Battle scars: They come from serving God and dealing with His people

From now on let no one cause trouble for me, for I bear on my body the brand-marks of Jesus (Galatians 6:17).

“…I bear branded on my body the owner’s stamp of the Lord Jesus” –the Moffett translation.

“…I bear on my body the scars that mark me as a slave of Jesus” –Goodspeed.

At Mississippi State University, the Kenyan student carried horizontal scars across his face.  “Identification marks for my tribe,” he explained to me.  Wow.  Tough clan.

We were returning from the cemetery in the mortuary’s station wagon.  The director and I were chatting and did not notice the pickup truck coming from our right and running the stop sign. We broadsided the truck.

My forehead broke the dashboard.

I bled and bled.  And got a ride to the hospital in the EMS van.

The emergency room people decided I had suffered no serious injuries and taped up the two gashes in my face.  At the wedding rehearsal that night, I sported a large white bandage on my forehead, just above the eyebrows. It made for some memorable wedding photos the next day.

That happened nearly 40 years ago and I still carry the scars right between my eyebrows.  They look like frown marks, but they’re not.

They are scars from serving the Lord.

My wife Bertha, bride of over six years now, says her husband Gary had scars in the same place, also from the ministry.  “We were walking to our church in the French Quarter,” she said. “Suddenly, a woman screamed and ran toward us, yelling ‘Don’t let him get me!’  Someone, perhaps an angry husband, was chasing her in a car.  Gary handed me our child and told me to get back.  He positioned himself between the woman and one very angry man.  In the scuffle, the man hit Gary right between the eyes, causing a deep gash.”

Bertha said, “I don’t remember what happened next, and know nothing of the outcome of that couple.  But we had to go to a clinic quickly.  Gary carried the scar from that fight the rest of his life.”

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

(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.

Then one night, God answered. Continue reading

My personal story of Billy Graham

I was in a congregation of ministers at Birmingham’s First United Methodist Church once in the early 70s when Billy Graham entered the room.  A shock wave moved across the auditorium.  It was amazing, and I had no explanation for it.

He was God’s man.  No question about it.

During the last years of the 1980s, I pastored Charlotte’s First Baptist Church and visited with Billy and Ruth Graham on several occasions.  His sister Catherine was in my church, along with her family.  On several occasions we shared a waiting room while their friend and my congregant Dr. Grady Wilson was in surgery.   Once I handed them a notepad and asked them to write their favorite scripture verse and sign it.  That this was a presumptuous thing to do never entered my mind.

Billy jotted down “Psalm 16:11” and signed that familiar name.  I said, “I’m glad you wrote that because I’ve quoted that verse for years as Billy Graham’s favorite.”  Ruth Bell Graham laughed and said, “My favorite keeps changing!” As I recall, she wrote Proverbs 3:8-13 and signed it. My secretary had those two notes framed and they hung in my office for years, until I donated them to a fundraiser for a New Orleans ministry.

In November of 1987, the entire Graham team came to our church for the celebration of Evangelist Grady Wilson’s life.  My funeral message that day was rebroadcast worldwide on the Hour of Decision radio program which was so popular for a generation or more.  (I’ve teased that I should put that on my resume!)

In those days I recall how people in Charlotte spoke about Billy’s mother.  Mrs. Graham had been such a powerful witness for Christ, they said, and they told of Bible studies she had led in the retirement home where she had lived her last days.

But my favorite BG story concerns our first meeting.

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My first Bible

The year was 1948, I was eight years old, and we lived on a mountaintop in
West Virginia.  My coal miner father, Carl J. McKeever, was thirty-six, a hard worker, and dedicated to his family of six children to the extent that he would occasionally double back and work a second eight-hour shift down inside the mines.  This was the year, incidentally, that a photographer for the Saturday Evening Post took dad’s photo and gave it half a page in an issue the next year on “The Bloody Price of Coal” (which dealt with mine safety, or lack thereof).

I was the fourth child and third son.  Now, I need to say that Dad did not go to church, even though my wonderful Mom had all six of her brood in the local Methodist church every Sunday.  Dad’s language would have made a sailor blush, and the whippings he administered to his children were legendary (and would probably get him arrested these days).  Dad would often spend Sundays in front of the radio listening to preachers, something I could not understand for someone who was not living for God and made no pretense of it.

