The prodigal’s ten surprises

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“A certain man had two sons.  The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me.’  And he divided his wealth between them. And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country, where he squandered his estate with loose living….” (Luke 15:11ff.)

The story of the prodigal son in Luke 15 is iconic. That means it is typical, well-known, an accurate depiction of a thousand things about this life.  Understand that story and you know a great deal about how life works and what God does.

If you knew nothing more about God than how He is depicted in this parable, you would love him with all your heart.

You and I are represented by the foolish, younger son.

That son, the subject of a few million sermons and the inspiration of almost as many conversions, received a lot of surprises in this story…

One. He was surprised that the father granted his selfish request. Some lessons we just have to learn for ourselves, and the Father was a good teacher.

Two.  He was surprised that the father allowed him to leave.  Surely, he must have thought, I will be stopped.  After all, this is a lot of freedom I’m being allowed.

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8 ways to avoid calling the wrong pastor

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A news article on how to avoid buying a lemon when purchasing a car caught my eye. It gave the usual stuff such as reading the information on the window sticker, checking the maintenance record, studying the interior, the exterior, the tires, etc.

The thought occurred to me that there should be some equally dependable methods for churches when verifying the reliability of the new pastor they are considering.  Veteran workers in the Lord’s vineyard all have their stories of churches that acted too hastily, of committees that did not do their background work or leaders who made a pastoral choice due to pressure from some strong individual.  In each case, the church paid a severe price for their errors.

There should be some foolproof way to guarantee that the new pastor is everything he claims to be and all the committee hopes and promises he is.

There isn’t.

Sorry. You thought I was going to give ten iron-clad ways to get this absolutely right every time and guarantee that no pastoral candidate would ever be a dud?  There is one huge reason why that cannot happen.  To see what that is, skip all the way to the conclusion.

That said, however, there is much a pastoral search committee can do and should do in an attempt to successfully bring the best possible candidate to their church.

Here are my suggestions along that line…

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Looking for the fine print in the gospel

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While getting ready to face the day, I noticed something on the television.  An ad for “hair club for women” was running.  Photos flew by of before and after shots of women. Most had been afflicted with bare spots or thinning mane and the “after” photos showed them with gloriously full tresses.

Then I saw it.  Down in the corner the small print said, “Results may vary.”

Ahh.  Yes, indeed.  Results may vary.  The old “caveat emptor.”

Let the buyer beware.

The ad might as well say “these are not typical,” as advertisers are forced to do by truth-in-advertising laws.

Sadly, in our culture we’re used to such come-ons and slick sales spiels. No one expects the used car salesman to tell you why we should be cautious in buying this particular car.  We’ve learned to turn a suspicious eye toward the seller of the house who cannot quit raving about all its fine points.  What, we wonder, is he not saying?

Which brings up another point…

The fine print of the gospel

Has anyone ever found “fine print” in the Lord’s offer of salvation? Is there anywhere that we are told things such as:

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How to have a healthy church

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The books on how to build a healthy church are flying off the printing presses these days. Seminaries are holding conferences and consultants are finding fertile fields for their congregational therapies.

I do not have a set program on restoring the health of a church so much as a heavy burden for it.

I’ve served all kinds of churches and been used of the Lord to restore the health of at least two. As we all surely know, our Lord does not like to waste experience.

I’ve seen the damage sick churches can inflict in a community and want no more of it ever again. An unhealthy church can destroy the reputation of Jesus Christ throughout its area of influence. An unhealthy church perpetuates itself by bringing up a new generation of wrong-headed members who spread their poisons to other congregations.

An unhealthy church turns people against the truth and inoculates them against the   ministries of a healthy, normal church.

An unhealthy church sucks the life out of missions by cutting off its support of missionaries in order to keep themselves afloat to the bitter end.

A pastorless church asked me to come for a “renewal weekend.” Now, that term can mean anything, but the leadership was clear on what they had in mind.

They said, “We are not inviting the community to this. They’re certainly welcome, but we’re not ready to have a harvest time. We need to get ourselves straight.”

They sent a number of subjects such as unity, health, effective evangelism, and leadership in order to direct my planning.

Rather than the sanctuary, we would hold all except the Sunday morning session around tables in the fellowship hall. They would serve lunch at noon and refreshments in the evening. The approach would be strictly informal.

We met twice a day, at noon and at 6:30 pm, for three days, Thursday through Saturday, and concluded with the Sunday morning worship service.

Here is the layout of the seven sessions.

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How to discover your spiritual gift

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(This was first written in 2011, fifteen years ago.  Rather than update it, I decided to reprint it as is.  Use if you can.)

The host pastor welcomes me to the city and begins telling me about his church.

Half the time, the story is the same. The church is weak, they’re running behind the budget, they have a hard time finding enough workers, and the mood is generally poor. He’s been praying that the Lord would use me to spark a reversal of these conditions.

Sunday morning–our first service–I am struck by something at odds with what the pastor has told me. There are plenty of people there. The potential is all around us. But the problem is a great percentage of the people are not giving, not working, not doing anything but occupying a pew and serving as spectators and critics for what the pastor and the overworked few are doing.

This should not be.

God has so arranged matters in His churches that every believer has a job to do and a spiritual gift with which to accomplish it.

I like that statement so much, think I’ll repeat it: God has so arranged matters in His churches that every believer has a job to do and a spiritual gift with which to accomplish it.

