“We’re expecting great things from you, Pastor.” Uh oh.

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In the Peanuts comic strip, Charlie Brown said there is no heavier burden than great potential.

Young pastors know the feeling. You arrive on the field, move into the parsonage, meet with the leaders and begin your ministry. You are feeling your way through each day, trying to find the handle for everything, hoping to get a sense of who this church is and how you can best minister to it. Meantime, you’re still trying to find out who you are and what the Living God had in mind by fingering you of all people to turn into a pastor. That’s when some well-meaning member comes up to you….

“I just want you to know, pastor–we are expecting big things from you. We waited a long time for you. This church is sitting on ready. All we need is a leader to point us in the right direction.”

That sounds so good on the surface. They believe in you. They want you to succeed. They’re on your team.

Maybe.

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What “good music” teaches about the Christian life

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Good music is written better than it can be played.  –Anonymous

I’m on a Turandot kick right now. I’ve loved this Puccini opera for three decades after discovering how different it is from all the others, but without knowing why. No, I’m not a musician or a singer.  Just a country boy who grew tired of all the music he knew and decided to check out classical and opera.  That’s how I came to love the works of composers like Vivaldi, Rachmaninoff, and Tchaikovsky, and the operas of Giacomo Puccini.

I like to think of opera as “classical with words.”  (Okay, they’re mostly Italian words, but still….)

I used to wonder why Turandot was not as well known as Puccini’s other more popular operas (La Boheme, Tosca, and Madame Butterfly). Why fewer people had even heard of it. And I found out why.

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Help a child and change the world

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There is a way to step into the future and change it forever.  Help a child.

Teach a child.  Feed a child.  Hug a child.

On this website, back in 2010, I referred to an old clipping from the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal of Tupelo in which a  medical doctor, Joe Bailey, is paying tribute to the man who influenced his life.

Dr. H. O. Leonard was the mentor of young Joe Bailey, who later became a medical doctor.  Here’s the story….

The Bailey family were farmers, Dr. Bailey says, but since his mother refused to live anywhere but in town, they lived in Coffeeville, Mississippi, population 600. They lived directly across the street from the town doctor, H. O. Leonard.

As far back as Joe Bailey remembers, he wanted to be a medical doctor. When he was 10, his father suggested that it was time for him to begin helping out on the farm. Young Joe took a deep breath and explained that if he was going to be a doctor, it would be better to take a job that would teach him about people.

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What a seminary education will not do. And what it might.

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Consider this a love note to a few unemployed preachers.

I have all this education and training.  Why won’t churches call me as pastor?”

He was angry at God, at all churches, and at the system.  He sported a college degree and two diplomas from seminary, the last entitling him to call himself “Doctor.”

And yet he was unemployed.

His resume’ shows two years each at several churches.  Not a good record.

“The old churches are blackballing me,” he said. “I’m thinking of suing them.”

At one point he said, “I’m giving up on the organized church.”

Now, a casual observer may think I’m betraying a confidence here.  I might be, except for one overriding thing:  I’ve heard this same complaint, in one form or other, at least a half-dozen times over the years.

There’s a lot of this going around.

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“Lord,” I said, “I really want this.” And He said, “Sorry.”

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One Sunday morning recently, I listened to Dr. David Brooks preach to Calvary Baptist in Alexandria, Louisiana.  “I’ve been wanting to preach this sermon for several weeks,” he said, “and the Lord finally led me to preach it today.”  Based on Jeremiah 29:11, “I know the plans I have for you, saith the Lord,” David told of two great disappointments in life where he did not get what he wanted, but God knew best.

As a college student, David Brooks was one of several interviewed by Green Acres Baptist in Tyler, Texas for youth minister.  David’s roommate was chosen.  Big disappointment.  But then he was called as summer youth minister at Spring Hill, Louisiana, a lovely smaller church where he ended up serving throughout college.  One day he met John Alley, pastor of Alexandria’s Calvary Baptist and a native of Spring Hill.  Later, in seminary in New Orleans, David was invited by John to become student minister at Calvary.  Years later when John retired, the church made David the pastor.  He’s been there since the year 2000.  God’s plans were far better than anything David Brooks could have imagined, any plans he might have made for himself.

