Category Archives: Pastors

When people write you letters….

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I’m a letter-writer.  That should surprise no one since I’m part of the last generation of Americans to have been birthed and brought up on letter-writing. As a child of the 1940s, I remember so well the joy of my mother as she opened letters from her sister and mother on the Alabama farm.  Living in the coal fields of far-off West Virginia, Mama missed her family so much.  Aunt Sis would often include a couple of sticks of Juicy Fruit gum in the envelope.  Mom would tear off a piece and make those two last a week.

When I went off to college, I wrote letters–to my parents and to my girlfriend.

Somewhere in my files now are personal letters to me from Dr. Billy Graham, Cartoonist Charles Schulz, and western author Louis L’Amour.

I’m 81 years old (don’t look it–ha–and certainly don’t feel it) and count it a privilege.  Five minutes ago, I put in the outside mailbox four envelopes: two of them paying bills, one to a minister in Alabama and one to a cousin who is battling cancer.

I believe in letter-writing. But it takes effort.

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Why churches love their former pastors so much

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(Not every church loves its former pastors.  Of the six churches I served, exactly one has shown evidence of remembering my years with appreciation.  And I’m fine with that.) 

“Most churches are two pastors behind in their appreciation.”  –Ron Lewis 

A cartoon shows a weary, embattled pastor standing beside a statue of a man on a horse.  The sign at the base reads, “Our former pastor.”  The preacher is saying, “Most popular guy in town.”

The host pastor said to his guest preacher, a former pastor, “They sure do love you here.”

That former pastor was Dr. Landrum Leavell, at the time President of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and celebrated as a distinguished denominational leader.  They had invited him back for a special day, a homecoming or something.  Everyone was excited to see him and to hear him preach.  The attendance was good.

Dr. Leavell looked at the pastor and said, “Really?  Did they tell you that?”

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The heart-cry of the embattled pastor

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“You shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these things, for this is not my doing” (Numbers 16:28).

“Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that You are God in Israel and I am Your servant, and I have done all these things at Your word” (I Kings 18:36).

What Moses and Elijah prayed, I pray.

It is entirely in order for the Lord’s messenger to pray that the people to whom he was sent will recognize that God is God and fully in charge, and that he himself is the Lord’s servant, on mission from Him.

During what was possibly the worst time of my life when a little group of self-righteous members clamored for my resignation and criticized every thing I did, that was my prayer. I was going through the fire, being tried as I rarely had.

The prayer felt like the dying gasp of the weakest child in God’s family.  “Lord, let these people know there is a God in this place.  And that I’m your servant, just doing your will.” 

Did God hear the prayer?  Did He answer?

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Why we must not quit when God’s people mistreat us

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“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).

We hear of it too frequently.

–“He used to be a pastor. But the people in the churches were so mean–undercutting him, criticizing, backbiting, slandering, and then kicking him out–that it ruined him forever.  He vows he’ll never enter a church again.”

–“If this is how God’s churches are, I want nothing to do with any of them.”

–“Makes me wonder if the Lord even cares.”

The variations on that sad theme are endless.

But the result, while tragic, is needless.

No one should ever quit Jesus when God’s people mistreat him.

The Lord told us to expect this. The servant is not above his master. The pupil is not above his teacher.  If they called the Master a devil, how much more should His disciples expect it. (Matthew 10:24-25)

The Lord was crucified by the religious people, convinced they were doing God’s work.

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The noise of wolves in the night can be frightening. Right, pastor?

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Preacher, a lot of people in the church are concerned.  I’m not at liberty to use names.  Even some who love you are not happy with the way things are going.  I think you’d be surprised to know how widespread the unrest is.  If you are the wise person I think you are, you will not want to jeopardize your family by risking a church vote and suddenly find yourself unemployed.  If I were you–and I’m just saying this as a friend–I think I’d be looking for another church to go to. 

The baying of wolves in the night can be disconcerting.  But it’s also misleading.  As this story from President U. S. Grant’s autobiography makes clear….

In the mid-1840s, Ulysses S. Grant was a Second Lieutenant in the war between the U.S. and Mexico, with the prize being Texas.  Grant’s Memoirs make fascinating reading.  The first former president to write his memoirs, Grant’s are generally conceded to be the best of the lot.  (Note: Before reading Memoirs, I read Grant’s Final Victory, an account of the last year of his life when he penned his story to earn enough money to provide for his wife after his impending death from cancer.  Great story.  He was a far better man than he is often given credit for. )

At one point, Grant and some troopers were in west Texas, which was sparsely settled except by the Indians and plenty of varmints. One night, they heard “the most unearthly howling of wolves, directly in our front.”  The tall grass hid the wolves but they were definitely close by.  “To my ear, it appeared that there must have been enough of them to devour our party, horses and all at a single meal.”

