The Pastor's Soul Volume 2: Pastoral Grit

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IN 1978, AFTER THREE YEARS as a college and youth pastor, I moved with my wife and son to the Chicago suburb of Evanston to plant a church. I was twenty-four and bristling with ambition. Riding the wave of the Jesus revival, the college group I had helped lead had grown to eighty. I heard reports of Illinois churches growing rapidly, and I revered their pastors as role models. I dreamed of planting a church in Evanston that would grow to number in the hundreds.

We started with only three people—myself, my wife, and our two-year-old son—but I had faith and a plan. I would distribute literature door to door in a several-block area and then telephone each of those families the same night.

We moved into our second-floor apartment on Washington Street, and I started working the neighborhood. After slowly developing a list of twenty or so interested people, I tried to launch meetings at the local Holiday Inn, but only a handful came and those never returned. I kept working my plan but I was never able to pull together even a regular Bible study. As a church planter I was a spectacular bust.

In Evanston I started asking the questions that I would repeat many times in the years to come. Why does God "bless" some pastors and churches and not me? Why won't God answer my prayers? What is it that some people don't like about me? What's the matter with me?

I learned in Evanston that God is not concerned about stroking my ego, which definitely took a beating. There I felt the full effect of what it means to index my identity to the size of my church. Of course I had done that when leading the college group, but I had always had "success" before. Now the equation worked against me and it hurt badly.

I played baseball for several years in grade ...

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