Author Archives: Joe

This is a first for this blog. (Reposted. From Dr. Glenn McDonald’s “Reflections.”)

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(Each weekday Dr.  Glenn McDonald of Indiana posts a message he calls “Reflections.”  It’s always thought-provoking and so worth reading.  But this one hit me hardest.  This is as good as we could ask for.)  

Shaken

On November 1, 1755, the citizens of Lisbon, Portugal were crowded into churches. They were celebrating All Saints Day.

At 9:40 am the world as they knew it came to an end.

Somewhere offshore there was a sudden lurch at the intersection of two massive tectonic plates. What followed was one of the most intense earthquakes in recorded history, estimated at 9.0 on the Richter Scale.

For seven terrifying minutes, the city shook.

Fissures as wide as 15 feet opened up in the central squares. By comparison, the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, estimated at 7.8 on the Richter Scale, lasted only half a minute.

Before the citizens of Lisbon could even make sense of what was happening, the first aftershock – almost as strong as the initial quake – rocked the city. Another aftershock came two hours later. But the real horror happened along the shoreline.

The waters of the Atlantic Ocean receded dramatically from the city’s harbor, then returned as a tsunami – a 50-foot-high wall of water. Within the space of an hour, some 60,000 people had died. Virtually every building of the nation’s historic capital had been reduced to rubble. Fires burned unchecked for days.

For all the suffering experienced by those in Lisbon, the most lasting damage happened in the minds and hearts of Europe’s intellectuals.

After this disaster, how could any thinking person seriously believe that the world was ruled by a powerful and benevolent God? Weren’t the citizens of Lisbon the very picture of innocent, faithful people – doing the right thing at the right place at the right time – on All Saints Day, no less? Why would God allow such a catastrophe?

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Pastor, you’ve been scheduled to preach on a big program. My advice: Find out whom you follow.

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After the death of comic genius Robin Williams, someone was reminiscing about the time he preceded Bob Hope on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson.

For some reason, Bob Hope was late arriving at the studio that night. So, instead of Robin Williams following him, which had been the plan, Williams went on stage first and did his hilarious knock-em-dead routine.  People were beside themselves with laughter.

The great Bob Hope arrived and had to follow that.

Robin Williams said, “I don’t think he was angry, but he was not pleased.”

As Bob Hope walked out onto the stage and settled into the chair, Johnny Carson said, “Robin Williams. Isn’t he funny?”  Hope said, “Yeah. He’s wild. But you know, Johnny, it’s great to be back here with you.”

“Let’s talk about me.” I smile at that. Even the great Bob Hope could not handle this situation.

No clear-thinking person would voluntarily follow Robin Williams on the program.

Sometimes we preachers find ourselves scheduled to speak on a big program.  Woe to the one who has to follow the most popular preacher in the land.

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Five church members with no fear of God

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We said on this website that the problem with “preacher-eaters and trouble-makers” in the church is that they do not believe in God. That generated some reaction.

I stand by the statement, although it requires a little clarification.

Theoretically, they do.

Those members who are determined to have their way regardless of the cost to the fellowship of the church, the unity of the congregation, the continuance of the pastor’s ministry, or the sacrifice of programs of the church are not without religious convictions.

They may have even had religious experiences.

The problem is they are now living godless existences. Their work in the church is being conducted in the flesh and for their own purposes.

They are no longer seeking God’s will or interested in working to the glory of Christ.  Their will is paramount.

The shame of it is they are almost always unaware of these conditions. They have fallen into a shameless pattern of seeing nothing but what is in their own field of vision, of wanting only what they see as important, and advocating nothing but their own program. They are not knowingly mean-spirited people. They are self-deluded.

They are atheists in the strictest sense.

Whatever belief in God they possess is theoretical. God was in Christ, yes. He was in the past. And He will be in the future, they believe, when He takes them and others like them to Heaven.

As for the present, alas, they are on their own.

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The pastor wasted some time today. The problem is…

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You do not know the way of the wind….  You do not know the works of God who makes everything….  You do not know which will prosper…. (Ecclesiastes 11:5-6).

In a typical day, the pastor does a hundred things, some of which are eternal and some not.  Some are gold, silver, and precious stones, while others are wood, hay, and stubble (a reference to I Corinthians 3:12).

Some things he did were eternal; some were anything but that.  And that’s the problem: How to tell which is which.

In the moment, it’s almost impossible.

We walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Today in the hospital, the pastor visited with three patients and talked to strangers in the hospital lobby, to nurses in the hallway, and to people he met along the way.  Back in the office he studied for his sermons, dealt with administrative issues, reprimanded the church custodian for doing a poor job of cleaning bathrooms, and returned six phone calls. He wrote something for the church website, accepted an invitation to speak at a civic luncheon, and had lunch with his wife.  A neighboring pastor ran by for a few minutes to confer about a project they’re working on for the association, he answered someone’s on-line query about tithing, and he took a walk around the block.  He leaves the Bible open on the table in his back office and stops by for a few minutes from time to time to read the text of next Sunday’s message or to look something up.  He prays there and often, throughout the day.

When his head hits the pillow at night, he has a hard time remembering what he did or knowing what was accomplished.

How much of what he did was eternal and how much was just so much busy-work?  It’s impossible to tell.

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Part II of Joe’s interview about his cartooning ministry

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Who was the best-known person you ever drew?

I assume you mean someone I sketched in person.  At the moment, the ones that come to mind are Diane Sawyer of CBS, “Famous Amos” of cookie fame–hey, you asked about famous people, right?–Jerry Clower the Grand Ol’ Opry star, and Pastor Adrian Rogers (a longtime friend whom I sketched on a plane once).

What surprises you most about Baptist humor?

Mainly that it is not surprising at all. There is no “Baptist humor.” It’s much like everyone else’s.  We’re all pretty much alike.

Are there any subject matters off limits?

There are, if you want to be published in a Christian paper or magazine!  (smile please)  I learned early on that just because I thought a cartoon was funny did not mean an editor would run it.  Gradually, I learned that Baptist editors had several different constituencies to minister to, to address, and sometimes to placate.  When they did their job well and were criticized for it, they could take it. But no editor was going to knowingly run an offensive cartoon sure to provoke a hostile response.  And who could blame them.

Gradually I learned to rein in my humor.  Much of what I put in a cartoon could be considered teasing, or inspiring in a minor key, or just plain fun.

Do you pray about your cartooning? 

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Joe is interviewed about his cartooning ministry — Part I

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My interviewees are a cluster of people.  I’ve invited them to pose questions which I will try to answer here.  

What was your very first cartoon? And the first to be published?

Would you believe me if I said I don’t recall?  I’ve always been interested in drawing.  As an eight-year-old, my dad would ask me to draw him as he sat in front of the radio listening to the evening news.  He’d rouse after a bit and say, “Let me see what you’ve got.”  He wasn’t an artist, but had a good eye, and he would say, “You need to move the ear up” or “the eyes are too wide.” Something like that. I’d erase and he’d go back to sleep.

In the fourth grade, the principal recognized my drawing of President Truman.  First cartoon? I honestly don’t know.  In the seventh grade when the teacher had the class go around the room saying what we wanted to be when we grew up, I got a laugh when I said, “Cartoonist.”  Eventually, most of those teachers had my stuff on their walls.

The first to be actually published might have been in seminary. Each day before systematic theology class, I had taken to doing a sketch of the professor in various humorous situations on the blackboard.  As a result the editor of our student weekly (yes, we had one in those days) asked me to give him a drawing each week.  Now, in the rural bayou church I was pastoring, I had been sending the editor of our parish weekly a devotional, so now on a hunch, I sent a cartoon along with it.  He published the two side by side, giving me (free of charge!) a third of a page in each week’s edition.  Interestingly, that editor and I never communicated, never swapped notes, nothing. He published what I sent him.  As a result of that publicity, my little church doubled and tripled in size in less than three years.

How did you learn to cartoon? 

I’m still learning.  When I was 16, I took the correspondence course from Art Instruction Company of Minneapolis.  This was weekly lessons from real artists, rather intimidating for this country boy with no training.  My sister who had just finished high school and become a telephone operator paid the $10/month.  I had thought it was a drawing course specializing in cartooning.  But 18 months into it, once they started teaching me to design draperies, I let it lapse.  But I had learned a great deal, including perspective and lettering, and the use of speedball pens with black India ink.

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The sweet time of life. When exactly is it?

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(I posted this in 2012 when I was 72 years old.  At the moment I’m 84 and still counting.  Could update this with meetings and such, but it seems to work the way it is, so decided to simply run it as it was then.) 

