A Good Shepherd

I received news this week that Joe Vitunic, pastor of Church of the Savior in Ambridge, Pa., was leaving the church he started more than 20 years ago. He was leaving, he wrote, because he did not think he was the right person to lead the church forward. It was sad news for me.

When I first walked in the door of Church of the Savior, in Ambridge, Pa., seven years ago, I was, frankly, sick of the institutional church, the Episcopalian variety in particular.

I had walked out of my Episcopal parish back in Denver about a year earlier and found respite for a time (too short a time) in a small Vineyard fellowship tucked away in a rented room at a local community center and run by a small group of lay people. But my then wife was accepted to Trinity Seminary in Ambridge that same year, so I had recently arrived with my family in the Pittsburgh area. My wife was expected to find a place to minister with an Episcopal Church during her two-year educational stint, but I had I doubted I could join her. After visiting a handful of them, I was moving beyond doubt to certainty. I was weary, angry, lonely, confused, defensive, depressed ... and desperate for a touch of the Holy Spirit.

We had dinner one night with another seminary family, and as we discussed the possibilities for church involvement and I whined about my misgivings, they suggested I try Joe Vitunic's curch. With great misgivings, I did, and oh, the difference, the difference to me.

In another life, Joe had been an engineer and had built a fairly comfortable life, but instead of reveling in his career prospects, he found himself restless, dissatisfied. He couldn't shake the idea that he was called to something more. At a time when most young families are remodeling that house they intend to raise the kids in and socking away that nest egg to retire comfortably on, Joe and Cindy began to pray about it, and not long afterward put every last penny they had into Joe's seminary education.

Joe had a soft spot for kids. While at seminary, he and a friend started a children's after-school ministry in what little time they had to spare from their studies. It was no big deal. By his own admission, Joe was no great shakes at organization and administration. He had no long range plan, no mission statement, no three-step program for growth of a future citywide youth program. Joe had some hand puppets and used them to tell the kids stories. That was pretty much it. But the little ministry grew. The word got around. Weary moms who dropped their kids off mostly to get a break began to realize there was more to Joe than a child care provider. After the first week of being dragged in the door, the kids were suddenly excited about going. (Hurry up Mom, we'll be late!")

Some of these awestruck moms started sticking around after, to find out who this guy was. He got to know them and soon spent time visiting their homes. People began asking him when he was going to start his church. This took Joe completely by surprise. It had never occurred to him. Besides, a seminarian walking out of school and just starting a church was ... well, the nicest way to put it was that it might be considered a bit presumptuous. There was a process. Things had to be done the way they had always been done. Graduating seminarians didn't start at the top. They became deacons, for at least a year, and then could be ordained and become lowly curates, and then, someday, if they behaved themselves and stayed on the good side of the local bishop, they might be called to a church as a rector. But Joe and Cindy prayed about it. And by the time Joe graduated, he and Cindy were hosting a fledgling, albeit unofficial, fellowship in their living room.

But it was time for the new graduate to take his place in the hierarchical pecking order. If he was to support his family (having exhausted all his resources to get through seminary) he'd have to get a job. But what was he to do with his little flock? He and Cindy began to pray and decidd to talk to the Bishop. Wonder of wonders, by very special arrangement, the Bishop took the unprecedented step of granting provisional recognition to his little group in Ambridge as an official Episcopal church.

At that time, churches on the cutting edge of church growth were checking in with George Barna, reading their Ralph Winter and were just about to start climbing on the "purpose driven" bandwagon with Bill Hybels and the Willow Creek "seeker-sensitive" movement. But Joe wasn't much of a theorist. He had no gift for marketing. Joe's concept of ministry was pretty simple. He thought he was the seeker. So he simply spent his days walking the streets of Ambridge, seeking the lost sheep. He'd hit all the cafes, coffee shops, donut emporiums, gas stations, pizza dives and other places people congregated, befriending anyone who'd return his "Hi, my name's Joe." In time, he led many of those he befriended to the Lord for the first time ... or back for a second or third try. Then he led in them worship and the Eucharist each Sunday. And his little flock quickly outgrew his living room and began to meet in the local armory.

Joe and Cindy had a novel approach to social action, too. Around the corner from the old home they lived in was a notorious Ambridge bar. Back when the steel mills had blackened the cityscape along the Ohio river, Ambridge had been the "company town" for the American Bridge Co., which had built many of the bridges in the Pittsburgh area. When the steel industry abandoned Steel Town USA, and bridge builders turned to concrete, Ambridge had plummeted into an economic depression from which it is still trying to recover. (The remains of American Bridge now sit rusting and silent in the middle of the town, right next to the seminary.) Steel workers, a hard drinking lot even when they were working, added brawling to the mix as the mills began to close down. And Ambridge became a sometimes dangerous place to be, especially at night.

One night, a brawl that started in the street almost engulfed several visiting family members as they tried to get past the bar, which stood in the path between the only available parking places and the Vitunic home. Joe and Cindy decided the bar had to go. Did they picket? Petition City Hall? Stand on the street corner and shout "Repent"? No, Joe wasn't much of a politician and hadn't the heart for confrontation. So he and Cindy decided to ... yep, pray. Everyday, they simply asked that God would shut the bar and open people's hearts to Himself. Long after anyone with sense would have given up, God answered their prayers: The bar closed, the brawling stopped and the neighborhood began to slowly brighten up.

