Category Archives: Pastors

Write a book, change the world!

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This will be written for the generation to come, that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord.  Psalm 102:18

A friend said, “Pastors who write books are on ego trips.”  I begged to differ for a lot of reasons.  For one thing, I’ve just finished my eighth and am now working on the ninth book!

In my opinion…

In one sense, people who write books are paragons of faith. They have no proof anyone will ever read what they write or if they will recoup the investment of their time and money.  And yet, they write on.

Aren’t we thankful for people who write books!

After all…

When you write a book–any kind of book!–you give away a piece of yourself.  You have spent countless hours secreted away laboring over a pad with a pen or typing away on the laptop.  If you’re like me, you have wept and fussed, stopped to look something up, asked your spouse if this is the right word, and sent up periodic prayers that this would work and make a difference in someone’s life. You have abandoned the project for a time, returned to it when something was burning inside you and just had to come out, and eventually you decided “that’s enough” and sent it out to the world.

When people hold the book in their hands, they’re holding a piece of you.

When you write a book, you touch parts of the world you will never travel to, people you will never see, and make a difference you will not learn of in this lifetime.  This is a faith venture of the first sort.

When they hold the book in their hands, they touch the fruit of your life.

When you write a book, you touch the future.  Perhaps your book will live forever and never be out of print–does C. S. Lewis in Heaven see this and smile?–or someone will come across your book a century from now in some obscure storage and read it as a lark and find themselves being blessed.  Either way, fruit massive or miniscule, you are sending your witness into the future.

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No independent churches, no self-sufficient Christians

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“I planted, Apollos watered, God gave the increase” (I Corinthians 3:6). 

“Even in Thessalonica you sent aid once and again for my necessities” (Philippians 4:16). 

I have no patience with signs in front of church buildings that read “Independent (whatever) Church.” There is no such thing as an independent church. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ and we need each other.

Some more than others.

The believer or the church that believes he/she/it is independent and has no need of all those others is going against everything Scripture teaches and contradicting what they see happening all around them every day.

Every church depends on the power company for the lights and a/c, on the water works for water in the building, on the sewerage department, on the streets department and on the guy who cuts the grass and the lady who cleans the toilets. They depend on the Bible, on the Holy Spirit, on those who brought the Gospel to them, and they depend on each other to be faithful. The pastor depends on the congregation to attend and serve and give and pray.  Everyone depends on the preacher to lead well.

An independent Christian is a contradiction in terms.  An oxymoron.

There is no such animal.

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Something the new pastor is going to be needing from you

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The new pastor looks out at the congregation.  He’s acting confident and looks the part. The search committee did a good job from all appearances.  The pastor speaks well and seems to know what he’s doing.

But wait….

Has someone removed the pulpit from the platform?  And is that a rowboat the preacher is standing in?  What is going on here? Am I in the right church?  Have we entered the twilight zone?

I know of a pastor who did that on his first Sunday. (And not everyone received it well.)

Is the new pastor not wearing a suit? Oh my, is he wearing jeans and sneakers?  Does he have a long beard? It makes him look like an old Civil War veteran! Whatever is our church coming to? What was the search committee thinking to bring in such a person to pastor our great church?

Sound familiar?

Was the new pastor right in introducing some changes immediately? I don’t know.  It depends on a hundred things.  Suffice it to say, most times the new pastor gets it right.  However….

Sometimes new pastors goof up. They get off on the wrong foot. Sometimes they misspeak.  Or they call an important person by the wrong name. New pastors have been known to introduce change abruptly when a more thoughtful thing would have been to prepare the congregation and transition slowly.

In every case, beginning pastors need one huge thing from the congregation.

They need space. 

They need time.  They need slack.  Some room. They need a lot of understanding.

New pastors need time to adjust, to learn you, to make connections, to find the path, to hear the heartbeat of the congregation, to learn the history of the church, to decide what God wants, to receive the vision from Heaven, and to make a few mistakes.

How’s that?  New pastors make mistakes?

Yes. The new pastor needs time and room–the freedom, actually–to make a few mistakes.

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How to know you were called into the Lord’s work. (Or if you were not)

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My pastor friend was about to conduct the most difficult funeral of his nearly-twenty year ministry. He and I had discussed it and I had prayed for him. His heart was breaking for the young family that was laying to rest two close loved ones.

In a private moment, I said to him, “Pastor to pastor, I want to ask you something. Even though this is tearing your heart out, do you find yourself thinking, ‘I’d rather be here doing this than anywhere else in the world’?”

He said, “I do! I really do.”

I said, “That’s how you know you are really called to this work.”

He was quiet a moment, then added, “I tell my wife–pastors’ wives understand these things–that my favorite part of pastoring, what I do best, is the funeral of a Christian. It’s hard, it can be gut-wrenching, but this is our moment to shine, the event which brings together all the great stuff we believe so strongly.”

God-called pastors understand.

I have stood at the graveside of a two-year-old who had fought a valiant fight against leukemia, my heart almost as torn as the parents’, and thought, “Thank you, dear Lord, for calling me into this work. I’d rather be here than anyplace else on earth.”

