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Not long ago, on a Sunday when I wasn't preaching anywhere, I dropped in on a church service not far from my house. A luxury of being retired from pastoring and denominational service is that--with the okay of my pastor--sometimes I visit churches led by friends of mine.
That day, I saw something that struck me as precious and extremely rare.
During the sermon, listening to the preacher and watching the interplay between him and the congregation, it occurred to me how finely tuned the people and minister were to one another. In fact, I had the feeling that I was sitting in on a private conversation between the pastor and his flock.
It was as impressive as anything I've seen in a church in years.
I grabbed my pen and jotted down the following notes:
Relationship.
History. (They have a history together.)
Trust. (he has earned the right to talk straight to the people.)
The sermon is one part of a continuing conversation between them.
This is the best. It's not a TV sermon.
So, today, I went to lunch with that pastor and picked his brain on the subject.
Title: "What Does the Resurrection of Jesus Mean to You Personally?"
Since I'm not pastoring anywhere and the only preaching I do is either filling in for my pastor friends or doing revivals, I'm never called on for "special day" services. That is, a pastor wants to be in his own pulpit at Christmas and Easter seasons. Therefore, my outlet is to post a sermon here and trust that my "congregation," mostly pastors and church leaders, will find it to be a blessing and perhaps even add it to their own files as a future resource.
I asked a fellow once: "What does the resurrection of Jesus mean to you personally?" He didn't hesitate. "Knowing I can go to Heaven and the debt has been paid."
Hard to top that.
My observation is that everyone will answer that question just a little differently. Mainly, that's because we are different, our histories vary, our consciousness of our failing past and our blessed future will not be identical, and thus what Jesus means to one will be different from what He means to another.
Let's bring out an array of New Testament characters and run that question by them. This, incidentally, is not all guesswork. We have a fairly solid record in Scripture of a number of people who encountered the risen Jesus and were transformed by the event.
Does this guy ever show up in your church?
He constantly complains about the state of the present-day church, he carps on the worldliness of Christians today, and he is dead-sure that modern preachers just aren't as dedicated as they used to be. Recognize him?
One of his favorite lines goes like this: "What we need are a few New Testament churches!"
There is an answer to his hunger for a New Testament church. The fact is we have them all over the place.
The New Testament church was beset by inner struggles, doctrinal divisions, leaders on their own personal ego trips, preachers who were in it for the money, and false prophets.
Solomon was right. There is nothing new under the sun.
The troubles afflicting today's church are not new. They've been a constant thorn in the flesh of God's people from the beginning.
The second chapter of II Peter is not the only New Testament passage dealing with false prophets, but it's about as explicit as any of them.
But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.(II Peter 2:1)
In the old days, the Apostle Peter says, they had false prophets. Jeremiah 23 talks about them at length.
And in these recent days, he says, we have them too.
"Pastor, my aunt Bernice would like you to visit her this week. There's something she wants to talk with you about."
I knew this young deacon's Aunt Bernice. She was up in years and sickly, and while not a member of our church, she was related to quite a number. I figured with her years and health, she wanted to talk with the minister about getting read to see the Lord.
She did, but not in the way I had expected.
The next afternoon, as we sat in the living room of her small shotgun house, she said, "Pastor, I know I'm saved. I have no doubt about that. I remember being saved. But there's something else bothering me."
"Pastor, I haven't done right by the church."
She continued, "As a young adult, I got away from the church and quit going. I raised my son without the church and really came to regret it. And now I'm old and can't even go. But if you'd let me, I'd like to put my membership in and become a member. I'll pray for you all and send an offering from my monthly check."
I assured her we would be honored to receive her, and took care of that the next Sunday.
I never forgot her statement---"I haven't done right by the church"---and have had occasion over the years since to tell her story, then ask my hearers, "Have you done right by the Lord's church?"
A man in our congregation was dying. On one occasion as I visited in his home, he asked to speak to me privately. I felt it coming: he wanted to confess something that was bothering him before he went to meet the Savior.
I was right.
Saints Coach Sean Payton gets it.
Watching a football game on television the other day, I noticed the camera showing a dispirited player on the bench with his head hung low. He had clearly had a bad game--interceptions, fumbles, something--and his team was losing. The problem is, his facial expression and his bodily posture were signaling to both his team members and opponents that he was finished here. The game was over as far as he was concerned.
I called out to the screen, "Get your head up, boy! The game's not over! Do you have any idea what you are doing, looking that way?"
In this morning's Times-Picayune, sportswriter Jeff Duncan tells how Coach Sean Payton stresses the same lesson to his players.
As I watched San Diego Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers throw a conniption fit at midfield in Kansas City last week a thought occurred to me. This would never happen with the New Orleans Saints.
