Harold's Breakthrough Discovery

A Story in the West Side Baptist Church Series

(Picture of the former West Side Baptist Church building at the corner of St. Xavier and 21st Street in Louisville, KY.)

Harold’s Breakthrough Discovery

The Accusation

Brother, George. You lied to me,” said Harold. “You and Brother Robert both lied. You lied to me and the entire church.

“You told us the reason we were doing all these ministries in our community was so our church would survive. That was a lie!”

Oh no, I thought. Not Harold again. Harold was the worst news and the best news in our church at the same time. He complained about many things. And when he complained, it is often in a very big way.

Harold loved to stop me as pastor when I must be somewhere in the church to lead something in a few minutes.  He engaged me in a long conversation about how he thinks things ought to be run in the church.

The problem? Generally, he was right. The way he said it, however, made it hard to accept. His way was to bawl me out, point his finger, and say it was all right if I disagreed with him. However, he had talked with other people in the church. They already agreed with him.

The Church

The church was an inner-city church that experienced its greatest strength in the mid-1950’s. After that, it was in a continual decline.

The neighborhood transitioned from a white, working-class neighborhood to a racially and socio-economically diverse neighborhood. It was a classic story that can be told repeatedly in many cities.

Many congregational leaders moved to the suburbs. When their children reached middle school, many families joined churches closer to them.

Their children wanted to go to church with their school friends. The parents wanted their children to go to church in a place where their new cultural values are affirmed.

Some leaders drove back to the inner city to worship and continued to offer their time in leadership positions. You could see the guilt on their faces.

They realized they escaped from their former neighborhood. They were trying not to abandon their former church.

The inner-city church was left with great, wonderful people. At the same time, however, the inner-city church members often had lower economic means and less leadership ability than the members who moved their memberships. The inner-city church members did not understand how to deal with the new challenges facing their church.

They only want two things. First, the church members wanted a great church where the worship center was filled with people regularly. Second, they wanted the church to remain viable until they died so their funeral could be led by their pastor in their church.

They believed that having new people come into the church was a good thing. However, doing specific new strategies to reach new people into the church was not a high priority for them. Someone ought to do it, but not necessarily them.

Arising out of this life situation and stress, a lot of anger was expressed in the church from time-to-time. But the anger was usually a cry for help. Few people were in touch with this reality.

The Confrontation

The first time I had a confrontation with Harold, I had only been at the church a couple of months. I was the part-time associate pastor and community minister.

Working closely with the pastor, Robert, I was trying to jump-start some community ministries. We wanted to reconnect this dying church with its community.

For accountability and ownership, we were forming an advisory team. In thinking through potential people to serve on this team, I told Robert I wanted Harold on the team.

“You are crazy, George,” exclaimed Robert.

“No,” I said. “I want Harold in the room where I can watch him. If he supports what we are doing, the rest of the church will be a breeze.”

Robert agreed. I asked Harold to serve on the team. He was delighted.

After I recruited the other team members, we held our first meeting. It was a great gathering. The laypeople in the church were pleased with my plans. They had a few questions but were supportive of the new directions.

Good, I thought. Taking the time to get this team together would build the ownership and support needed.

The next Sunday afternoon as I walked through the church fellowship hall on my way to the worship center to lead the youth choir practice, I could hear running and screaming upstairs. Harry stepped into my path. He held up his hand to stop me.

“Brother George,” Harold said, using the common greeting of many laypersons in this inner-city church for their ministers, “I need to talk with you a minute.”

“Harold, I have to get upstairs to handle the youth,” I pled.

“This won’t take a minute. I just need to tell you one thing.”

“Go ahead.”

“I don’t want to be part of that team you organized anymore. I just don’t agree with what you and Brother Robert are trying to do. It’s costing the church money we don’t have. It’s making a mess of the building. Me and my boys are having to work harder to clean up the place.”

The Standards

One of the things that gave Harold power and influence around the church was that, in addition to being a member and leader, he was the church custodian at night and on the weekend. On Sunday he was the chairperson of the ushers.

During the weekday, Harold was a laborer for the local power company. He had never finished high school, dropping out of school by the time he turned 16. He married by 18.

He and his wife, Inez, had three adult children and several grandchildren. He needed all the money he could get to pay his bills. Also, his daughter’s husband often did not work. He was helping his grandchildren with the extra money he made at church.

The Schedule

The new community ministries held in the church building were disrupting Harold’s weekly cleaning schedule. He and his boys were having to come back an extra night for no extra pay.

The “boys” were neighborhood teenagers he paid a small amount of cash to do a lot of the work. His boys had complained, and now he was complaining.

The toughest part was that he and his boys were having to come by the church after Harold got home from work on Tuesday. Community ministry activities that day required custodial services to put the fellowship hall in shape for Wednesday night supper and activities.

Every Tuesday and Saturday night, Harold, his wife, his children, their spouses, and his grandchildren went to wras’lin at the coliseum. Not wrestling, but wras’lin.

This was long before the World Wrestling Federation [WWF]—now WWE—but it was exactly the type of wrestling Harold and his family enjoyed. They thought it was real. They may still think so.

They attended it faithfully. Except for Harold and Inez, the rest of the family attended it more religiously than they did church.

Harold and Inez found time for both. But wrestling did take priority over any conflicting church meetings on Tuesday and Saturday nights. Harold would always tell me who would be locking up the church that night because he would be at the coliseum.

My wife and I loved wrestling nights. At the same time, we hated wrestling. What we loved was that on Tuesdays and Saturdays Inez would make homemade soup or chili.

She needed a quick meal to give the whole family before they left for wrestling. As they left for the coliseum, Harold would run by the parsonage—about a block from his house—and give us a large jar of soup or chili.

