Episode 252: Faithfulness Over Institutional Preservation — Jim Hollendoner (Part 2)

“Stay excited, stay humble, and slightly terrified. But…may we always get to a place where we can rejoice in what the Lord is doing (Philippians 4)…Let’s stay faithful; let’s have a lot of fun.” —Jim Hollendoner

Summary of This Episode

Jason and Willy are joined again by Rev. Jim Hollendoner, lead pastor of Munster Church (IN). The episode begins with a continuation of the conversation around the perceived pastor shortage and generational differences. Jim proposes one of the reasons behind less people pursuing the pastorate is that when people see pastors today, often it’s connected to a scandal rather than being a position of honor. It’s not just the internal call—“I think God is calling me to this,” but the external call is muddier—not as many people are encouraging others to pursue this. They both identify one of the dangers of lowering the quality or requirements for entering ministry to get more in the door may continue to show people we just need bodies rather than nurturing qualified and equipped leaders.

Jim takes us to a different perspective than just lamenting there’s not a lot of or enough pastors. What if we need to take a hard look at our churches? He proposes doing an internal SWOT analysis or something like it that can help a church or even a classis understand themselves better. It may not be the case everywhere, but in densely populated CRC areas, should we be moving towards closing some churches and having fewer but stronger ones? “The conversation before ‘How do we get more pastors?’ is ‘How do we church better? How do we church more unified?’” He’s not naïve; he recognizes these are hard conversations. They deal with heritage, legacy, ecclesiastical failure as well as ecclesiastical pride. As he talks about later in the episode, though, it’s possible that the CRC might be better served by looking at these things as part of revitalization before we get into seeking to plant more churches.

All this pruning and uncertainty sounds difficult, so Willy asks how Jim would counsel someone considering and looking to enter ministry in the CRC. Jim offers the actions of listening, learning, and presence. Wherever a person ends up, one of the best pieces of advice that Jim has received and passes along is to be patient, not rushing into change too quickly, and learn the context and the people you’re ministering to and among. Many of our congregations have scars—they’ve been through hardships that affect how they see and do things. Don’t ignore that. Both him and Jason point out, there’s a lot of trust and credibility that can be earned through those relationships and moments.

Willy follows that up by asking what mistakes Jim sees in his own ministry. Jim doesn’t shy away from admitting there have been some. One mistake is thinking he had people following on, only to move forward and realize he was going alone or not bringing others along. He points out that with many things, you’ll have the range of early to mid to late, even to never adopters; don’t forget to bring (or drag) them along. He’s also seen himself make ministry about himself rather than Jesus, and over-worry about his departure. Finally he shares that he’s learned you shouldn’t “overgrip” things; let others help you. That’s a lesson he’s found with interns especially—they can be excited and want to do things a certain way by themselves, but they shouldn’t neglect the long-term involvement and willingness of partners.

As the episode is wrapping up, Jason invites Jim to share where he sees the CRC needing to go. He identifies the current reality as still being in reaction-mode. “We have defined our identity in an identity-less ship for 30 years prior to that.” He describes how boundaries have been found and direction has been given over the last few years, but there are still some “rivers” (agendas) that may be different from the main “river” that the CRC-identity is going on. As mentioned before, this is where he sees us needing to do some denominational revitalization, not just jumping into church planting and assuming we’re ready for that. His final words are encouragement to “Stay excited, stay humble, and slightly terrified. But…may we always get to a place where we can rejoice in what the Lord is doing (Philippians 4)…Let’s stay faithful; let’s have a lot of fun.”