An interview with Rev. Maxie Dunnam to discuss his new book, a life of intentionality, remaining spontaneous, and going beyond our comfort zone.

How has 2020/2021 treated you?

2020 or 2021?

Yes.

Listen, it's been a terrible, terrible time in so many ways, but it's been a good time in so many ways. I think none of us, and I'm probably the oldest one that'll be in this conversation; I’ve never gone through a period of my life that was even comparable to this period with the impact of the virus. And I don't think we're at the end of that. I think there are going to be implications and results that we don't know yet. I think in the bad and the good we're mixed. I think it was good that some of us learned to be quiet and to be alone and isolated. One of the common fears of us humans is solitude.

Most of us are not comfortable in solitude, and we can talk about that in a lot of ways as it relates to spirituality because who we are is so important. We discover who we are better in solitude than we do in any other way. So there were a lot of good things about it, and not just the solitude part, but being attentive to others. I know that my wife, Jerry, and I, got in touch with people by phone during that period of time in a regular way that we had not been as consistent without the pressure of the virus. So that was another good thing that happened.

I don't know whether I'd describe it as a bad thing or not, but I think one of the negative aspects of it was that we probably did not use the occasion to be productive. We see that it didn't help us educationally in public education, especially when children were kept out of school for such a long length of time. Not only in terms of missing out on learning but also relationships. In our growing up years, we do need relationships.

And it's not over. I think we all need to pay attention. What is it that we can learn from this? What do we need to do? What do we need to cease doing to make this the most creative time we can make of it?

I think you're right. What did the Lord speak to you in 2020 that helped you get through it?

Early in the time, knowing that I was going to be shut in, I decided that I would use that time to try to really listen to the Lord. This reflects who I am and what I believe. But I listened to the Lord through Scripture, but I also listened to the Lord through the writings of other people.

I did a practice a long time ago, what I call keeping company with the Saints. I decided to live with some of those Saints during this period of isolation. In the Upper Room, published a little box of books, in fact, I call it, my box of Saints, and they took 28 writers, people whose thoughts and writings have survived and have been helpful to all Christians for centuries.

They selected 28 writers and did little pamphlets with some of their writings. I've been living with those during this time. The big thing the Lord said to me is that ‘Maxie you've been too dependent on what you can do and your activity, and you need to spend the rest of your life being more selective in what you do and how you do it.’ I'm a very active person, I'm a workaholic, and the Lord just says, you got to slow down.

This will sound strange, I'm now 87 years old, and my health will probably make me slow down, but the Lord was saying something different than that. He said, I don't want you to slow down because of your age, I don't want you to slow down because of your physical situation, I want you to deliberately slow down and be more intentional in both what you do and how you relate. That was a big thing. That was a big thing that I've been learning during this period.

It's impressive the distractions that we've encountered in our modern age. At night, I have to make a very intentional effort to put down my devices, stop working and spend time with my wife, or be more intentional about what I do at night. It's incredible where we are now. Then moments like that, where God is like, you have to stop, stay still and listen to me?

Yeah. I think that is a good reminder about the whole of life because my wife and I have always sought to be very deliberate in our sharing and even with the rearing of our children. It's not easy to find the time when you focus in a spiritual way. And we practiced all sorts of ways of trying to do that with our children. 

But in this pandemic period, we have deliberately had a very distinctive, at least 30 minutes, and sometimes it goes into an hour, of just the two of us being together in the early morning. That's a good lesson. And it's a good lesson for young people because being a parent and being a spouse are demanding. How you put those two things together to give the attention that’s needed. I need to give my wife, and my wife needs to give me the attention I need to give my children. You have to be specific and pay attention to the relationships of life that demand something from you.

Earlier, you talked about the purpose of intentionality and how important that is. I think something that we’re losing in our modern age is the lack of intentionality. We're so driven we often fail to see what's right in front of us.

