Joe McKeever

Do Not Assume Anything

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.

3) that I'm unquestioning just because I'm a Christian.

4) that I'm saintly just because I've been saved since 1951.

5) that I'm intolerant just because I'm evangelistic.

6) that I'm homophobic just because I'm a conservative Christian.

What Billy Graham Learned About Leadership

I have no idea where this page in my handwriting originated, but at some point I either heard Billy Graham talking about this or read it.

"What Billy Graham learned from his contacts with world leaders in all fields...." is the heading.

There are five points:

1) Leadership has its own set of special burdens and pressures.

2) Leadership can be lonely.

3) People in positions of influence are often used by others for their own selfish ends.

4) People in the public eye are often looked upon as role models even though they may not choose it.

5) Many men and women who are leaders in secular fields have given relatively little thought to God.

Who We Are in Christ (I Peter 2:1-10)

Everyone knows how the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, beggar human language telling us who God is. Synonyms pile up until we walk away with a list of "names of God" numbering in the hundreds.

"I love you, O Lord my strength. The Lord is rock, my fortress, and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold." (Psalm 18:1-2)

Scripture is filled with similar texts.

But, what is not as commonly known or considered, is that the Bible does the same thing in announcing who the people of the Lord are. We come away awed at the realization that in Christ, we are far more than anyone ever expected.

Take the first 10 verses of I Peter chapter 2, for instance.

vs. 2 -- newborn babes

vs. 5 -- living stones, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood

vs. 9 -- a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God

vs. 10 -- the people of God

Let's do two things here. Let's comment on what each of these mean, then walk through the entire epistle of I Peter and identify every similar expression of who we are in Christ.

NEWBORN BABES. We've been born again, we have become as little children, and we are to have the kind of ravenous appetite for "the pure milk of the Word" as a baby has for its mother's milk.

LIVING STONES. Each of us is a brick in the building of this house. Remove any one stone and it affects everything around it. Each is essential. In this case, Peter stresses that we are not inanimate objects without life or feeling. We are "living stones." .

The Pastor's Second Biggest Job

Like a coach, the pastor's biggest job is turning his team into winners. The second is keeping them winners.

I've sometimes thought the reason professional football is more satisfying to follow than college ball--and I confess to loving both--is that the makeup of the college teams keeps changing as players graduate. In the NFL, they can stay around as long as they're able to play at a high level.

But it doesn't happen quite that way.

Take the two teams everyone around here roots for, the LSU Tigers and the New Orleans Saints.

LSU will have to replace 13 starters who graduated after the 2009 season. That's 13 out of 22 key players. It's a huge task. Doubters should ask any college coach.

The Saints, who less than three weeks ago won their first-ever Super Bowl, making them champs of the NFL, should be in a better position, right? Maybe. Maybe not.

However--and this is the parallel I'm making with pastors and churches--no team stays static. People change. They age, they grow satisfied, they slack off on workouts, they want to enjoy the big money they've been making, they lose their hunger for great achievements. Their family demands grow stronger, they fall into bad habits. And, they become free agents.

A free agent in football is just what it sounds like: the player has completed his contract with his present team and is at liberty to sign on with a new team, hopefully for a lot more money.

Take Darren Sharper, for instance. He plays a defensive position for the Saints known as "safety." His main assignment is to cover the opponents' receivers, either breaking up passes thrown to them or intercepting the ball himself. Nine times this season he intercepted passes. Three of them he returned for touchdowns.

In football, an interception is a game-changer. The other team was moving the ball, gaining yards, heading toward your end zone. Suddenly, you step up and catch a pass meant for the other guy. Now, the other team leaves the field and your offense comes on, ready to move the ball toward the opponents' end zone. Anyone who can deliver nine interceptions in a season of 16 games you want on your team.

Darren Sharper is a favorite among Saints fans. Now, after earning around $2 mil last year, he's a free agent. The Saints will try to keep him. Some other teams will probably offer him big bucks. What will he do? No one knows right now, not even the man himself.

