Category Archives: Pastors

Who gave you the authority to do this?

Posted on by
Reply

My journal tells of this little incident at the local pharmacy.

Saturday night, stuck in the checkout line at the local Rite-Aid, I became involved in a little incident.

The checker was ringing up the purchases of a man about 40 years old who had a small child with him. On the other side of the checker, near the front door, stood an older man, perhaps 75 or 80, who was trying to get her attention. “Ma’am,” he kept saying, “Is it all right if I take this out to the car to show my wife?” He was holding up some item from the store. The checker was giving her attention to the man and child in front of her.

Finally, the customer at the checkout snapped at the older gentleman, “No! It is not all right to take that outside!” The old man was flustered and said, “She’s in the car. I just want to see if this is what she wants. I’ll be right back.”

“No, sir!” said the younger man. “You’re not allowed to take things outside you haven’t paid for!”

The older gentleman said, “Well, what if I leave my umbrella? I’ll be right back.”

“No!” the young man said. “Leave your drivers license.”

Meanwhile, those of us in the checkout line were silently watching this scenario and fascinated at the way the customer was bullying the man at the door.

Finally, the older man said to the customer, “Are you a manager of this store or something?”

The younger fellow said, “No, I’m not. But I know how these things are done!”

I’d taken about all of this I could. From the back of the checkout line, I called out to the old man, “Sir! You may ignore the customer. Do what you have to do!”

The younger man turned and stared at me contemptuously, took his child by the hand, and stalked out.

As he exited the door, the manager arrived and took care of the older gentleman. The woman in front of me turned and said, “Who in blue blazes did that fellow think he was, talking to that old man that way?” I laughed and agreed that he was definitely a buttinsky.

When I got home and told me wife this little tale, she–filling the role of a wife so neatly–said, “And who did you think you were, rebuking him like that?”

Continue reading →

Tactic for pastoral success: Start with a big mistake

Posted on by
Reply

In his book, Everybody’s Normal Till You Get to Know Them, John Ortberg makes a confession. You get the impression that it was not easy in coming.

Here it is in his own words:

The church where I work videotapes most of the services, so I have hundreds of messages on tape. Only one of them gets shown repeatedly.

This video is a clip from the beginning of one of our services. A high school worship dance team had just brought the house down to get things started, and I was supposed to transition us into some high-energy worship by reading Psalm 150.

This was a last-second decision, so I had to read it cold, but with great passion: “Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty firmament!” The psalm consists of one command after another to praise, working its way through each instrument of the orchestra.

My voice is building in a steady crescendo; by the end of the psalm I practically shout the final line, only mispronouncing one word slightly:

“Let everything that has breasts, praise the Lord.”

Ortberg tells what happened next.

A moment of silence. The same thought passes through four thousand brains: Did he just say what I think he did? In church? Is this some exciting new translation I can get at the bookstore?

Continue reading →

The biggest problem pastors and teachers face. Maybe.

Posted on by
Reply

Try this sometime. You have an image in mind of a person you have thought up. Now, find someone with some art ability and describe your creation to the point that they sketch him/her exactly as you envision them.

Good luck with that.

It’s almost impossible.

And yet, this process goes on all the time.  Here’s the way it works….

A friend contacts me. “Will you illustrate my book?”  I hem and haw, give non-answers (“Well, tell me what you have in mind.” “What exactly do you need?” “When do you need it?” “How many drawings will it be?”), and look for ways–true confession coming up here!–to get out of doing it.

Tackling such an assignment is guaranteed to age you prematurely, and constitute an exercise in frustration.

I explained to an author recently while we were in the process of going back and forth with her descriptions and my attempts to capture them on paper, like a bad tennis match, “It’s this way with every writer who asks someone to illustrate her book. She begins thinking it’s going to be simple. ‘Just draw me a warrior holding a sword.’ Then, she looks at his sketch and wants him just a little taller. Next time, could you put a scowl on his face and not make him look so nice.  And could we change his clothes? And put armor on him.  Brown hair. Green eyes. Oh, and he’s wearing a cape.”

Multiply that times the number of characters the writer wants drawn and you see in a heartbeat the difficulty.

Sometimes when I’m sketching people at a public event–Tuesday, I’ll be sketching seniors at a church event 100 miles south of here, then speaking to them and sharing their luncheon–invariably, someone will say, “You could get a job working for the police.”

Nope. Not in a zillion years. I tell the speaker, “It’s hard enough looking at the person I’m trying to draw. But imagine when all you have to go on is someone’s memory and trying to get that on paper. No thank you.”