Well, Joe walked around, met people, befriended them and the church kept getting bigger. When it outgrew the armory, the seminary graciously offered Joe the use of its chapel. Before long, they outgrew the chapel and, primarily because Joe was one of their own, the seminary permitted Church of the Savior to meet in the school's much larger Great Hall. Joe wasn't much of a CEO/manager or delegater. Until his first heart attack, he was there early each Sunday with the set up crew, coat off, tie loose, helping to take down tables and get 300 or so chairs set up on time for the service. Most everyone who placed a bottom in one of those chairs was either someone Joe had met walking around or someone who knew someone Joe had met.

Joe wasn't much of a recruiter, either. He wouldn't have dreamed of strong arming anyone into serving the church. But he really wanted to add some music to their times of worship. So Joe just began praying for some musicians. For a long year, their singing at the armory was accompanied by an accordionist whose skills were legendary (but not in a good way). But Joe continued to pray. When I got there, they had two almost complete eight or nine piece worship bands -- keyboards, drums, singers, guitars, the works, capable of an extraordinary range of musical styles. All they were missing was a second bass player, so Stan, the lone bassist, could have a bye week once in a while. When I walked in the door, the band had been ... yes, praying about that. I introduced myself to the drummer one morning, and mentioned that I played bass ... a little. I was greeted, for the first time in my life, as an Answer to Prayer. Turns out, Stan had been "prayed in" as well. First rehearsal was very unusual. They worked hard on the music, but, about halfway through the allotted rehearsal time, they stopped and gathered for prayer. The prayer time went on longer than the rehearsal. We prayed for the worship of the church. We prayed for healing for team members. We invited God's Holy Spirit to come, then reveled in His Presence. But I digress.

No, Joe wasn't a therapist. When you went in to his office with a problem, you talked, and he mostly listened. He often apologized for not knowing what to do about the problem (he wasn't too big on authority) and suggested that he simply pray for healing. But you left lighter, freer, affirmed, understood and encouraged. Never judged, demeaned, categorized, pigeon-holed, discounted or labeled.

That's because Joe wasn't into control. There was no long list of rules about what was proper in the services. If someone stood to give a prophecy or speak in tongues, Joe would stop and wait for them to finish, then he'd ask if there were others. He'd wait quietly and patiently -- no expectantly -- for an interpretation. He'd repeat a prophecy respectfully (even the kinda questionable stuff), just in case someone hadn't been able to hear and sometimes expand on it, or stop for a time to pray it in. Sometimes he'd jettison his notes for his message and go with the prophetic message instead. One time, he stopped in the middle of a sermon to talk about his need to repent of something. By the time he was done, half the church had crowded to the front for prayer for their own repentance, in a service that went on until three in the afternoon. He would sometimes ask the band to continue the worship, because we weren't done yet, or call them up later for more. Or to repeat a song. And those people worshipped! In part, they did so because Joe, right there on the front row, so obviously gave himself to Jesus in worship. The Holy Spirit was in charge, and Joe was very hesitant to quench anything that might prove to be His divine activity.

Joe was not big on ceremony. There were no "bells and smells." No crucifer, no acolyte procession. Just Joe, standing at a plain wooden table, breaking bread, lifting the cup, speaking the words of the liturgy he'd read a thousand times as if he'd never heard them before and could scarcely take in their staggering significance. He made God's Word out of man's poetry, like a man drinking deeply from wells of Living Water. I had been in the Episcopal church for a number of years, but the liturgy had never had that kind of life-changing power until I heard it from Joe. When I received the bread and wine from Joe and his ministry team, I received the very Body and Blood.

And, as you might imagine, Joe was not big on titles. He wouldn't answer to "Father" and was mighty uncomfortable with the title "priest." While he was OK with Pastor Joe, just plain "Joe" was what most people called him.

Joe was the rarest of rare things, a good shepherd.

But sometimes, apparently, that's not enough. Just before I returned to Denver, the seminary had come under new leadership and decided to reclaim its Great Hall, and Church of the Savior was given a deadline to find another meeting place. After several false starts, the church managed to acquire an older property in Ambridge and slowly began to transform it into its permanent home. Joe had suffered from time to time in his life from depression and made no secret of it (one more reason I loved him) so the planning, organizing, fundraising, squabbling and just plain hassle involved in the transition took its toll. Finally, Joe had a second heart attack, and had to take a sabbatical. But not too long ago, Church of the Savior cut the ribbon on its new sanctuary, and Joe was there to preside. It's incomprehensible that he's leaving the church he helped birth and nurtured through its youth and teenage years.

Frankly, I suspect that Joe's just too nice to say that he's been chased out.

Maybe a changing of the guard is in order. Maybe Church of the Savior needs a Strong Hand, a Planner, a Strategist, a CEO at the helm to give it a Vision and Purpose and Organize and Martial its Resources for the Future. That's the driving force these days. But it will be losing a true Prophet, Priest, Apostle, Teacher, Evangelist and Father.

That's not my idea of a good trade.