LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 51–“Deal With Rebellion Quickly.”

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(I promised to end at 50 lessons, but these ideas just keep insisting on horning their way onto the list.)

One of the worst policies ever to afflict our judicial system is the one that grants leniency to first-offenders. This was his first time to beat his wife, so he gets sent home with only a warning. Pity the poor wife! The kid who broke into the candy store gets assigned to his parents’ care and threatened with jail in the future because, after all, he’s never been in trouble before. He congratulates himself on a successful prank.

What are we doing! We might as well hand out “get out of jail free” cards. Everyone gets one free pass, no matter what we do (almost), because, “This is his first time in trouble.”

I want to scream when I read that line buried in the newspaper account of some law-breaker, “Hey! Now is the time to get across to him the enormity of what he has done.”

No wonder we have such a problem with crime in America today. We’re practically encouraging young law-breakers.

If we hope to teach them the error of their ways, it’s far better to deal swiftly and strongly with first-offenders.

Now, take that same principle and apply it at work, whether “work” for you means the church or a business office or a crew at the plant. If you are the person in charge and a member of your team breaks a “law”–he or she goes against an accepted practice put there for the welfare of the group–if you intend to maintain your leadership role, you must deal with it quickly.

First, get the facts.

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So–What Did You Do at Church Today?

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I saw two widows, both lovely ladies whose husbands I helped to bury just a year ago. Neither has any children or a lot of family, and both are just now putting their houses on the market. One is still deep in her grief and we talked about where she could find a good counselor.

The other has a full-time job at a local hospital. As we talked, a lady in the church handed her a grocery bag filled with outdated Sunday School literature. She saw me taking that in and said, “I put this out in the nurses’ lounge at our hospital. And would you believe–they read it and take it. Before long, it all disappears.” What a great ministry, and so simple.

“I’m 85 years old,” a friend said. She’s the wife of a deacon and for many years served the church as wedding coordinator. “And guess what–for the second year in a row, I won first place in the Special Olympics. My area was table tennis.” I was stunned. I mean, think of the dexterity, the quick reactions, and the keen focus that game demands. And at her age.

She continued, “Of the people I beat, the oldest was 72.” She smiled and said, “My goal is to win the gold when I’m 90. Would you pray for me about that?” I promised her I would.

Interim Pastor Mark brought up to the pulpit Mary, who is serving on the church’s pastor search committee. He paid tribute to this terrific woman and her family, then led us all in prayer for her and for the work of the committee. There is no more important assignment anywhere than being charged with the responsibility of finding the next pastor of a church.

Is it possible to take a well-known Scripture and find new insights in it? Mark Tolbert answered that in a clear affirmative Sunday. The text was Acts chapter 10, the story of the Italian centurion Cornelius and how God broke through the Apostle Peter’s preconceptions to be able to minister to Gentiles.

The three points of his message were: 1) Salvation is needed by all. Cornelius is a poster-boy for a good man–militarily he was the best of the best, personally, he was devout, God-fearing, generous, and prayerful–whose goodness was inadequate for salvation. He still needed to be saved, so the chapter tells what God did to bring him into the kingdom.

2) Salvation should be offered to all. And 3) Salvation is available to all.

Mark had a number of wonderful insights in his message. I marked up the margins of my Bible with a fine-point pen. Here are three of them….

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Stronger in the Broken Places

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“Now these be the last words of David. David the son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said, ‘The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue….'” (II Samuel 23:1-2 KJV)

That’s an interesting three-fold description of this greatest of all Israeli kings. All three are fascinating, but none moreso than “the sweet psalmist of Israel.” The “sweet” song-writer who gave us so many wonderful psalms, many of the 150 in our Old Testament book of Psalms. There is no doubt that some of the songs penned by this man are still being sung every day somewhere on this planet, and have been for most of the 3,000 years since he walked this land.

It’s worth noting that the writer of this line from II Samuel did not refer to David as the writer of the sweet songs, but the sweet songwriter for the nation. (Modern translations say “favorite.”) There was a sweetness in his soul, and had to have been, in order for him to have said some of the blessed things he did.

For a long time I carried an image in my mind of the teenage David keeping his father’s sheep on a green hillside, strumming his lyre, and composing, say, what would become the 23rd Psalm. But I don’t think that’s how it happened. The young David could not have composed such songs as this, as well as the 40th, 46th, and 91st psalms. And I’ll tell you why.

He had not lived enough, sinned enough, suffered enough, and been forgiven enough to know the incredible depths of God’s love, the infinite extent of His mercy, the healing balm of His tenderness, and the satisfying comfort of His faithfulness.