Only the called will understand.

A friend and I were having a lengthy discussion about a pastor who had almost ruined his last two churches and in both cases, left under a cloud. My friend said, “The guy was in the ministry, he has seminary degrees, but honestly, I do not think God called him into this work.”

In a meeting with leaders of our denomination, one subject we discussed out of great concern but for which we had no solution, was “helping pastors know if they are called (or not) into the ministry.”

There ought to be a way to help uncalled ministers recognize their situation, so they can step away from this work and find something else to do.

Some will ask why, what difference it makes.

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Questionable things we pastors do–for which we shall give account

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“Lord, we saw someone who does not follow us casting out demons in Your name, and we forbade him because he does not follow us” (Mark 9:38).

Robert Schuller died in April of 2015. This founder of the Crystal Cathedral in California and founder/host of television’s Hour of Power broadcast was the “media pastor” to countless millions who would never have entered my church.  He wrote books, did a lot of good, did much that was questionable, and drove us traditionalists out of our collective minds.

A few days after Schuller’s passing, I posted this on my Facebook page:

My favorite Robert Schuller story: When he was a kid, his mother taught him piano lessons.  Once, in the middle of a recital, his mind went blank and he forgot the rest of the piece he was playing. There was nothing to do but walk off the stage in humiliation.  Later, his mother gave him some great advice. “Honey, any time you mess up in the middle of a piece, always end with a flourish and no one will ever remember what you did in the middle.”  Schuller would look at his congregation and say, “Some of you have messed up in the middle of your life.  But my friend, you can end with a flourish if you start now.”

It’s a great story, one I often use when speaking to senior adults.  It fits perfectly.

In 2015 when I posted the story, I suggested Facebook readers restrain from giving us their judgments of the man.  “He has One who will judge him, One far more qualified than you or I.  And since we will be needing mercy when we stand before Him, we want to show mercy toward everyone.”

The comments poured in quickly.

Most expressed appreciation for something Dr. Schuller had done or said, a few remembered visiting the Crystal Cathedral and gave us their lasting impressions, and several thanked me for the tone of my note.

None judged.

But the first time I told that story–I was the new pastor of that church–the reaction was entirely different.

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The most frightening thing about preaching

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It’s actually several facets of the same thing:  I’m speaking for God.

Imagine such a thing.

The God of the universe.  The Creator. Lord of every planet, every galaxy, every star.  And He makes me His spokesperson.

The Lord of eternity.  God of Heaven and earth.  And He calls me to be His personal representative.  Oh my.

From everlasting to everlasting, He is God.  He is in charge.  He holds us all in His hands.  He owns it all.  “If I were hungry, I would not ask you,” He says in Psalm 50.

And He calls a few of us to the assignment of opening His word and declaring His message, of speaking to people individually on HIs behalf, of being a priest, a spokesperson, a teacher, a preacher, an evangelist.  Oh my.

Whatever was He thinking???

I didn’t volunteer for this. I was drafted.  In my case, twenty-one years old and a college senior preparing to be a history professor, and I’m standing in the choir in Birmingham singing “Jesus Paid It All” while people are being saved during the Tuesday night service of a two week revival.  The pastor, Bill Burkett, was preaching that night.  Jim Carraway, billed as “the singing engineer” from Shreveport, was the singer.  I recall it as clearly as though it happened last night: The living God invaded my thoughts and said, I want you in the ministry.  That’s all.  Just, “I want you in the ministry.”

The call was not “to preach,” as many of my friends say theirs was.  To me, “in the ministry” ended up meaning a lot more than preaching.  I’ve been pastor of six churches, a staff member of two churches, the director of missions for 130 churches of metro New Orleans for five years, an evangelist, a writer, cartoonist, counselor, and a teacher/encourager of preachers.  And a few other things, seen only by the Father–and, if I’m any judge, important to Him.  And that is so encouraging.  And in all of these things, I was obeying the call.  As Paul said, “I was not disobedient to the Heavenly vision” (Acts 26:19).

That call came in April of 1961.  At this point, that was over 63 years ago, and I’m still at it.

You are looking at one blessed dude.

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How to be miserable in the ministry

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I don’t know anyone who wants to be miserable in anything, much less in serving the Lord, but some people give the appearance of working hard to achieve it.

Here are three self-destructive things (you’ll think of a hundred) we ministry-persons do which undermine our effectiveness in the work and fuel the angst of frustration which many people live with on a daily basis….

1) Expect to be paid what you think you’re worth.

Figure out what you are being paid, then total up the number of hours you put in, and divide the second into the first.  The result is your wages per hour.  Disgusting, ain’t it? (smiley-face here)

There is perhaps no more certain path to misery in the ministry than to estimate your own personal value based on such factors as years of training, the degrees you hold, and the tenure you have logged in the Lord’s work, and expect to be paid appropriately.  If this misery is not enough for you, then figure in the number of children you have, the hours your spouse invests in the ministry too (all of it unpaid), and the errands your children run for church members.  You will not, of course, ask to be recompensed for any of that, but dwelling on it makes you feel worse, and after all, that was the point in the first place.

