I nearly lost my religion one day while trying to change a flat tire. I confess to being mechanically challenged, but even I can usually change a flat.

This particular day, though, I couldn’t get the lugs off the wheel. I grunted. I groaned. I pushed. I pulled. I beat on the lug wrench with a hammer. But the lugs wouldn’t budge. Finally I gave up, left the tire unchanged, and stalked into the house, defeated.

Later that day, I vented my frustration to a friend on the phone. “Try turning the lugs the other way,” he said offhandedly. Now that, I thought, was a stupid suggestion. Lugs and nuts always tighten when turned clockwise and loosen when turned counter-clockwise. Every shade-tree mechanic knows that.

Desperate, however, I gave his suggestion a try. I went back out to the garage, turned the lugs the “wrong way,” and, wonder of wonders, they came loose! In a matter of moments, I had the tire off and the spare mounted. I never would have thought to “tighten” the lugs in order to loosen them unless my friend had suggested it. I just knew I was doing it the right way.

This book is about turning the “ministry lugs” the “wrong way.” In my thirty years as a pastor, I have learned that being a pastor is a paradoxical profession. What seems to be the right way to do something is actually the wrong way, and what seems completely foolish is actually the best way to minister.

I have a friend who calls this approach to ministry the “Columbo Model.” You might remember Columbo as the cigar-smoking, trench coat-wearing, jalopy-driving detective on the old television series. He seemed to be inept and bumbling, but his strange methods always cracked the case. Columbo went about things in exactly the “wrong way,” but his unorthodox style worked. He was an effective eccentric.

This book is for pastors and church leaders who are willing to think paradoxically, who will dare to turn the ministerial lug the wrong way and see what happens. This is a book about unconventional wisdom and unorthodox ministry, but I think the ideas in this book, as strange as they seem, are actually true.

If nothing else, I hope this book will help church leaders think outside the box. We pastors are notorious for settling into our ministerial grooves and staying there for a lifetime. But a groove is just a fancy name for a rut, and occasionally we need to break out of our ruts and think new thoughts. If the paradoxical truths in these pages can shake up your thinking, get you to reexamine your approach to ministry, or even stir you up to righteous indignation about my unorthodox ways, I will consider the book a success.

And if it makes even one church leader realize again the wonder of our calling and the privilege that is ours to preach and teach and lead in the name of Christ, if it reminds even one pastor that being a pastor is supposed to be a joy (even fun!), then I will consider the book a whopping success.

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