Writing an article on something so obvious as “it’s good to outline a sermon” is akin to announcing “life is good, trees are tall, flowers are pretty.”

But, for the right-brainers (like me) out there who struggle with this, things are not quite so obvious or simple.  Anyone who ever heard the Granddaddy of all Right-Brain Preachers, the inimitable Calvin Miller, has seen upclose and personal the two great sides of “out of the overflow preaching” which occupied this space last time: a) It’s a delight to hear; b) it’s impossible to follow. That is to say, you love the experience but could not reproduce it in a thousand years.

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(For this article, we enlisted the aid of our Facebook friends. We’re quoting them here, but not verbatim. They will recognize themselves. Thanks, guys.)

“The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul… They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb…. In keeping them there is great reward.” (Psalm 19:7-11)

The Bible loves the Bible.

From one end to the other, God’s word tells us how wonderful is God’s word. Better than gold and sweeter than honey it is. Job said, “I have esteemed the words of Thy mouth more than my necessary food” (Job 23:12).

We preachers believe this. And we say those words to our people. We like our people to bring their Bibles to church, open them as we read and preach, and use them when they return home.

There is nothing wrong with our aspirations in this regard.

When it comes to connecting our people with God’s word personally to the point that they will become ardent readers and diligent students of Scripture, we should give ourselves a C-minus, however. And sometimes, an F.

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(Don’t miss the post script at the end.)

“Thanks, pastor. I plan to arrive Saturday in time to meet you for dinner. My travel arrangements? Oh, I’ll be driving.”

Now, I don’t mind flying to preach in your church. Next month in fact, I’ll be taking a plane to Orlando for a revival meeting, and the following month to Denver for a Sunday morning service in Aurora.

Last March, I flew to Italy for a week. I don’t mind flying.

But I’d rather drive if that’s doable.

Later this week, for instance, I’ll be driving to a weekend of ministry for a church in the Fort Worth, Texas area.  Since hopping a plane between New Orleans (the airport is 1 mile from my house as the Cessna flies) and D-FW is so simple and efficient, that seemed the most practical alternative. But when I went online to arrange a ticket, I was too late or something. The direct flights were full and closed and expensive, and the others had me flying around the world and getting home in the wee hours of Monday morning.  So, I opted out of that and thought of a plan (see below).

I love to drive and drive I will this week.  And, in doing so, I will try to make the most of it.

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“O Jerusalem, O Jerusalem….” (Matthew 23:37)

I was 13 years old and riding the schoolbus home. During the nearly hour-long drive, I kept noticing a thin trail of white smoke in the distance. At one point, someone stopped the bus and asked for my older brothers to go with them. Since older brothers seem always to have their own agenda, there was nothing unusual about that, I thought.

Finally, the bus reached our little county highway. The last stop before our place was the home of a cousin. As he stepped off the bus, his mother came out of the house and called, “Joe, y’all’s house burned down.”

That’s how my two sisters and younger brother and I found it out. They started crying. The bus let us off at our stop, but we still had a quarter-mile walk down the unpaved road, up the hill, and around the curve. As we entered the clearing, no one and nothing could have prepared us for the sight. Where our house had stood that morning was now a blackened cemetery, the ebony gravestones poking up, the white trail of smoke still rising. Family members stood around the perimeter, no one doing much of anything, just crying, hugging, and talking in low tones for some reason.

It felt like a wake.

Even though in the aftermath of that fire, our family reaped a hundred wonderful blessings, the day still looms in our collective memory as the death of a loved one.

How to give someone bad news is what this is about.

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This is a good place for a text that speaks to the issue.

There isn’t one.

I’m sorry. (Sorrier than I can tell you. Every preacher would love to have it spelled out in scriptural black and white that the minister can marry certain couples and should decline invitations to join in holy matrimony certain others.)

One of the first eye-openers to hit most beginning pastors is discovering that the Bible does not authorize the minister to marry anyone, much less whom and under what conditions.

I recall my surprise on finding that the Bible contains no wedding ceremonies. None, nada. It is not silent about marriage, but completely mute on weddings (well, other than the fact that Jesus catered the wine for one in Cana of Galilee, but as a card-totin’ Southern Baptist, I am not going there!).

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Let’s consider what follows as simply an honest admission, a confession-is-good-for-the-soul, that sort of thing.  Having highlighted our preferred events at church, it makes sense to give the dark side and say what we don’t like. So, for better or for worse, here goes…

I dislike church fights and arguments.

“Who does?” you say. Apparently, there are people who thrive on them. I’m not a member of that fraternity.

The church fights I have experienced are some of the most painful memories of my half-century of ministry. How do I hate thee, O church fights? Let me count the ways….

–That church business meeting on whether to cancel the Sunday night radio broadcast to save a few dollars, I was merely a spectator, but it was painful to see. The pastor and one group wanted to keep the program as it was drawing people to church; the finance committee and their group insisted the church could not afford it.

–One fight focused on “opening the doors of the church” to members of minority races.  I still grieve at the ugliness some good people demonstrated.

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