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The pastor stood in the pulpit of one of our churches last Sunday and gave a perfect description of what stress does to a body.
"I was going over my calendar," he said, "checking on dates and places. And then I saw something that caught my attention. A month earlier, I had an appointment to speak at a certain place. And I realized that I had forgotten it. I failed to make that appointment."
Every preacher knows that fear. That's why we live and die by our calendars.
He said, "There was nothing to do but to call the brother who invited me and apologize. I got him on the phone and told him what had happened. I told him I have no excuse. I just forgot it. I hope you will forgive me. There was a long pause on the other end."
He continued, "Finally, the man spoke up. He said, 'Pastor, you came. You didn't forget. You spoke to our group. I distinctly remember what you said. You had just come back from the Southern Baptist Convention and you told our group why believing in the Bible was so important to you."
The pastor said, "I couldn't believe it. How could I have gone there and spoken to that group, and now not remember a single thing about it."
Someone reported that to me, so the next day, I mentioned it to him. "This is all about stress, isn't it." He admitted that it was, then told me of the circumstances that had filled his life with stress to the breaking point at that time.
Today, Tuesday, New Orleans' District Attorney Eddie Jordan resigned. There may be a few people sad, but not all that many. Jordan is the former U. S. Attorney who put four-time governor Edwin Edwards into the state penitentiary for racketeering, and was a hero to a lot of people. Now he leaves his office in disgrace.
What happened was this.
Jordan won election to this post after long-time D.A. Harry Connick, Senior, had retired. Connick is a white, one of the few Anglo office-holders in New Orleans the last few decades. If anyone had a problem with how Connick ran things, other than the usual gripes you hear about anyone in city government, I never heard. But when Jordan came in, he took over with a vengeance.
He fired 36 employees in the D.A.'s office, all of them white, then hired a whole battery of new employees, all of them African-American. He assured everyone there was nothing racist about that. Now, there may have been a day when an incoming politician could get by with that, but these days, there are laws against racial discrimination. I don't know Mr. Jordan, but friends who do say he is the kindest, nicest gentleman you will ever meet. Even so, it may not have occurred to him that laws against racial discrimination work both ways.
The fired employees hired lawyers and took it to the courts, and without batting an eye, the court ruled against Jordan. His office was to pay nearly $2 million in actual and punitive damages.
Jordan kept insisting he was not a racist and not guilty of this charge, and so appealed the ruling. The state supreme court ruled unanimously that the lower courts had done right and he was liable for the damages, which by then had accrued to over $3 million.
Meanwhile, as this was being fought in the courts, New Orleans became a battle ground for gangs and drug pushers and multiple overnight killings became the rule. The DA's office was never able to keep up with all the crime and most killings went unsolved. The public was outraged.
Occasionally, an assistant DA would get a conviction of some minor criminal and the public would howl again, wondering why they weren't finding the murderers and ending the killings. Jordan responded that he could only prosecute what the police department brings to him, that his people are not the investigators. But the perception was there.
Next came wholesale departures from the DA's office. Poor wages, heavy work loads, and bad public relations conspired to encourage assistant district-attorneys to seek employment elsewhere.
When the supreme court ruled that the DA's office had to pay the $3 million, Jordan turned to the city for help, insisting his office did not have the money. City Council President Arnie Fielkow said, "No way." The city is still in a crisis situation and needs infusions of money, he pointed out, and does not have the money to bail out Jordan's office. Talk surfaced about impeaching Jordan.
Then last week came the final straw.
Ladies and gentlemen, buckle your seat belt.
The market you are working in, no matter the kind of business, enterprise, or ministry, is not static. It's always moving, always changing, ever metamorphosing into something else. Conditions change as members of the work force transition and as leaders come and go. New products and cutting edge ideas are introduced and everyone rushes to get them, master them, use them, and then improve on them.
I'm sure there was a time when you could start a business or a ministry and do pretty much the same thing for the next quarter-century and have everything turn out well. The buggy whip industry seems to have been static for many generations. Then in the 1890s someone invented the horseless carriage and within ten years, buggy whip magnates were laying off employees and trying to figure out how to crank their Model A Ford.
Outsiders have no idea how rapidly conditions in the church office have changed. Take my experience, for example. In the 1960s our church bulletin was produced by a mimeograph machine. The secretary--or usually, I--typed everything on a blue form using a manual typewriter. If we made a mistake, we slapped on a blue correction fluid, then waited for it to dry. Spill some on your hand and you would wear it for the next two days. Printing the bulletin on a mimeograph machine involved messy ink, alignment problems, paper jams, and folding machines. Electric typewriters were around, but expensive.
