It All Begins in the Pulpit - Part 1 - Basic Training

It all begins in the pulpit - Part 1 - Basic Training

Note:  As I planned this posting, I thought it would be a single "chapter."  After writing the first part, it became evident that I had more to write on this topic than I could expect anyone to read in one "sitting."  Therefore, there are six parts to my reflections on preaching.

A Preamble - First, be sure that the following reflections and observations are not aimed at any of my dear colleagues and friends at Village Presbyterian Church.  Tom, Meg, Jarrett, Dwight and Jay are all good preachers.  To date, I have not heard the newest member of the staff, Cynthia Holder-Rich, but I have confidence in her skills in the pulpit.

With the previous qualifiers stated, I have to wonder why it is that the following appears to be true: At the beginning of the 20^th Century, the most gifted, influential platform communicators were preachers, especially in mainline denominations.  But at the beginning of the 21^st Century, so very few of my colleagues could be counted as gifted platform performers.

On what do I base my comments?  In high school, I preached and led worship both in the Sunday morning “adult” worship services and the Sunday evening Youth Church.  My college training included a minor in speech and communication at the University of Cincinnati plus professional work in radio and television.

At McCormick Seminary in the mid-1960s there was a strong emphasis on the skill and art of preaching.  The preaching faculty was composed of three adjunct professors who were practicing preachers.

George “Gibby” Gibson was pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  He would travel to Chicago in order to teach the classroom portion of Senior Preaching.  It was said that the last sermon “Gibby” preached at Kalamazoo before retiring was so challenging that several of the long-time members of the church were infuriated afterwards.

John Fry was pastor of First Presbyterian Church on the Southside of Chicago.  John’s work with the notorious Black Stone Rangers street gang earned him a trip to Washington, D.C. to appear before the Senate Committee on Un-American Activities.  John taught one half of the preaching practicum.  John’s evaluation of student preaching seemed to feel as if the student had been hacked with a machete and left bleeding on the chapel floor.

The third member of the adjunct-preaching faculty was Elam Davies, pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church on Michigan Avenue in Chicago.  A Welshman, Elam is still remembered at Fourth Church as one of its eminent preachers who inspired a major mission thrust of Fourth Church that is continued today.  His sermon on the Sunday after the assassination of Martin Luther King pointedly spoke of the turmoil of the 1960s caused by racial prejudice.  In the congregation were some of the wealthy “shakers and movers” of Chicago.  Elam’s evaluation of students’ sermons felt as if a skilled surgeon had operated and sewed the student up so they would completely heal.

This was my training ground for preaching. 

The first element in preaching excellence is training.  It is important that seminary students be trained not only by excellent “classroom” scholars but practitioners who work weekly in the craft of preaching. 

In addition to learning the craft of preaching in the seminary setting, the students should be encouraged to practice the craft in local churches.  One of the advantages McCormick Seminary in Chicago had was its location.  Presbyterian and other mainline churches would “hire” seminary students to fill their pulpits for one Sunday or months at a time.  Some of those Sunday morning treks were up to 170 miles one way.

The students were apprentice skill level, but they had the opportunity to preach and lead worship in the real world of Sunday morning.  And for the congregations, they were exposed to some of the current theological teaching in the seminary and the energy of young preachers. 

Exceptional skill begins with exceptional training.

--Dr. Ron Patton, H.R.

Blockbusting Revisited

Note:  I hesitated to make this posting on the first day of my blog, however, the activities of the last week in Orlando, Florida have inspired (no really pushed) me to offer these reflections.

In the 1960s, as integration was becoming a reality, certain real estate agents engaged in the practice of blockbusting.  They would convince one minority family, almost always black, to move into a community.  Then the real estate agents would go from door to door attempting to convince neighbors they should sell their property and move to a “better neighborhood” where those new people would not be their neighbors.

During this period, the Kennedy Heights neighborhood in Cincinnati, where my in-laws lived, was under attack from the blockbusting real estate agents.  Dick and LaDonna Avery were both natives of small towns in Indiana.  Dick taught is a suburban school district and LaDonna worked at the Cincinnati Art Museum.

Dick and LaDonna could have moved out of the community when “those other people” began to move in.  But they made a decision to remain in the community and welcome their new neighbors, even though they were “those other people.”  Dick, the avid fisherman and skilled do-it-yourselfer made a special effort to develop friendships with their new neighbors.

Currently, there is a move by some of our Presbyterian sisters and brothers to form a new denomination.  I am sorry to say that the movement, known as the Fellowship of Presbyterians or Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians, has very loud echoes of the “blockbusting” of the 1960s.  How is that?

First, the Fellowship or Order is deathly worried that “those other people” are going to be moving into their neighborhoods/churches.  “Those other people” are different than the Fellowship/Order group.  This time it is not the color of their skin, but their sexuality.  No matter how much they proclaim they “hate the sin but love the sinner,” the reasoning is the same.  “Those other people” are different and we don’t want to sit next to them in the pew, on the session or at the presbytery.

At the 1976 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church U.S. (Southern), a college age young woman stood up in a meeting considering reunion with the United Presbyterian Church (Northern) and stated that her church would never work with the church on the other side of the square in her town.  The “Southern” church was all white and the “Northern” church was all black.

