Knowledge and Wisdom

The cosmo is full of opposites : Light and dark . Black and white . Yin and Yang. Our knowledge and belief systems are also full of opposites : Faith and reason. Art and technology. Creativity and analysis. Humour and seriousness.

Even in our Christian theology there are opposites. Opposites can have the effect of threatening to split the church, causes social upheaval and loss of life. The classical example is that of Augustine and Pelagius. Augustine believed that man in incapable of obedience and hence can only be saved by the work of God alone. Pelagius believed that man is capable of obedience and can be saved by good works. This lead to divisions and strife and was only partially resolved at the Council of Trent in the sixteen century.[1]

Pastoral Theology is defined as ‘the study in application of the philosophy and spiritual sources from the Old Testament, New Testament and the Total Christian Thoughts of the pastoral calling, life and craft integrated with the ongoing changes in life.’[2] Like all food, it must be chewed upon, digested and assimilated before it is of us to us. Hence pastoral theology is the guiding framework which determines the way a pastor thinks, live and has his being. Even in pastoral theology there are opposites. One end of the spectrum is the ‘ Let God and Let Go “ school of thought ( which for the purpose of discussion in this paper will be called ‘Wisdom”) and the other end is the “God Help Those Who Help Themselves’ school of thought ( which will be called ‘Knowledge’). Both groups are evangelical and share the same belief system.

The Wisdom School taught that the pastor should put aside self and allow the Holy Spirit full control. The keywords in their ministry are ‘soul care’, ‘space for God’ and ‘spiritual direction’.

The Knowledge School will use any human knowledge to help them in their pastoral work. They would ‘sanctify’ secular management skills if they find it useful . This school is also known as the Method school. The keywords in their ministry are ‘mission statement’, ‘strategic planning’ and ‘goal planning’.

The scope of this paper will be to study the pastoral theology of the Wisdom School and the Knowledge School and to learn lessons from them so as to apply it into our own pastoral ministries.

The representative case study for the Wisdom School will be the pastoral ministry of Eugene Peterson. Eugene Peterson was the pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church, Bel Air, Maryland, United States of America and presently is the James M. Houston Professor of Spiritual Theology at Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

For the Knowledge School, we shall study the pastoral ministry of Rick Warren, senior pastor of Saddleback Valley Community Church in Lake Forest, California, United States of America.

The sources for our study are from various book of Eugene Peterson ( Appendix 1 ) and Rick Warren ( Appendix 2 ). This paper do not pretend to be any in depth analysis of the pastoral theology and ministry of this two great servants of the Lord, but to present a brief survey of their published thoughts, motivations and application of their understanding of their pastoral theology in their respective ministries.

Eugene Peterson was the pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, Maryland for 29 years before moving to Regent College in Canada. With the 1980 publication of A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, Peterson has earned a widespread reputation as a thoughtful, articulate pastor who understands the spiritual disciplines and can communicate their practice. He pastors and writes from a scholarly background, having mastered the biblical languages and done doctoral-level work under the magisterial William F Albright.[3] When he was young he worked in his father’s butcher shop which he said had a good influence on his attitude towards work and life. In 1991, he resigned from being a pastor to devote more time to his writings.[4]

Rick Warren graduated from Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. In his student days he was very impressed by Donald McGavran and W.A. Criswell. From McGavran, he was inspired to search for biblical, cultural and leadership principles that will produce healthy growing churches. Warren regarded W.A. Criswell as the greatest American pastor of the twentieth century. Criswell was the pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas which was the largest Baptist church in the world. Warren not only regard Criswell as a powerful preacher and leader but also as an organisational genius. Warren even recorded a prayer by Criswell when he laid hand on him ( Warren ) and prayed that the church he will pastor ‘ will grow to twice the size of the Dallas church’.[5]

Both the pastors come from different backgrounds. Their spiritual foundations have been different. Peterson was deep into biblical studies while Warren was influenced by the church growth movement of McGarvan and the large church of Criswell.

In a market economy, the company with the brand name, the best product, the best service and the price gets the customer. The bigger the company, the more successful it is. Every company dreams of being listed in the Forbes 500. This market economy is the culture of the twentieth century. As the latest monster movie “Godzilla” proclaim – “Size does matter”.

Unfortunately, many pastors are also caught up in the culture of the age. They want to pastor megachurches. Success in ministry is equated with large church membership.

