Category Archives: Pastors

Would someone please rock that boat?!

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The deacon made no attempt to hide his disgust with his preacher.  As far as he was concerned, preachers were the hired servants of the church. And, as a head deacon, that put him in charge.

“Preacher, I have some new rules for you.”

“You have rules for me?”

“From now on,” said the old man, “you will keep a written account of every copy you make on the copier.  And you will keep a notation on every phone call you make.”

And that was not all.

“Furthermore, you are not to make any personal calls from the church office.  If you have a personal call to make, you will go to your house and make it.”

Pastor: “What if I need to call my wife when she is at home?”

“Then, you will get in your car and go there and talk to her. But you will not call her from the church phone.”

This conversation actually happened, just this way.

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The first lesson the Lord taught me as a minister

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My fiancée and I sat in the Sunday School class that morning.  An hour later, I would be bringing my first sermon since God called me to preach.  My very first one. I was excited.

And more than a little nervous.

It was December 1961, the Christmas season.  Margaret Henderson and I would be married five months later and then spend 52 years together serving the Lord.  We had no idea all the Lord had in store for us, of course. The one thing we knew and wanted with all our hearts was that God was leading us and would use us.

I was a senior in college and had been called into the ministry eight months earlier.

That holiday week, I had logged 72 hours selling men’s clothing in the National Shirt Shop on Second Avenue North in downtown Birmingham.  Each evening, when I dragged back to the apartment I shared with Joel Davis, devoted friend and soon to become our best man, I was too tired to study for a sermon.

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The three vows I made

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“I will pay You my vows, Which my lips have uttered and my mouth has spoken when I was in trouble….” (Psalm 66:13-14).

My wife and I sat on the back porch talking about the disastrous happenings at the church we were serving.  A committee we had asked to be formed to help me figure out some things was now meeting without my knowledge and had jumped the rails concerning their assignment.  The little group that had been on my case the entire length of my tenure in that church appeared to hold the winning hand, and their shenanigans were still hidden from most of the congregation.  One thing after another.

One night, as we began to read Psalm 67, the Lord suddenly directed me away from that chapter. “Psalm 66.”  Now, I could not have told one from the other.  But obeying the inner voice of the Spirit, I opened to Psalm 66 and began reading.  Soon, we saw why.  In the middle of the Psalm, David describes the very thing happening to us…

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Can we quit “enjoying the sermon?”

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Can you think of any place in Scripture where someone compliments another on his message?

I can’t think of a one.

Nowhere, to my knowledge, in the Word does anyone say “Peter preached a powerful sermon” or “Paul’s message was well received” or “The Macedonian crowd got a lot out of Titus’ sermon on the Lord’s Day.”

Now, some in the audience did pick up rocks to throw at the preacher on more than one occasion, but those were the rabble, the wicked, the hostile outsiders and not the congregation of the faithful.

I have a suggestion.

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The compliment that insults a pastor

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A few paragraphs from my journal of Tuesday, March 30, 1993. I had been at that church two and a half years…

At 2 pm, I had a visitor. A former church member who will go unnamed here wanted to apologize for his being so critical of me in my first year.  Couldn’t identify why he was, except a certain resistance to authority.

I forgave him.  The pain is that he is a minister of sorts, someone I had a lot of confidence in and did not know he was doing this. He said, “I hear from people in the last month that you have changed.”  Why am I offended by that? I said, “I haven’t.  I’m the same person I was then.” Which is true. 

Reminds me of the pain in (my last church) when people would write and say, ” We love you now, but for your first year here, we hated your guts. You were in our pastor’s pulpit.’ (The previous pastor had stayed only 3 years and had left for another church before they were ready.) And these would be dear people whom I had valued.  They got It off their chest and left me bleeding. 

Anyway, I’m making a real effort to leave it with the Father and to go forward. (end of journal)

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Overlooked Scripture No. 6: “The tyranny of the urgent.”

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“Now, in the morning, having risen a long time before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place, and there He prayed.  And Simon and those who were with Him searched for Him. When they found Him, they said to Him, ‘Everyone is looking for you.’  But He said to them, ‘Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also, because for this purpose I have come forth'” (Mark 1:35-38).

“I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date! No time to say hello, goodbye! I’m late! I’m late!” So said the white rabbit as he plunged into the hole.–  From the Walt Disney movie “Alice in Wonderland.” 

I have a hard time turning off my inner engine.

A typical situation looks like this:  I’m packing the car in order to leave as soon as possible for a long drive to a preaching assignment.  Do I have everything? Have I canceled the newspaper for the days I’ll be gone? Do my children know where I’ll be? Am I taking my laptop? Do I have the phone charger? My extra dress shoes?  Enough shirts?

All the while, I’m keeping an eye on the clock. I know how long the drive will take and when I’m expected. The first meeting is tonight. I’d sure like to get there in time to check into the hotel and rest for an hour.

