The Cascade Effect

Driving home I feel more alive somehow.

This does not surprise me, since it's a common afterglow kind of experience whenever I have lunch with John.

The overflow of joy at a Waterfall in Thailand. 

I call him John now, as if he was a peer.  But inside, in every way respect and admiration and deep appreciation and the wonder of being in the presence of someone 'greater than' vibrates in my heart, he is and always be my beloved "Pastor Bersche".

We were all so much more formal in those days.  I think my Dad would have had a fit if I'd ever dared be so cheeky to refer to him as simply John, or even Pastor John back then.  It was the suit and tie generation of church, where that was godly.  We showed respect.  Especially to those 20 years our senior.  Especially those those who held office in the church.

Being baptized by Pastor Bersche circa 1972, age 15

Except John was anything but formal.  Back then it was the early 70s and we were just figuring out that Jesus was fun.  At least in my neck of the denominational woods we were.  This new pastor brought life and energy and joy to Sundays, to our community of faith, like we'd never seen before, even though former pastors were revered and dearly loved.  But with John, Jesus was fun, the Word of God was fascinating, the Holy Spirit was a real interactive Person of the Godhead, and services were never the same.

It's impossible to overstate the influence all of this had on my own spiritual formation and ministry calling; how this inspired me and modeled for me who I would become as a pastor myself.  Not that this was on the radar back then.  Back then we were breaking the rules by having his gifted wife, Jan, speak on Mother's Day.  That was really pushing the envelope.  But I remember it.  I remember being emboldened by it, just 11 years old and seeing for the first time that a woman had something to say about God.

And it took seed in me then, I am sure of it now.

We remember this together at lunch today.  It is something of a needful remembering, since both of us, at this point in our ministry lives, are looking back on full time pastoring, as if it was something from our past, which is it.  And we lament this for a while.

It gets in your blood, this calling.  It stays with you.  When you've loved a congregation at a molecular level and for any length of time, you don't just 'fall out of love' on the day they say goodbye.  You don't just stop being a pastor just because people stop calling you that.   So we grieve together a little today, the way two people suffering the same kind of loss tend to do. And we acknowledge together that sense of disorientation of having a pastor's heart beating in your chest, but with no congregation to incorrectly (because they never belong to us) call your own.

But then there was this.  The realization, almost at the same time for both of us, of the Cascade Effect.  It was when he said he was so proud of who I had grown into.  Of how awesome and life-giving it was for him to have seen Ken and I (he officiated our wedding) turn our life together into an enduring ministry.  Of how exciting it was to realize how the kingdom had been nourished and become un-bordered on both sides of the planet; of the lives being impacted.

But I just had to turn us both backwards to see where this Cascade between us had first come.  And I thanked him again (because I've said it so many times) for showing me that Jesus was fun and that the Word of God was so incredibly fascinating and that the Holy Spirit was a real interactive Person of the Godhead and that Worship could be such an intimate, hilarious experience, and that a woman might have something to say about God.

Then we turned around together and looked forward, a little dimly because who knows, to where the Cascade would go.  And just prayed to be worthy of it the rest of our days, however long God chose to leave us here to pour it out on His behalf.

And the Cascade of it gave me life again, on a day following a deep low in this journey towards the new things, the new ways of pouring out God's life for future generations to revel in.

Once again I am poured into by my beloved Pastor,
whom I now call John,
as if he was a peer.

A God-Sized Church

I want to be careful here.

I love my big-church brothers and sisters, both those leading them and those involved in any other way in the fabulous ministries they have.  Many are very dear friends of mine.  I am delighted to be part of City Watch in Kitchener Waterloo, a gathering of church and para-church leaders, where our emphasis is this idea that we are "one church" in the city, doing what we do together better than if we kept to ourselves.  And I believe in that.  Very much.

So what follows is not in any way, by any means, an us-and-them polemic.

Because I also love pastors of small churches and the churches they love and lead!!!!!

The thing is, there are countless pastors of small churches out there who are "suffering from debilitation and even depression fostered by a lack of significance" and, I would add, by an unnecessary negative comparison to the perception that huge equals success.  Quoting again Karl Vaters in The Grasshopper Myth, "God has a lot of demoralized leaders."

This breaks my heart.  Because I've done that trek, and it's crushing.

We can't help it, us pastor types, this comparison thing.  In a vocation that already is not particularly esteemed within our current post-modern culture (see Gary Nelson's Borderland Churches for stats and history), the most we can hope for is some sort of validity within our own circles.  Unfortunately, we're human enough to default into measuring our success, our importance, by the optics.  And the biggest optics happen around Sunday morning attendance and the size of the building where that congregation meets.  And if you have a smaller building, well then, at the very least, you surely must be having 'multiple services'. 

Multiple services, multiple staff, multiple baptisms, multiple anything.  It all sounds like growth, and it is growth.  Just not the only kind of growth that happens in the kingdom of God.

My heart breaks because for such a long time I was focused on these optics and getting disillusioned and disheartened.  I had tried to be all the things the conference speakers said I should be.  Tried to implement all the strategies the assessment tools said should be implemented.  Tried to attract the "right" kind of people.  I blamed myself.  And worked harder.

And all the while when it wasn't "happening", all the while I was working so hard but not getting the results I expected, I was missing the very things God was doing among us, not in spite of, but largely because of the fact that we were a small church!

The 'aha' happened in a time we Bible-types can sometimes call 'wrestling with God'.  I had gone away overnight for a time of solitude, and I was prepared to duke this out with Him.  A ways into my prayer rant I started to get mad.  I had given up some of my most cherished treasures for the church.  Why wasn't God coming through and providing the obvious measures of growth and success I was sure He owed me?  And as proof of great mercy and grace I was NOT struck by lightening in that hotel room!

