After the busiest autumn in memory — with outside speaking in Virginia, Alabama, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Louisiana, alongside my regular work here at the associational office — I finished up Tuesday night with a ministers and wives Christmas banquet in the western section of our state. Suddenly the calendar is clear for the rest of December and throughout most of January. It’s a strange feeling, after praying so diligently about each one of those preaching assignments for months and then to have them abruptly go away.

Recently, I felt the Lord impressing upon me that just because the event was over (and that I had traveled to that city, arrived at the church, gotten up, delivered the message, and left town without betraying the Lord, embarrassing my hosts or humiliating myself!), that was no reason to quit praying for those who had heard the sermons. Ever since I’ve continued praying for the friends who attended the two day associational meeting in Newport News in October, the directors of missions in Alabama, the pastors and others in Alabama who made up that convention audience in November, the church members in several states where I brought Sunday messages, and the pastors and associational leaders in Oklahoma.

Praying what? Not knowing what else to pray for, I simply ask the Lord to bless the continuing effect of the messages He gave me in the hearts and minds of those who heard. Beyond that, I just leave it with the Lord. (What I most certainly do not ask is that He will let anything about me personally linger in their hearts; it’s about Him, not me.)

The biggest difference in my preaching at special events now and say, twenty-five years ago, is prayer. From the moment the invitation arrives, I add it to my daily prayer routine and intercede for those who will be present and seek God’s will for what to preach. Invariably now, when I rise to preach, I am as sure as I can be that I know what He wants me to say. And that, I confess to you, is a far cry from where I used to be.

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One afternoon last week, driving down Little Farms Avenue in my New Orleans suburb, I spotted the small SUV approaching the intersection from the right. The driver had a stop sign and I had the right of way, so all was well. Then I noticed something disturbing.

The woman behind the wheel was not looking to her left, that is, from the direction of the traffic in front of her. As she eased closer to the street, clearly planning to turn right, she was looking to the right, not to the left. I could hardly believe my eyes. “She’s going to hit me,” I thought. She never once looked in my direction.

But I was ready.

Over the years, I have learned a little trick that has saved me from at least half dozen accidents in the 18 years we’ve lived in metro New Orleans: in busy traffic, my right hand is at three o’clock on the wheel, which puts my thumb on the horn. When a crisis happens suddenly, I tense, my hand squeezes, and the horn blows. The driver of the other car gets the wake-up message and whips back into the lane.

That’s what saved that careless woman and me from colliding that afternoon. At the next traffic light, she had recovered and was now behind me. She signaled with her hands, implying, I suppose, that she was sorry. I gave no indication I had seen her. I wanted her to think seriously about the foolishness of pulling into traffic without stopping or checking to make sure it was safe.

Defensive driving means more than just taking care of oneself and making certain you are driving carefully. It means watching the other guy, anticipating what he or she might do, and being prepared for anything.

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My preacher friend dropped down beside me in the pew. The first session of our annual state convention was about to get underway. I treasure his friendship and rejoice at the outstanding work he is doing in this his third pastorate. He’s new in our city and we are blessed to have him.

“What did you do today?” I asked.

He smiled. “I’ve spent the day at the pastors conference at the seminary.”

“How was it?”

“Great. They had some terrific speakers.”

“How was the attendance?”

“Good actually,” he said, and named two or three mutual friends he had bumped into.

I looked around and said, “I don’t see them here tonight.”

He said, “They won’t be here. I told them I was heading out to the first session of the convention and asked if they were going. One rolled his eyes and said, ‘Boring!'”

That conversation took place a month ago and I’ve thought about it ever since. It bugs me for several reasons.

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Longtime friend Randy Tompkins of Alexandria, LA, is president of Cornerstone Consultants Ministries. In an eThoughts devotional from last week, he writes of the recent Sunday morning worship service at his church when the electricity went out. Just as the choir and orchestra lined up to enter the sanctuary, total darkness. The absence of power also meant no temperature control, no organ, and no sound system. He says, “Everything the average person equates with a comfortable room was absent.”

The staff decided to proceed with the service in the dark, Randy says. The musicians all took their places in the congregation and the doors were opened for what light was available. The pastor began by baptizing a father and daughter, while someone held a flashlight. Then, the man with the light assisted the pianist.