In the 1970s we got copiers--but nothing like the one in your church office today. These printed one copy at a time using a form made up of two pages, the back side which you peeled off and threw away, leaving you one good copy--which proceeded to curl up and turn yellow. The church bulletin was printed on an offset machine, usually by a commercial printing company in your town. And you mailed them out to the congregation on Thursday, expecting them to receive them by Saturday. They were addressed using metal plates and a huge machine called an addressograph. Ask any veteran secretary and watch her grimace.
There is a sense in which an "association of churches" does not exist. Even though I work for one in an office inside a building with the name "Baptist Association" on the outside, in a real sense there is no such thing as an association of churches. All it is, is just your church and the one down the street and those across towns. Just the churches.
The reason I make this rather obvious point is that in our denomination there are church leaders who see the association as something "other" than the churches. They see it as a useless layer of denominationalism and thus a barrier to doing the Lord's work. One more hindrance to effective Christian brotherhood and meaningful discipleship.
Nothing could be further from the reality.
Even if you fired me and shut down our offices and canceled every associational meeting, you would still have an association. Because all it is, is your church and the one down the street and those across town. It's just the churches.
In the same way the pastor is not the church, the director of missions is not the association, and most assuredly not the denomination. The DOM, as we call him, is the servant of the churches, the pastor of the pastors, and to the degree we will allow him, our leader. But he has no authority over anyone, with the possible exception of the employees in his office.
But not everyone gets that.
Wednesday of this week, a friend from North Carolina who serves his association as its director of missions, the same assignment I have in New Orleans, flew in to town, stayed eight hours, and returned home at suppertime. In between, he saw the following: the headquarters of NAMB's Operation NOAH Rebuild and talked to the staff there; the Lakewood section of New Orleans and the First Baptist Church; our associational offices, where he met with David Rhymes our evangelism strategist; lunch at Cafe Roma with three of our young pastors; the campus of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary where he met with Dr. Ken Gabrielse; New Orleans East as seen from Interstate 10, then St. Bernard Parish where he saw the Chalmette High School and toured Hopeview Church which is now serving as our Volunteer Village; Delacroix Hope Church in lower St. Bernard Parish where he met with Pastor Boogie Melerine; back through Poydras and a tour of the FBC of Chalmette; a tour of the worst hit place in our city, the lower 9th ward, mostly vacant lots these days; the section of new homes on Alvar Street variously called Musician's Village and Baptist Crossroads; the Baptist Friendship House where Karina America gave him a quick tour; and finally, the Vieux Carre' Baptist Church in the French Quarter where he visited with Pastor Greg Hand and assistant, Greg Wilton. Then, on to the airport.
I'm confident he collapsed once he sat down to wait for his plane. He's interested in bringing groups down to help rebuild our city, and we wanted to be good stewards of his time.
At the multicolored Habitat homes on Alvar Street (and several blocks in and around there), I talked to several people who were working. She was from Chicago: "My husband grew up here, and he really has this city on his heart." He was from Berkeley, California: "Our company brought some of us in here to work." And Matt was from Seattle: "I've been here before. What keeps me coming back is the Baptists." (Really. He said that.) "I've never known such wonderful people with such great hearts."
Then, Thursday morning, the Times-Picayune ran a long article about these homes. Here are excerpts. And keep in mind, that what we call Baptist Crossroads, many others call Musicians' Village. Jim Pate of Habitat told me they don't try to differeniate.
Staff writer Leslie Williams wrote:
"On Alvar Street in the Upper Ninth Ward, the landscape speaks volumes about rebuilding efforts guided by Habitat for Humanity verses those of the free market and government."
"Brightly colored homes--tangerine, powder blue, sienna, and yellow--with porches and gardens line the Habitat side of Alvar from North Roman to North Johnson Streets."
"I'm just a consensus builder, that's all."
"Nothing wrong with that," I said.
"Then why all the flack? You'd think the church would be happy."
"My perception, pastor, is that they are happy with you, just dissatisfied with what they perceive as a lack of leadership from you."
"But I don't get it. I'm trying to get everyone together on the same page before we go forward. I like unity and harmony in the church. Who can have a problem with that?"
"On the surface, that looks right."
"Implying that underneath the surface, it's wrong? Is that what you're saying?"
"Possibly. But not necessarily. Things that are right underneath also look right on the surface."
"Come on, you're hedging. Get to the point."
"Well, sooner or later, you're going to have to take a stand. To go before the church and say 'This is what I perceive the Lord is leading us to do.' It's called leadership."
"You don't understand."
"What?"