Peterson has started as a counter culture pastor. He decided early in his ministry that he will not pastor a church composed of more people than he could remember by name. His congregation averaged about 300. Peterson do not believe that a pastor should ‘run a church’. In fact he did not like the term. He believed a pastor should be unbusy, subversive and apocalyptic.[6] A pastor should be concern about the cure of souls than in the size of the congregation. In fact, a large congregation will be impossible for him to exercise the three angles of pastoral care – prayer, scripture and spiritual direction.[7]

Warren wanted a large church. He planned for it. In the summer of 1979, he ‘practically lived in university libraries doing research on the United States census data and other demographic studies on four areas ( Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego and Orange County).He quoted Proverbs 13:16[8] as the basis for this marketing research. He finally decided on Saddleback Valley in Orange County, California because it was ‘ the fastest-growing area in the fastest – growing county in the United States during the decade of the 1970s’.[9] After starting his church in Saddleback Valley, he spent the first twelve weeks going door-to-door talking to people. He said “I wanted to listen first to what they thought their most pressing needs were.” In his first sermon on March 30, 1980, Warren outlined “The Saddleback Vision” which included a dream of inviting 20,000 members into the fellowship of the church family.[10]

Both Peterson and Warren have a different view of the pastoral ministry. Peterson believe in the small church where a pastor can give spiritual direction on an individual or small community basis. He liken a church to a small rural American town.

Warren believe that God is gloried in a large church. Since its beginning in 1980, the church has grown to over 14,000 in attendance and has sponsored 24 new “daughter” churches. Nearly 70% of the members of Saddleback church found Christ and were baptized there.[11] On December 31, 1997, Saddleback Valley Community Church baptised the 5,000^th person to be baptised since the church moved onto its own land five years earlier. The congregation is now the second largest in the United States.[12] Warren approached his church planting like a company marketing plan( Figure 1 ). He has utilised marketing research, strategic planning, resource management and total quality management (TQM).

Central in the role of a pastor is the spiritual formation or Christian growth of our congregations. The five cardinal activities of pastoral care as outlined by Henri Nouwen in his book, Creative Ministry all work to create spiritual growth in the congregation. These activities are teaching, preaching, individual pastoral care, organising and celebrating.

" Christian growth ( spiritual formation ) is, in fact, the easiest thing in the

world. This is God’s work in Christ through the Spirit in our lives. Grace. We don’t

have to do anything. As a matter if fact, whenever we do get it into our heads to do

something, it is usually the wrong thing – we start taking over, running the show,

On the other hand, it is the hardest thing in the world, because we are constantly

having to get out of the way, to “let it be done unto me according to your word.”

The faithful, daily return to childlike receiving and obeying, neither of which we initiate,

The troubling thing about so much Christian instruction-for-sale today is that it is

little more than self help psychology with a little holy water sprinkled over it; or the old

entrepreneurial American dream fortified with some energizing cheerleader texts.

Much better than trying to summarize steps or stages of Christian development is

to immerse ourselves in the grand narratives of our Scriptures – Abraham, Jeremiah,

David, Jesus. As we live imaginatively into these lives we start to get the hang of this

unique life of the Spirit in which we do less and less so that the Spirit does more and more.

The paradox is that we do less and less, more and more actually gets done through our

hands and feet and speech. More energy, less guilt; more of God, less of us".[14]

Rick Warren’s approach is train his congregation into spiritual growth. He has a clear objective for his church which he has summarised as the “Saddleback’s Purpose Statement”:

To bring people to Jesus and membership in his family, develop them to Christlike maturity, and equip them for their ministry on the church and life mission in the world, in order to magnify God’s name.

With this Purpose Statement, Warren went on to identify where each people who attends his church stands in relationship to their spiritual development. He developed the Fives Circles of Commitment. ( Figure 2 ). The aim of the church is to move people from the outer circle ( low commitment/maturity ) to the inner circle ( high commitment/maturity ). He called it ‘ moving people from the community into the core”.

The next step after identifying their spiritual development is to fit them into the teaching ministry of the church, which Warren called ‘The Life Development Process”. ( Figure 3 ). This is a very structured program in which there is a fixed syllabus and members of the congregations are move from one level to another after completing the training required.

For each program, there are teaching notes, tapes to listen to, evaluation and on achieving the level, the members are given a small credit card sized certificate. The church has a program of Bible studies, classes, topical seminars, and annual conferences.

Here we see two very different approach to developing the spiritual maturity of the congregation. Peterson do not have any specific teaching program but prefer to use life situations to impart spiritual direction and to emphasis the role of prayer and the work of the Holy Spirit.

He looks to the bible giants for contemplative exergesis. His books reflect his thoughts. Leap Over a Wall ( David ).Reversed Thunder ( John ). Answering God and Long Obedience( Psalms/David and others).Run with the Horses ( Jeremiah ). His approach is personal. He did not have any full time staff aside from himself. He relied a lot on his elders which are all laymembers[17]. This is a very effective approach as it goes deep into the life of the faithful. It offers modeling and guidance. But it is very dependant on the spiritual guides. Not everybody has the spiritual understanding of Peterson. One could wonder what is happening now at the Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air when Peterson is no longer there. Is spiritual guides reproductible ?

Warren has a fixed program that is not dependant on him. He is senior pastor and has a large staff of 12 pastors working under him[18]. Any of them can teach the programs. There is a large collections of tapes of his sermons and teachings.

