If all goes as planned, pastor, your visit to our church this upcoming weekend will result in a unanimous call from the congregation for you to become our next shepherd. You will return home, make your announcement to your church family, and put your house up for sale. A month or so later, you will preach your first sermon in our church.

You will find a lot of things once you begin your ministry among us. You’ll find our people receptive and responsive. We’ve been over a year without a pastor–we’ve had the very best interim possible in Mark Tolbert, but he would be the first to admit, “it ain’t the same”–and we’re ready.

You’ll find this church to be a lot like the one you came from, and probably the one before that. Since congregations are made up of frail beings from the complete spectrum of humanity, we’re not unlike all those other churches. This means you’ll find the vast majority to be good folks who require low maintenance, but a certain percentage at each end of the range will require more of your attention. At one end will be those who try your soul, who are never satisfied, who are takers and complainers and demanders. God puts them in the church to keep the pastor humble.

At the other end you will discover the sweetest people on the planet, those who look for ways to serve, who are grateful for anything you do, who bring you the occasional pie or flowers or a book. God puts them in the church to keep the pastor from quitting.

A pastor friend wrote back to his former church, “The most surprising discovery we’ve made since arriving here was to find the very same people we left behind. Only, they have different names.” I expect you’ll find that to be the case with us.

In spite of all our attempts to put no expectations on you and your family, I think it’s fair to warn you we do have several.

1) We expect you to be yourself.

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Trying to get back into the saddle at the associational office after being gone for some 10 days is tough. Fortunately, not a lot on the calendar this week.

First Baptist Church of Kenner is agog over the upcoming visit from the prospective pastor this weekend. He will meet with various groups on Saturday, including the senior adults at lunch, various individuals in the afternoon, and the entire church for a dinner that night, followed by Q and A. He’ll preach Sunday and then the congregation will express their sense of the Lord’s leadership (also known as “voting on him,” a poor choice of terms).

Church administrator Danny Moore said Tuesday, “The congregation is so excited about his coming, I think they’re ready to ‘vote him in’ right now before they’ve even met him.” In my conversation with the pastor today, I told him what Danny said, and for a moment considered teasing him with, “You’ll have to do a lousy job to blow it this Sunday, because everyone is so ready for you!” But, he doesn’t need any more pressure. I’ve been in his position a few times and the hardest thing you have to do is keep the focus off what the congregation wants and keep it on pleasing the Lord.

I dug out Cal Thomas’ op-ed column from Monday’s Times-Picayune since its message has followed me around the last two days. He was commenting on Barack Obama’s religious faith, wondering if he is indeed a Christian as he claims. Thomas’ authority, he’s quick to point out, is an interview Obama gave to the Chicago Sun-Times’ religion editor Cathleen Falsani in 2004. She was writing a book, “The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People,” for which she interviewed Obama.

“I’m rooted in the Christian tradition,” she quotes Obama. Then, he says one of those innocuous things that only an outsider to the Christian faith would utter: “I believe there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people.”

That is tantamount to a medical doctor stating his belief that all remedies for physical ailments–everything from modern medical science to the incantations of medicine men to the ignorant drillings and potions of witch doctors–are equal in value and similarly effective. I don’t think so.

Falsani went on to say that Obama believes “all people of faith–Christians, Jews, Muslims, animists, everyone–know the same God.”

The only person who can utter such a statement is someone unfamiliar with any of those “gods.” The more you find out about them, the quicker you see how incompatible they are.

Cal Thomas, a devout Catholic if I remember correctly, concludes, “Evangelicals and serious Catholics might ask if this is so, why did Jesus waste His time coming to Earth, suffering pain, rejection and crucifixion? If there are many ways to God, He might have sent down a spiritual version of table manners and avoided the rest.”

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Dear Grandson,

Before long, you’ll be getting your drivers license. That’s a day you have long anticipated and the adults in your life have long dreaded. It’s a bittersweet moment, signifying in a sense that you are coming of age and taking a giant stride into independence. Your mom and dad are hyperventilating just thinking of that.

This is a great time to be a driver in some respects. The cars are better, safer, and easier to drive than at any time in history. They’re also more expensive and the insurance you will need to carry will cost enough to buy a second car. The price of gasoline has always been a factor, but never more than now. In our neighborhood, the cost per gallon has risen ten cents in the last week. When I was your age, three of those dimes would buy you a gallon. Dark ages, right?