"That's hard for me. I don't like to make people unhappy. Going back to childhood, my nature has always been to please people. If I could do something to make my parents happy, I did it."
"Pastor, I have some bad news for you."
All day Tuesday, a group of 15 or 20 of us who comprise the board of New Orleans Baptist Missions met at the Baptist Friendship House at 813 Elysian Fields Avenue for our semi-annual get-together. It's hard to tell who's a board member and who a missionary of the North American Mission Board; we're all on the same team. Dr. Wanda Lee was present. She's a veteran missionary of the International Mission Board and the executive-director of Southern Baptists' Woman's Missionary Union, based in Birmingham. Dr. Richard Leach and Dr. Jean White of NAMB (Alpharetta, Georgia) were present. From our state convention, Mike Canady.
Local missionaries Larry Miguez, Linda Middlebrooks, Kay Bennett, Karina America, Jennifer Fannin, Skider Chatham, Dr. Tobey Pitman, David Maxwell, and Freddie Arnold were on hand. That leaves president of the NOBM board Dr. David Crosby, Loretta Rivers, Dr. Guy Williams, Gwen "Miss Chocolate" Williams, Mel Jones, and me. I'm sure I'm leaving someone out.
We heard reports about the ongoing ministries of the Rachel Sims Baptist Center and the Carver Center, both located in the uptown area of New Orleans and ministering to inner city children. Larry Miguez is over both centers, with Linda Middlebrooks assisting him at Rachel Sims and Jennifer Fannin at Carver. They are incredible servants of God, pouring out their lives for Christ in some difficult situations.
Lots of positive things to report. Rachel Sims and Carver are providing ESL (English as a Second Language) classes for some 22 participants at the moment. They have programs to prepare people to take their GED exams. Puppet ministries, after school homework clubs, and discipleship classes. They host volunteers in their buildings--i.e., church teams from outside our area--who come to minister in the inner city. Director Larry Miguez reports that the centers are almost totally booked for the summer of 2008. With Pastor Kelly O'Connor, they've started a mission church at Carver.
At the same time, these neighborhoods are experiencing an unprecedented level of violence. "Why such an increase in violence?" Larry Miguez was asked.
Perhaps the nicest guy ever to occupy the White House lived there only six months. After his March 1881 inauguration, James A. Garfield, our 20th president, was assassinated by Charles Guiteau, described in history books as a disappointed office seeker. Garfield died in September of that year. As for Guiteau, what he was, in the words of Andy Taylor referring to Barney Fife, was a nut.
In his book "Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield," Kenneth D. Ackerman has written the most readable account of an historical event you will ever find. Now, I'm a history student (history major in both college and seminary), so I'm accustomed to slogging through the most boring books in order to learn about someone from the distant past. This book, however, is a page turner, and I recommend it highly.
Something recorded on page 308 jumped out and caught my attention as demanding a place in our leadership lessons.
Garfield's nemesis, the bad guy in this story, was an egotistical senator from New York State named Roscoe Conkling. He was a dandy dresser who worked out to keep his body looking sharp in a day when to be stout was proof of a man's success. Conkling was a ladies' man who broke his marriage vows regularly, his wife's heart deeply, and other people's marriages thoughtlessly. And he was the power behind the political machine controlling New York politics. Nothing happened without his say-so.
In those days, one of the most powerful political offices a president could fill was the head of the U. S. Customs House in New York harbor. Almost all foreign shipments arrived in this country through that port, meaning this office collected untold millions of dollars in federal taxes. Thousands of people worked under the authority of the director, and in the days before civil service, New York City political bosses took care of their people by filling those lucrative jobs.
Furthermore, until Garfield came along, the head of that government bureau was always someone the boss of New York politics, in this case Roscoe Conkling, would approve. This was the price the president paid for receiving the support of Conkling's machine. Ackerman points out that this would be like the governor of Virginia being allowed to select the head of the CIA or the Secretary of Defense since their headquarters are located inside that state. Yet, that was happening and presidents had been caving in to Conkling's bullying tactics.
Ackerman tells the story of Garfield's repeated attempts to get along with Conkling, to give him what he asked for, to satisfy his demands which seemed to know no end, anything to avoid a showdown with the man. Reading the account, you keep waiting for the president to show some backbone and stand up to this tyrant.
Eventually Garfield did.
I drove to Birmingham looking for Autumn on Saturday, October 13. Nope, they didn't have it. Then, Sunday afternoon, drove 60 miles north to see Mom and Dad, thinking they might be holding Autumn hostage up in Winston County. Again, nothing but warm sultry days and nights.
