How an Ordinary Preacher Can Produce Extraordinary Results

We live in the age of the big ball-team  boom. Gigantic sums are given and geared to producing winning teams in the sports world. Wealthy men figuratively stand in line for the "privilege" of writing a 5-million-dollar check to secure a sports franchise! Big-name coaches, known for their pressure-cooker existence, work the year around to make a winner.

Business executives form closely knit groups for management purposes and see their team spirit carry failing companies to stunning success. Medical personnel team together to accomplish unprecedented sur­gical miracles.

Learning well this lesson of team spirit, the early church progressed through the Pentecost of experience to the pinnacle of productivity for the Lord Jesus Christ, "praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily" (Acts 2:47). No one had ever seen such a team in action! "One in­terest prevailed; one subject of emulation swallowed up all others. The ambition of the believers was to reveal the likeness of Christ's character and to labor for the en­largement of His kingdom."—The Acts of the Apostles, p. 48.

When Political Power Plays Are Unnecessary

We can have this team spirit in our churches. It's really possible! This kind of inner invigoration does something to Seventh-day Adventist churches, something unsubstitutional. It broadens the base of support for the pastor's program. Tithe in­creases, church expense climbs, able peo­ple seem to come forward in service as never before, church campaigns formerly viewed as the pastor's objectives now be­come team objectives. And evangelism?—it's a new experience; a solidly steady, con­sistent baptismal record toward the top year after year. Political power plays in the church are relegated to historical conversa­tion pieces; that dear lay leader so long a saintly figure to all (including himself) and so long suspicious of a pastor who wants to get the church moving, so long jealous for his power—even he gets swept up in the stream of team spirit and actually falls in love with progress! Those Advent­ists-in-law so close to the baptistry for so many years, unbelieving companions, rela­tives of members—something happens in their hearts that makes them approachable, the team is going so well, so smoothly, so successfully, that they just leave that bench and finally get into the game. Guests visit­ing the church feel something in the air, the handclasps, the atmosphere of warmth and—of all things!—the friendly personal concern hitherto conceded to the Southern Baptists that has somehow got loose and drifted over to the Adventists to comple­ment that marvelous message they always had!

One-Man Show or Teamwork?

How do we realize such a sparkling spirit of team effort in a church? Here are some suggestions that may be helpful, you can undoubtedly think of others:

Be a team player yourself. Avoid doing it all. Pastors have no corner on soul win­ning, for instance. A man can visit from daylight to midnight, hold public meetings constantly, lead the conference in baptisms, make the all-star list in the president's office —and leave his people wishing they could do something for God. Certainly we need to visit, we need to do the tough job of getting decisions, but let us not neglect to develop that team potential God has given us.

Stay with the team awhile. Resist the temptation to breeze into town for a year or two, concentrate on one phase of the ministry, ignoring problems crying for at­tention, and then breeze on to another church. We may grow in the eyes of some as great "soul winners" like this, but we don't grow much deep inside and neither do the churches we victimize. Any pastor with average ability and unbalanced effort can make himself look pretty, good in the short run by making a name solely as an unsurpassed Ingatherer, a brilliant church builder, a persevering baptizer, a scintillat­ing writer, or in any one of the many facets of pastoral work. We have specialists in our organization; we need them, but pastoral work does not mean a man should be only a miniature lay activities secretary, or only a miniature public relations secretary, or only a miniature conference evangelist, or only a miniature Sabbath school secretary. A pastor is a shepherd, and no quality shepherd allows a fixation on one area of his responsibility to the exclusion of all others.

Believe in the team. God's greatest mir­acles involve transformation of human thinkinp-. He can take churches fired with factionalism and fire them with faith in one another so they are welded together in a team bursting with Christ-imbued abil­ity and vitality!

Know the team. Great college quarter­backs become great professional halfbacks because a good coach analyzes their abili­ties to help them realize their best poten­tial. Study carefully the needs of the team against the potential of the individual members that maximum efficiency can be obtained from their lay ministry. Train them, teach them. Preach introspectively to human need in a building ministry that prepares for service and the kingdom.

Refuse to Accept Defeat

Refuse to accept defeat on team prob­lems. Those problems of long standing in the church—coldness, cliques, uncoopera­tive attitudes toward the local conference or the leadership of the church, estrange­ment between powerful leaders—these and others can be solved. Accept cantankerous members as a challenge to the power of love. Why preach 1 Corinthians 13 if it won't work? Put it to the test. It will come through amazingly! Face these problems and surmount them. Don't hide behind the argument: "I've got to be out winning souls, don't have time for church organiza­tion; public evangelism will take care of all those problems anyway." Assuming an attitude of moral superiority like this may fool a few laymen, may even fool yourself for a short time—but not God. This is soul saving of the very highest order; it may not appear in your all-star accomplish­ments here but Heaven's note-taking proc­ess has a reputation for thoroughness that is rather jolting at times.