The Apostle Paul put it like this: “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” (Romans 5:20) That set off a howling among his detractors. The very idea of implying that the more one sins, the more of God’s favor he receives. No wonder they bitterly retaliated, “Well, let us continue in sin that grace may really, really be showered upon us!” (Romans 6:1) They weren’t serious, but were simply taking his argument to what they saw as its logical conclusion.

You’re missing the point, Paul responded. In order to fully appreciate the forgiving, merciful side of our Lord, one has to have deserved His censure, earned His judgment, and justified His wrath, and then instead of receiving these, to have been shown only His kindness.

Only penitent sinners see this side of His nature.

And only “big” penitent sinners see the greatness of His grace, the scope of His mercy, and the bottomless supply of His lovingkindness.

Never fear, friend. You have sinned quite enough to qualify. No need to return to what Scripture calls “the flesh-pots of Egypt” (Exodus 16:3).

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Why New Orleanians Run Red Lights

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The letters column on the editorial page of our newspaper regularly features gripes and complaints from redlight runners who got caught on candid camera.

What happened was that our leaders have contracted with a company that installs these high speed cameras at selected intersections around town, and they’ve been nabbing quite a few impatient drivers speeding through intersections after the light had turned crimson. Some of them are real unhappy about it, too.

What gets me is they complain about their constitutional rights being violated. Invasion of privacy, they call it, which is rather ridiculous. Hey friend, you’re on the street; nothing is private here. You are driving under the control of traffic laws with a state-issued license; your rights do not apply here. You gave them up when you pulled out of the driveway.

You have to wonder why some people think they have a right to run a traffic light.

Ron Mehl is a pastor in Portland, Oregon. In his outstanding book “The Ten(der) Commandments,” he tells a story you will enjoy.

Golfer Chi Chi Rodriguez was traveling with a friend who noticed that he was driving much too fast. As they approached an intersection, Chi Chi sped right through the red light.

The friend said, “Chi Chi! Man, what are you doing? You ran that red light!”

Rodriguez said, “My brother taught me to drive, and my brother never stops at red lights, so I don’t stop at red lights.”

A couple of blocks later, the light was red and again, they drove through the intersection at a high rate of speed. The rider said, “Chi Chi! You’re going to get us killed! What are you doing!”

Chi Chi said, “My brother taught me to drive and my brother doesn’t stop for red lights, so I don’t stop for red lights.”

A few blocks down the street, they came to an intersection where the light was green. This time, Chi Chi put on the brakes and came to a stop. “Now what are you doing?” said the friend. “The light is green.”

Chi Chi said, “I know it. But my brother might be coming.”

Your brother is always coming, friend. Slow down and let him go on living.

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The Hardest Prayer I Ever Prayed

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I’m very aware of the tabloid mentality of our generation and the love for scandals, but, sorry, none today, not here. However, what I will tell you is that I was in a valley of depression, Margaret and I were going through a terrible time in our marriage, and absolutely nothing I was doing was of any interest to me. Furthermore, I could not find any alternative that offered hope for anything better.

Classic depression, I’d call that. My first bout with it. I was 39 years old and truly miserable for the first time in my life.

And a pastor. Yep, I was still in the pulpit, still going to the church office every morning, still holding funerals and weddings and counseling people with problems. And me a basket case.

I looked into becoming a college professor, which had been my original career plan until the Lord called me into the ministry while a senior at Birmingham-Southern. Since we had a good college in the town where we were living, I asked a professor what a beginning instructor would earn, someone who had just received his Ph.D., which I had not done, of course. The figure he named was so low, about half of what I was making, that it was like cold water in my face. It pricked my little pretentious balloon in record time.

Margaret and I had gone into, suffered through, and emerged on the other side of a solid year of marriage counseling. We had learned much about ourselves and our different backgrounds and the completely opposite drives that had brought us into this marriage in the first place. She had had an unhappy home life and was latching onto the “prince charming” who would take her away from it. I was a young minister who wanted a wife of low maintenance who would keep the home fires burning while I saved the world. We had not been married a month when we began to see that the reality of our marriage was light years away from what we had anticipated.

And yet, all the while I knew that this marriage was God’s will for me, and that Margaret was the person He had chosen for me. Even in my rebellion, I knew that, and it even made me angrier. Like a spoiled child, I did not want anyone telling me what was best, what was the will of God, and how I should repress my own agenda to find happiness in life.

A rebellious heart is a terrible thing. I was my own worst enemy.

Two years later, when Margaret and I took the Sunday night worship service at our church and gave our testimonies as to how the Lord had changed our hearts and saved our home, I told the congregation how I had continued preaching during this bleak time: “I never said a thing I didn’t believe; I said a great deal I didn’t feel.”

