Eulogy for Carl S. Dudley, 76
Jack Carroll offered this remembrance at the memorial service for Carl S. Dudley.
Carl Dudley: A Tribute to My Friend
It was in Hartford in 1976 that I first met Carl Dudley. Hartford Seminary had sponsored a conference on small churches, and Carl was one of the participants. At that time, he was at McCormick Seminary in Chicago and was working on his book, Making the Small Church Effective, which remains unarguably the single best book on small congregations ever written. It was at that conference that our long friendship began, and it continued to grow and deepen over the years as we worked together on numerous research and writing projects and met regularly with other colleagues as part of the Congregational Studies Project Team where we discussed our shared interest in congregations. It is especially about this facet of Carl’s many-faceted life—Carl’s passionate interest in congregations, expressed in teaching, research and writing—that I want to reflect.
One might judge Carl’s work on sheer quantity. When I did a library search, I found over a hundred citations for books, articles and book reviews that Carl wrote over the years. Not only small congregations, but congregations generally were the dominant foci of his work. He wrote about New Testament congregations, the internal dynamics of present-day congregational life, congregations and their relationships to their communities, church growth and decline, congregations and charitable choice, and so on and on. His interest did not stop at Christian congregations, but expanded to include mosques and synagogues.
The quantity of his work is only part of the story. There is also its quality. The quality is evident in his work on small churches. It is imaginative and original in its appreciation for the unique dynamics of these congregations that make up almost 60 percent of American churches. Thanks to him, many pastors, denominational executives, and lay members have come to a new appreciation of these ubiquitous congregations.
The quality of Carl’s work resides also in his ability to take insights from a broad range of scholarship and translating them into resources for congregations and their leaders. He read widely and was always looking for new insights and ideas that would be helpful in congregational life and ministry. I think it is accurate to say that he never thought of himself primarily as a scholar. Instead, he was, quintessentially, a practitioner, an activist, and an advocate for faithful, vital, and effective congregations. Indeed, those of us on the Congregational Studies Project Team teased him mercilessly that his books so often had “effective” in their titles: Making the Small Church Effective, Building Effective Ministry, Effective Small Churches in the 21st Century. Carl received our kidding graciously, and we in turn recognized that his concern for effectiveness stemmed from his passion to help congregations be faithful to their calling as the people of God in their diverse and changing contexts. His passion for faithful, effective congregations is especially evident in the kinds of action words that permeate other titles of his articles and books. Here are some examples of such words culled from his titles: understanding, organizing, transforming, building, developing, energizing, mobilizing, doing justice. These action words are also indicative of Carl’s own activism and commitment to social justice, evident throughout his career, from his early days as a pastor and well into his retirement.
Carl was a leader. His competence (or, to use his favorite word, his effectiveness), his insights, his integrity, his passion and compassion, his infectious laugh—which, incidentally, always reminded me of one of the “car guys” on public radio—and his obvious love for others, these qualities commanded the respect of his peers. Thus it was natural, in the meetings of the Congregational Studies Project Team, for us to look to Carl for leadership. In fact, in the few times that we failed to look to him as our leader, in typical Carl fashion, he took it anyhow! And, as might be expected, he was always effective!
Carl’s work has been recognized both nationally and internationally by Christians of all stripes and by those in other religious traditions. Yesterday, as I was preparing these remarks, I received an e-mail from Jurgens Henriks, a friend and colleague in South Africa, who himself has been a leader in the study of African congregations. “Dear Jack,” he wrote, “The news about Carl Dudley is terribly sad. He meant a lot to us here in Africa. I feel as if I have to share my feelings with someone…so why not with you, his friend and colleague for so many years.” Jurgens’ sentiments are not unique. As news of Carl’s death spread, there have been communications from a host of others who, like me, like Jurgens, and like many of you here, knew, loved, and respected Carl. We will miss him sorely.
While Carl is no longer with us, save in our many happy memories of him, you may rest assured that he is not resting. He is, I promise you, already actively at work in the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, organizing the congregations and choirs of angels, energizing them to sing God’s praises as faithfully and—you guessed it—effectively as is heavenly possible!
Jackson Carroll
Duke Divinity School
April 25, 2009
