What about the Babies?

Human lives are marked out and segmented through ceremony and ritual.  This is as true for the non-religious as the faithful.  It is rooted in our shared humanity, which is to say it is rooted in Eden, not Pentecost.

Weddings.  Births.  Deaths.  School graduations.  Joining the military.  These life transitions are marked out by ceremony and celebration in every culture and major religion.

It is as if we are driven by some innate need, as evidenced across a broad swath of human cultures, to mark out the great transitions life through a planned gathering and sharing of certain expected activities, words, or behaviors with family and friends.  These life-marker ceremonies are typically both familial and religious, tied as they are to both identity and time.

When Worship Leaders Worship: A Call for Comments

Over the next several months I will be involved in conversations with several local worship leaders (whether called worship pastors or ministers or whatever).  A part of the conversation will be to dialogue about our worship needs.  Is the worship they lead on Sundays enough?  If they were able to go to a worship service they had not planned as nothing other than one of the worshipers, what kinds of things would they hope to find in that service?

Banning Prostitution in the Church

A man once mistook me for a hooker.  I know what you're thinking.  No, I was not dressed in drag and I was as surprised and ultimately pretty offended by the mistake.  Perhaps more surprisingly, it all happened over the telephone.

The Solicitation

There I was, peacefully sitting in my office grading exams when the phone rang.  The man introduced himself.  He was an elder at a rather large and very well-known church.  The conversation began with small talk but quickly got around to the exchange of money for services.

Preaching in a Hallway

My best sermons are hallways.  My worst are houses.

I discovered long ago something unexpected about sermon preparation.  Often, when I am coming to a sermon topic that has produced intense interest and so was given a much greater than usual amount of preparation, something ironic happens. What comes out of this much more than normal pre-sermon ends up being a much less than normal sermon.  In fact, describing these sermons as just sub-normal might be overly kind.  These are sermons I suddenly find myself thinking while speaking, "Just stop.  Stop right now.  Stop and apologize.  Send them home."  And, I know in my heart they'd all be grateful.

A Watchman's Confession

"Son of dust,
I have appointed you
as a watchman for Israel." 
Ezekiel 3:17

The old man thought for a moment, and then continued to write out his sermon for Sunday:

A watchman always stands on something high, so that he can see off in the distance whatever might be coming.  It’s hard to preach this.  My own words come back to judge me.  I cannot preach that well.  But, when I do, I still face the fact that I do not live up to what I’m saying…

Phony-Baloney in Church

“We have to protect our 

phony-baloney jobs here, gentlemen!  

We must do something 

about this immediately!”  

– William J. Le Petomane 

in Études Théologiques et Selles Flammes (1974).

The church I serve as an interim pastor has lovely flowers up front at various places on the stage.  They add a certain attractiveness to the overall effect.   They are beautiful because, of course, they are not real. 

Killing Relevance

“The temptation to be relevant is difficult to shake since
it is usually not considered a temptation, but a call.
We make ourselves believe that we are called to be
productive, successful, and efficient people whose words and actions show
that working for God’s Reign is at least as dignified an occupation
as working for General Electric, Mobil Oil, or the government.”
– Henri Nouwen

Relevance is something we hear a lot about today.  We want to make the message relevant.  We need to show people a Jesus who is relevant.  A good deal is riding on the automatic assumption that relevancy is always a good thing.

What if it's not?

The Greatest Gift People Give a Pastor

The Gift

       I remember the evening, a number of years ago, when this lady gave me just about the greatest gift I ever received as a minister. I was, and remain, overwhelmed by it.  I felt embarrassed to receive it.  I had done nothing to warrant a gift of that magnitude.  I knew that other members of my church would never be given a gift like that.  In fact, I was sure it was something I'd have never been given if I were not a pastor.

       And, interestingly, the whole episode started with some promises I made to a lady I did not know.  Here's the thing.  I don't exactly remember making those promises.  I didn't even know her name when I made them.  But, I'm sure I made them. 

Are Worship Ministers Real Ministers? It Depends....

Everybody is not Always as Involved in Worship as We Think

     Like Youth Ministers of previous decades, many Worship Ministers (or Worship Pastors) feel that not everyone sees them as "real" ministers.  Some have told me they feel the only time some people even talk to them is to complain about something that happened in worship.  Considering the amount of work, not to even mention years of education, that many of you put in every week, this sense of frustration is entirely understandable.
     But, as is also sometimes true of Youth (or Student) Pastors, the blame for this chasm of understanding about your role is not entirely their fault.  

There Was this Preacher in the Bar...

So, the bartender looks up, and this preacher comes in...
      Wait. Is this some kind of joke?

       Not exactly. But it is pretty much what happened one night in the bar of a hotel in Indianapolis...

       A few years ago a young Canadian studying ministry at Kentucky Christian College (now Kentucky Christian University) traveled to Indianapolis for a two-day national gathering of preachers. He, along with other students, anticipated hearing outstanding preaching in a gathering of more than four hundred men.

       The student's name was Jacques. But, since he was named after his father back on Prince Edward Island, everyone who knew him just called him Junior.

     

It was a little after midnight and Junior was sitting by himself at a table in the little club having a drink on the main floor of the hotel.

What I Learned from a Baptist Preacher

       Those of us in ministry have a hard time being gracious when a new church starts a block from our own.  It's never easy when a new man or woman comes on the staff who is a lot more talented than us.  We try to be polite, but it seems pretty unfair.  Some of our co-workers will be on our side, of course.  Other people will come up and encourage us by pointing out what a rotten deal we are getting.

       In this one city I know, that will remain nameless, that's pretty much what started happening.  One of the Baptist preachers there had been struggling for some time. 

The Incredible Shrinking Ministry

The sermon is ultimately a message from outside the known universe to the listening church.  The faces of those who are listening must be less noticeable than the hot breath of God the Almighty over our shoulder along with the whispered question, “What in the world are you telling my people this morning?”

The God-directed foundation of preaching can easily erode.  But, it must be preserved not because it is what the church wants, when, in fact, it may want nothing of the kind.  It must be preserved not because it is always the most effective things to preach, when it may not be.  It must be preserved because the Senior Pastor has not given us His church to inspire and grow as we see fit.  He has temporarily handed us the microphone, all the while listening carefully to every word we say to His congregation.

We must acknowledge, like Isaiah before the thundering praises of the Seraphim, that we are a compromised ministry living and serving in the midst of a compromised people.

The Christian Leader's Secret Fear

We know what it means to be servant-leaders.  We must be willing to serve.  We demonstrate this week after week in our churches.  We will do whatever needs to be done.  This is not what we fear.

We will, and in fact we sometimes do, wash other people's feet.  Washing feet is not our real fear.  Washing feet is kinda cool.  It's a Jesus-thing.  Serving others, even when not easy, is what we always expected the ministry to be about.

Having someone else wash our feet is a bigger challenge.  It is awkward.  We feel self-conscious.  But, we know we need to be an example.  People will watch us and learn.  This is not what we truly fear.

What Linus can Teach Pastors at Christmas

Violet just stared at the pathetic little tree.  “Boy, are you stupid Charlie Brown.  You were supposed to get a good tree.  Can’t you even tell a good tree from a poor tree?”

Patti gave a long sigh and shook her head, “You’re hopeless Charlie Brown.”

Then Lucy chimed in, “You’ve been dumb before, Charlie Brown.  But this time you really did it.”

Pastors know that feeling.