You're right. You can live an intentional life and still be spontaneous, but I think we have to discipline ourselves for intentionality. Our personalities really do impact how we live life. Some people are naturally more loners. Some people are more naturally extroverts.  Whether we're an extrovert or an introvert should not rob us of relationship with others and relationship with the Lord. Our personalities may shape how we do that and how we practice that, but it should not determine whether we do. We do need to practice relationships with others and with the Lord. And our personality may shape how we do that, but whether we do it or not should not be impacted by them.

Can you tell me what you think is the difference between the intentionality of an extrovert and an introvert? How ones intentionality with other people, specifically relationships, would look like? 

Press on a little bit.

As an introvert, when I'm in a situation with many people it wears me out. The longer I'm in that situation, the more I want to retreat. In doing that, I may be missing opportunities, doors that the Lord has opened for me to build relationships. On a Friday night, after a long week of being in those scenarios, I'm going to want to be at home recovering and building back my strength. On the opposite side of that spectrum, you have extroverts who thrive in social situations and possibly negate their own health. What would be your advice to the introverts and the extroverts into building those relationships like that?

I need to share a little bit to share. I've always thought that I was an extrovert, but I've concluded that I'm far more an introvert than I thought I was. And my ‘extroverteness,’ if that's a word, really was developed because of my need to prove myself, to accomplish to do. 

I grew up in rather severe poverty culturally and educationally, and I felt less than, and that's the worst way a person can feel. And I sought to make up for my less than by being overly assertive in my relationships and in my involvements. I've never said this before, but I think I have lived my life as an extrovert really. And now I'm finding that I really will live my life as an introvert.

Getting back to your specific thing, it's a matter of intentionality. I think the introvert has to be sacrificial, more sacrificial than the extrovert in terms of how his time or her time is spent. As an introvert, you have to make a sacrifice on behalf of others and give yourself to them in a sacrificial way. Whereas I need to make a sacrifice, or, the way I've acted in the past, and keeping myself to myself more, people don't need as much of Maxie as I thought they did. 

I've not reflected on this a whole lot, but I do think that our personality styles are who we are, and especially in this introvert, extrovert tension, I do think that can be shaped by discipline, and how that's expressed can be shaped by discipline. I think that the introvert has to be maybe more sacrificial than an extrovert because it's going to take more energy for you to engage in a significant way than it might take for me to engage.

It may take more energy for me to back away and deal with the other person more a chance to express themselves. To try to find that balance really takes discipline, and intentionality, what we were talking about a little while ago. Neither my wife nor I would be an extrovert. We were both extrovert-ish. Again, I don't know whether that's a word or not, but we don't have problems relating. 

For most of our lives, socially, I've been seen as the extrovert, and she has been seen as the more reserved, not really as an introvert, but far more reserved. What's happening now, though, is that that is reversed, socially, she has become the more expressive, and I have become the less expressive.

I'm not sure that that's been deliberate on our part. I haven't thought a lot about it, except I have observed that that has happened. And whether my just backing away has given her an opportunity to emerge may really be the case, but it's not been intentional on either of our parts, really.

Tell me how much of this extrovert-ness that you had in your earlier life. Do you feel this was required for your job? As a pastor and a leader, do you feel it was required of you to be an extrovert

That really is a good question because I do think that being a pastor does require deliberate, intentional relational effort. I think that, maybe, I became more of an extrovert than I needed to be because I felt I needed to do what you're saying. I believe that a considerable part of the role of a pastor is communication and sharing. And how we share is almost as important as what we share. I've had to pay a lot of attention to not sharing too much to shape the way I share or the way I've failed to allow others to share.

Because, again, I do think one of the primary, and I can't emphasize this too much, one of the primary needs is for the pastor to listen and be quiet and to talk just enough for the other person to be able to share however they want to share. The pastor has to learn a lot about talking and listening, speaking and hearing. We don't teach that in the seminary, but we should. I don't know, but I think I'm probably a better listener now than I was 50 years ago.

