What a good sermon intro looks like. And what it does.

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I said to a pastor friend, “I wonder if you’d allow me to offer a tiny word of criticism on last Sunday’s sermon.”  He sat up straight and beamed. “I’d welcome a criticism!”

This good man is even excited to have someone do this.  Wow.  (He said later that everyone compliments his preaching, but sometimes he’d appreciate a helpful suggestion.  I had two thoughts: Any right-thinking pastor would do that, but at the same time, we don’t want a constant barrage of suggestions or criticisms.  Just one or two along the way at helpful intervals would be quite sufficient, thanks.)

I said, “You jumped off into the deep end of the pool with us.  Within two minutes after you began the sermon we were in over our heads.  That makes it hard on a congregation to keep up and follow you.”

He kept listening.

“How much better to wade out in the shallow end at first. Let us adjust to the water temperature and see where you are going with this message.  Gradually take us into the deep.”

He welcomed the thought and proved once again what I already knew–what a terrific fellow he is.  One doesn’t abruptly offer criticism or suggestions without confidence that the recipient will welcome it.

Story One. 

The U.S. Attorney for the southern district of our state was addressing a weekly men’s luncheon at our church this week.  He began with this story…

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Have you considered how special you are to God?

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“Go tell His disciples–and Peter….” (Mark 16:7)

How special Peter must have felt, to have been singled out by the angel.

This is a question followed by a story…..

Question:  What has God done that forever makes you know how special you are to Him?

Was it a healing? A close call with a near-accident?  Something you read in Scripture?  A sermon that perfectly fit your need of the moment?  Your salvation?

What did He do?

Why do you feel so special to Him?

I have a friend who says she feels like God’s favorite child.  There has to be a reason.  I’m asking you to search out that reason.

Now, the story.

I was preaching a revival in East Fork Baptist Church, halfway between McComb and Liberty, MS.  Fans of Jerry Clower will remember he talked of this church and the community often.  Jerry Clower sat on the front row at every service.  I stayed in his camp house that week.

The organist for the little church had only one arm.  Clyde Whittington was a sweet-spirited, friendly fellow.  One day when we were having lunch with Mr. and Mrs. Whittington, Jerry Clower said, “Clyde, you have to tell Brother Joe what happened to you.”

Clyde was only too ready to tell how he had lost that arm and why he would forever feel special to God.

One day, some years earlier, he had taken the tractor out to bale some hay.  Normally, one person would have the dickens of a time working all the machinery, but Clyde figured he could handle it alone if he was careful.

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What I hate about my preaching

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No one enjoys second-guessing himself, what Warren Wiersbe called “doing an autopsy on oneself.”

It’s possible to work ourselves into the psych ward or even an early grave by analyzing every single thing we do and questioning the motive behind every word.

No one is suggesting that.

And yet, there is much to be said for looking back at what we did and learning from our mistakes and failures and omissions.

That’s what this is all about.

It’s best done in solitary. (Often, we preachers ask our wives, “How did I do?” Poor woman. She’s in a no-win situation. Leave her out of it.)

What I hate most about my preaching is the tendency to intrude too much into the sermon.

I hate realizing that in a sermon I was trying to co-star with Jesus when the Holy Spirit called me to be a member of the supporting cast.

At a funeral of a dear friend who was a longtime deacon in a former pastorate, I filled the message time with too much of me.

Now, I adore his family and, if I’m any judge, the feeling is mutual. So, feeling at home and among friends, I shared their grief at our loved one’s death and rejoiced in their confidence that he is with the Lord.

Instead of delivering a formal message that had been well thought out in advance, I shared memories of my friend and insights from Scripture that say so much about death and eternal life.

Nothing of this was wrong or out of place. If there is one thing I believe strongly, it’s in the integrity of the Lord Jesus Christ and His assurances for life eternal.

But the sermon was just “too much Joe.”

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How to frighten a preacher

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“Pastor, some of our members are concerned.”

You now have his attention, believe me.

Say all you want about how the minister is God-called and God-protected and that sort of thing, but he would be less than human if he did not want the people he’s serving to be supportive and responsive. Since he’s sent to help them, he will always be looking for some kind of evidence he’s accomplishing that purpose.  Otherwise, he feels that he has either failed them or God. Or both.

