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I sometimes tease our young pastors that "in all the world, there are only three Baptists who enjoy change, and none are members of your church."
It's a common perception in our churches that the Lord's people seem to be resistant to change. And there is certainly plenty of anecdotal evidence, as flockless shepherds step up to tell how they lost their pulpits when they tried to change a schedule or a program.
But, look around at the people attending our churches. They seem to handle change fairly well in other areas of their lives. They're on computers, own X-boxes, play farm games on Facebook, send emails, and stay in touch with the world by their smart phones. No one at church drives a 1948 Packard because he doesn't like change. No woman still wears the hair styles of the 1930s (as they did when I was a kid in the 1940s and '50s). Their clothing is fairly up-to-date.
And yet, I can take you to an even dozen pastors right now who carry the scars of battles they fought trying to get the Lord's people to make even the simplest of changes.
What's going on?
Here is my take on why change is hard for God's people. And the news, I have to say, is not good. The Lord who said, "Behold, I make all things new" (Revelation 21:5) is probably not very pleased with those who hold onto what He did in the past and refuse to accept the new thing He is doing today.
The Lord who repeatedly commanded that we "sing unto the Lord a new song" (Psalm 33:3; 96:1; etc.) is probably not impressed when we refuse to sing anything but the songs we grew up under.
Why Change is So Hard for the Lord's Frozen Chosen.
10. Pastors are human and more like you than you could ever imagine.
In a panel discussion, several pastors' wives were talking about the uniqueness of their ministries. One lady, married to a well-known evangelist, said, "I tell my man, 'Don't get too uppidity for me. I have seen you without your pants on!"
Some of her hearers were offended by the remark.
I wasn't. I know the point she was making: He is a flawed, fallible human like the rest of us, and not some saintly somebody unacquainted with temptation and failings.
Here's a test you will benefit from: Find the journals of some "truly great" man or woman of God from a past generation, and read them. Notice the paradox: at the very time the world is acclaiming him/her for holiness and Christlikeness, they themselves are struggling with inner conflicts of one kind or the other. They appear to have a leg up on intimacy with the Lord to the rest of the world, but to themselves, they are babies in the faith barely able to walk spiritually and completely at the mercy of a benevolent God.
Far from refuting their holiness, the journal affirms it. But not in the way most people expect.
Friend, you do not want as a pastor someone who has never sinned, never messed up, and never known the mercies of God. If you get a preacher who is sinless, you may discover him to be harsh and mean-spirited toward the likes of you; you are a sinner in need of grace, whereas he meets God as an equal.
As Paul said, I speak as a fool.
9. Pastors are called by God to this work, otherwise they never last.
I used to hear of preachers who were "mama-called and daddy-sent." In time, I met one or two. They didn't make it. The work was too hard, the expectations too high, the rewards too few.
Pastors sometimes say, almost facetiously, "I've sometimes doubted my salvation, but never my call to the ministry." (I suspect that's because, as with me, I was saved as a child but called into this work as an adult.)
The work is hard. The expectations are through the roof. And the rewards? To be honest, the pay is a lot better these days (as a rule) than when I started in the early 1960s. The perks tend to be more plentiful, and the resources more abundant.
Even so, frustrations in the Lord's work abound. Almost daily, I receive a phone call or email from God's servants pouring out tales of misunderstanding, harassment, strong opposition, and even persecution. Frequently, the man of God will say to me, "If this was coming from the world, I'd expect it. But these are the Lord's people doing this. It doesn't make sense."
Pastors reading this are shaking their heads. They know. Their biggest headaches come not from the tavern owners or casino managers, not from politicians or bigshot business types, and not from drug pushers and drunks. The men and women who sit in the pews and on church committees and boards tend to be the source of most headaches and heartbreaks of pastors.
Only one called by God and who knows he serves the Living God, only he will last.
And some of them, honesty forces me to admit sadly, don't make it.
The blue ribbon committee assigned to consider a name change for our Southern Baptist Convention has announced they are punting.
