Monthly Archives: March 2017

To marry them or not? It can get complicated.

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Every pastor is faced by the dilemma of whether to marry certain couples.  And I’m not referring to the scarier twosomes that come in, where the immediate answer is “Sorry; not in this lifetime.”  Some of the decisions get complicated real quick.

I had honestly forgotten about this one until it popped up in my journal from 20 years ago. A friend recently filled me in on the rest of the story.

A highly respected pastor friend called me from another state.  A couple from his church wanted to be wed in my city, some 200 miles away.  Would I be able to do the ceremony?  A simple enough request. That happens a lot.   New Orleans, where I lived from 1990 until October of 2016, seems to be a wedding destination for a lot of people. One time the bride’s family was from New England and the groom’s folks lived in Texas. So, New Orleans was a convenient spot for everyone to meet in the middle.

So, nothing complicated about this request, I assumed.  The wedding would be at a hotel and my congregation would not be involved at all.

I cleared the date on my calendar, called the groom and we set up a time for the bride and groom to visit in my office.

A day or two later, in chatting with someone from that pastor’s city I happened to mention in passing that I would be doing this wedding.  She said, “Oh no.  You are?  You don’t know?”

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Expectations: The pastor informs a new church staff member

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Let’s say you’re the pastor of a growing church.  The church has just brought in a new minister to assist you in leading the congregation.  He/she might be a worship pastor, minister of music, student minister, or in charge of education or pastoral care.

One of the best things a pastor can do with the incoming minister is to make him/her aware of your expectations.  You will want to think them through and write them out, then share them after you both have agreed that God is leading him/her to your church.  Give the person the printed copy and don’t lose your own.  This may be necessary if the time comes when you have to deal with a rebellious or lazy staff member.

In sharing these, do it graciously, not dictatorially as though you are going to be looking over their shoulder all the time.

You could even follow this by asking for their expectations concerning you.  I guarantee you they have them.  They will expect you to deal with them as ministers of the gospel, to give them room to do their job, to pay them well and protect them on their off days, and to support them when the criticism is unfair.  If  the new staffer is expecting something from you which was not spoken and never implied, you want to know that up front before you get too deeply into the employment process.

What follows are things I shared with our staff members in six churches over forty-two years.  Some of them evolved, while some of them were there from the first.  The list is not complete, but only things I recall at this vantage point…

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The highest compliment a pastor can give

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“But Paul chose Silas and departed, being committed by the brethren to the grace of the Lord” (Acts 15:40).

“Tom, I need your help.”

“Ed, can you drop whatever you’re doing and meet me this morning?”

“Roger, I’ve got a tough visit to make and was wondering if you could go with me.”

Pastors don’t ask just anyone for this.

A preacher friend tells of the call he received in the wee hours of the night.

“A woman in the church was waving a gun around and threatening her family.  In recent weeks, we had been trying to help her with certain problems.  As I headed out the door for her house, I dialed the number for a deacon friend.”

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Don’t give us your testimony; show us Jesus.

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“For this purpose I wrote to you, that I might know the proof of you, whether you be obedient in all things” (2 Corinthians 2:9).

“I will show you my faith by my works” (James 2:18).

I’ve been looking back over twenty years of articles, notes, and journals where I recorded happenings in the churches I pastored.  Some of those events left scars, memories, and lessons enough for a lifetime.  Some people in those stories are forever unforgettable, either for their amazing examples of Christlikeness or for lesser reasons.

Recently on this website, I chronicled the doings of a few people who were angry over nothing, raging all the time, finding fault where none existed, then pinning blame when confronted.  I suggested the reason for this behavior: They are lost.  Unsaved.  “The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God,” says I Corinthians 2:14, “for they are foolishness to him. Neither can he understand them for they are spiritually discerned.”

That says it as well as anything.

Today–a week after posting that piece–I was reflecting on some of those people, a few in particular. And, realizing that most are now passed to their heavenly reward (or lack thereof; not for me to say), I prayed the Lord would be merciful to them.  And at that point, the Lord explained something to me.

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The church which wants to help the needy has its work cut out for it.

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“Give to everyone who asks of you” (Luke 6:30).

Everyone who works around the church office will identify with this.

From my journal of Tuesday, August 12, 1997…

In the afternoon, I took a phone call from a Don Peterson.  “Remember me?” he said.

I said, “Refresh my memory.”

“My fiancée and I were in your services three Sundays ago.”

