Monthly Archives: July 2021

The pain in pastors that never goes away

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“…serving the Lord with all humility, with many tears and trials…” (Acts 20:19)

Let a pastor go through one huge church fight that leaves God’s people bleeding and bitter and scattering and he will do everything in his power to avoid another one.

Let a pastor go through a termination in which he is forced out from the church where the Lord had sent Him, and the pain of that rejection will accompany him the rest of the way home.

Some pain never leaves.

The wound heals but the scar remains and the memory never fades.

Thoughts of that event will color his counsel to other pastors.  The pain of that event will pop up at the strangest of times.  The lessons of that event will demand to be shared with others going through their own bit of hades-on-earth.

As a result of all this, the wounded pastor will mention that event from time to time.

It’s not a choice he makes.

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The pastor’s pain which few ever see

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“I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me….” (Isaiah 1:2)

Abandonment.  Desertion. Rejection.

The pastor loves that family and longs for them to do well. Their children are so fine and exhibit incredible potential. He knows their names.  He prays for them, encourages them, and goes out of his way to support them.  And they seem to respond. They flourish spiritually and seem to love the Lord, love their church, and love him. And then…

One day, they disappear.

When he inquires, someone tells the pastor, “Oh, they’ve joined that new startup church down the highway.  The one where the pastor is so critical of us and our denomination.”

He never hears a word. They just disappear from his radar and he never sees them again.

It’s not that they stabbed him in the back. They did not pull a Judas and betray him.  They just walked away without a word.

That hurts.

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The remedy for “ain’t it awful” preaching

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“We preach Christ….God’s power and God’s wisdom” (I Corinthians 1:23-24).

Rick Warren says a lot of what pastors are feeding their people is “ain’t it awful” preaching.

Couple of years back, guest preaching in a church, before I rose to speak, a member of the flock with “a gift for continuance,” as a friend put it, addressed the congregation on the latest Supreme Court ruling concerning marriage.  The lady was upset, and she had a bad combination: strong convictions and the gift of gab. She went on and on about the sad state of affairs in this country.

Ain’t it awful.

To hear her tell it, the country is going down the tubes, the Supreme Court is out of hand, our freedoms are all in peril, the end is near, and God’s people are in huge trouble.

She said that and then sat down.

I had to follow it.  Moments like that, you do not envy the preacher.

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Two huge things we will learn in Heaven

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“So, you were the one praying for me!

Tara Edelschick was brought up the daughter of a secular Jew and a lapsed Lutheran.  She learned to be fairly self-sufficient, went to a great college and married a super guy.  “Weaker souls might need a god,” she thought at the time, “but I needed no such crutch.”

That belief was obliterated when my husband of five years, Scott, died from complications during a routine surgery. Ten days later, I delivered our first child, Sarah, stillborn.

Oh, my.  Talk about a double whammy.  Life suddenly took a tragic turn, blindsiding the unsuspecting young woman.

Many would never have recovered from such a blow.

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Three reasons for the pastor to tell stories

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“Jesus never preached without telling stories.” (Mark 4:34)

Pastor, your people love a good story. Listeners who have gone on vacation during the first ten minutes of your sermon will return home in a heartbeat the moment you begin, “A man went into a store….” or  “I remember once when I was a child….”

Those who have died early in your message will suddenly spring to life when you say, “The other day, I saw something on the interstate…” or “Recently, when the governor and I were having lunch at a local cafe…”  (smiley-face goes here)

We all love a good story. We’re so addicted to stories, our television brings us hundreds a day. Even on talk shows, the host wants guests to tell a story! Drop in on your local cinema and no matter which screen you’re watching, it’s all stories.  And the book publishing business–well, you get the idea.

There are a thousand reasons for dropping the occasional story into your sermon, pastor.  Here are three….

1) It makes the hard truth tastier, a little more palatable.

A good story sugar-coats the bitter pill you’re asking your audience to swallow.

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Why we must have denominations (or fellowships or families of churches)

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A pastor in New Hersheybar emails me. “Pastor McKeever, I read your articles. We need your help.  We are a struggling community of small churches trying to get established, trying to get financial support, trying to get our ministers educated. Can you come help us or send cash?”