Actually, I got my drivers license in the summer of 1957, exactly 51 years ago. In those days–just to show you how this driving business has changed–you were required to take the test in a car with a standard shift. And you were not allowed to use the electronic turn signals; you had to stick your hand out the window and signal to other drivers your intent to turn, slow down, or stop. Of course, there were no seat belts back then, no air bags, and the tires regularly blew out. As I say, the cars are much better now.

However, beloved grandson, there are some urgent matters I feel a need to call to your attention about driving.

The highway is a dangerous place. And yes, so are the streets and avenues. Powerful cars, high speeds, and frail humans can be a deadly combination.

Now, at this point you’re thinking, “Grandpa, I’ve ridden in cars all my life. I know about these things. I’ve seen a dog run out in front of the car and Dad slam on the brakes. I’ve seen wrecked cars where someone had been drinking and ran a red light and people were hurt. I am well aware of the danger of driving.”

Does this mean you’re going to forget this foolishness about getting a drivers license? I didn’t think so.

So, let me continue, even if you want to roll your eyes and leave the room. Please stay with me just a few more minutes.

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My friend Verona Cain and I have been exchanging e-mails regarding tithing and stewardship, and she told me a story that knocked my socks off.

What follows is all hers with only a tiny bit of editing…

“I teach my children to tithe. My oldest is seven years old and we have had a bank for her for years. The bank has three sections–a church, a savings bank, and a store–which is intended to teach the child to tithe, to save, and to spend.

“When the time came to purchase a similar bank for my middle child, now 5, I drove to the Christian store and could not find one. I described it to the clerk who thought she remembered something like that from years ago. She plundered in the back and came out with it. However, it was so old, the labels that represented the windows for the buildings had peeled off. When I asked if she could order me a newer model, the clerk said, ‘Do people still teach tithing?’

“I could not believe my ears. “Now, my older two children are from a prior marriage. Their father, Robert, left me because of my Christian faith. He came back later and gave me a choice. ‘I will come home if you back off this whole God thing.’ Well, First Corinthians chapter 7 tells us to let the unbelieving spouse go and I knew I could not turn away from the One who promised to never leave me or forsake me in favor of one who had already left me once.

“So, I told him that I was sorry, I just could not live up to those terms.

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This morning I ran across a sermon the wonderful Frank Pollard preached a dozen years ago with the intriguing title “Forget my sin; remember me.” The text, Psalm 25:7, says precisely what the title conveys:

“Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your lovingkindness remember me, for your goodness’ sake, O Lord.”

Forget my sin. Remember me.

Some of the best news ever encountered for sinners–that would be people like you and me–is that when God forgives a sin, it is forever erased from the eternal record.

I called the cell phone company the other day to ask if they could retrieve a message I had deleted by mistake. “No,” the man said. “Once you delete it and close that transaction, it’s gone.” Gone where? “Just gone. Like it never existed.”

“Your sins and iniquities I will remember no more.” That outstanding promise from Hebrews 10:17 can also be found in Hebrews 8:12 and in Jeremiah 31:34. By recording it in three places, God clearly meant us to get that message.

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Next week, with the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention going on in Indianapolis–one of our favorite cities for this sort of thing–I’ll be away from this blogging machine. I may or may not send something to son Marty so he can post here, but readers need a vacation from this constant barrage of our stuff. Enjoy it while you can.

On the way back south from the convention, I’ll be leading a deacons retreat for Five Points Baptist Church in Northport, Alabama (Tuscaloosa is its suburb) that Friday night and Saturday morning, then preaching for the two Sunday morning services. Not sure of the times of the service, but if you’re in the area, we’d love to have you present.

As you know, we do not do promote anything or sell stuff, or for that matter, send forwards to you. (You’re welcome.) However….

This is a good time to call to your attention some special friends with fascinating ministries you might want to check into.

1) Kathy Frady may be the most creative person on the planet. Check out her website at www.thecreativedramatist.com. She’s a local lady and, with Rebecca Hughes, leader of the women’s ministry of our association. What she does is don outlandish disguises–wigs, outfits, etc–and assume the role of various women you will meet at church (in your dreams/nightmares!) and a few who lived in earlier generations (Lottie Moon, Annie Armstrong, Georgia Barnette, these girls). She is so funny it’s not funny. How in the world she can be so off-the-wall crazy and so wonderfully-sweet-and-sane-and-spiritual at the same time is beyond me. She writes her own material and will knock your socks off.

Kathy’s husband John Frady is a staff-member at Celebration Church in Metairie and her biggest supporter. I figure it was either support her or kill her. (That was a funny, Mom.)

Many of our readers have seen Kathy on denominational programs and know what I’m talking about. This week I have sent out letters to some of the leading pastors/churches in Louisiana about Kathy, asking them to check out her website, and to consider inviting her to their church for special events, banquets, women’s day services, and the like.

