I met a pastor who does not smile.

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“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy….” (Galatians 5:22)

“Now, look me in the eye and give me a smile. I want to see your teeth.”

That’s my typical request of whoever is sitting before me for a quick sketch.  If they hesitate, I explain that everyone looks better with a smile on their face, that a smile lifts the sagging face, changes the shape of the jawline, and adds a gleam to the eye.

“I don’t smile.”

Usually, the one saying this is an insecure teenager who has been warned off smiling by the mirror, an unkind friend, or a critic.  That’s one thing that pulls me onto middle and high school campuses, to do my program and try to get across to them that “there is not a person on the earth who does not look better with a smile on their face, including you.”

One man told me, “My grandmother told me when I was fifteen that I did not have a nice smile. I went twenty years without smiling.”

I said, “What a mean old lady.”

We can understand teenagers having esteem problems that often make them withdraw and want to hide.

But a pastor?

More than once, I have been drawing at denominational gatherings where most of the subjects are pastors. And I confess to being knocked speechless by those who say, “I don’t smile.”

If they have time and are not rushed, I’ll speak to that.

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Something we know about the church’s troublemakers

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I’m reading my journal from over 20 years ago and being reminded of a lot of things–the grace of God and His sovereignty, the sweetness of many of God’s people, and also the sheer hypocrisy of some.

After I left one church under a great deal of duress, the business manager of the church and I had lunch together one day.  This is from my notes written that night. I’m eliminating the names, because identifying these people would serve no purpose. Many of them have gone on to their (ahem) just rewards and what’s done is done.

What the business administrator said was stunning.

“You’re no longer the pastor, so I’m telling you this now. So many of the people who worked against you gave almost nothing to the church. If (the chairman of the personnel committee) tithes, then he’s on welfare.  And (assistant pastor) gives zero to the church. Not a dime. And his wife a piddling.”

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Why we don’t like grace

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Anything that puts us down, we automatically shy away from. For many, grace does that.

Oh, we don’t mind singing about it, but the concept of grace itself is repulsive to our natures and offensive to our pride.

Something in me wants to be self-sufficient, to believe that whatever comes up, I’m able to handle, that as the poem says, “I am the captain of my soul.”

The cry of a four-year-old–“I can do it myself!”–is the insistence of the stubborn will of the adult child.

That’s why, even though we sing about it and say we love it, something inside us resists the idea of grace. That same something insists that I am sufficient for my needs, that my good works will accomplish everything necessary to land me in Heaven, that the rest is just so much religious talk.

The sinful heart of man is an atheist, an egotist, an idolator.

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Parasitical goings-on in church

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Have you ever heard of an insect called an ichneumon? Me either. But George Will wrote about it in his syndicated newspaper column this week in analyzing why Detroit declared bankruptcy a few days ago.

The ichneumon insect inserts an egg in a caterpillar, then the larva which hatches from the egg proceeds to gnaw the insides of the caterpillar. Eventually, it has devoured almost every part of the worm with the exception of the skin and intestines, while it carefully avoids injuring the vital organs.  The ichneumon seems to know that its own existence depends on the life of the insect on which it feeds.

George Will writes that government employees’ unions have been living parasitically on the city of Detroit. They were not as smart as the ichneumon insect, he says,  because they ended up devouring their host.

One way the Holy Spirit calls my attention to lessons He has placed in front of me is I find the story (the article, the fact, whatever) fascinating. If I cannot get it out of my mind, if it will not go away, if it keeps returning to bug me, then  all the signs are present.

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Second Timothy Chapter 2

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“You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”

THEREFORE.

When you see that word in Scripture, you ask “What is it there for?”  The usual answer means on the basis of all that has gone before, what is the conclusion.

For instance, in chapter one, but particularly toward the end of the chapter–some have deserted Paul, and only Onesiphorus had sought him out–Paul calls for Timothy and through him the rest of the body of Christ to deepen their resolve to serve Christ.

–-Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.  I confess not to know what this means.  It’s one of those wonderful spiritualities that we toss around which sounds great, makes excellent material for hymns and uplifting choruses, but doesn’t actually tell us anything. Or, let me rephrase that: After all our singing it and quoting it, we still have difficulty getting a handle on what exactly it means.

I know some of what the “grace that is in Christ Jesus” means.  John said the Law came by Moses, but grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ (John 1:17). He said Jesus was “full of grace and truth” (1:14).  In short, Jesus was all love, pure love,  love throughout, from top to bottom, from the outermost to the innermost. He was solidly love.  After all, “God is love.”

So, how can we “be strong” in that grace?  I can devote myself to Him, constantly draw near to Him, sit at His feet as Mary did and worship Him, and obey His teachings. Is that what this means? Or, is Paul saying: “Now that you are living in the grace of Jesus, stand up tall and be strong”? Be courageous, outspoken, bold, faithful.

Or, is it all of the above?