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The greatest motivator: Fear of God

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“Who would not fear you, O King of the nations? For this is your rightful due. For among all the wise of all the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like You.” (Jeremiah 10:7)

Fear may be the greatest motivator in the world.

Fear makes the pilot do one more last-minute check before taking off. Fear makes the passengers buckle up and pay attention to the flight attendant’s instructions. Fear keeps the air controller attentive to the blips on her screen.

Fear restrains us from driving too fast or following too closely on the highways. Fear causes me to replace my tires before they get too bald, to slow down in school zones, and not violate that downed arm at the railroad crossing.

Fear drives us to take our vitamins, see our doctors, and keep making those insurance payments. Fear gets us out of bed and into our sneakers for our exercise.

Fear is a great motivator.

Fear of God is the best motivator of all.

Now, everyone has his/her own definition of the fear of the Lord, what it means and how it works. This is mine.

By saying ‘I fear God,’ I mean a lot of things, but mostly these three:

–I fear His power. (Take a look at the physical universe, then stand in awe of the power of Almighty God.)

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Why we must not assume anything

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The book centered around the year 1940 and all the war-related events of that year: Hitler’s invasion of the Low Countries, Churchill’s coming to power, Dunkirk, the Blitz, FDR’s election to the third term, and the isolationism in the USA.

I told the author (via email) of my appreciation for the book and added, “That year is also special because I made my appearance on March 28, 1940.”

After thinking about that a moment, I added, “But don’t think me old just because I was born in 1940.”

Later, reflecting on that, I wondered why I’d gone to the trouble to say that, seeing as how I do not know that author and don’t expect to meet him. Why was that important to me?

I decided it’s a personal thing.

None of us want to be pigeon-holed because of demographics or statistics, nor for preconceptions or ignorance. Just because you are a Southerner does not make you a redneck. Living in Mississippi does not mean you are barefooted. All Louisianians do not speak Cajun. All Yankees are not rude.

Here’s a short list of assumptions I do not want people making about me. Again, it’s just a personal thing. Readers will have your own list.

Do not assume…

1) that I’m humorless just because I’m a preacher.

2) that I’m idle just because I’m retired.

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Sick churches and what to do about them

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The late great evangelist Vance Havner, who never weighed more than 120 pounds in his life would be my guess, used to quip, “I’m the healthiest sick-looking person you’ve ever seen in your life!”

It’s not easy to tell the state of a person’s health by looking. That’s why doctors put us through a whole battery of tests. Some abnormal conditions are harder to diagnose than others.

Some churches are so clearly sick that a visitor does not even have to get out of his car to tell. The run-down condition of the facilities, the two-month-old message on the outside sign, and the empty parking lot tell you all you want to know about that church. Unless you are the invited speaker for the day, you drive on down the highway to another more inviting looking church.

Other churches may give signs of being healthy but have fault lines running through the interior of their relationships and operations.

A friend who read our posting on “building a healthy church,” and who himself has been wounded by an unhealthy congregation or two in his 20 years in the ministry, suggested we try our hand at identifying characteristics of unhealthy churches.

Okay, this is my observation from nearly a half century in the ministry.

What does a sick church look like? How can we recognize one when we spot one?

Any doctor will tell you that in a diagnosis there are non-symptoms which the medical profession is trained to find, then bypass.

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I’m angry at some preachers. Here’s why.

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You’ve heard them, I’m sure. Some well-intentioned but thoughtless man of God stands before a gathering of the Lord’s people and in urging us to evangelize our communities will overstate the case.

“Jesus told us to become fishers of men! He did not tell us to be keepers of the aquarium!”

Invariably, especially if the audience is made up almost exclusively of preachers, the statement will be met with a chorus of ‘amen’s.’

The only problem is while that may sound good, it simply is not so.

Jesus did not send His disciples just to reach lost sheep–He certainly did that–but commanded that we are to “feed my sheep.” In John 20, He gave that command to Simon Peter three times.

It’s not enough to reach the sheep. They must be cared for, protected, provided for.  Nurtured.

In Acts 20:28, Paul tells the pastors of Ephesus that they are to “shepherd the church of God which he purchased with his own blood.”

And here’s another one, the one that ticks me off.

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What little I know about fund-raising

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“…see that you abound in this grace also” (2 Corinthians 8:7).

This was ten years ago.  We had just finished raising $10,000+ to enable a retiring missionary couple to purchase a good used car.  Immediately, some began accusing me of knowing how to raise money.

Oh my.  What little I know about fund-raising could fill a thimble.

A young pastor moving his family to a distant city to begin a church asked me to advise him on raising support.

Someone suggested I write a book on fund-raising.

Not going to happen.

On the other hand, as any veteran pastor would attest, it’s impossible to log six decades in church leadership and not learn a few lessons on motivating people to give.  Some lessons were learned backwards–that is, by violating sound principles–and I have the scars as evidence. Either way, you do learn a few things.

Okay, then. Here are some things I know about inspiring the Lord’s people to give money for causes….

Pray. Make sure the project is of the Lord.

If it isn’t, no amount of religious talk is going to make it holy, make it acceptable, or make it work.  So, get your decision-makers on their knees and do not go forward with this project until you are convinced the Father wants it.

People prefer to give to visions, rather than to needs.

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