Reforming the Deacons: (Part II) "How to Help a Pastor Get Better"

Here's what happens.

A few deacons fellowshiping over coffee deal with various subjects about the church. Eventually, someone brings up the preacher and that ignites the interest of the rest of the group. One or two have some concerns and suggestions.

"The pastor is so effective, but he could be moreso if he would just do this."

"I agree. And the thing my wife mentioned, he should be doing that."

"Well, who's going to tell him? And how would he take it?"

From there, the group decides on a plan. After all, how could the pastor not receive this well? Aren't we all in his corner? Haven't we shown him how much we appreciate him? And hasn't he been preaching about how we are to grow and improve? Surely, he'll want us to bring these suggestions to him.

What the deacons either do not know or do not care to know is that Pastor Tom carries scars from his dealings with a rogue deacon group in his previous church. And even though he loves his present flock and sees God blessing his ministry, something inside him expects another bomb to go off, for some little group to show up at his door demanding that their wishes be met if he wants to remain in that church.

This is a delicate moment in the relationship of Pastor Tom and this assemblage of deacons. The problems are twofold: the pastor does not see it coming and thus is not prepared, and the deacons have no idea what they are about to stir up.

It does not go well, and here's why.

Pastors and Discipline: The Plebe Life

You will know the name Jimmy Doolittle.

He flew those bi-planes in World War I for the United States, and then barn-stormed throughout the 1920's, giving thrills by taking risks you would not believe. He led the retaliatory bombing of Tokyo in early 1942, a few months after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. He played a major role in the Allied victory over the Axis, eventually becoming a General. His autobiography is titled "I Could Never Be So Lucky Again."

Doolittle and his wife Joe (that's how they spelled her name) had two sons, Jim and John, both of whom served in the Second World War.

The general wrote about the younger son:

John was in his plebe year at West Point and the upperclassmen were harassing him no end.... While the value of demeaning first-year cadets is debatable, I was sure "Peanut" could survive whatever they dreamed up. (p. 284)

Later, General Doolittle analyzes his own strengths and weaknesses and makes a fascinating observation:

(I) have finally come to realize what a good thing the plebe year at West Point is. The principle is that a man must learn to accept discipline before he can dish it out. I have never been properly disciplined. Would have gotten along better with my superiors if I had. (p. 339)

"I have never been properly disciplined." What an admission. It take a mature person to say that.

From what I read, I'd say Doolittle was not exaggerating. He was a man with a thousand strengths, but his few weaknesses kept creeping up and blindsiding him. Numerous times, even after he became a national hero, the officers in charge of his current assignment would ground him because of crazy stunts like buzzing airfields upside down and flying under bridges and endangering his passengers.

Prior to the Allied invasion of Normandy (June 6, 1944), the actual place and time were the biggest secrets on the planet. Everyone was sworn to silence. Doolittle tells of a general who shot his mouth off in a bar, talking freely about the invasion, speculating on when and where, even though he personally had not been briefed.

Eisenhower had no patience with such foolishness.

Let's Reform the Deacon Body

The most confused group of people in the average Southern Baptist church is the deacons.

They have no idea what they are to be and do. Depending on the whims of the deacon chairman for that year, they become servants or managers, program heads or administrators. Helpers or bosses. Activists or inactive.

The church's constitution and bylaws are usually vague on who they are, what they are to do, how they should function.

And, let us admit up front, Scripture does not give us a lot of guidance on this matter either. At every deacon ordination I've ever attended--and in a half century of ministry, that's quite a few--Acts 6:1-7 has been read. But there's not a word in that passage about those seven men being called deacons.

In fact, let's quit calling them deacons and start calling them what the name means: servants.

What My Mother Did For Me No One Else Tried

The list would be long. Mom gave birth to me, the fifth of seven children, on March 28, 1940. The boy born on March 25 of the previous year had not lived, so they referred to me as the fourth child. I owe her my life.