Cleaning Up the Police Department

This is not the usual kind of article with a spiritual message.

This is a report on New Orleans. Specifically, it's about the corruption in the police department and an FBI investigation that is busting this city wide open. Thank the Lord. It's been a long time coming.

Today, retired NOPD Lt. Michael Lohman pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice. He faces up to 5 years in prison and a fine of a quarter of a mil.

This is the Danziger Bridge shooting that took place on September 4, 2005, less than one week after Hurricane Katrina. The city was still in lockdown and a report came in to the police that there was a shooting on this bridge.

If you are familiar with the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary on Gentilly Boulevard, then you know the Danziger Bridge. You may not know it by that name--I'd never heard it called that until this shooting happened--but it's a few blocks east of the seminary on Gentilly. It spans the Industrial Canal, and is parallel to the High-Rise Bridge on I-10.

No one is questioning that when the police arrived--driving a rental truck of all things--they shot and killed two men and wounded 6 others. Witnesses say the men were unarmed and the police shot without any provocation.

Every investigation until now--and this has been in and out of the news for nearly 5 years--has exonerated the cops. Now we know why.

What to Do When the Accelerator is Stuck

The Lion's Club calls him the tail-twister. In the locker room, he's referred to as a sparkplug.

In the church, he's the accelerator.

He's the guy--or she's the one--who wants to "get this show on the road," who builds a fire under everyone else, who pushes the leaders.

Every organization needs a few of those.

Nothing of what follows is meant to diminish the importance of those church members who are never satisfied with the status quo but want to make a lasting difference for Jesus' sake. Every church should be blessed with a few.

However, as the Toyota Motor Company (or whatever it's official name happens to be) has learned the hard way, an accelerator needs to be under strong controls.

An accelerator that "sticks" causes crashes. Crashes cause deaths.

I sat in the waiting room of my Toyota dealer for an hour last week while the service man made some small adjustment to the accelerator of my Camry. It was part of a several-million-car recall that is turning the automobile business upside down these days. Nearly 40 deaths have been attributed to gas pedals sticking, causing the car to speed ahead uncontrollably.

My wife and I had a disagreement that morning. She vows that she was riding with me once when the pedal stuck on this car. I reply that I would have remembered that, but I don't. She refused to budge. So, I called the car dealer and they told me to bring it in. No waiting, no cost, a simple thing. My wife has peace of mind, and frankly, so do I. Sometimes a wife has to insist on something to get her husband to act.

My wife was my accelerator, you might say.

From time to time, I have seen the work of accelerators in churches. Sometimes, they do a great job. And sometimes, they are missing the controls that will safeguard the congregation and staff from their get-out-of-my-way attitude.

Not long ago, for instance....

How to Lead A Parade

What I call my "New Orleans Sermon" goes like this: In order to start a parade (a movement of some kind that catches on and makes a lasting difference), four things should be kept in mind:

--someone has to be first. This is the person of vision.

--someone has to follow. Getting people to buy into your vision is not a simple thing.

--parades tend to fizzle. So they must be constantly renewed.

--the object is to finish strong. The leader must keep his eye on the prize, and not be sidetracked, deterred or detoured.

Let's focus on the first of these: "In starting a parade, someone has to be first."

I'm thinking of a number of movements (that is, parades) that make our point.

Global Maritime Ministries, a work with seafarers and port workers for the New Orleans riverfront, grew out of the vision of John Vandercook nearly 50 years ago.

Baptist Crossroads Ministries, building homes for the poor of the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, grew out of a vision of David Crosby, pastor of the FBC of N.O. I was sitting beside him the very moment that happened.