So, imagine my puzzlement when one Saturday Dad said to me, “Come on and go with me.”  Nothing more than that.  So, I accompanied him as we walked the path off the mountain down to the railroad tracks at the bottom.  We walked past the tipple and bathhouse, past the company store, and on up the tracks toward the nearby town of Sophia, WV, perhaps a mile away.  Not one word was spoken as I recall, and I had no idea what this was about.

In Sophia, we walked into the “dime store,” probably a Woolworth’s.  Inside, Dad asked a clerk, “Where are your Bibles?”  She showed him and we walked over.  He said to me, “Pick you one out.”  I was so stunned I said, “Sir?”  He said, “Pick you out a Bible.”

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My interview with K-Love Radio

Later today, Richard Hunt of K-Love Radio is scheduled to call me for an interview.  Yesterday he sent me a list of questions he probably will ask.  I’ve given these some thought, and decided to post them here. 

WHO OR WHAT FIRST INFLUENCED YOU TO THINK ABOUT CARTOONING?

I’ve loved the newspaper comics since I was a preschooler.  My dad, a coal miner in Alabama and West Virginia, always subscribed to the daily newspaper no matter where we lived.  As far as I recollect, of the six children, I was the only one who read the comics every day.  Two or three of them I loved dearly: Dick Tracy and Oaky Doaks come to mind.

I UNDERSTAND YOU VISITED CHURCHES AND DREW CUSTOM IMAGES OF PEOPLE.  WHY?

Churches invite me.  I’ll be doing this tomorrow in Demopolis, Alabama, at the monthly seniors meeting at First Baptist.  I’ll get there at 10:30 (after a three hour drive) and sketch everyone, then bring a Christmas devotional.  Afterwards, we’ll have lunch then drive home.  Long day but great fun.

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My Thanksgiving blog from 2008

(Since my family members read this, I thought they might appreciate this blast from the past…)

I’m sporting a red bruise high in the middle of my forehead that Mikhail Gorbachev would envy. Friday, after throwing a log on a fire in the middle of the field, I raised up and whacked my head on a low-hanging limb. More about that below.

Wednesday, at Alpha Cottingham’s funeral, evangelistic singer (and her husband W.O’s cousin) Ronnie Cottingham provided special music and told a story about this wonderful pastor’s wife. “Miss Alpha called to ask if I could come and do a full one-hour concert. I told her I could if the preacher invited me. He did and we worked it out. The night of the concert, I came in and got set up and started singing — but Alpha wasn’t in the crowd. I checked and discovered she was keeping the nursery. No one else was available, so she took care of the little ones so others could attend the concert.”

The pastor’s wife has a servant heart.

Early in the week, Margaret suggested I ought to go see my Mom for Thanksgiviing. I’d thought about it. I’ve not been home in several months and it’s a seven hour drive, but at Mom’s age (nearing 93), I need to get there when I can. So, Thursday morning, I left the city early and drove to north Alabama (the family farm is five miles north of Nauvoo, AL). I’d asked the family to save some leftovers for my supper. Leftovers where my Mom and sisters are concerned would be a feast anywhere.

After supper, we did something we’ve not done in a couple of years: played rummy. This card game has been our family’s pastime since Dad taught us to play when we were children. My brother Ron and I played sister Patricia and her husband James. How the game turned out is never the point; the fellowship and camaraderie is. And that’s how it came about that we received the best laugh of the week from our Mom.

We were in the midst of the card game and enjoying the fellowship. James happened to mention that one of his co-workers for the phone company, many years ago, was a part-time preacher. They were working out of town and one night, James walked into the man’s hotel room and found two Playboy magazines laying on the bed. The man recovered quickly and said, “James, look what was laying on the floor when I checked into this room today!” Um hummm. Sure.

I had my own contribution to the story. “When our younger son Marty was four years old, we were living in an apartment complex in Jackson, Mississippi. One day, he found a Playboy out behind the building. When Margaret tried to take it from him, he wouldn’t let her have it. ‘It’s mine,’ he kept insisting.”

They all smiled. Then from the kitchen, Mom said, “Why? He was only four. He couldn’t read.”

A pure heart.

(Everyone around the table agreed that Mom has probably never even seen that magazine.)

Now, about that tree burning.

