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You Know You're Called to This Work When....

My pastor friend was about to conduct the most difficult funeral of his nearly-20 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.

The Congregation's 10 Commandments of Preaching

In the absence of a union of Pew-Sitting Sermon-Hearing Church Goers (PSSHCG) to let pastors know how the congregation is receiving their sermons, we are hereby taking it upon ourselves to act on their behalf.

There being no PSSHCG union, sermon listeners usually resort to anonymous letters, hurried conferences in the foyer before and after worship, and murmuring in order to express their opinion of the preaching in their church. Such protests are frowned upon by pastors (with good reason), but with no acceptable way of registering their concern, sermon-listeners often have no other recourse but the anonymous letter, the quick foyer conference, or murmuring.

Until such a time as this group forms their PSSHCG union, we will (ahem) be glad to speak for them.

As the Apostle Paul once said, "I speak as a fool" (II Corinthians 11:21).

For what it's worth, what follows are the Ten Commandments of Preaching as felt by the men and women in the pews.

Romans 8 continues to bless.

Two or three years ago, when our denomination focused on Paul's Epistle to the Romans for the annual Mid-Winter Bible Study, I taught the book in several places and wrote a number of practical articles which are posted on our website.

The thing about this being Holy Scripture however--and not just the writings of one apostle to a church--is that it continues to yield insights long after one thinks he has plumbed its depths. One of the traits of God's Word is that it has no bottom, no place where one arrives and decides "that's all there is."

This book, your Bible, is unlike all the other books on your shelves. It's a rare novel that you take down and reread for the fourth or fifth time, finding insights which you missed the other times. With most books, you read them once and you're through. But, one could spend a full year on any one book of the Bible and never exhaust its riches.

It's that deep, that multifaceted, that rich.

If the Epistle of Romans is like a gold mine--and it is--then chapter 8 of Romans is like a mother lode, a rich vein, in that mine. You can find nuggets laying on the ground which require no effort from you except to recognize them and gather them in and put them to work in your world. Romans 8 is strewn with nuggets.

But there are also deeper riches in this rich chapter which yield themselves only to those who spend time there, dig down deeply, study quietly and widely and thoughtfully, and who wait for the revelations from the Lord, who after all is the true Author of the piece. Some truths are so profound and so well-camouflaged they give themselves only to those who meditate and wait patiently at the feet of the Master Teacher.

Consider, based on Romans 8, the following outline: What God Does For Us We Cannot Do For Ourselves.

Gospel Substitutes

Often on Sunday morning, I'll post something on Facebook to encourage pastors. I particularly love to encourage the ones who may be preaching to members of their congregation who despise them and are working to remove them from the pulpit.

I've been there, done that, in two churches. It's a lonely feeling, one you would not wish on your enemy.

Today my little note encouraged pastors to remember why the message of Jesus is called "good news," and to preach that.

That word was so elementary, such a no-brainer, that one might wonder why we said it or why it got such a large response from readers (aka, Facebook friends, many of whom are preachers).

Here's why: We pastors sometimes feed our people fiber instead of protein, filler instead of nourishment. I suspect it's not a conscious decision ("I will now cut corners on my preaching"), but something that develops as a result of neglect, fatigue, or discouragement.

Someone needs to recognize that this is happening and call us back to our God-given task of preaching the gospel. Again, you would think this would be a no-brainer. But I cannot tell you how many times pastors have told me they model their preaching after an Elijah or Jeremiah or Amos. One said his role model was John the Baptist. Personally, I don't see it. We are called to proclaim the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 1:16), and not to address every sinful failing of Washington, D.C. or whoever happens to be the current occupant of the White house.

Having pastored for over 42 years, and having preached the message of the Lord for exactly a half-century, I am well aware of those substitutes for the gospel that have a way of creeping into our messages. Here are several I've seen in myself and noticed in you. (Consider that a friendly wink at the pastors who read this.)

Questions You Will Be Wrestling With the Rest of the Way Home

Some issues never get settled.

Some truths never become fully known.

Some questions never yield their answers completely in this life.

That's where faith comes in.

We go with the evidence that we have, make a faith decision as to what the missing evidence is saying, then go forward.