The Southern Baptist Convention's "Disaster Relief Ministry," which is led and administered through our North American Mission Board, got its start through Bob somebody-or-other who directed the Baptist Men's work for the BGCT (Baptist General Convention of Texas) in the 1960s. Today, the SBC DR work has 1,000 units all across the country, ready to respond to emergencies in a moment.

And another, which is not a religious work but which we all treasure and which makes the point very well, is the Adopt-a-Highway program. It got its start in Tyler, Texas, one day in 1984 when a DOT engineer named James Evans grew concerned over trash blowing out of the pickup in front of him. Today, that program is in 49 states and a number of foreign countries.

You want to start a parade? You have an idea for a movement that could make a real difference in people's lives? Excellent. Good for you. Let's talk about that.

But first, let me tell you about Harlan Proctor.

In Praise of Small Churches

With a few exceptions, all churches were small at one time. They began with a handful of people and went forward from there. Some grew a great deal and are still expanding, some grew a little and leveled off, while some failed to grow at all.

If most of the churches in America of all denominations are small--and in my mind, that means 100 or less in attendance--then several things are true.

--In the words of Lincoln about common folk, "God must have loved them; He made so many of them."

--Small churches must be doing something right or people would not keep attending them.

--The "bigness culture" that is so dominant in American life has dumped a burdensome load of guilt on these small congregations. "If you're so good, why aren't you big?" seems to be the mantra.

--For every book celebrating the small church, there are a hundred telling them how to leave smallness behind and become "great."

Someone should put in a good word for small churches. Think I'll give it a try.

How to Spot a Sick Church

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 sparcity of vehicles in the 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 give signs of being healthy but have fault lines running through the interior of their relationships and operations.

A friend who read our earlier 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.

Nothing that follows is the result of any scientific polling or in-depth studies. As with almost everything on this blog, 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?

The Bible Speaks on the Bible (I Peter 1:22-2:3)

It's not that we think the Apostle Peter sat down one day and said, "I believe I will write something for the Bible."

He most definitely did not say, "I believe I will write the Word of God."

In fact, most likely he did not even decide, "I shall now write something of lasting benefit for the church."

All the epistles seem to have addressed particular situations being faced by certain Christians at the time of the writing. The apostles were telling how to deal with opposition, temptation, inner conflict, false teachers, and such. The counsel they ended up delivering was so solid that over the years God's people elevated them to the status of scripture.

How they came to be part of the Bible itself is a subject for another day. Today, the issue is what the Apostle Peter said about God's Word in the portion of Scripture which we also call "God's Word."

One more word about that.

To call something "God's Word" does not mean we believe God dropped it out of Heaven full-grown with no human instrumentation any more than calling a preacher "God's Man" means we think he was immaculately conceived in some celestial vacuum somewhere.

God uses people to get His message to others.

In the passage before us are four great uses of the Word of God, as revealed in that Word.

Building a Healthy Church

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--and precious little expertise, probably--on restoring the health of a church so much as I have 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 you surely know, the Lord never likes 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 overtures and 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.

Recently, 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 me a number of subjects such as unity, health, effective evangelism, and leadership in order to guide my prayers and planning.

Rather than the sanctuary, we would hold all but the Sunday morning session around tables in the fellowship hall. They would serve lunch at noon and refreshments in the evening. The attire and 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 service.

I'm not going to try to encapsulate here what we covered in seven sessions, except to lay out the general plan. My heart's desire, you will not be surprised to learn, is for three or four more churches to invite me to do something similar. I'd like to do this until I get the hang of it, working the rough edges off the material, and then turn it into something of lasting benefit to other churches.

Here is the layout of the seven sessions.

The Worst Command? (I Peter 1:14-16)

If there is a command in Scripture guaranteed to offend the "modern mind of man" and set off a stubborn inner resistance that is determined to hold its ground and cede nothing, it's this: Be holy.

"As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.

"But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do,

"For it is written, 'Be holy, because I am holy.'" (I Peter 1:14-16)

The apostle is clearly quoting Scripture. Somewhere in the Old Testament, God tells us to be holy .

