God loves to use the ordinary. (Isn’t that encouraging!)

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This is a piece from 2010.  I decided not to update it but run it as is.  Enjoy.

As a pastor, I sometimes trip over the words coming out my mouth when I try to say that “God uses ‘little people.’” There ought to be a better way of saying that.

Some of us remember how hotel owner Leona Helmsley offended the world by saying that “only little people pay taxes.” She is now comfortably serving a long sentence for tax evasion in some federal institution. The judge probably added another six months just for the “little people” put-down. (I found out she died in 2007.) 

How about “ordinary.” God uses ordinary people. Folks like you and me. He uses ordinary things. Ordinary days.

Look up the definition and you’ll quickly see the word means different things to different people. To some, it implies inferiority and the commonplace. In this article, it simply means: the normal, the usual.

A day like today. A person like you and me. A thing like this on my desk.

God delights in using the non-special.

Here’s a couple of songs on that theme.

ORDINARY DAY

I kiss my baby on the cheek

then she wraps her little arms around me

The rest of the world just melts away

As I’d hang on every word she would say

When I wake up and I see

The sun shining down on me

That’s when I thank God

For an ordinary day.

I drink my coffee on my swing in my back yard

The birds that are singing just don’t know how good they are

I’m so happy where I am right now

Isn’t that what life’s about anyhow

When I wake up and I see

The sun shining down on me

That’s when I thank God

For an ordinary day.

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I may be the most blessed person on the planet

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I was trying to write an article for an editor of a Christian magazine in another country, the subject being “What I wish I had known when I was 25.”  It was to be primarily a piece about regrets, things I could have done differently.  And that’s how I came to realize…

I don’t actually have a lot of regrets.

I may be the most blessed person you will ever meet.

Consider, for instance….

  1.  My parents brought me up to love the Lord. Being born to Lois and Carl in a Christian family was not something I chose.
  2. When I was five, my mother got me started to drawing.  I became a professional cartoonist, among other things.  — Okay, what she did was to sit my little sis and me down at the kitchen table, give us pencil and paper, and tell us to “Sit there and draw!”  She was mainly interested in keeping her precocious son busy so she could get her housework done.  But–this is true–I discovered that day that I loved to draw. I kept at it and when I started at the first grade (Nauvoo, AL elementary school), the other children would gather around and watch me draw.  I figure I have sketched 100,000 people over the years and have done many thousands of cartoons for various publications.
  3. When I was eight, my coal-miner dad asked me to walk with him off the West Virginia mountain where we lived and up the railroad tracks to the next town (Sophia, WV)  There, we went into a variety store and he asked me to pick out a Bible. I chose a black (ha, they were all black!) KJV (ditto!) with a zipper around it.  It was lovely and cost $2.98.  Of the six children in our family, I was the only one to be so favored.  He never said why he did this.
  4. When I was perhaps 12 years old, a cousin got me into memorizing scripture.  When I could recite the verses on a page he had given me, he presented me with my very own New Testament.
  5. When I was sixteen, my older sister who had taken a job as a telephone operator, offered to pay for my correspondence course in cartooning with Art Instruction out of Minneapolis. It was $10 a month for thirty months.  I kept it up until they tried to teach me how to design draperies.  I still recall some of the lessons.  The wonderful Charles Schulz used to teach for this company.

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Special message to a pastor about to make the mistake of his life

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Last night I attended our state Baptists’ annual meeting at a church near here.  Hundreds of pastors and wives were there, along with a good number of (ahem) normal Christians.  My good friend Shawn Parker is the state executive and I wanted to hear him preach.  He was outstanding, as usual.

I didn’t stay long since I’m caregiver for my Bertha and I don’t like to leave her for long periods.

And this morning, I have awakened with something on my heart.  Something from the Lord, I believe.

Here it comes…

I want to say a word to a pastor who is thinking of committing adultery.  Don’t ask me how I know; I just know.

You are captivated by a woman who is gorgeous, who is intelligent and–well, let’s just say she is all the things you have decided your wife is not.  In your mind you are going over all the things you and she would do together. Many of them X-rated.  Furthermore, you believe she feels the same way.

Here is my word to you.

Stop it.

You are about to make the biggest mistake of your life.

I want to tell you a story.

A pastor friend came to me some years back.  For some reason, he decided to confide in me.  “I’m going to leave my wife.  The woman I want belongs to a church I used to pastor.  She is beyond wonderful and I want to be married to her.”

I knew he and his wife had married too young, many years earlier.  When they grew up, they now had several children and he was the respected pastor of a Southern Baptist church.  For him to leave his wife would mean the end of his ministry as well as untold suffering for his family.

I talked him out of it. Basically, what I said to him is what I want to say to you:

–1) Sure, you will enjoy it….for a time. But the new, the excitement, wears off.  And you will have to find a way to support two families, your present one and your new family.  This will be the hardest thing you have ever done in your life.

You say, “But we deserve this.”  That’s a lie out of hell.  You do not!

