Suggestions for the young pastor: Your pulpit speech

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Most young people mumble.

I’ll be sketching children and young adults and try to engage them in conversation or learn their names and have to ask someone what they said.

And the problem is not my hearing either!

When you come across the exception–a person who looks up, looks you in the eye, and speaks up clearly and confidently–you know you have a winner here.

Some of the best advice we can give to anyone, young or old, is to learn to stand up straight, look into the eyes of the person we are addressing, and speak up clearly. Enunciate.

How much more necessary it is for those whose very lives involve speaking to get this right!

Young minister, give some serious attention not only to what you say from the pulpit but also to how you say it.

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10 pointers on giving an invitation

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“Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden…” (Matthew 11:28)

“…as though God were entreating you through us, we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (II Corinthians 5:20).

A pastor I once knew said Second Corinthians 5:20 changed forever how he extended an invitation following a sermon. “We beg you on behalf of Christ,” Paul said. As a result, the pastor said, he no longer gives unemotional and passive invitations, but pleads with people to come to Jesus.

In the wing of the Christian faith where I dwell and minister, when a pastor preaches, he expects people to respond, either publically at that moment or later in private. Or both.

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Pastor, that was a great message…if we could have only heard you.

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“Let everyone be quick to hear….” (James 1:19)

Patricia Clarkson is an award-winning Hollywood actress and a well-loved native of our New Orleans. Her mother Jackie is a longtime political leader in the city. In Friday’s “The Advocate,” Patricia was reminiscing about when she first became aware she could act.

“I’ve had this distinctive voice since I was 5,” she said. “I remember the first play I did, in 8th grade, I brought the house down. I don’t think it was because I was good.  It was because I was the only person who could be heard in the auditorium! Deep voices are on my father’s side of the family. My grandmother had a beautiful deep voice.”

The only person who could be heard!

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Sermons are easy; the hard part is having a word from God.

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“Is there a word from God?” (Jeremiah 37:17)

Any one can “get up a sermon.”

When you are first beginning in the ministry, the “art”–if you want to call it that–of finding, creating, and building sermons seems mysterious and difficult.  In time, however, you work out the formula for sermons and your life becomes less stressful, sermon-building easier.

“What is the formula for sermons?” someone asks.

There’s no one formula, but each preacher works out his own according to his own style.

It goes something like this…

Take a random verse of scripture: “Some of the scribes answered and said, ‘Teacher, you have spoken well.” (Luke 20:29)  Can we build a sermon on that?  You bet. Nothing to it, if all we want is a sermon.

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When apologizing is not enough

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“My sin is ever before me” (Psalm 51:3).

Bill Glass played a full career with the Cleveland Browns as an All-Pro defensive end before retiring for another career spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ.  In his mid-70s now, Bill is still “in the game” and “on the field.”

In his book, “Get in the Game,” Bill Glass tells of the time his team was battling the St. Louis Cardinals (back when they were still in that city).

That day, Cleveland had St. Louis backed up to their own 5 yard line. Cardinal quarterback Charlie Johnson took the ball and was running around in the end zone looking for someone to throw it to. Meanwhile Bill Glass, right defensive end for Cleveland, was bearing down on him from his blind side, while Paul Wiggin, left end, was barreling toward Johnson from the other side.

It was a defensive end’s dream. They are about to sack the quarterback in his own end zone. This can be a game-changer. Bill could just hear the crowd cheering.  This was going to be great.

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The rarest (and best?) way to give thanks

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Recently, I spent part of a morning sketching the first graders in Jill Strahan’s class on the next-to-last day of school.  As I finished and was about to walk out the door, she handed me a booklet the children had put together thanking me for drawing them.

The booklet was not unlike many I’ve received before, childish drawings throughout, with festive sentences saying “Thank you, Mister Joe, for drawing me” and “Thank you for coming to our school.” One or two said, “You are a good drawer.”

It occurred to me later that Jill had led the class to make that booklet before I ever arrived (since there would not be time afterwards). So, the children had thanked me for a job well done before I ever did it.

They had thanked me by faith.

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10 hard truths (and sweet reminders) about the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ

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“I will build my church…” (Matthew 16:18)

It’s His church and not mine.

It’s His church and not yours either.

Settle that or nothing else will matter. Get it wrong and everything else you do will be off kilter.

The moment you think it’s your church (you’re in charge) or my church (someone else makes the decisions; you have nothing to do with what happens), we’re all in trouble.

It is indeed the Lord’s Church and He is its sole owner.  He takes no one in as a stockholder, franchises no part of His operation out to denominations, and asks advice from no expert of theology.  Furthermore, He promised that the gates of hades will not prevail against His church.

And, He has populated His church with frail humans like you and me, and wonder of wonders, assigned some of us to responsibilities within that church. What a risk He was taking!

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The five people you can count on most

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If you would take a leadership role in the Kingdom of God, you will be needing fellow workers. You will not be able to nor will you be asked to do this alone.

The question will come up as to whom you can trust. You will have to decide the quality of the men and women with whom you are surrounded, particularly in determining your inner circle of leadership and responsibility.

Here are five people you can depend on no matter what is happening….

1) You can count on the person who comes in when everyone else goes out. He is courageous and faithful.

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Don’t blame God for your cowardice.

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(continuing the series on Second Timothy)

“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?

We don’t?  Show me that one in the Bible.  Jesus didn’t mind offending those who were dead-set on flouting the laws of God and blocking the ministries of the faithful.

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Viruses that infect the church

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“But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (II Timothy 3:13).

The nature of computer viruses, as I understand them, is that a kink is placed in the inner workings of these systems which infiltrates all aspects and makes it impossible for the computer to do the work for which it was intended.

They are called “viruses” for good reason. Plagues are the result of viruses being passed along from one person to another until millions are infected and a great many die.

Quarantining the carriers has traditionally been the means of stopping the virus in its tracks.

In the Kingdom of God–the church on earth, if you will–bad ideas and wrong-headed philosophies function in the same way as viruses.  They infect a church and as members and leaders interact with other churches, as people relocate and assume places in other congregations, the infection is spread.

The result is always deadly.

Here are seven viruses which I have observed affecting and infecting the Lord’s work on earth today....

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