Hurry. Hurry, and hurry some more.

In the car finally and heading out of town, my inner engine is still at warp speed.

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Does it matter how the preacher dresses?

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(I posted a paragraph on Facebook calling for pastors to dress “to inspire confidence”–and not look like they’d been out hitchhiking all night. It’s important to note that I did not say he should wear the uniform of the previous generation–a coat and tie–but merely to “dress one step in front of most of the men in the church,” whatever that means.  Twenty-four hours later, we had 245 comments. Clearly, people have strong feelings about this.)

“If I see you standing at the pulpit wearing a suit and a tie, I’m out of there.”

I smiled at that.  The fellow who said it is so dead-set on making sure the church does not put too much emphasis on appearance that he…well, puts too much emphasis on appearance.

As I write, the television set in this motel room is running the results of last night’s Iowa caucuses.  At some point I noticed something about the men candidates for nomination for president.

All were wearing suits and white shirts and ties.

Why?

Watch any newscast. The anchormen are wearing suits and ties.

How come?

This cannot be accidental.  It cannot be because they are stuck in a rut.  Nor can it be because they are trying to flaunt their wealth or impress the world.

These people never do anything–repeat, never do anything!–without good cause.

So, why do the candidates and the anchor people dress up when they go to work?

We will pause here while you consider your answer.

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Note to pastors: Your audience is always changing.

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Al Maury pulled the old beat-up Volkswagen bus into the bank parking lot on Decatur Street and killed the engine.  As the six seminary students bailed out, he opened the rear door and took out a microphone-on-a-stand and flipped a switch, turning on the transmitter.  “McKeever, you’re preaching tonight!”

Oh my.  A baptism by fire. Thrown into the deep water without a life preserver.

We were preaching on the streets of New Orleans’ fabled French Quarter.

The very thought struck terror into my heart. And yet, I had volunteered for it.

The year was 1964 and I was a new student at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.  All first-year students were required to participate in one “field mission” ministry.  Each Tuesday, the student body gathered in Frost Chapel for a report and testimony time.  Choices for these ministries included helping start-up churches, hospital and nursing home ministry, the New Orleans Seamen’s Service, neighborhood mission centers, after-school tutoring, and such. Determined to rise above my fears of cold-turkey witnessing, I had chosen the scariest thing on the list.

Street preaching.

Yikes.

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My “Super Bowl” sermon 20 years ago

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(My journal for January 1996 records this message as the one I preached on Super Bowl Sunday, January 28.  After reading these notes, you may be interested in the post scripts.  Every pastor will understand the final one…and will shake his head in amazement at the littleness of some people in church…in every church, let us emphasize.)

Title:  THE GOSPEL FOR SPORTS-AHOLICS

Text: Hebrews 12:1-2  “Therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Today is Super Bowl Sunday, national day of worship for a country crazy about sports. I’m a sports fan too, altho’ a bigger baseball fan than anything else.  For one thing, you can carry on a nice conversation with your neighbor and they don’t have cheerleaders and there is very little rowdiness.

Margaret and I have been amazed to see that the second word our grandson (Grant) learned was ‘ball.’ I’ve said to his mother Julie that if he grows up to be involved in all kinds of sports, don’t be surprised, that apparently he came to us that way.

It will interest you to know that much of the world has always been sports-crazy. We know about the Olympic Games–which were started in 776 B.C.! The rest, as they say, is history.

The Apostle Paul knew about sports and apparently loved them as most men do.  Tonight we will look at I Corinthians 9 where he talks about sports as illustrating some spiritual points.

Here in Hebrews 12:1-2, a great sporting event is going on.  This one is the Super Bowl to end all Super Bowls. And you and I are playing in it.  I want you to see 5 things….

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“I wasn’t lying exactly, just misrepresenting the facts.”

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“Do not lie to one another, seeing you have put off the old self with its practices” (Colossians 3:9).

The current issue of Vanity Fair magazine (February 2016) carries a story to keep you thinking for a week or two. You read it and think, “What? How could this happen?”

One of the producers of Meredith Viera’s NBC program fell in love with the famous heart-transplant surgeon on whom they were doing a feature.  Paolo Macchiarini was amazingly accomplished, stunningly successful, and fabulously rich.  He was handsome, suave, and a charmer.

The producer, Benita Alexander, on her second marriage at the time, promptly forgot her altar vows and fell head over heels for this surgeon, who wined her and dined her. Soon, they were flying all over the world, living a life of luxury, and making plans for a wedding of their own.

Meredith Viera said about the surgeon, “He’s the doctor who does the seemingly impossible, going where no other has yet dared.”  The New York Times had done a front page feature on the man.  He was clearly somebody.

So you’ll know, the narrator talks about the conflict of a producer having a relationship with the subject of their feature, but I’ll leave that for other people. There was something else about the story more fascinating.

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