Okay, what they are doing is recommending that a) the basic name of the SBC remain unchanged due to the myriad of legalities involved in such a massive realignment, b) that we adopt "Great Commission Baptists" as a secondary or alternative name for our denomination, and c) that churches be "allowed" (my word) to use either name or both.
We knew they were a wise group; they've just proven it.
Personally, I think it would be a travesty to post the name "Great Commission Baptist" on some of the churches in our denomination which are anything but that.
This way, they get to decide for themselves whether they are.
From the Mark 2 story of Jesus' healing the paralytic, here is my take on Five Ways to Tell If Yours Is a Great Commission Church.
Toward the end of his sermon this Sunday morning, Pastor Mike Miller asked for "those who are going to help me with the rest of this sermon" to come on up. Several singers and musicians stepped forward along with two deacons.
The deacons, Chuck and Jim, are well-known and greatly loved by this congregation. They work for the same investment firm, and from everything I hear, are highly successful at what they do. Chuck has chaired most of the important committees in the church (and a few that weren't!), including the last pastor search team, and Jim presently chairs the church's stewardship committee. In the 1990s, when he was younger and his jet black hair long, Jim played "Jesus" for several years running in our Christmas pageants. Chuck is married to Christy, and Jim to Sheila.
Mostly it was Jim's testimony they were telling. Chuck was there because he had a pivotal role in it: He is the one who witnessed to Jim and brought him to the Lord.
The pastor or church staff member or the chairman of a committee or a church officer has overstayed his/her welcome.
How to tell.
One church I pastored--FBC of Columbus, Mississippi--had a vivid illustration of what happens when a member holds a position so long they begin to "own" it. Across the street from the synagogue sat the funeral home, owned by one of our deacons. One day this good man told me, "Preacher, we could have bought the land the synagogue is sitting on for a pittance years ago." (It abutted the back of our sanctuary.)
He said, "When the house that used to sit on that property came up for sale, the people wanted $30,000 for it. I was willing to raise the money and buy it. I felt we'd be needing that property in the future."
"The trouble was that Mr. McClanahan, the church treasurer who had held that job for decades, vetoed it. He said that was just too much money for that piece of land and we would not pay it."
"No one, including the preacher, wanted to stand up to McClanahan, so we let it go."
"And now," the deacon said, "We can't touch that piece of ground for a million dollars."
He was right in that; after all, I'd asked around discreetly and found that out.
One church where I was preaching recently was in the act of trying to dislodge a church secretary who had held that office since Noah was a little boy. Even though she was in her mid-70s and long overdue for retirement, she would not budge. As the unofficial church boss, the woman would not change her way of doing things, would not agree that the pastor had the right to have an administrative helper who would do what he asked, and would not agree to go away quietly. (I have no idea how it turned out. These things rarely go smoothly.)
Sometimes it's the pastor, sometimes another church worker. How to get rid of them is one subject. But our subject today is:
Not for the swimsuit issue. It came yesterday. Right now, it's tied up inside a small grocery bag stuffed down inside the kitchen trash, to be set outside in garbage cans tomorrow morniing. Some images we just do not need in our home, and this is one of them.
I take Sports Illustrated for the same reason I subscribe to The New Yorker and TIME magazines: Once in a while a story, an insight, an incident, is so unforgettable it ends up becoming a part of how I think. And, often, it takes its place as the centerpiece in a sermon.
Case in point.
The February 13, 2012, issue of SI was devoted to the New York Giants' Super Bowl win over the New England Patriots. Not having a favorite in that contest, I was only mildly interested, but did scan the articles.
In so doing, I found a keeper, a piece on the role debriefing played in changing the Giants from a 7-7 team, which is the very essence of average and was their record two weeks before the end of the season, into world champions.
Once in a while we stumble onto a principle that really works in our ministries. The fun thing is to go back then and find that not only did the Lord "know" that--smiley face goes here--but He gave us a story illustrating it in Scripture.
Here's the story.
Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much. Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrans. So He called His disciples to Himself and said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you, that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury, for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood." (Mark 12:41-44)
The principle thus illustrated,the one that can transform your leadership in teaching your people to give, is this: The small gift given sacrificially inspires everyone else to give generously.