He does, in many places, actually. Leviticus chapter 11, for example.

"I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy." (11:44)

"I am the Lord who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore, be holy for I am holy." (11:45)

What is the most important principle of Bible interpretation, class? Right. "Establish the context."

The context makes it clear that the Lord has in mind His people shall be "a cut above" the surrounding population. They are to be "otherwise," "the great exception," what the KJV calls "a peculiar people." Different from the rest. Standing out from the clutter.

Verses that surround Leviticus 11:44-45 make this clear. The Lord's people were not to eat certain animals. "Do not make yourselves unclean by any of them or be made unclean by them." (11:43)

We are to be clean.

Yesterday, I walked into the ICU at Tulane Medical Center to see a friend who had had a stroke this weekend. I would not have been surprised to see him sedated and with tubes everywhere. Instead, he was sitting up in the bed and on the phone. He greeted me heartily and said, "What are you doing here?"

I said, "That's my line. You're clearly not sick." He said, "The only thing wrong with me right now is I need a bath." He had been 4 days without one.

The small blood clot that had attacked his brain, shutting down the use of the left side of his body, had dissolved, he said. The medical staff planned to release him later in the day.

Before we prayed, I asked, "What can I get for you--other than a bath?"

Not everyone misses cleanliness. In ignoring their unwashed state, they reveal a great deal about themselves.

Here's a paragraph from John Steinbeck's "Once There Was a War," a collection of his war correspondent dispatches.

Words to Avoid in the Ministry

I stood in front of the class of seminary students and said, "Here are two words which I'd like to suggest you completely remove from your vocabulary. Do not ever, ever use them in conversations with people or in sermons."

"People who do not know these words will misunderstand them and the result will not be good."

I could almost have saved my breath. It turned out most had never heard of these words. So, perhaps I did them no favor by a) introducing them to these words and b) then suggesting they never use them.

Isn't this like telling someone not to think about pink elephants for the next 10 minutes?

The forbidden words are "succor" and "niggardly."

These are good words with solid meanings and excellent pedigrees, but they can get you in a ton of trouble.

Cartoons: Saints Win!

Once They Had This Super Bowl and...

(Tweaked for second time Monday afternoon 5 pm)

We are about to see just how bad New Orleans parties when it really tries.

All that Mardi Gras stuff they can do with one hand. But winning the NFC conference, going to the Super Bowl, and then winning the thing--that is worth celebrating.

Being a Baptist, I'll not be celebrating, of course. But I do plan to smile twice, one this morning and once Tuesday at the team's parade.

I hope you know better than that. No one is enjoying this team, this victory, and this phenomenon for the city more than God's people--all of them, across the board, of whatever church or denomination. It has brought everyone together (except for the Mannings, and I expect they will make a stab at enjoying the celebration; they're a classy bunch.), black and white and otherwise, old and young and of indeterminate age, Christians and Jews and all them others, longtimers and newcomers and sometimers.

No one asks for your credentials. If you share our joy, you're invited to our party.

Who Dat Indeed!

I must be dreaming. I sometimes take these afternoon naps and wake up wondering what day it is. Today I rubbed my eyes and thought I had just watched the Saints defeat the great Indianapolis Colts in the Miami Super Bowl.

Oh? I did? It really happened?

Incredible. Wonderful. Mind-stunning.

This one will take weeks to soak in.

What do the experts know?

All week long I got so tired of hearing the wonderful Peyton Manning lauded as the greatest ever, Drew Brees as "good but unproven," and--this one really got me--the Saints not having a chance because "they haven't been here before."

Think of that.

If going to a Super Bowl would automatically entitle you to an advantage the next time, the Buffalo Bills should have won the second, third, and fourth ones they were in. Instead, they lost all four.

The Saints won. The experts--and there were plenty of them--did not give our team a chance.

Saints won by 2 touchdowns, 14 points.

