This Week is a Great Time to Read

1) The current issue of Pulpit Helps (January 2009) has resurrected an article of mine from four years ago and given it front-page coverage. “If you wanted to hurt the cause of Christ…” is both the title and the opening of the first sentence. It may be one of the most important things I’ve ever written. I’d love for you to go back and read it.

http://www.joemckeever.com/mt/archives/000072.html

The fascinating thing about running across something you wrote years ago is you get to read it as an outsider, as though picking it up for the first time. Fun.

2) The current issue of Architecture Digest (January 2009) has a huge article on actor Brad Pitt’s charitable/rebuilding work in New Orleans. He established a foundation and has poured money and time into the building of new “hurricane-proof” (we hope!) homes in the Lower Ninth Ward. Not quite the stereotypical image most of us have of Hollywood-types. Pitt and Angelina Jolie have a home in the French Quarter and remark on how well they’re treated by locals.

I’m not inviting him to fill the pulpit at my church anytime soon, but still….

3) The December 2008 issue of National Geographic has a display on King Herod whom they call the architect of the Holy Land. Fascinating, instructive.

One photograph shows small boulders that are “spiky with salt crystals” on the shore of the Dead Sea. Doctors ordered the nearly 70 year old King Herod to bathe in those waters. He was “feverish, itchy, and wracked with pain.” And then, “the therapy failed, and Herod, despondent and increasingly paranoid, tried to kill himself.”

It couldn’t have happened to a more-deserving fellow, one of the original “baddies” from history.

The same issue of the Geographic contains thought-provoking stuff on “Necessary Angels,” the illiterate women from India’s Untouchable class who are curing diseases and saving lives. Also, stand in awe of the incredible photographs from Mars. The article following the one on King Herod deals with the ever-persisting problem of looting archeological sites in that region of the world.

Aren’t we grateful for the public library where we can read these magazines without spending a dime!


4)Something on the New Orleans Saints…

Our football team ended the season Sunday at 8 and 8, with a loss to the strong Carolina Panthers, whom many expect to end up in the Super Bowl. Quarterback Drew Brees came within 16 yards of breaking the single season record for most yards gained through the air. In Monday morning’s Times-Picayune, Brees rightfully pointed out that it would have been a hollow victory to set such a record when the team failed to make the playoffs. Agreed.

A front-page article in Sunday’s paper pointed out the eerie similarities between Saints’ coach Sean Payton’s record after his third season and that of his predecessor, Jim Haslett. Consider, for instance….

–Both coaches took over teams that went 3-13 the year before they arrived.

–Each went 10-6 in their first year, won a division title and a playoff game in that season. Each coach was then named the Associated Press coach of the year.

–Then, the next year, both coaches failed to live up to expectations, with their teams going 7-9.

–Even with mediocre second years, both coaches received multiyear, multimillion dollar contract extensions. Poor Tom Benson, the owner. He’s as befuddled as the rest of us.

–The honeymoon for both coaches ended in their third seasons. Haslett’s team had a 9-7 record, while Payton’s team (with their loss Sunday) went 8-8.

–At the end of three years (48 games), the coaches’ records were eerily similar: Haslett’s was 26-22 and Payton’s 25-23.

And yet–and this is the strange part–while everyone wanted Haslett fired back then, Sean Payton still has the support of the community and the Saints’ organization. Players and management alike feel he knows what he’s doing and are confident he’s the man for a great Saints future.

I can’t help making a parallel with pastors of churches. A pastor will come in to a struggling church and quit after a couple of years, concluding that no one could lead that bunch. Then, his successor comes in and within a year or two has them in the Super Bowl, so to speak. (Like the coach of the Miami Dolphins did, following Nick Saban. Saban couldn’t get the job done in Miami, yet within two seasons at Alabama, has them in the chase for the national NCAA football championship. The Dolphins are in the playoffs.)

All of this just reinforces the flawed philosophy of many church leaders that the answer to all a congregation’s ills is to change preachers.

Sometimes it is. Usually it isn’t.

What always is in order is to pray for one’s ministers and commit them to the Lord Jesus Christ. Look to Him, not to any mortal as the remedy and savior of a struggling church.