"These Are the Days"

My Story

I have been pastor of the Middletown, Indiana, Church of the Nazarene for more than 31 years.  What has transpired has not been the result of any well laid out plan or carefully defined professional strategy.  It just happened. I never really planned to stay, but I also never planned to leave.  So here I am, and hopefully what I have to share can be an encouragement and challenge to you.

Giving a lifetime of ministry to Middletown was certainly not a choice I made.  In fact, Middletown is a place that only God would have chosen.  I sure wouldn't have.  Middletown is a bedroom community of about 2500 people, nestled uncomfortably in the center of the Indiana rustbelt.  In 1978, Anderson, our nearest city, had over 19,000 well-paid General Motors employees.  Now, there are none.  The decline has also occurred in the other two cities near us, Muncie and New Castle. 

Interestingly, Middletown is located in an area of the world that might already be "Nazarene saturated."  In a 15-mile radius around our church there are more than 20 Churches of the Nazarene, including five other churches with 300 plus in attendance.

Finally, the Middletown church had a rather stereotyped reputation in our community.  People thought of Nazarenes as legalistic and narrow.  And, of course it was blessed with some strong "personalities" who specialized in keeping the church small.

I was fresh out of seminary, and didn't have the luxury of being picky.  Middletown was the first church that opened up, and when they called me as its 20^th pastor in 45 years, I naively and enthusiastically accepted.

A tale of five churches 

I consider myself to have pastored five unique churches, all in Middletown.  For six years I pastored in a little brick church building with an attendance of about 70.  We reported little or no growth.  But we did have hope.   Hope for something better, and a plan to relocate the church on 5 acres on the edge of town. 

In1984, we took an enormous step of faith, relocating to a new building, and I now had my second church.  A new building does not always bring growth, but for us it made all the difference.  We had a new identity in the community and soon broke the 200 barrier in attendance.

In 1991, we added a "family center" complete with a gym.  The following year we began early church and late church, which became my third church.  Growth continued with the addition of pastoral staff and an expanding program of ministry.  I really thought I knew what I was doing.  Actually, I was just along for the ride.

In 1997,  I moved to church number four when we began worshipping in our sanctinasium.  For eight years we set chairs up and took them down every week.  We were on the cutting edge, continuing to grow in attendance and program.   I still had the sweet illusion that I really knew what I was doing.

Growth continued, eventually passing 500 in worship attendance.  Construction of our new addition took nearly two years.  (I still get nauseous at the smell of a construction site.)  But in 2005 we believed we had arrived in The Promised Land.  We had a new sanctuary with lots of space, modern technology, and a coffee shop.  The building was beautiful and functional.  We were ready to soar, and take the Middletown Church of the Nazarene to new levels. 

I now know that pasturing one of those "larger churches" is not all it's cracked up to be.   The last four years have been difficult.  I've often wanted to quit.  The stress has been enormous.  I now know that success in the past does not necessarily transfer to satisfaction in the present.   Yesterday's victories do not make today's defeats feel any better.

Our church is still strong, but growth has not happened as we hoped or expected.  My definition of  "successful ministry" is changing.  (After all, isn't that what you do?  If you can't win under the old rules, just make up new ones.)   I believe I am finally beginning to understand what real ministry is all about. 

Recipe for Longevity

How does one stay in one church for more than 30 years?   "And now these three remain, faith, hope, and love.  But the greatest of these is love."  These three elements have kept me in Middletown.  They are my recipe for longevity.

I have always believed that if I had a vision for the future of the church, and if I was convinced the church had a vision for itself, I had no reason to leave.   Through the years, this has remained a constant.  We have had a visionary hope. And even with our recent struggles, that hope remains and our vision continues to become more focused.

The second thing keeping me in Middletown, which has contributed to much of our growth, has been a "unifying love."  I illustrate this with a part of my personal story.

In 1987,  my wife became involved with an older man in the church and announced that she was going to divorce me.   I was convinced my career was over.  I personally knew of no pastor in our denomination who was divorced and survived in ministry.  I fully expected to lose it all.  My wife, my family, my home, my church, and my career would be gone.