I am thrilled.

At this moment, the neighbors are out in the streets dancing to Fats Domino blaring from someone's speakers. Fireworks are exploding in every direction. And I don't mean firecrackers. These are massive, light-up-the-sky shatter-your-eardrums boomers.

Wonderful.

Why I'm Angry At Some Preachers

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 with that is it sounds good, but it 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.

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 set me off this morning.

In trying to motivate church members to get into the community with the gospel, the WIBT preacher* will say, "The Bible in no places commands the people of the world to come to church. It does, however, command us to go into all the world with the gospel." (*Well-intentioned but thoughtless)

That's so true, it's almost totally true. But it lacks something critical.

Think of all the parables Jesus told in which the king or a father instructs his servants to go into the highways and hedges and "bring them in." If that is not a word for the servants of Jesus, it is meaningless.

When we go to outsiders with the love of the Lord and the word of the gospel, we are to "bring them in."

Clearly, the people of the world are indeed to come to church. Our assignment is to bring them in.

The Old and the New: Striking a Balance

I stood at the front of the church and watched as the congregation was led in a full slate of old hymns and familiar gospel songs. Nothing that ascended from us that morning had been composed since the 1950s. My grandparents would have been right at home there.

It was the menu we are told grey-haired people (like myself) say they want from a worship leader.

That was one boring service.

I grew up on those hymns, and like most veteran church-goers in that church, knew them "by heart." I sang as lustily as I could manage while endeavoring to save voice enough to preach. But in no way did I find that song service meaningful, worshipful, or enjoyable.

The problem was the familiarity of it all. I could sing those hymns in my sleep (and probably have). My mind went on vacation while my mouth sang them. And that is precisely why singing them regularly is a bad idea.

"O, sing unto the Lord a new song!"

Anyone who has read his Bible much has run across that line before. To make sure we could not miss it, the Lord sprinkled throughout His Word. It can be found in Psalms 33:3, 96:1, 98:1, 144:9, 149:1, and in Isaiah 42:10.

In Psalm 40:3, David testifies that after the Lord lifted him from the miry clay and gave him firm footing, "He put a new song in my mouth."

We're told in the last book of the Bible, that in Heaven "they sang a new song" (Revelation 5:9 and 14:3).

Anyone see a pattern here?

I stand before you today with a bit of news that worship leaders across the land should take to heart: not every senior member of your church is addicted to "The Old Rugged Cross." Some of us like "O, the Wonderful Cross."

We like it because it's fresh, it forces us to think about what we are singing, and the tune is a good one. It's singable, worshipful, thought-provoking.

And the second bit of news is that the rest of the congregation can learn to love well-written recent hymns, gospel songs, and choruses.

But give us a steady diet of anything and within a few weeks, we'll be begging for mercy.

I once heard Rick Warren say that at Saddleback, they had found that after the 17th time a song was used, it ceased to be meaningful to those singing it. (Pretty sure 17 was his number; I'm going by memory here.)

New songs are good, but the old hymns are not bad. The ancient hymns should be taught to the youngsters (hey, they're new to them!) and used sparingly with the old-timers. And all of us should be introduced to new hymns, gospel songs, and choruses our worship leaders have discovered and like.

There should be no more worship wars. We're all friends here.

The problem is finding the balance between the old and the new, a constant tension in any entity involving more than two people.

Motivating the Troops (II)

I'm not quite to the point of suggesting that every pastor ought to subscribe to Sports Illustrated--that swimsuit issue coming to your house might not be a good idea--but almost. Every time I pick one up, it seems, I find a great sermon illustration or idea for a message.

The February 1, 2010, pre-Super Bowl issue carries articles on the Saints and the Colts. I bought it more as a memento, but will keep it for its account of the way Saints Coach Sean Payton inspired his team to win the game that would send them to the Super Bowl.

