As much as anyone you\u2019ve ever met, I\u2019m a product of the Church.<\/p>\n
For some reason, the churches in my life revolve around the number three. I served six churches as pastor\u2013three smaller ones and three larger ones\u2013and in between, I logged three years as a staff member of a great church.<\/p>\n
And, to carry out the theme, the churches that nurtured me from childhood through adolescence were three in number. Oddly, they were of different denominations, which may be one reason I\u2019m more of a generic Christian than a denominational one.<\/p>\n
The New Oak Grove Free Will Baptist Church of Nauvoo, Alabama<\/b>\u00a0has been our family\u2019s church since the late 1800s. My grandparents joined that church in 1903, and my mother, in her 96th year now, is its senior member. Although \u201cOak Grove,\u201d as we call it, sits 15 miles from any sizeable town, it will run a couple of hundred in attendance on Sundays and the buildings are all new and lovely. Mickey Crane has been its pastor for over 30 years. My mother thinks he\u2019s one of her sons.<\/p>\n
Remember how Paul remarked to Timothy that he had been nurtured in the faith by his mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois (II Timothy 1:5)? My mother is Lois and my first Sunday School teacher was Eunice.<\/p>\n
I have good underpinnings.<\/p>\n
That church loved its children. It was a wonderful place to grow up.<\/p>\n
As her mother before her had done with a houseful of children, Lois got her six young ones ready on Saturday night. Then, on Sunday, we walked across the field and through the woods, a mile to the church. Among the blessings from that investment, God gave this good woman two sons for the ministry. Ron and I have logged nearly a hundred years of preaching between us.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Methodist Church of the Affinity, West Virginia, mining camp.<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/span>Between my 7th and 11th years, we lived in a mining camp six miles out from Beckley, WV. There was one church, it was Methodist (before they added \u201cUnited\u201d to their name), and that\u2019s where mom took us. (I wish I could say she was aided in this enterprise by our hardworking dad, Carl, but Mom did it alone.) We would get ready on Saturday nights and then on Sundays, we walked the half-mile off the mountaintop to the lovely white church in the valley.<\/p>\n That was a wonderful place for children, and the people were gracious. To this day, I recall singing number 100 in the old Methodist hymnal: \u201cI love to tell the story.\u201d I loved that hymn and have devoted my life to telling that story.<\/p>\n From age 11 through my high school years, we lived back in Alabama and attended Oak Grove.<\/p>\n West End Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.<\/b><\/p>\n As a 19-year-old attending Birmingham-Southern College, I joined this wonderful (and large) Southern Baptist church a mile from the campus. The fellowship of its members became the gold standard by which I have measured all others since.<\/p>\n Even though the young people there had known each other all their lives, and those in college attended the Baptist school, Samford, and I was the only one from \u2018Southern, a Methodist school, they received me as warmly and enthusiastically as though I had lived there all my life.<\/p>\n I blossomed in that church and grew spiritually as never before. In my three years there, I was baptized (I\u2019d been saved at age 11 at Oak Grove, but never baptized), met my wife, was called to preach, married, and ordained.<\/p>\n Looking back across the years, I realize I caught that church at its crest. Never before and never again was it as wonderful and large, as united and focused, as it was in those years. This was, I dare to suggest, a God thing. Certainly for me it was.<\/p>\n I am a product of Oak Grove Free Will Baptist Church, that Methodist Church in West Virginia, and West End Baptist Church of Birmingham. Even though the latter two churches no longer exist, they continue their work in the world through me and quite a number of others who were reached and taught and sent forth by those churches.<\/i><\/p>\n Three scriptures taught me a great deal about churches and how they are to work.<\/b><\/p>\n Matthew 16:18.<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cI will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.\u201d \u2013Jesus<\/p>\n Three things stand out here\u2026.<\/p>\n \u2013It\u2019s Jesus\u2019 church. He is the Owner.<\/p>\n \u2013Jesus will build the church. He is the Operator.<\/p>\n \u2013Jesus promises the church will be victorious. He is the Overcomer.<\/p>\n Now, where the first two principles are observed and honored\u2013Jesus is the Owner of the Church and as the Operator, He calls the shots\u2013the last (Victory) is assured. However, when we take His place as Owner (\u201cThis is my church, preacher.\u201d) and\/or as Operator (\u201cDon\u2019t try telling us how to run our church, pastor.\u201d), the victory is no longer assured.<\/p>\n Only when we do the Lord\u2019s work in the Lord\u2019s way does He guarantee us victory.<\/p>\n Acts 20:28.<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cBe on guard for yourselves,\u201d Paul tells the elders\/pastors of the Ephesus church, \u201cand for all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.\u201d<\/p>\n Notice three things\u2013<\/p>\n \u2013He owns the church. He bought it with \u201cHis own blood.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2013He chooses the leaders. \u201cThe Holy Spirit makes the pastors the overseers\u201d (episcopos = watching over).