Friday, October 19, I flew to Washington, D.C., and found the first indications that Autumn is alive and well and considering coming south. A few trees were showing their colors and the air, while still on the warmish side, was fresh and breezy. I stayed 24 hours and could have stayed a year.
Saturday--yesterday--was election day in Louisiana. I voted last week since I would be out of town, and stood in line for 30 minutes for the privilege. Mostly, the election results appear encouraging.
We have elected Bobby Jindal as our new governor, and this without a runoff. He was running against a crowded field (12 candidates), but mainly against Walter Boasso of St. Bernard Parish. Boasso is a self-made millionaire and the state senator who kept the matter of consolidation of the levee boards before the people of this state. When the timid legislature refused to take the lead, Boasso went to the public via the media and the citizens raised up with one voice to insist that this foolishness be stopped. That's when a lot of our elected officials in Baton Rouge "came to Jesus," as my friend Lonnie Wascom puts it. They saw the hand-writing on the wall and ran out in head of the crowd, trying to re-establish themselves as leaders. We ended up with two levee boards, one for each side of the Mississippi. I once told Walter Boasso, "You are my hero."
But I voted for Jindal.
There's something about us preachers. Maybe it's in the DNA. It's one more indication of our fallen nature, as though we need more of those. Here's what we do.
In order to make myself look good, in order to impress you with my situation, in order to show you what a great job I've done at this church, I put someone else down.
The first time I saw it to know its true character, a preacher acquaintance had gone to pastor a downtown church in a huge city. He was always a let's-think-outside-the-box type, before anyone had ever thought to put it that way. He was an innovator, a motivator, a let's-get-'er-done type. And that's what he did at that church.
Within a year, he had that church packed to the rafters with people he had attracted by his unorthodox ways, captivating preaching, and bright personality. He was baptizing a thousand people a year when no one else on the planet was doing that. And he led that church to relocate, to get out of the concrete jungle where they owned no parking and to erect a great campus on the interstate where they would be visible to the world. He was a natural born fund-raiser and inspired his people to contribute millions of dollars--not one or two, but many millions--to pay for that vast acreage and the spacious state-of-the-art buildings. Everything he did was the biggest, the best, the brightest.
Most of us were understandably in awe of him.
When the invitations to speak in other places began to pour in, opportunities to tell the story of his church and how God had used him there, he saw this as an open door to help other pastors and churches to reach their communities. That's when most of the pastors of my generation learned about him. And it is fair to say that along with most everyone else who ever heard him, we sat in awe of his preaching and fell in love with his personality. He became a genuine star.
"When I arrived," he would tell his audiences, "that church was dead, dead, dead. There might have been 300 souls sitting in that cavern of a building, all of them waiting for the undertaker. They had not done anything for years."
Prior to his coming, the previous pastors had been status-quo types who could not see the vast opportunity God had placed before them. He didn't use the actual word, but we all knew those guys had been real losers.
He went on, "One day I asked the treasurer, 'What is this $60,000 doing in a savings account?' He said, 'It's for a rainy day.' I told him, 'Good lord, man! It's been raining for years!!'"
We all laughed. Great fun, good entertainment for the preacher crowd, sharp put-downs for the sightless leadership many of us in the audience were saddled with in our churches. It felt good to see someone go in to a dead church, weed out the do-nothings, and establish a mighty work of faith.
One day something occurred to me. With the nation-wide publicity this preacher brother is getting for the phenomenal work God has done through him in that city, with the acclaim that comes through resurrecting a dead church and building one that is attacking the very gates of hell, with all of us bowing before this preacher in our best "we're not worthy" manner, I wonder.
I wonder about his predecessor. Who is the pastor who served that church before him, back when it was "dead, dead, dead." And how is he feeling along about now? Is he still pastoring, or I found myself hoping, was he in his grave so he doesn't have to listen to this?
A new blog from Matt Branaugh at Christianity Today:
Off The Agenda: Conversations for Building Church Leaders is a blog where people in church leadership positions — pastors, staff members, and volunteers, among others — gather for discussion, where they encourage, equip, and prepare each other for the joys and challenges they face each day. The blog is a part of BuildingChurchLeaders.com, a web site devoted to equipping and guiding church leaders worldwide.
Check it out.
My friend John was a flockless shepherd, a pastor lacking a congregation. It's an awkward place in life for a preacher to find himself. Like being a lover without a sweetheart, a physician with no one to help, a teacher with no pupils.
"I have to preach," he said to me. "Preaching is everything to me! Preaching is my passion."
I said, "That's not good, John. Preaching was never meant to be your passion. Jesus Christ is supposed to be your passion."