His church makes good use of modern technology and resources. The advantage of this program is that it is not person dependent. The life development process will still go on without Warren, as it is doing now. Warren is often on a lecture/seminar circuit. Large numbers of people can benefit from the program. They know exactly where they are in their spiritual life process. But it is like a school program. Does it produce lasting spiritual growth ?

Finding a balance in his pastoral care do not mean that a pastor must side with either the Wisdom or Knowledge School of thought. As discussed, both schools have their strengths and weaknesses. What it does mean is that the pastor should look into his own ministry and to seek how to apply what he has learnt in his own spiritual development into his work.

Peterson and Warren did not arrive at where they are today overnight. It took them long years of studies and preparation. Long years of spiritual development and obedience to the Lord. It took them years to decide where they want to stay in regard to their culture.

The current cultural measure of success is high profile ministry, large church buildings, large church membership and being invited to give seminars and lectures. The pastor must seek to measure success as in the Kingdom of God. The pastor must not give in to the cultural perception that size is all that matters.

According to church consultant , Lyle Schaller , a recent study of 116,000 churches in the United States showed that 35 was the most common number in attendance.[19] Pastor Craig Brian Larson shared his experience in pastoring a 35 members Lakeshore Assembly of God in downtown Chicago, Illionois:

aspect of getting bigger, I couldn’t find joy in what was happening in individuals.

Here is a pastor who has found the balance in his ministry. He is not measuring his success by the size of his ministry but the quality of spiritual development in his ministry. As Peterson said, ‘ Ministry is organic, growing out of who we are and where we are in the circumstances in which we know and serve Jesus ‘.[21]

1. R.C.Sproul, Willing to Believe : The Controversy of Free Will ( Grand Rapids MI: Baker Books, 1997 )

2. Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor ( Grand Rapids : Eerdmans, 1989, 1993 )

3. Eugene Peterson, Subversive Spirituality (Grand Rapids, Michigan, : Eerdmans, Regent College Publishing, 1994, 1997 )

4. Eugene Peterson, Working The Angles : The Shape of Pastoral Integrity ( Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987, 1993 )

9. Leadership Forum, Pastoring with Integrity in a Market-Driven Age ( Leadership, Summer 1997 )

1. The Wisdom of Each Other : A Conversation Between Spiritual Friends ( Zondervan)

2. Reversed Thunder : The Revelation of John & the Praying Imagination ( HarperCollins)

10. Travelling Light; Modern Meditations on St.Paul’s Letter of Freedom ( Helmers & Howard)

11. A Long Obedience in the Same Direction; Discipleship in an Instant Society.(IVP)

19. Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocational Holiness (Eerdmans)

[1] R.C.Sproul, Willing to Believe : The Controversy of Free Will ( Grand Rapids MI: Baker Books, 1997 )

[2] Lecture notes. Rev.Loh Soon Choy. M.Min program –Pastoral Theology & Ministries, Malaysia Bible Seminari, 7-10 July 1998

[3] Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor ( Grand Rapids : Eerdmans, 1989, 1993 ) p. 2

[4] Eugene Peterson, Subversive Spirituality (Grand Rapids, Michigan, : Eerdmans, Regent College Publishing, 1994, 1997 )

[5] Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church ( Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1995 ) p. 25 - 30

[6] The Unbusy Pastor, the Subversive Pastor, the Apocalyptic Pastor, Curing Souls : The Forgotten Art was discussed in his book, The Contemplative Pastor.

[7] Eugene Peterson, Working The Angles : The Shape of Pastoral Integrity ( Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987, 1993 )

[8] Proverbs 13:16 “Every prudent man acts out of knowledge”

[9] Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church ( Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1995 ) p. 33 - 34

[10] Ibid p.43

[11] Information from the Saddleback Valley Community Church website

http://www.pastors.net/encword1/The_Saddleback_Story.html

12 Information available on the Saddleback On-Line.

http://www.saddleback.com/whatsnew.html

[13] George Barna, The Power of Vision ( Ventura CA : Regal, 1992 ) p. 176

[14] Eugene Peterson, The Wisdom of Each Other (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998 ) p. 73-74

[15] Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church ( Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1995 )

[16] Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church ( Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1995 )

[17] Eugene Peterson. Subversive Spirituality ( Grand Rapids,MI/Regent Publishing: Eerdmans, 1994, 1997)

[18] Rick Warren is Senior Pastor. The other 12 are a Executive Pastor, Pastor of Ministry, Pastor of Spiritual Maturity, Pastor of Membership, Director of Seminars & the Purpose-Driven Network, Pastor of Magnification, Pastor of Missions, Pastor of Life Development, High School and College Pastor, Junior High Pastor, Children’s Pastor and Early Childhood Minister.

Saddleback On-Line http://www.saddleback.com/pastors.htm

[19] Leadership Forum, Pastoring with Integrity in a Market-Driven Age ( Leadership, Summer 1997 ) p. 108 - 114

[20] Ibid

[21] Eugene Peterson, The Wisdom of Each Other (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998 ) p. 93