Hope that is seen is not faith. For why does one hope for what he sees? (Romans 8:24)

Here are five issues you will never know fully in this life, and may find yourself struggling with (occasionally) from here on in. The fact that we may never know them fully does not inhibit us from searching them out and trying to know all we can. After all, these are the big issues of life.

Reforming the Deacons (17): "Teach the Deacons (and Other Leaders) to Welcome These"

When Henry was elected a deacon, his family was elated. When he was ordained, they were proud. But when his phone rang late one evening with a church member on the other end of the line complaining about the pastor, no one but he knew it. When he was cornered after church by a sister with a complaint about church finances, Henry felt ambushed. When he received an anonymous letter from someone claiming to be a member of the church with a serious charge against the youth minister, he was completely bamboozled.

Henry was completely unprepared.

He was learning that church members often see the deacons as a conduit to the "powers that be," as a safe way to register discontent, as a means of getting their concerns addressed without their having to go public.

But no one had told Henry to expect this or how to handle it.

In teaching churchmanship to deacons and other leaders, pastors should prepare them for the unexpected barrage that will be coming their way. They should expect it, learn to recognize it, and know how to deal with it. In time, with a little experience, they may even come to welcome the criticism, the phone calls, the anonymous letters.

Here is my list of unexpected developments leaders should be prepared to deal with. You'll think of others.

Reforming the Deacons (16): "Teach Them Churchmanship"

We pastors make many mistakes in our dealings with deacons, which is probably understandable.

In a lifetime of ministy, a pastor might log a half century leading as many as ten churches. That means he will encoiunter ten different arrangements of deacons--one per church--some good, some not so good, and hundreds of deacons of all kinds. The pastor who does this and emerges unscathed is a rarity.

Most pastors sooner or later find themselves facing one or more deacons for whom "servanthood" and "servant-mindedness" are not found in their lexicons. They are all about power and control, and right now this pastor is in their crosshairs and has been identified as the enemy.

Deal with a few of those and you will walk gently into all future gatherings of deacons.

I know they are few and far between. Most deacons are good and honorable men (and yes, women too, in some churches; but in our SBC they are relatively rare) who want only to bless and serve. But it just takes a few to create havoc.

One of the greatest mistakes we pastors make is to assume either that our deacons already know all they need to, or that they do not want to learn more. My experience is that a right-spirited servant of the Lord--deacon or not--wants to learn more, to grow more, to serve better.

Pastors should create opportunities to teach their deacons good churchmanship. Here's what that means.

The Business About Loving God's Law

The Old Testament is saturated with references on loving God's law.

Love a law?

Apparently it's such a big deal with God that He had Scripture-writers to urge it everywhere. The First Psalm, for instance, goes: His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on that law does he meditate day and night. And the 119th Psalm mentions the law in each of its 176 verses. We're talking serious affection for the law here.

Normally, in our minds at least, we substitute the word "law" with "the Word." Meditating on the entire Word of God seems to make more sense, and is something I find myself doing easily and often.

But love the law?

Until two days ago, the idea made little sense to me. But then I saw something on the side of the interstate that has changed forever how I think about that.

Forget Your Good Deeds; Remember Others' to You

I'm at the age where the Lord gives me small glimpses of Heaven.

The message on Facebook last evening came from a classmate of one of my sons. They graduated from high school nearly 30 years ago, so the event he refers to happened that long ago.

Matt said, "When I finished high school, I wanted to go to college but didn't have the money. You paid for my first semester and bought my books."

I have no memory of any of this.

He said, "But I goofed off and did poorly, and wasted your money." He was apologizing.

Matt went on to say later he got his act together, went back to school, and received both bachelor's and master's degrees, and is doing well in life.

He said, "Squandering your gift has bothered me all these years."

I assured him he had not squandered it, that it would appear the incident taught him lessons not available in classrooms, making it money well invested.

I added that I'm sorry he has felt poorly over this because in truth, I have no memory of it at all.

Later, I wondered if I should have told him that. Does he think he was unimportant to me? (I barely knew him even then. As I recall, Matt did not go to our church.)

A minister named Randy once told me something his father did. I said, "That is the most perfect recipe for misery I can imagine." Here's what he did....

How To Tell The Senior Adult is Still Alive

Today, a nurse visited our house on behalf of an insurance company.