Give John credit; he heard that. "Wow," he said. "I feel like I've been hit in the face with a bucket of ice water. Thank you for bringing me back to reality."
Personally, I'm not sure the Lord calls anyone to preach, as the expression goes. He calls us into His service to do whatever He commands. That may indeed be to preach the gospel in pastoring or evangelism, but as with my situation, often the specifics change. After 42 years of pulpit ministry, I moved into administration and the pastoral care of pastors. I still preach, but irregularly and in churches everywhere. Yet, I'm still in the ministry, still wearing the uniform, still heeding the Master's commands.
We're supposed to love the Lord our God supremely, first of all and most of all. Everything else comes next. Including a deep love for His church.
Now, just as my friend John focused too intently on preaching and possibly put it ahead of his loyalty to Christ, some do that with the church.
I was listening on my car radio to Wallace, another pastor friend, who was making an evangelistic appeal. He said something like, "If you are lost, if you are seeking direction in life, you are carrying guilt over a life of rebellion and neglect, you want to find new meaning and forgiveness and purpose in life, my friend, you need a new relationship...." At this point, I knew what was coming. He would tell the listeners about Jesus Christ and salvation.
But I was wrong.
I'm 67 years old, I've been a Christian since I was 11, I've been reading the Bible since I was 8, and I'm still making discoveries in the Word.
Everyone knows the two miracles in Jesus' ministry when, on two separate occasions, He fed over 5,000 people and over 4,000 people. In both cases, the menu was loaves and fishes, it was a miraculous multiplication of resources, every person present had all they could eat, and baskets filled with leftovers were gathered up.
On at least two occasions afterwards, the Lord called the attention of His disciples to those miracles in an attempt to make certain they had grasped the meaning and learned the lessons the miracles meant to convey.
In Matthew 16, Jesus directed the disciples' attention to these miracles. As the disciples prepare to cross Galilee, the Lord overhears them arguing over who was supposed to bring bread. "Why are you worrying about bread? Do you not understand or can't you remember the two miracles? In the feeding of the 5,000 with the 5 loaves, how many basketsful did you pick up? And the 7 loaves that fed the 4,000, how many baskets you picked up?" Then, further reinforcing that this is not about meeting their material needs, Jesus said, "How is it that you do not understand that I was not speaking to you about bread?"
And that's all He said. Nothing more. No belaboring the point, as I would have done. No haranguing them, no repetition of the lessons of the loaves and the fishes, nothing. He had given them the tools and expected them to figure this out.
So, then--what is the lesson of the loaves and the fishes? To find the same answer as the disciples, we have to answer the Lord's questions. In the first miracle, how many baskets of leftovers were picked up? Twelve. In the second, when 4,000 were fed, seven were picked up.
In the scriptures, the number twelve represents the people of God. Twelve tribes in the Old Testament, twelve apostles in the New. In Revelation, 24 elders stand around the throne, representing the saints of both the Old and New Testament days.
Seven means completeness or sufficiency. Seven days in a week, seven lamps on the menorah in the Temple, and so on.
Twelve baskets and 7 baskets: "Jesus Christ is sufficient for the people of God."
That was the lesson, and what a great one it was. The Lord's sufficiency for His people is found all through the Bible. We think of the Old Testament name for God, "YHVH YIREH," commonly referred to as "Jehovah Jireh," meaning "The Lord will See To It," or "The Lord Who Provides."
Think of the opening words of Psalm 23, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." Then, everyone's favorite verses, Philippians 4:13 and 4:19.
So, the Lord said to the disciples, "Stop worrying about bread. Did you not learn that I am sufficient for your needs?"
He had performed the miracles and sent the lesson, but they had not given any thought to His intended meaning for them and were no better off than before.
"I appreciate your coming by, pastor. There's something I need to talk with you about."
"Always glad to see my director of missions. What's going on?"
"I want to tell you a little story about a pastor I met this week. I was speaking at a senior adult thing at Camp Living Waters up at Loranger."
"I love that place. We take our kids there every summer."
"After my message, various ones were coming by to express thanks or to ask a question. Then, this pastor came by. He reminded me that I had drawn a cartoon for him several years ago. Of course, I didn't remember it."
"Anyway," I continued, "it had to do with a revival he had preached in another pastor's church. He drove a couple of hundred miles to get there, spent four days in the town doing everything he could to help that church, including preaching six sermons. And when it was over, he said, they gave him 75 dollars. That, and two cases of toilet cleanser."
"Are you serious?"