Did she take some teasing or even ridicule because of the rapid-fire way she was bringing children into the world? All 7 of us were born in a 9-year-span.

Lois Jane Kilgore was 17 when she agreed to marry Carl J. McKeever, a 21-year-old she had been seeing for three years. She was a farmer's daughter with a 9th grade education; he came from a long line of coal miners and dropped out of school in the 7th grade to go to work. He was the oldest of 12, she was the middle child of 9.

They surprised the preacher and got him out of bed that Saturday night, March 3, 1934, and asked him to perform the ceremony. There was no premarital counsel, no fancy surroundings, and for a time, no honorarium for the preacher. The next Monday, the coal miners went out on strike. An inauspicious beginning for marriage.

Lois had no idea what she had gotten herself into. Nothing from her sheltered, happy upbringing in the church-going farm family had prepared her for married life with that Irishman with the temper, a love for the sauce, and an unruly mob of siblings of all ages.

In time, Carl got his life straightened out, their marriage stabilized, and life was good. But for a couple or three decades, Lois paid a severe price for her determination to save her marriage and raise her brood of young'uns well.

As he aged, Carl became a wonderful patriarch in this family, revered and loved. He filled a room when he entered. He loved to talk, to tell a story, to read and learn and tell you what he had learned, and to work on problem-solving for the miners union of which he in time became a 70+ year member.

I grew up thinking he was the dominant force in my upbringing.

It took my wife to make me see otherwise.

I'm 95 percent about Lois McKeever. I owe her far more than I can ever know or say or repay. Here's what I mean.

Why We No Longer Fear

(A sequel to the previous article on Why Fear of Death is Not Allowed for Jesus' Disciples)

And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world. (Matthew 28:20)

The overriding, most awesome, absolutely most compelling reality of the life of a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ is His continuing presence with us throughout this life and on into the life-beyond-this-life.

How can we say this stronger?

The greatest factor in the believer's fearlessness is that "Jesus is with me." The reality that tips the scales for all time in favor of bold living and confident dying is the eternal presence of Jesus. Nothing else is so determinative.

I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. (Hebrews 13:5)

As a result of this promise from our Lord, found in both the Old and New Testaments, we "may boldly say, the Lord is my Helper and I will not be afraid" (Hebrews 13:6).

Bold living, confident proclaiming, sweet testimony, and assured dying. That is the plan. That is what Jesus Christ feels He has a right to expect of every disciple.

Throughout Scripture, the Lord had the same answer--almost like a broken record if you remember what that was--to every excuse from those whom He called into His service: I will be with you. This was His panacea, His answer for everything.

It's all through the Word....

Fear of Dying? Not Allowed!

I'm sorry, followers of Jesus Christ. The one thing you are not allowed in this life--and certainly not the next--is fear of death. It's verboten, off limits, taboo.

Fearing death ranks first as the ultimate insult to the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is unbelief of the first order.

Death was the biggest gun in Satan's arsenal when the enemy's forces trotted it out on that Passover Eve on a hill outside Jerusalem's walls. This Jesus Person would be dispensed with once and for all.

For a few awful hours, it appeared the diabolical plan had succeeded.

Jesus was dead. Really dead.

Then, on that never-to-be-forgotten Lord's Day morning, the tomb was found to be empty and reports began popping up that Jesus was appearing to His followers. The disciples, who had been ready to give up and go home and deal with their dashed hopes and the Galilean's embarrassing claims, suddenly were energized and "shot from cannons" as they blanketed the world with the news: Jesus is alive!

If He was alive, everything else had changed for all time.

That was the point.

Opponents and critics, eager to find holes and loopholes and potholes in the Christian message, rush to inform us that one man's death and even His resurrection, if indeed there was one, changes little.

They miss the point.

The Pastor Who Needs a Friend Most

I'm on this "the preacher needs a buddy" kick in this week's articles. Obviously, not everyone agrees. Some are offended by the thought, as though we're suggesting that Jesus is not enough.

