Interview with Leonard Wymore

By Brad Dupray

Leonard Wymore served as convention director of the North American Christian Convention from 1964 to 1986. His expertise in leading such a large venture was developed in his organizing of National Christian Education Conventions for Standard Publishing, beginning in 1956. When the NACC”s Convention Committee asked him to become convention director, their purpose was to combine the forces of the two conventions in order to broaden the appeal of the NACC. Leonard is a graduate of Manhattan (Kansas) Christian College. He and his wife of 63 years, Thelma, attend Hopwood Christian Church in Milligan College, Tennessee.

How would you define the North American Christian Convention?

The convention is not a church convention, it is a convention of individuals. The convention has not been and is not intended to be the basis of sectarian division, but rather it points to Christ and his Word as the only possible basis of unity. It is a convention planned by and for individuals and not a church or denominational event.

Did you have any particular highlights from your years as director?

The conventions I remember being the most enthusiastically received by the audience are those that had Christ in the theme title, for example, “Christ Above All.” Of course, the most meaningful session was the Communion service held on Sunday to begin the convention in 1986, which was my last year as convention director. Russ Blowers gave a Scripture reading from 1 Corinthians 11, which was read in three different languages. We had 41,000 people in that assembly (in the Hoosier Dome). That convention was a combination of the Missionary Convention and the North American.

What symptoms are you seeing in the NACC today?

It concerns me the attendance has declined year after year for the past seven or eight years. The cost of producing the convention and the cost for people attending the convention has increased considerably. Attendance from small and midsize churches has fallen off to a terribly low number, especially for anyone coming from any distance from those congregations. The only reason they might come is if they have relatives in the area or if they ministered near the host city at some time in the past.

Are churches prepared to cover that increasing expense in order to support their staff”s attendance?

It”s very questionable whether the smaller and even the midsize churches think about the cost for the preacher”s family and the staff people to attend the convention””which has a tremendous amount of information they need to enhance their ministries. The budgets in the small and medium-size churches are just not equipped to support that kind of expense. The preacher can”t take it out of his own salary, so the attendance has dropped down to basically the exhibitors and the people who do support the convention a fair amount from their church missions budget or their general budget.

Is it just about money or are there other compelling factors?

The other thing that I think has discouraged attendance somewhat is that the program topics for breakout sessions and guest speakers are of more interest to, and are people who are involved in, the larger megachurch functions. Somehow, they don”t identify with the opportunities for ministry that are involved in the small and midsize churches.

Is that a reflection of a change in culture and how the church ministers today?

Yes, I think it is. Our culture has changed from when I was preaching. It used to be that Sunday school had the largest attendance and you would have to work to get worship up to three-fourths of Sunday school attendance. In the past 20 years the Sunday school has ceased to be a tool for evangelism and training members to be evangelists.

How could the convention address the way things have changed?

I would suggest the convention committee, including the Board of Stewards and the Executive Committees, put together a rather large committee to restudy the convention. Include in it a few of the more thoughtful contributors in the current committees that I have just mentioned. Also reach out and find people in mega, medium-sized, and small churches who are leaders in those congregations, who haven”t necessarily attended the North American, so that you get a feeling for what the leadership and the people in the pews feel about the convention””how they sense the needs””and to evaluate the current program to see if it actually meets those needs.

How would you suggest such a committee be composed?

The members need to be business people, educators, working-class, blue-collar people and they need to be racially diversified. This is going to cost some money, and it”s going to take some time and a lot of work from the convention committee to research it. I would say half of that committee, whatever size it would be (15, 20, 30), should be people who are doing the work of the church but have not had opportunity to attend the convention. They need to tell the convention what it needs to bring to us that we can”t get any other way, because as Ben Merold says, if we didn”t have North American, we”d need something like it.

Are people in smaller churches being “frozen out”?

The people who are leading and ministering in the medium- and small-size churches don”t fill the bill, apparently, in the mind of the committee, as contributors to the leadership of the sessions. We used to use a good number of them as presiders of sessions, for example, and in that way they could be involved.

Are there other specific concerns you have?

The other area that concerns me is because of the way committees have functioned and the program is planned, the persons who are a little more conservative among us have been pretty much told we don”t need your ideas or your views so there is no opportunity for them to be expressed.

If the megachurch has such influence, why do you think they don”t have a larger number of people in attendance at the convention?

Staff people who have specific responsibilities (youth ministers, children”s ministers, music ministers) can go for two or three days or an overnight somewhere and get training, but when they come to the North American they get one or two sessions. I think that discourages the megachurch from sending their staff.

So it becomes a matter of zeroing in on ministry opportunities for churches across a broad spectrum?

The thing that made the North American a church family event is we were kind of ahead of the time or day when all of these special groups “fanned out.” So the convention really met the needs of any family in the local congregation who had any part of leadership and planning the curriculum and activities for the local church. We had people who were successful in making those ministries grow and were effective in equipping the member of the congregation to the point where they could take a real interest in doing whatever the congregation decided to do””revival meeting or Bible study or service like that Rick Rusaw has been advocating recently. I”m all for that. People are so used to doing church that they don”t know how to do it away from home. We don”t need to be preaching a social gospel. We need to be living it.

Is there a way to better address how small and midsize churches can reengage?

The “Christian Standard Interview” with Cam Huxford (Christian Standard, February 17, 2008) was one of the best interviews about the North American that I have seen. Period. When asked, “What does the convention have to offer smaller churches?” his answer was, “The North American offers an opportunity to learn what God is blessing and how those principles can be applied to your mission. It exposes every kind of church leader (no matter where they are in their leadership pilgrimage) to people who are ahead of them, in terms of building the church, and to people who are running in exactly the same place.” We need more of that kind of material from the convention office and from the journals in support of the convention.

What inspires you about the NACC?

I am thrilled with the opening up of conversation and participation with the church of Christ noninstrumental. I think this is a great move forward. Denominationalism is disappearing from the overall activity of the church (the World Council of Churches and National Council of Churches are having difficulty finding interest and funds to carry on their projects), and we as a people are not a part of denominationalism; we are a part of the church, which is the body of Christ. Christ is in us, and we are Christ, in the present form of the church. We need to make that clear to people that we talk to, that we live with, so that we see the body of Christ functioning without a lot of formal creeds and denominational structures.

Brad Dupray is senior vice president, investor development, with Church Development Fund, Irvine, California.