One would think it would be the other way around, that pointing out how Mr. Deep Pockets contributed a cool million would encourage the rest of us to dig down and come up with our fair share. Now, we do need those great gifts, let's make that point. But Mr. Pockets' gift does not inspire many of us to give sacrificially for the simple reason that we figure, "Well, he has lots of money, he OUGHT to be giving a lot."
But no one thinks that of the child who gives much or the poor widow who gives sacrificially or the common laborer (you'll pardon the expression) who sets a high standard for generosity.
A pastor of a small but growing church tossed a question my way.
"My small church is growing, and our people do not want to lose the family spirit of a small church. But how do we maintain that without becoming a clique?"
By clique is meant an enclosed group, a circle of friends that will admit no new members.
We've all seen Sunday School classes where the members have been together for years and know everything there is to know about the others, and where the intimacy is deep and lasting. They know birthdays, the names of each one's grandchildren, and they relate to one another like sisters.
Yes, sisters. It's almost always a women's class that does this.
But, women or men, we're all guilty to some degree.
Let a newcomer show up in our little group of select friends one Sunday, and everything changes: the balance is threatened, conversation freezes, and the fellowship becomes more restrained.
Now, churches are liable to this affliction, too.
So, what do we tell the young pastor of the small-but-growing church? How can he help his people retain that new car smell even after putting a few thousand miles on the vehicle? (Oops. Sorry. The metaphor inserted itself.)
Readers are invited to suggest steps the church can take in the comments section.
(This is the second on our VISITING NEW ORLEANS series.)
My first visit to New Orleans was by train in August of 1961. As a senior in college and having been called into the ministry, I wanted to see the seminary which the Lord had impressed upon me as "right." (True statement. I knew no one who had attended here. But felt a strong need to spend time in the city where I could make a difference for the Kingdom's sake.)
I came in one day, checked in to the old DeSoto Hotel, walked around downtown a little, and the next morning, rode a city bus out into the Gentilly section to check out the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. I walked around campus, chatted with someone in some office or other, picked up some literature, then rode back to town, picked up my bag, and checked in at the train station for the return trip.
Venture into the French Quarter? Are you kidding? No way. Surely the vice there was so overpowering I could never have extracted myself. I gave it a wide berth.
Three years later, my wife and baby son and I moved into an apartment on campus, and thus began our slowly evolving love affair with this strange and wonderful city.
Some who read this will be traveling to New Orleans for the first time. Many will be coming in June to the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, gathering in our Morial Convention Center right on the river.
You're coming for business. You don't have a lot of time for touring. You want to invest your time wisely. So, what should you definitely see? Here are three must-see places in this city.
Warren Wiersbe calls the sermon outline the "recipe" for the message. If you have that and nothing more, he says, you do not have a meal for your people; you have a recipe for them. Still lots of work to do before they can be fed.
I like to think of the outline as the skeleton. It will need fleshing out, and then, most importantly of all, it needs the breath of life to be breathed into it. And, let us not make the mistake of thinking the first part--the fleshing out of the message--we can do on our own while the second part--giving it life--is God's. It's all about His presence and power and equally about our faithfulness.
An influential pastor, writing in the most recent issue of a popular preaching magazine, shares some great insights regarding the sermon outline which I'd like to pass along and comment on. (Notice that I'm not naming him or the magazine. If you'd like to know, send me a note--joe@joemckeever.com. We should not get hung up on whether we agree or disagree with a pastor on everything in order to learn from him.)
1. The notes your people take in church will be mainly your sermon points.
Anyone reading this blog even occasionally knows of my love for old books. Recently, while revivaling with Pastor Rob Dowdle in Ocilla, Georgia, I noticed "Memoirs of John R. Sampey" (1947, Broadman) in their church library. And borrowed it. (I promise to return it, Rob!)
Sampey was for over a half-century a professor of Greek and Hebrew at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville and for many years, its president. I figured his autobiography would be memorable and it's proving to be so.
First, a funny story he tells.