“No. Sorry.”

“Well, my father has died.  In Ann Arbor, Michigan.  I need some money for a plane ticket.  I need to borrow it until Sunday.”

I said, “How much?”

“Fifty-four dollars.”

I said, “How can I verify this?”

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When life peels away everything that defines you, who are you?

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“Take heed and beware of covetousness.  For a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of things which he possesses”(Luke 12:15).

“What do you do?”  In our society, that’s often the first question people ask.  It implies…

–that you do something in the way of a career.  Woe to the unemployed and those who call themselves homemakers.

–that you are what you do.  That your identity is bound up in what you do to earn an income.  Too bad if you lose your job or retire.  You become a cipher, at least in the minds of some.

If you don’t have a job, who are you?  If, like my wife Bertha, you loved being married to a pastor, when God takes him home and you can no longer fill the role you loved so much–the wife of a pastor–then who are you?

In our world, people’s names were often given in accordance with what they did. They received names like Baker, Cook, Weaver, Smith, Taylor, Hunter, Fisher, Farmer, Shepherd, Miller, Marshall, Ward.

I want to call your attention to a little story found in Luke 12.  Then, I’ll be asking you to use your imagination with me…

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How to pray (second in series) “As we begin”

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“Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name….”

We’ve said praying is not as complicated as we’ve been made to think.  We preachers sometimes function like lawyers who pile up billable hours, but in our case we heap up rules and regulations and, pardon the expression, insights on how to make spiritual things work.  We ought to be ashamed of ourselves.

Prayer is as simple as speaking to the Heavenly Father. Period.

However.

(Ha. You knew that was coming, I betcha.)

Something inside us rightfully wants to pray more effectively, to address God in a way honoring Him, and to be able to express all that is within us.

So, let’s talk about it.

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How to Pray ( first in a series) “Let’s not complicate it. Just do it!”

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“Our Father, who art in Heaven…”  (Matthew 6:9)

So, you want to pray?  Good.

Or, you already pray and something inside you wants to learn to pray better? That’s also good.

Let’s see if we can help the beginner to pray effectively and the “regular customer” to pray with greater insight, stronger faith, and more confidence.  But–and this is a biggie–let’s not make this more complicated than it is.

Just do it.  The Father wants to hear His children praying.

Don’t be afraid.

Worse, don’t let someone scare you about all this.

Martin Luther used to say he had so much to do that day, he had to pray six hours.

Sheesh!  Read that and you feel like tossing in the towel and calling it a day.  Who among us has six hours to pray?

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“Why are you so angry?” I asked. “I”M NOT ANGRY!” he bellowed.

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“And all in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things….” (Luke 4:28).

“These things they will do because they do not know the One who sent Me” (John 15:21).

My notes from that church business meeting some 20 years ago are fascinating to read from this distance, but nothing about that event was enjoyable at the time.

Our church was trying to clarify its vision for the late 1990s and into the 21st century.  What did the Lord want us to be doing, where to put the focus? Our consultant from the state denominational office, experienced in such things, was making regular visits to work with our leadership.  For reasons never clear to me, the seniors in the church became defensive and then combative.  No assurance from any of us would convince them we were not trying to shove them out the door and turn over the church to the immature, untrained, illiterate, and badly dressed.  To their credit, the church’s leadership, both lay and ministerial, kept their cool and worked to answer each complaint and every question.

My journal records a late Sunday night gathering in my home with 30 young marrieds from a Sunday School class.  They were a delightful group.  They wanted my testimony and had questions about the operation of the church.  Then someone asked the question of the day.

A young woman said, “I can understand someone not liking a pastor’s style.  But why are these people so angry?”

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I told the Lord I’m ready for that life-changing call. A few minutes later the phone rang.

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“Delight thyself in the Lord and He will give thee the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4).

My ministry in that church was uphill all the way.  Everything was hard, it seemed. There were few rest stops, places where we could take a breather and enjoy a sense that we are accomplishing something significant for the Lord.

The church had few financial resources due to a heavy debt load, made worse by a major split in the congregation 18 months before I arrived as pastor.  The ministerial staff had little money for the outreach and educational programs they wanted to do.

It was a tough time in the life of that church.

Perhaps I was tired.  Or discouraged.  Or needed a boost of some kind.

Anyway, one day,  on the way back to the church office from lunch I prayed a prayer unlike any I’d ever prayed before.

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