Scholars in the Church”“A Practical Response

By Brian Jones

After reading Fred Hansen”s article “The Local Church Needs Scholars,” I immediately thought of my first ministry internship. It was with a pastor who, by his own admission, wasn”t really into scholarly study. 

“Brian,” I remember him telling me, “you”ll find that the guys out there leading the big churches are pragmatic leaders. That should tell you something.”

What I remember most about him however was his penchant for getting carried away with the latest church fads to try to spur church attendance.

 

ON YOUR KNEES!

When I showed up that summer he was well into a “get everyone to the church at 5 am to pray for exactly one hour” kick. I heard through the grapevine that some well-meaning person slipped him a book on prayer (I believe it was TV evangelist Larry Lea”s Could You Not Tarry One Hour?), and that was all she wrote.

For 13 weeks straight I would get up at 3:45 am, take a shower, get dressed, and then make the 55-minute commute to the church building just in time to hit my knees and join the faithful. For 60 minutes of prayer. On my knees. Every morning. For 13 weeks. I kid you not.

“The Koreans are doing it and their churches are growing like wildfire,” I remember him telling me.

 “That”s great,” I said, “but can”t God hear us just the same at 9 am? And does it need to be a whole hour? My knees start killing me after 20 minutes. After 30 minutes I”m getting cramps. And after 45 minutes, honestly, I”m contemplating converting to Zoroastrianism. Besides, is this really the way prayer works?”

That summer made a profound mark on my outlook on ministry. Besides the long list of really great ideas I took away from that experience, I felt challenged to try to navigate a course for the kind of spiritual leader I wanted to become.

I left that experience feeling like I had to make a choice: become a pragmatic pastor or a scholarly pastor. Something inside me, even at that young age, helped me realize I could just be myself and try to be both.

 

SEEKING BALANCE

Now, some 20 years later, I lead a church twice the size of that church where I did my internship. Not a day goes by when I don”t sympathize with the pressure that pastor was under to produce numbers and results. Believe it or not, a few years ago when our offerings were sagging I flirted with a “get everyone to the church at 5 am to pray for exactly one hour” kick!

Over the years I”ve tried to interject a few key things into our own staff culture to try to maintain balance. Here are a few of the things we”ve tried:

“¢ Part of the screening process for paid staff members and potential elders is a questionnaire with an extensive list of theological questions. That sets the tone right from the start, letting potential team members know we are just as interested in their understanding of the Arminian/Calvinist question as we are in their ability to cast vision.

“¢ Our staff reads books together on a regular basis. From time to time we”ve inserted business books like Good to Great or Organizing Genius into the mix. But just as frequently, if not more, we”ve read books like James Dunn”s Jesus” Call to Discipleship.

Soon I”m going to have everyone work through Michael Green”s Evangelism in the Early Church. His first two chapters should be required reading for any eldership.

“¢ We”ve laid down the expectation for all ministry staff that furthering their theological education is essential and mandatory. This is particularly important for churches with a staff like ours where all were hired from within the church.

Of course, because it is mandatory, the church pays for it. But we think this is an investment that will pay rich dividends for years to come.

“¢ We purposely try not to “dumb down” our services. In yesterday”s sermon I quoted German theologian Martin Niemoller, went into the Greek origins of a word in a passage, and shared a story from the “Confessing Church” of the Nazi resistance movement. A nonchurched, irreligious, spiritually blank-slate guy winked at me as he left that morning and said, “Best one yet.”

Truth be told, I guess I am so focused on scholarship in the local church because, like the pastor of my first internship, I am a pragmatist at heart.

As a pragmatist, it”s just been my experience that people far from God as well as those within the flock love being a part of a church that is focused on going deep as much as it is wide.

 

 

 

Brian Jones is pastor of Christ”s Church of the Valley in Royersford, Pennsylvania. He”s the author of Second Guessing God and Getting Rid of the Gorilla: Confessions on the Struggle to Forgive.