I want to go back to something you talked about earlier. You mentioned growing up in poverty and how you feel a lot of your life was shaped around proving that you could be more. You hear a lot of the success stories similar to that. ‘I came up in poverty, and all I wanted to do is be wealthy,’ or ‘my music teacher said I couldn't sing, so I just wanted to be a singer even more’—things like that. What does that mean to you? Can you elaborate on that desire to prove that you were more than what your upbringing?

Yeah. Thank you. That dynamic, and I'll try to address that dynamic in a specific kind of way related to my own experience. We lived way out in the country in rural Mississippi. Our social contacts were not as eminent, and often, and ready as they are living in a more populated area. 

The second thing is that our material situation was very, very, very limited. What began to happen to me, and I do believe this was the movement of the Lord in my life, and I'm just forever grateful, but I expressed it in a negative way. It became clear to me, even in my mid-teens, that I really did not want to spend my life in that setting. I wanted to get out of there.

And it wasn't just money or material things. It was education. There was no tradition of education in my family because it was culture. There was no tradition of a broad cultural experience. I felt I needed to get out of there. And I think for a long time, I went to the extreme in expressing that. I can't ever remember deciding how I want to be a success. There wasn't enough positive on what I wanted to be. There was too much of what I didn't want to be. I think that's a crucial thing. What I've learned through the years is that my not thinking I was worthy that flowed out of those economic and social circumstances really is pretty present in all of humankind.

I think a lot of us, no matter what our background has been, are constantly thinking we have to prove ourselves. Whether it's to prove ourselves worthy or to prove ourselves as a success, we're always competing to prove ourselves. A part of the dynamic of that is that we simply haven't accepted ourselves, but more... Well, I don't know whether I will say this, I'll go ahead and say it... but more important than that is to know that we are already accepted. We are already approved. God created us. God loves us. God accepts us. That's what should underscore for ourselves internally our worth.

I don't know where this fits into your question or not, but I do think that we have had, and probably continue to have, too much emphasis on ‘success.’ We define that too much in terms of material things. I don't know whether we'll ever overcome that or not, but I think that we need to have a lot of conversation about it. 

You talked about that feeling of not feeling worthy and how that stayed with you for so long. As a pastor, how long did that emotion stay? Is that something you were able to sort out early in your ministry, or is it something that you struggle with even to this day?

I struggled with that for years. Naturally at my age, I'm reflecting on all of that and I'm not sure whether there came a time in my life when that changed. I'm not sure. It certainly didn't come at a specific time in a specific way. It was a process. 

I think what saved me in some mysterious way; my life has been ordered around different challenges that have come to me to serve in capacities that I was really ill-equipped for. The Lord has given me the grace to accept three or four of those. I've accepted ministry causes for which I was not equipped, and that forced me just to serve in whatever resources I had to serve. Whatever ‘success’ has been mine, that's been the reason for it. 

I think there've been two big ones. The first big one of those was when I was invited to join the staff of The Upper Room. The Upper Room is a devotional guide, that back during my days, had four billion readers in 30 different languages. They wanted to develop a fellowship of prayer among as many of these readers as they could, by providing resources in that area of prayer and spiritual formation. Well, they called me and wanted me to interview for that job.

I told them the fact that they were interviewing me to work in the area of prayer showed what a desperate position the church was in [laughs]. I prayed, but I was not a proficient prayer type. I was compelled to accept that responsibility knowing that I wasn't capable of it. That's when I began to keep company with the saints, what I mentioned a while ago, to just immerse myself in all the writings of these people that would have been considered spiritual giants. 

That period of time, ten years, was a huge shaping time in my life. Out of that period of time came... Well, I'll just say this, I think if anybody ever assesses my contribution to the whole church I think they'll say that my most significant contribution is The Workbook of Living Prayer that I wrote.

