Category Archives: Pastors

Lord, deliver us from helpful, meddlesome friends!

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My journal tells of a revival in our church in 1992.  After the final service, my wife and I took the guest evangelist and singer to lunch.  And there they proceeded to unload.

My journal…

At lunch for one solid hour, they filled me with their suggestions for improving our work here.  Finally Margaret intervened and said, “You guys are overdoing it.” I was about to overdose on their helpfulness!

I don’t recall asking for their input.  And to be sure, they presumed upon the relationship.  I’m confident they felt they were serving the Lord well by suggesting ways we could get this big church off the ground and into the air.  And because they have been in full-time itinerant ministry for decades and have seen it all, they have definite opinions and convictions on what works and what doesn’t.  And they are friends, although not with a lengthy history. Anyway…

My well-meaning friends had no clue the forces I was contending with inside the membership of the church.  But, they wanted to help me, so I listened.  And praise the Lord for a good wife.  She spoke up and told them that was enough already. Smiley-face goes here.

She was right.  There is such a thing as overdoing a good thing.

These days, in retirement, I’m in a different church almost every Sunday.  I preach in big ones and little ones, taking them as the invitations arrive.  And frequently after ministering in a church, I do have thoughts on what the pastor can do to serve the Lord better there.

But unless I’m asked, I keep it to myself.

These days–

Perhaps one time out of ten, the host pastor will say to me toward the end of our meeting, “So, Brother Joe, I’d welcome any suggestions you have on what I should be doing.”  And this is the honest truth, the pastor who says that almost never needs anything from me.  The very fact that he is looking for ways to do a better job speaks volumes about that pastor and his leadership.

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What wears pastors down, ages them prematurely, and uses them up too quickly

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Betrayals.  Disappointments.  Constant conflict.  Second-guessing everything you say.  Griping.

This week a pastor texted to say while he was out of town the deacons met to revise the bylaws and make the preacher answerable to them.  They conspired not to tell the pastor about this until he returned home. But someone thought he ought to know, called him, and now it’s all hit the fan.  The chairman of deacons is saying if the pastor pushes his opposition to this it will split the church and will be his fault.

You feel like banging your head against the wall. How crazy is this!

It wears preachers down.

Most church members have no clue that the constant murmuring (the KJV’s favorite word for it) among the flock is offensive to the Heavenly Father, upsetting to the good people in the congregation, and burdensome to the minister.

Moses is a great case study for us.  For forty years–think of it!–he gave faithful leadership to the people of God who, far from appreciating him, were relentless in their eroding, grinding, burdening undermining, questioning, and outright opposition.  Scripture gives a reason for this:  Throughout the flock was a group of strangers, aliens to the faith.

These people were the root of the problem.

Scripture says when they left Egypt’s slavery, a mixed multitude went up with them (Exodus 12:38).  Some translations call them “rabble.” Since the Hebrews were not the only slaves of Pharaoh, when God threw off the shackles it must have been like a massive jailbreak.  All who wanted to leave Egypt joined the Exodus.  And since this Moses fellow seemed to have a glorious destination in mind, with no other place to go, the “mixed multitude” decided to accompany the Hebrews.

This bunch became the source of a thousand headaches for Moses.

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How to grow a small church

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“It doesn’t matter to the Lord whether He saves by the few or by the many” (I Samuel 14:6).

Depending on a number of factors, growing a small church is one of the more do-able things pastors can achieve.

Those variable factors include…

–the health of the church.  Now, you don’t want a sick church to grow; you want it to get well first. In an early pastorate, I told the congregation, “There’s a good reason no one is joining this church.  I wouldn’t join it either!” Believe it or not, those words were inspired and they received them well, and repented. (I explained that there was a bad spirit in the membership, people were engaging in idle gossip, and the love of God was missing.  When we extended the invitation, the altar was filled with God’s people praying. We began to have a genuine revival that day.)

–the attitude of the congregation. If the people are satisfied with the status quo, they would not welcome newcomers.  I’ve known a few Sunday School classes composed of long-time best friends who felt imposed on by visitors and offended by new members.  No one wants to go where they’re not wanted.

