Sometimes we have to enroll the entire school in the first grade and start all over.

Recently, when I had trouble in one of my ears, the E-N-T doctor prescribed, among other things, a bottle of pills with unusual directions: “Take 6 a day for the first 4 days, 5 on the 5th day, 4 on the 6th day, 3 on the 7th day, 2 on the 8th day, and 1 on the 9th day.”

It worked, I’m happy to report.

My wife, who seems to know as much as most pharmacists, says some meds must not be curtailed abruptly.

Certain illnesses and conditions respond to simple, one-step treatments. Others require weeks, months, even years of medications and applications. In those, regular repetition over extended periods is needed for healing.

The sick church did not get that way overnight. Often, anemic, struggling churches result from the unhealthy teachings of warped leaders. In many cases, teachers have gone to seed on a pet doctrine and omitted altogether the basic principles of solid Christian living as unworthy of them.

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the sayings of God…. (Hebrews 5:12).

The elementary principles. Basic Christianity. The kind of stuff we should have been taught in a new members’ class.

Sometimes we have to backtrack with an unhealthy congregation and re-enroll everyone in first grade.

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The church is weak and struggling. It’s growth has all been negative, and only a few members are alert enough to even care. Rather than arrange for pre-needs (interesting euphemism) with your local funeral home, try these steps first. And, by the way, none need to be voted on. If you are the pastor, just do this. If anyone should object that you are acting without proper authorization, tell them the Owner of the Church ordered this. Or, you could say what a pastor friend said when he turned his church’s fellowship hall into a supply house for the needy following a hurricane down here in the bayou country: “Who gave me the authority? This is a no-brainer!”

A sick church, if it’s really really sick, will probably let you say anything from the pulpit, pastor. Only if there are still signs of life about will you get a negative reaction from what you do or say. So, if someone does protest, take that as a good sign.

Here then are 5 non-threatening actions you the pastor can take to fan the flames of life back into those dying embers sitting before you on Sundays.

1. You can get the people to praying.

Prayer doesn’t burden the budget and no one has to pray who doesn’t want to or see the need.

As with anything, some will respond and some will ignore you. So, do not expect 100 percent participation before you go ahead. If you do, you are putting a requirement on them they’re not able to fulfill and setting yourself up for disappointment.

Go with the few who want to pray. And by “pray,” we mean to bring yourself to the living God, seek His heart from your heart, submit your will to His, ask for His guidance in all that is before you, and desire only His glory.

There are numerous ways to get a small struggling congregation to pray. Here are a few.

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Recently, when an online magazine sent me an article on “5 signs you’re part of an unhealthy church,” I eagerly opened it. This subject is dear to my heart.

I am passionate about strong, healthy churches.

The writer’s 5 signs were good, as far as they went. No argument with her. I did not leave a comment one way or the other in response.

What I felt, however, is that my experience seems to be of another nature from hers.

First, here are her “5 signs you are part of an unhealthy church.”

1) Leadership has no clear vision.

2) Leadership can never be challenged.

3) You are comfortable but never challenged.

4) Members are content with being pew warmers.

5) Outreach is never planned or preached.

All of these are true. But there is so much more.

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Let’s say you are a politician running for office. At a public gathering, someone in the audience begins heckling you. Rather than being highly offended, or worse, having the secret service (or your staff) usher the guy outside or even arrest him, you should consider that the fellow is doing you a favor.

The critic is giving you a chance to do something you rarely get an opportunity to do: you get to impress the larger audience by the way you deal with this one man.

So, when you respond to what he does or says, keep this in mind: By himself, the man is unimportant (to your campaign); but people are making up their minds about you by the way you deal with him.

Likewise, if you are the pastor and someone in the congregation arises to criticize you.

Great opportunity, pastor.

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I came by it honestly. My dad, a coal miner with a 7th grade education, was interested in everything. He read and learned and talked to us of all kinds of subjects.

In college, I changed my major from science (physics) to history because the professors in the science building were focusing more and more on tinier and tinier segments of the universe. But history deals with it all, every person who ever lived, every civilization, every lesson learned. Nothing is off limits to history.

That did it for me.

As I write–on a Saturday morning–I’m reflecting on the week just ended. Last Monday afternoon, I was among a busload of preachers and spouses from across Europe who spent several hours touring the ruins of Pompeii, the Italian city devastated by the eruption of Vesuvius in August of A.D. 79. It was truly unforgettable. So much so, that….

After my arrival home in New Orleans Tuesday night, the next afternoon I was in our public library reading up on Pompeii. I checked out a Robert Harris novel titled “Pompeii,” and finished it last night.

I feel like I’ve been living in Pompeii this week.

In my next trip to the library, I plan to see what is available on the Roman aqueducts, which was a major theme of the novel.

Why? Of what possible use is this in my ministry?

Answer: I have no idea. Maybe no use at all, maybe a lot.

A great curiosity is a wonderful thing for any Christian to have, but particularly for preachers. Why?

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And I don’t just mean buy a computer and start doing email. Unless you have been living under a rock somewhere the last decade, you’re already doing that.

I mean, start a blog. Your own.

This morning, less than a half-hour ago, while sitting at the breakfast table talking with Margaret about this day, my phone rang. The screen said, “Unknown.” When I answered, a lady with a British accent announced she was looking for me, and then identified herself as with the BBC in London. She is doing research for a program they are airing during the noon hour today on the Pope’s statements that the Cuban blockade should be lifted.

Why ask for my thoughts?

She had found an article on my website saying the church needs to stay out of politics, that we have more important matters on our agenda. So, did I think that about the Pope speaking out concerning Cuba? (I wasn’t much help. The Vatican is recognized as a state, the Pope is the head of that state as well as the head of the Catholic religion, thus he addresses both kinds of issues. I said, “So, if you’re looking for someone to take an adversarial position, I won’t be of much help to you.”)

I gave her the name of another minister she could call, and we ended the call.

One more example of the wide scope of the internet.

Two nights ago, I returned from ministering in Italy. It was the result of an American pastor serving in the northern part of that country reading an article I’d written–I have no memory of which one–and going to my website, seeing I was also a cartoonist, and feeling led to invite me to speak at the annual Leadership Conference of pastors and spouses of the International Baptist Convention on the Amalfi Coast of Italy. A once-in-a-lifetime experience I will never forget.

Thanks be to God. Thanks for the internet.

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A rope of three strands is not easily broken. (Ecclesiastes 4:12)

The last church I pastored went through a massive breakdown when a new pastor arrived and quickly announced a moral indiscretion in his background. Two groups exiting the church began new congregations, one group spread into the community and joined other churches, a fourth group went home and haven’t been to church since, and, after the pastor was terminated, I became the pastor of the remaining members.

That’s not a church split; explosion is more like it.

In analyzing the reasons for a great church’s near-complete self-destruction, one thing became clear: the members were united by one thing, the pulpit. And when the pulpit failed, they abandoned ship.

The line from Ecclesiastes assuring us that “a threefold cord is not quickly broken” gives us a clue on locking in our members so that a failure of one “cord” will not break the rope and destroy the whole system.

It’s all about redundancy–safeguarding the makeup of the church in more than one way. Three ways, to be exact.

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