My adult children will read this and probably have only vague memories of any of it, which is good. We both always adored our children, and in fact, that only added to my complete frustration. I wanted what I wanted–which was out of that marriage and in a teaching profession and to continue being the father of Neil and Marty and Carla–and was torn right down the middle. I was holding onto two dead-opposite goals in life.

A perfect recipe for misery.

So I began to pray.

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The First Ten Lessons I Learned about Prayer

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Disclaimer: I’m still a learner, and most definitely not an expert on praying.

1. The only real mistake we can make in prayer is in not praying.

If we pray earnestly, almost anything we do is better than not praying. After all, no father rejects the child’s plea because she did not use the right words or form. He welcomes his child into his arms.

Someone has said, “Nothing never happens when we pray.”

2. No matter how much you pray, you will never be completely satisfied with your prayer life.

You will always feel the goal is out there beyond you somewhere. We must work against perfectionism, that mental disease that convinces us because we’re not doing something perfectly, that we should stop it altogether. No matter how ineffective you think your prayers are, believe that they matter to God and keep on praying.

3. The Holy Spirit helps us in our prayer.

Romans 8:26 assures us “He helps us in our weakness because we do not know how to pray.” The Greek word translated “helps” is a compound Greek verb “synantilambanomai.” The “syn” means “together, with us.” The “anti” means “opposite to, in front of.” And the “lambanomai” is a form of the verb “to lift.” Together they tell us the Holy Spirit gets on the other end of our task, opposite to us, and together with us lifts the burden. He does not do this in our place, but works with us.

4. Keep on praying.

Persistence in prayer is taught so many times in Scripture. My favorite is blind Bartimaeus in Luke 18. Let nothing stop you from praying. Not your own inadequacy (of which there is much), your own needs (which can be overwhelming), not your fears (which never tire of assaulting you), and most definitely not other people (discouragement is all around us). Just keep at it.

5. Our emotions and feelings are irrelevant to effective praying.

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The Hardest Church Member I Ever Loved

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There’s no contest for this “honor,” although quite a few made it into the “honorable mention” category. These are members of the seven churches I pastored over 42 years who dedicated themselves to making life miserable for the pastor. Looking back now–with much clearer vision and perspective than I had at the time–I find myself thanking God for everyone of these people. Those that didn’t teach me something by their opposition drove me closer to the Father in desperation. Anything that does that is not all bad.

Mr. Wyatt stormed into my office one morning during Sunday School, a few minutes before the worship service. “Preacher, you have offended me and upset my wife!”

I said, “Tell me who you are, then tell me how I did that.” I had never met the man.

He told me his name, then explained what had happened.

“Yesterday, you came into the fellowship hall where they were taking pictures for the pictorial church directory. You spent time with everyone in the room and I saw you drawing sketches for the children. Then, before you left, you stood in the doorway and looked around. You looked my wife and me squarely in the eyes, then walked out without speaking to us.”

I apologized all over myself and assured Mr. Wyatt that if I did that, it was completely inexcusable, but that I had no memory of ever seeing him and his wife there.

That didn’t do the job for him. He was angry when he entered and angrier when he left.

That week, I ran by his house to apologize to his wife. He was not at home, so she and I visited at the front door. “Oh, preacher, don’t worry about that,” she said. “That’s just Wyatt.”

Even if it was not an issue with her, it continued to be with him. From that moment on, Mr. Wyatt went on a tear against me. In church business meetings, he rose to speak against motions on the floor, usually with an anger all out of proportion to what we were discussing.

In worship services, he sat in the rear of the sanctuary, wearing a scowl that would have lasered a hole through me if it could.

Had Mr. Wyatt been the only church member despising me, I probably would have dealt with it more directly. But the truth is, for the first several years at that church, he had lots of company. One inactive deacon stood in the foyer of the church and told everyone who entered that I was a liberal and destroying the church. Another small group of older members met in a corner before and after the services to compare notes and feed off each other’s misery. Wyatt was the least of my problems.

Then came the sermon I preached in June of 1997, the message posted on this blog a couple of days ago under the heading, “The Hardest Sermon I Ever Preached.”

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How to Tell if You are a Liberal or a Conservative

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We throw those terms around so much, you’d think one was godly and the other evil. Which is which depends on where you stand and what you believe.

We may have found the perfect litmus test to determine which you are.

This week, police in a community just west of New Orleans arrested a woman for killing her newborn baby. She had hid her pregnancy from the family and her boyfriend, given birth by herself, and then–sorry, but this is what happened–buried the just-born baby in the backyard. Wait, it gets worse, if you can believe it.