I can't remember the last time a Saints player lost it on the field. Of course, there's not a lot to get upset about when you start a season 13-0 and win the Super Bowl. Still, the Saints, by and large, are as demonstrative and emotional as snipers when they take the field. Their insides might be bubbling cauldrons of emotion but it rarely shows.
There's a good reason for this, Duncan says.
Body language is a big part of Payton's coaching curriculum. Maybe more than anyone in the NFL, Payton believes in the power of nonverbal communication. He talks about it in team meetings, preaches it during practice and demands it during games.
When Dwight Freeney beat left tackle Jermon Bushrod for a sack in the Super Bowl and the Saints' left tackle trotted off the field with his head down, Payton stormed into his face and barked, "Get your head up!"
When Garrett Hartley missed a late field goal attempt against Tampa Bay last season, Payton upbraided him for sulking on the sidelines.
"He harps us on all the time about it," Bushrod said. "If something goes wrong, he doesn't want us to show it."
Let's talk about this business of our posture and demeanor when things are going badly. The lesson has unusually strong applications to the believers' life and ministry.
In his book, "Everybody's Normal Till You Get to Know Them," John Ortberg makes a confession. You get the impression that it was not easy in coming.
Here it is in his own words:
The church where I work videotapes most of the services, so I have hundreds of messages on tape. Only one of them gets shown repeatedly.
This video is a clip from the beginning of one of our services. A high school worship dance team had just brought the house down to get things started, and I was supposed to transition us into some high-energy worship by reading Psalm 150.
This was a last-second decision, so I had to read it cold, but with great passion: "Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty firmament!" The psalm consists of one command after another to praise, working its way through each instrument of the orchestra.
My voice is building in a steady crescendo; by the end of the psalm I practically shout the final line, only mispronouncing one word slightly:
"Let everything that has breasts, praise the Lord."
Ortberg tells what happened next.
A moment of silence. The same thought passes through four thousand brains: Did he just say what I think he did? In church? Is this some exciting new translation I can get at the bookstore?
Then, everybody in the place just lost it. They laughed so hard for so long, I couldn't say a thing. It was zygomatic. I finally just walked off the stage, and we went on with the next part of the service.
I have been teaching at that church for eight years. Of all the passages I have exegeted and all the messages I have preached, that is the one moment that gets replayed before conferences and workshops. Over and over.
That moment forever endeared Pastor John Ortberg to the congregation of Willow Creek Church.
In fact, the power of that moment was so strong, it would have been worthwhile for him to have planned the flub.
The other day Oprah made 300 guests mighty happy when she announced plans to take everyone of them with her to Australia. Seven days and nights. All expenses paid.
The youtube video of that has received a lot of traffic as people relived that moment with the lucky audience.
I have an announcement. An even better one.
(Drum roll please.)
"Ladies and gentlemn, we are going...to...HEAVEN!!!!"
And not just for a week. For eternity.
And not just a few of us. All who are in Christ.
And we're never coming back.
And it's free. All expenses paid. "Not by works of righteousness we have done but according to His mercy He has saved us." (Titus 3:5)
That is the glorious hope of all believers. It is the solid promise of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the consistent testimony of Scripture. It is the eventual destiny of all the saved.
It's my eventual destination. It's what the Lord Jesus meant when He told the thief on the cross, "Today, you shall be with me in paradise." (Luke 23:43)
We don't like to wait. We want what's coming to us now.
Financial people are telling us that Americans are buying fewer Certificates of Deposit at banks, preferring rather to have low-interest-bearing checking accounts so their money is always available. We don't like to wait ten years. (One wonders if U.S. Savings Bonds are selling. I never hear of them any more.)
This weekend in Jackson, Kentucky, a man was upset with his wife because she had cooked his eggs wrong. So, he got his shotgun and shot and killed her, then turned the gun on her daughter (his step-daughter), and killed three more neighbors before ending his own life. Someone said the eggs were cold and that is what set him off.
Aside from the ridiculousness of that happening as a result of cold eggs, I want to raise the obvious question here: Where is the justice in this?
A man takes five lives and pays for it by ending his own life. Is that fair? Not in any book I've ever seen. So, where is the justice?
There are only two possible answers that I can see: either there is no justice in the universe or there must be an accounting after death.
It's the latter choice that Bible-believers hold to, and with great determination and fortitude. Those who know and believe God's revelation through His Word believe strongly that after this life ends will come a time of standing before the Lord when judgements will be handed out for all eternity--some for eternal reward, some eternal damnation.
Otherwise there is no justice in the universe.
That the ungodly will face a judgment in eternity is the position found in Psalm 73. So it's not a new revelation, but has been a part of our faith's framework from the beginning.
Have you ever been a mystery-shopper?
Some years back, a college classmate contacted me to say he worked for a marketing firm and needed a mystery shopper for Seiko watches in my town. He sent along a script and the addresses of several stores carrying displays of those time-pieces.