My wife and I are taking out what's called "long term health insurance" in case either or both of us ever have to go to a nursing home. We're realists about this, and the last thing we want is to be a burden on our children, who will have their own challenges.

The agent had said the nurse's visit is to make sure we are real persons, still active, and not a few weeks away from needing to go into assisted living. Makes sense.

She was nice, asked the typical questions about our health histories, that sort of thing. Then, she threw me a curve.

"I'm going to give you a list of ten words," she said. "Repeat each one after me. At the end, repeat back as many of the ten as you can."

What God Did For Me. You too?

Yesterday in the church where I was guest-preaching, the worship leader confessed to the church he had a sin problem. "A major one," he emphasized.

And no one blinked an eye.

That minister was on safe ground, surrounded as he was by a hundred or so people who also had sin problems.

It was a typical church filled with normal Christians.

I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined to me, and heard my cry.

And He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; Many will see and fear, and will trust in the Lord. (Psalm 40:1-3)

This is a unique scripture. To my knowledge, there is not another like it in all the Bible. No wonder since it's as sweet and powerful as it's possible to get. (Get the impression I like this text?)

Those of us who came to the Lord at an early age--I was 11--sometimes say we have no testimony to speak of, nothing dramatic about the change the Lord effected when He saved us. Maybe not, but I'll tell you something we may be in danger of missing: In the life of any believer who has grown in Christ through the years, God has performed this very same feat, transitioning us from the bad to the good, the low to the high, the binding to the liberating, darkness to life. Life to death.

It's a continual process for as long as we are in this body and in this world.

I have sinned far more as a Christian than I ever did before coming to Christ. And, if I may be permitted to say so, the Lord has forgiven me for far more since I was saved than He did at the time of my conversion.

Time and again over the 60+ years of my Christian walk, the Lord has heard my cry, lifted me up, set me on the solid rock, put a new song in my mouth.

The gospel hymnwriter clearly loved Psalm 40:1-3--

"I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore;
Very deeply stained with sin, sinking to rise no more.
Then the Master of the sea heard my despairing cry.
From the waters lifted me; now safe am I.

"Love lifted me. Love lifted me.
When nothing else could help, love lifted me."

Three things strike me about this passage; three aspects to the treasure it contains, the radiance it beams forth.

Open Sesame Scriptures

As a child, I was enthralled by the story of "Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves."

This ancient Arabian story tells of an everyday working guy, Ali Baba, who happens to overhear thieves discussing their hidden treasure. He follows them to their cave, hears the magic words Open Sesame (our English version of what they said, no doubt) which opens the door, and follows them inside. There he discovers a king's ransom in jewels and gold. Later, using the (ahem) password, Ali Baba returns and helps himself to the treasure.

You can see why a child would love that story. It contains so many of the elements we all like in a good story: free gold, easy living, the bad guys are conned, and simple words that do wondrous things.

I don't know any magic words other than I love you, thank you, you're beautiful/you're important/you are smart, and please. However, in studying the Holy Scriptures, I have come across a few which seem to work like Ali Baba's door. We open it and find all kinds of treasures inside.

Here are a few such scriptures. See what they open up for you.

Reforming the Deacons (15): "Let the Veterans Teach the Rookies"

There were some 20 or 25 deacons in the room, men of all ages and backgrounds, some professional, some blue-collar. I was privileged to serve as their pastor and over a pastorate of nearly thirteen years, had only a great working relationship with them.

One night, a young deacon stood in the meeting. Something was bothering him.

"I'm wondering if anyone noticed what happened in the last church business meeting."

Silence.

"One of the members--I won't say who--made a motion that the landscaping committee be asked to spend up to $3,000 to redo the lawn in front of the children's building."

More silence.

"That's not right. That should not have happened."

The chairman said, "We're not quite following you, Tommy."

Tommy stood back up and said, "She should have brought that to the deacons before taking it to the church. That's what deacons are for. She was out of order."

In the stunned silence that followed, one of the older deacons, a storeowner downtown, a man with a heart as big as the state, said very quietly, "My brother. This is a Baptist church. The church can do anything it feels God wants it to do, and does not have to run anything by the deacons."

That's all he said. He said it sweetly and softly and solidly.

There were no more questions, and not one time in my remaining years in that church did a deacon try that little power play.

Older, wiser, veteran deacons have so much to offer the young, incoming men.

