First story: “We humans are a mess, aren’t we?”

A woman was sharing with her weight-loss group: “I had cooked a cake, my family’s favorite. Later, I saw they’d eaten only half of it. So I sat down and ate a slice. And another. Soon the entire cake was gone. Now I began worrying about what my husband would think. He liked the cake but he’d really be upset if he knew I’d eaten the entire half.”

So, we’re going to pause here and ask our audience a question. Whether you get this or not will reveal your grasp of human nature.

What did the woman do? And what do you think her husband did when he got home and found the cake gone?

She said, “He never found out. I made another cake and ate half of it.”

Human nature is a corrupt, self-destructive thing, isn’t it? We are often our own worst enemies. The consistent message of Scripture is not only that “God loves you,” but that “He loves you more than you love yourself, did far more for you than you’ve ever done for yourself, and is far more ambitious for you (in the right sense) than you ever were for yourself.” Romans 8:31-32 is a favorite statement of His being for us.

Second story: “We’re sent to be fruit-bearers, but of a particular kind.”

A fellow I was reading enjoys telling something that he and his brothers did as children (my notes did not record his name; sorry).

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(What follows has reference primarily within our Southern Baptist Convention and possibly a few other denominations. If this counsel does not work within your ministerial framework, please ignore it. Thank you. –Joe)

Pastor, this one is unusual in two respects. 1) I’m going to suggest that you and your wife read it together and discuss it. 2) It comes from my wife and me. (I wrote it, then read it to Margaret and added her comments, sometimes changing what I’d said for clarification.)

I think it was Freud who said no one has ever successfully answered, “What does a woman want?”

Maybe so. But what concerns many a pastor in our denominational framework is: “What is a search committee looking for?”

The answers will depend on who you talk to. Experience, age, college, seminary, glowing references, and denominational service are some of the mainstays on their lists. The joke is they want a 30-year-old preacher with 25 years of experience, someone with a loving wife and two-and-a-half children who adore him even though he spends 80 hours a week doing pastoral calling and 40 hours in sermon preparation.

That is overstated. Slightly.

They want the usual: a good preacher who knows the Bible, believes in it absolutely, has a warm heart and great pulpit manner, and can administer a staff. They want a man who can project a vision for a church, but not force it on the congregation, leading by consensus. They want a pastor who can select a staff of winners, then see that they do a great job and that they stay with the church for many years. Oh, and they would like the pastor’s wife to be lovely and charming without letting on that she has the slightest idea she’s lovely and charming.

Nail this down and you’re on your way, preacher.

Then, there are a few other things. What we call the intangibles.

My wife and I were talking about this just today, how that young pastors get their training and experience and send out their resumes in hope that the big church will come their way but often without a clue as to what they still do not have just right.

May I start the discussion on those other things which pastor search committees want in their new pastor?That means nothing here is meant to be the final word on the subject. Perhaps it can get you to thinking and even provoke a discussion around the breakfast table or over the table at McDonald’s the next time you and a couple of your preacher buddies meet. Even better, you and your wife invite another preacher-couple in for couple and discuss it. Whether you agree is not the point. Just talking about it will be a start in the right direction.

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“Tell me the story of Jesus, write on my heart every word; tell me the story most precious, sweetest that ever was heard.”

I love Christmas. I love the songs and the pageantry, the spirit in the air, the foods and decorations and joy, and most of all, being a minister of the Gospel, I love the opportunity to tell the old, old story all over again.

No matter how much we love the Christmas story, this season seems to return with increasing regularity.

As for ministers, after a few cycles of preaching every aspect of it you can think of–the angel’s appearance to Mary, the shepherds, Joseph’s story, the Magi and Herod, even Simeon and Anna–you run out of soap.

Now, you get into recycling. You ransack your collection of Christmas books (sermons, Guidepost stories, those sentimental collections publishers cough out each year, and anything you can find online) in a search for some angle you’ve not used before, some insight that will excite you. The sermon machine has a never-ending appetite for fodder.

You do this not so much for your people as for yourself. You feel a need to get excited about the story all over again; new insights will do that for you.

