Church: Where Youthful Naiveté Goes to Die

The first in a series of reflections on how twenty-six years of ministry have changed me.

I was recently visiting with someone who knew me when I was a much younger preacher.

As we talked about our shared experience at a church where I previously served, I thought about how much has changed since I entered full-time ministry in 1997.

A number of shifts in American, Evangelical, and Church of Christ cultures come to mind, but the most significant changes I see are within myself.

I thought it might be interesting, maybe instructive, and perhaps healing to do a series of reflections on how my experiences in ministry over the past twenty-six years have shaped me—mostly for better—into the minister I am today.

If I do this right, this will be more about me than the churches I have served.

By this I mean this will not be a detailed description of these churches (or their problems).

I’m more interested in exploring how my experiences at a variety of churches challenged, chastened, and obliterated many of the (selfish) ambitions, (naive) assumptions, and (unrealistic) expectations I brought with me into ministry.

The lessons I’ve learned and am still learning from these experiences were humbling, painful, and in a few instances almost crushing, but not because I was mistreated by these churches.

As I hope to show, most of my wounds have been self-inflicted.

Bellingham, Washington

The Sterling Drive Church of Christ in Bellingham, Washington was the first church I served fresh out of college.

When my wife of three months and I loaded our vehicles and drove over 2000 miles from Texas to the northwest corner of Washington state to work with a church of approximately 75 saints, I believed we were going there to turn it into a megachurch.

I was inspired by Bob Russell’s example of staying with one church his entire preaching career and watching it grow from 120 into one of the largest churches in America.

Much like my first girlfriend in the eight grade, I moved to Bellingham thinking my relationship with that church would last forever.

My preaching had been generously affirmed by professors and mentors.

I believed if I preached good to great sermons, our church would grow.

I assumed the only thing keeping any church from growing was a lack of good preaching.

I also assumed existing members of the church wanted it to grow as much as I did and were ready to do whatever was necessary to help me fulfill my ambition of becoming a megachurch preacher.

I couldn’t imagine and didn’t anticipate any pushback to making changes to stimulate growth.

I know you’re laughing, but I’m not trying to be funny.

I really thought this way.

My first couple of years at Sterling Drive I was shocked (SHOCKED!) to discover:

• My sermons by themselves were not good enough to grow a church.

• My sermons were not good enough to distract anyone from my lack of pastoral skills.

• My sermons were not good enough to keep people from leaving our little church for a bigger church with better worship, a better youth group, or (gasp!) a better preacher.

• My sermons were not good enough to keep members from being angry with me for slaughtering their sacred cows.

• My sermons were not good enough to entice anyone to overlook my insensitivity, impatience, and immaturity as a leader.

I’m not sure where where my assumption that great preaching was the solution to EVERYTHING came from, but for now I’ll chalk it up to a combination of youthful idealism and a quirk in my personality.¹

As an Enneagram Three, I believed that becoming really good (or the best) at something was not only the secret to success, but also a way of covering up a multitude of other weaknesses and flaws.²

This core assumption about preaching and ministry was a form of magical thinking that failed to account for a few minor factors like human nature, congregational systems, and my own limitations.

I was twenty-three-old.

Even if an older, more experienced minister had told me otherwise—and maybe a few did that I don’t remember because I wasn’t listening—it wouldn’t have mattered.

At that age I believed the universal laws of ministry that applied to everyone else, didn’t apply to me.

I was going to be the exception.

So what do you do with an ambitious, inexperienced, naive preacher with delusions of grandeur?

You entrust him to a congregation of mostly patient, older, more experienced Christians who see enough potential to give him an opportunity exceeding his skillset and experience, but also care enough about the church and the preacher to not let him exploit the congregation to achieve self-actualization.

For those who survive their initial naiveté-crushing disappointments, congregational ministry can be a crucible in which selfish, immature, ambitious, young ministers are broken, humbled, and then formed into a more Christ-like version of themselves.

Woe to those who find themselves in a congregation unable or unwilling to challenge or chasten them.

If I had gotten everything I wanted when I went to Sterling Drive, I’d be a monster and could have easily ended up as a cautionary tale featured on your favorite anti-megachurch podcast.³

Small churches who call, nurture, tolerate, and shepherd naive, ambitious, young ministers deserve a double portion of the best dessert served at the Kingdom Banquet.

If you don’t believe this, just wait until my next post, when I lay out some of what I put the good folks at Sterling Drive through during my “manic pragmatic” phase.

1. I’ve heard a few older preachers say there was a time, maybe more in the Bible Belt, than in the Pacific Northwest, when being one of the best preachers in your city would grow your church. Those days are long gone.

2. I’m not going to claim or pretend I’ve completely renounced this core belief. On many levels, I still operate out of the mindset that being really good at something is the way to get noticed, get ahead, and get around my inadequacies. I’m not saying this is true or good. I’m saying it’s my default setting. Pray for me.

3. This is hyperbole. I’ve come to recognize I don’t have the energy, charisma, or certainty to be a megachurch preacher.