Stanley Hauerwas, Working with Words: On Learning to Speak Christian (Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2011), 322 pages, ISBN 9781608999682.

I recommend this book to all Christians, and especially to those in pastoral and the theological vocations. Like his other publications, the Duke Divinity School professor of ethics and theology asks poignant hermeneutical and theological questions pertaining to Christian discipleship and witness. In Working With Words, Hauerwas shares his vision, approach, and experience as a pastor-theologian writing for the Christian public. His goal is to paint a vision of God with discipleship and witness in mind. And because he addresses life’s puzzling complexities honestly, this volume will be a good companion to his Hannah’s Child, a memoir of his theological autobiography.

The book has three parts, and Hauerwas writes seven essays for each section. Most of the essays are either public lectures or church sermons that he had shared in recent years. A few other essays fill the gaps for this compilation. Part 1 addresses disciplines for those learning to speak about God. These disciplines include reading, hearing, seeing and naming God amidst evil. Part 2 explains the Christian language of love for a) dealing with greed, b) discerning the Christian body, c) engaging the reality of “finite care[s] in a world of infinite need” (154) and d) explaining what it means for the church to be on a mission. In Part 3, Hauerwas co-writes (with a few theologians) on the lessons he had learned from some of his teachers. These teachers are political philosopher Charles Taylor, political activist-theologian Richard Niebuhr, and philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre. He also include a chapter examining the friendship between political pastor-theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Eberhard Bethge, and a few chapters explaining some of the virtues that underwrites medieval thinker Thomas Aquinas’s writing of Summa Theologicae, contemporary Catholic Social Teaching, and contemporary Methodist theological ethics.

My story starts when I turned awkwardly to look at the new score board in the nearby University Arena, someplace where we have regularly attended various athletic events for the past 17 years. Our current season started in August, and we were there. The announcer was introducing the glorious new score board, and the thousands in attendance all looked at it as the lights came on. I was sitting directly under and somewhat to the side of the new score board, and when I stretched my neck to see it I knew right away I had hurt myself.

That was eight months ago, and I have struggled with my neck and the discomfort it has since presented everyday. I have been to all kinds of doctors and trainers, prayed for relief as have others on my behalf, and while I am somewhat better, I have not had complete deliverance from my woes. I simply hurt all the time, just a dull ache that transverses my shoulders and my neck. The pain never goes totally away.

The discomfort climaxed in January when my wife took me to the ER around 1:00 AM one night. They took some X-rays, gave me an injection of morphine, a prescription for valium, and sent us home where I slept for two weeks. As that season came to an end, I found that I had lost all my leg strength, and that I could not stand. My balance was gone, and I was in danger of falling— I did fall five times.

I weigh more than I should, and more than my wife can lift, so she needed help to get me upright or seated. My wife somehow came up with two men to lift me each time I fell. She followed that up with a wheel chair, then a walker as I started to improve, a chair for the shower and a cane. Now I walk almost like I always did.

My plight meant I needed help for the simplest things, and I watched with gratitude and admiration as my wife assumed the responsibility to provide all I needed. That included getting into the shower with me and washing me. This went on for three or four weeks.

We have been married a long time, and I wondered what I would have done without my bride who took care of me with a tender grace—an expression of care that meant I was important. Jesus told us about the difference between a shepherd and a hireling. I get to talk to people about their lives and marriages, and I have experienced the value of a spouse who cares. We have one daughter who lives on the island near us, and she told me that she thought she was losing her dad, that I was on my deathbed. My wife told me she too believed that I was dying.

God was gracious, and has restored me almost back to where I was before they lit up that scoreboard. While I now expect full restoration, I experienced some significant learning in this incident.

I learned how valuable, wonderful and good it is to have someone who cares for you when you are down, when there is a crisis and you need help. I urge you not to wait until crisis comes, but to begin to express that caring for your spouse starting right now and by so doing, to build a relationship that will reward both of you all day everyday.

Bill Hull, “It’s Just Not Working” Leadership (Summer 2005), pages 26-28.

Bill Hull challenges the philosophical foundation upon which many ministries are based. We live today in a world where the church attendance number—that one number—allegedly speaks volumes about that church, its leaders, and its mission. The undue importance of that number should be seriously questioned.

Many pastors today, including myself, struggle with the ideals emphasized by the megachurch movement that has spread over the last two decades. Viewing church size alone as an indicator of success is a deception planted in minds of church leaders by a spiritual being who wishes to see the body of Christ fall.

We were stuck in the same rut that so many churches find themselves in—religious activity without real transformation.

It is refreshing to hear a leader such as Bill openly admit the spiritual struggles facing many church leaders. It is inspiring to listen to his story unfold as he makes commitments to change his philosophy and not go back. That is an example many of us younger pastors need. I applaud Bill Hull for accepting his internal struggle and working through it at a time when many leaders simply rely on the external trappings of success. To embrace the truth and commit to change may bring challenges and uncertainties, but it also transforms.

Bill’s main question to contemporary ministries is why? Why do we do what we do? Why do we do it the way we do? I can personally point to many instances where the church I serve in struggles to make disciples versus administrating programs intended to do just that. Let me give an example. There is a man who I’ll call Bob who has attended church for years with his wife and kids. He is a leader in the church that has served on committees. He and his wife are involved in Sunday worship services and his kids have attended youth programs since birth. And then all of a sudden his wife left him. They are now divorced and their teenage kids are left with a shaky spiritual foundation at best.

How does this happen? How does a family have so many “externals” going for them and yet fail to live like Christ? Bill Hull explains, “I told [my] church that the Great Commission is more about depth than strategy, and being spiritually transformed is the primary and exclusive work of the church. I told them believing the right things is not enough – being a Christian means actually following Jesus.”

We have lost this. The church has traded in the life that Christ calls us to live for an outward image. A family involved in the externals of church service and pew sitting can still lack the life of Christ within. A family that honors Christ is stronger than any other.