Remind them of these things…. (II Timothy 2:14)

If you have pastored for more than four or five years, or if you are in your second (or more) pastorate, you have learned the hard way that saying something one time to your people does not suffice. Some lessons–the most important ones, particularly–have to be said again and again.

Some of the most foundational messages–such as salvation by faith in Christ, the adequacy of the Word, and the importance of the cross–we continually work into sermons and lessons. These cannot be over-stressed.

Other lessons have to do with how the Christian faith is applied in our daily lives or in the operation of the Lord’s church. These too need to be iterated and re-iterated.

Each minister will have his/her own list. Here are my top ten principles to stress to your congregation again and again.

I suggest that we run these in the church bulletin, figure out how to get the gist of them onto the sign in front of the campus, print them on posters and post around the church, and speak them repeatedly in committees and classes and sermons.

Eventually, if you say them often enough and strong enough, people will begin to remember them. They might even tease you a little, as though you made these up and no one else in the Lord’s work says this. When they tease you, take pride. You’re finally getting through.

1. If you have a problem with change, you are not going to get along with Jesus very well and you are going to be unhappy in this church.

Continue reading →

Have you ever met a children’s worker who hated kids? I have.

Have you ever seen a preacher who did not believe in God? My friend John attended some divinity school classes with such people at Berkeley.

Have you ever met a Bible teacher who did not believe the Bible? The woods are filled with them.

It takes all kinds, they say. I reckon so.

I thought of some of the weird people we meet in the ministry this week while reading Pat Conroy’s latest book, “My Reading Life.” For everyone who loves to read, I cannot recommend this too highly. Every chapter is a delight. And for anyone who loves to write, ditto; every sentence is a wonder.

As a military brat, Conroy’s family moved around a lot. When they settled in Beaufort, SC, he found it hard to form new friendships and while dodging the campus bullies discovered the school library. This became his favorite place. The odd thing however, is that the librarian resented him coming in and reading books.

I thought you’d appreciate Conroy’s story about the librarian who hated readers. Here’s the story….

Continue reading →

This morning a pastor friend told some of us the sermon he is working on for next Sunday. The challenge, he said, was that part of the text is very difficult. “How to convey its message without getting too theological is my problem,” he said.

My own skeptical nature translated that as: “How to preach it without boring my people to death is what I’m up against!”

Earlier this week, on this website we addressed the question of what a pastor is to do when his guest preacher is boring the congregation. But there is a more urgent question….

What should the preacher do when his own preaching is boring the people in the pews?

If he discovers that in the middle of a sermon, there’s little he can do other than to shoot up an emergency prayer-flare for divine help.

But if he is preparing adequately for his pulpit work, he will know early on that this sermon has great potential to bore his people and can take steps to head off that peril.

Question: How does a pastor know on Tuesday that next Sunday’s sermon will be boring?

Continue reading →

When it comes to sheep, the shepherd wants to protect them from wolves and other predators.

But when those sheep are the members of a church, the shepherd–aka, the pastor–has two groups to safeguard them from: predators who would take unfair advantage of the people and ruin a church and the dullards who would kill a good congregation by sheer boredom.

Protecting them from one group is as big a challenge as from the other.

Two stories today. One tells how on one occasion I determined to protect my people from a boring Bible study, and the second reveals how I learned that lesson the hard way.

Continue reading →

Say you’re a pastor. And let’s say a pastor search committee is all over you, believing that you are the man for their church, God’s own choice. And they want you to travel to their city and preach in their pulpit and give their people a chance to “call” you as their new shepherd.

And let’s say the church is much larger, the salary provides a hefty boost in your income, and the prestige is twice what it is where you are. This has to be of God, right?

Oh, one thing more. Let’s say your wife is unhappy about it.

What does a pastor do in this case?

Most of us in the ministry have been there at one time or another, in one way or the other.

In my case, it was the opposite. My wife thought the committee was correct, that relocating to the bigger church was of the Lord. I was the holdout, the one who could not decide.

It wasn’t that I was opposed to moving. I just wanted a word from God that it was the right thing to do.

A friend counseled me on how to pray in this matter. I did as he suggested, and a half-hour later rose to my feet and picked up the phone and called the chairman of the pastor search committee, asking them to remove my name from consideration. I called Margaret and told her, then buckled down to becoming the best pastor for my people I knew how to be. It worked out.