I would walk into the store, and tell the clerk, "I'm looking for a man's watch in the medium-price range." If he or she took me first to the Seiko display, I announced, "Congratulations! I am the Seiko mystery shopper, and you have just won 10 dollars." (It's probably more now, with inflation.) They signed their name on my form, I handed them the money, and went on my way.
That was a fun thing to do.
I've known of pastors to invite a friend with a love for the Lord and skills in discernment to mystery-shop their church. They drive up to the church as a typical visitor and take notes on every aspect--the appearance of the campus, the availability of parking, whether it was obvious which door to enter, whether greeters were on hand, how they were greeted, and a hundred other things.
Not long ago when our association did a self study and complete reorganization, one of our pastors made it abundantly clear he wanted us to form such a task force that would be available on request (stress that!) to mystery shop churches.
The task force has not been formed and I'm retired from the leadership of the association, so the decision is in the hands of others, but here's what I've been doing.
I've been mystery-shopping every church I have spoken in over the past year and 3 months of retirement.
Here is my report, pastor.
The other evening, my wife came into the den where I sat watching a baseball game on television. "Thank you for doing the dishes and cleaning the microwave," she said.
I had not told Margaret I did that, and she didn't see me do it. And yet, she thanked me. Why? Because there's no one else at our house.
You and I see the brilliant sunrise and drink in the wonders of the night sky and we thank God. Why? We didn't see Him do anything. We only saw the work.
Answer: There is no one else. He is all the God there is.
When we look at our Lord and say "God," we have exhausted the category.
The implications of this are enormous.
Watching Saints quarterback Drew Brees on television last night, I thought about something the leader of Southern Baptists' evangelism program said some 40 or more years ago.
Kenneth Chafin headed up the evangelism department of what was then called the SBC Home Mission Board. In the early 1970s, they had developed a cutting-edge program of personal soulwinning they called "WIN Schools," for "Witness Involvement Now," as I recall. I took the pilot training and led many "schools" in churches across the South.
In developing this program, Chafin was talking about how difficult it is to get the news out to the membership of our churches. "It takes 5 years to say hello to Southern Baptists," he laughed.
The difficulty, as he saw it, was that he had to tell the various denominational leaders of the program. They in turn passed the word on to their underlings. At some point, the editors of the state Baptist weeklies got involved and picked up the news. Even then, the grassroots of Southern Baptists still did not have a clue of the program. Pastors needed to be told and retold, after which they themselves would get the word to the members. How long it would take for the message to penetrate to the bottom layer of the membership was anyone's guess. Five years was Dr. Chafin's guess.
So, last night, Drew Brees was on television speaking at a hastily called news conference. He had a bright idea for a new tradition he wants to begin among the fan base of the New Orleans Saints. Furthermore, he doesn't have five years to do it. Yesterday was Tuesday and the first game of the season comes Thursday night in the Superdome. Brees wanted to get the word out to all attending the game in 48 hours. Furthermore, he intends this as a permanent tradition.
Big plans. A large assignment. After the clip, an anchor raised the obvious question: "Now, the problem is getting the word to the 70,000 Saints who will be in the Dome Thursday night."
This morning--Wednesday--I found out how Brees pulled it off.
In the last few days, I've had three communications from church leaders raising the question of when a pastor should step down.
One asked it about a minister who was found to be participating in pornography.
Another raised the question about her minister who had stolen money from the church and repaid it, but who was still engaging in questionable activities. They were about to vote on his staying at the church.
The third raised the question about himself. He was in the worst pastorate in his life, the leadership was opposing him in every way, and he felt his wife is slowly dying spiritually. Should he resign and walk away, he asked.
All of these issues, while different in a hundred ways, have certain things in common: they all involve the work of Christ through a church, they reflect upon the name (the glory, the reputation) of the Lord Jesus Christ in that community, and they have to do with the continuing minister of a God-called servant.
Let's talk about them.
I wonder if I'm the only normal (!) person around who regularly reads the wedding announcements that run in the Sunday newspaper. Well, "scan them" might be a better word. And I'm not really sure what I'm looking for.
Once in a while, however, it all works out. I stumble on a gem. This morning's Times-Picayune, for instance, ran the article on the "Farmer/Shorty" wedding. The names alone will make you stop and read.
I'm going to assume the bride's mother wrote the article. Here it is in its entirely, followed by a few notes about weddings....
Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother, and will cling to his wife; and they will be one flesh. (Genesis 2:24) Dr. Vernon James Shorty and Mrs. Sandra Ann Seaberry Butler along with close family and friends are proud to announce the engagement of their daughter and #1 girl, Chyna Akelia Shorty to Alponso Lorenzo Farmer, son of Sandra Ann Brown.