There’s a better way.

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“He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust.” (Psalm 103:14

God is under no illusions about you and me.

We’re not perfect and never will be in this life.

Get used to the idea.

So, whether you set out simply to live the Christian life as a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ or you have been called into His service as a minister (pastor, missionary, whatever), you will do well to shed all pretenses and aspirations of perfection in this life.

This means that you will…

–give your best and feel it is never enough. It’s not, but the Lord can feed a multitude with a child’s lunch, so get over it.

–feel good about something you did and find out later some people were disappointed in you. You will not go to pieces over it.

–make some people angry at you for no reason you can think of. You will accept it as how things are.

–have enemies you never wanted, face opposition you never bargained for, and deal with crises not of your making. You will constantly check to see if it was something you did or failed to do. At the end, you will not take it personally.

Even when (or if) you have done everything flawlessly in your service for the Lord, you will be criticized.  Someone will find fault with what you did, write you off as a failure, reject you for whatever they were considering, and you will not be given an opportunity to respond.

Get used to it. It’s the way of life in this fallen world.

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A few weeks ago, we posted an article here on 7 women inside the church which pastors should be wary of. With the scandal in the news involving a couple of prominent generals and a Florida socialite, we recently followed that up with an article saying “if it can happen there, it can happen to you.”

Here is what will probably be the third and final segment on this trilogy in which we are cautioning pastors–of all ages, but particularly young ones who could be blind-sided–to watch out for certain types of women.  I am very aware of the sexist nature of these writings. And, as we have noted, sometimes the predator is the man in the pulpit and the victim the unsuspecting one who comes to him seeking pastoral counsel and guidance.

That said, here is my list of seven “types” of women outside the pastor’s own immediate congregation of whom he must be careful.

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“There is a sense in which sexual sin destroys a person like no other, because it is so intimate and entangling, corrupting on the deepest human level.” –John MacArthur

We all agree that adultery is wrong. The problem is once you get caught in its grip, you find yourself so drunk with its intoxication, you start humming the Debbie Boone hit, “This can’t be wrong, it feels so right.”

A pastor friend whose wife left him and the children for another man in the church–who had also abandoned his family–told me some women from his congregation drove to the nearby state to try to reason with her.  She rebuffed them. “You are interfering with the will of God for my life!” (She came to see the severity of her mistake, but only after it was too late to repair her marriage. She lives in regret.)

It can happen to you, friend.

If you question everything else that follows, do not doubt that. Adultery can happen anywhere, to anyone. You do not have to be debonair, suave, handsome, articulate, successful, muscular, and every woman’s dream.  You can be dull and overweight, unattractive and without a shred of a personality, and still be caught up in this firestorm we call an affair.

And, you can be mighty in the Lord, successful beyond your biggest dreams, and a warrior for Christ of the first dimension, and still be brought down by adultery.

“Flee fornication.” (I Corinthians 6:18)

Don’t argue with it, reason with it, discuss its ramifications with the object of your delight, and do not underestimate it. Just run as fast as your little legs will carry you. Get away, quick.

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“So, as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you….” (Romans 1:15)

I am loving preaching more these days than in all the half-century I’ve been at it.

Recently, when a pastor invited me to supply in his church for a Sunday, he made an unusual request. “Give me some choices as to what you will preach.”

I loved the request, and quickly wrote him back, sending summaries of a half-dozen messages.  He picked two, specifying one for morning and the other for Sunday evening.

When I brought the messages to his people, everything about the experience was wonderful. He was a gracious host, attentive to every detail, and his people were so responsive. I can’t wait to go back.

Later, in a quiet conversation, he asked if I always preach without notes as I had done that day. “And,” he added, “when you were pastoring and having to come up with two new sermons for each Sunday, did you preach the same way you do now?”

By way of explanation, the “way I do now” is this. I take my Bible into the pulpit, but only to read the scripture. Thereafter, every scripture mentioned in the sermon I have memorized. The sermon is an open-hearted time of sharing. All the “notes” are in my head and heart.

What my sermon is not, I admit, is a well-crafted, finely honed specimen of hermeneutical art.

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