–the location of the church campus.  A church situated five miles down an isolated road, at the end of the dead end trail–I’m thinking of one in particular!–can almost certainly forget about growing.

The great thing about pastoring a healthy, small church is you can make a big difference in a hurry.

My seminary pastorate had run 40 in attendance for many years. The day the little congregation voted to call me as pastor, I overheard a man saying to another, “This little church is doing all it’s ever going to do.”  I was determined to prove him wrong.

Within one month, we hit 65 in attendance.

What had happened is this…

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The best thing you’ll ever do for yourself

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I’m remembering the time I bumped into Jeff Ingram in the hotel breakfast area. The previous evening, I had spoken at a local church while Jeff had led a conference for Sunday School directors in a neighboring community.

Jeff said, “I had 14 directors in my conference. It was great.”

I have never worked for Jeff’s employer–the Louisiana Baptist Convention with headquarters in Alexandria, Louisiana–but I knew what he is experiencing.

Without asking him, I can tell you the high point of his day.

Jeff is sitting in his office and the phone rings. A pastor or church staffer or lay leader from somewhere across this state is on the line.

“I need help,” he says. Jeff’s heart races. “Great,” he thinks to himself. “Someone needs me.”

What he says is, “Well, I’ll be happy to do anything I can for you.”

If the caller has a problem of untrained leaders or an anemic organization that needs a shot in the arm or his Sunday School is in disarray and he is desperate for assistance, all the juices start flowing in Jeff Ingram’s veins.

This is great.

This is what a denominational worker lives for. (He may even quote the Esther verse to himself : “I’ve come to the kingdom for such a time as this.”)

This is why he’s there.

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Pastor, what makes your sermon Christian?

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“Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them…. Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him…” (Acts 8:5,35).

Two sermons stand out in my mind as possibly the worst I have ever heard.

(And to those who ask about the worst sermons I personally have ever preached, there have been so many, it’s hard to choose!)

One sermon was interesting and easy to follow.  The other was a self-centered rant I found completely offensive.

The first was delivered by an interim pastor, a professor at the local Christian college. The subject was friendship.

The second was delivered by a young celebrity-type pastor who started that church eight years previously and it now ran in the thousands.  We were at one of their multiple locations watching him on a large screen. His subject? I’ve long forgotten.

Both sermons were helpful in some ways. Neither was biblical.  Both were delivered by gifted communicators; neither mentioned Jesus.  Neither message had even a passing acquaintance with the gospel.

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Pulling rank: What some pastors do which Jesus never did

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Standing with a group of pastors, chatting and fellowshipping and shooting the (sacred) bull, someone came out with this:

“I told him I’m the pastor of the church, that God sent me here as the overseer, and if he doesn’t like it, he can find another church.”

That brought nods of approval, even from a couple who knew they would never have the gumption to say such a thing. Even if they feel it.

But that pastor is wrong.

Dead wrong.

If anyone on earth had the right to pull rank on other people, it was our Lord Himself.

Yet, He never did.

Now, God the Father didn’t seem to mind doing it.  Throughout the Old Testament the Almighty give commands and instructions to His people, then frequently added reminders that “I am the Lord!”  The idea being that “I have a right to say this, I have the authority to back it up, and you disobey at your own peril.”

Take the fascinating 19th chapter of Leviticus, the source of our Lord’s favorite “second greatest commandment” about loving your neighbor as yourself.  That chapter, thirty-seven verses long, contains numerous commands about treatment of foreigners, the poor, the vulnerable. Throughout, sixteen times we find God saying “I am the Lord.”

But the Lord Jesus did not pull rank on people.

When the religious big-shots grew rebellious over His abuse of the Sabbath as they saw it, Jesus reasoned with them: “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath? to save a life? or to destroy it?” (Luke 6:9) Make them think.

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Getting people to “buy into” the kingdom of God

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Some years back, while watching a news program, I was struck by a statement about our country’s war in Afghanistan.

Less than 1 percent of our (military) people are in that country fighting. The American people are not invested in this war.

I thought that was an interesting phrase.  Invested in a war.

What exactly does that mean? and is there a message here for those of us in the ministry?

The statement meant the American people were not aware of what was going on in that Middle-Eastern country, which meant the struggle there felt remote and distant, and consequently were not supporting it as they would normally.