I'm not suggesting it. I'm saying it.

Well, to be precise, what I'm saying is: One of the primary ways the Lord works in your (and my) life is through other people. And He has chosen not to alter that system even for the most spiritual, most mature, and most godly.

How's that? Clear enough.

The pastor (an all-encompassing term in my lexicon which refers to ministers, missionaries, shepherds, church staffers) who tries to go it alone in ministry is choosing to walk with a limp, to work with one hand behind him, to limit his effectiveness, and to let a large part of his personality atrophy.

On the other hand....

When a minister climbs out of his shell and reaches out to befriend two or three colleagues in the Lord's work, when he makes friends of others called into this service, at least 12 things happen, all of them good.

The Number One Failure of 90 Percent of Pastors

The four-year-old who says, "I can do it by myself" has a lot in common with the typical pastor.

Pastors are notorious for their lone ranger approach to ministry. It's what I call the number one failure of 90 percent of pastors. They prefer to go it alone.

Even Jesus needed a buddy. "He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, 'So, you men could not keep watch with me for one hour?'" (Matthew 26:40)

Sometimes it helps to have someone nearby, praying, loving, caring, even hurting with you.

The word paracletos from John 16:7 is translated "Comforter" and "Helper" in most Bible versions. The literal meaning is "one called alongside," the usual idea being that the Holy Spirit is our Comforting Companion, a true Friend in need. And each time that word is found in the New Testament--John 14:16,20; 15:26; 16:7; and I John 2:1--it always refers to the Lord.

However, here's something important.

Seeking Approval

Thursday of last week was the National Day of Prayer throughout America. The towns I drove through seemed to be making quite a deal of it.

Several pastors whose stuff I read, however, seemed worried that this might be the last such day. They fear President Obama might not authorize such an official observance in the future. They worry about that.

And that stuns me into silence. Well, almost. But not quite.

It ranks alongside the uppance of my dander when I read that Nashville's Vanderbilt University is requiring campus religious organizations to allow anyone of any beliefs or no beliefs to hold leadership positions. (Note: all I know on this issue is what I read in www.bpnews.net. This is the Baptist Press's website.)

What in the world is going on here, I wonder. Have we (they) lost our sanity?

10 Insights About Your Church's Fellowship

And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayers.... So continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people (Acts 2:42-47).

When a church of 120 members set out to assimilate 3,000 new additions into the life of the congregation, they ranked "fellowship" toward the top of the list as a critical step in accomplishing the task.

Koinonia is the Greek word. Literally, it refers to a sharing of life, or a partnership, which doesn't tell us a lot about what it meant in the followup program in the early church. So, in the absence of anything definitive from Scripture on the precise meaning of the term, I submit for your consideration my own definition: Hanging out.

The "fellowship" quotient of a church--whether the members love the Lord and one another--is one of the most telling features of a congregation, one of the most dependable indicators of the health of the church, and one of the best predictors of its future usefulness in the Kingdom.

Here are 10 aspects of the fellowship of your church worth carving in stone, or better, engraving on the hearts of your leadership and membership.

Justice vs. Mercy: "Take Mercy Every Time!"

"All I want is what's coming to me!"

An elderly sister in the pew behind him said softly, "Sit down, Henry. If you got what was coming to you, you'd be in hell."

Henry was demanding justice; Henry needed mercy.

This week driving down Interstate 55 below Jackson, Mississippi, I kept noticing bits and pieces of pink insulation batting everywhere.

After a few miles, we came upon two 18-wheelers pulling halves of a large mobile home. One of the units was shedding, littering the highway. Bits and pieces of the trailer were flying from the open top and being strewn across the countryside.

I dialed "*HP" for the Mississippi Highway Patrol and reported the offender. The dispatcher assured me they would jump right on the matter.

They never showed up.

I was wanting justice. I wanted the cops to pull these drivers over, read them the riot act for the careless way they had secured the mobile home and for littering the countryside, and if they didn't issue tickets, at least force them to tie everything down.

