Our last article for this blog was “If your pastor does these 10 things, your church has hit the jackpot.”
Now, here is the other side of the coin.
If your church does the following ten things, your pastor–particularly if he is new–will feel he has won the jackpot. Stumbled onto a treasure. Won the lottery. Been richly blessed of the Lord. Choose your figure of speech.
“If the Lord sends either Shawn or Chip, your church has hit the jackpot!” –Statement from my friend Bill a year ago when our church was searching for the next pastor. (The Lord sent Chip. And now Shawn has resigned his church to become the next executive director of our state Baptist convention. We have hit the jackpot twice.)
If your pastor does these ten things, you should stop and count your blessings, friend. You have a winner.
The new pastor announced they were changing the name of the church.
The new pastor decided the worship music of the last umpteen years needed updating and has brought in another director and more musicians. The organist and pianist who have served so faithfully for many years are still being included but they never know what’s going on and wonder if they are unwanted.
The new pastor decided they should go to two morning services.
The new pastor decided they should go to one morning service.
The new pastor decided.
Anyone see a problem here? The new pastor comes in and starts rearranging the furniture. Restructuring God’s church. Moving people around like chess pieceds.
The new pastor is ruling. Or so it seems to many.
Ever been there? You should read my mail. It’s happening all around you.
Why sit we here until we die? (2 Kings 7:3)
Every pastor has a story or two he used to tell but which was lost because of the years and circumstances. I told this one a few times over twenty years ago and just ran across it in Chuck Swindoll’s book of 1500 stories, The Tale of the Tardy Oxcart.
Back in the summer of 1982, Larry Walters, truck driver, had too much time on his hands without a clue what to do with it all. Mostly, he sat in his back yard drinking beer and thinking. One day he began to wonder what would happen if he were to get himself several surplus weather balloons, tie them together, and go aloft. He could spy on his neighborhood, and wouldn’t that be fun?
That’s why on July 2nd of that year he rigged up forty-two surplus helium-filled balloons from the U. S. Weather Service or some such agency. He anchored them to a backyard lawn chair he’d bought from Sears in San Pedro, California. Before lifting off, he thoughtfully brought along a pellet gun so he could shoot out a few balloons in case he began to fly too high.
To his utter amazement, the balloons lifted off with a bang. In no time flat he was soaring through the sky, eventually reaching 16,000 feet. That’s three miles, y’all.
I hate the way these things work, but it is what it is.
I’ll post something on here such as “the three best decisions I ever made in the ministry” and few people will bother to look at it. But come out with “the first worst decisions” or “the meanest deacon” or “my biggest regret” and it gets all the attention. Human nature, I suppose.
Motorists slow down to gawk at the wreck on the highway, but no one bothers to study the driver who did well. Obviously.
So, rather than announce “five great decisions preachers make in choosing sermon material,” we will talk about errors they make while doing that. Here are five that come to mind.
Your sermon was too long, too short, had too many stories, not enough stories, too deep, and too shallow.
Ask any pastor.
They’re criticized because their wives do not play the piano, but if she does “it looks like she is running the show.” Pastors are criticized for wearing the same suits but if they have a variety, they get slammed for spending too much money on clothes. Their kids are either too unruly or too something. The critics will always think of something to focus on.
Anyone who cannot handle unfair criticism should find another calling.
Recently, Dr. Thom Rainer invited ministers to post unfair or ridiculous criticism they had received in their ministries. The responses flew in, and when I reposted it on Facebook my friends chimed in with theirs. It made me think of a few of my own.
For when one says ‘I am of Paul,’ and another, ‘I am of Apollos,’ are you not carnal? — I Corinthians 3:4
I treasured that young couple in my church. They were attractive, friendly, and faithful. That’s why their letter was so stunning.
We hated you for most of this year. You took the place of the pastor we loved so much. But now, we are gradually coming to love you too.
I was not prepared for that. And here we are, many years removed from that moment, and I am recalling everything about this letter that landed like a blow to the solar plexus. (Note: If you write a love note to your pastor, please do not tell him what you did not like about him at first or how long it took to warm to him. He does not need to know the obstacles you worked through to come to this point.)
The other evening a stranger approached my wife in our church fellowship hall just before a Christmas program.
In a moment, I’ll tell you what the Lord did to me this week–and warn you it’s something He delights in doing to us!
The reason some of God’s children find the Christmas season endlessly boring and monotonous is they have forgotten one huge fact: It’s not about you.
We need to get out of our hour or God’s house and share His love with others.
Consider writing something…
–Write a check–a big one, larger than anyone expects–for a ministry that is touching the world for Jesus.
–Write a check–a small check if that’s all you can do–for a ministry that is touching someone for the Lord you couldn’t.
–Write a note to someone who could use a word of thanks or encouragement or cheer. Tell them how special they are to you, or remind them of something they once did or said that lingers with you to this day. Hand write it, don’t type it.
From time to time, my deacon friend and neighbor Earl invites me to teach his “old men’s Sunday School class.” There must be 20 or 25 gentlemen–many of them friends of mine since the early 1970s, all of them retirement age or better–sitting around a conference table and along the wall. This time, I’ll be teaching the lesson the Sunday before Christmas. I’m excited.
It’s good for a pastor to sit in a room with a small group of people who listen to his Scriptural explanations, then ask questions. Some will challenge you, others will interject a story. One thing leads to another and you, the pastor, find yourself exhilarated when the class period ends and everyone is departing for the worship service.
This did you good.
In one church I served, the teacher of the older men’s class would periodically invite me to substitute for him. He always had this bit of advice/preparation: Joe, all you need is one question; they’ll take it from there.
Not every advice given to preachers is sound or wise. But from time to time, a godly layman or preacher friend has a great word. Here are five I recall…
One. From a deacon.
“Be patient with the people.”
I was fresh from seminary and the brash new pastor of a church in the Mississippi Delta. This was in the late 1960s, one year before Martin Luther King was assassinated. I was preaching on God’s love for all people of all races, that we are all equal before Him, created by a loving God and thus to be valued. Not a very inflammatory message to be sure. But some of my people were reacting. That’s when the chairman of deacons called his young pastor aside.
“What you are saying is right, pastor,” said businessman and deacon chairman Lawrence Bryant. “But let me remind you that the preacher before you told these people for nine years that segregation was God’s way.” He paused. “You can change them, but you need to be patient with them.”
It was the perfect advice.