Reforming the Deacons (14): These Men Have No Business Being Deacons

Larry expects to be elected a deacon of the church he and Eloise recently joined. After all, why shouldn't he? He owns the paper mill at the edge of town and employs a third of the men in the church. His tithe is probably twice that of any other contributor. In any assembly of men, his voice is the strongest, his persona the firmest, and his authority unquestioned.

A word to Larry's church: Do not elect this man to anything.

Nothing disqualifies a Christian from being chosen for service more than a sense of entitlement: "I deserve this. I expect it. I'll be disappointed if I don't get it."

I'm no prophet, but I know what will happen if Larry is made deacon. Five things will soon begin to occur:

When the Pastor Becomes an Atheist

Jerry Dewitt says he is the most disliked person in DeRidder, Louisiana.

All he did was to renounce his Christian faith--he'd been pastor of the First Community Church there--and become an apostle for atheism. That's all.

Last Monday's Times-Picayune carried the story by Bruce Nolan (a good friend and longtime staff writer for the T-P). Apparently, the atheists and humanists (are these one and the same? or do they have trouble deciding?) were having a conference in New Orleans and Dewitt was in attendance, so Bruce caught up with him.

Jerry Dewitt was a Pentecostal preacher, he says. After struggling with his doubts for years, he went public with his unbelief (he calls it "nonbelief") last fall and has been unemployed since December.

He described his journey to unfaith to Bruce Nolan as "lonely and stressful." For years, he said, he kept a phony public identity, preaching doctrines he no longer believed, practicing a faith that did not work for him.

What were those doctrines he could not get past?

12 More Scriptures--Verses that mean a great deal to me

Everyone has his choice verses of Scripture, texts that grabbed him and won't turn him loose and have come to mean a great deal to him.

We posted 12 such texts from the Old Testament, 12 from the Gospels, and 12 more from the rest of the New Testament, and I thought that did it. Later, when another favorite verse would come to mind, I would think, "How could you have left that out? That's one of the all-time great scriptures!"

So, here we will have the final (I expect) list of 12 verses that we skipped the first time but shouldn't have!

1. Resurrection: Job 14:14 and 19:25-27.

In the middle of this philosophical/theological discussion between Job and his friends over Why-do-the-righteous-suffer, Job raises the eternal question: "If a man dies, will he live again?" It's a great question, one everyone wonders about. Every culture has struggled with this issue through all the centuries.

Something inside the human mind takes conflicting positions on this question: we want it to be so, and yet we wonder, "How could it possibly be so?" That is, we hope and we fear at the same time.

It helps to see that Job ended up answering his own question in 19:25-27. "And as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand upon the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God, whom I myself shall behold, and whom my eyes shall see and not another."

Don't ever let anyone tell you the Old Testament does not teach a hope of eternal life. We know better. The Jewish scriptures are saturated with insights and promises of Heaven and the afterlife.

2. Praise: Ezra 3:11-13.

The Week I Drew 1,000 People

Once when I was 16, I picked 350 pounds of cotton in one day.

I did, if you let me define "one day." Actually, I started at noon and picked until past dark. Next morning, I was in the field before sunrise and picked right up until 12 o'clock, weighed in, and went home.

What had happened was that Junior Romans' cotton that year was crazy lush, the soft stuff just falling out of the bolls, and I knew this was my chance to set a new personal record. A few days later, in agriculture class at Winston County (Alabama) High School, when my friends began boasting about how much cotton they could pick in one day--for the best, it was 200 or 250 pounds--I casually let drop that my personal best was 350 pounds.

The things we do for bragging rights.

People ask me how many drawings do I think I've done over the years. Children will say, "Have you drawn a million people?"

Not even close. In fact, I'd be surprised if I've drawn 75,000.

Think of it. A million is one thousand times one thousand. There have been many years when I probably did not draw more than a hundred or two. The last quarter century, however, I've gone about it seriously, and may have done 50,000 in this time.

Next week, however, I expect to sketch one thousand people. Here's how.

12 New Testament Scriptures That Won't Turn Me Loose

Having listed a dozen favorite mind-grabbing texts in the four gospels that define so much of my ministry, we come now to the rest of the New Testament.

Again, the challenge is choosing twelve. Why, Romans 8 or Romans 12 alone could yield that many great verses.

