I did not expect to see a sober portrait of John Wesley when I entered the office of our new pastor to request an interview. But I was hardly prepared for the grandeur of the smiling face of Walt Disney in portrait, surrounded by figures of fantasy: Mickey Mouse was casting a spell as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Snow White pranced gracefully, escorted by two dwarfs, Dopey and Doc. Donald Duck, in a sombrero gang of three representing diversity in animal species, was serenading me in the Pastor’s den!

What kind of soul had consented to lead us for the next eight months? I was enchanted, and as curious as Alice, just fallen into Wonderland after pursuing a white rabbit with a scheduling problem. I could hardly wait for the chance to interview Mark Wharff. I promised him that “Why Walt Disney?” would be my first question.

The simple answer came quickly: “The poster of Walt Disney has been in my offices in churches for years. I find imagination and creativity very motivating.” Mark added that he also has a poster of Martin Luther King, Jr. at home, which he plans to bring to the office to complement Walt.

However, the longer answer is amazing.

“Being a pastor in one church is not the same as being a pastor in another,” observed Mark. “I’m an introvert. Coffee time is most difficult. Approaching people and striking up conversation does not come naturally to me.” After a few weeks in his position as pastor at the FUMC in Modesto in the 1990’s, the members of the Staff Parish Relations Committee noticed that Mark was not meeting their expectations for coffee hour. “The SPRC in Modesto wanted to encourage me, so they told me to find a book to study and ‘get back to us.’” Mark went to the library. “There was no book for how to be more outgoing.”

When Mark returned to the committee, they did not seem happy with Mark’s response. Their simple answer seemed to be to “seek someone out I knew who had overcome my ailment.” Mark checked with seven pastors he knew, three of whom were “naturally outgoing. They feed on it, talking with others. I, however, expend energy talking with others.”

The committee suggested Mark take a course on changing one’s personality. “I came back and told them there were no classes at MJC about being more outgoing, but I might be able to get a job at the Disney store, where I could get training on greeting people, where I could exercise social skills.” Most pastors have something they do on their day off, a hobby or such. “Rather than play golf on my day off, I told them, I’d work at the Disney store. I would try it for six months, eight hours a week on off time.”

“They weren’t very optimistic,” but the committee consented to the experiment. Mark took a position in retail sales at the Disney store one day a week at the Vintage Faire Mall in Modesto.

Mark’s idea to try Disney to help his ministry had not come out of the blue, under pressure from an impatient congregation: “All things Disney have been fun, interesting. When I was in elementary school, we’d have a night in the auditorium where we would see one of the Disney films: White Wilderness, The Vanishing Prairie. My imagination was stimulated. My curiosity grew, watching polar bears or prairie dogs.”

“In ministry, after I graduated from seminary, with a commitment to continue education, I came across Walt Kallestad, a senior pastor of the Community Church of Joy.” This church of joy is a Lutheran “teaching church.” Mark said that Walt had been “sitting on a bench at Disneyland, watching families interact, enjoying being, and asked ‘What does Disney understand about creating an environment in which people can experience joy, that we can use to learn to help people?’” Furthermore, Mark’s wife, Laura, had worked for the Disney corporation, beginning in 1994 at Serramonte in the Bay Area.

On their journey through life, with careers in ministry and education, Mark and Laura went to Florida and Anaheim, to attend training events with the Disney Corporation. Such events are generally attended by executives of corporations, to help them with corporate culture. Mark found some of the strategies used at Disney theme parks applicable to his calling, such as training greeters and ushers in church. “Disney has a scientific process for when visitors park at certain times of the day.” When a visitor in the afternoon can’t remember where she parked in the morning and asks, the attendant can say, “When did you arrive?” Since the visitors are parked sequentially, by time of arrival, the attendant can say, “Oh, take the tram to the Dumbo Lot in rows 7, 8, and 9.” Mark offered this as an example of how Disney strategies can help church planners to think out strategies to make things go well.