The part of Ohio where Grant had been brought up had no wolves, but his friend Lt. Calvin Benjamin came from rural Indiana where they were still in abundance.  He understood the nature of the animal and the capacity of a few to make believe there was an unlimited number of them.

Benjamin began moving straight toward the wolves, seemingly unafraid.  I followed in his trail, lacking moral courage to turn back….

After a bit, Benjamin spoke. ‘Grant, how many wolves do you think are in that pack?’

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The pain in pastors that never goes away

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“…serving the Lord with all humility, with many tears and trials…” (Acts 20:19)

Let a pastor go through one huge church fight that leaves God’s people bleeding and bitter and scattering and he will do everything in his power to avoid another one.

Let a pastor go through a termination in which he is forced out from the church where the Lord had sent Him, and the pain of that rejection will accompany him the rest of the way home.

Some pain never leaves.

The wound heals but the scar remains and the memory never fades.

Thoughts of that event will color his counsel to other pastors.  The pain of that event will pop up at the strangest of times.  The lessons of that event will demand to be shared with others going through their own bit of hades-on-earth.

As a result of all this, the wounded pastor will mention that event from time to time.

It’s not a choice he makes.

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The pastor’s pain which few ever see

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“I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me….” (Isaiah 1:2)

Abandonment.  Desertion. Rejection.

The pastor loves that family and longs for them to do well. Their children are so fine and exhibit incredible potential. He knows their names.  He prays for them, encourages them, and goes out of his way to support them.  And they seem to respond. They flourish spiritually and seem to love the Lord, love their church, and love him. And then…

One day, they disappear.

When he inquires, someone tells the pastor, “Oh, they’ve joined that new startup church down the highway.  The one where the pastor is so critical of us and our denomination.”

He never hears a word. They just disappear from his radar and he never sees them again.

It’s not that they stabbed him in the back. They did not pull a Judas and betray him.  They just walked away without a word.

That hurts.

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Three reasons for the pastor to tell stories

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“Jesus never preached without telling stories.” (Mark 4:34)

Pastor, your people love a good story. Listeners who have gone on vacation during the first ten minutes of your sermon will return home in a heartbeat the moment you begin, “A man went into a store….” or  “I remember once when I was a child….”

Those who have died early in your message will suddenly spring to life when you say, “The other day, I saw something on the interstate…” or “Recently, when the governor and I were having lunch at a local cafe…”  (smiley-face goes here)

We all love a good story. We’re so addicted to stories, our television brings us hundreds a day. Even on talk shows, the host wants guests to tell a story! Drop in on your local cinema and no matter which screen you’re watching, it’s all stories.  And the book publishing business–well, you get the idea.

There are a thousand reasons for dropping the occasional story into your sermon, pastor.  Here are three….

1) It makes the hard truth tastier, a little more palatable.

A good story sugar-coats the bitter pill you’re asking your audience to swallow.

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A doubting pastor needs a good friend

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Question: Pastor, is there anyone you can go to with a serious doubt about the Christian faith?

Let’s say you are struck by “contradictions” you’ve located in the Bible. But if you preached these from the pulpit, you would have caused great harm. Psalm 73:15 comes to mind.  If I had said, “I will speak thus,” behold, I would have been untrue to the children of your generation.

But you need answers. Where do you turn?

Or, let’s say you are burdened by the suffering in the world. “How,” you wonder, “could a powerful and loving God allow such?” Perhaps you say, as some have, if God is almighty and allows this suffering, He is not all-loving. If He is loving and does nothing to stop it, it must be because He is not able. But, you reason, since suffering exists, we cannot have it both ways.

Who can you talk to about your questions?

If you have no friend to whom you can turn, there is a serious gap in your life. You are in need of another friend or two or three.

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How not to elect anybody to anything, but to keep it safe

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This was a New Yorker article in July 2010. Writer Anthony Gottlieb was reviewing a book with the intriguing title “Numbers Rule: The Vexing Mathematics of Democracy, from Plato to the Present.”  Something he told I found fascinating.

In old Italy, when the time came for the city of Venice to elect a new doge (think of a mayor with royal powers), the process by which the city officials conducted this election was something to behold. Tprocess involved seven steps.  Here was the procedure….

–An official went to pray in St. Mark’s Basilica. Along the way, he grabbed the first kid off the streets he could find and took back to the palace to pull out ballots from a box. Inside were the names of all the grand families of Venice. The child was selecting people for an electoral college.

–Thirty electors were chosen that way. Then, a second drawing reduced the number to nine.

–Those nine nominated forty candidates, each of whom had to be approved by at least seven electors to make it to the next stage. The forty were then whittled down to 12.

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