But God is faithful.  The most profound source of love I experienced during this time came from my church family.  I offered to submit my resignation.  Instead, I received love, loyalty, confidence, and total support from my local church.  It was a terrible, terrible time, but God worked for my good and our church's good through it all.  I was able to go through a divorce without losing my career or my position as pastor.  God has blessed me in ways I could never have imagined.  Soon God brought to me the love of my life, Sherry, a wonderful pastor's wife.  She now is an ordained elder in the Church of the Nazarene and has served the last eight years as worship pastor for our church.  God's unifying love has been at work in the Middletown Church of the Nazarene.

The third ingredient for my longevity has been a courageous faith.  Our church has embraced change.  We've taken risks by building and trying new things.  We've been willing to fail to give success a chance.  I tell folks who become a part of our church that things will change.  Anyone who doesn't like change will probably not like our church.

Risking failure also means experiencing failure.  I've listened to seminar speakers announce that leadership requires taking risks.  And that's true.  I just wish more of them would acknowledge that taking risks for the Lord - having a courageous faith - sometimes brings very disappointing and painful results.   If anyone is interested in hearing them, I will share with you a rather long list of what I now call "Phil's failures."

30 years of throwing rocks and digging channels

Through the years I have been involved in two types of ministry.  One is what I call "throwing rocks" and "making a splash."  We've done this a lot through the years, and as a church we've been pretty good at it.  We make a splash doing big events, conducting glitzy programs, and using innovative gimmicks to get attention and create interest.  There's nothing wrong with these. Every church needs to do them, and we've done our share of excellent splash-making events through the years.  But the problem with making a splash is that the waves eventually calm down and we have to look for more rocks to throw.

The other type of ministry is what I call the "ditch digging."  This is when we make channels that  "create a current."  Ditch digging is not nearly as exciting and fun as throwing rocks.  These ministries often don't get noticed, become routine, and are sometimes discouraging.  However, they are the transformational ministries that have enduring effects in the lives of people.  They include discipleship, building relationships, developing leaders, investing in people's lives, even cleaning and maintaining the church.  These are the tiresome tasks of dredging channels, and the results are often slow in coming.  Yet, in many ways, this is where our priority in ministry should lie. 

There is nothing wrong with throwing rocks and making a splash.  However, as a person who has been a pretty good rock thrower, I think I'm running out of rocks.  It's hard to keep finding new and effective rocks to throw. 

I've also noticed that rock throwing seems to have a diminishing effectiveness over time.  The things we once did that created a stir and made lots of waves no longer work.  People are harder to impress.  And I fear that by working so hard to make the next big splash we have neglected to dig the deep channels needed to create lasting currents in people's lives.  It's tiresome to keep digging channels, but in the long run, channels are required for lives to be transformed.

Making the mistakes of Moses

These are difficult days for ministry.  People choose a church much as they choose a supermarket or doctor.  "Who has the best deals?"  "Who can make me feel better?"  They are consumer Christians.  "If this church doesn't do it, I'll find another one that will."  And believe me, that's exactly what they will do.  We try to do "quality ministry" and impress people, but there is always someone else out there who does it better.  There will always be another church nearby with better music, more trendy youth programs, and more exciting children's activities. There are plenty of pastors who are much more interesting, relevant, and entertaining than I can ever hope to be.

We work to increase "market share" by competing with the church next door.  If another church is growing, we wonder why people like them better than us.  And we find out when some of our best tithers are kind enough to tell us that God is leading them to another church where they can be better fed.   Of course, those were the same reasons they gave for leaving their old church to come to mine, so what goes around often comes around.

I feel a lot like Moses must have felt when completing forty years of leading the people of Israel around the Sinai desert.  Just like me, Moses kept facing the same problems, hearing the same complaints, and receiving the same challenges to his leadership, over and over again.  But, Moses made a mistake, and it cost him dearly.  I want to learn from Moses, and I don't want to make the same mistake he made.

Near the end of the wilderness wanderings the people of Israel faced an old problem.  There was no water.  One would have thought that after nearly forty years of receiving God's daily provisions of manna and quail they would have trusted Moses (and God) to give them water.  God had brought water from the rock years ago, so surely God could do it again.

