I will never forget the night I got saved

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I remember it clearly.

It was the summer of 1951 and I was eleven years old.  Our family had moved back to rural Alabama from the coal fields of West Virginia.  For the four years up north our family had attended the little Methodist church that sat at the foot of the mountain by the railroad tracks.  I loved that little church and actually joined it when I was eight.  I recall that too.

For our four years in Affinity, WV, this was the only revival that the little church had.  I loved it. For reasons known only to the Father, I was enthralled by church and preachers and church services.  I loved Jesus, I felt, although I’m not sure how much I knew about him.

That night at the Methodist church, when the pastor gave the invitation for people to come to Jesus, I looked at my Mom as if to say, “Can I go?”  She nodded and I went.  I did not know what to do when I got to the preacher, and clearly neither did he.

“Kneel down here,” he said.  So I did.  My mind was blank, nothing going on. I’m just waiting for what comes next.

After a bit they stood up those who had responded and introduced us to the church.  I have no memory of what they said, but I recall vividly what happened the next Sunday.  We went to the altar where they put a few drops of water on our heads and gave us grape juice and crackers.  What they did not give us was an explanation as to what this was about. I was clueless and assume the other children were too.

Toward the end of that service, a little girl sitting with her preschooler brother spoke out loudly in church. “Jerry didn’t get his grape juice!”

So someone took him some.

Our family laughed about that for years.

I was now a member of the Affinity Methodist Church.

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I was eleven years old that summer. Here’s what happened.

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I was never very good at introspection, trying to figure out why I said something or did something or how I got to be the person that I am. Most men are said to have the same limitation.

However, looking back over a life that has lasted nearly nine-tenths of a century, it’s hard not to notice a few life-intersections that felt minor at the time but turned out to be major game-changers.

The summer of my eleventh year was just such a time.

In mid-1951, my world changed. Our family moved from a West Virginia mining camp into the home of our maternal grandmother on the remote Alabama farm where my mom had been raised. To my mind, we had moved from civilization to Mars.

We went from living in a mountaintop community with swarms of children to a farmhouse 13 miles from town and nearly that far to the nearest friend my age. It felt as if I had been sentenced to solitary confinement.

From a life preoccupied with playing and enjoying myself, I moved to one focused on the life of a working farmhand. Ball games and fun times with buddies were replaced by long afternoons in the field alongside my brothers and sisters.

In leaving West Virginia, I traded an exciting new school with terrific teachers and great classmates for an old, barren, two-room Alabama school 10 miles from the county seat, presided over by a small-time dictator-principal and his wife. Mrs. Johnson taught the first 3 grades; Mr. Johnson had the other three. I wondered if the county school board even knew they were in the system.

For the four years we’d lived in West Virginia, our Alabama cousins seemed to find my Yankee brogue fascinating and on summer visits south, would gather around just to listen. When we moved back to Alabama and it became apparent that I was going to be a classmate at Poplar Springs, my strange speech pattern quickly went from exotic to an embarrassment;

That summer, in the annual revival at New Oak Free Will Baptist Church, the small church where our family had worshiped for generations, Jesus Christ came into my life and saved me.

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The revival sparked by two teenagers

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I was in my first pastorate after seminary. Emmanuel Baptist Church in Greenville, Mississippi, was struggling to find its identity.  Made up primarily, I was told, of people who had joined from other churches, and thus a weak fellowship unsure of themselves and of their purpose for existing.

In time this was to become the sweetest of any of the six churches I pastored.  And it all happened because two teenage girls were faithful.

Debbie and Becky. Two champions for the Lord.

Debbie is married to Charlie and they’ve lived in Vicksburg, MS for all their adult lives. Serving God faithfully.

Becky is married to Larry, a pastor, and they’ve served churches in Texas all their adult lives.

They are something special.

The time was the late 1960’s.  I pastored Emmanuel from November 1967 through December 1970. Only three years and two months. But a lot can happen in three years.  Ask our Lord and His disciples.

There was no unity or cohesion in the church.  The Sunday I preached “in view of a call” (that is the term we Baptists employ) I told a joke.  Consequently, twenty-five people voted against me.  The chairman of the search committee gently rebuked me for such foolishness from the pulpit.  And next Sunday, when he called me in Louisiana to announce the vote, I turned it down.  I said, “Well, I think that’s too many people against me.”

Mr. Bryant said, “Preacher, ask the Lord. Then do whatever He tells you to do.”  It was good advice.  When I asked, within five minutes of praying, I knew we were going to Greenville.

Gossip raged throughout the congregation.  People were unhappy with themselves, with God, with me.  So, sometime in my first year there, I felt we should have a revival meeting.

That day a flyer came in the mail from Evangelist Don Womack of Memphis. I’d never heard of the fellow but decided the Lord must mean for us to invite him for a revival.   I would have to learn the hard way not to be presumptuous.

He came in with a motor home which they plugged up at the church.  We did the revival Sunday through Sunday.  The attendance grew less and less all week.  We had one kid saved Wednesday night. I complained to Mr. Bryant, now the chairman of deacons.