Chyna and Renny met April 23, 2009, while embracing their single years at Door 44 in Atlanta. There, he asked if he could take her to dinner, Chyna's response was not what Renny had in mind. After a month, persistence paid off, guess you could say he got his way after all. God's enabling force blossomed there love soon after, and they have become inseparable as their love has grown over the year.
The bride to be is a graduate of Clark Atlanta University, completing one year of studies in counseling she is currently pursuing her Master's Degree in Forensic Psychology and is the owner of 30Below a whimsical kids experience & clothing boutique in Atlanta, Georgia. The bridegroom is the owner/operator of AF Transport Systems, providing innovative transportation and logistics operations bicoastal.
Renny proposed to Chyna on March 13, 2010, with two elaborate boxes to choose from. Previously getting her father's permission, and approval, Chyna happily accepted.
The couple celebrated a fabulous weekend of engagement activities with family and friends from all over in New Orleans this past weekend. They will be sealed for time and eternity with a ceremony of close family and friends April 23, 2011 on the lavish island of St John in the Virgin Islands.
The couple plans to make their home and start a family in Atlanta, Georgia.
The photo showed this beautiful lady and a beaming young man who looks like he has just won the jackpot. Maybe he has.
But it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to be great among you, let him be your servant. (Matthew 20:26)
Many years ago while in my first post-seminary pastorate, I pulled up to my church office one day to see a car in the parking lot with an intriguing name on its door. "Dare to be Great."
I wondered if that were a company or if someone wanted to say that line to the world so much they had magnetic signs printed up for their car doors.
The car pulled off and I was left wondering.
Then, a few weeks later, I began to hear of a sales movement that had that as its name and mantra:"Dare to be great." People were aggressively signing up their friends to sell some kind of "greatness programs" for thousands of dollars. Those who signed up were entitled to sign up others.
It did not require a Ph.D. to figure out someone was running a Ponzi scheme here, and that's what it was. Eventually, the Florida team that put it together had their mansions and planes and bank accounts confiscated by the feds and were carted off to prison.
I confess to being disappointed that the idea of greatness these people were promoting was strictly financial. Furthermore, their definition of greatness involved manipulating and using more and more people beneath them. Eventually, as happens with all such pyramid schemes, all the "little people"--that is, those late to the ball--were left holding the bag.
Jesus said, "He who would be great among you should be your servant."
Here are three fascinating things about that statement....
Every pastor I know worries about the newcomer to his church. Will he/she receive a warm welcome or be frozen out as an intruder.
What started me thinking about this was something Elizabeth Gilbert said in her book, "Eat Pray Love." As a farm boy, I was intrigued by this.
When I was growing up, my family kept chickens. We always had about a dozen or so of them at any given time and whenever one died off--taken away by a hawk or fox or by some obscure chicken illness--my father would replace the lost hen. He'd drive to a nearby poultry farm and return with a new chicken in a sack. The thing is, you must be very careful when introducing a new chicken to the general flock.
You can't just toss it in there with the old chickens, or they will see it as an invader. What you must do instead is to slip the new bird into the chicken coop in the middle of the night while the others are asleep. Place her on a roost beside the flock and tiptoe away. In the morning, when the chickens wake up, they don't notice the newcomer, thinking only, "She must have been here all the time since I didn't see her arrive." The clincher of it is, awaking within this flock, the newcomer herself doesn't even remember that she's a newcomer, thinking only, "I must have been here the whole time."
And that, Elizabeth Gilbert writes, is how she came to India, which is the point of her barnyard story.
What a pity we pastors can't slip new church members into the flock that way. Bring them in at midnight, add their names to the rolls, make them members of the finance committee or choir, then slip out and hope no one notices they are new and different.
There is, however, a great way that is probably just as effective in incorporating newcomers into the Lord's congregation.
The football team had not won a game all year. The coach comes in and finds the team arguing. "What's going on here?" "Oh nothing much, coach. We were just discussing which one of us is likely to win the Most Valuable Player award for the conference this year."
The company vice-president crawled the sales manager for low sales last month. Unless something is done, heads are going to roll. A half-hour later, the sales manager walks in on his sales staff right in the middle of a brouhaha. "What are you arguing about?" he asks. "Not a big thing," one of the men says. "We were wondering which one of us is up for Salesman of the Year."
The Lord Jesus arrived at Capernaum and entered the house where He and the disciples stayed. Now that He had them aside from the crowd, the Lord had a question for them.
"What were you discussing among yourselves back down the road?"
As if He didn't know.
No one said a word.
What this ragtag bunch of disciples had been discussing was which one of them was the greatest. Who would be given the place of highest honor in the new thing Jesus was planning. Who was the MVP.
It would be laughable if it weren't so sad. Consider the context of this little incident.