This is a reprint of an article from August 2010. The only changes are the names. It’s been sixteen years and these people are in Heaven and it’s probably permissible to use their names. Some members of that church in metro New Orleans are still with us, are active on social media and will read this. I want them to. (It’s all good.) They were agents for our Heavenly Father in this pastor’s life.
A pastor friend sent me a note just now reporting on his church. He has baptized several this year and had twice that number to join in other ways. I replied that God is using him to turn around that old church and, “Good for you, friend!”
He came back: “The curmudgeons are still there, though, still lurking.”
I answered, “They always will be. But let me tell you what I’ve finally learned about that. These detractors are doing you a favor. They motivate you to greater faithfulness, to do your best work, to keep the focus on the Lord.”
He said, “I call them ‘Holy Sandpaper.’”
The Lord uses them to get the rough edges off His servant.
Interesting how the notes I get from pastors–some are questions regarding ministry–turn out to be the very thing the Lord was talking with me about earlier.
Case in point. Yesterday, I was going through some old correspondence files, trying to decide what could be discarded. I ran across the most critical (as in life-changing) exchange of letters I ever had with a church member in nearly a half-century of ministry.
Here’s the story and our letters….
I came to this church in September of 1990, some 18 months after the congregation experienced the worst blowup of its existence. They had terminated a pastor who left with a small group, hundreds of others pulled out to start another church, many joined other congregations, and some simply grew disgusted with the whole business and dropped out of church altogether. The group I came to pastor numbered one-half the previous church.
To shorten a book-length story (which some of our readers know because you were there), I had come from a church where I had been pretty well beaten up. And the Kenner church had been hurt by its former pastor. We all decided this would be a healing time for both the church and me.
The problem is some people don’t want to heal. They have anger over what was done or said to them in the past. Some carry guilt over what they themselves did.
Unresolved anger and undealt-with guilt function like poisons. They pollute every relationship and contaminate all attempts to do the work of the Lord.
For seven years I endured it, hoping against hope that if we persisted with the faithful people, the trouble-makers and nay-sayers would either disappear or get their hearts right.
Finally, in June of 1997, I preached a sermon on Sunday morning that some around here still refer to as “The Sermon.” I lanced that old wound and let the sun shine in. I hung the dirty linen on the line for all to see. I told the congregation what had happened in the split before I came and how some had acted in the years since. I called on those with guilt to repent and those with anger to forgive.
People mobbed me after the service to thank me for finally dealing with this issue that held the church back like a dead weight. But not everyone was happy. The nay-sayers were upset.
One wrote me a letter. And give him credit, he had the integrity to sign it and to hand-deliver it to my office the next morning. I heard him at the front desk telling the receptionist, “Give this to Doctor McKeever.”
Dr. McKeever, your sermon on Sunday, June 22, 1997, showed your immaturity. You were like a child trying to get back at someone who had crossed you. The sermon was uncalled for and made me ashame (sic) for the visitors that was sitting in my section. They had to listen to a stupid sermon for a full hour.
Dr. McKeever, several of the visitors stopped me at the door and asked the question, What kind of preacher do you have, I would never attend this church.
I am not proud of you and I don’t love you. Your sermon had no effect on me. I will continue doing the same thing I have always done. I do pray to the Lord before I speak. Do you?
And he signed his name. Wesley Gray.
That was Monday morning. Immediately I penned a response to him:
I cannot tell you how many godly and mature people have come to me since Sunday’s sermon and said, ‘Thank you for that message. It desperately needed to be said.’ I had prayed hard over it all week. I did not want to preach this kind of sermon. It is not my nature to be offensive to anyone. I fear that you have not forgiven me for that ‘slight’ of some four years ago when you felt that I had not spoken to you and your wife. I apologized to you at that time and did so to her, but you have been angry at me ever since.
I’m sad for you to say you do not love me. I do love you. And I pray for you frequently.
Then–and here is where it gets good–that evening, I told my wife about the letter. And she made a cake for the gentleman (whom she did not know), and wrote a note with it. This week, I found that note in my file also. It reads:
Dear Mr. Graves,
We love you. We forgive you.