Last evening, I was listening to the NPR program Fresh Air in which host Terry Gross was interviewing the author of a book called Winter Journal.  The man explained that now that he’s in his 60’s, he is in the wintertime of life and it’s a great time to look back.

It’s a familiar metaphor: the Spring of life = youth, Summertime being the young adult years, Autumn standing for maturity, and Winter for all that follows.

Frankly, I’m not too crazy about the image of these last decades being wintertime.

Winter suggests a time of shutting down, of dormancy, of sitting inside by the fire, of barrenness and starkness and cold temperatures.

I’m 72 at the moment, but that’s subject to change. (Note from Joe in 2024: And I am especially not too crazy about age 60 being the time of shutting down! My sons are that age, for pete’s sake!) 

And let it be known far and wide, I am not in the wintertime of anything. It’s still Springtime around here, ladies and gentlemen.

“They will still bear fruit in old age; They will be full of sap and very green.” (Psalm 92:14)

This is not to say I overlook the shock of white hair staring at me from the bathroom mirror, or am in denial about the increasing hearing loss, according to the audiologist’s test two days ago.  Those are reality also.

But I am not sitting by the fireside reminiscing about better times (or, for that matter, complaining about what the world is coming to!).

I’m still out in the fields. I’m planting seeds and cultivating young growth and reaping for the Lord wherever I can.

This is a Friday. Tomorrow, I fly to St. Louis where two deacons from a small town in western Illinois will meet me and we will drive to their hometown. I’ll be preaching there Sunday through Wednesday, as well as addressing a civic club and possibly some other groups. (Later, this fall, we’ll have a revival in Missouri and two in Kentucky.)

Two days after returning from Illinois, I’ll be teaching a class at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. This will be my third time for “Interpersonal Relationship Skills,” but the first time in the unusual arrangement the seminary calls CIV. (That stands for C–something–Interactive Video.) Technology connects our class of 15 students with classrooms at the Atlanta and Orlando seminary extensions where two other professors will be on duty. The students in our class will be able to see the students in the other two locations and interact with each professor. In a three-hour session, each professor will have 45 minutes to teach.  Seminary these days requires the professor to be capable in areas unheard of in the 1960s when I arrived on campus: Blackboard (a program where we post assignments and have online discussions), Self-Serve (to get our class list and post grades), and such.

My brain hurts when trying to learn these things, but after getting them under my belt, I feel a sense of accomplishment.

Being able to invest in the next generation of kingdom workers is a rare privilege, one I do not take for granted.

A friend who teaches Hebrews at a Baptist college in another state sent me a note this morning: “Are you still preaching? Could you talk to my class about lessons learned over your years in the ministry?”

I could and I would love to. I sent him to my website (this one) where we keep my preaching schedule current. The schedule shows that a month from now, I’m filling the pulpit at the First Baptist Church in his city, both morning and night. I said, “Can you use me on that Monday morning? I could stay over.”

Most mornings when I’m at home, after walking on the levee and doing the around-the-house errands Margaret has for me, I spend a few hours in my office provided by our church working on articles for various online publications and for this blog. Yesterday, I posted installment number 21 on a series called “Reforming the Deacons.”  Where did they come from? After all, I have scars on my soul from interaction with a few deacons over the half-century of ministry. The answer–whatever it is–would have to involve the fact that in the three-plus years of retirement, I keep getting these invitations to lead deacon-training sessions. This forced me to think through what the Lord and scriptures and life had taught me and to lay it out there. The result is this series. Will it be published, people want to know. The Lord (alone) knows.

Two nights ago, the editor of one of our state Baptist weeklies texted to see if we could get together on a cartoon for one of their features. Since my wife is in Seattle for the wedding of her sister and I was at home alone, we went back and forth over the phone (texting, sending photos of what I sketched, etc). Yesterday morning, we finished that and I emailed them to the editor’s office.

Can you tell I’m having fun?

In an old book, Harper Shannon tells of a pastor running into a seminary classmate who had left the ministry and was now selling insurance or something. He asked him, “What do you miss most about the ministry?” The man said, “I miss the trumpets in the morning.” (Note: In fact, that is the title of his book: Trumpets in the Morning. I recommend it.)

I still hear those bugles. I wake up excited, with a dozen things crowding in on my mind—people to call, sermons to prepare, blogs to write, cartoons to draw, things to do.

It’s great. Thank you, Lord.