–2) The pain you cause will be widespread and everlasting.  The hurt will reverberate into every church you have served, every community where you were respected, and throughout your family. For your children it will never go away.  And furthermore, your guilt will torment you forever.  Sure, God can forgive it.  But seeing the hurt in people you love will always stay with you.

You say, “The children will adjust.”  No, I’m sorry to say, not going to happen.  Even if  they say they forgive you, the damage will never go away. 

–3) In time, you will decide this was the stupidest thing you have ever done.

Remember when Nathan confronted David in Second Samuel, chapter 12?

When the prophet rebuked the king, he made three points which are relevant to our discussion today:

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My friend, Dr. Rick Lance

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Dr. Rick Lance is retiring soon after 28+ years as executive of Alabama Baptists’ “State Board of Missions,” a euphemism for “the leader of the pack!”

I heard about Rick Lance before we met.  My wife told me about him.

From wherever we were living and pastoring, Margaret would travel back to Birmingham to visit her folks and would attend Sunday worship with them at the home church, West End Baptist Church.  When she returned, I got a report. That church had been God’s arm of ministry to me during my college years. I loved it dearly and wanted it to do well. (These days, in its present incarnation, Mount Calvary Baptist Church meets there.  This will always be holy ground for me.)

As a pastor’s wife, Margaret saw more than most people, and her reports were always on target.

“They’ve got a good one,” she said. “A young pastor fresh from seminary.  His name is Rick Lance.”

I’m not sure when Rick and I met.  But once when we were vacationing at Smith Lake in north Alabama, on Sunday morning I told her “I’m driving to Cullman to hear Rick Lance.”  After only three years in Birmingham, Rick had gone to pastor First Baptist Church-Cullman, about 40 miles from our Smith Lake cabin.

It was June, traditionally a down time for churches. But First Baptist was packed out that day.  After the service, I said to a deacon, “You folks have been fed spiritually today as well as anyone in the state.”  The man said, “Pastor Rick is that way every Sunday.  And frankly, it scares us to death.  We just know some big church is going to come and take him away.”

They did.

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The number one thing you can do for your pastor and ministerial staff

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You can see that the church is investing in their retirement.

Here’s my story.  It has made a world of difference for me.

In the 1970s, our denomination woke up.  Leaders realized churches needed some guidance in preparing for their ministers’ retirement.  So, they held conferences around the country and invited churches to send representations.  I was serving First Baptist Church of Columbus, MS, a county seat town with an Air Force base and a woman’s university.  The pastor before me had logged 26 years and retired with his wife to their hometown of Humboldt, Tennessee.  I was in my mid-thirties and frankly, had not given the first thought to retiring some day.

My minister of education Bill Hardy attended the conference.  The leadership suggested churches invest an amount equivalent to ten percent of the ministers’ salary in his retirement.  The agency in charge of our investments was called The Annuity Board of the SBC.  At some point in years following, it became Guidestone and they began inviting non-Baptists to invest with them.  These days, they control a whopping amount of money for many thousands of God’s servants.

When I left Columbus, the next church–the FBC of Charlotte, NC–did the same 10%.  Then, the next church–the FBC of Kenner, LA (metro New Orleans)–did not due to a church split 18 months earlier and heavy indebtedness.  Eventually, they put 1.5% into the retirement fund.  (Regrettably, I do not recall what we did for the other ministers and staff.  I hope we were faithful.)  And fourteen years later, when I became DOM for the Baptists of metro New Orleans, they once again invested 10% into my retirement.

So, here’s what happened.

I retired in June of 2009.  I was 69 years old. And I got some awful advice.  Someone at Guidestone called to suggest I take a 20-year annuity.  “It pays 6 % now, but it’s about to drop to 3%,” he said.  What that means is that for 20 years I would receive an amount equal to six percent of my investment total.  And, it would end after those 20 years were up.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

My account was invested in what Guidestone called a medium-aggressive fund.  So, I left it there.  And filled out the papers to receive a monthly stipend of $2,000 as a housing allowance.  And nothing more.  Twenty-four thousand a year.

It was the best decision ever.

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Your secret sin: You think no one else knows about it

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“I’ve got a secret!”  –Popular television game show of the 1960s and 1970s.

Recently, a man I know wrote of the secrets his family was harboring as they struggled to deal with an addictive, out-of-control relative.

“You know how the family gets ready to host a guest and the house is clean and in order and nothing out of place?  The guest is impressed.  He wishes his house could be this neat and organized with nothing out of place.”

“But what he doesn’t know is that there is one room where you have stored all the junk and clutter.  If he were to open the door to that room, he would be amazed.”

That, he said, is how things are for a family that tries to keep up an image when they are about to come apart.

They push things back into that private room, whose door they dare not open.

It’s about family secrets.

Everyone has them, he said.

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Fear: When in sam hill are we going to conquer this thing that so disarms us and delights the enemy?

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“I was afraid and hid your talent in the ground” (Matthew 25:25).

“Why did you fear? Where is your faith?” (Matthew 8:26).

The storm was raging, the sea was crashing about them, the boat was going down and they were going to die.

