They asked you to pray at the secular convention and you agreed. Now what?

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Sooner or later this happens to every pastor:  Some civic (translation: ‘non-religious‘) outfit calls and asks you to lead a prayer at their gathering.  Sometimes it’s the city council or state legislature, sometimes it’s a convention or some club’s gathering.  You are faced with the decision on what to say and what you should not say. 

So here’s my story.

I was in my fourth year pastoring the First Baptist Church of Kenner, LA, in metro New Orleans (across the street from the New Orleans International Airport).  I received a phone call one day informing me that when the American Dental Association held its annual meeting in our city a few months hence, they wanted me to offer the invocation.  I was surprised and honored.

The caller said I would have three minutes for the prayer. She added, “And Pastor, please make it interdenominational.”  In my journal I wrote: “Had she said to omit the name of Jesus, I would have declined the honor for the sake of principle. As it was, I felt I could do something that would satisfy everyone.”

The day came.  It was a huge hotel in downtown New Orleans.  Perhaps 700 to 1,000 people in the room.

Here is what I wrote in my journal:

“The President of the ADA is Dr. Gaines, a dentist from Greenville, SC.  Said his SS teacher gave him my name.  Dr. John Roberts, editor of the SC Baptist Courier.  Just before the meeting started (8:30 am), backstage I met Heather Whitestone, Miss America 1994 (or is it 1995?), the near-deaf lass from Alabama.  We spoke briefly.  Before leading the pledge of allegiance she told the audience how much she loves this country and is grateful to those who have kept it free.  Her chaperone whispered to me, “I never know what she’s going to say.”

After she finished, I prayed the invocation.  Shall I record it here?

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The painful putdown can be a gift in disguise

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As we sat at the breakfast table discussing memories good and bad, my Bertha said something so special I wrote it down just so I’d get it right.

We have a wagonload of memories of God’s people who have loved us and cared for us. But we also have painful memories that we wish we could edit out of our lives.  But the Holy Spirit has shown me that if He took out the pain and strife, He would also be removing the lovely things that happened during that same time. Or, that happened as a direct result of the bad event. 

It brought up a painful memory from my junior high days.  A teacher said something really harsh that forever left its mark on me. Over the years as I have sometimes reflected on that incident, my primary focus has been on the painful hurt he caused.  I’ve thought about that teacher, why he said what he did, what it meant, and how I took it.  But I realized something from what Bertha said.

He helped me.

The teacher who scarred the kid 

I was a new student in that school.  There were a hundred of us seventh-graders from across that part of the county, and that day we had been herded into the gymnasium. The band director–Mr. Keating was his name–called us to order and announced that today we would be electing class officers.

Now, for four years I’d gone to school in rural West Virginia and then we moved back to Alabama in time for my sixth grade in a two-room rural (I mean really, really rural!) school.  So, now, we would ride the bus on into the county seat of Double Springs, AL for the rest of our schooling.  Junior high and senior high classes were all held in the same building.

Of the hundred students in our class, perhaps half lived there in town. Since the rest of us were from across the county, only the town kids knew each other.  So, when class officers were chosen, they nominated people they knew.  As a result, the town kids were nominating one another. Only they were being elected.

So, I raised my hand.

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Turning putdowns into motivation

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“Jesus said, ‘No doubt you will quote this proverb to me, “Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we heard was done at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.” No prophet is welcome in his own hometown’” (Luke 4:24). 

John Fogerty’s group Creedence Clearwater Revival is unforgettable to anyone who has owned a radio in the last 50 years.  Some years ago, in an interview with Dan Rather, Fogerty was remembering a key moment early in their career.

The group was one of many bands to perform at a particular event.  As the final group to warm up, and thus the first band to appear on stage, suddenly CCR found they had been unplugged.  John Fogerty yelled to the sound man to plug them back up, that they weren’t through.  The technician did so reluctantly, then added, “You not going anywhere anyway, man.”  Fogerty said, “Okay.  Give me one year.  I’ll show you.”

One year later, the group was so hot with multiple hit records (“Proud Mary,” “Born on the Bayou,” “Bad Moon Rising”) that “we were too big to play in that place any more!”

Turning a putdown into a healthy sic ’em!