We never knew what was coming. We always enjoyed it. My wife did not cook anything those nights, knowing the soup or chili was coming.

One Tuesday night Harold was late, and we fixed sandwiches. We were hungry and had somewhere to go that night. Harold could see our dining room table from the front door. When he brought the soup and saw we had eaten, he became offended.

We did not get any soup or chili for a month until we mended our relationship with them. I think they told everyone in the church about it.

Harold was seen as a strong leader of our church, among many circles of influence. When he talked, certain people listened.

I should have kept that in mind when Harold told me that he would not serve on the community ministry team anymore. But it had already been a long Sunday. I was in a hurry, and Harold ignited my reptilian brain.

Besides, as I later told myself, I was only 22 years old, and I had not learned wiser ways to handle such situations. After his comments about the team and the community ministries, I just let him have it.

The Push Back

“Harold, it is people like you who are going to kill this church. Without an aggressive new involvement in the community, this church will continue dwindling in membership, attendance, and vitality,” I practically screamed at him.

And I did not stop there. I kept coming at him verbally. But what confused me was the more I came at him, the more he smiled.

Without touching him, I was backing him up to where he almost fell over a chair behind him. I had lost it. I was bewildered by his response.

“O.K., O.K.,” he said. “I give up. I will stay on the team. But I am not going to let that woman talk to me like that.”

Whoa! I got it. Now I understood. His trouble was not with anything he had said up to this point. His trouble was with Wendy.

During the team gathering, he and Wendy had been sitting next to each other. Harold said something very funny. All of us laughed. When Wendy laughed, she slapped Harold’s knee and said, “That was so funny. It sounds just like something my husband would say.”

Well, Wendy’s husband was an alcoholic. Harold was not going to be called a drunk by that woman.

With that out of Harold’s mouth, we could now discuss the real issues. Harold stayed on the team. He also continually brought up concerns. It was up to me to figure out what was really going on with him. Generally, it was something we could resolve.

Harold and I became good friends. We just agreed to disagree in certain areas. Because of his respect for aggressive actions in men, even wrestlers, he liked the fact I stood up to him.

That all happened two years before Harold confronted me about lying to him and the church. A lot had changed over those two years.

Robert had moved to another church as pastor. The church had called me as pastor. I had continued Robert’s leadership approach.

The community ministry programs had worked. Statistically and financially, the congregation had stabilized. In fact, it had begun to experience numerical and spiritual growth.

It was not an easy church, but it was a fulfilling and challenging church to serve. Harold was not the only one who had confronted me in hallways over the past two years.

With changes had also come inevitable seasons of conflict. With the reshuffling of the church culture, new leaders had emerged, and new patterns of life and ministry had developed.

People who did not easily or happily embrace the changes had found their way to my office door or caught me in the hallway. It was to be expected.

I was not, however, prepared to be confronted as a liar by Harold. I was even less prepared for what he said next.

The Breakthrough Announced

I hesitated as all these things ran through my mind when Harold accused me of being a liar. Harold continued his confrontation when I did not quickly respond.

Then he shocked me.

“No, we did all these things because that is what the love of Jesus would have us do. Right?”

Harold said this and ended with a boyish smile that showed wonderment and begged for a response.

I was amazed. After a few seconds where I froze in disbelief, I moved toward Harold and hugged him.

“Yes. Yes. You get it,” I said. “It is all about the love of Jesus. It is all about being salt and light to the world around us. It is all about losing ourselves in ministry service to others so we might live again as a congregation.”

With his hard exterior, Harold had a soft heart that also knew good and loving things. He was in communion with our Lord. He did get it.

At that moment Harold was the best news in our church. He had made a breakthrough discovery.

Harold was the first layperson who was captivated by the emerging vision God had for the church. He was the first person able to say it was not only about survival but also about love and service.

We he got it, the zeal for a new sense of spiritual direction spread like a line of falling dominoes when the first one was tipped over.

No matter how much the ministers pushed a new vision, it was ineffective until the laity were captivated by it. Robert knew that. I knew that.

Two years earlier Robert as pastor had sought to teach and preach the motivation of the love of Jesus. But his messages fell on deaf ears.

His message changed when he realized the Maslow-like hierarchy of needs in the congregation meant the church members could only hear survival. When he suggested survival as a motivation, the congregation joyfully embraced that goal.

It fit their view of their church. They were finally ready to follow Robert’s leadership.

In fact, the chairperson of the pastor search committee that recommended Robert as pastor said that he was the only one of nine candidates who did not tell them to close the church. That is why they called him as pastor.

The Discovery Shared

After Harold’s declaration, I began to preach on a community servanthood vision. Many laypersons who began to express passionate support for the emerging vision, began to fall into place in support of the emerging vision.

Dialogue became empowering about new or renewed programs, ministries, and activities. Church leadership and decision-making became easier. The openness to engaging in community ministries increased.

The vision results were obvious. Vital signs such as church attendance and finances increased. A strong sense of fellowship arose in the church. People were proud of their church.

Spirituality also began to increase among the members. A better understanding was obvious as to why love is the character and nature of a vibrant church. Leaders emerged from the congregation where leadership had not previous been expressed.

Harold, who was already seen as a working leader, was now seen as a spiritual leader. Within a year he was asked to be a deacon in the church.

The Sunday he was ordained into this role was one of those never-to-be-forgotten experiences. His humility and the seriousness with which he took his role pointed to a person who had experienced a breakthrough discovery.

This was not a permanent solution for this church. It did not guarantee continual, vital life and ministry.

But Harold’s breakthrough discovery symbolized a fresh experience of God’s presence in this church. It provided hope to a group of people who could only see survival. It provided meaning to a church that was afraid it had lost meaning. It initiated a new set of memories people have permanently carried with them about what it is like to be church.