More than 1,500 church leaders gathered for rest, encouragement, and a challenge, Feb. 22-25, at the 2006 National Pastor's Convention in San Diego. It was a few days off from the daily challenges of ministry in order to hear the greater call of ministry, again. Ironically, that big calling has everything to do with becoming very, very small.

Speakers William Willimon and Dallas Willard called pastors to tap into the paradoxical power of the gospel that calls for exalting Christ in human weakness.

Willimon, who served 20 years as a professor of Christian ministry and dean of Duke University Chapel, is now presiding bishop of the Birmingham area of the United Methodist Church and an author. He spoke in the opening session of the conference, relating how the story of Nicodemus in the Gospel of John calls ministers to "smallness."

"This is the only place in the entire Scriptures that Jesus tells anybody you must be born again," Willimon said. "And the only person he says that to is a church official, a leader, somebody who looks like me, a pastor."

Willimon said because ministry defies the logic of the world, church leaders should strive for something other than prestige, high position and stability.

"You work with Jesus and everybody's going to get to be small someday. And that violates what we think we want."

Willimon went on to say that the Holy Spirit in ministry is more important than stability—something he confessed motivated him to enter the profession. The mystery of God's presence and the idea of becoming like children in order to enter the kingdom are the mysterious ideas that preachers should embrace, Willimon said.

"You never get so old or so proficient in this faith that you don't need to be knocked down and born again one more time."

Dallas Willard

Dallas Willard also spoke about the battle of the flesh in ministry. During a morning devotion at the conference, Willard, author and professor in the school of philosophy at University of Southern California in Los Angeles, talked about the Apostle Paul's battles with the flesh.

"Avoid the temptation of thundering judgment that comes to mind when you read these verses," Willard said.

"The old song says cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women. I want to tell you that's not the danger Paul's talking about here." That type of sin wouldn't mock God, Willard explained, since it is part of the order of the world. "God wouldn't have to get you, the cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women would."

He looked at Galatians 6 with a new challenge to church leaders to read it keeping in mind the more subtle temptations of prestige that infect the ministry.

"The flesh that is really dangerous is nice flesh," Willard said. That he categorized as "things that your mama's proud you got and things that when you apply for a position they ask about."

Willard didn't completely condemn a good resume and education. "I'm not opposed to niceness, I'm opposed to trusting it," he said.

Instead he advocated trusting the Spirit at work in life in events that would be humanly impossible. He said this is accomplished through a close relationship with God through Christ, Emmanuel. This is how Paul could boast in his weakness as a place where Christ was strongest, according to Willard.

He read 2 Corinthians 12:10, "Therefore I'm well content with weaknesses, insults …" (ASV)

"Boy that sounds like church life doesn't it?" Willard joked. The few hundred who had gathered for the morning devotion with him laughed together.

He challenged the leaders to read the Galatians 6 passage in the context of church life as well, and with a 21st Century cultural update. "What is circumcision in your context?" he asked. "Probably not circumcision. But what are the things that are human contrivances that are laid on you?

"What is the law that tempts me to sew to the flesh in my service to Christ and prevents the resurrection light of Jesus from flowing all around me to those to whom I minister?"

Both Willard and Willimon called for church leaders to become less. "You're here to get a grip on ministry and to get better at it," Willimon said. "And Jesus responds to us [that] you're going to get to look infantile sooner or later."

Willard also spoke about the necessity of weakness and the strength therein through the gospel. "I've been campaigning recently for people who introduce speakers to tell all the bad things about them," he said, smiling. "Then when they are weak, they are strong."

Will Willimon

Willimon suggested that this enigmatic message of the gospel also has to do with the mystery of God's Spirit wind or nooma.

"All of us Bible explainers, miracle managers, Spirit stabilizers," Willimon said, "be careful. That nooma can blow through your ministry before you know what hit you."