Use the church organs of communica­tion to the fullest. If possible have standard­ized bulletins with the church pictured on the cover. Personalize it to the church to develop team spirit. Fill it weekly with sound, readable, eye-catching announce­ments about the activities of the team. Have a monthly newsletter going into the homes as faithfully as the monthly bright­ness crosses the moon's face. Make it newsy, interesting, direct, down to earth, optimis­tic, positive. Avoid sermonizing and hobby­horse riding like the bubonic plague! Pro­mote offering needs, meetings, Sabbath services, in an attractively winning way. Make every reader feel a part of the team through these communication media.

The Chaotic Assembly of Individuals

Be warm and friendly with all the team members, intimate with none. There will naturally be a closeness with the head elder and several other leaders because of the working relationships with these indi­viduals. But let the team get any inkling that the coach is being managed by an­other "player" and the team quickly re­verts to a chaotic assembly of individuals. Avoid star billing for individuals by the pastor. Observe reporters picking at suc­cessful coaches after a team victory to get from him words of commendation for one player over the other—it is usually a fruit­less effort. just so the pastor has the whole team to think about, not just one or two who have personal, cultural, financial, or leadership appeal to him. 

The same relative danger awaits in building one department of the church to the exclusion of the others. If some churches had no strong Vacation Bible School, if some had no strong social program, if some had no strong Sabbath school program—their accomplishments would be nil. Surely it is better to have one successful department or project than to have nothing at all, but how much better to be a blue-chip team with a balanced program!

Let a baseball team have a ball-murdering mob at the plate but a string of sieves on the field and they'll not win many games. Let's build all departments and gear them to a soul-winning, soul-saving ministry.

Train yourself to a "winning" vocabu­lary. Make phrases such as "We can do it . . . ," "Let's do it . . . ," "We'll take this in stride . . . ," "The team did it again . . . ," a part of your speech, bulletin, newsletter, and public utterances.

Know the importance of timing in repri­manding the team or individuals on the team when they get careless or need verbal injections. Use sparingly and sandwich such constructive criticism between thick slices of commendation, and like the proph­ets of old, always leave hope in human hearts that God can give success in place of failure.

A Tennis-Net Iron Curtain

Avoid stiffness and pseudo dignity in your professional and personal contacts with the team. A self-righteous, holier-than-thou attitude builds a wall between pastor and parishioner that would make the Iron Curtain resemble a tennis net! Our people want to see true piety in their nastor, not the kind he has to parade be­fore them in order to demonstrate that he has it. I have a friend whose pastor makes liberal use of such piety-pushing expressions as "I heard on the news at 5:15 this morning . . ."—the point being not the newscast but his spiritually spartan efforts at early rising. Laugh with your members, kid­ding yourself occasionally (let's be honest, with most of us there's quite a bit to kid about). As superhuman as Christ appears to us, this was not what drew those who really supported Him—it was His compas­sion, His humanity, His deep concern that they realize their true worth and act as if they did. (Many dynamic young men of ability turn from the ministry in early years because of the stiffness and pseudo dignity they observe in preachers, causing them to write us all off as stuffed shirts.) De­velop an attractive directness that shuns the "ministerial act" and see how quickly the church members become a team be­hind their leader.

You Could Be Wrong

Be humble in your dealings with the team. Oliver Cromwell's advice was sound: "By the mercy of Christ remember that you may be mistaken." A leader so conceited about his own ideas and ability that he can't allow those under him to think for themselves will never attain greatness—he will only be humored along the way by yes men who feed his misguided confidence. The Seventh-day Adventist Church has many prolific minds with excellent ideas and good judgment in the lay ranks. They can give us some sound help if we'll accept it. Too often, though, we're like the fellow who said, "I'm going to be original or nothing!"—the church soon discovered he was both.

Be grateful. This is the best antidote to pride. We need to follow Dr. Sam Shoe­maker's counsel and send along our com­pliments and credit for success to general headquarters. God is good to us Adventist ministers—let the team know you feel that way.

Ever remind your local winning team of the fact that it is a part of the great world­wide winning team of this Seventh-day Adventist movement. Help them to see how important it becomes for the local team to play its position well on the larger team preparing for the victory celebration of the ages when the gun sounds "end" and a "victory" comes in the great controversy.

How quickly victory—with every pastor a winning coach and every church a win­ning team!