Every pastor is vulnerable as a result.

What makes him more vulnerable to negative influences from the congregation is that he has a family to feed and look after the same way you do if you work at the post office, drive a delivery truck, teach school, or extract teeth. The fact that he needs this job means he opens himself up to pressure from his constituents.

As a result, he reacts–at least emotionally–when he hears some of these lines that have been used on preachers since the beginning of the church.

–“I know we ought to be reaching all these people and it’s good they’re being saved, but I miss our church the way it used to be.”

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Stop reading Scripture so fast. Slow down. Savor it.

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So, you’re reading the Bible through in a year?  Or, like a few people I’ve known, you read it through every year for the umpteenth time.

Fine. But–in my humble opinion–after you have done it two or three times, that’s enough. Don’t ever do it again.

Just my suggestion.

Reading the entire Bible in a year is like seeing Europe in a week: You will notice a lot of things you don’t see from ground level, but it’s no way to get to know a country.

After a few flyovers–two days in Genesis and one day in Romans, for instance–land the plane and get out and make yourself at home in Ephesians or Second Timothy.  Move in with the locals and live with them a few weeks.

That’s the only way to learn a country. It’s the only way to really learn a book of the Bible.

Acts 16 will help us make the point.

Now, I imagine you know Acts 16 as part of Paul’s second missionary journey (which encompasses Acts 16-18).  He and Silas had trouble bringing the gospel into Asia and were given the vision of a Macedonian man calling for help (16:9).  They met Lydia on the riverbank in Philippi and started a church in her house. Then, Paul and Silas were thrown in prison for preaching.  And you probably recall that, after an earthquake that busted the cell doors off their hinges, the jailer came in asking the apostles, “What must I do to be saved?”  The answer is one of the most best-known lines for witnessing to the unsaved: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (16:31).

We know these things because they stand out in the chapter.  Pastors have preached these points repeatedly over the years.

It’s a great chapter, to be sure, but it deserves closer inspection and much more attention than we have given it.

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Seven things the pastor cannot do from the pulpit

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…so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God…. (I Timothy 3:15).

You can’t chew gum in the pulpit, smoke a cigarette, or bring your coffee in with you. You can’t preach in your pajamas or lead a worship service in your swimsuit.

But you knew that.

However, some pastors do things every bit as silly as this, and as counter-productive, we must say.

Now, in one sense, a pastor can do anything from the pulpit.  One time.

But we’re talking about things no right-thinking godly pastor should attempt to do from the Lord’s sacred place of leadership in His church.

1. He cannot recommend a book with questionable material nor condemn a book he has not read.

Okay. He can, but he shouldn’t.

2. Ditto a movie.  Some movies have much to be commended, but by their horrible language and their using Christ’s name as profanity they destroy all the good.  The pastor will not want to endorse such a movie even though it has some positive aspects.

3. He cannot bring someone into the pulpit, even for an interview, whose life is a contradiction to the way of Jesus Christ.

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Suffering: Christianity’s Achilles’ heel?

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For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps….  (I Peter 2:21)

If you like your religious faith shallow and thoroughly thought-out for you without you being required to use your brain for any aspect–that is, if you prefer a manmade and easy-to-digest religion–you’re not going to hang around in a real Christian church long.

The Christian faith is a lot of things, but shallow and neatly systematic it is not. Rather, it’s historical and complex and true. It is true-to-life. And it has been revealed to us in such a way that we are required to put our thinking caps on and engage the brain in order to appreciate what we have been given and how it all fits together.

If you say “Well, the Bible says what it means and means what it says” to explain difficulties, you and I have nothing to talk about, for you have chosen not to deal with the hard parts.

Take suffering, for example.

Adversaries and critics of the Christian faith–these Christopher Hitchens and Bishop James Pikes (google these if they are unfamiliar) have always been with us, so don’t let the latest “smarter than God” genius upset you–say the fatal flaw to our theology is suffering. We’re repeatedly told that the Bible does not adequately answer the question of suffering and pain in the world.

You read that and shake your head. Scores of books from Christian writers pour off the press every year dealing with just that subject, particularly after disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes and tsunamis.

