Out of Season
I had a friend who felt a little nervous in the early days of the young, restless, and reformed movement. “I’m not used to being trendy,” he said. “I don’t like it.”
Those days have come and gone, but I get this point. I don’t trust the crowds; they’re usually wrong. I don’t want to follow them, because they’re fickle. If you follow what’s trendy now, you will exhaust yourself, and your ministry will lack depth. To be faithful means learning to be out of season a good deal of the time.
A story from David Hansen’s book The Art of Pastoring haunts me. When his predecessor left the church, he left his library behind. Every single volume remained; he didn’t take one.
The former pastor had some good reference books. Mostly, though, his library reflected the trends of his day. As each fad passed, he bought another set of books in an effort to keep up. He was a fine pastor, people said, and a capable preacher. The problem, according to David Hansen: “The movements he followed actually had little if any effect on his ministry, except in a fatal way: ultimately perhaps he confused following Christian movements with following Christ.”
He’s right. The fads and movements can’t help you. The only difference they will make in your ministry is to weaken it.
There are another set of actions, though, that are anything but trendy, but that will make a positive difference in your ministry even if nobody notices. Most of them will happen in secret. None of them will generate much buzz. They will require lots of focused attention and will bring little instant gratification but much lasting benefit to you and your ministry.
Learn the languages.
Read weighty books, including many that were written before you were born.
Devote time in prayer.
Prepare Scripture-saturated, prayer-filled sermons.
Kill sin.
Build solid pastoral friendships.
Memorize Scripture.
Raise up elders.
Stay in one church for a long time, long after the itch to move has come and gone.
In other words, ignore what’s trendy and build a weighty, grounded, biblical, faithful ministry whether people notice or not, and get a bit nervous when people do notice and think you’re cool.
The best pastors I know refuse to be trendy. To be honest, they’re mostly a little bit quirky. They’re easily overlooked because they don’t try hard to be noticed. They do a lot of hidden things that go mostly unnoticed. They show up when they say they will, and they do so with hearts saturated in Scripture and brimming with prayer. They are far from perfect, but they are quick to own it and quick to repent. They rarely wow but they regularly deliver. They don’t ride the waves of trends and fads, but they build a ministry that only gets better over time.
At first glance, they don’t impress. At second or third and fiftieth glance, you realize there’s more there than you first realized. They’re the kind of pastors who don’t say much, but say a lot in the little that they say. They are the pastors that stay faithful in and out of season.
Be like them. Do the hidden things in secret that matter even if nobody notices. Avoid all the fads. Be faithful whether it’s trendy or not, and believe that faithfulness in the hidden things will help you serve more than following any fad ever could.