I do admire those who can pull that off. I’m just not one of them.

Continue reading →

How to spot a non-leader a mile off

Posted on by
Reply

“So Moses arose with Joshua his servant, and Moses went up to the mountain of God” (Exodus 24:13). 

Always referred to as the servant of Moses, Joshua was used to taking orders but not giving them.

That’s why, when the day arrived for Moses to announce that his earthly work was finished and God was recalling him and that Joshua would have to carry on (“Get these people into the Promised Land!”), he, Joshua, must have panicked.

For four decades Joshua has been warming the bench; now, he’s being sent into the game as the clock ticks down and everything is on the line.

What would he do without a supervisor, someone telling him what to do and how to do it, someone to whom he could report, a veteran who would grade him and pat him on the head when he did good or chew him out when his work fell short?

Throughout his life, as far as we can tell Joshua had never taken the initiative in anything, but had obeyed as he was instructed.  In Exodus 17:9, the first mention of Joshua in Scripture, he leads a rag-tag army of ex-slaves against the Amalekites. However, on a distant hill, Moses was overseeing everything and giving guidance.

No one wants to follow a non-leader.  Readers will want to check out the final chapters of Deuteronomy and the early chapters of Joshua and count the number of times Moses, God, and the Israelites urged this surprised newly chosen leader to “be strong and of good courage.” (Okay, I’ll tell you:  Deuteronomy 31:6,7,23 and Joshua 1:6,7,9,18.  That’s fairly impressive!)

A leader must be strong to forge a path and take the heat and must be of good courage to endure the problems, headaches, and backstabbings.

It goes with the territory. As the saying goes, it’s why they pay the leader the big bucks.

Non-leaders are a sure recipe for defeat.

Imagine this….

Continue reading →

Pastor, you’ve been scheduled to preach on a big program. My advice: Find out whom you follow.

Posted on by
2

After the death of comic genius Robin Williams, someone was reminiscing about the time he preceded Bob Hope on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson.

For some reason, Bob Hope was late arriving at the studio that night. So, instead of Robin Williams following him, which had been the plan, Williams went on stage first and did his hilarious knock-em-dead routine.  People were beside themselves with laughter.

The great Bob Hope arrived and had to follow that.

Robin Williams said, “I don’t think he was angry, but he was not pleased.”

As Bob Hope walked out onto the stage and settled into the chair, Johnny Carson said, “Robin Williams. Isn’t he funny?”  Hope said, “Yeah. He’s wild. But you know, Johnny, it’s great to be back here with you.”

“Let’s talk about me.” I smile at that. Even the great Bob Hope could not handle this situation.

No clear-thinking person would voluntarily follow Robin Williams on the program.

Sometimes we preachers find ourselves scheduled to speak on a big program.  Woe to the one who has to follow the most popular preacher in the land.

Continue reading →

The pastor wasted some time today. The problem is…

Posted on by
Reply

You do not know the way of the wind….  You do not know the works of God who makes everything….  You do not know which will prosper…. (Ecclesiastes 11:5-6).

In a typical day, the pastor does a hundred things, some of which are eternal and some not.  Some are gold, silver, and precious stones, while others are wood, hay, and stubble (a reference to I Corinthians 3:12).

Some things he did were eternal; some were anything but that.  And that’s the problem: How to tell which is which.

In the moment, it’s almost impossible.

We walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Today in the hospital, the pastor visited with three patients and talked to strangers in the hospital lobby, to nurses in the hallway, and to people he met along the way.  Back in the office he studied for his sermons, dealt with administrative issues, reprimanded the church custodian for doing a poor job of cleaning bathrooms, and returned six phone calls. He wrote something for the church website, accepted an invitation to speak at a civic luncheon, and had lunch with his wife.  A neighboring pastor ran by for a few minutes to confer about a project they’re working on for the association, he answered someone’s on-line query about tithing, and he took a walk around the block.  He leaves the Bible open on the table in his back office and stops by for a few minutes from time to time to read the text of next Sunday’s message or to look something up.  He prays there and often, throughout the day.

When his head hits the pillow at night, he has a hard time remembering what he did or knowing what was accomplished.

How much of what he did was eternal and how much was just so much busy-work?  It’s impossible to tell.

Continue reading →

What to do when God gives you a burden for something

Posted on by
Reply

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.