It appeared she had pulled it off without anyone being the wiser until the family dog dug up the remains in the backyard and–again, sorry–began chewing on the body. The boyfriend found the dog and what was left of the child and, clueless concerning the facts of the situation, called the police.

The police came out, studied the situation, and arrested the woman. They charged her with two crimes: murder of her baby (she said she thought it was dead when it was born) and cruelty to her dog. The animal, it turns out, was malnourished and that’s why he was digging up and eating the poorly buried body.

Sordid tale, I grant you, and I apologize for even telling it. However, we needed to tell the story in order to pose a question.

“Which charge concerns you more–killing the baby or neglecting the dog?”

Your answer tells volumes about you.

If ending the life of the child concerns you more, you are a conservative. If neglecting to feed and care for the dog bothers you more, you are a liberal.

Diane Sawyer once spoke to the chamber of commerce’s annual banquet in the city where we were living. She gave us a memorable distinction between liberals and conservatives.

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The Hardest Sermon I Ever Preached

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(It was Sunday, June 21, 1997. After putting up with the immature rants and raves of a few church members for seven years of that pastorate, I decided it was time to air this dirty linen on a Sunday morning, something pastors are loathe to do. This became the watershed moment for our church. Afterwards, I remained as pastor another 7 years, and they became some of the sweetest years of my long ministry. Recently, I ran across the typed version of that sermon, and decided to reprint it here in the hope that it may help some other pastor who may be going through his own private hell in the church where the Lord Jesus Christ assigned him.)

The title was “Our Church is in Crisis–Just Like All Those Other Churches.” The text was Revelation chapters 2 and 3.

I want to say a word to you who are visiting with us this morning. Normally, pastors hesitate to ‘hang out the wash’ on a Sunday morning. If we have problems in the church, we deal with them at other times. On Sunday mornings, we have a lot of visitors and we naturally would like you to feel good about this church and come back, maybe even join us. However, we have some church members who never come to church except on Sunday morning and they are some who need to hear this.

In my last church, I learned that one of our deacons and his wife, Pat and Betty Hance, had witnessed a fist fight on their first day at our church. I found that hard to believe, and could not wait to ask them about it. Pat told how two men in the church had a grudge going and one was bullying the other. As the Hances sat in the Sunday School assembly, the bully walked by and made a snide remark about his opponent. With that, the man got up and knocked the daylights out of the bully.

I said to Pat, “Here’s my question. We pastors bend over backwards to impress visitors so they will come back. But on your first Sunday, you witnessed a fight–and not only did you return, you even joined the church. Explain that to me.”

He smiled and said, “Oh, we like an active church.”

I need to tell the visitors this morning, we have an active church.

Bernice Nicely was around 80 years old and sickly when she sent for me. She’d been in and out of hospitals, and I figured she wanted to talk about “last things.” But she had something else on her mind. She said, “Pastor, I know I’m saved. I know I’m going to Heaven when I die. But there’s something else troubling me.” She paused a moment and said, “Pastor, I haven’t done right by the church.”

The next Sunday she joined the church and began sending her tithe.

I need to ask each of you in this building, “Have you done right by the church?”

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In Your Face, Death!

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Saturday, Northrop-Grumman’s New Orleans Shipyards dedicated the “New York,” the one billion dollar amphibious transport ship that will belong to the Marines. The front of the ship, the bow, the section that parts the waters and leads the way, is made up of 65 tons of steel salvaged from the World Trade Center. A number of New Yorkers were on hand Saturday for the dedication.

My son Neil who works for Northrop-Grumman in Human Resources was assigned to one of the buses moving dignitaries around the area. He stood at the front, held a mike, and gave explanations and answered questions for the guests. Later, when asked if he had seen any celebrities, he said, “Charlie Daniels.”

I love the “in your face-ness” of this gesture, taking steel from the twisted girders of the collapsed skyscrapers and recycling them into a mighty vessel that will defend this nation against the Osama bin-Ladens of this world. I applaud whoever first thought of doing this, and doff my hat to everyone responsible for pulling this off.

In the crest–not sure what they call those things–on the side of the ship, its motto clearly proclaims: “Never Forget.”

Godspeed, New York, and all who go with you.

“They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep…. He bringeth them into their desired haven.” (Psalm 107:23-24,30)

This business of taking the ruins of life’s failures/disasters and recycling them into mighty forces for good has a long and honorable tradition. In fact, Scripture teaches us that God is always at work in our lives pulling off the same trick, turning our stumbling blocks into stepping stones.

“The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.” That’s Psalm 118:22 and it’s quoted again and again throughout the New Testament. The various writers of Scripture thought it summed up this divine transaction in a way that was uniquely God-like.

Divine alchemy, we might call it. Taking the mundane and turning it into precious.

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