As the congregation sang, Randy noted two things: the congregation had a good voice and could be heard, since there was no choir or orchestra, and secondly, without hymnals or screens, the people did not know the third verse of the hymns.

As the pastor took his place at the pulpit, something else happened Randy found fascinating. All the ambient noise usually associated with the Sunday sanctuary was absent. No coughing, moving about, paper rattling, nothing, just absolute quiet. The pastor had in his hands the sermon notes and his flashlight. As he preached, Randy noted he seemed to be editing the sermon down, making it shorter, either because the room was warm or he feared the battery dying.

The other thing that occurred to Randy was that God was present in that room, not in a well-worded prayer or an emotional display of any kind. He was in that room in the same way He had appeared to Elijah in I Kings 19. “The Lord was not in the wind…not in the earthquake…and not in the fire. And after the fire, a still small voice.”

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For the past several months, a controversy has bubbled slightly beneath the surface in New Orleans society (I started to say it had “raged,” but that suggests a forest fire whereas this is more of a bonfire that won’t go away) over whether President Bush should pardon four-time former Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards who is serving a long sentence at a federal pen for racketeering. In the early 1990s when he led our state, Edwards asked for and received kickbacks from those seeking to be awarded licenses for casinos. A vigorous investigation and prosecution by the U.S.Attorney nabbed him and sent him up for, I think, twenty years.

Former Republican Governor (for one term) Dave Treen is leading the effort to get the president to make Edwards one of his last minute pardons. This is rather bizarre because Treen was always the sole of integrity in his political career and Edwards was anything but; they were political enemies for decades. Now Treen points out that Edwards is old and has already put in eight years (I think it is) on his term, and “more years won’t accomplish anything.” He urges us all to have mercy on Edwards.

That has generated a number of pro and con letters to the editor. One said, “So, if you’re old, go ahead and break the law because we’ll let you out of jail early because of your age. What kind of sense does this make?”

Other writers plead for mercy for Edwards, say he has suffered enough, and wonder about the Christian charity of those who say he ought to serve every day of his term. More than one writer has pointed out that Edwards is as responsible as any human for the sordid reputation for politics in this state.

To date, I have refrained from writing the editor and chiming in with my point of view — although I have one, as you will see — and doubt if I’ve mentioned the “cause c

“You never know if the Lord is enough until He’s all you have left.”

I don’t know who first said that — I suspect only the Lord does — but these days, with the worldwide economy seeking new subterranean territory, it’s a good reminder. It may well be that before this is all over, He is all any of us have left.

But He will be enough.

Over three thousand years ago, the Lord made a simple little statement to explain the situation concerning the tribe of Levi as Israel made plans to divvy up the Promised Land. That statement resonated with David the Psalmist and soon found its way into a number of his songs—and forever lodged itself in our hearts.

The Lord was laying out the portions of the newly acquired country which would be assigned to each of the twelve tribes. On the east bank of the Jordan, Manasseh gets the territory to the north, Reuben gets the section below that, and Gad the southernmost land. On the west bank, which was much larger, the other tribes were assigned portions large and small, depending on their population. Everyone except the Levites, the priestly tribe. They received no land.

“I am your portion and your inheritance among the children of Israel,” the Lord said (Numbers 18:20). This was repeated in Deuteronomy 10:9, “Therefore, Levi has no portion nor inheritance with his brethren; the Lord is his inheritance; just as the Lord your God promised him.” Deuteronomy 18:1,2 reaffirms it.

When you’re slicing up the pie, so to speak, the Lord is your slice.

The question is: is that enough for you?

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This week, New Orleans has been hosting the national (annual) gathering of the state directors of evangelism from across the country. Included among these leaders were their associate staff members, professors of evangelism from our six SBC seminaries, and leaders in this work from our North American Mission Board. All in all, there must have been two or three hundred here, including a few spouses, all of them champions of the Lord’s work.