"That is exactly what I asked. He said he was. The cartoon I drew showed him hanging around the church with all that toilet cleanser. And someone is saying, 'I think he's waiting on the turnip greens.'"
"Turnip greens? I don't get it."
"It's the way they did things in the old days, you know. They'd pay the preacher in vegetables."
"Oh. That was rather cruel, wasn't it."
"It was. This man has a family to provide for, bills to pay, and a car to maintain. And they hardly gave him enough to buy the gas."
"And your point for me is?"
"I never thought of you as a bully."
"And you've changed your mind?"
"I just don't see what right you have to ask me to account for what I preach in my church. What business is it of yours?"
"Your church is a member of this association."
"Yes, and we are autonomous. You know as well as I do that Southern Baptist churches are independent, and that our cooperation with one another is voluntary. So, there's no bishop or pope telling us what we can preach and cannot preach."
"There's not now, either. That's not what this is about."
"Then what is it about? Evidently, someone has reported me to you and I'm being called to account for what I do. I'd like to know what that is, if it's not you acting like you're some kind of authority over me."
I took that in, and sat there quietly for a moment.
"Edgar," I said, finally, "No one is trying to tell you what you can preach. That is between you and the Lord, and, I might add, between you and your church membership. If they are okay by it, fine with me."
"I'm listening," he said.
"The question is whether your church will remain in this association. We have nothing to do with what you do inside your church, but we have everything to say about which churches comprise the association. From time to time, down through the years, the leadership of practically every Baptist association in America has had to make a decision about one of their members."
"About kicking a church out? Is that the point?"
If we define leadership as "influencing others toward a certain goal," then the field is as wide as the universe and about as diverse and varied as the people in it.
New books on leadership come off the press at an alarming rate. Whatever else that indicates, it surely means people are trying to learn how to accomplish the assignments life has handed them. Pastors, if anyone on the planet, are called to be leaders. Pastors--and by that I mean all ministers, not just the preacher--stand out in front of small or large clusters of the Lord's people saying, "This is the way; walk in it." (Isaiah 30:21)
Let's admit the obvious here: no one can read all those books, not and have a life. Don't even try. But from time to time, I encourage pastors to check a book out of the public (or church) library on this subject and read it. As with every other kind of book, he should read some of it to decide if he wants to read a lot of it. There's no point in wasting his time. Every book on leadership can teach something, even if it's how not to lead.
Lately, I have come to realize that what the Lord was doing in instructing His disciples over His three-year ministry was training leaders. He may have called them sheep, but He most certainly was not training them to be followers of anyone except Himself.
Scripture uses all kinds of metaphors and terminology to convey the idea that we are to be leaders of people in this world, for Jesus' sake. God told the Old Testament Jews that if they would obey Him, He would place them on top and not the bottom, He would make them the head and not the tail, and they would be the lenders and not borrowers. (Deuteronomy 28:13)
What could be clearer than that?
"What do you mean, you don't know the Bible?"
"Just that. I mean I do not know anything of significance about it. I don't know how it all fits together. I don't know how we got it. I can't even recite the books in order."
"A lot of people can't do that. I have trouble with some of the minor prophets myself."
"I'm serious. I've been a Christian since I was 11 and a member of a Baptist church for 30 years. I'm a deacon in our church, a choir member, and I'm there at least two times a week. If you figure a hundred sermons a year, I suppose I must have heard over three thousand messages. And I'm still pitifully ignorant of God's word."
"And you are determined to do something about it? Is that what brought you to my office?"
"Let's just say I'm not satisfied with this situation. I don't actually know what to do or where to start."
"What have you done so far?"
"Other than come tell you? I joined a Sunday School class. Everyone says that's the way to learn the Bible. But it didn't work for me."
"How come?"
"It could just be the teacher. Or maybe it's the literature. You know, it's pretty elementary."
"You know why, don't you? It's written for people who don't know their Bibles."
"Like me."
"And the poor teacher, trying to get across the deeper meanings of God's word to people who never seem to grow in their understanding--well, it can be pretty discouraging."
"You described me there. I'm like a fellow I used to know in high school. He came to school all the time, but never seemed to learn anything. He failed the seventh grade several years in a row, and finally, he just decided to promote himself. I figure the teachers and principal knew he would eventually drop out, because no one stopped him. So, when I was in the 7th grade, he was there for the third time. Next year, he went up to the 8th grade with us. And the year after that, the 9th grade. But he wasn't promoted to any of them. Then, one day he quit coming."
"And that feels like what you've been doing?"
"It's exactly what I've been doing--coming to class and never learning and getting promoted year after year."
Long pause.
"Anyway," he said, "I want to do something about this. I'm ready to change."