Mark mentioned “bean counting” with Sally Cooper, the preparation of year-end statistical reports for our local church. A lot of pastors have little interest in recording who has attended services, but Mark finds attendance an important element in making church a welcoming experience. Our new procedure for name tags, with the rack being placed in the narthex (convenient for the service) but then moved near the social hall, to encourage people to wear their name tags for coffee hour is just one example of Disney-inspired innovation. While this new policy may seem like just an irritation for some of us old-timers, the simple habit of wearing our name tags during coffee hour sends an important message of welcome to new visitors to our church.

Essential to the Disney culture is to make people feel welcome. This includes providing “helpful information for people. Keeping the facility clean.” The training “got me to thinking of institutional aspects” for church. Disney “treats their workforce as most important in the organization. Disney makes it fun, encourages people to reflect on how we can help people feel valued. People are regularly affirmed for their positive behaviors. Disney language centers on reward and recognition. The company actually captures these stories and shares them as examples. They will show these videos at corporate training to show that just one act of kindness towards a guest matters.”

In Disney training, “it’s fun being a cast member. When you work for Disney, you’re part of ‘the show.’ If you’re working in the stockroom, you’re ‘backstage.’ In sales, you’re ‘on stage.’ When you’re on stage, you have a badge. That’s a way of being outgoing for the ‘guests’ (that is, customers at the Modesto store). I was expected to initiate conversation with anyone who had wandered into the store. I would tell them about upcoming shows. ‘You can buy tickets here!’ I could tell them.”

Mark explained Jung’s theory of personality regarding extroverts versus introverts. “An extrovert derives energy from contact with others. An introvert expends energy.” Jung thought that by understanding the primary polarities of personality, “we can avoid pain. The major use of these tools is to help know oneself.”

“Over time, I’ve become less uncomfortable doing these behaviors. I’ve retaken the Meyers-Briggs test in some form (These personality tests include a measure of introversion/extroversion.). There has been no movement in how the test places me on the scale. I continue to be a bury-the-needle introvert. I am, however, less uncomfortable in behaving like an extrovert when it’s called for. One thing I learned is that you don’t have to be an extrovert to be a pastor, but it helps. A lot of ministers are introverts, and it is incumbent upon people who minister and are introverts to learn how to perform extrovert behaviors.”

Mark’s efforts to deal with introversion seem worthy of consideration, for all of us, perhaps applied to aspects of ourselves that have nothing to do with introversion. “It’s a reasonable expectation that a congregation have its pastor reach out, particularly towards guests and newcomers. Such behavior comes naturally for some people, but not for everyone.”

Being uncomfortable at times may be an important part of being a practicing Christian. “The important thing in life is love,” said Mark. There was a campaign some years ago using billboards that presented messages from God. Mark remembered his favorite: “That love-your-neighbor thing? I meant it. – God.”

“There is not much about Christianity that’s complex. It’s simple, but it’s not easy. Loving people who seem hellbent on being unlovable is one of the hardest things we’ll ever do.”

Mark had been enjoying retirement for two years and had received a request to preach from our pastor, Charles Smith in May, 2019, after Charles’ first treatment for cancer. Mark and Laura were preparing to depart to France, as a celebration of Laura’s recent retirement, when he received a first call concerning the possible need for more substitute preaching. [See last month’s article for details on the Wharff’s travel adventures!] “We were in the Loire Valley when Charles passed away. We got up one morning in Alsace, and there was a message from District Superintendent Debra Brady in a private Facebook message asking if I would be willing to serve as interim pastor for the Turlock FUMC for eight months: ‘Please pray about that, and let us know what you’re thinking.’

“We’d had a warm feeling for the congregation, and I had agreed to be supportive of Charles. It was humbling to have the Board say this is an important congregation who has suffered a great loss. We flew home on Monday and met the SPRC at June’s (Coppinger) house. The welcome has been overwhelming. The leadership here is extraordinarily strong. They know where they’re going. There seems to be a commitment to carry on from Charles’ ministry.”

So, now, luckily or through God’s grace, we have Mark and Laura with us until June. Though Mark is not exactly either John Wesley or Walt Disney, he is, for a while, our own sorcerer, so far working Disney magic, for faithful purposes.