Tuesday afternoon, we chartered four buses for tours of the Katrina-affected areas of metro New Orleans. Freddie Arnold, David Rhymes, Keith Manuel (former pastor of Calvary here, now associate in our state evangelism office), and I were tour guides. We left the Westin Hotel on Poydras and drove north into Lakeview, across to Gentilly, down Franklin Avenue, eastward on Galvez to see the Baptist Crossroads/Musicians Village home sites in the Ninth Ward, out Claiborne Street into St. Bernard Parish, past Celebration-St. Bernard and FBC-Chalmette churches, north on Paris Road to Interstate 10, and then westward back into the city. We drove onto the campus of our seminary where an official boarded each bus to give us the grand tour of this site. Then, it was back to the French Quarter for caf

Maribelle was raised by godly parents to be a faithful Christian. During her teens, she rebelled, however, and ended up marrying Geoff, an undisciplined and ungodly young man. Life was parties and drinking and such. When they found they were going to have a baby, they ran to the pastor for a quick wedding. And that’s when Maribelle changed.

One day she announced to Geoff that she wanted their child raised in a Christian home the way hers had been, that she wanted to go to church and worship as a family. She wanted to pray before meals and to read the Bible together. Geoff, understandably, felt betrayed. This was not the woman he had married and not the lifestyle he had signed on for.

The marriage did not survive.

Lawrence sat in Bob’s living room sharing the gospel. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,” he said, “and you will be saved.” Bob admitted he definitely wanted to go to Heaven, that he would like his sins forgiven, and needed peace in his heart. They prayed together and Lawrence assured Bob God had heard his prayer and his sins were forgiven and his name was written in down in heaven. Everything was fine. Almost.

Soon, folks from the church dropped in on Bob and invited him to the services. “You’ll want to be baptized and join the church,” they said. “And here are some offering envelopes.” A letter from the pastor arrived, inviting him to a new members’ class.

So far, Bob has yet to darken the doors of the church. The pastor and Lawrence, meanwhile, scratch their heads and wonder what’s wrong with the church’s discipleship program and why new converts aren’t interested in growing in their faith.

The problem may not be with the church’s discipleship or with the new convert. The problem lies with how they do evangelism. The simple fact is that Lawrence did not tell Bob the full story. He led him to join up, so to speak, without informing him of what he was joining. As with Geoff’s marriage, Bob signed on for the Christian faith and then found the expectations to be more than he had in mind.

Imagine a recruiter for the military bringing in a new recruit, getting him through the physical, and swearing him into the service without informing him of what would be expected. And then, imagine the new recruit thanking the sergeant, wishing him well, and picking up his bag and heading back home, expecting everything to go on as before.

We’ve all known of unscrupulous salesmen conning unsuspecting buyers into signing on for a set of stainless steel-ware or a used car or a set of encyclopedias, without telling them of the fine print in the contract. Later they would find their obligations to be beyond what they expected and would feel betrayed.

We who call ourselves disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ would do well to see how the Lord reached people and then imitate His methods. Luke 18:18-23 presents a case full of insights.

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A pastor friend told us of the time he took his family to a neighboring church’s Christmas Eve midnight service. He and his wife loved it — they could enjoy the presentation without worrying about the details, a rarity for a minister — but for his seven-year-old daughter, it was a different matter. She was eager to get home and into bed so Christmas could arrive on time. As the worship service dragged on, the child became impatient. When the minister began reading the second chapter of Luke — “Now, it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus…” — she said in a voice that carried into the next county, “I have HEARD this story!”

We have all heard it. But it bears repeating again and again.

My friend Doug Oldham loves to sing, “Tell me that name again. Tell me that name again. Tell me that name again—that name is Jesus.” The old hymn goes, “Tell me the story of Jesus. Write on my heart every word. Tell me the story most precious — sweetest that ever was heard.” When I was a child in that wonderful Methodist church in Affinity, West Virginia, number 100 in the hymnal was one I have loved ever since: “I love to tell the story of Jesus and His love….tis pleasant to repeat, what seems each time I tell it more wonderfully sweet.” It goes on to say, “And when in scenes of glory, I sing the new, new song, ’twill be the old, old story that I have loved so long.”

Granted, some stories do not bear repeating even once. And some that can stand a couple of repetitions get old quickly. My cousin Annette Spain interrupted the family reunion to take a call from her daughter Renee who had stayed home that weekend. “How was church this morning?” Annette asked, then broke into laughter. A couple of minutes later, she explained that the home church pastor had pulled out an old time-worn story and used it on the congregation for the umpteenth time. It involved a little girl who had strayed from home and fell into an abandoned well. The neighbors came together to search for her and eventually to rescue her. “I get so tired of that story,” Annette said, “that sometimes I find myself rooting against them finding the kid just out of pure meanness!”

We all know the feeling.

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