10. Pastors are human and more like you than you could ever imagine.

In a panel discussion, several pastors’ wives were talking about the uniqueness of their ministries. One lady, married to a well-known evangelist, said, “I tell my man, ‘Don’t get too uppidity for me. I have seen you without your pants on!”

Some of her hearers were offended by the remark.

I wasn’t. I know the point she was making: He is a flawed, fallible human like the rest of us, and not some saintly somebody unacquainted with temptation and failings.

Here’s a test you will benefit from: Find the journals of some “truly great” man or woman of God from a past generation, and read them. Notice the paradox: at the very time the world is acclaiming him/her for holiness and Christlikeness, they themselves are struggling with inner conflicts of one kind or the other. They appear to have a leg up on intimacy with the Lord to the rest of the world, but to themselves, they are babies in the faith barely able to walk spiritually and completely at the mercy of a benevolent God.

Far from refuting their holiness, the journal affirms it. But not in the way most people expect.

Friend, you do not want as a pastor someone who has never sinned, never messed up, and never known the mercies of God. If you get a preacher who is sinless, you may discover him to be harsh and mean-spirited toward the likes of you; you are a sinner in need of grace, whereas he meets God as an equal.

As Paul said, I speak as a fool.

9. Pastors are called by God to this work, otherwise they never last.

I used to hear of preachers who were “mama-called and daddy-sent.” In time, I met one or two. They didn’t make it. The work was too hard, the expectations too high, the rewards too few.

Pastors sometimes say, almost facetiously, “I’ve sometimes doubted my salvation, but never my call to the ministry.” (I suspect that’s because, as with me, I was saved as a child but called into this work as an adult.)

The work is hard. The expectations are through the roof. And the rewards? To be honest, the pay is a lot better these days (as a rule) than when I started in the early 1960s. The perks tend to be more plentiful, and the resources more abundant.

Even so, frustrations in the Lord’s work abound. Almost daily, I receive a phone call or email from God’s servants pouring out tales of misunderstanding, harassment, strong opposition, and even persecution. Frequently, the man of God will say to me, “If this was coming from the world, I’d expect it. But these are the Lord’s people doing this. It doesn’t make sense.”

Pastors reading this are shaking their heads. They know. Their biggest headaches come not from the tavern owners or casino managers, not from politicians or bigshot business types, and not from drug pushers and drunks. The men and women who sit in the pews and on church committees and boards tend to be the source of most headaches and heartbreaks of pastors.

Only one called by God and who knows he serves the Living God, only he will last.

And some of them, honesty forces me to admit sadly, don’t make it.

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The blue ribbon committee assigned to consider a name change for our Southern Baptist Convention has announced they are punting.

Okay, what they are doing is recommending that a) the basic name of the SBC remain unchanged due to the myriad of legalities involved in such a massive realignment, b) that we adopt “Great Commission Baptists” as a secondary or alternative name for our denomination, and c) that churches be “allowed” (my word) to use either name or both.

We knew they were a wise group; they’ve just proven it.

Personally, I think it would be a travesty to post the name “Great Commission Baptist” on some of the churches in our denomination which are anything but that.

This way, they get to decide for themselves whether they are.

From the Mark 2 story of Jesus’ healing the paralytic, here is my take on Five Ways to Tell If Yours Is a Great Commission Church.

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Toward the end of his sermon this Sunday morning, Pastor Mike Miller asked for “those who are going to help me with the rest of this sermon” to come on up. Several singers and musicians stepped forward along with two deacons.

The deacons, Chuck and Jim, are well-known and greatly loved by this congregation. They work for the same investment firm, and from everything I hear, are highly successful at what they do. Chuck has chaired most of the important committees in the church (and a few that weren’t!), including the last pastor search team, and Jim presently chairs the church’s stewardship committee. In the 1990s, when he was younger and his jet black hair long, Jim played “Jesus” for several years running in our Christmas pageants. Chuck is married to Christy, and Jim to Sheila.

Mostly it was Jim’s testimony they were telling. Chuck was there because he had a pivotal role in it: He is the one who witnessed to Jim and brought him to the Lord.

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The pastor or church staff member or the chairman of a committee or a church officer has overstayed his/her welcome.

How to tell.

One church I pastored–FBC of Columbus, Mississippi–had a vivid illustration of what happens when a member holds a position so long they begin to “own” it. Across the street from the synagogue sat the funeral home, owned by one of our deacons. One day this good man told me, “Preacher, we could have bought the land the synagogue is sitting on for a pittance years ago.” (It abutted the back of our sanctuary.)

He said, “When the house that used to sit on that property came up for sale, the people wanted $30,000 for it. I was willing to raise the money and buy it. I felt we’d be needing that property in the future.”

“The trouble was that Mr. McClanahan, the church treasurer who had held that job for decades, vetoed it. He said that was just too much money for that piece of land and we would not pay it.”

“No one, including the preacher, wanted to stand up to McClanahan, so we let it go.”

“And now,” the deacon said, “We can’t touch that piece of ground for a million dollars.”

He was right in that; after all, I’d asked around discreetly and found that out.