I suspect this is a the way it is with most of us. I want justice to be done when it involves other people. But for myself, mercy is a better choice.

What Churches Could Learn From Restaurants

Recently, my wife and I have found ourselves in discussions about restaurants where we've dined. We enjoyed the food in each place and found the staff sufficiently friendly. But several aspects loomed large in our conversation, provoking me--ever the preacher--to thinking about how churches could benefit from studying what these eating establishments are doing, and what they're not doing.

1. I wish churches put as much emphasis on friendly greeters at the front door as great restaurants do.

Often they are teenagers, or perhaps college students. The kids are fresh-faced, sweet-spirited, well-dressed, and friendly. The graciousness appears genuine.

Have you ever walked up to an unfamiliar church and saw no one at the doors, no greeters or welcoming team anywhere on the premises? It happens to me frequently.

Are restaurants more interested in welcoming paying customers than churches are interested in showing hospitality to people coming to worship the living Christ?

Even so, sometime in the service the preacher or a staff member will give a verbal welcome. They will tell how much this church loves visitors and guests. But it doesn't wash. It rings hollow.

Take the business of having a handshaking, fellowshiping time in the middle of the worship service. If the members do not care enough to greet newcomers before and/or after the service, any attempt to do so within the service itself doesn't work. To a visitor, the only friendliness that counts is the spontaneous outpouring prior to and after the worship.

The most successful restaurants choose greeters carefully and train them. Managers monitor them occasionally and correct the greeters who are not getting it right. Furthermore, these young people are surrounded by a staff of their peers who will help them.

Churches can learn from this. A church interested in effectively welcoming newcomers will have continual greeter training going on.

The Sermon That Makes Them Mad

My friend J. B. was serving as interim pastor of the church and invited me to preach a four-day revival. On the final night, as I often do, I preached a message on the church. This week, many months after the event, he told me what happened.

"You really made some of my people angry."

"Really?" I said. "I can't imagine. What was that all about?"

He laughed, "They were convinced I had told you private things about our church. You addressed those situations so perfectly, they knew that was no accident. Their only explanation was that I had told you."

I said, "You didn't tell me anything."

He said, "I know. I didn't tell you on purpose, so that whatever God laid on your heart to share would not be tainted by my viewpoint."

It's not the first time that happened, I told J. B.

That particular sermon, more than any other I preach, has been known to send a few church leaders out of the services angry at me for sticking my nose into their business.

Here is the gist of it.

How to Stay Married for Fifty Years

Well, someone has to say it.

No one who is married qualifies as an authority on marriage.

It's no doubt true that some writers on the subject and professors who deal with this in academia may be considered such. But all the people I know married for any length of time have one overwhelming sense about them: Staying married and getting it right is hard work and cannot be done perfectly.

Taking two individuals who are sinners, needy, flawed, and still becoming whoever they will eventually be, and locking them into the most intimate of all relationships--then telling them it's for the rest of their lives!--can be scary.

Marriage is tough.

Staying married takes everything two people have to offer. Only the truly determined or the terminally timid stick with it for decade after decade.

Marriage is a relationship designed to reduce its participants to a state of eternal perplexity, complete inadequacy, and thus a daily dependence on God.

No wonder many are opting out on the institution these days.

In this second decade of the third millennium, marriage is becoming increasingly unpopular. People need a good reason for getting married, otherwise, they see they can have the benefits of a legal union without any of the obligations.

That said, for those considering it, we offer our list of marriage values that will take you and your husband/wife through to the end and leave you rejoicing that you hung in there.

Marriage: Ten Things We Got Right (in 50 Years)

Conflict makes stories work.

Write a book on how you succeeded with nary a mishap and made it to the top without a struggle of any kind and even your best friend, after buying a dozen copies, will lay it aside halfway through. It's boring.

But tell how you struggled, how you failed and got back up, how life handed you lemons and you made a meringue pie, and we will all read it and cheer you on.