“Where are our people?  They’re not supporting the revival.”

He said, “Preacher, the man can’t preach!”

I said, “I know that. But other than that, where are the people?” I smile, but that is the exact conversation.

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Prayers I hope never to hear again

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You’re sitting in church, working hard to worship. You’ve had a hectic week and this Sunday morning has had its share of stresses. But finally, you’re here, in place, in the Lord’s house, sitting in your favorite pew. You’ve joined the congregation in singing the first hymn of the day. The minister has started the service right with a wonderful call to worship. And then it happens.

The person leading the opening prayer strays across an invisible border and says something that offends you or frightens you or angers you or troubles you or at the very least disturbs you.

That’s what this is about.

Just so you will know, I’m called of the Lord as a pastor. We pastors have the same reaction you do when the person praying–whether a layman or a trained minister who should know better–says something very wrong or quite stupid or somewhat offensive. We wonder what that was all about, where he learned that doctrine, or where he picked that weird phrase up and decided to incorporate it into his public prayers.

Everyone has his/her list of prayers that cross that deadline. Here are ten prayers I hope never to hear again.

10. “And Lord, we want to tell you…and Lord, this, and Lord that.”

My friend Kay Swanson hears people pray, “Father God, Lord, I pray….and Father God, that you would…Lord God, Father God, be merciful to us….” Kay says, “Please! When you’re speaking to me, you don’t invoke my name between every couple of words. Why do you do this to God?”

Using the Lord’s name as punctuation is a no-no.

9. Silliness in prayer.

John Favara has a friend whose pastor once prayed, “And Lord, one day when we are in Heaven, laying around, sipping on a pina colada….”

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Things I know about your worship

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You worship that which you do not know. But we worship that which we know…. (John 4:22)

It’s not easy making generalizations about the worship activities of every person on the planet, other than this one: something within the heart and soul of each human cries out–reaches out, strains, hungers–toward its Creator. The forms which that heart-cry take are as varied as the races and cultures of men. Some bow before the waterway flowing through their village, some sacrifice to the volcano looming above their community, and some build massive cathedrals which they decorate with ornate images, each one an expression of their worship. Others enter their church, their synagogue, their meeting place, and sing hymns, offer prayers, read from their holy book, and give offerings.

For those who worship the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ–that would be those of us who call ourselves Christians–making some generalizations is easier. We share many things in common, not all of them desirable.

I know five things about your worship, Christian. You make safely conclude these are likewise true about my worship.

1. You don’t do it very well.

Even at our best, none of us worship well. We have glimpses of God, foretastes of Heaven, in the best of our worship times. But mostly, we are straining to think of that “land that is fairer than day” and to “set our affections on things above.” We do not worship easily, naturally, or well.

This is no surprise to the Father and it shouldn’t be to us either, particularly for those who know the Bible.

–We see through a glass darkly (I Corinthians 13:12). Our understanding is so limited, our vision so impaired, the wonder is that we worship God at all. And we wouldn’t, of course, had it not been for the revelation given in Jesus.

–We know in part (I Corinthians 13:12b). Our knowledge of God and correct doctrine in spiritual things is limited. People are always asking why Christians cannot get together on our doctrine and do away with denominations and religious bickering. Answer: Because what we know of God is incomplete. True, we have His Word. But our understanding of the Bible is inadequate and clearly, even if we knew it all, there is still so much to God not contained within its leaves.

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How destiny hangs by a thin thread; life can change forever in one tiny act

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At the age of 86 (and counting; still doing good! walked my mile early this morning), I’m reflecting on how life works. From time to time I’ll be posting these little memoir-essays on my FB page.  The plan right now is not to leave them up very long before posting a more typical piece.  The point is to keep the essay.)

I was thinking how little things matter.

ONE DAY IN 1945, my mama made me a cartoonist by one small act.

Mom had three children in school and three at home. When I was 5, Carolyn was 3, and Charlie was 1.  Mom was always working hard and furiously–cleaning, cooking, washing clothes, everything.  And I recall the day she put Carolyn and me at the kitchen table, gave us a tablet and a pencil each, and said, “Now, sit there and draw!”

I learned that day that I loved to draw. And never stopped.

People ask if mom knew what she was doing.  My answer is: All she was doing was getting us out of her way, trying to find a little peace and quiet.

The Lord took it from there.  Next year when I went to first grade, the other children would gather and watch me draw.  Could I draw well, people ask?  Of course not. I was six years old.  But the point is I could draw better than the rest of them.

For reasons unknown, the single most asked question when I’m sketching large numbers of people is this: “How long have you been drawing?” When I say, “81 years,” they are stunned into silence. So, then I explain what Mom did.

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Lord, my sin is such a little thing, right?

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A pastor in Haiti tells about a fellow he knew who wanted to sell his house for $2,000. And, in time, he found a buyer.  When the fellow could scrape together only half the asking price, the owner came up with an interesting solution.

He would agree to sell for that amount but with one reservation: he would continue to own one nail above the front door.

Just a little thing, right?