Well, maybe it’s never worded exactly like that, but that’s the gist.

How to know.

Is this guy for real, and is this a genuine opportunity to make a difference for the Kingdom of God?  Or is this fellow preying on the (so-called) rich Americans who are burdened with lots of spare cash and zero discernment?

I tell him to contact our International Mission Board at www.imb.org.  If we do not have missionaries in his country, we surely have a department with responsibility for his part of the world and someone in that office will be delighted to hear from him.  Maybe someone there will know somebody who can assist him.  And once in a while, we have a “representative” or “consultant” (as they are frequently called these days) living right there in his village.

Usually, that’s the last I hear from this fellow. Whether I discouraged him or exposed him is impossible to know.

I’m thankful for this denominational agency for a thousand reasons.

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Take time for a child: How the elderly doctor did it

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This is the story of Dr. Joe Bailey of Tupelo, Mississippi.  He told it in 2004 as a tribute to his mentor.  I hope you love it as much as I do.

His family were farmers, says Dr. Joe Bailey, but since his mother refused to live anywhere but in town, they lived in Coffeeville, population 600. That was precisely across the street from the town doctor, H. O. Leonard.

As far back as Joe Bailey remembers, he wanted to be a medical doctor. In fact, when he was 10, his father suggested that it was time for him to begin helping out on the farm. Young Joe took a deep breath and told him that “if I was going to be a doctor, it would be better if I had a job that would teach me about people.”

The truth is, I really enjoyed the farm, but at age 10 I went to work in the local grocery store for 25 cents an hour (in 1957). I kept the job until I finished high school in 1965. By then I was making $1 an hour and the experiences of dealing with people those eight years have proven invaluable to me.

In the middle of that vocational experience, however, little Joe Bailey began his medical training. Here’s how it happened.

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Three cautions before speaking on prayer

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They invite you to bring a talk, a lesson, or a sermon on prayer. Your first thought, if you are normal, is, “Who me? What little I know about prayer you could put in a thimble.”

We all believe in prayer. We try to do it.  We do not look upon ourselves as role models.

Truly godly men and women who are known as prayer warriors will tell you they feel they have just enrolled in kindergarten.

I doubt if our Heavenly Father is happy with any of His children claiming to have the inside track on how to approach Him, how to “get things from God,” “how to make prayer work for your benefit,” and how to get on His good side.

–Jesus Christ has done everything necessary for us to enter the Throne Room of Heaven. See Hebrews 4:16.

–Jesus Christ has opened the divider between man and God and we have an open invitation to “come on in.” See Hebrews 10:19-22.

If you and I are not entering God’s presence and lifting up our needs and petitions and interceding for those on our hearts, it’s not God’s fault. It’s not the fault of Jesus, who did everything necessary to make it possible for us to pray effectively.

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A doubting pastor needs a good friend

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Question: Pastor, is there anyone you can go to with a serious doubt about the Christian faith?

Let’s say you are struck by “contradictions” you’ve located in the Bible. But if you preached these from the pulpit, you would have caused great harm. Psalm 73:15 comes to mind.  If I had said, “I will speak thus,” behold, I would have been untrue to the children of your generation.

But you need answers. Where do you turn?

Or, let’s say you are burdened by the suffering in the world. “How,” you wonder, “could a powerful and loving God allow such?” Perhaps you say, as some have, if God is almighty and allows this suffering, He is not all-loving. If He is loving and does nothing to stop it, it must be because He is not able. But, you reason, since suffering exists, we cannot have it both ways.

Who can you talk to about your questions?

If you have no friend to whom you can turn, there is a serious gap in your life. You are in need of another friend or two or three.

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Lessons about Heaven from my favorite opera

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Someone has said that good music is music which is written better than it can be played.

I’m on a Turandot kick right now. I love all the Puccini operas, but this one has been special after I found how different it is from all the others. I’m not a musician, cannot read music or play an instrument.  But I do love good music. I swoon at certain kinds of music, however, and this is one of them.

For years Turandot was not as well known as Puccini’s other more popular operas (La Boheme, Tosca, and Madame Butterfly). In fact, few people had even heard of it. One day I found out why.

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