The problem is, not knowing him, Margaret got his name wrong. She had put the note on top of the cake box, but I did not notice the spelling.
Tuesday morning, I handed the cake to the church custodian, gave him the address of the church member, and asked him to deliver it.
And that was that, I thought.
Wednesday morning, I heard him at the front desk. “Give this to Dr. McKeever and tell him my name is Gray!”
The receptionist brought in Margaret’s cake, still in the box, with that note on top. As she left, I looked toward the ceiling and said, “Lord, I’m trying real hard to love this man, but he’s making it really tough.”
That’s when I heard a noise from above.
We were in Vacation Bible School that week and the fourth grade class was meeting above my office. An hour later, that class enjoyed the cake my wife had made Monday night.
A couple of days later, Mr. Gray received thirty thank-you notes from fourth-graders for “that wonderful cake you brought to our class.”
I heard no more from him. One day, some months later, a friend said, “I don’t know what it is about your and Mr. Gray. He’s one of the nicest people I know.” I said, “You couldn’t prove it by me. I thought he was demon-possessed!”
Still months later–I’m fuzzy on the chronology here–we were having some kind of church function in the fellowship hall. I was standing in the kitchen when he came up to me. “Pastor, I am so ashamed of the way I behaved. Will you forgive me?”
I said, “I’ll forgive you if you will forgive me.” I honestly didn’t think I had done anything to need forgiving but I was happy to meet him halfway.
We hugged. And thereafter, almost every time we met, Mr. Wesley Gray and I hugged.
He died of cancer a year or two ago. Our present pastor Dr. Mike Miller did the funeral. The family invited me to serve as a pallbearer.
God is great. Forgiveness is wonderful. And love is the best there is.
In this same file from June of 1997, I found an index card written on both sides. Jena Weisheit–she’ll not mind my using her name–wrote to encourage me. You will appreciate where she’s coming from more if you know that she is a pastor’s daughter and had to watch in silence as a church once terminated her faithful father from his church for no reason. She knows the pain that can be inflicted by unthinking church members.
Brother Joe,
Just want you to know that I love you. I support you no matter what and I’m praying for you and our church daily. Please also know that I’m hurting with you and if there is anything I can do, please let me know. I stand firmly behind you and don’t mind speaking out! I’ve learned through experience that Christians can be the meanest people there are. I’m sorry you are hurting. I have to remind myself that even though I don’t understand why things like this happen that God will take care of them on judgement day for messing with one of His own! Love, Jena.
I read that this week and wept again.
And I made a discovery.
Everything is all right. God really did use their abrasiveness to strengthen me and hone my effectiveness for Him.
In fact, I pray that God will forgive them in advance and that judgment for them will go well. (As I desire for myself. “Blessed are the merciful,” our Lord said, “for they shall receive mercy.” I’m counting on that!)
The other day, I pulled out some old cassette tapes of sermons I preached during a period I was enduring some of the worst opposition and criticism of my ministry. I finally located a tape player and loaded it with AA batteries and received a shock.
That sermon was among the best of my entire life. It blessed me, and I’m the one who preached it.
Listening to the message, I could see now that God had His hand on me. (I cannot even type these words without the tears, even after all these years!) God was using this in my life.
In fact, I wonder if the service God did through me would not have been of a much more inferior quality had I received nothing but positive support from church members through the years.
“It is good for me that I have been afflicted,” the psalmist said, “that I may learn your statutes” (Ps. 119:71).
Holy sandpaper, indeed.
After listening to that sermon, I found myself wishing I could go back to the person I was at that time and reassure God’s servant that “it’s all right; God is using this; relax and trust Him. You’re doing just fine!”
But then, I didn’t have to do that. Jena did it.
Praise God for church members who are sensitive to know when the pastor is hurting and do not sit back and watch. Thank God for those who speak up for their shepherd and encourage him.
God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love that you have shown toward His name in having ministered to the saints and in still ministering.(Hebrews 6:10)
Be faithful, pastor. The stress is tough but someday you’ll look back and thank God for it. It’s making you a better preacher and a more Christlike servant.