“We dropped the ball!”

I find myself wondering when pastors and churches stand before the Lord and are asked what they did with the resources given them, whether they will say, “We dropped the ball.”

And wondering how that will fly.

In the city where I live, the local Children’s Hospital–a hero to untold thousands for many years–is under attack and the focus of a number of lawsuits.

Over the past couple of years, the hospital had at least five patients (all children) to die of a fungal infection which was the result of infected bed clothing.

As bad as that is, the hospital leadership did something even worse: They did not report it.

They were protecting themselves, they thought, by not following the law and informing the appropriate agencies about this. Consequently, they are in a mess of trouble.

Sound familiar?

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What to do about pastors who ride the church into the ground

Recently in this blog, we said pastors should be terminated abruptly if they are guilty of flagrant indecency, proven immorality, confirmed illegality, and serious heresy.

Several friends wrote to ask about pastors who are not guilty of those serious breaches, but are simply deadbeat preachers.

One said of her pastor, “He’s not guilty of any cardinal sins, but he simply stands by collecting a paycheck when the congregation has dwindled down from 250 to 50. All the programs and ministries are no longer functioning. Many changes were forced upon the people, changes they did not want.”

Her pastor receives a hefty salary while watching the church die around him and doing nothing about it.

She added, “When asked about all the people who were leaving–three-fourths of the church!–he says, ‘Well, they shouldn’t be here if they don’t want to be.’  And these are people who have worshiped there forty and fifty years.”

She wanted to know what I had to say about that situation.

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Pecking orders and taking care of the little ones

On the farm, in the yard where we kept the chickens, you noticed something.  Some poor hen ranked at the bottom of the pecking order–a real phenomenon, by the way–and could literally be pecked to death by all the others.  Unless someone stepped in and protected her, her life was miserable and grew worse by the day.

Humans don’t play foolish games like that, do we?

Let me tell you a story.

Bill was a big awkward, homely guy.  He dressed oddly, and drew the attention of a few fellows in the shop where he worked, guys who enjoyed making fun of him.

One day someone noticed a small tear in Bill’s shirt and reached over to rip it a little more.

It became a joke that morning. Anytime anyone passed Bill, they tore the shirt just a little more.

Bill was hovering over a machine, working on it, when the ripped part of his shirt got caught in the wheels.  Inside of two seconds, he was in real trouble. Alarms sounded and someone shut off the machine just in time and trouble was averted.

The foreman had seen all this.  He walked over, pulled the switch on the power for that section and called the men around.

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