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The scars tell the story on us

My son was trying to find a good used car for his daughters. Since their big brother had just graduated, Abby and Erin would be driving themselves to school in the fall.  Twice Neil found possibilities, but wisely took the cars to a trusted mechanic for his appraisal.

It fell to me to drive the second of these cars to the repair shop. Our mechanic friend studied the car, drove it a bit, then recommended we not buy it for a number of reasons. Then, he said, “Come here, Reverend. I want to show you something.”

“See those dirty stains on the seats?”

Each seat carried rust-colored stains in wavy lines.

“This car has been flooded,” said Rick.  “And here is something else.”

There were scratches–horizontal, odd-looking lines–on the hood and the trunk. “This is where things scraped over the car,” he said.

I thought of the 100,000 automobiles that were ruined in 2005 Hurricane Katrina’s floodwaters. In many cases, the water was six to ten feet deep, and lingered for weeks. I’ve seen photos and heard stories from friends who drove boats over parking lots where all you could see were the tops of cars. It’s easy to imagine something being dragged across a flooded car.

Eventually, the cars were towed and left under bridges and interstates for months before being disposed of.

Later, we learned that some people were doing hasty repair jobs on the flooded cars and passing them off as normal. “Buyer beware” became the mantra.

I said, “Thank you, Rick. I would not have known what to look for.”

Our mechanic friend saved us a lot of headaches and heartaches, and doubtless a good deal of money in repair jobs.

People who go through storms in this life, like that car often carry the scars and stains for the rest of their days.

Some of those stains and scars are visible, if you know what you are looking for….

anger that seems to have no basis in reality. A floating hostility will attach itself to whatever target (or victim) is handy.

I once pastored a church following a huge split where people had fought verbal battles and took no prisoners. Years later, a few members still carried deep anger over what had been done or said. The stains of that church storm were imbedded so deeply inside them only the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus Christ was sufficient to remove it.

–a sense of entitlement, the feeling that “the world owes me big time after all I’ve been through.”

Such a church member can be a major pain to everyone around him. Pity the new pastor who walks into a congregation without knowing the human traps laying in wait. For members who feel they are owed a great deal in life, nothing the pastor does will ever be enough. They are chronically dissatisfied and will spread their poisonous infection to the rest of the church.

–an all-encompassing fear of conflict and trouble.  After the nightmares they have been through, they will do anything to avoid similar crises in the future.

I experienced this syndrome personally. The church I left had been embattled from the first day I arrived, and the one to which I came was trying to recover from a stormy pastorate which had decimated the congregation. If it had been up to me, I would never have led a church business meeting or attended a deacons meeting again.  A few of the really ragged ones were enough for a lifetime. And yet, every church deserves a healthy pastor and a solid program. So, I had to face my fear of conflict. Eventually, I recovered and was later able to assist other churches going through their own storms.

–a distrust of the Almighty.  “Where was God when my house was destroyed?” “If Jesus loves the church, why did He let them run off our wonderful pastor?” “If God is good, then why did my mother die in that flood?” “Why did God let that church mistreat my father the way they did?”

There are answers for these questions. However, just voicing their distrust is for many war-veterans the beginning and end of their theological musings.

On the other hand, many of the stains and scars of life’s storms are not so obvious and can be unearthed only by those willing to look beneath the surface or who are skilled at people-helping….

–A church I pastored had a leader who criticized everything and was satisfied with nothing. Only when I called on him at home did I learn of the daily physical pain the man lived with. Something in his past had scarred him for a lifetime.

–A deacon with enormous influence and leadership skills built a strong following in every church and then fought his pastor for control. His poor pastors were no match for the man’s tactics and were frequently left bleeding in the road.  Someone who had known the deacon most of his life told me his father had been a pastor and he suspects that God had called that deacon to preach early in life, but that he resisted.  Whatever went on inside him back then seemed to be continuing, with his relationships paying a huge price.

I quickly admit that I’m no psychiatrist. I’m not one of these people who can see beneath the surface and tell what’s going on with people. I tend to take them at face value, and often turn out to be wrong about them.