Our previous blog told of ten mistakes Margaret and I made over a half-century of marital bliss. (I'm putting that word in there just for her, to give her a smile. There were blissful moments, to be sure, but so many of the bad moments, the times when you're so miserable you don't know what to do except throw yourself on the mercy of God and love each other by faith.)

I told a friend yesterday that, in retrospect, the good times in our marriage were like the Smoky Mountains, and the bad times like the Rockies. That is, the good were nice and pleasant, green and verdant and sweet. But it's the jagged outcrops of granite that seem to loom above everything else, causing us to remember those more than the other.

The first article was about the Rockies. This one is about the Smokies.

So, as promised, here are ten things we got right in a half-century of marriage. And so you won't wonder, Margaret and I made the list last night over supper. It's a joint project.

Marriage: The First 50 Years are the Hardest!

Margaret Ann Henderson and I were wed on a Friday night in April of 1962. A few short weeks later, here we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of that event.

Time does fly.

This Friday night, April 13, at the exact half-century mark, we will be dining in one of our favorite New Orleans restaurants with our two sons and our daughter, our sons' wives, and all eight of our grandchildren, who are flying in from various locations around the country for the weekend. Our pastor and wife, Mike and Terri Miller, will join us for the occasion, as will one other special couple, Beverly and Gerald Nugent.

Son Neil and his wife Julie have put together a notebook of photos which will be on display that night. (It feels not entirely unlike the kind of display funeral homes show for memorial services.) Margaret asked me to draw some kind of something for its cover. I've sketched in a few things, and decided on the heading at the top: The First 50 Years are the Hardest!

That's tongue-in-check, of course. But not much.

Has it been hard? Yes. Has it been wonderful? Sure. Has it been everything we expected when we walked down that aisle at Birmingham's West End Baptist Church so long ago? We had no idea what to expect, so that one's hard to answer.

Would we do it all over again? If we were smart, we would. And if we were truly smart, we'd do it better this time.

We made enough mistakes the first time through for several marriages.

The popular thing to write on one's 50th anniversary is a glowing tribute to one's spouse in admiration for her patience and perseverance and in praise for the Lord's triumph. I feel a lot of that. But I know also that few would benefit from reading that.

What interests people and benefits other marriages is learning from our mistakes. And we made plenty of those.

Here are our top 10 mistakes. (Well, the ones we want to talk about. Smiley-face goes here.)

Getting Comfortable in Babylon

In Stephen King's latest best-seller, "11/22/63," hero Jake Epping has traveled back in time to head off Lee Harvey Oswald's assassination of President John F. Kennedy. One of numerous complications is that the time-slit into which he's able to slip lands him smack in the middle of 1958, some 5 years before the dastardly deed is done.

Eventually, Epping, who happens to be a teacher of high school English literature, moves to Texas and takes a job teaching in a suburban Dallas small town. And there something happens he had not anticipated.

He falls in love.

He loves the small town, the people, the school, the atmosphere, the kids, and the librarian. Especially the librarian. And he arrives at a momentuous decision.

He's not going back to 2011. He'll stay in 1960's Texas.

Now, I'm only half-way through this massive book (845 pages!), so anything can happen, and usually does. But it's an intriguing thought. He leaves contemporary America, retreats into the America in which I came of age (I was born in 1940 and graduated from college in 1962, so Jake Epping has hit my generation perfectly) and decides he prefers it.

He likes the real butter as opposed to the oleo, the absence of excessive (and ridiculous) airport security, the friendliness of communities before everyone became paranoid, and the laid-back attitude. (Note: He does see and reacts to the Jim Crow laws, the harsh racism, and the way factory plants are polluting the water supply, and begins to address these in his limited way. Just saying.)

I'm struck by the idea of the time-traveler finding a time he likes better than his own and settling down. When that happens, his mission is threatened.

We who are disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ are time-travelers, on a mission in this world, with plans to report back home when the mission is accomplished.