But, here goes.

Twelve New Testament scriptures that have me in a hammer-lock, a death-grip, a loving embrace, and won't turn me loose.

1. Fellowship: Acts 2:42.

"And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teachng and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer."

The church in Jerusalem began the day with 120 members and ended it with 3,120. That was one revival God sent on the Day of Pentecost!

The challenge for that little bunch of believers was discipling those new converts, grounding them in the faith, assimilating them into the congregation, and establishing them so solidly in godly living and evangelism that they could live for Jesus no matter where life took them or what circumstances the future held.

We get the impression the discipleship program they launched was not a formal classroom situation or anything highly structured, but was free-floating, fluid, and flexible. Their approach involved four activities:

--The apostles' doctrine. Without the New Testament or even the Gospels, the early believers had the next best thing--the apostles. So, the men who had walked with Jesus for three years now began talking about Him to the new believers, speaking of His works, His words, His ways. Unbeknownst to them, they were preparing for writing the four gospels.

--Fellowship. Koinonia. The word means to share, to have things in common. Nowhere does scripture define or describe what they did that fell into this category, but I think we know: they hung out together, sometimes formally--in ministry and classes and projects--and often informally--going for walks, meeting for pizza after church, visiting with each other.

--Breaking of bread. Does this refer to the Lord's Supper or to meeting at someone's house for potluck? Yes. Both. There's no better way to get to know a person and to bond with them than over a relaxed meal talking about great things.

--Prayer. Nothing bonds people like praying together.

2. Conflict: Acts 6:1-7.

12 Gospel Scriptures That Have Branded Me

This is tough, trying to pare down the scriptures that have nurtured me most faithfully over the years from childhood to an even dozen. I was able to pull it off in the Old Testament, but not the New.

The New Testament is the heavy weight, the major force, in the believer's life--in his study, meditation, doctrine, instruction.

A young pastor friend told me recently he majors on the Old Testament, he loves it best, and that this is where his sermons come from. I told him I was horrified (maybe overdoing it just a tad for effect).

For a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, the New Testament is "where it's at." The Old Testament is all about roots and background, preparation and anticipation. The Old Testament is filled with stories of God preparing His people, of symbols and prophecies and rituals all of which would be fulfilled in Jesus.

How odd to prefer the rituals and symbols to the reality and substance that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. We must never choose the Old Testament over the New. They are essential, priceless, and complementary, but the New is dominant.

I gladly own up to being a New Testament Christian. Nowhere else on earth do we find the story of Jesus. It's the only place where we are given His teaching and the doctrines of our faith. It's where we are given instructions for godly living and directions for faithful ministry during this period between Jesus' two visitations.

Focusing on the New Testament is not optional for a disciple of Jesus. This is our life. It's what we are all about. We must become students of the New Testament (and only then, a student of the Old Testament secondarily and indirectly).

Originally, I had thought to post 12 texts from the Old and 12 texts from the New Testaments that mean the most to me, that identify me, that have "branded me." Bearing out what we've just said about the New being more essential for the Lord's disciple, I've found I can't do that. So, what we will do is post 12 scriptures from the Four Gospels, followed by 12 from the rest of the New Testament.

Here then are twelve Gospel texts that mean a great deal to me. They are part of my DNA, essential aspects of my faith. Anyone running a spiritual autopsy on me would find that these are responsible for my backbone, my heart, and my vision. This I believe.

1. Persecution: Matthew 10:24-26a.

"A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master. It is enough for the disciple that he become as his teacher, and the slave as his master. If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more members of his household? Therefore, do not fear them...."

I wish I had kept every note from preachers and/or their wives who reported to me over the years on the mistreatment they had been dealt in churches they pastored. "Where is God?" some asked. "Why does the Lord let this happen?" "All we wanted to do was serve Him, and now look at what happened."

My usual response is to give them Matthew 10:24 and say, "The Lord told you when He called you that this was going to happen."

They say they'd forgotten it. Some say they had expected persecution and trouble, but not from believers. Once again, if they had read--really read, I mean--the Word, they would have seen it, expected it, and prepared for it.

After all, the one who betrayed the Lord Jesus was not an unbeliever, but a disciple who had walked closely with the Lord for three full years.

2. Disciple-making: Matthew 28:18-20.