My Stories 3: How to break a young pastor’s heart

I returned to theological college after the summer vacation to learn that it had been decided it was time for me to try my wings as a pastor. The Principal told me there was a little church in need of ‘building up’ and a week later the Superintendent of the Baptist Union took me to visit the place. In those days, Tottenham was a ‘working-class’ suburb, mainly small, established homes, with a growing influx of migrants from southern Europe. The Baptist church had two wooden buildings, one with a decided lean, fronted by a sign which leant in the opposite direction. The Superintendent advised me that I would be able to bring about the much-needed changes here, as there was virtually nothing to ‘pull down’ first. He could hardly have been more wrong!

I went for an interview with ‘the Deacons’, a leadership group comprising seven people, led by a man and his wife both in their later 70s, and who I came to realise controlled everything. They informed me that the role of pastor involved leading two services on Sunday and a mid-week Bible Study meeting, as well as pastoral care in crisis situations. Generally, the people looked after one another. I would be paid $20 a week ( a fraction of the proper pay for a pastor, but I was a student …). They explained that at present the offerings collected amounted to only $18, but as ‘a step of faith’ they believed they could pay me $20.

How naïve I was! It was some months before I realised why they had been so particular in the interview to ask me my views about tithing—giving one tenth of one’s income to the church. They had calculated that if they paid me $20 the offerings would increase by $2—so my $2 just went round and round, each week!

In the interview I asked them were there any young people. The chairman pointed to another man present, who had grey hair but was ‘only 35’. He and his wife were the young people. They had three school aged children as well. On a Sunday morning about 15 people gathered, and 10 or so of these came again for the evening service.

So I began. It was only a few weeks later that I was interrupted during the evening service, by the elderly woman who clearly ran the whole show, to tell me that I did not say the Lord’s Prayer correctly. Whereas I said, ‘Your will be done on earth’, I should say ‘in earth’. She thought she had some good reason for this preference, and could no longer allow me to use the words printed in the Bible I used. (I did not comply!)

Within weeks I came to discover that although there were only 15 or so people who attended the services, there were as many who identified with the church but no longer attended, having in some way or another fallen out with this particular woman. I learned this through visiting those people in their homes, and inviting them to come at least to the monthly ‘Family Services’ I was holding. Many of them did and within a few months we began a youth group.
One of the parents newly re-connected to the church was a skilled carpenter and with his assistance we were able to replace the floor of the old building (with many gaping holes and broken boards), with beautiful new polished timber. This was a symbol of real change.

But then all manner of troubles came to the surface. First, I discovered that the barbecue lunch held after the monthly family service had caused such offence to one very old man that neither he nor his son would attend any more. I went to see him and learned that for many decades he had insisted that no cooking was to be done on Sundays. His late wife had served only cold food on Sundays, which was a practice he now maintained, and he could not participate in the barbecue on Sundays. I asked him whether he accepted that other people held a different view, and he generously agreed that he was in fact the only person in the church who felt this way. I then urged him to come to the services, and if he wished he could leave before the lunch, or perhaps bring his own cold food and share in the occasion without eating the cooked foods. He agreed to this compromise and thanked me for the initiative.

This little church had its very own version of the ‘music wars’ which were developing in many parts of the world. Here it was not so much about ‘modern’ music, as yet, but about the instrument—the church organ. Sometime in the past, an old pedal organ had been modified, to provide an electric motor to work the bellows. This motor was housed underneath the church floor. Periodically it would not work and the ‘young’ man mentioned earlier, who played the organ, would go outside, climb under the floor and fiddle with some wiring, hoping to make the thing work again. Usually he succeeded. I was appalled at the danger to him and the inherent risk to himself and his family.
The church had funds to buy a small electric instrument, which would actually provide piano and other ‘modern’ sounds, but the gate-keepers resolutely opposed me. My argument to the Deacon’s meeting that younger people might find the worship experience more helpful, with more modern music, was strongly opposed. In the end, the declaration from that same woman was, ‘If it’s change, I’m against it.’

I have called this story ‘How to break a young pastor’s heart’ for many reasons, but the most profound one was at another Deacon’s meeting, when I presented some ideas for what I broadly called ‘outreach’. My vision was not so much to draw people into the church as to find ways to draw the church into the community and to contribute something to a rapidly changing context. After exploring some ideas together, one of the older women looked straight at me and said: ‘Well, you can try if you want to. But nothing will come of it. Nobody’s interested.’  

What she meant was that since the new people in the community were from other countries and cultures, she could not see any prospect of relationship or meaningful community. For her the church was a place to hold on to a view of life now gone or under threat and we should just focus on that. It was not even worth trying to connect with the local community. I went home and cried.

We did build a youth work, and with another student we began a ‘Drop In’ coffee shop on Saturday nights, which attracted a lot of local youth. An after-school tutorial program assisted some of these, and one young person went to university, the first in her family ever to dream of such a thing. Damage to the buildings happened too, and the Deacons insisted that the Saturday night events should cease. Instead, we sought government funds, available for community renewal, and planned a renovation of the building. Again opposition was resolute, until it was discovered that the plans required removal of a kitchen trough which was used once a year to wash lettuces for a dinner hosted for the local cricket club. How would the Ladies Guild be able to manage without the trough for the lettuces?

The leaders of this little church were both faithful and fearful. They were convinced that the Baptist Union wanted to shut them down and sell their buildings. They looked back to days when their church was full and the Sunday School brimming with children. Now, most of those families had moved to the other side of the city and they believed also that I would soon do the same. My assurances that I had no intention ever of pastoring an eastern-suburban church were not believed. That was my honest view, despite the fact that I did eventually go to such a place.

Before that, however, I had another brutal awakening. I learned from the college Principal that the Baptist Union person who had in fact sent me to this church (not the Superintendent) had expressed the conviction that I would make such a mess of it that I would lose my position as an ordination candidate and the church would close down. Two problems solved! That person had no time for my ‘liberal’  theology or commitments to social justice, nor for our college. He wanted to rid himself of little churches that took up too much time and stood in the way of his plans. He would shut them down, sell their properties, and press on with is vision.

I failed to comply. Instead, the little church grew and indeed is still there today, housing several communities whose language is not English, but whose faith and worship is hopeful and joyful.

Back then, however, a real struggle went on, enough to break a young pastor’s heart. I learned that the idea of faithfulness as holding on for dear life, ‘keeping the doors open’, can in fact be fuelled by fear and resentment. The people themselves meant well, I think. But there was a deeply sad lack of vision and hope, which prevented them from seeing beyond their own little circle and their sense of what they had lost.

As a pastor, I have deeply admired those who can endure in difficult and struggling communities. The institutional church rarely appreciates these heroes of faith. I have tried to be a supporter and encourager of many others in such circumstances.

The great challenge is to maintain hope when many of the outwards indications of ‘success’ are not there and perhaps cannot be expected.

To endure, without becoming negative, resentful, fearful and discouraging, that is the challenge, and it will not break a young pastor’s heart. That is only possible when we understand that our calling is not to success, identified with numbers, crowds, buildings, or dramatic changes—even though they may be needed. My conviction is that effective ministry is mostly slow, often not recognised, and works with the local context, not something done to it. Participation in the life of the community will require this gentle presence, with hope and endurance.