Here is what I know…

–Scars on our bodies tend to fix forever in our minds the history that was occurring at that moment. A V-shaped scar on my left index finger is the result of this 5-year-old reaching up to the hot stove to take hold of a pot. How that melted my skin into a “V,” I’ll never know, but there it is.  About the same time, I received the scar at the corner of an eye, the result of being chased by a big brother and falling onto the broken rim of a galvanized wash tub. And one more. What appear to be frown-marks between my eyebrows are scars from the time I was riding in the funeral home car and a fellow in a pickup truck ran a stop sign. We broad-sided him and my forehead broke the dashboard.

–When law enforcement agencies are seeking a missing person or a criminal, in giving the description they will frequently refer to the identifying scars.  They brand us, you might say.

–Our own scars are records of events and people and times in our lives when something happened.

Marijohn Wilkin wrote an unforgettable gospel song about Heaven that carries this profound line: The only thing there that’s been made by a man are the scars in the hands of Jesus.

 

 

 

What I hate most about my preaching

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 an early grave by over-analyzing every single thing we do and questioning the motive behind each word we speak.

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. (One of the worst things we preachers do is to ask our wives, “How did I do?” Poor woman. She’s in a no-win situation. Leave her out of it.)

A recording of our preaching helps. (But we have to promise to stay awake during the playback.)

That said, I’ll get to the point.

What I hate most about my preaching is when I intrude too much into the message.

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My personal story about Dr. Billy Graham

I was in a congregation of ministers at First United Methodist in Birmingham once in the early 70s when Billy Graham entered the room.  A shock wave moved across the auditorium.  It was amazing, and I had no explanation for it.

He was God’s man.  No question about it.

During the last years of the 1980s, I pastored Charlotte’s First Baptist Church and visited with Billy and Ruth Graham on several occasions.  His sister Catherine belonged to my church, along with her family.  Mostly, the Grahams and I shared a hospital waiting room while their friend and my congregant Dr. Grady Wilson was in surgery.   Once I handed them a notepad and asked them to write their favorite scripture verse and sign it.  That this was a presumptuous thing to do never entered my mind.

Billy jotted down “Psalm 16:11” and signed that familiar name.  I said, “I’ve quoted that verse for years as Billy Graham’s favorite.”  Ruth Bell Graham laughed and said, “My favorite keeps changing!” As I recall, she wrote Proverbs 3:8-13 and signed it. My secretary had those two notes framed and they hung in my office for years, until I donated them to a fundraiser for a New Orleans ministry.

In November of 1987, the entire Graham team came to our church for the celebration of Evangelist Grady Wilson’s life.  My funeral message that day was rebroadcast worldwide on the Hour of Decision radio program which was so popular for a generation or more.  (I’ve teased that I should put that on my resume!)

In those days I recall how people in Charlotte spoke about Billy’s mother.  Mrs. Graham had been such a powerful witness for Christ, they said, and they told of Bible studies she had led in the retirement home where she had lived her last days.

But my favorite BG story concerns our first meeting.

Continue reading

21 battle-tested truths I’ve learned about the Church

I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth. (I Timothy 3:15). 

Church was always a part of our family’s life, starting with the New Oak Grove Free Will Baptist Church near Nauvoo, Alabama, continuing with the little Methodist Church in a mining camp near Beckley, West Virginia, four years later back to Nauvoo, then college chapel at Berry College near Rome, Georgia.  Then, at West End Baptist Church in Birmingham God did a dozen great things in my life forever changing my earthly and heavenly fate.  When I left West End, it was to pastor God’s churches.

The Southern Baptist Churches I was privileged to serve have been so faithful, so foolhardy, so daring, so wonderful–

–Unity Baptist Church, Kimberly, Alabama. (1962-63) They were the first, bless ’em.

–Central Baptist Church, Tarrant, Alabama (first six months of 1964, then off to seminary in New Orleans)

–Paradis Baptist Church, Paradis, LA (1965-67 My seminary pastorate. We lived in the back of the building.)

–Emmanuel Baptist Church, Greenville, MS (1967-70)

–FBC Jackson, MS (minister of evangelism) (1971-73)

–FBC Columbus, MS (1974-86)

–FBC Charlotte, NC (1986-89)

–FBC Kenner, LA (1990-2004)

–And finally, as a member (once again) of the great FBC of Jackson, MS, where Bertha and I are members in retirement.

Here is what I have learned–my TWENTY-ONE battle-tested, tried-in-the-fire-and-found-to-be-authentic, strongly held convictions about the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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