As a new seminary student I began pastoring a church on Alligator Bayou some 25 miles west of New Orleans.  This was April of 1965.  The church averaged 40 in attendance, as it had done for the two decades of its existence.

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I owe an apology to Mary Hazel Miller

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I must have slammed that good lady a hundred times over the last two decades of preaching.

Here’s what happened, and how I learned that I probably did her wrong.

In preaching a sermon I call Rejoice Anyway–a staple of my preaching ministry for a number of years–I would mention two elderly women in a church I used to pastor who illustrated the contrast between how to do it and how not to.  Here’s what I said–

Mary Hazel Miller and Maybelle Montgomery were both members of my church.  They were perhaps 75 or 80 years of age, and as different as night from day.  Maybelle lived in a humble cottage off the hill from downtown.  She did not have a lot of this world’s riches, but was easily the happiest Christian lady I’ve ever known. She was always rejoicing in the Lord. .  

They called from the hospital to say Mrs. Montgomery was in emergency with a broken hip.  I dropped whatever I was doing and drove down to check on her.  When I walked in the emergency entrance, she spotted me first.  Lying on a gurney, she called out so everyone could hear: “Praise the Lord, Preacher!  He left me one good leg!”  I burst out laughing, and gave her a hug.  I said, “What are we going to do with you?”

Now, Mary Hazel, on the other hand, was the most negative member I’ve ever had.  I’d go visit her in the hospital–that kind of negativism seems to put you in the hospital on a regular basis–and all she would do is complain.  “Oh, Doctor McKeever!  I don’t know where those doctors are.  The nurses rarely come by.  My sisters said they were going to come see me but they’ve not been here, either.”

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If you visit this website…

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Joe  has been posting articles here for over 20 years.  There are literally thousands of articles on this website, directly for the most part to pastors and other church leaders.

To see Joe’s cartoons, there are several ways.  We have a link above to some of them.  Or, you may just google “Joe McKeever cartoons” and thousands will come up.  The website for the Baptist Press has run one of Joe’s cartoons each weekday for two decades. Go to www.bpnews.net and click on “comics” and pull up a chair.

We have a few videos here, also.  I notice we haven’t a link to my books.  My email is joe@joemckeever.com if you are interested.  Or if you have a question.   Or wish to invite me to speak or draw at your event.

Thanks for visiting this page.  Let me know how we can be of help to you.  Oh, you may see my ministry schedule here (link above) also.

Ten biblical truths you might not want to hear

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From the beginning, the Lord’s people talk a better game than we live.

So many biblical truths look good on paper and sound great when we’re spouting them.  And yet, judging by the way we live, the Lord’s people probably do not believe the following…

One.  God sends the pastor to the church. 

Churches survey their congregation to find the kind of pastor everyone wants in the next guy.  People lobby for a candidate they like and rally against one they don’t.  And they vote on the recommendation of their committee.  And after he arrives, when some turn against him, they send him on his way.

Do we really believe God sends pastors to churches?  They are God’s undershepherds (see I Peter 5:1-4) and appointed by the Holy Spirit as overseers of the church (Acts 20:28).

Two.  God hears our prayers, cares for our needs, and answers our prayers.

In the typical congregation, what percentage of the people are serious about their prayer life?

If we believed that God hears, cares, and answers, we would be praying over every detail of our lives.  “Pray without ceasing” (I Thessalonians 5:17) would define our very existence.

Three. It is more blessed to give than to receive.

God wants His people to be givers, generous in every area of life.  As a member of the church, He wants us to be sacrificial givers.  (See I Corinthians 8:1ff).

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How to interview yourself and have fun doing it

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“Let every man examine himself….” (I Corinthians 11:28).  The women too. 

Toward the end of each issue, Vanity Fair magazine interviews some celebrity.  The questions they pose are good ones.  Consider answering them for yourself.  (Bear in mind their subjects are well known in the secular world and not someone you and I will meet at the next denominational conference.  So, don’t worry about how they answered these questions.  In truth, I was often a little put out with them.  But what I’m suggesting here is that you consider answering them for yourself.)

Here are the questions in one recent issue–

–What is your idea of perfect happiness?

–What is your favorite journey?

–What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

–On what occasion do you lie?

–What do you dislike most about your appearance?

–Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

–What do you consider your greatest achievement?