I identify with that and I’m confident readers will also.  Now, David Brooks’  burden in that message was people dealing with the coronavirus, having their plans changed, and not getting what they had wanted or expected. God’s way is always better, he emphasized.  He can be trusted.

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Seven questions about “Once Saved Always Safe”

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…and they shall never perish….” (John 10:28)

(What follows is not Baptist doctrine.  This has nothing to do with denominationalism.  This is about the Bible.  It’s about the clear teaching of Jesus.  Thank you.)

Can you unfry an egg?  Can you uncook a casserole? Return a house to the trees it once was? Can you be unborn and stop being your father’s child?

After being saved, coming to know Christ and being genuinely forgiven and accepted and transformed by the Holy Spirit of God into something far different from what you were, you cannot undo that.

Once saved, always.

Once saved, always that.  Once saved, always safe.

To say otherwise, and to preach it as gospel, might be something akin to insulting the Holy Spirit.

It might be. Certainly, it’s worth giving this some serious thought.

My friend and her husband have been trying to find the church where the Lord wants them.  She sent me a message.

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People who sound like hell

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“Cast out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 25:30).

“In thy presence there is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).

If the atmosphere of heaven is joy and praise, then the noxious fumes of hell must be saturated with  equal parts anger, complaining, bitterness and blaming.

Scriptures keep telling us that the atmosphere around the throne of Heaven is praise and joy and gratitude. In other words, worship.

–There is Psalm 16:11 (above) which is as good as we could ask for.

–In John’s vision of Heaven which we call Revelation,  he tells us that near the throne stood “four living creatures, each having six wings…. Day and night they do not cease to say, ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God, The Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come’” (Revelation 4:8).  Around the throne, the praise is continuous.

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Don’t blame God for your cowardice

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“For God has not given us the spirit of cowardice, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (II Timothy 1:7)

The spirit of cowardice lives and thrives in churches these days. It has a corner in the office of many a pastor, and makes whimpering sounds familiar to many of us….

–“You don’t want to do that. It might rock the boat.”

–“Deacon Crenshaw will be upset if you preach that. I wouldn’t.”

–“Back off on that vision God gave you. You’re going to lose some members if you push that.”

–“Pastor, you must not oppose the power group in your church. They ran off the last three preachers.”

–“The biggest giver in the church is threatening to withhold his tithes if you persist in letting those people come to our church.”

We surely don’t want to offend anyone, do we?

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The mistake liberal churches make which we must not

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For He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust” (Psalm 103:14).

“Except you repent, you shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3,5).

Okay, maybe the title is a misnomer. The typical liberal church–as this Southern Baptist farm boy sees it, anyhow–makes a dozen serious errors, some of them monumental.  But this one is about as big as they come.

The typical liberal church overestimates people.

They think people are better than they are.

To  test this,  visit the typical church of certain denominations and pay attention.  There will be no mention of man’s being in need of redemption, little or no reference to sin at all, and thus no need to offer the salvation of Christ which involves His death on the cross, His shed blood, and His resurrection.  All the teaching and every reference implies that we are all God’s children, each one saved, each one headed for Heaven.

Man just needs to do right, make the right choices, and he’s in.  Well, let me rephrase that.  He’s already “in.”  Everyone is “in,” according to the typical liberal theology.

Liberals overlook one fundamental fact: Man is lost. We are constitutionally unable to rise above our sinful natures by ourselves. We need help of a radical kind.

We need a Savior.

If one misses that, he misses everything.

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Gentleness: The Christlikeness God is trying to produce in us

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But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness…. (Galatians 5:22-23)

“Would the gentleman from North Carolina please yield the floor?”

“The gentle lady from California makes a good point.”

The U.S. Senate may be the last place in this country where people are recognized as being gentle. It’s a nice trait. “Gentle” means you are not bombastic, not mean-spirited, not rude or unkind or harsh.

My goal is to become more gentle in this life.

Various translations make this “kindness” and “goodness.” Same difference, I suppose, although there is something about “gentleness” that weighs heavily on my mind.

Did you hear about the preacher who was protesting a “gay and lesbian pride” march winding its way through the French Quarter? According to the reports, the minister was preaching to the participants in harsh and condemning tones. At one point, a woman decided that this angry man of God (we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt) needed a hug. So, she stepped out of the crowd, walked over to him, and kissed him.

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