The disciples–all veterans on the sea, not unacquainted with violent storms–decided this one was the worst ever.  It was high time to awaken Jesus.  He needed to do something.

Now, what they had in mind for Him to do, they did not say.

“Lord, save us! We’re going to die!”

Do something.

He did.

The Lord began by rebuking the disciples. And He did this while the storm was still at its fury.  “Why did you fear? Where is your faith?”

Is that one question or two?

Don’t rush past this.  He. Said. That. While. The. Storm. Was. Still. Raging.

There is a lesson there, Christian.

Then, Jesus rebuked the sea and the winds. Imagine that.  People who consider themselves scientific and scoff at believers praying for rain know that such a thing as Jesus calling a storm to stop its raging and settle down is just so much foolishness.

But there it is.

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When a minister commits adultery

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“You have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife” (II Samuel 12:10).

A minister falls into adultery and it becomes public knowledge. This becomes a sad, sad day for everyone who knows him.

And yes, I am aware it takes two people to commit this sin.  However, this blog is directed toward pastors and other church leaders, so the minister is the focus of our comments here.

“I think we all should consider this a wakeup call,” said a colleague of a friend who had fallen into sin and lost his ministry.  The other ministers nodded in agreement.

It can happen to any of us. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Will anyone tell you “otherwise”? Oh yes.  Scripture calls him by numerous names: Satan, the devil, Lucifer, that old serpent, and the slanderer.  Remember, friend–he’s not called the “accuser of the brethren” for nothing (Revelation 12:10).

Jesus called him a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44).

“Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (I Corinthians 10:12).  Beware of feeling this sin or any other sin could not happen to you, friend.

“If Thou O Lord should mark iniquities, who would stand?” (Psalm 130:3)
You know that you are just as bad a sinner as the adulterer, don’t you?  If you do not, if you believe that your sins are of a nicer variety and deserve less severe treatment from God, you have more problems than we can deal with here.

If anyone should be above the law and able to come and go sexually as he pleases, it ought to be the king, right?

One king of Israel seems to have bought into that myth.

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When Heaven cracked open and gave us a glimpse

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And behold a voice came out of Heaven. (Matthew 3:17)

There were the more obvious times when Heaven broke through and showed itself to earth.  Such as…

–When the angel appeared to Zacharias in Luke 1 and later appeared to Mary.  Same  chapter.

–When our Lord was born in Bethlehem and the angels appeared to the shepherds in the nearby field. Luke 2.  That was amazing.

–And when Jesus was baptized.  The Father spoke from Heaven and the Spirit descended in the form of a dove.  Matthew 3.

–And of course when Jesus died on Calvary.  God darkened the sky at noonday, tore the temple’s curtain down the middle, and shook the land.

–And when He arose.  Oddly when Jesus came out of the tomb there were no accompanying theatricals–no quaking, just shaking (sorry; couldn’t resist). I’m thinking about the frightened soldiers.

But then–and this is why I came to the laptop this early morning–there were those not-so-obvious times when Heaven cracked the skies and intruded on humanity.  And in most cases, the carnal minded did not notice. They went on with whatever they were doing. Only those of a spiritual mind picked up on what Heaven was doing.  You can almost hear some of them saying, “Wait.  Did you see that?”  “Did you hear what He said?”

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How the preacher can burden his audience

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“God was well-pleased through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe.” (I Corinthians 1:21)

On Facebook, I asked the question, “How do preachers burden their hearers and undermine their own effectiveness?” The answers poured in.

Now, we start with a few assumptions. First, every comment came from someone who either is a preacher or loves them.  Second, let’s admit that no minister preaches as well as he would like.  We would all love to improve.

So, anyone for whom this is not the case may get up and leave the room now. Nothing that follows will pertain to you.

A full generation after I began pastoring, I was overcome by an intense need to improve my preaching effectiveness. Google my name with “I prayed for my preaching and got an answer” and see how that turned out.

Here then are ways preachers burden our congregations, according to the experts on the subject, the preachers themselves.

1) The sermon has multiple points with sub-points.

The sermon which seems to go on and on with its points and sub-points is hard to follow. The hearer loses himself/herself in details and the big picture gets crowded out by all the undergrowth.

Young, beginning preachers seem to be the primary offenders here. They try to do too much in their half-hour and end up doing far less than they could have. They bring in every pertinent text and answer every possible objection. They literally bury their people under points and principles and lessons.

Haddon Robinson popularized the “one big idea” in preaching, which calls for the preacher to hone his focus to one central theme and build everything in and around that. This encourages the minister to avoid side trips, detours, and complexities, anything that detracts from the main message.

Clarity is everything.

2) We deliver sky-scraper sermons (one story on top of another).

I am a lover of a good story. When Austin Tucker wrote The Pastor as Story-Teller, he had me from the title. Then, when he invited me to read the manuscript in advance and included one of my stories, he became my best friend forever. (Buy it used online.)

A well-placed story that is “just right” can take an average message and make it forever memorable.

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