–What is your greatest regret?

–What is your current state of mind?

–If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

–Where would you like to live?

–What is your most marked characteristic?

–What do you value most in your friends?

–Who are your favorite writers?

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The riches of Romans 8

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Some years ago, when our denomination focused on Paul’s Epistle to the Romans for the annual Mid-Winter Bible Study, I taught the book in several places and wrote a number of practical articles which are posted on our website.

The thing about this being Holy Scripture however–and not just the writings of an apostle to a church–is that it continues to yield insights long after one thinks he has plumbed its depths. One of the traits of God’s Word is that it has no bottom, no place where one arrives and decides “that’s all there is.”

This book, your Bible, is unlike all the other books on your shelves. It’s a rare novel that you take down and reread for the fourth or fifth time, finding insights which you missed the other times. With most books, you read them once and you’re through. But, one could spend a full year on any one book of the Bible and never exhaust its riches.

It’s that deep, that multifaceted, that rich.

If the Epistle of Romans is like a gold mine–and it is–then chapter 8 of Romans is like a mother lode, a rich vein, in that mine. You can find nuggets laying on the ground which require no effort from you except to recognize them and gather them in and put them to work in your world. Romans 8 is strewn with nuggets.

But there are also deeper riches in this rich chapter which yield themselves only to those who spend time there, dig down deeply, study quietly and widely and thoughtfully, and who wait for the revelations from the Lord, who after all is the true Author of the piece. Some truths are so profound and so well-camouflaged they give themselves only to those who meditate and wait patiently at the feet of the Master Teacher.

Consider, based on Romans 8, the following outline: What God Does For Us We Cannot Do For Ourselves.

1. What the Law could not do for us, God did: He sent His Son.

“What the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did–sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh in order that the requirements of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:3-4).

God sent His Son. This speaks of the incarnation.

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Religions that are close but still false

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“I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot endure evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles…and you have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary.  But I have this against you….” (Revelation 2:2-4).

The Lord has “something” against certain ones calling themselves true believers while perverting the gospel and slandering His disciples.

The story of Florence Foster Jenkins seems to be a vivid illustration of people who are both deceived and deceivers….

This woman who lived from 1868 to 1944 was a patron of the arts in New York City. She was rich and generous and in a hundred ways kind and gracious.  Her one over-riding fault was that she thought of herself as a gifted singer.  She was not.  In fact, she was comically bad.  And yet, her husband and those around her conspired to keep the truth from her.  When she learned the truth, she was devastated and died soon afterward.

In The New Yorker’s review of the new movie–the title is her name–the opening paragraph is wonderful and poignant and lends itself to our application.

The defining talent of Florence Foster Jenkins (1868-1944) was that she had no talent.  Of this she was unaware.  As a singer, she could not hit a note, yet somehow she touched a chord–murdering tune after tune, and drawing a legion of fans to the scene of the crime. Never has ignorance been such cloudless bliss; her self-delusion, buoyed by those about her, amounted to a kind of genius, and the story of that unknowing has now inspired a bio-pic…. Continue reading →

What pastor search committees fear most

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“Why did you fear? Where is your faith?” (Mark 4:40)

“For we walk by faith, and not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7).

You should read my mail.

Well, maybe you shouldn’t.  You might come away disgusted with the notion that our churches operate in faith, trust God supremely, and always want to do the honorable thing.  Some do; many do not.

A young minister I know is well-trained and very capable, has been called of God and has a heart for ministry.  Some church is going to love having him as pastor.  If they ever decide to call him.

For some reason, pastor search committees are deathly afraid of him.

Time and again committees invite him to visit their church, interview him, and then, because of factors known only to them, pass him over in favor of safer candidates.

I said to him: “By now you know the typical pastor search committee operates more out of fear than from faith.”

They seem to be afraid that….

–they will make the wrong choice.

–the congregation will reject their recommendation.

–some influential church members will scoff at their choice

–they will be seen to be extremists of one kind or the other: Calvinists or Arminians, liberal or fundamental, right-wing nut or social activist, independent or too dependent.

–that in calling someone “different,” they will be seen as doing something unusual, strange, or even “by faith,” Lord help us.

Or possibly, they fear that they shall be seen as operating out of fear.

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