Instead I surrendered, like a child having a meltdown finally relaxes into the arms of her parent.  Okay, Lord.  This is Your church.  Have it Your way.

Which is what He was going to do anyways.  And oh, I am so glad He did.

Because not so coincidentally, after that time, I started to see God doing no end of amazing things in the hearts of our people.  Passion for social justice began to manifest itself in positive action with real life results.  Young people who were supposed to be leaving the church in droves were sticking around and taking new responsibilities of leadership and involvement.  Folks of all stripes were being cared for and embraced within the organic relational web of knowing and being known that happens quite naturally in a church our size.  Neighbours were being fed.  Orphans were brought into a family. Seniors were being housed.  Marriages were being fortified.  Life was being offered, and received, and poured out again in blessing.  Stuff like mercy and love and joy and kindness and perseverance and gentleness and self-control was becoming more and more evident in our ways of being the church together.

A work in progress for sure.  Not perfect, since I was in the midst of it.  But even in that, even in daring to be transparent enough to take my own stumbling steps of spiritual formation within this community, I sensed more and more the grace and love that told me we were a successful church.

These are harder things to see.  Can't really put it all on pictures or cool videos on our website.  Didn't change much the size of our Sunday morning attendance.  But it was 'happening'.

And it was 'happening' in a small church.

I didn't stumble upon Karl Vader's book until after my own trek through this crush.  I am grateful for church Elders who stayed focused on the important things despite their own temptations to compare.  I am grateful for mentors and encouragers who kept telling me what they saw in me that God wanted to use for the kingdom.  Mostly, I am grateful for the beautiful, honest people who somehow kept at it even when I was having my own flares of temper, and stayed with me, stayed with each other, until we came out the other side to see the brilliance of God's better story for us.

So, pastor of a small church.  Carry on!  Stand firm.  Let nothing move you.  You have an essential ministry assignment.  Those people God gave you?  They are yours to love and lead and be with. Love deeply these cherished ones.  And let them love you.  They are showing you the face of God.

There is good work happening in hearts all around you.  Your church has every reason to be successful without the mega in front of it.  Stay healthy.  Yes, work on healthy.  Read books that draw you into the deeper places of pastoral contemplation.  Books by authors like Peterson, Palmer, Willard, and Nouwen.  

Love your Bible.  Pray like you mean it.  Listen to the stories of your people.  Stay open.  Partner with the bigger churches around you.  Watch for all God will bring you, as with Him, you build this God-sized church He's asking you to shepherd.

Maybe you will grow big in numbers.  Maybe you won't.

Either way, what an honour to do this thing we do.  And you're not alone.

A Thank You to Pastors This Thanksgiving Weekend - October is Clergy Appreciation Month

Dear Pastor and Ministry Servant,

This weekend you will lead your people in an expression of thanksgiving and praise to the One who has lavished so much on us.  These kinds of Sundays stand out.  There's often something uniquely focused and real about the morning, not just in the service, but in the hearts of the gathered community.  I pray you will thoroughly enjoy yourself in the midst of them; offering worship, learning together from the Word God has given, being the Church together in gratitude that is real and deep and strong.

And on behalf of those you serve, and in case no one says so, Thank you.

Thank you for all the preparation you do for every sermon you preach.  Like the mess in the kitchen that doesn't get put on the serving plate, so much of what goes on to get it ready is hidden from those who will receive.

Thank you for all the times you've been getting into bed, but have gotten dressed again to go tend to someone in crisis; at the hospital, at a funeral home, in a coffee shop in the middle of the night.

Thank you for fielding all those emails that a community just generates out of sheer necessity of keeping everything running and letting everyone know what's going on.  But also for those emails that sting, or press you into corners, or release that adrenaline and cortisol.  And for all you do to stay humble and gentle as you respond.

Thank you for receiving so graciously all the 'feedback' about your sermons, particularly in those sensitive moments just after the service.  And for really listening, and not becoming defensive, and allowing even those most cutting of criticisms to press you into better things.

Thank you for engaging in the struggle for Biblical competency, and for living in the tension of a responsible hermeneutic in a post-Christian culture.  Thank you for wrestling with that 'second tier' of theology where doctrine and real life collide because....people.  And thanks especially for staying true to your own Biblical conscience in the face of being told, by some, that you don't love the Bible.

Thank you for taking out the garbage and spreading salt on that icy spot in the parking lot, and doing up someone's forgotten dishes, and unplugging the toilet, and staying late after that long day of meetings because the door won't lock and you're waiting for the locksmith to arrive.

Thank you for leading all the meetings; for making up the agendas, and fielding all the group dynamics and following up with all the assignments, and probably being the one who has to keep all the files in order.

Thank you for not giving trite answers to profoundly anguished questions, and for sitting in silence instead, and for weeping with those who weep.  Thank you for sometimes NOT being that 'unaffected presence' and allowing the pain of those you love to become your own pain, and in so doing being the hands and feet and tears of Jesus for them.

Thank you for living on probably half the salary you could be earning if you went out into the workplace with your skill set.

Thank you for courageously turning the light of scrutiny inward, asking the Spirit to check all the hidden spaces, so that you can love and lead authentically.  And for risking so much when you allow another brother or sister to hold you accountable; for living 'inside out'.

And there is so much more we could thank you for.

God knows.

"God is not unjust; he will not forget your work 

and the love you have shown him 

as you have helped his people 

and continue to help them."  

Hebrews 6:10