In retirement, the math for certain misery gets easier.  You were invited for a specific event–a retreat for which you were the speaker, a banquet you did, a revival you preached for a church–and when it was over they handed you a check.  You have no trouble at all counting the miles you traveled, the hours you spent in your car, and the costs associated with your trip: meals, tips, dry cleaning bill, and other incidentals.  Then, you figure out the actual number of hours/days at that church, and compare to the numbers on the check you were paid.

Depressing, ain’t it?  (Answer: sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t.  I’m amazed that after a check that barely covers your mileage, the next event will result in a check three times what you were expecting.  Anyway, back to the subject….)

Everyone starting out in ministry should be clear up front that the Lord Himself is their Source.  He is their portion, and they should look to Him.

The Lord is my Employer; I shall not want.

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Does “touch not mine anointed” refer to pastors?

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Do not touch My anointed ones, and do My prophets no harm.  –I Chronicles 16:22. (Psalm 105:15) 

A pastor who wants a free hand to come and go as he pleases chafes when told he is accountable to the membership or must report to a committee of members. The very idea!  He pulls out Psalm 105:15 and I Chronicles 16:22 and uses these as a battering ram on his people.

He bellows, “God’s Word says, ‘Touch not Mine anointed!’  It says, ‘Do My prophets no harm.’”

Then, he gives his twisted interpretation to his misconstrued favorite passage.

“This means no one in the church and no group is allowed to criticize the pastor.  God’s messengers answer only to God!”

The only problem with that is it just isn’t so.

No one is above criticism or accountability.  No one has a free hand to do with the people of God as he pleases.

Scriptures call the church by many names: “the Bride of Christ” (Ephesians 5:25-27; Revelation 19:7-9; 21:1-2), “the household of God, the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth” (I Timothy 3:15), and “the Body of Christ” (I Corinthians 12:27 and Ephesians 4:12).  But nowhere is it the toy of the pastor, the playground or proving ground of preachers, the personal possession of ministers.

Here is what the Apostle Peter said to preachers:

Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion, but willingly; not for dishonest gain but eagerly;  nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that fades not away.  (I Peter 5:2-4)

The pastor is not the lord of the congregation.  As the overseer, he is an example for God’s people, the role model.  The people are entrusted to the minister and he will give account for each of them before God (Hebrews 13:17).

Instead of announcing his sovereignty and proclaiming his independence, a faithful pastor will concentrate on showing God’s people how to love and serve, how to humble themselves and bless one another.

I worry about pastors who play the headship card.  He tells the church, “As God has made the husband the head of the home and of the wife, He made the pastor the head of the church.”

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A friend asked how I prepare sermons

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If you had asked me years ago how I prepared sermons, the answer would have been different from the one I’m about to give.  Forty years ago, I would have been forty-four years old and in the prime of my pastoral ministry, I think we could say.

Back then I would have told you that a couple of times a year I take my Bible and some books and leave town for a few days in order to plan my preaching schedule for the next six months or more. I would decide on topics, scriptures, and themes, and little more than that.  Then, back at home, I would try to reserve a few hours two or three days a week for sermon study, and give thought to the sermons in the hopper for the next month or two.

In the meantime, in all my thinking and reading I was on the lookout for material to flesh out those sermons:  Illustrations, stories, insights, ideas, burdens, conversations with anyone, everything.

I was a sermon producing machine.  You have to be–every pastor knows this–to turn out several sermons a week year after year, and not repeat yourself.  Trying to stay fresh, always biblical, and forever interesting.

And we would laugh at the jokes about how pastors work one hour a week.  My wife (wives) could tell you of the times I got up in the middle of the night to write down something about an upcoming sermon.  Even in my subconscious, I was working on sermons.

But no longer.

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How the preacher feels on his way home from church

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“Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life” (Acts 5:20).

I feel like I have a delivery to make.

I will drive a hundred miles up the interstate to the church where I’m to preach that morning. Sometimes Bertha is with me, sometimes she isn’t. I’ll greet some of the people and check with the worship leader to make sure we’re on the same page. At the appointed time, I will rise and ask everyone to turn to Romans 8.

All week long, I have lived in Romans 8.  I’ve read it, thought about it, written about it, read about it some more, and talked to the Lord about it.  I feel I have a load to deliver.

An hour later, driving home, I will feel spent.  Empty. Unburdened.  Drained.

I hope I will feel pleased, but that’s not always a sure thing. Sometimes I return from preaching feeling, as the basketball players put it, that I have left it in the locker room (instead of on the floor, in the game itself).  Sometimes we preachers are disgusted that such a glorious message has to be filtered through such an imperfect vessel. As though we had tried to depict a sunset with crayons.  Tried to explain calculus with the understanding of a six-year-old.

The wonder is that God can use such a pitiful attempt.

And yet, we did not volunteer for this.  We did not presumptuously present ourselves to the Lord as capable, eager spokespeople.

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