“I shall come into Thy house with burnt offerings; I shall pay Thee my vows” (Psalm 66:13).

During seminary days, I served a little church on Alligator Bayou some 25 miles west of New Orleans.  We moved into an apartment in the back of the church and lived there for the next 30 months.  The Cajun culture was a new experience for this Alabama farm boy and the church proved a blessing from beginning to end.

In prayer meeting one Wednesday evening, someone asked a question about a scripture. I said, “I don’t know, but I’ll look it up and get back to you.”  Afterwards, Earl, a middle-aged member of the church, pulled me off to one side.

“The pastor before you was always promising to look up something and get back to us. But that was the last we would hear of it.  If you tell someone you’re going to get back to them, pastor, do it.”

Earl, as I was to discover, could be a little caustic in his counsel, but he was on target with this.

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“My heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation” (Romans 10:1).

Nothing affirms a pastor more than seeing people come to Christ and becoming new creations. That’s why ministers whose churches are regularly baptizing new believers cannot wait to tell you about it. They’re not bragging–well, okay, most of them aren’t–but rejoicing.  It feels like, “Finally! I’m getting this right!”

Likewise, nothing weighs down a minister and makes him think he may be spinning his wheels like seeing no one responding, no lives changed. It’s days like this when he looks around for something else to do with his life–take another church, find another career, go back to seminary, something. It feels like failure.

To be sure, the Lord is always at work, doing things beneath the surface unseen by human eyes. And anyone who ventures to do anything by faith–to worship and give, to serve and preach and minister–must go into it knowing that he/she may not see the results in this lifetime, and believing that the Sovereign Lord can use the weakest vessel and the poorest voice.

And yet.

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“Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (I Corinthians 10:31).

The way to tell you are keeping your love for sports in balance is that when your team wins, you do not become obnoxious and when it loses, you do not sink into great depression.

The number one way pastors know they’re keeping loyalty for their team in check is church members have no idea which is their favorite.

And the way you tell your love for your team has gotten way out of line is–pick one or more–a) your constant reference to it in conversation, b) your repeated reference to the game or the team in sermons, c) the displays on your office wall, d) the “stuff” in your home, e) the bumper stickers and other identifying items on your car, and f) the way you bob up or down emotionally depending on what your team did yesterday.

Pity the church whose pastor is in bondage to his love for a football team.

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“Shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28). 

A young mother told me at church yesterday, she’s already praying for the girls who will some day marry her four young sons.  My guess is that family has a dozen years to wait before their first wedding.

It’s never too early to pray.

I have never known of a church with a pastor who was loved and supported that spent any time praying for its future pastors, but it makes sense. The present guy clearly will not be at that church forever. In due time, the congregation will be forming a search committee for the next shepherd.

Only then will the church members begin asking the Father, “Show us the next leader.”

Where have they been? Didn’t they know how these things work, that one pastor follows another?

What if in next Sunday morning’s offertory prayer, the church prayed, “And Father, we lift to Thy care and direction and guidance the next pastor of this Thy church, no matter who the person is.  Prepare them. Protect them. Deepen them. And prepare us for their ministry.”

I know a half-dozen churches of small to medium size presently seeking new pastors. In every case, the fields are “white unto harvest” all around them (John 4:35). They are sitting in the midst of great opportunities for ministry and are set up for a wonderful harvest.

As they have been for years.

For ages, many of these churches have been wishing and hoping and praying to reach their field, but with little effect.

Why so little harvest?  Why have they (seemingly) contented themselves with a handful of baptisms each year and miniscule growth and limited ministries when they could have had ten times that?

Mostly, it comes down to leadership.

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“I alone am left” (I Kings 19:10,14)  ” have 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal” (19:18).

Lord, I’m the only one out here in the field doing anything worthwhile.

I’m your best hope, Lord. Mine is the best church. Our denomination is the last of the faithful.

Sheesh!

How does the Lord put up with the likes of us?

Usually I let it go, but this time I felt the pastor of that church–we’ll call him Silas–and I had sufficient history to withstand my telling him that his advertising slogan–his “church’s identity–was offensive.

“We’re going to reach Atlanta and the world for Jesus!”

In my letter–maybe I should have phoned, but that would have made it seem more urgent–I said something to the effect that, “I appreciate a challenging goal for your people, and it’s great to keep the mission of world evangelism before them. But imagine if you are pastoring a smaller church in your city (most churches in your city are smaller!) and you read that. It implies you’re going to do it all without any help from anyone else, and feels like a putdown.”

I suggested a more faithful slogan might say “We’re going to reach Atlanta and the world for Jesus by working with God’s people everywhere.”  Not as catchy or pithy, to be sure. But truer and far more responsible.

Silas was not gentle in his reply. “McKeever,” he began, always a clue that niceties are out the window. “Most of the churches around us are worshiping the status quo or struggling to keep their doors open. It does feel like we’ve got the task alone.”  He ended with a gentle reminder that I should take care of my own assignment before telling a brother how to do his.

Point well taken.

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