The reason I did that is I discovered that I could read a hundred books on prayer and still not pray. I felt I needed to have something very elementary and practical to really teach me and assist me in developing a life of prayer. I was guided by the holy spirit. That’s how The Workbook of Living Prayer came to be. That was a very shaping thing. I'm getting too reflective now, but this addresses what I'm about to say addresses this whole discussion.

I didn't know how they got my name or how they ever called me in the first place. I didn't even know who they were. I learned later that the head of the Board of Evangelism of what was then the Methodist Church in which The Upper Room was connected had mentored a young man in the ministry. The church invited 15 or 20 young ministers to go on evangelistic crusades in Mexico, and they invited me to do that. Five of us were sent to Monterey, Mexico, and one of those was a young man that this senior guy at the Board of Evangelism had shared with him in his answering the call to preach and cultivated that call. And so when this job opened at The Upper Room in the area of prayer, the senior man, Ira Gallaway, just asked people he knew who they would recommend for this job.

He asked his young colleague, who would you recommend for this job? And it was this young man that had shared with me in this week-long evangelism crusade in Mexico. Just that little thing. I would not have been thrust into that position had it not been that incidental thing. 

I say all that to say; it doesn't matter who we are. The level and I use that word to advise at any level, at the level we're functioning, we never know the tremendous contribution we're making. To know that that guy, that young guy, saw something in me that caused him to recommend me for that job. That's one of the most significant things in my life. I think, in the strange way my mind works, that told me I don't have to question my worth.

I don't have to question my worth. I just need to be who I am and use the gifts that God has given me and be faithful to whatever call comes my way. This may be a distorted notion on my part, but I think it's been a long time since I tried to prove myself to anybody. 

The second big thing is, when I was serving at Christ Church Memphis and was invited to become the President of the [Asbury] Seminary, I really am not an academic. I mean, I'm not, and I really don't have a good classic education. The college that I went to was not one of the great universities. For me to be the president of the seminary, I thought, ‘that's a joke.’ But again, people who obviously knew more than I did insist. What made the difference in my life at that particular point, I didn't want to leave Christ Church. I was extremely happy there.

We had a great, great ministry. But one of the trustees of Asbury was a pastor and a friend, and he said, ‘Maxie, your ministry at Christ Church is a ministry of addition. Your ministry of the seminary will be a ministry of multiplication.’ That turned the tide.

But again, and this just as a reflection of my relationship to my wife, she felt that it was a good time before I did, that I really should accept that call. She felt it was the right thing before I did. And that's a good thing that is shared in that fashion

You talked about how God has provided you with opportunities that were larger than what you felt equipped to handle. What is your encouragement for anyone who’s in a situation where they feel they're in over their head, or God has called them to something that's greater to them? 

Two things, the first one is respect for who you are, and believe in yourself. You are more than you think you are. The second thing is, be willing to take a risk without the certainty of success. Just looking in the face, and don't think that you have to have all the ducks in the row. Be willing to take a risk, but you don't have to be reckless in that. Explore as much as you can, but you're never going to have all the answers

It goes back to what we were saying that you can still be intentional and spontaneous. 

Exactly. I think that... And I don't quite know how to put this. I guess that there would be a little bit of sense of recklessness said at times in my moves, but I don't want this to be too simplistic. I do think that we have to be as sensitive and as aware as we possibly can be to how the contribution we might make to God. That doesn't have to be in ministry, it doesn't have to be a pastor, and the contribution we can make as humankind because all of us need to make some sort of contribution. I believe that we can make a contribution no matter what our vocation and our profession are. We ought to always be a question in our decision making. Can I mean as much to other people, to my family, and to God in this call that is coming to me as I have now? And if we think we can, then that's a part of the arsenal that sends us in a particular direction.

I liked how you talked about how it doesn't matter our location. It doesn't matter who we are, and any difference we make can be small or large. Something that often gets overlooked is that even the small things in life go a long way. Can you talk about how you think, even the small things in life, God can use those, and it doesn't have to be grand gestures?

