Five things effective pastors should never do

(The article starts off serious and goes downhill from there. Rather than a complete revamping it to make it one thing or the other, I decided to leave it the way it is.  So, halfway through you’ll want to take out your sense of whimsy and make sure it’s in good working order.)

Don’t ever resign your church in a fit of passion. In a rush of anger.

Do that and you’ll inflict great harm on the church and ruin all the good will you have accumulated by years of faithful service.

That’s a huge no-no for preachers.

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Perhaps the first lesson: “Lose the perfectionism.”

“Therefore, you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

The goal is perfection.  Of course.

However, you will not attain it in this life.

That does not change the goal. It just means we keep trying, keep aiming high, and never stop getting up from our failures and trying again.

What we have here is a paradox: The goal is and always will be perfection, but we are not to be perfectionists.

We are sinners. Flawed humans of whom it is said, “There is none righteous, no not one.”

That’s the reality.  We fall short.

The goal is heaven. But we are earthlings.

But we are going to heaven. We will see Him. We will be like Him. And we will finally be perfect.

That’s Scriptural. It’s the reality.

But in the meantime, we’re here.

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The best way to conclude a sermon

Everyone has opinions about sermons.  Those of us who deliver them are always looking for the most effective way to get one across.  The great majority of people–those who have to listen to them!–have opinions also.  Most say they want the conclusion as close to the introduction as possible, but I suspect that’s mostly a tease.  Surely anyone who bothers to get dressed and drive to church and sit through a worship service wants the sermon to be worthwhile and to do its “perfect work.”  So, we all have interests in this.

Most preachers spend far more time on the introduction than on the conclusion, and I think that’s a mistake.

Would a sales person spend all his time planning a pitch for the product without a thought as to getting the customer’s name on the dotted line?  That signature is the whole point.

The response to the sermon is the point of the message.

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Dear Preacher’s kids….

“Now, it came to pass that when Samuel was old that he made his sons judges over Israel…. But his sons did not walk in his ways; they turned aside after dishonest gain, took bribes, and perverted justice” (I Samuel 8:1-3).

Let’s talk about the offspring of the Lord’s shepherd, those sweet little lambs birthed into his beloved family in order to enrich their lives, to bless the church and to provide a fresh palette on which the preacher and his lady can demonstrate all it means to grow up in the fear and nurture of the Lord.

Those little monsters who terrorize the congregation with their out-of-control behavior.

Those darling babies and toddlers who are smothered by the loving attention of the entire congregation, and for whom teenage girls compete as babysitters.

Those juvenile delinquents who run up and down the aisles of the church and treat the sacred buildings as their own personal playroom.

Those teenagers who look so angelic on Sunday and test their parents’ patience during the week, the subject of ten thousand stories in deacons’ homes, who exasperate the seniors in the church hoping for a little peace and quiet this Sunday.

They put the gray hairs in their preacher-dad’s head and the great stories into his sermons.  They put the the lines in their mom’s brow and the thrill into her heart.

They occupy the major portion of their parents’ prayers day and night.

God bless ’em.  We love our PKs.  Our preachers’ kids.

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It’s not hard to preach. But humanly impossible to do it right.

“Not that we are adequate for these things. But our adequacy (sufficiency) is of God” (2 Corinthians 3:5).

If you want to be a preacher and are satisfied with what R. G. Lee called “sermonettes by preacherettes to Christianettes,” then you can do that easily enough.

Prepare sweet little devotionals around interesting Scripture verses you come across.  Add some cute stories and raise your voice at least once in the 15-minute message (to convince the more discerning that what they’re hearing is really preaching) and you can stay at that church a long time.

Lord, bless your churches and help your preachers.

However.

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What lousy English says about us. (Nothing good.)

I was sent the following email from someone trying to sell me a service….

Hi There,
I was sent you an mail regarding Web Listing hope you are found it.
This is an follow-up email for you, Interested in our proposal or not?

Let us know if you are interested, I am waiting here your valuable
reply.

I went back and read their original proposal to see if the same poor English was to be found there. It wasn’t.  Clearly, someone was hired to pretty up the original mailing, but the followup was done by the salesperson, if you will.

Not a good way to impress a prospective client.

Now.  I’m not interested in having my website be first to pop up on Google, as they were proposing.  Nothing about that interests me.

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You’re a pastor; you’re not like us.

It was some forty years ago, and I was flying home from somewhere, the last leg of the trip being from Memphis to Columbus MS where I pastored.

It was a dark and stormy night.

And the planes assigned to our Golden Triangle Airport by Southern Airways were the ancient Martin 404s.  Prop jets, maybe they are called.

We bounced all over the sky that night. Lightning flashed around us, rain pelted our little plane, and thunder crashed.

You’ve heard of white-knucklers; this was the mother of them all.

The next day in the supermarket, a woman whom I did not know introduced herself. “My husband was on that awful flight from Memphis last night.”

Oh yes.  That was unforgettable, I said.

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The burden and fear of handling the word of God

“…rightly dividing the Word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).

The other day I posted this on Facebook…

Ever wonder how pastors deal with Sunday morning anxiety?  They’re about to enter the pulpit and lead a congregation to worship the living God, then open His book and declare its life-changing message.  What a responsibility!  How do they cope with so great a burden? I’ll tell you how. They breathe deeply, commit it all to the Lord, and keep telling themselves, ‘Relax, hotshot. This is not about you.‘  —  Most have to say it about 150 times before the message gets through.  For some, 600 repeititons are required. And alas, some never get the message and approach this most solemn of responsibilities thinking it’s all about them.

That generated some response.  And one in particular that resonated with me.

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The things we do for a great story!

“And without parables (great stories!) Jesus did not teach” (Mark 4:34).

I once sat through a long session of a convention of realtors just to hear a motivational speaker.  The story with which he opened quickly became a mainstay in my arsenal of great illustrations and sermon-helpers.

Time well spent.

I’ve read entire books and come away with one paragraph that became a staple in my preaching thereafter.  It was time well used and money well spent.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the best-selling “Eat, Pray, Love” (which I do not recommend, by the way), attended a party 20 years ago and heard something from a fellow whose name she has long forgotten.  “Sometimes I think this man came into my life for the sole purpose of telling me this story, which has delighted and inspired me ever since.”

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How to stay at one church 42 years.

My friend Pastor Dave has led a congregation in our neighborhood for two thirds of his life.  It’s a sweet fellowship and even though our denominational affiliation is different, he has kindly invited me to fill the pulpit in his absence on several occasions.

Recently, over lunch, I asked Dave how he managed to stay in one church over four decades. Were there not times when church members rose up and demanded new leadership? Did he not get the urge to try something new?

“Give me your top three ways to stay at a church for 42 years,” I told him.  He did not hesitate….

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