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I can’t wait to get old so I can do my best work!

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“They will still bear fruit in old age” (Psalm 92:14).

“My name is Joe and I am old.”

I know, I know. Some of you think I’m bragging. And maybe I am. But, even though it has a few drawbacks and as some have said, “Growing old is not for sissies,” there is much to be said for the golden/silver (leaden?) years in service for the Lord.

You have lived through many decades on this planet, you have seen things few around you have experienced (and have the scars to bear witness), your lessons learned are solid and sure, and your reasoning powers have not abandoned you.

You have much to offer, senior saint.

Psalm 92:12-15  “The righteous one will flourish like the palm tree, He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon.  Planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God.  They will still yield fruit in old age; they shall be full of sap and very green, to declare that the Lord is upright; He is my Rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”

Those four verses are keepers, such memorable lines.  I love this little text but in no way have I mastered the content.  Here are some random thoughts….

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The burden of loving the “yes but” people

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“But Judas Iscariot, one of His disciples, who was intending to betray Him, said, ‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii, and given to poor people?’ Now, he said this, not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box, he used to pilfer what was put into it” (John 12:4-6).

You say something positive and someone finds a negative spin to put on it.

You post a praise on Facebook and someone gets angry because you didn’t touch all the bases.

You praise a singer and someone rebukes you for leaving out the pianist.

On this website, I posted an article on pastors keeping themselves pure and protecting themselves from sexual temptation. Several online sermon magazines lifted the piece (we gladly grant them blanket permission to do so) and distributed it widely.  Among the positive and gracious comments were several attacking the writer for a) not covering every detail of the subject, b) implicitly blaming the women for the preachers’ sins, and c) not giving the other side of the issue (there being apparently numerous “other” sides, everything from single women pastors, predatory preachers, restoring fallen pastors, and helping the pastors’ wives deal with competition from women in the church).

There are those among us who, like Judas Iscariot, can always find a dark cloud behind a silver lining.  Mary of Bethany anoints our Lord and worships Him, and Judas criticizes the extravagance.  It was her own perfume, she paid for it herself, the Lord Jesus had no problem receiving her worship, it involves no one else, and yet Judas picks it apart.

His spiritual gift is finding fault.

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How to write boring articles and preach dull sermons

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My friends who read the title will think, “Well! Finally something he knows a little about!”

Every preacher, I imagine, knows about dull sermons. Anyone charged with turning out multiple sermons a week over decades will certainly produce his share of messages that are dead on arrival.

I’m thinking of a Christian writer of past years who turned out book after book and built a reputation as a leader/writer/professor of note.  He was off the scene by the time I was thirty, so I never saw him when he was in his prime or I in mine. But, repeatedly, I came away from his writings thinking, “How dull. Why was he considered such a wonder?” My quick answer is that the standards were different in the mid-1900s. Denominational publishing houses turned out books not for their sharp content or even sales figures but for other reasons. In a word, he was “safe.”

Now! The challenge on penning something about dull writings and boring sermons (or vice versa!) is to keep from being dull myself. But, always one for a challenge, let’s see how this goes.

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12 things I tell the deacons

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No one is more surprised than I that the Lord has me leading all these deacon training conferences and retreats these days. (I’ve done five so far, with two or more to go. A couple had to be canceled for various reasons.)

I love deacons and treasure the relationship with quite a few from the six churches I served over four decades.. My oldest son is a deacon and served as chairman of our church’s group the last two years.

However….

I carry a few scars from battles with deacons.  I encountered a dozen or so along the way with mental health of the worst kind, some with stunted and deformed theology, and one or two who thought they were rightfully entitled to rule over the universe.   This website carries some forty or more articles written on the ministry of deacons over the years. Frequently, those painful experiences and harshest collisions produced the  best lessons and, of course, the most interesting stories.

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Let’s get ‘er done, church!

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(If we wait until we can do everything perfectly, we will still be sitting here when the Lord returns. Let us be up and doing.)

“Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men” (Colossians 3:23).

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might” (Ecclesiastes 9:10).

A minister who was interviewing for a position on the staff of my church said, “If I come as your (whatever the position was), I would not make any changes for the first year, but spend that time building relationships.”

That was it for me.  We have work to do, I thought. Relationships are good, but they may be built and must be maintained in the midst of doing the work the Lord has given us.

Stephen Dill Lee, well-known Confederate general who later became the founding president of Mississippi State University and served as a deacon at nearby Columbus’s First Baptist Church, once resigned from the church’s deacon board. He said, “When I was in the service, my approach was always to charge, charge, charge. Go forward. But these deacons don’t want to do anything.”

The minutes of the deacons from those years, the early 1900s, indicate that some prevailed upon General Lee and he agreed to stay on. Then, he chaired the church’s building committee that tore down the 1838 sanctuary and built the 1908 edifice which still stands.  He was a get ‘er done leader.

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