Well, the illustration that little things, the guy that nobody knows who that guy was that recommended me to go to The Upper Room, but a million people have used The Workbook of Living Prayer, but that never would have come had it not been for that little act of that guy. You can't measure it all by, and I hate to use the word, how important it is. That's not the way to put it, how significant it seems in the way we measure things because some things are not seen as significant as they should be. And I don't know how I would have operated in the secular world in terms of profession and vocation.

So much of my life has been in a structure that I did not determine. When I think about that now, that's not far into where you are and where the person that's coming out of law school. Systems determine a lot about how we move about vocationally and responding. I do believe, and I'm sure I could be refuted by others on this, I do believe that God can guide us no matter in what vocation we are, if we're seeking to live for God and if we're willing to be submissive to him and to his will.

As we wrap up, I want to talk about your new book, Saints Alive, that came out this summer. You've talked a little bit about it throughout this discussion. So can you tell me a little bit more about where the idea for Saints Alive originate?

Yeah, that's related to the virus that we talked about early on. What happened was that the first shut down when this virus started, and we were told to stay in and not move about. I decided that I would be very deliberate and revisit some of these saints that had been important to me through the years. The 29 of those little booklets that were published by The Upper Room in a box set that I keep in my study for the last 30 years. 

Well, I decided that since I was going to be more in isolation than usual, I would start using some of those little booklets for my devotional reading. I just picked some of them out and started reading those little pamphlets. They’re 15-or-20 page booklet-type things. As I got into that, I thought, other people need to be exposed to these people like I've been exposed to them. I didn't intend to write a book, but I began to take themes that I was reading about in the little booklets and make my own comments on them. What this means to me, and what this should mean to us. That kind of thing. I don't know how long I was into that, but I said, I think I can do something that will help people.

I selected 10 of those saints that I was living with, and I selected three of the most important subjects that I thought they addressed and ended up with 30 of those, which would be a month of reading if you read one a day. I didn't intend for that to be a book, and I didn't know whether I would publish it or not. Writing is one of my primary ministries, and that's what I was doing, exercising my ministry, but I then decided I wanted to make this available for people to use for a month reading a day.

And in that reading, they will read something that one of these saints has said about devotion or about prayer or about jealousy, any of those themes that are important to the Christian life. So they'll have that and my commentary and reflections on it. It ended up being a little book, which I called Saints Alive.

I hope it will be helpful to people to find what other people have respected and appreciated for centuries, what they have written, and what they've said. There are plenty of their materials written out there, and I felt, if they read about Saint Theresa in my little book, they may go to the library and find a book about Saint Teresa, that type of thing.

You've authored more than 40 books in your career. How does this one compare to the other 40 books out there?

I'm going to be very, very honest. Because of how I did it and what it is, it will be a significant contribution, but I did not intend it to be expansive. It is very elementary. I've written other books that are more important than this one, like The Workbook of Living Prayer, and Keeping Company with the Saints. I never thought I'd end up writing over 40 books to the answer, they just happened, and none of them happened like this one, but I do recommend it.

That's great. Well, Maxie, I want to thank you for your time today. It's been great to sit down and have a conversation. Is there anything you'd like to say before we head out? Anything you want people to know?

Yes, I wanted to be very particular and very specific. I don't know what's going to happen about this interview, this conversation that you and I have had, but it reminds me again how blessed I am to be a part of Christ Church, and what Christ Church can offer and what Christ Church seeks to offer. 

I think we've yet to see how we are going to come out of this virus, but I know we’re intentional about it, and that's just a mark of who we are here at Christ Church. I'm grateful that I've gotten the opportunity to come back after those years I had as the senior minister to come back and share in the congregation and even on the staff in another way now.

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About Christ Church Memphis
Christ Church Memphis is church in East Memphis, Tennessee. For more than 65 years, Christ Church has served the Memphis community. Every weekend, there are multiple worship opportunities including traditional, contemporary and blended services.