<\/p>\n I can just hear someone say, \u201cI beg your pardon. We voted him in as pastor and we can vote him out.\u201d That business of voting is based on a misconception. When, in response to a recommendation from the pastor search committee, you raise your hand to vote, it is not<\/i>\u00a0\u201cdo I want that man to be my pastor?\u201d but rather, \u201cWhat do I believe God has done here? Has God chosen this man as our leader?\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Bill Taylor, \u201cMr. Sunday School\u201d for Southern Baptists, says we need the concept of \u201choly vacancies.\u201d That means to leave an office or position vacant until the Lord raises up the person to fill it.<\/p>\n \u2013The leaders are to \u201cshepherd\u201d the Lord\u2019s church. I hear people say, \u201cWe are not to be keepers of the aquarium, but fishers of men.\u201d That\u2019s plenty cute, but dead wrong. We\u2019re to be both. The Lord has no intention of leaving the flock to the mercy of the wolves, which is why the word \u201cpastor\u201d means \u201cshepherd.\u201d<\/p>\n Acts 9:4,5.<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cYou are persecuting me.\u201d \u2013Jesus to Saul of Tarsus in the confrontation of the ages.<\/p>\n Saul (who would later become the Apostle Paul) learned an important lesson that day, one which countless others to follow him seem to have misplaced:\u00a0Whatever you do to the church, Jesus takes personally.<\/i><\/p>\n By hounding and arresting, by trying and executing, faithful believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, Saul was persecuting Jesus. That was an incredible revelation to him.<\/p>\n If you bless the church or any member of it, you bless the Lord. Jesus said, \u201cInasmuch as you do it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you do it unto me\u201d (Matthew 25:40).<\/p>\n Likewise, if you harass the church and put a stumblingblock in the way of any believer in Jesus, He pencils your name down in red on His appointment calendar. To the neglectful, Jesus said, \u201cInasmuch as you did not do it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you did not do it unto me\u201d (Matthew 25:45).<\/p>\n Here, then are three great principles for the operation of the Lord\u2019s church. These are foundational, bedrock, iron-clad, not up for a vote, and settled for all time.<\/b><\/p>\n 1) Jesus Christ is the Owner and the Operator of the Church.<\/i><\/p>\n Therefore, we do well to take our hands off, to see our role as caretakers, as stewards, and when we come to do His work, to ask Him, \u201cLord, what do you want done with your church?\u201d<\/p>\n 2) Jesus Christ promises complete victory to the obedient and to no one else.<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cThe gates of hell shall not prevail against you\u201d is not a blanket promise to anyone and everyone, but to those who honor Him in worship and obedience.<\/p>\n 3) If we wish to honor the Lord Jesus Christ, we should honor His church. Whatever we do to the church, He takes personally.<\/i><\/p>\n The first discovery I made at the age of 11 after receiving Jesus into my heart was that I loved the church members. I recall floating out of church that night in love with everyone I saw.<\/p>\n Over the years, I\u2019ve made the discovery on the reverse side of that coin too. When I am out of fellowship with the Lord, when I backslide, I no longer love the church but am critical of the people and negative toward its leaders.<\/p>\n My experience is the norm, I believe. After all, Jesus said, \u201cA new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. By this shall all men know you are my disciples, that you love the brethren\u201d (John 13:34-35).<\/p>\n My friend, it\u2019s possible to love the church but not love Jesus.<\/p>\n However, it is impossible to love Jesus without loving His church.<\/p>\n An elderly lady had asked her son, a deacon in our church, to have me visit her. She had something to discuss with me. Since she was elderly and sickly, I thought perhaps she wanted to prepare to see the Lord.<\/p>\n I was right, but not the way I had expected.<\/p>\n \u201cPastor,\u201d she said the next day as I visited in her home, \u201cI know I\u2019m saved. I have no question about that. But there\u2019s something else bothering me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPastor, I haven\u2019t done right by the church.\u201d<\/p>\n She told me how she\u2019d gotten away from church as a young adult and never got started back. \u201cI raised my son without the benefit of the church and really came to regret it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd now, I\u2019m old and sickly and can\u2019t even go to church. But if you would let me, I\u2019d like to put my membership in and pray for you all and send an offering from my little monthly check.\u201d<\/p>\n I assured her we would be happy to receive her as a member, and the next Sunday we took her in\u00a0in absentia,<\/i>\u00a0meaning she was unable to attend, but still a member.<\/p>\n At her funeral a couple of years later, I told that story. And I told how that on that day, as I drove back to the church office, I thought of what she had said\u2013\u201cI haven\u2019t done right by the church\u201d\u2013and I asked myself, \u201cHave I done right by the church?\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019m asking you the same question today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As much as anyone you\u2019ve ever met, I\u2019m a product of the Church. For some reason, the churches in my life revolve around the number three. I served six churches as pastor\u2013three smaller ones and three larger ones\u2013and in between, … Continue reading