Football coaches are saddled with one of the toughest assignments possible. In addition to preparing their soldiers for the big battle--one that gets repeated against a new enemy every week during the warring season--they have to come up with a motivational speech or inspirational gimmick for that last minute burst of energy. A few pre-game or half-time speeches are legendary. Every fan knows about Knute Rockne's "Win one for the Gipper" speech to the Notre Dame players.

In high school, it's hard to do. In college, it gets tougher. But in the pros, the NFL, where every player is a multi-millionaire and many are celebrities with huge followings, the challenge to come up with words to inspire a team before battle is off the charts in difficulty.

We pastors are motivators--or should be. We can learn from the masters of the craft. In Coach Sean Payton, the New Orleans Saints have a leader who has motivaton-of-his-troops down to a fine art.

On Saturday night, January 23, Coach Payton met with the team at their hotel in downtown New Orleans. Twenty-four hours later, the Saints would go head-to-head against the tough Minnesota Vikings for the NFC championship. The winner would represent the NFC in the Super Bowl against the Indianapolis Colts on February 7.

For their entire 43 year history, the Saints had never won an NFC championship game. In fact, only one other time had they played for the championship, in 2006, a game they lost in a frustrating, frigid, snowy Chicago stadium.

The Saints were in uncharted territory. They had never been here before. Win this game against the Vikings and earn a ticket to the big show.

What would Payton do to motivate the team?

If I Could Go Back

If you're a pastor, here's an interesting game to play. And that's all it can be, unfortunately--a game.

If you could go back to the churches you have served, what would you do differently?

I'm always intrigued by those who say, "If I could live my life over, I wouldn't change a thing." I think, "What? You never made a mistake? Never really blew it? Never did anything stupid?"

We all did, let's face it. And surely, if we went back and knew what we know now, we would do many, many things differently.

Here's my take on this subject.

The first church I served was a tiny congregation 25 miles north of Birmingham, Alabama. It was my first attempt at preaching and pastoring and I did poorly, I'm afraid. The good folks at Unity Baptist Church of Kimberly, Alabama, were patient with me for the 14 months I served them. At the end of that time, I resigned and for 6 months served as part-time associate pastor of Central Baptist Church in Tarrant, Alabama. We were living in Tarrant and I worked down the street from the church at the cast iron pipe plant as secretary to the production manager.

If I could do the 14 months over at Unity, the one thing I would do is seek out a mentor.

The Big Picture (I Peter chapter 1)

For reasons that escape me now, I Peter was the first book of the Bible I decided to preach through as a 22-year-old in my first pastorate. I had graduated with a college degree in history with zero preparation for leading a church or preparing and delivering sermons.

It would be interesting to know why any first-time pastor chooses a particular book as his first to preach through.

My guess is it had to do with all the fascinating concepts the Apostle Peter addresses in the opening chapter: our chosenness, our inheritance, our living hope, secure faith, continuing love. But, just as likely, it was the solidness of Peter's tributes to the precious blood of Jesus and word of God in this first chapter.

The problem in preaching verse by verse over an extended period is that we tend to lose the big picture. A pastor friend once spent two years preaching through I John. I thought then and think now that must have been excruciating to his members. How they must have longed for a sermon from the life of Jesus or one of the famous Old Testament stories. Surely, the pastor filled out their diet with some variety now and then, but I seem to recall he didn't.

Google a destination on the internet and you'll find the map has a feature allowing you to zoom in and zoom out. You can locate the street address, but you can also back off and see where you're going in relation to other cities and states.

It's good to do that in Bible study sometime. Let's do that just now with the first chapter of I Peter.

Peter to his weary audience: "You're having a tough time of it just now. The world is coming at you from every side. You are being persecuted and harassed for no other reason than that you are following Jesus, the best thing that ever happened to you."

"You're wondering where is God, why this is happening, why you of all people, what good can possibly come from all this, and what God wants you to do now."

Briefly, here is Peter's response.