Or did it? To this day, Margaret is not so sure we did the right thing.

The main reason is that one year later, we accepted the call to another church–yes, a larger and more prestigious church–and it did not turn out well. After a very hard three years, we took a paid leave of absence and walked away from that pastorate, ending up in metro New Orleans.

This is one of those things which every husband and wife have in their relationship attic somewhere: an issue on which they simply agree to disagree.

The other day a pastor’s wife e-mailed me about a similar situation she and her husband were facing.

Continue reading →

The other day I posted a note on Facebook that went something like this: “It’s not a resolution for 2011, but my goal is to write an article for my website that gets passed around the world and is used of God to change everyone who reads it.”

That thought has lingered with me ever since, to the point that I really feel it’s something I need to try to do.

And yes, I have checked out my motives on this. I imagine this is not unlike a pastor wanting to preach a sermon that will be read and quoted across the globe. Or someone wanting to write a song that will top the charts. Are my motives pure? I think so. With all my heart I want to glorify the Lord Jesus and to bless His people. In no way is this about me.

As the subject burned in my heart, I began reflecting on what kind of article it would have to be in order to have that kind of effect. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

It would have to–

–touch a nerve. That is, connect with people immediately.

–meet a need. It can’t be theoretical but has to deal with genuine issues.

–tell a story. Stories connect better than abstract principles.

–give a formula. It needs to offer solid solutions to the problem it addresses.

Later, it occurred to me that this is also the description (prescription?) for a good sermon and for a great country song!

Continue reading →

Something about those children intrigued me, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.

For the past week or two, I have noticed these three small children playing in their yard near the Mississippi River levee. Normally, in my daily walk I don’t travel as far east as their house, but recently I began lengthening the walk by another mile, trying to lose more weight. That’s when I began noticing them.

The oldest child seemed to be seven or eight. There was a younger brother and a little sister. In the yard was all kinds of play equipment. No matter how cold it was, they were out there laughing and running, jumping and hiding, having a big time. You could hear them a block away.

Something about that made me smile. “Whatever the parents are doing,” I thought, “it’s working.”

Yesterday, the children were out once more, enjoying life. As I reached my turning-around point and headed back, I noticed they were doing something different. They and another boy had several large-wheel vehicles at the top of the levee which they were riding down to their yard across the grassy expanse. Two women sat in chairs near the house, keeping an eye on them. One was the mother, I assumed.

As I neared them, all the children rode off the levee except the oldest boy. As I approached, he looked in my direction and said, “Hi. I’m Harley.” I was so taken aback, I had to ask, “That’s your name?” He said it was. I said, “Hi Harley. My name is Mister Joe.” He smiled a big grin and said,”Hi, Mister Joe!” Then, off the levee he went.

I walked away thinking my first impression of that family was right on. The parents are doing many things right. Here is a little kid with a great friendly attitude, confident enough to introduce himself to strangers, and enjoying life to its fullest.

One day soon I plan to introduce myself to the parents. I’m going to predict that I will find the family does not have a television set and the children do not own computer games. There’s more to that family than this, of course, and I want to find out what it is.

From the first, I had felt there was something so attractive about that family.

And that’s what started me thinking about churches. Is it possible to do a drive-by of a church and within a few seconds determine that it’s a healthy church?

I’ve run that question by a number of friends.

Continue reading →

(Back in October, I began a three-part series on “Pastor, You’ll Have to Show Them How.” It reminded the Lord’s shepherds that congregations do not come by great faith, strong compassion, and devout courage automatically. The pastor needs to teach these qualities to their people. I envisioned this as three articles, and did the first two–on how the pastor can teach faith and compassion to their people. For some reason, though, I neglected to do the third one. So, here it is, a few months late. The two earlier articles are found on my blog by scrolling down the archives (right side) to October 22, 2010.)

What man is there who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go and return to his house, lest the heart of his brethren faint like his heart. (Deuteronomy 20:8)

God did not want cowards in His army.

There’s something about faintheartedness that spreads from one person to another like wildfire. Better to go forward with a small fighting force made up of champions than with a massive one infiltrated with cowards.

Fear and courage are brothers, we are told. They show up at the same time, often hand in hand. But, like the brothers in my family and maybe yours, the competition between them is fierce. They struggle to see which will rule the day.

Fear and courage are both contagious.

