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What To Tell
a Hurting Church
One of the best parts
of serving as a Director of Missions for a Baptist association
is that churches in trouble call on you for assistance. That's
also one of the worst aspects of the job. Best--because you have
a chance to make a difference for the Kingdom; worst--because
you get to see the least attractive side of the Lord's people.
Recently I was meeting with a
congregation that is trying its best to self-destruct. They have
chosen one of the hardest tasks for themselves I can imagine--to
be a mixed congregation in a city where most of our churches are
primarily white or mostly black. And they're not new at this;
they've been a racially mixed church for at least a generation.
The members I talk to say they want to remain such. As one lady
said, "If I want to join an all-Black church, there are plenty
to choose from. But I drive 25 miles to get here."
Is it true that the Blacks drove
off the former White pastor? Is it true that the Whites are trying
to control things? Since the neighborhood is 80% Black, shouldn't
the church have an all-Black leadership team? Who will be deacons?
Who will control the finances? Should the interim pastor be White
or Black? They are struggling with these and other issues.
Complicating matters is that whenever
they try to have a discussion, various members begin bringing
charges against one another. Is this person designating his tithe?
Did that deacon slander another? Did a small group meet to run
off the former pastor? Did someone say, "We're going to get
rid of your man?" What about that petition you circulated?
Charges and countercharges fill the air.
I stood off to the side during
a recent meeting to which they had invited me while the members
engaged in this kind of fruitless banter. Finally, I stepped to
the lectern and said, "All right, that's enough." When
a woman said, "May I say something?" I said, "No,
ma'am. We could go on like this all night. You said, I did, he
did, she did not." The members shook their heads in agreement.
Then I told them a story, about
the time over a quarter of a century ago when my wife and I engaged
in a year of marriage counseling. That got their attention.
Most pastors have probably never
received help with their marriage and even if they did, wouldn't
admit it in public. But our story went public long ago.
Margaret and I married in 1962
and found out rather quickly we were not exactly a matched set.
We loved each other and loved the Lord, but we each had different
expectations and needs from the marriage. As a young pastor, I
needed her to keep the home fires going, meals on the table, the
kids clean, and--well, you know the routine. She was only 19 when
we married and came out of an unhappy home, and wanted her young
prince charming to supply the missing pieces to her happiness.
Unfortunately, Brother Joe was too busy trying to save the world
and attend seminary and pastor a church to hear the cries for
help coming from my young wife. I was neglectful; she was frustrated
and grew depressed.
We had been married 16 years when
Margaret announced that unless we went for marriage counseling,
she was leaving. And when a pastor's wife leaves, she takes with
her his children, his ministry, his job--the very things he has
devoted himself to all these years.
So we went for counseling--she
almost hopelessly and me pretty reluctantly.
Our little Mississippi city had
no pastoral counselor, so we chose to drive 90 miles every two
weeks and meet for two hours with a chaplain from a state hospital
who counseled on his off day at his local associational office.
For a year, we made that trip
and endured those long sessions. We brought up old hurts and slights
and pains and analyzed them and blamed and apologized and cried.
Sometimes we drove home angry and at other times in silence, wrung
out and exhausted.
One day we came to a decision.
We had delved into our past all we could, had dealt with everything
we had found, and had managed to lay a little of it to rest. Some
of it, however, would not go away, and we disagreed on everything
about it. We were like that divided church where the old hurts
and slights and pains dominate every conversation and poison every
relationship.
We decided to walk out, close
the door on the past, and go forward. We agreed that some of those
old matters were beyond fixing, that we were both sinners of the
first magnitude, and that we were both hurting so badly we needed
to give each other all the grace and mercy and kindness we could
muster.
It was the best thing we could
have done.
There comes a time when blaming
and explaining is fruitless, a time when you both agree that the
past is past, and you go forward.
I said to the hurting congregation,
"If you want to know who is at fault in this church, look
in the mirror. It's you. As the old spiritual says, 'Not my brother,
not my sister, but it's me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.'"
We had a prayer time in which
people prayed prayers of contrition and intercession for their
church. At the end, I said, "Now, I want you to look at each
other and say two things. 'Will you forgive me?' and 'I forgive
you.'"
As they got up to leave, several
turned to neighbors and asked for forgiveness. A few were hugging
and several smiling. More than a couple stood to the side with
their arms folded. Only time will tell whether this was the start
of better times.
The fact is one has to make this
kind of decision many times before it "takes." Old grudges
and slights refuse to go quietly, they resist rolling over and
playing dead. Bad memories and animosities will rear their ugly
heads again and again. Only by daily rejecting anger and resentment
and choosing forgiveness and love can God's people consign those
evil spirits to the pit which they deserve.
Three years after Margaret and
I went through the counseling, one of our church ministers suggested
we take a Sunday night and tell the congregation about our experience.
That service ended up taking nearly two hours, and two things
came out of it. First, my phone rang off all week with church
members wanting help with their troubled marriages. They had decided
this minister could sympathize with their situation. Two, we received
a phone call from the Office of Communication of the Southern
Baptist Convention office in Nashville. One of their employees
had been in our Mississippi congregation that night and had heard
our story and thought it would be worthy of a news article.
That's how in May of 1981, our
story became the lead article in several Southern Baptist publications
for "Christian Home Week." It was not something we would
have chosen, to tell of our troubled marriage, of how we talked
of divorce, and of the year of counseling we worked through. But,
we thought, perhaps God can use this to help other ministers'
homes.
Not all our pastor friends understood
it. Some thought we had sought the publicity, which seemed strange
then and does so now. One pastor said we should not have done
this, that it brings reproach on the ministry. However, we received
over 40 letters from ministers and wives, all of whom said it
encouraged them to work their way through difficult times, and
a few who said it saved their marriages.
Today, I hope it will help to
save a church.
--Comment on this article and
read what others had to say at: http://www.joemckeever.com/mt/archives/000087.html
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