At the age of 22, on finishing his basic seminary degree, Sampey turned around and became an instructor and at the same time, pastor of a small country church. He writes:
"Deacon Thomas W. Scott, a graduate of Georgetown College and an old Confederate soldier, handed me a list of seventy-three church members. Opposite fifteen names I found the notation 'N.C.,' and I asked its meaning. 'No 'count, parson, no 'count,' was his reply. Most of them for the work of the church were (indeed) of no account."
You and I look at that and think, "Hey, that's 15 out of 73. Pretty good. I'll take that any day!"
And the other story, the one that prompted this article. About apologizing to your preacher/teacher.
This is a hodge-podge of things floating around in this preacher's mind this morning while I get ready (mentally, physically, emotionally) for an hour or two in the dentist's chair at noon today.
Shall we darken the sanctuary during the sermon?
Yesterday at our church, the lights were bright on the platform but dim on the congregation. Honestly, I will admit to you that I was relieved after the service to find the problem was a malfunction in the lighting. I really had feared that someone--perhaps our pastor or another leader--had decided the lights on the audience should be dimmed, and that bothered me.
The background to this is that recently I was preaching in a church that had intentionally lowered the lighting on the congregation. When I saw early in the service that this was the case, I sought out a layman and asked him to find the tech person and insist that when I get up to preach, the house lights are brought up. He did and they were.
If we are having a concert or performance in this room, turn down the lights. But if this is meant to be interactive--and worship is nothing if not interactive--the congregation must be able to see to read and write.
"I know God has forgiven me, but I can't forgive myself."
I know a preacher who writes small books, which is good, and publishes them himself to give away, which is even better. However, it has occurred to me that all his illustrations are dated. Some stories he tells I used and overused forty years ago. I think I know what happened.
He pulled them out of memory or some old file of clippings in his office. This is the kind of illustration file we preachers of the 1960s used to maintain. (I'm assuming young pastors keep their illustrative treasures in computer files, not those green metal monsters that used to sit in the corners of all our offices.)
There is nothing wrong with an old illustration. For those seeing it for the first time, it's sparkling new.
What's wrong with an old illustration is that it bores the writer/speaker. He needs something fresh to spark his creativity, to ignite his imagination, to send him down fresh avenues.
I have the solution. A solution, I might add, which will seem paradoxical.
For fresh illustrations, the kind no one else is using, read an old book.
So, you're coming to New Orleans, are you? Great! This city loves guests, and the welcome mat is always out.
NOTE: With this, we are beginning a series of brief articles on the subject of VISITING NEW ORLEANS. The instigator was a request for such from various SBC publications in preparation for the annual Southern Baptist meeting to be held in our convention center June 2012.
Yesterday, over lunch with two people from our Baptist Press office (located in Nashville), I learned that this was the first visit to New Orleans for one and only the second for the other. Laura said, "But the first time was for a ball game. We didn't see much of the city."
I wish they'd had longer than the 90 minutes yesterday. There are so many places I would love to take them. Having lived in metro New Orleans since 1990--plus, I attended seminary here in the 1960s and early 1970s--I've learned to love this city dearly and to enjoy pointing out little known eateries, shops, and historic points.
Before sharing about some of my favorite New Orleans places, sights, and people, let me address three misconceptions which may be helpful for anyone coming this way.
"Who would not fear you, O King of the nations? For this is your rightful due. For among all the wise of all the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like You." (Jeremiah 10:7)
Fear may be the greatest motivator in the world.
Fear makes the pilot do one more last-minute check before taking off. Fear makes the passengers buckle up and pay attention to the flight attendant's instructions. Fear keeps the air controller attentive to the blips on her screen.
Fear restrains us from driving too fast or following too closely on the highways. Fear causes me to replace my tires before they get too bald, to slow down in school zones, and not violate that downed arm at the railroad crossing.
Fear drives us to take our vitamins, see our doctors, and keep making those insurance payments. Fear gets us out of bed and into our sneakers for our exercise.
Fear is a great motivator.
Fear of God is the best motivator of all.
Now, everyone has his/her own definition of the fear of the Lord, what it means and how it works. This is mine.
By saying 'I fear God,' I mean a lot of things, but mostly these three:
--I fear His power. (Take a look at the physical universe, then stand in awe of the power of Almighty God.)