2) My son Marty has a young friend with a unique website which invites your prayer requests and enlists the participation of readers in praying for needs posted there. Check out www.iwalkwithhim.com.

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Anyone who watches sports–football, baseball, you name it–sooner or later will hear the announcer say about a ball thrown by the pitcher or the quarterback, “Boy! I’ll bet he’d love to have that one back.” But it’s gone, for better or for worse.

One of the best features in having a website is being able to go back into something you’ve written and posted for all the world to see–and brother, do we mean all the world!–and edit it.

What we call tweaking. Fine-tuning. Improving, amending, correcting, fixing. You get the point.

I suppose the process is similar for others who do this sort of thing, but sometimes you reach a point where you feel, “That’s all I can do for this article,” and you quit tampering with it and go ahead and post it. My son Marty showed me how to post these things a couple of years ago, thus cutting out the middle man (himself). It’s good to be able to do that. (If I sound like a 1940 model pleased that he knows how to do something in this technological age, I plead guilty.)

Then, once it gets on the website, the writer is able to read it as others do. That helps the writer see it more objectively and it’s how the flaws often stand out. A sentence doesn’t read right. I used the wrong word. Used a word twice in the same sentence; need to find a different choice for one of them. What did I leave out? What did I include that should have been left out?

The process of editing calls for me to back out of the blog and go through another series of clicks to enter the editing room. I read back over the manuscript (so to speak), and tweak it. Add a comma, shorten a sentence, and so on. At the end, click “save,” wait until it assures me the changes have been made, and voila! the article on the website has been improved.

At least, that’s the plan.

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The church I belong to is expecting.

Finally, they are nearing that long anticipated day when the pastor search committee will present the man they believe God has led to us. Last Sunday morning, I made a few suggestions at the monthly men’s breakfast about this crucial time in our church’s existence and encouraged our guys to pass this along to other members.

1) This is no time to quit praying.

Over a year ago Pastor Tony Merida resigned to become assistant professor of preaching and dean of the chapel at our New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. One of the first acts of the leadership was to call the congregation to prayer.

Over the past several months, each Sunday morning, interim pastor Mark Tolbert has called a member of the search committee to the platform and led in prayer for their work.

Now that the committee has announced a date at which they will introduce the prospective pastor, there is a tendency on our part to feel a great sense of relief and thank God for answering our prayers, then to stop praying. But if anything, this is the time to intensify our intercessions.

I’ve heard that tightrope walkers find the most hazardous part of their routine to be the last step or two. They’ve been out on the rope, they’ve performed their death-defying act, and the crowd is cheering. A sense of relief floods over them as they step toward safety. This is the danger zone. Veterans learn to be vigilant and cautious at every point until they are safely on the ground.

2) This is the time to trust your leaders.

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This most dreaded of all seasons begins June 1 and goes through December 1. Weeks ago, the National Hurricane Center or a department of the University of Colorado or someone came out with their forecasts for this year. The fact that their predictions for the past two years have been dramatic failures does not stop them from issuing a new sets of prognostications and the news programs and papers from reporting them. But no one I know pays much attention to them. There have to be better ways of predicting these storms.

As though they are finally getting the message, the hurricane “experts” are hard at work in search of more reliable indicators. We hear of attempts to measure the temperature of the ocean underneath tropical depressions and of robot airplanes which will be sent into the storms closer to the ground, something the weather service’s airplanes cannot do safely.

Such information would be no help in predicting the number and intensity of storms but could give us advance knowledge of what a storm already formed might do.

Are we safe? Is New Orleans protected from a storm? Has the relentless levee-building which the U. S. Corps of Engineers has been engaged in since Hurricane Katrina, nearly three years ago, produced stronger, more reliable levees?

Good question. The only sure answer is: we won’t know until a storm hits.

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“We need your help,” the caller said. “Our church is having a financial crisis.”

As a veteran pastor, I’ve heard that a few times and said it more than once. In the caller’s case, his church is relocating and trying to find millions of dollars, they have a pretty hefty ongoing budget, and his church gives generously to missions.

“How can I help?”

The answer was surprising.

“We would like a cartoon on the subject.”

“What do you want it to say?”

“Something about giving to the Lord over the summer.”

I said I would see what I could do.

The result turned out better than I expected. What we ended up with a couple of days later–I have a day job so it’s not like I could drop everything to get to this–was three cartoons.

We e-mailed the toons to the church administrator who had asked for them, alongwith a couple of suggestions.

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