Most Americans had no personal stake in that war. When we’re unsure of the issues and uncertain of our goal, when we do not know anyone who is putting his/her life on the line there, and when we have no personal ties to anything, we are uninvested.

Who remembers the Second World War? 

World War II movies, especially those made during the early 1940s, actually pulled American citizens together to support their fighting men and women.

In the 1940s, every town in America sent the cream of its youth to the fight. Every radio was tuned to the latest news. Gold stars shone from windows to say this family had lost a son in the service of his country. Dads and grandfathers followed developments with maps on the wall. Drives for metal, rubber, paper and even fats and grease were conducted in every community. Schoolchildren bought savings stamps and housewives contended with ration books.

It seemed that every citizen of this country was enlisted to fight that war. They were invested.

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The 5 most frustrating things pastors do

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I believe in pastors. That does not however mean I endorse everything every pastor does.

They’re human.

They tell us the typical pastor in our denomination serves a church with 100 or fewer in attendance, which probably means the offerings are inadequate to provide much of a living for him. In some cases he holds down a second job or his wife works. Or both. Or, most amazing of all, he manages to live on what they pay him.

I believe in these guys. They are my brothers and my admiration of them knows no bounds.

Most of them.

But at times ministers will do the most self-defeating things. Not all of them, thankfully. But enough to warrant our addressing the issue as a caution to the rest of the Lord’s shepherds.

Here is my personal list of the 5 most frustrating things pastors do.

FIRST: It’s frustrating to see preachers cut corners on sermon preparation.

The bizarre thing is that to the congregation the Sunday sermon is 50 percent of his job.

In the more liturgical churches that may not be so, with the ministers’ homilies often appearing as 5 minute reflections thrown together just prior to entering the sanctuary.

But in the world I live in, the only time 90 percent of the congregation sees the pastor is on Sunday morning. If he does poorly there, he has just about sealed his fate with the membership as a whole.

And yet.

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You are not the judge of your own work. For good reason.

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(Note: This article first ran on our website in September 2012.  Some of the identifying notes are dated, some of the people have moved, that sort of thing.  But I’m going to reprint it as it ran then with a few tweaks.  Thank you.)

“Sow your seed in the morning, and do not be idle in the evening; for you do not know whether morning or evening sowing will succeed, or whether both of them alike will be good.” (Ecclesiastes 11:6)

“And let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary.” (Galatians 6:9)

A great many ministers are sitting in judgment on their own work. And it’s not looking good for them.

They will decide their portion of Kingdom work is not going very well, feel guilty because they are so ineffective, and grow discouraged. Instead of giving their all day in and day out over a long life of service and obedience, they turn inward, give less and less of themselves, while the visible results they so long for become more and more scarce.

Stop it.

You’re not the judge, just a worker in the field of the Lord.

Now, get back out there and trust that the Lord knows what He was doing when He assigned you to this corner of the Kingdom.

Jeff Christopherson knows.   Jeff loves to tell about something that happened to his parents.

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Why God called you into the ministry. Some will be surprised.

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Let me tell you what happened to my friend Jon recently.

Jon was hired by one of the pro football teams as an assistant coach.  Jon is a lifelong athlete, all-pro in his own career, and after retirement became a coach.  So, now he was excited about the new position and moved his family to that city.  He settled his stuff into the assistant coach’s office, got to know everyone, and turned to take a look at his players.  That’s when his rude awakening came.

He told me, “Joe, I was so shocked.  Some of those guys are lazy.  Some of them are not doing their preparation for the games.  They are lagging on their reps and resent being reprimanded.  I was so disappointed that I went to see the head coach, my boss.”

“And what happened then?” I asked.

Jon said, “I told him, ‘Coach, I wanted to come to a team that was excellent, that was poised to win the big games, to go all the way.  Instead, what I found is that a lot of the players are unmotivated, are in this work for the big salaries, are lazy, and are not up to speed on the fundamentals of the game.  I’m big-time disappointed. Honestly, coach, I don’t know how you can take this.”

“Was he upset?” I asked.

“No,” Jon said.  “In fact, he just smiled.”

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