Category Archives: My 50 Year Perspective on Ministry

Looking for Mayberry, as well as the Garden of Eden

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(This was originally posted on my website in 2012.  I decided to repost it here and not tweak or update it.  Bear that in mind. I was living in New Orleans at the time, retired for three years.)

Pastors are always looking for sermon illustrations. See if any of this works for you.

TWO FUNERALS.

This week, C-Span televised the funeral of South Dakota statesman former Senator George McGovern, who had run for the Presidency in 1972 and lost in a landslide to Richard Nixon.

Whenever there is a funeral of a national leader on C-Span, I try to watch as much of it as I can. The fascinating part is hearing stories from colleagues, some of whom are often well-known in their own right, tales from earlier years, stories that never made it into newspapers.

This funeral was held, I believe, in the sanctuary of the First United Methodist Church of Sioux Falls. I did not watch the entire service, so my observation is not about this funeral specifically.

Pagan funerals–in our culture–look back; Christian funerals look ahead.

It’s that simple. The pagan service will celebrate all the good the subject did in his life while ignoring any unsavory parts; the Christian service may indeed bring in some of the accomplishments from his lifetime, but mainly looks forward. As the Apostle Paul said, “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award me on that day–and not to me only, but also to all who have loved His appearing” (II Timothy 4).

Something else about George McGovern intrigues me. In World War II, he flew bombers over Germany. He was a full-fledged American hero and thus entitled to all the trappings of macho-ism (machismo?). But the American public never saw any of that bravado from him as a senator, politician, and candidate for the highest office. In fact, he came across as rather nerdish.

And, by a strange coincidence, so did George H. W. Bush (our 41st president). In World War II, he was a fighter pilot who on one occasion had to parachute from his stricken plane. And yet, in one of his campaigns for the presidency, Newsweek magazine ran a cover with his picture and the words: “The Wimp Factor.” (Wimp? The man jumps out of planes to celebrate his 80th birthday? He is anything but a wimp!)

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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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Plans for my funeral. Yep, here is my program.

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We were gathered around the bed where my wife of 52 years lay. We had signed the papers to unplug her from life support.  Everyone was in tears.  She would take her last breath the next morning.

After a time, I said to my family, “Now listen. One of these days it will be Grandpa lying here. And I don’t want all this crying.”  Granddaughter Abby said, “Why not?”  I said, “Well, good night, I’ll be 98 years old and I will have preached the previous Sunday! What’s to cry about?” They all laughed.

I say a lot of things just to get a laugh.  It goes back to childhood so it’s who I am, I suppose.  But this one is dead on.  I want to live a long time and stay active serving the Lord and loving the special people around me.  Ideally, the only people attending my funeral will be friends of my grandchildren since I will have outlived all my contemporaries. (Note: The first time I wrote the above was 8 years ago.  I’m now 84 and going strong, thank the Lord!)

I may or may not do that.

My times are in God’s hands.  I know that and I’m good with it.

I go to a lot of funerals.  Yesterday, in fact, I went to two.  For the first I occupied a pew and at the second I was the officiator.

From time to time I give thought to my own memorial service.  And in planning it–if that’s what I’m doing here–I don’t want to fall into the trap of thinking I deserve a service befitting the King of England or something.  I’ll not be needing twelve preachers and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Simple is good.  And brief is not bad.

Here are my thoughts on the subject…

During the visitation time when people are entering the sanctuary to greet one another and speak to my family, the screens could be showing some of my cartoons through the years. Laughter is great–joy made audible!–and I’d love some at my service. (A favorite quote: Joy is the flag flown from the castle of your heart to show the King is in residence.)  I’m all in for joy.

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A funny thing happened on the way to the cemetery

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I’ve never done any funerals where the “honored guest” got up and walked out, or where the wrong person was discovered to be in the casket, or such foolishness as that. And for good reason.

Funerals are highly structured affairs, regulated by state law and overseen by a whole battery of employees and family members.

When we gather at the funeral home, the family has already been in conference with the mortician on how they want things done. The funeral directors stand nearby to make sure all goes according to plan. As a result, there is usually very little wiggle room there, space for the unexpected to occur.

And that’s not all bad.

I did this one funeral…

Where the man and his grandfather were buried together. The man was 34 and the grandfather was 64.  If the numbers don’t work for you, consider that the grandpa had died a full decade earlier but the family had not held a funeral. When the grandson was found in his freezer with an axe in his head–put there by his wife’s lesbian lover–the family wanted a joint funeral for both. The two women are serving life terms in the state penitentiary.

And the first time I held a funeral in one of New Orleans’ above-ground cemeteries….

The day before the funeral, the daughter-in-law said, “Now, pastor, tomorrow when we bury Roy’s mother…”  Yes?  “My mother will also be in the casket with her.” I said, “Excuse me?”  She said, “We cremated my mother some ten years ago and we haven’t known what to do with the ashes. We found out that it’s legal, so just before the casket is sealed, we’re going to slip the urn inside it and put both their names on the marble slab.”

She got a little gleam in her eye and said, “Just think–my mother and my mother-in-law in the same casket.” I said, “Did they get along together in life?”  She said, “It really doesn’t matter, does it?”