--I fear His wrath. (Just the glimpses Scripture gives concerning judgement fills us with dread.)
--I fear His displeasure. (This is one Person I do not want to disappoint at all...ever!)
His power is mighty and awesome. His wrath is biblical and fearsome. His displeasure is scary and then some.
Scripture says repeatedly the starting place for getting smart and wising up is fearing God. (Proverbs 9:10; 15:33)
Here's a great quote on that subject.
You are a minister about to walk into a church situation that's new to you. Either you have been pastoring a small church and are about to join the staff of a larger church where you will serve under the authority and direction of an accomplished veteran or you are young in ministry and your first assignment is to be a member of a church staff.
And you're wondering what the pastor will expect from you.
I suggest you ask him.
Take good notes because these will be on the test.
You have requests for him--support, sufficient finances, days off, etc.--but at the moment, your bigger question is What does he want from me?
I don't know all the answer, but I know much of it.
A cheap shot in sports is when you catch your opponent off guard and give him an illegal hit that hurts him badly. The referee usually flags you for it and the crowd boos. Even your own fans are embarrassed that you would stoop to such.
Preachers do it all the time.
Not all preachers, but some of us make a practice of finding a weak spot in our targeted sinner, one undefended, in his most vulnerable area, and letting him have it.
We had a case in point this weekend: Super Bowl Sunday.
A friend on Facebook messaged me privately about his intended sermon. He was going to let the congregation have it that day about their addiction to sports, football in particular. He was upset and wanted to accuse his people of a form of idolatry.
I did not accuse him of hitting below the belt--the very essense of a cheap shot--but I could have. (We might say I avoided a cheap shot myself by not doing that.) Instead, I suggested an alternative approach.
"Nothing can keep the Lord from saving, whether by the many or by the few." (I Samuel 14:6)
It doesn't matter to the Lord whether He saves by the many or the few.
Now, you could make an argument that that is not pure scripture since the line was uttered by Jonathan, son of King Saul, and not by a prophet or some inspired writer. But you would be fighting a losing battle on that, since it's a truth found all through scripture from beginning to end, Genesis to Revelation.
God has His crowds, to be sure. In Heaven, the guest list--the family reunion, choose your metaphor--seems endless. "...a great multitude which no one could number" was standing before the throne praising the Lord (Revelation 7:9). That was sure some crowd Moses led out of Egypt, whether a few hundred thousand or 2 million as some say. Either way, God knows how to work the big numbers.
However, being God, He does not need big numbers. He does not call off anything (so far as we know) because only a handful of nobodies showed up.
In fact, God told Gideon he had too many soldiers in his army. Defeat the Midianites with that crowd, He said, and your people will take credit for the victory. So, the Lord had him whittle the assault team down to a manageable 300. (Judges 7)
God loves small things. Ordinary people. Insignificant gifts and undramatic acts.
It does not matter to the Lord whether He saves--and works and transforms and wins the victory--by a few people or by a crowd. It's all through Scripture.
The only problem is you don't believe it. And something inside me resists it, too.
As far as I know, no college or seminary has a course in how preachers are to deal with search committees. It's a skill you acquire by trial and error. Mostly trial, I can hear someone say.
Recently, on this website, we've been addressing this subject. (There are, scattered throughout the nearly 2,000 articles on this blog, occasional writings on pastors and search committees.) Last week we talked about what the search committee looks for when they show up in your congregation on Sunday and then, prompted by a pastor's wife, what the pastor is looking at when visiting that church "in view of a call."
Another friend mentioned something we've never addressed: What about a beginning preacher--not necessary a youngster--who is about to become a pastor? He finds himself sitting across from that search committee for the first time with a hundred questions eating at him. How does a beginning preacher deal with a search committee?
Since the world has changed in the nearly half-century when I sat in that boat, I asked my friend (David) to jot down specific questions. (Did he ever! He sent an even dozen. He's serious about this!)
So, here, in the order in which David posed the questions, are my responses--such as they are--regarding a beginning pastor squaring off against a search committee. (Athletic, competitive terminology tongue-in-cheek.)