But no!  "The people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron.  They quarreled with Moses and said, ‘if only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the Lord.  Why did you bring the Lord's community into this desert, that we and our livestock should die here?  Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place?  It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates.  And there is no water to drink!'" (Numbers 20:3-5)

Moses must have thought, "I've heard this before. Can't these people learn?  It's the same old thing over and over again."  But, like a good pastor, Moses went to prayer.  And the Lord, as He always does, provided an answer.  He gave specific instructions to Moses, "Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together.  Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water." 

But Moses had had it with these people.  He'd been down this road before.  It was time they learned a lesson.  They needed to know just what fools they were.  So Moses stood before the rock.  "'Listen you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?'  Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff.  Water gushed out and the community and their livestock drank."

But God was not pleased.  "Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them."  It seems to me that God is way too harsh with Moses.  The punishment doesn't fit the crime.  What was so wrong with Moses striking the rock? 

But what Moses did was serious!  And, at this point in my ministry, I fear that of all the mistakes I might make, doing something like Moses did, is my greatest danger.  Moses made four very serious mistakes.

Moses' first mistake was to give in to the impulse of anger.  When people become difficult, I feel frustration, fear, and hurt.  That's what Moses must have felt.  And when I am frustrated, afraid, or injured, I want to do what Moses did.  Get mad.  Lash out.

Moses' second mistake is that he compromised God's model of compassion for his people. God's model was one of compassion and patience.  When people in the church are behaving badly, I really want to do what Moses did.  I want to really let them have it.  But God's model is one of love, compassion, long-suffering, and forgiveness.  Loving my people does not come easy, especially when it is me on the receiving end of their bad behavior.

Thirdly, Moses chose to abandon God's relationship of grace with his people.  The Israelites were the children of God, not the children of Moses.  And that's how it can be for me.  You see, the church belongs to God, not to Phil Rogers.  God chooses to enter into a relationship of grace and reconciliation with His people.  It is amazing how patient God was with the people of Israel.  Just as God was a God of grace with the Israelites, He is a God of grace with the people in my church as well.  My responsibility is to be an instrument of God's love for His people, not an arm of His judgment.

Lastly, and most importantly, Moses lost confidence in the holiness of God and His ability to transform their lives.  Did you hear what God said to Moses?  "Because you did not trust me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites..." Wow, what a missed opportunity!  It wasn't that the people didn't deserve to receive Moses' wrath.  They did.  But Moses missed the chance to show the people who God really is.  A holy God.  A God who saves.  A God who provides.  A God who will make his people holy as well.

Without a doubt we serve the Lord in amazing times.  In some ways it is harder to be a pastor now than ever.  The challenges are greater.  The problems are more severe.  Solutions are hard to find.  People are not responsive.  Yet at the same time, I can think of no better time in history to serve the Lord as a Nazarene pastor.  Our message of holiness and grace, of sanctification and transformation, is the message people are longing to hear and the message they need to hear.  Yes, I sometimes feel like Moses did at the rock: frustrated, afraid, and hurt.  But I truly believe that these are the greatest days for ministry.  What a time to be Wesleyan!  What a great day to be a pastor in the Church of the Nazarene. I believe that this is our "Day of the Lord."

Article Outline

“These are the Days”

My story:

A place only God would choose:

                    Bedroom community 2500

                   Indiana rustbelt

                   Nazarene saturation

                   Stereotyped reputation     

A tale of five churches:

                   Little brick church on the corner -1978

                   New building, new identity - 1984

                   Early church, late church - 1992

                   Sanctinasium - 1997

                   The Promised Land - 2005

          Recipe for longevity:

                   Visionary hope

                   Unifying love

                   Courageous faith

30 years of throwing rocks and digging channels

          Making a splash:

                   Big events and new ideas

                    Getting attention and creating interest

                   Running out of rocks

          Creating a current:

                   Transformational ministry

                   Discipleship and leadership development

                   Tiresome task of dredging the channel

Making the mistakes of Moses:

          Giving in to the impulse of anger

                   Frustration, fear, and hurt

          Compromising the model of compassion

                   Wanting to let them have it!

          Abandoning God’s relationship of grace

                   It’s God’s church, not ours

          Losing confidence in the holiness of God

                   What a time to be Wesleyan!

Do you believe that this is our “Day of the Lord?”