and only preach on Sundays so that his primary means of making a living did not come from the church. Then, he said, he could say what he really wanted to say on Sundays and not worry about the possible repercussions in terms of his means of making a living and supporting his family. I don't know if I share this exact same line of thinking, but there have definitely been occasions when I have found myself questioning whether or not I should say something in a sermon based on whether or not I think people will like it. Can preaching really result in changed lives if the preacher does not feel that he can speak honestly? Is the fear of possible repercussions real or perceived?

And should a sermon's purpose be to motivate action? I think a dangerous line is approached when we allow sermons to focus on motivating action because it becomes easy for the message to become about doing what the preacher thinks we should do rather than acting as we perceive God calling us to act. I think that the reflective role of the preaching ministry is therefore extremely important and should not be made inferior to the "call to action." Does this mean that the sermon should not point out specific actions that the Christian should take? No, but I think that this task must be held in balance with the reflective part of the preaching act. I hear some ministers talk about being less concerned with theology in their sermons and more concerned with "daily, practical" living out of the faith. I am all for that, but it is the theology that helps us have an understanding of why we should try to daily live out our faith in a practical manner. My concern is that a study such a this can cause a push to the opposite extreme rather than an attempt at proper balance.

Finally, I would love to take those same 200 people and interview their pastors, review the sermons that they preached over the course of the year. How many of their sermons included a "call to action"? My point is: a sermon is not just about the word proclaimed, it is also the proclaimed word heard. Is it that this task is being ignored by preachers, or is it that congregations aren't hearing it, or that it is not being presented well?

Just a couple of thoughts. I welcome feedback.