I said, "Have you talked to your pastor about this?"
"In some ways, he's part of the problem."
Bob was giving his testimony to some friends. He had wasted his earliest years in agnosticism and skepticism and gone through a painful divorce. When he came to Christ, his life straightened out. A few years later, he met Kim and they were married. He said, "One reason I believe in God is that He brought Kim into my life."
I can accept that. It might not stand up in a debate with a panel of philosophers as evidence for the existence of God, but it works for me.
In fact, I venture to say that most Christians have similar evidence of God's reality, incidents or blessings that provide all the proof they will ever need of the presence of the Lord. Perhaps it was a message at the right time, an experience like nothing before or since, or some person who came into their life and changed it. To their thinking, God was there and on duty.
In my case, one experience in particular will forever stand out as all the proof I could ever ask for that God is real. It was not the healing from cancer three years ago, it was not the various close calls on the highways--although there have been several of those--and it was not all the wonderful people God brought into my life over the years, as special as they are.
It was a deacons meeting in April of 1989.
People often ask me this when I'm speaking in other cities. I'm happy to report it's doing just fine.
In fact, today, Friday, I sat in Leavell Chapel at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and had a fresh update on the seminary's comeback from Katrina. President Chuck Kelley was addressing a gathering of students, faculty, and friends who had assembled for a campus homecoming of sorts. I arrived late, and slipped into the back.
Two rows ahead of me sat Dr. and Mrs. Landrum Leavell. He was president of the seminary for some 20 years from the mid-70s to the mid-90s. Prior to that, he pastored FBC Wichita Falls, TX, FBC Gulfport, MS, and other outstanding churches. If you recognize that his name is the same as the chapel--and a number of other places on campus--it's because his "Uncle Roland" was president of the seminary in the 40s and 50s. This gentleman hails from one of Southern Baptists' most distinguished families. I might add that Dr. Landrum Leavell added to the luster of his family's history. (He reads this blog, too, so I'll watch myself here!)
As we sat taking in Chuck's report, I quickly sketched out a cartoon of Dr. Landrum and the lovely JoAnn sitting in this beloved chapel. Above his head, the caption indicated that he was thinking, "I kept telling the trustees, 'Apres moi, le deluge.'"
You history students will recognize that as a line from France's 18th century King Louis XV who was predicting a flood of woes after his departure. I could see Dr. Leavell's body shaking as he laughed at my little attempt at humor.
After testimonies from students and professors on the Lord's care for them and their families through the Katrina tragedy, Dr. Kelley went into detail about the Father's watchcare over both the campus and the seminary family. He called attention to a handout with facts seminary-lovers will want to know.
During and after Hurricane Katrina's storm and flooding....
October 14 -- Community Baptist Church, Maylene, Alabama. Both morning services.
October 16 -- Golden Triangle Baptist Association annual meeting. East End Baptist Church, Columbus, Mississippi. 7 pm
October 20 -- Northstar Network (Fall meeting of the Baptist Association for the Alexandria, VA area)
Columbia Baptist Church, Falls Church, VA. Around 10:30 am.
October 28 -- First Baptist Church, Houma, LA. All 3 morning services.
November 4-7 -- Revival with 4 churches, Newport News, VA
You are a priest, you know. As a follower of Jesus Christ, the Bible includes you in what it calls "a kingdom of priests." (I Peter 2:9) Some translations make it "a royal priesthood." Same difference.
Now, a priest has two main functions. Standing between God and man, he represents one to the other. Facing God, he speaks to Him on behalf of humanity. Christians call that intercession. Then, facing the people, he speaks to them on behalf of God. We call that witnessing.
Intercessory prayer and personal witnessing are the two primary assignments of priests such as you and me in this world.
Moses is a good example of such a priest. In Exodus 32, he has to deal with the rebellious Israelites who took advantage of his 6 week absence receiving the Law atop Mount Sinai by creating a golden calf and then lapsing into a particularly debauched kind of idolatry. Moses rebuked them for their sin, then said, "Whoever is on the Lord's side, come to me!" (32:26) Notice that he is with the Lord, addressing the people for God. They are to get up and come to the Lord's side. Witnessing.
Later, Moses prayed to the Lord on behalf of the people, saying, "If you will, blot out their sin. But if not, blot me out too." (32:32) Intercession.
In effect, he said to the people, "I'm with God," and to God, "I'm with the people." He had a hold of both and refused to turn loose of either.
Recently while reading through Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, I noticed a strong word to priests. And since you and I qualify on that account as followers of Jesus, it occurred to me that you might appreciate this brief insight. Here it is, Malachi 2, verses 6, 7, and 8.
