My pastor friend and I were talking about his new assignment. I said, “I cannot tell you how to succeed. But I can tell you how to fail–try to please everybody.”

He laughed, “That’s a problem. I’ve always wanted to please everyone around me.”

That trait, I say to myself and to my colleagues in the ministry, can be fatal.

I’m tempted to say here that the desire to please everybody is a characteristic of all ministers, but that is not the case. In fact, some preachers I know are quite the opposite and feel affirmed only when someone is mad at us.

In between is the road. Stay out of the ditches.

The time was the 8th century B.C. and the preacher was Isaiah, a man who apparently could function well even with his approval rating from the congregations he served dipping below zero. He and Jeremiah had that in common. It’s a rarity, believe me.

I sure don’t have it.

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In the Sunday, August 9, 2009, “Parade” magazine, movie celeb Brad Pitt is talking about his life with Angelina Jolie. They are all the rage of the tabloids, they appear to be in love, they live together but are unmarried, and they’re the parents of five children, three of them adopted from various countries.

Wherever they live–in France, in L.A., and in New Orleans–Pitt says he tries to get involved in helping the needy. In New Orleans, his organization is leading the way in innovative techniques for building new homes for those devastated by Katrina.

And yet, this couple is a favorite target for anyone with a soapbox and a sermon, it would appear.

Pitt says, “I resent people telling others how to live! It drives me mental!”

“Just the other night,” he says, “I heard this TV reverend say that Angie and I were setting a bad example because we were living out of wedlock, and people should not be duped by us! It made me laugh!”

He might have laughed, but he was angry. “What d–n right does anyone have to tell someone else how to live if they’re not hurting anyone?”

Those of us in the ministry know exactly what was happening with that preacher, I surmise. He was making a point, a biblical one, no doubt, about the sanctity of marriage or the importance of obeying the teachings of scripture in one’s personal life. He thought of Brad and Angie and threw that in to make his point.

A few years ago it was Elizabeth Taylor and her–how many, eight?–multiple marriages. In the 1990s, it was President Bill Clinton and his philandering ways. It was Michael Jackson, it was Marilyn Monroe, it was Madonna. In the 1940s it was Errol Flynn and the usual Hollywood crowd.

It’s cheap preaching.

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Wish I could take credit for this heading but I swiped it. In an internet article, a pastor of another denomination was urging his congregation to sing in the worship services. Even if you have no singing voice and take steps to make sure you are never heard attempting to sing, he said, in church no one sounds bad.

I’ll buy that. Now if I can only convince half the people I know.

I have only two things to say in making that point. But they are two really, really big points.

One. When a group of people with mediocre voices blend them together, something almost magical takes place. Perhaps the strengths of some compensate for the weak areas of others, but the combined voices produce a strong and powerful musical effect.

Last Wednesday night, I spent two hours with the sanctuary choirs of the First Baptist Church of Jackson, Mississippi. I say “choirs” because they have one for each morning services. Together, there were easily 200 people in the rehearsal room. An impressive sight, a lovely group of people.

Now, I know very little about the musical abilities of any of those good people, but I know a lot about church and have decades of experience with church choirs, and I’m going to let you in on a secret: most of those choir members are not all that good. Oh, they can carry a tune, but not one in ten is of solo calibre.

Together, however, they are incredible.

That great choir stands as the ideal metaphor for your congregation in worship: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

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When functioning as it ought, the heart of the Christian is so constructed that when he sees a need, his immediate impulse is to stop what he is doing and minister to it.

But what if the Father has something else for that believer to do, something more appropriate for this believer’s skills and heart and desires, something further down the road, something not apparent at the moment?

What if the Father does not want the disciple turning aside to minister to every need he/she notices along the way and needs him/her to–you’ll understand the expression–move it?

In that case, the Father’s primary plan seems to be to close doors in front of the believer.

Closed doors–when you are in a desperate search for an open one–can be frustrating and discouraging.

A letter arrived this week from a friend in another state. He is not a pastor but a minister of music and worship leader, and a good one, if I’m any judge. The gist of the letter said, “No one seems to want what I can do for their church. They all seem to want younger men who play the guitar and put on a show. I’m a traditionalist and not comfortable with contemporary trends in church music.”

“Right now,” he said, “I’m working with a church of another denomination, and the work is going well, although the pastor is being non-supportive. I want to get back into our denomination, but nothing is opening up. I’m frustrated and my wife is bordering on anger.”

He did not ask for advice and I did not offer any. I promised to pray for him, and I have.

I can’t get him out of my mind or off my heart.

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Mrs. Vaughan was a lovely senior lady and the grandmother of Cindy Hardin who was dating our oldest son. Because we adored Cindy, we came to know Mrs. Vaughan and to treasure her. She was white-haired, soft-spoken, and a member of the neighboring Methodist Church.