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Have a conversation; change the world

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Recently, my wife and I drove to Birmingham for lunch with my sisters and brother and their spouses.  Arriving a little early, we took a minor detour so I could show Bertha where I had lived in college.  The neighborhood is going downhill fast, and in fact, my college announced earlier this year they will cease to operate after graduation in a few days.

The boarding house where I lived for perhaps six months 1959-60, in the 1100 block of Graymont Avenue West, lies empty now, but I took a snapshot of the front porch.

I have a story about that front porch.

Three blocks down the street we shot a picture of the small apartment house where I lived the next three years. The neighborhood is in trouble now and you would not want to be stranded out here at night.  But back in the day, it was a safe place and I could walk up the hill to college and a mile to my girl-friend’s house without a thought about safety. I logged a lot of miles walking back and forth.

Back to the front porch.  Here’s what happened.

One Wednesday night I was sitting on the front stoop waiting for my ride to church.  Bill Dempsey was my Sunday School teacher and his wife Marguerite worked in the church office.  Great folks, and forever friends.

The six men who roomed with Mrs. Pope had had dinner and two or three were lounging on the front porch.  Joel Davis sat on the swing reading the newspaper.  Following his recent discharge from the Navy, Joel had moved to Birmingham for a job with Roadway Express. One of our residents had invited Joel to room with us.

From the swing, suddenly Joel looked up from his newspaper.  He said, “I just realized something. It’s Wednesday night . If I were back home in LaGrange, I’d be in prayer meeting!”

I said, “Come go with me. I’m waiting on my ride right now.”

He did.

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Pastor, if you could go back to your earlier churches…

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If you’re a pastor, here’s an interesting game to play. And that’s all it can be, unfortunately–a game.

If you could go back to the churches you have served, what would you do differently?

Some people say, “If I could live my life over, I wouldn’t change a thing.” I hear that and think, “What? You never made a mistake? Never really blew it? Never did anything stupid?”

We all did, let’s face it. And surely, if we went back and knew what we know now, we would do many, many things differently.

Here’s my take on this subject.

The first church I served was a tiny congregation 25 miles north of Birmingham, Alabama. It was my first attempt at preaching and pastoring and I did poorly, I’m afraid. The good folks at Unity Baptist Church of Kimberly, Alabama, were patient with me for the 14 months I served them. At the end of that time, I resigned and for 6 months served as part-time associate pastor of Central Baptist Church in Tarrant, Alabama. We were living in Tarrant and I worked down the street from the church at the cast iron pipe plant as secretary to the production manager.

If I could do the 14 months over at Unity, the one thing I would do is seek out a mentor.

I would call up a pastor or two in Tarrant or Gardendale and ask if they would let me buy them a cup of coffee. As we sat across the table from each other, I would say, “I’m lost. I have to prepare three messages a week and don’t have a clue how to get started. Give me some advice.”

And, if the advice was something that worked for me, I would have asked if we could meet regularly for a while until I got this figured out.

The folks at Unity would have appreciated the effort and the congregations of subsequent churches would have benefited. As it was, by going alone, I took the far more arduous way to find out to make sermons and lead a congregation.

What would I do differently at Central Baptist of Tarrant City, Alabama, during my six months there? Very little, probably. My duties were to call on people who had visited our services and help Pastor Morris Freeman with anything he asked. For this, no money changed hands, but we received free use of the old parsonage, thus saving us rent.

The one thing I wish I had done was to take a layman with me visiting. It would have done me good, blessed the layman, and made a statement to the people we were calling on.

Both of those churches came in my pre-seminary years, 1962-64.

From 1965-67, while in seminary, I pastored 25 miles west of New Orleans. Paradis Baptist of Paradis, Louisiana was situated on Alligator Bayou. I took what I had managed to learn from Unity and Central and what I was trying to learn in seminary, and did some things right. The church almost tripled in the less-than-three-years we were there. (Note: That church relocated and is now West St. Charles Baptist in Boutte, LA.)

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My love affair with the church

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As much as anyone you’ve ever met, I’m a product of the Church.

For some reason, the churches in my life revolve around the number three. I served six churches as pastor–three smaller ones and three larger ones–and in between, I logged three years as a staff member of a great church.

And, to carry out the theme, the churches that nurtured me from childhood through adolescence were three in number. Oddly, they were of different denominations, which may be one reason I’m more of a generic Christian than a denominational one.

The New Oak Grove Free Will Baptist Church of Nauvoo, Alabama has been our family’s church since the late 1800s. My grandparents joined that church in 1903, and my mother, in her 96th year now, is its senior member. Although “Oak Grove,” as we call it, sits 15 miles from any sizeable town, it will run a couple of hundred in attendance on Sundays and the buildings are all new and lovely. Mickey Crane has been its pastor for over 30 years. My mother thinks he’s one of her sons.

Remember how Paul remarked to Timothy that he had been nurtured in the faith by his mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois (II Timothy 1:5)? My mother is Lois and my first Sunday School teacher was Eunice.

I have good underpinnings.

That church loved its children. It was a wonderful place to grow up.

As her mother before her had done with a houseful of children, Lois got her six young ones ready on Saturday night. Then, on Sunday, we walked across the field and through the woods, a mile to the church. Among the blessings from that investment, God gave this good woman two sons for the ministry. Ron and I have logged nearly a hundred years of preaching between us.

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