Let someone start the conversation by pointing out how strong the enemy is and how weak our side is and how foolish we would be to go forward, and soon, his solo is drowned out by a chorus of like-minded fearmongers.

They had been waiting for an excuse to go home.

Let someone stand up and speak faith and courage, and often–not always, alas–others will step out of the crowd to stand with him. Ten warriors with courage–strong of heart and dead-set on victory–can do more than a thousand who are ruled by fear.

The twelve spies had returned from their forty days in Canaan. Israel’s multitude gathered around, eager for their report. There was good news a-plenty: the fields were fertile, the crops abundant, the orchards loaded, and the barns filled. But there was another side to the report: the land was well-populated, the cities were walled and protected by standing armies equipped with the latest technology. And if that wasn’t enough, there were giants in the land.

This could go either way.

It all came down to leadership.

Immediately after the report, faithful Caleb spoke up. “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.”

To his dismay, ten of the twelve spies responded: “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.” They continued, “That land devours its inhabitants! We were like grasshoppers in the sight of those people!” (Numbers 14)

Caleb, you were outvoted, sir. Sorry. The twelfth member of your team, Joshua, seems to have kept quiet. We wonder why.

All night long, the sleepless congregation tossed in their beds, dwelling on their fears. By sunrise, they had hatched a plan. They would abandon Moses and this invisible “God” of his and return to Egypt. There, they would apologize to Pharaoh and act like none of this ever happened.

Now, at last, Joshua spoke up.

Continue reading →

Cleaning out a stack of papers, here are some of the tidbits I found. If you find anything of use to yourself in teaching or sermonizing, welcome to them.

Here is the makings of a sermon on God.

Nowhere is it written that the Lord of this universe has to be a God of love. It would be just as conceivable that a despot, a tyrant, might create a universe for sport. Or that God may be flighty like some people we know, and create a universe one day, then abandon it as His attention drifts toward some new project.

There are indeed those who think of the Lord of the universe as a tyrant who kills babies or an an absentee landlord who made us but has no further interest in our doings.

Were it not for three overriding facts, many of us might agree with them….

1) This World.

Creation speaks of a great God, a Lord of order and beauty, a Deity of kindness and compassion. My friend Fisher Humpreys asks, “Who but God would have thought of oysters?” And we might add, an octopus? a hippo? a camel? or my Uncle Edwin? The heavens declare the glory of God, and so does the earth.

2)The Bible.

Its revelation of God. This book is unique among the writings of all history. The more we learn about its intricacies and revelations, its teachings and its consistencies, the more we come away shaking our heads knowing, “This is from God.” Only the fool dismisses the Bible as a collection thrown together by a cabal intent on deceiving the world. We all should be so deceived, this Word is so wonderful.

3)The Lord Jesus Christ.

Among those who have walked this planet, He is unique. They said of Him, “No one ever spoke like this man” (John 7:46). We would add, “No one ever was born as He was born.” “No one ever lived as He lived.” “No one taught as He taught.” “No one worked as He worked.” “No one died quite the way He died.” And, then, “No one ever rose from the dead the way He did.”

There, pastor! See if you can find a sermon in there somewhere!

I thought of writing an article called, “Confessions of a Homesick Preacher.” Here are some of the notes I jotted down on that subject.

Continue reading →

A friend e-mailed me today with a question I’ve never heard before.

Referring to Isaiah’s experience of worship in the 6th chapter of his prophecy, my friend said, “Is that descriptive or prescriptive?” That is, does this account of Isaiah’s experience simply show us how he worshiped on that occasion or is it saying this is how it’s to be done, and that all these elements must be present for worship to take place?

My correspondent felt it was descriptive. However, he has friends, he says, who were taught in seminary that Isaiah 6 is a blueprint for worship which must be followed.

I agreed with him. This passage makes no pretense at ordering all God’s children for all time to worship in the same way or to touch all those guidestones. It tells what happened to Isaiah on that day. Period.

All you have to do is think of others throughout Scripture who worshiped God in many different ways. Some had visions like Isaiah, but most seemed not to have done so. Some were shaken to the core, but most seem not to have been. Some experienced a life-changing call into the ministry, but they were in the minority.

What troubles me is how some among us–pastors and Bible teachers–take a wonderful passage with much to teach us and make of it something God never intended.

We turn the coat of many colors into a strait jacket.

Continue reading →