Continue reading →

10 things the inexperienced person does not know about speaking in public

Posted on by
1

As one who has a great deal of respect for godly laymen and laywomen, I’m always glad when one rises in church to deliver a sermon or a testimony or a report. And since, as a retired pastor, I’m in a lot of churches throughout the year. So, I get to see a good bit of this. And sometimes….

Sometimes I want to applaud them. “Good job. Well done.” (In fact, I often say it to them following the service.)

But at other times, I want to shake them. “Pay attention to what you are doing! You can do better than this!”

I say this fully aware that we all had to start out somewhere, sometime, someway, and that no beginner came to the speaking craft full-grown. We crawl before we walk and do that before we run.

However–and this is what prompts this diatribe today–what gets my goat is when the lay speaker or preacher is mature in years and should know better and still makes glaring mistakes.

Here is my list of ten things the beginning (or rusty or occasional) speaker seems not to know, but needs to learn quickly in order to be effective.

1. How to begin your message.

First, how not to begin:

–“When they asked me to give my testimony this morning, my first thought was….”

–“I don’t know why they asked me to do this, but….”

–“When I told my wife the preacher had asked me to speak today, she said….”

Don’t do that.

Continue reading →

Pastoring with the personal touch

Posted on by
Reply

“I just called to say I love you…” –Stevie Wonder

My journal for the 1990s records something I never want to forget.

We were trying to line up 15 freezers of homemade ice cream for a church fellowship the following Sunday evening.  My assistant always had trouble getting enough freezers because he tried to do it by making a promotion from the pulpit.   A general appeal like that makes it far too easy for people to ignore.

The most effective way is to ask people individually and personally.

In order to make that point with my assistant, I took on the task myself.  I made the phone calls.  In the process, I ended up making a huge discovery.  Or possibly a re-discovery.

Here is the Journal notation from a couple of days later, awkward syntax and all.

This week, as I’ve called church members to line up 15 ice cream freezers for the fellowship August 15, was struck by how many pastoring conversations resulted.  People told me of coming surgeries, coming marriages, even a divorce.  I prayed with lots of people.  And came away from the phone with this odd exhilaration from having rendered pastoral ministry.  And so, today, Thursday, I’m making a few more calls and having the same experience, and have decided to take the church directory printout and just start calling church members, particularly those I’ve not talked to lately.

I’d say, “Hi Bob…this is Brother Joe…. As you know I’ve been gone so much this summer (the church had given me a six weeks sabbatical) and I’ve been so out of touch, I was just wondering how things are with you?”  And I let them talk.  I gave this maybe 90 minutes tonight and have struck the mother lode.  Such response. And such a strong inner feeling that this is it!

I recall my friend and mentor James Richardson saying once, “Isn’t the telephone wonderful?”  meaning it’s not necessary to always be running by to see someone.  Just call them.

Continue reading →

How God’s people undercut their best efforts and fail Christ

Posted on by
Reply

“Welcome the stranger within your gates. For you were foreigners in Egypt.” — The thrust of Leviticus 19 (see verses 10, 18, and 33-34)

This is one of the greatest frustrations and painful aspects of pastoring.  You try to do well–to prepare sermons blessed of God, to lead your team to present effective ministries, to build powerful worship services, to develop disciples, and reach those in darkness–and then your best people fail to do the smallest thing.  In so doing, they end up negating a thousand good things they do.

They fail to think of the outsider.  They look right past the newcomer.  They give no thought to the first-timer.

My blog from Monday, March 22, 1999—

“I made a number of visits tonight.  Left notes at three homes (no one there) and visited with Carol and Bob Coleman.  They’ve been visiting our church several weeks.  She said, “We love it.  Great music, etc etc–but only three people have greeted us!”

“Three!  Our people think they are friendly but in truth they are friendly to each other.  Bob told me he had volunteered to help Clyde with cooking the wild game supper at church.  Was brusquely turned aside with ‘We already have enough help.’  Then Bob came on to the dinner and brought a friend.  One hour later, they were back.  Said not a soul spoke to them.  So disappointing.”

That church, you will want to know, had a reputation from the previous decade as strong on evangelism and soul-winning.  In fact, when I had asked the congregation to do something heroic and go the extra mile–more than once, our people opened their home to mothers from Third World countries bringing critically ill infants to our Children’s Hospital in New Orleans–they always responded well.  So, they were not uncaring.

They were not uncaring.

They were unthinking.

They were preoccupied with their own plans, their own families, themselves.  They were thinking about everything in the world other than the strangers and newcomers who needed some slight indication that they are welcome and wanted in this place.

It’s scary being a newcomer or first-timer.

Continue reading →