At a gathering of staff and elders of the Highland church recently, one of our elders gave an unexpected confession: “I sort of miss those hard times. We never prayed more as a leadership than we did back then.” “Those hard times” referred to the dark days when, in about four years, we lost as many people as we had gained over the previous twenty years (see previous post in this series). At the bottom of that rapid descent, we had no church building, baptisms plummeted to the ten’s and the budget was broken. Yet, this leader looked with nostalgia at this season because it was a time that drove us to our knees.
This spiritual renewal was, in part, a survival move. During our downturn, we had no other recourse but prayer. Years later I would read a line from Eugene Peterson which was a picture-perfect description of our state during the drop. Peterson told of a friend who wished to paint Peterson’s portrait. Reluctantly, Peterson agreed. After much labor, the artist was ready to reveal the final product. When Peterson viewed it, he was shocked. The painting showed Peterson gaunt, deathly white, with dark and sunken features. The artist explained: “I was painting you as you would look in twenty years if you insisted on being a pastor. Eugene, the church is an evil place. No matter how good you are and how good your intentions, the church will suck the soul out of you.” (Peterson, Pastor, 164). Pastoring a church in free-fall was the hardest task we had ever tried. It sucked the souls from us. Thus, praying wasn’t a choice or an option. It was a reflex, the way gasping for air is a reflex for a drowning man. Almost every staff and staff/elder meeting turned into a prayer-meeting. Our once-cursory “Let’s pray briefly before our meeting starts” turned into a desperate “Let’s get on our knees and beg God to do something here!”
Prayer not only helped us deal with the confusion going on around us. It aided us in dealing with the resentment going on within us (at least within me). Henri Nouwen once wrote, “Anger in particular seems close to a professional vice in the contemporary ministry. Pastors are angry at their leaders for not leading and at their followers for not following. They are angry at those who do not come to church for not coming and angry at those who do come for coming without enthusiasm. They are angry at their families, who make them feel guilty, and angry at themselves for not being who they want to be…If there is anything that makes the ministry look grim and dull, it is this dark, insidious anger in the servants of Christ.” (Nouwen, The Way of the Heart, 23-24). We wrestled with dark emotions and the Holy Spirit became our Counselor during these furious times. Prayer was a lifeboat in the storm around us and within us.
And while most of the leaders at Highland experienced levels of spiritual renewal, none did more than me. I recently asked a friend to comment on some possible topics for a class I was going to teach at a gathering of church leaders. One of the topics had to do with prayer. He wrote this: “I’d go with the last one [the one on prayer], for what it’s worth. Spiritual renewal is our task ahead, and we’re going to have to go outside our own narrow set of experiences for it, in many cases.” I began to see that this was especially true for me. My calling became one of personal and congregational spiritual renewal. Thus, I sought out spiritual advisors outside of Highland who could train me in deeper ways of prayer. I began consuming books on unfamiliar practices (to me) such as centering prayer, contemplation and meditation. I started praying the Psalms regularly. I attended every seminar or workshop on spiritual renewal I could find.
And God continued this training well into our turnaround as a church. One year into the turnaround I spent five days in silence at an Ignatian retreat. Two years into the turnaround I spent thirty days in silence practicing the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius. Four years in I met with a group of Memphis Catholics for eight months to learn other forms of prayer.
But prayer didn’t merely remain a survival move. It became a strategic move. On dozens of occasions during the decline we called the entire church to prayer. In addition, as we began to envision a new church home, prayer demanded a space–we planned (and built) a wooded prayer-path that would circle the new building. It was perhaps one of the greatest symbolic statements we could make. Our new home would, literally, be surrounded by prayer. Prayer became woven into our DNA. For example, one year into our turnaround we devoted almost an entire year to congregational prayer. We realized our turnaround was incomplete. So we asked the church to pray about 2018, the year our congregation would be 90. What did God want to do in us and through us between now and 2018? This nearly year-long prayer-conversation was transformative and resulted in a number of steps which only accelerated the recent revival in momentum. Further, my preaching began to take up prayer more and more. During the first three years of turnaround, I preached for months from a book I wrote on the prayer-life of Jesus (Prayers from the Pit) and from a book I was writing on spiritual disciplines (Ten Minute Transformation). A weekly prayer-group launched in the first year of turnaround. Another launched this year..
This partnership of prayer and turnaround was not unique to us. Thom Rainer finds that churches which eventually “breakout” of decline and experience growth have leaders who devote significant time to prayer (Rainer, Breakout Churches, 42). George Barna writes that “turnaround” churches were turned around in the context of prayer: “[A] turnaround church is resuscitated partly due to the widespread and heartfelt prayer that is lifted to God on the church’s behalf. The pastor emerged as a true prayer giant, taking hours and hours every week to beseech God for all that was needed in the turnaround experience. The congregation was led to a place where it, too, embraced prayer as a special, hidden weapon in the battle to turn back the forces of darkness that were pushing the church toward the edge of extinction.” (Barna, Turnaround Churches, 52). Prayer has always been important at Highland. But it was truly reinvented in my own life and ministry, for many others in leadership, and for us as a church. That reinvention continues to-date. It is a journey, not a destination. But it is, we believe, one of the key aspects to our turnaround.