A couple of years later, the first fellow decided he wanted to repurchase the house. The new owner declined, saying, “I like this house; I don’t want to sell.”

The previous owner found the carcass of a dead dog on the street and hung it from the nail he still owned above the front door. Soon the stench became so strong no one could go in or out of the house, and the family had to leave. They sold the house to the former owner.

The Haitian pastor said, “If we leave the devil with even one small peg in our life, he will return to hang his rotting garbage on it, making our lives unfit for Christ’s habitation.”

—I sure am enjoying my new life in Christ. Bible study is great, my new friends at church are wonderful, and I’m loving the new relationships. I wish I’d done this years ago. Some nights I’m down at the church til 10 o’clock with my friends there. Sometimes we are praying, studying the Bible, or working on various projects. I hope no one finds out what I’m watching on the internet at home. I know it’s called pornography, but it’s such a little thing and as long as no one knows, what can be wrong with it?

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A word for you who are overly familiar with the story of Jesus

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As good as it is to have been almost literally raised in the church, it does have its downside. A positive is our familiarity with the Holy Scriptures. It’s great to be able to say with Paul of Timothy, “From a child you have known the Holy Scriptures” (II Tim. 3:15).

But that’s not all good.

Familiarity breeds contempt, the saying goes. In our case, it’s not so much contempt which we long-term church members contend with so much as–how to put this now–boredom. We have heard it so many times, it has lost its edge.

One of the greatest achievements of the Holy Spirit in our lives is to continually sharpen our commitment to Christ and our enjoyment of Him. He alone keeps putting the edge on our faith.

When we drift from faithfulness to the Lord–and by that I mean nothing in the world so much as we quit praying and reading the Word–the Holy Spirit, who can take a hint and know when He is not wanted, turns to others who want His help. You and I are hardly aware that He has moved away. Sometimes we are the last to see that something vital has changed….

We have lost our edge. We have become bored with our faith and boring in our proclamation of it.

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Words have power to knock you down. Or to pick you up.

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Everyone needs a verse of Scripture to call his own. Here is mine.

Old Job was having a time of it. After the death of his children and the loss of his wealth, disease racked his body, leaving him covered with sores. Then, three friends showed up to comfort him–with accusations and blame. He needed a defense attorney and got instead three prosecutors!

The first speaker begins to set Job up for a fall. He’s going to accuse him of having sin in his life which has brought the judgment of God. But first, he reminds him of the way God has used him in the past.

Your words have stood men on their feet; you have helped the tottering to stand. (Job 4:4)

Tell me if that is not one of the finest attributes one man could ever pay another. It has become something of a goal for my preaching, that my sermons would be so filled with life and faith that the falling and the fallen would hear and stand up again and get back into life.

What power words have…

–When Eric Plumb entered the fourth grade, he missed the first two weeks due to a case of the mumps. As a result, he never caught on to the math they were studying that year. The teacher was a crabby, negative, cruel woman who was retiring at the end of that school term, the worst possible representative of her profession. She pounced on Eric and held him up to ridicule at every opportunity. When he missed an answer in arithmetic, which was often, she would say, “Eric is dumb. Eric Plumb is dumb. Eric Plumb is plumb dumb.” The students laughed at her put-down, no doubt glad someone else was her target for a while. To no one’s surprise, Eric grew to hate school.

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Preaching on finances. Pastor, you need to do that.

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This is an untouched reprint of an article from this website some years back.  

Barry is the treasurer of his church. A few days ago, he sat in my office and told me of the financial trouble his church had found itself in. They are running some thirty thousand dollars behind their million dollar budget. I said, “Do you have unpaid bills?” “No,” he said. I said, “And your church is without a pastor?” “Right.” I said, “Friend, you don’t have a financial crisis. Your church is doing just fine. Besides, you’re going to get a new leader. The offerings will go up once he arrives and begins his ministry. Stop worrying.”

On the other hand, a new pastor told how his church is not responding to his sermons on stewardship. “In fact,” he said, “the Sunday after I preached on giving, the offerings actually went down. I’ve been in the pastorate a long time, but never had that happen.”

I said, “I think I know what happened.” He was all ears. I said, “Not all churches are alike. Some have members with deep pockets. When the church gets behind financially, the pastor brings it to their attention, and they bring in the money, and the crisis ends. However, I’ve known your church for many years. You don’t have wealthy people. So, they’re not going to be able to respond immediately to your stewardship lessons. But just stay the course. Keep telling them. They’ll come through.”

A few weeks later, I was in his church and picked up the Sunday bulletin, and noticed that the offering for that day was 50% above the weekly budget requirements. His people are giving.

“I don’t like to preach on money,” a pastor told me. As the Director of Missions for the Baptist churches in the New Orleans area, I sometimes serve as a sounding board for our pastors. I listened as he continued. “My people resent sermons on giving, like I’m trying to invade their bank account or steal out of their wallet. So I just don’t do it. If the money comes in and the bills are paid, then everyone is happy and I’m spared having to preach on it. After all, that’s the point. Right?”

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