In Southern Baptist life, the associational director of missions--my job--is at the bottom rung of the leadership ladder. The churches in a county or parish, or several counties or parishes, are organized into an association--they do it themselves, however they choose--and then, if they have the money for a salary, they select someone as their leader. In the early days, they called him an associational missionary. When I was in seminary, the guy for New Orleans was Dr. Mercer Irwin, his offices were at the seminary, and he wore the exalted title of Executive-Secretary.
Most associations choose to call their leader a director of missions, or DOM. In Mississippi, they made it ADM, meaning Associational Director of Missions. The joke is they were tired of people referring to the DOM as a "dirty old man."
I've been on the lookout for a director of missions named King, just to see his business card or letterhead: "King, DOM." Haven't found one yet.
All the Baptist churches in a state organize themselves into a state convention, select a headquarters office somewhere, choose someone as their Executive-Director and give him a budget with which to hire a staff, then sit back and wait on him to lead them to do something. Nationwide, all the SBC churches form themselves into the Southern Baptist Convention. We put our headquarters in Nashville, turned the keys over to an officer whose unusual title is President of the Executive Committee of the SBC--that office has been held for a generation now by Dr. Morris Chapman--and go from there.
The odd thing about this denominational organization is that the associations do not comprise the state conventions, nor do the state conventions make up the Southern Baptist Convention. You would think they would. On an organizational chart, each is separate and has nothing to do with the other.
The churches make up the association, the churches make up the state convention, and the churches make up the SBC.
There may be another religious denomination organized like this somewhere in the world, but I've not heard of it. As the fellow said, "I'm not a member of any organized religion; I'm a Baptist."
He has been sheriff of Jefferson Parish since 1980. There has been no one like him on the political scene in this state before and won't be after. One of a kind. At the same time, the most frustrating bull-headed strong-willed character and the kindest gentlest sweetest strongest leader. Take your pick. No one was neutral about Sheriff Lee.
He was second-generation Chinese-American. His family ran the House of Lee Chinese Restaurant on Veterans in Metairie for many years. He served as a driver for well-known Congressman Hale Boggs before getting a law degree and entering the political fray himself. He was big. The gastric bypass surgery he had four years ago pared off a good deal of excess weight, bringing him down 90 pounds from a high of 375. But he was still big. And opinionated. And wonderful and narrow minded. Love and feared.
In a state that has turned out more than its share of political characters, Lee ranks up near the top. Since the deputies worked at his pleasure, he said, "That means they have to please me." And they did, otherwise, they sought other employment. These people hired for law enforcement sold tickets to Harry's annual fund-raisers which raked in large amounts of cash. Lee then donated money to various candidates he wanted elected, bought ads for positions he took, and assisted churches and community organizations. He then expected--and received--the votes and support of those groups. There was nothing subtle about this man. What you see was what you got. Like it or not.
I suppose he was a Catholic, not sure. In an email Monday evening from Robert Storey, the Youth For Christ worker in our area, I learned that Sheriff Harry had given testimony to Robert's wife Kathy--who works for the Sheriff's office--that he had found a new closeness to the Lord and a peace with God recently. He expressly asked that Kathy participate in his funeral.
Last year, Harry was found to be with leukemia. A tough kind of cancer, fast-moving, the type that moves in and kills you quickly, as we were made to understand. He spent time in and out of hospitals in California getting strong doses of chemotherapy and other drugs, and then was in and out of Anderson Hospital in Houston. He had a great weekend, we're told, even going fishing with his grandchildren. Sunday, he suffered some kind of attack, couldn't get his breath, and was rushed to Ochsner. Evidently, he went into a coma, perhaps from the medications they gave him. No one wanted to say to the world what everyone feared, that the end may be near. Turned out to be nearer than any of us thought.
The sheriff's office in this parish gets a certain percentage of sales taxes. Since the money does not come from the parish council, Sheriff Lee resisted any attempts from the council to look at his budget. He was not chosen by them, but elected by the people, same as them, so he felt no accountability to them. Therefore, no one on the planet that I know of, has a clue as to precisely how he spent the money in his office's budget. We're talking many millions of dollars a year.
Tell me if that's not frightening. And yet, even with such an obvious problem about the sheriff's office operations, political leaders in this part of the state were afraid of the man. They did not dare cross him. Now that he is dead, they will say the finest things about him--and there is much good to be said--but I suspect that a great sigh of relief has just gone up from all those who did not have the courage to stand up to what he did and what he would not do. He was the law. And I don't just mean 'the sheriff'.