One church where I was preaching recently was in the act of trying to dislodge a church secretary who had held that office since Noah was a little boy. Even though she was in her mid-70s and long overdue for retirement, she would not budge. As the unofficial church boss, the woman would not change her way of doing things, would not agree that the pastor had the right to have an administrative helper who would do what he asked, and would not agree to go away quietly. (I have no idea how it turned out. These things rarely go smoothly.)

Sometimes it’s the pastor, sometimes another church worker. How to get rid of them is one subject. But our subject today is:

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Not for the swimsuit issue. It came yesterday. Right now, it’s tied up inside a small grocery bag stuffed down inside the kitchen trash, to be set outside in garbage cans tomorrow morniing. Some images we just do not need in our home, and this is one of them.

I take Sports Illustrated for the same reason I subscribe to The New Yorker and TIME magazines: Once in a while a story, an insight, an incident, is so unforgettable it ends up becoming a part of how I think. And, often, it takes its place as the centerpiece in a sermon.

Case in point.

The February 13, 2012, issue of SI was devoted to the New York Giants’ Super Bowl win over the New England Patriots. Not having a favorite in that contest, I was only mildly interested, but did scan the articles.

In so doing, I found a keeper, a piece on the role debriefing played in changing the Giants from a 7-7 team, which is the very essence of average and was their record two weeks before the end of the season, into world champions.

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Once in a while we stumble onto a principle that really works in our ministries. The fun thing is to go back then and find that not only did the Lord “know” that–smiley face goes here–but He gave us a story illustrating it in Scripture.

Here’s the story.

Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much. Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrans. So He called His disciples to Himself and said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury, for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood.” (Mark 12:41-44)

The principle thus illustrated,the one that can transform your leadership in teaching your people to give, is this: The small gift given sacrificially inspires everyone else to give generously.

One would think it would be the other way around, that pointing out how Mr. Deep Pockets contributed a cool million would encourage the rest of us to dig down and come up with our fair share. Now, we do need those great gifts, let’s make that point. But Mr. Pockets’ gift does not inspire many of us to give sacrificially for the simple reason that we figure, “Well, he has lots of money, he OUGHT to be giving a lot.”

But no one thinks that of the child who gives much or the poor widow who gives sacrificially or the common laborer (you’ll pardon the expression) who sets a high standard for generosity.

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A pastor of a small but growing church tossed a question my way.

“My small church is growing, and our people do not want to lose the family spirit of a small church. But how do we maintain that without becoming a clique?”

By clique is meant an enclosed group, a circle of friends that will admit no new members.

We’ve all seen Sunday School classes where the members have been together for years and know everything there is to know about the others, and where the intimacy is deep and lasting. They know birthdays, the names of each one’s grandchildren, and they relate to one another like sisters.

Yes, sisters. It’s almost always a women’s class that does this.

But, women or men, we’re all guilty to some degree.

Let a newcomer show up in our little group of select friends one Sunday, and everything changes: the balance is threatened, conversation freezes, and the fellowship becomes more restrained.

Now, churches are liable to this affliction, too.

So, what do we tell the young pastor of the small-but-growing church? How can he help his people retain that new car smell even after putting a few thousand miles on the vehicle? (Oops. Sorry. The metaphor inserted itself.)

Readers are invited to suggest steps the church can take in the comments section.

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Warren Wiersbe calls the sermon outline the “recipe” for the message. If you have that and nothing more, he says, you do not have a meal for your people; you have a recipe for them. Still lots of work to do before they can be fed.

I like to think of the outline as the skeleton. It will need fleshing out, and then, most importantly of all, it needs the breath of life to be breathed into it. And, let us not make the mistake of thinking the first part–the fleshing out of the message–we can do on our own while the second part–giving it life–is God’s. It’s all about His presence and power and equally about our faithfulness.

An influential pastor, writing in the most recent issue of a popular preaching magazine, shares some great insights regarding the sermon outline which I’d like to pass along and comment on. (Notice that I’m not naming him or the magazine. If you’d like to know, send me a note–joe@joemckeever.com. We should not get hung up on whether we agree or disagree with a pastor on everything in order to learn from him.)

1. The notes your people take in church will be mainly your sermon points.

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Anyone reading this blog even occasionally knows of my love for old books. Recently, while revivaling with Pastor Rob Dowdle in Ocilla, Georgia, I noticed “Memoirs of John R. Sampey” (1947, Broadman) in their church library. And borrowed it. (I promise to return it, Rob!)

Sampey was for over a half-century a professor of Greek and Hebrew at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville and for many years, its president. I figured his autobiography would be memorable and it’s proving to be so.

First, a funny story he tells.

At the age of 22, on finishing his basic seminary degree, Sampey turned around and became an instructor and at the same time, pastor of a small country church. He writes:

“Deacon Thomas W. Scott, a graduate of Georgetown College and an old Confederate soldier, handed me a list of seventy-three church members. Opposite fifteen names I found the notation ‘N.C.,’ and I asked its meaning. ‘No ‘count, parson, no ‘count,’ was his reply. Most of them for the work of the church were (indeed) of no account.”

You and I look at that and think, “Hey, that’s 15 out of 73. Pretty good. I’ll take that any day!”

And the other story, the one that prompted this article. About apologizing to your preacher/teacher.

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