If the Lord decides that all this shuts down tomorrow, I hope to have the courage and faith to give thanks for that, too. Even old age and infirmity are times of sowing and reaping when done right. And just think what comes after that!

The real trumpet in the morning!

What to do when God gives you a burden for something

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When the prophets Nahum, Habakkuk, and Malachi stood up to preach, they began with the words, “The burden of the Lord.”

That was a dead giveaway this was not going to be a sweet little devotional filled with funny stories and touching vignettes. The men of God were about to drop a heavy load from their hearts into the laps and onto the shoulders of their audiences.

It took me a long time laboring in the Lord’s vineyard to figure something out. The burden God gives His preacher for some problem, some people, or some cause is every bit as much a gift from Him as the blessings of salvation. And it becomes my starting place.

Starting place for what? I’m glad you asked.

The burden God gives you, pastor, is your beginning point for three things….

1. The vision God will give you for your work begins with a burden.

I like to think of the time we wrestle with a problem (i.e., the burden) as the equivalent of digging downward for the foundation of a mighty building. The deeper we dig–the more the problem burdens us, the longer we struggle with it, and the more it pains us–the greater will be the structure that eventually gets erected there.

You’ve seen the signs: “Watch this site. A new office building will be erected here.”

Well, post one of those signs on the burden God has given you: “Watch this site. A new visionary structure will go up here.”

What is your burden, pastor? What bothers you most in your community, your church, your world? What robs you of sleep at night and will not leave you alone?

–For Bill, a seminary student involved in our church, it was a run-down trailer park near the airport where he had spotted a number of needy and neglected children.

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The fatal mistake of the casually religious

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One of a thousand reasons the Psalms are so well-loved is that once in a while, we will be reading along and come to a place where that psalm nails a truth so dead-on, we sit there gasping for breath. Case in point, Psalm 50.

You hate instruction and cast my words behind you. When you saw a thief, you consented with him, and have been a partaker with adulterers. You give your mouth to evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother’s son.

And then, the clincher:

These things you have done, and I kept silent; you thought that I was just like you.(Ps. 50:17-21)

Thinking that the Eternal God is like us is an ancient tradition with a noble heritage. Every culture has done it, every generation has adapted the art to its own idiosyncracies, every worshiper struggles with the temptation to pull it off.

It’s been said, “In the beginning, God made man in His image. Ever since, man has been returning the favor.”

A couple of decades ago country music legend Johnny Cash paid to have a Hollywood movie made on the life of Christ. In the film, Jesus was depicted as a blue-eyed blonde. I’ve been to the Middle East and the only blue-eyed blondes I spotted were in our tour group. Everyone else, all the natives, seemed to be of a sun-dried dark color with jet black hair.

As prevalent as that is–the way we picture Jesus as looking like someone who would easily blend in with our group–a far worse thing it is to think of God as carrying our own prejudices, hemmed in by our narrow-mindednesses, burdened by our brand of negativities, and limited by our own personal convictions.

The Bible’s favorite word to describe God is needed here. He is holy.

The word “holy,” scholars tell us, means “other than.” God is something else, in the vernacular. He is above us and outside our limitations, far more than we can ever imagine. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.(Isaiah 55:9)

We have been made in the image of God. But we are not like God. Not much. To our everlasting shame.

Let’s talk about this.

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10 things the inexperienced person does not know about speaking in public

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As one who has a great deal of respect for godly laymen and laywomen, I’m always glad when one rises in church to deliver a sermon or a testimony or a report. And since, as a retired pastor, I’m in a lot of churches throughout the year. So, I get to see a good bit of this. And sometimes….

Sometimes I want to applaud them. “Good job. Well done.” (In fact, I often say it to them following the service.)

But at other times, I want to shake them. “Pay attention to what you are doing! You can do better than this!”

I say this fully aware that we all had to start out somewhere, sometime, someway, and that no beginner came to the speaking craft full-grown. We crawl before we walk and do that before we run.

However–and this is what prompts this diatribe today–what gets my goat is when the lay speaker or preacher is mature in years and should know better and still makes glaring mistakes.

Here is my list of ten things the beginning (or rusty or occasional) speaker seems not to know, but needs to learn quickly in order to be effective.

1. How to begin your message.

First, how not to begin:

–“When they asked me to give my testimony this morning, my first thought was….”

–“I don’t know why they asked me to do this, but….”

–“When I told my wife the preacher had asked me to speak today, she said….”

Don’t do that.

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