In response, the Rev. Lawrence Bottoms, first black moderator of the “Southern” General Assembly said: “Young lady, God did not intend for you to decide who is sitting next to you in the pew on Sunday morning.”

Second, the Fellowship/Covenant sounds echoes of the blockbusting of the 1960s stating that, if they can’t keep “those other people” from living next to them, they are going to take their assets and move elsewhere.

I am reminded that the belt buckles of the German Army in World War One held the motto “Gott mit uns.”  I would not begin to claim “Gott mit uns” but at the same time neither should our Fellowship/Covenant bothers and sisters.

In every congregation I have served I have offered the following invitation: “ All the perfect people can leave.”  No one ever left.

Dr. Ron Patton, H.R.

Preface

Whose blog is this?

In December of 2011 I celebrated the 30^th anniversary of my 40^th birthday.  I was born three days after Pearl Harbor.  In the maternity ward, the woman in the next bed said to my mother: “Our sons won’t go to this war, but they will go to the next one.”  It was not true.  I was eight years old when the Korean War broke out.  And while I was in Air Force R.O.T.C. in college, I was one of the lowest classifications of the draft for the Viet Nam War – IV-D.  This was the classification for clergy and seminary students.

My grade school and junior high years were in Northern Kentucky, across the river from Cincinnati.  Those were the days of “reality” segregation.  We moved across the Ohio River in 1955 and my Kentucky classmates suggested I would have trouble with the black minorities in my high school.  The one black student in my class was a good friend.  Twenty-five percent of my high school was Jewish – a minority that generated no friction as I remember.

The early 1960s at the University of Cincinnati were relatively calm.  The worries of the day revolved around missiles in Cuba, was the assignation of John Kennedy a mob conspiracy and the bad call that cost the Bearcats the NCAA Basketball title in 1964.

Donna and I were married in 1964, after graduation from the University.  We packed up a trailer and headed off from McCormick Seminary in urban Chicago.  For four years we lived 100 yards from the “L” on the near Northside.  Donna completed her Masters in Mathematics at Northwestern and went to work editing math textbooks.  I received my Master of Divinity and Master of Arts in Education in 1968.

Changes were everywhere in the 1960s, including accepting a call to a small church in a town of 500 in rural Indiana – quiet a difference from urban Chicago.  Our older son was born in that town and I learned “reality” ministry as a solo pastor.

A move in 1970 took us to the western shore of Lake Michigan with long winters or snow and ice.  We were indeed lucky if summer came on Sunday.  Our younger son was born there on one of those summer Sundays.  On staff of a larger church, there was even more to learn about “reality” ministry.

We thought in 1973 that our move to Kansas City would result in a short tenure of five or so years.  Thirty-nine years later, we still live in the first house we ever owned.  We raised our sons here, hosted an AFS exchange student from French Canada and sponsored a Chinese piano student.  Our sons are now married to lovely ladies and we are blessed with a granddaughter and grandson.  Our older son, wife and children live in Minnesota.  Our younger son and his wife live in Kansas City.

In 1985, after four years of study, I received my Doctor of Ministry degree from San Francisco Theological Seminary.  My thesis is titled: “Television: A Practical Tool for the Local Church.” 

My ministry has included longer than expected tenures are three very different churches.  The expected five years became over thirteen years serving the oldest continuing institution in Kansas City – Westport Presbyterian Church founded in 1835.  I was asked to take care of Christ Presbyterian Church (Italian) temporarily and retired from there 17 years later.  I joined the staff of Village Presbyterian Church as Parish Associate to help out for a year and completed that work almost three years later.

And so I am H.R. (Honorably Retired).  Or as one member of Village Church added H.R.A. (Honorably Retired Again).

Dr. Ron Patton, H.R.

Why write a blog.

Why should I write a blog?  Answer:  Out of boredom.  Not my boredom, but the probability that my wife may become bored with my continued sharing of opinions on various topics including politics, society and, most of all, the church.

Another reason to write a blog is to keep my own creative skills active.  After over four decades in active ministry, most of which has been in the pulpit, retirement has left few opportunities to set my thoughts and opinions into coherent pieces.

An additional reason to write a blog is to offer an additional voice to many of the discussions that take place on various topics.  Letters to the editor have a low percentage of being published.  Even self-publishing has a limited audience.  But, writing for the world of electronic communication can have a far greater audience from people in our neighborhood to friends on the other side of the globe.

There are two obvious advantages to writing for electronic publication.  First, it is environmentally responsible.  No trees were destroyed to publish this blog.  This blog did not even require any recycled materials.  Second, it is not time bound.  I have the flexibility of writing at anytime of day, any day of the week.  The reader – I hope more than one – has the flexibility to read these words at anytime of the day, any day of the week.

A not so obvious advantage involves the multi-language nature of our world.  I may have studied French, Greek and Hebrew; but English is the language on my thoughts and words.  But with tools such a Babel Fish, language is not an insurmountable barrier to communication.

So, here begins the blog of a son, brother, husband, father, preacher, teacher and, as one of my colleagues called me, “the quintessential Grandpa.”

Oh, yes, there is one other advantage.  For one who flunked spelling in the 7^th and 8^th grades, the spell checking and correction functions of computer programs are absolutely essential.