Other "Thinking Drafts" and writing by Keith Drury -- http://www.indwes.edu/tuesday .

 Historical note: The following is an excerpt from a letter congratulating a promising young leader on his new position in the denominational headquarters and warning him of the dangers of such work .

Welcome to your new responsibilities in this department and at the International Center of The Wesleyan Church. You will enjoy your new work but it is important for you to recognize there are some serious dangers of moving from a local church ministry into a denominational ministry.

 The dangers you face:

 1. Spiritual coolness. If you are not careful, your spiritual vitality will evaporate. Not because the atmosphere is bad or evil, just because the nature of the work is different. In the local church you work with the same people week after week, month after month. You can see their regular and consistent spiritual growth. You had the opportunity to win new souls to Christ. In fact, doing these things was your job. Your new work is different. The International Center is not a church. It is an administrative and leadership center of the church. We don't have services, we don't have outreach programs attempting to build the size of the International Center. Each person working here has their own church at various points across town. So the nature of your work has changed. In a sense you will be more like a layman -- having to do your soul winning, Sunday school class preparation, personal devotions, and discipline of others on your own time. These things used to be your primary work activities. Now they move to leisure time activities. This may be a struggle for you. In fact, some have moved from a local ministry into the International Center to discover the alarming truth that much of their spiritual activity was done simply as a job, and not an avocation.

If you do not get involved in reaching out and discipling people you will be in danger of spiritual coolness. The work of editing, administration, management, and leadership is an enemy of spiritual vitality. You will need to add the direct-to-people ministry you used to get automatically. This is the only way to avoid spiritual coolness that will be devastating to your soul.

2. To get out of touch. As you come into this responsibility you are exceptionally "in touch" with the church. But, if you are not very careful you will get out of touch quickly. If you do very little travel you will probably be attending a church like Trinity -- and worship with three or four hundred people every week. Over the years you can come to think this is an average church, and not an exceptional one. If you do travel, you will be invited mostly to the larger churches that can support the cost of your travel and speaking assignment. After years of speaking at the largest couple hundred churches you may begin to conclude that this is indeed the average church. It is not. You will work in an atmosphere were people are professional, well trained, and very denominationally oriented. You might even come to think that this represents the average church. If you are not very careful you will get out of touch quickly. You will be tempted to become a "cheerleader" for the institutional church, rather than the kingdom of God, or the local church. You will resist being prophetic, and will be tempted to see your job as building loyalty to the institutional structure of the church. If you are not very careful you will quickly get out of touch.

3. To be deceived into thinking that departmental growth equals church growth. In the local church it was easy to measure your own effectiveness. More people got saved and came into your church, and your budget went up. If you are not very careful, you will bring that same mentality into the International Center and apply it to departments. You will tend to assume that you are being successful if you have more and more people working for you and your budget is increasing. This false notion of church growth is prevalent among all denominational headquarters systems. It results in a gradually growing bureaucracy where each departmental leader measures his success by the size of the budget and the number of staff working for him. If you are not very careful you will fall into this trap. Keep in mind that the only kind of church growth there is, happens locally. Our entire purpose for being is to serve and support the local church as it grows. The only measurement of success in this department is the effectiveness of local Sunday schools and discipleship ministries, not the size of the staff or budget of this department.

4. To over estimate the influence of the International Center. When you send out a letter or a mid-week publication in the local church many of your people might read part of it. This will change. Denominational work is essentially different in this respect. The vast majority of the mail we send out from this building is considered "junk mail" by the recipients. Most of these people do not know you personally, consider most of us out of touch, and will simply stack it up in a pile or toss it out unopened. We must say things over and over and over again before even half of the audience gets them. Even then, they won't get the entire message. If you are unable to live with "missed ducks" this work will be very frustrating to you. Never assume "because I said it they know it." The work that you are now entering requires constant and repeated saying of the same thing. You have left local church work where you had a great influence on a fewer number. You are now entering denominational work where you will have a smaller emphasis on a greater number.

5. To get absorbed with denominational politics. Any organization or institution that selects its leaders by election is doomed to some sort of politics. Even if a person had no intention whatsoever to "politic" their actions may still be interpreted as political. Because our denomination has chosen to select its leaders by popular vote, if you are not careful, you will get caught up in the discussion of who is rising in popularity, falling, or who is the latest dark horse candidate for one job or another. You will not be able to escape some conversations like this. However, it is a serious danger to become absorbed with it. It is much better to simply do a good job and leave the politics to people who would rather play that game instead of work hard.

6. To be wasteful. A lot of what we do here is somewhat similar to the local church but on a larger scale. In a church you might print 50 bulletins for Sunday's service. Here, we might run 5000 copies of a newsletter. Though the work is similar, the scale is expanded tremendously. To run off five extra bulletins did not seem like a waste when you were in the local church... even though it's 10%. If you bring that same principal into your current work you will be running 500 extra copies of a more expensive product. Throwing away five bulletins seems minor. Throwing away an entire carton of newsletters or books can easily add up to hundreds or thousands of dollars. One of the dangers of denominational work is to quit being frugal, and spend money wastefully. If you look around and notice others making expenditures which seem wasteful to you, it makes it a little easier for you to do the same. This is a danger to resist.

7. The" comfortable life." In some ways the work you are entering is more stressful and demanding than anything you have ever done. But in other ways you will enjoy it much more. You will work with a collection of top-notch professional ministry-oriented people. International Center work is mentally stimulating, some have likened it unto getting an extra advanced degree. You will not be bothered with volunteers who are unreliable -- you will have paid staff here. You will not have to put up with a church member who is your enemy and has the power to vote against you this spring. On the evenings when you are home you very seldom get telephone calls. So, in spite of some extra pressure and demands, you will probably like this work. It can lead to the "good life syndrome" if you are not careful. You must resist this with all of your strength. Once you settle in and start taking, rather than giving, that internal compromise will affect the rest of your life. If you find yourself becoming a "comfortable bureaucrat" it's time to leave or take a new risk.

8. An attitude of superiority. Your new work will provide a nice office, lots of mental stimulation, and professional enhancement. You will be surrounded by some high level advisers and first class resources. You will be able to produce things that are far better than anything you have ever done before. Not because you are that much smarter, just because of the resources and standards of excellence. You will get to attend a large church. You will go to coffee break every day with denominational officials. You can go to lunch day after day and talk about great issues of theology, culture, and leadership. As time passes you will be tempted to feel you are a part of an elite spiritual aristocracy in the denomination. If you do not guard against it, you will begin to judge district superintendents, pastors, and laymen as inept and untrained. If you allow this to get a hold of you, you will begin judging others as shallow, defective, even stupid. This may be the greatest danger of all. Such an attitude of superiority will not only ruin your ability to lead, it will destroy your own soul. Avoid this attitude at all cost.

I am convinced you will enjoy the new work you are about to begin. Most everybody who has joined the International Center has considered it an enriching and expanding experience. But it is not without its dangers. If you avoid these dangers, you will be able to leave here with a smile on your face and your head held high. Perhaps you will want to re-read these tips every once in a while, while you are here... just as a potential check up. Welcome to the International Center!

Keith Drury

So what do you think?

To contribute to the thinking on this issue e-mail your response to Tuesday@indwes.edu