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself (Philippians 3:20-21).

"I Want to be somebody!"

The other day, while we were awaiting our planes in Naples, a friend said to me, "You know, Joe, people spend the first half of their lives trying to be a success, and the second-half trying to become significant."

He added, "You know what I mean, trying to decide what kind of record I'll leave behind. My legacy. How will I be remembered?"

I've thought about that ever since.

What I said to him at the moment was, "One of our favorite SBC pastors, Dr. Frank Pollard, was once asked how he wanted to be remembered after his death. He stunned the questioner into silence with his answer. 'I don't want to be remembered. I'm just the messenger.'"

Frank's word set the gold standard for those of us in the Lord's work.

The issue remains, however, and deserves some thought: What does it mean to become significant in this world? and how can I attain it?

So, the title of this piece is a misnomer. We're not actually focusing on how "we" can become "somebody." In Creation, God made us somebody: "a little lower than the angels," is how the Psalmist put it (Ps. 8:5). In redemption, God showed us the true value He places on us: "God so loved (us) that He gave His only begotten Son...." (John 3:16).

The question rather becomes How can I make a lasting difference in my world? So that when I depart, I will leave behind a legacy of faithfulness, I'll leave people who are better off for my having been here.

Let's make a list of ways to make a significant difference in this world.

But first....

Rescuing a Sick Church: 5 Principles to Keep Applying

Sometimes we have to enroll the entire school in the first grade and start all over.

Recently, when I had trouble in one of my ears, the E-N-T doctor prescribed, among other things, a bottle of pills with unusual directions: "Take 6 a day for the first 4 days, 5 on the 5th day, 4 on the 6th day, 3 on the 7th day, 2 on the 8th day, and 1 on the 9th day."

It worked, I'm happy to report.

My wife, who seems to know as much as most pharmacists, says some meds must not be curtailed abruptly.

Certain illnesses and conditions respond to simple, one-step treatments. Others require weeks, months, even years of medications and applications. In those, regular repetition over extended periods is needed for healing.

The sick church did not get that way overnight. Often, anemic, struggling churches result from the unhealthy teachings of warped leaders. In many cases, teachers have gone to seed on a pet doctrine and omitted altogether the basic principles of solid Christian living as unworthy of them.

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the sayings of God.... (Hebrews 5:12).

The elementary principles. Basic Christianity. The kind of stuff we should have been taught in a new members' class.

Sometimes we have to backtrack with an unhealthy congregation and re-enroll everyone in first grade.

5 Things You Can Do With A Sick Church

The church is weak and struggling. It's growth has all been negative, and only a few members are alert enough to even care. Rather than arrange for pre-needs (interesting euphemism) with your local funeral home, try these steps first. And, by the way, none need to be voted on. If you are the pastor, just do this. If anyone should object that you are acting without proper authorization, tell them the Owner of the Church ordered this. Or, you could say what a pastor friend said when he turned his church's fellowship hall into a supply house for the needy following a hurricane down here in the bayou country: "Who gave me the authority? This is a no-brainer!"

A sick church, if it's really really sick, will probably let you say anything from the pulpit, pastor. Only if there are still signs of life about will you get a negative reaction from what you do or say. So, if someone does protest, take that as a good sign.

Here then are 5 non-threatening actions you the pastor can take to fan the flames of life back into those dying embers sitting before you on Sundays.

1. You can get the people to praying.

Prayer doesn't burden the budget and no one has to pray who doesn't want to or see the need.

As with anything, some will respond and some will ignore you. So, do not expect 100 percent participation before you go ahead. If you do, you are putting a requirement on them they're not able to fulfill and setting yourself up for disappointment.

Go with the few who want to pray. And by "pray," we mean to bring yourself to the living God, seek His heart from your heart, submit your will to His, ask for His guidance in all that is before you, and desire only His glory.

There are numerous ways to get a small struggling congregation to pray. Here are a few.