What the critics actually mean, but would not admit in a hundred years, is that Scripture has no easy explanation of suffering.  And they do want their religion to be easy to digest.

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The worst part of pastoring

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“What’s the worst thing about being a pastor?” she asked. “What is your worst nightmare?”

She and I were texting about the ministry when she threw this one in my direction.

She gave me her own ideas. “People writing nasty letters complaining? giving you advice? criticizing what you wear?”

I laughed and thought, “Oh, if it were that simple. No one enjoys getting anonymous mail trying to undermine your confidence in whatever you’re doing, but sooner or later most of us find ways of dealing with that.”

“It’s worse than that,” I typed. Then I paused to reflect.

Hers was such a simple question, one would think I had a stock answer which had been delivered again and again. But I don’t remember ever being asked it before.

Now, I have been asked plenty of times variations of “What’s the best thing about pastoring?” My answer to that is not far different from the response most other pastors would give: the sense of serving God, the joy of making a difference in people’s lives for Jesus’ sake, that sort of thing.

You knock yourself out during the week counseling the troubled, ministering in hospitals, visiting in their homes, conducting funerals and weddings, all while you are working on the sermons for Sunday, meeting with staff members planning upcoming events, and handling a thousand administrative details. Then, you stand at the pulpit twice on the Lord’s Day and give your best. And you see doubters begin believing, the fearful becoming courageous, the lost getting up and coming home to the Father, people saying God has led them to join with your flock, and broken homes restored –it doesn’t get any better than that.

You are in your glory.

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I prayed for my preaching–and got answers I did not expect

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(This is a reprint of an article I wrote for Leadership magazine several years ago, maybe 2001. It was later picked up and included in “The Art and Craft of Biblical Preaching,” a textbook edited by Haddon Robinson and Craig Larson, published by Zondervan, 2005.)

I had been preaching for more than two decades, and I should have been at the top of my game. The church I served ran up to 1,500 on Sunday mornings, and the live telecast of our services covered a fair portion of several states. Most of my colleagues thought I had it made, and if invitations to speak in other churches were any sign, they thought I could preach.

But I didn’t think that.

My confidence was taking a beating as some of the leaders let me know repeatedly that my pulpit work was not up to their standards. Previous pastors carried the reputation of pulpit masters, something I never claimed for myself. To make matters worse, we had numerous vacancies on staff and my sermon preparation was suffering because of a heavy load of pastoral ministry. But you do what you have to do. Most days, my goal was to keep my head above water. Every day without drowning became a good day.

That’s when I got serious about praying for my preaching. Each night I walked a four-mile route through my neighborhood and talked to the Father. My petitions dealt with the usual stuff–family needs, people I was concerned about, and the church. Gradually, one prayer began to recur in my nightly pleadings.

“Lord,” I prayed, “make me a preacher.” Asking this felt so right I never paused to analyze it. I prayed it again and again, over and over, for weeks.

I was in my fifth pastorate. I owned a couple of seminary degrees. I had read the classics on preaching and attended my share of sermon workshops. I was a veteran. But here I was in my mid-forties, crying out to heaven for help: “Lord, make me a preacher.”

I knew if my preaching improved, if the congregation felt better about the sermons, everything else would benefit. I knew that the sermon is a pastor’s most effective contribution to the spiritual lives of his members. To do well there would ease the pressure in other areas. So I prayed.

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The two sides of death and why we don’t fear it any longer

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God’s faithful no longer fear death as much as we used to.

Ever since our Lord Jesus went to the cross and pulled its fangs, descended into grave and recovered the keys, then rose from the tomb as the first fruits of eternal life, the poor ogre has lost his threat.

He still growls but all his rantings are just so much bumping his gums.

Maybe we ought to pity death.

Like a honeybee that has lost its stinger but is still flying around scaring people, death can no longer do any kind of significant damage to all who are in Jesus Christ.

No more fear, Christian. It’s all gone.

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? (I Cor. 15:55)

Hebrews 2:14 puts this in an unforgettable way: He Himself partook of (flesh and blood) that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver those who through fear of death were subject to bondage all their lives.

Defeat the devil, deliver the hostages.

Big task. Great victory. Huge celebration–one that’s still going on.

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