That morning, noticing her name on the hospital list as a new patient, I stuck my head in the door and asked how she was doing.

“Oh, it’s nothing, pastor,” she said.

“What happened is that I passed out yesterday. When I came to, I was lying on the floor. I live alone, you know, and so before pushing the LifeLine to summon help, I decided to take inventory and see if I might have had a stroke.”

“I pulled myself onto the bed and moved my arms and legs. They worked. I wiggled my toes and my fingers and they were all right. Then I began to sing. I knew if I could still sing, I was all right.”

I laughed, “I want to thank you for that incredible insight into life. If you can still sing, you’re all right.”

As your pastor, faceless/nameless friend reading this, I’ve come today to tell you something about your song you may never have known or perhaps forgot. I hope you will take this to heart.

One: God wants you to sing.

Singing is all through Scripture, beginning with the song of Exodus 15 on the heels of Israel’s triumph over Pharaoh and ending with the “new song” of Heaven in Revelation. Someone has said that ours is the singingest religion in the world.

No doubt you recall the well-known passage of Ephesians 5 which calls on believers to sing: “…speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord….” (vs. 19)

Perhaps you have heard the super-spiritual among us tell singers in church that “this is not a performance; you’re singing to the Lord.” They’re half right; it is to the Lord.

We are also to sing to one another. We provide the audience for each other’s songs.

God has so arranged His work that when we do something unto Him–whether it’s praying or praise or mowing the lawn or bringing an offering or singing–we touch each other and encourage one another.

So, go ahead and clap after the solo. You loved it and the singer needs the encouragement.

Two: God gives us the song.

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A reporter interviewing me by phone said, “I’ve read some of your blog. You’re something of a provocateur.”

Not sure if he coined a new word there, but I confess to liking it.

Provoking people is a lot better than lulling them to sleep.

We’re commanded in the Word to “Provoke one another to love and good works.” (Hebrews 10:24)

So, we could say I have a biblical mandate for this!

Incidentally, the NIV translates that word “provoke” as “spur one another on.” Whether this brings to mind the spurs on the heels of the barnyard rooster–a frightening weapon, believe me–or those decorative silver things on the cowboy’s boots which he digs into the flank of the horse to get that extra effort–either way, it communicates the same point.

Therefore, today, instead of solving any problems or answering any questions or blessing any souls (like I’m ever able to do any of those!), I’d like to try to provoke readers into some Bible study.

Here are 10 provocations to get you to open the Word of God. They are being tossed in your direction in the hope that at least one or two will stir you (spur you?)to get your Bible down and dig a little deeper than the superficial, random stuff some of us engage in and call “studying the Word”.

10. In church, we talk about salvation as a matter of “believing in the Lord Jesus.” But what if He doesn’t believe in us? Does that matter? John 2:24-25 speaks of people who believed in Jesus, but He did not return the favor.

9. We speak of salvation as a matter of “knowing Jesus.” But when our Lord referred to salvation by turning that around. He made it a question of whether He knows us. In Matthew 7:23, He says to some, “Depart from me…I never knew you.”

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I was sitting on the platform, ten feet off to the left and rear of the pulpit, studying the 300 people in the congregation. In five minutes, I would walk to the podium and, as the guest preacher, bring the sermon. The thoughts running through my mind were not helpful.

“They know all these things. I’m talking about the church in this sermon. And these people are at church on a Sunday night, of all things. I might as well go into a diner and speak on the joys of eating. Or to a gym and talk about the need for exercise.”

Then, sanity returned. I knew this was not the case at all.

Nothing cleared my focus better than remembering the times I sat where they sit. Many a time back then I needed a strong reminder from the Lord’s spokesman of the proper value to be placed on the church, of how solidly God feels about it, of the price Christ paid for it, of the assignments He has given it, and yes, reminders of the sorry way the church is being treated by some of its friends.

There was a great need for this message, and on this night I would deliver it as strongly as I knew how.

I gave it my all. The response at invitation time–not always the best barometer, I know–indicated the sermon had hit its target.

The best barometer, and one I’m not privy to, would be the behavior of the members of that congregation over the next few weeks and months.

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A pastor in Haiti tells about a fellow he knew who wanted to sell his house for $2,000. In time, he found a buyer, but the man could scrape together only half the asking price. The owner agreed to sell for that amount but with one reservation: he would continue to own one nail above the front door.

A couple of years later, the first fellow decided he wanted to repurchase the house. The new owner declined, saying, “I like this house; I don’t want to sell.”

The previous owner found the carcass of a dead dog on the street and hung it from the nail he still owned above the front door. Soon the stench became so strong no one could go in or out of the house, and the family had to leave. They sold the house to the former owner.

The Haitian pastor said, “If we leave the devil with even one small peg in our life, he will return to hang his rotting garbage on it, making our lives unfit for Christ’s habitation.”

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