Clever Voices commenter Karen asks,
Does your church culture allow gracious truth-telling and facing real issues & problems? Or are sin issues deemed personal and private, so everyone goes about like free electrons minding their own business rather than as integral, interdependent parts of a living body?
Free electrons? You bet there are scads of such in our churches. Some pastors are “free electrons” or if you prefer baseball, “free agents” who move to the highest bidder. Other pastors are free electrons in that you never know exactly where they are – maybe the hospital, nursing home, or maybe on the golf course.
Ben Cole is still looking into the Potemkin Village in Ft. Worth. What will he find? Other places, things, and people mentioned are Waterloo, Munster (not the cheese, bro, and yes, I’m umlaut challenged), Turks, Broadus, proboscidea, Joseph, Potiphar, and the prime person – Patterson.
Danny Akin invokes Adrian Rogers for lessons learned. Others are in the habit of pontificating about what Adrian would say, or Adrian would do if he were alive. Sorry, it is a cheap and tawdry point to claim he would be on your side today.
Former marathon addict Dave Miller says, “Let’s not pretend that morbid obesity is meaningless in ministry.” Indeed. I’m trying to break the habit of looking at any photo of a group of SBC pastors and calculating the total poundage. How many of the rotund reverends does it take to get a ton of beef on the holy hoof? Eight? Seven? Six? Do the math. Calories are cheap but it’s no long-term bargain to take advantage of that.
Our North American Mission Board is gearing and staffing up in the area of evangelism. Chronic complainers, and NAMB has a plethora of them, find reasons to gripe about this. An immutable rule in these SBC social media days is that any blog, news outlet, twitter feed morphs into a gripe site in nothing flat…if gatekeepers don’t stay vigilant.
SBC Today has been around for a long time and I would like to see them thrive again and contribute to SBC life. The past couple of years were painful to watch for the venerable blog. Maybe one day they will get on track but with only three articles in more than a month (and one of them a mind-numbing piece approaching four thousand words) it is unlikely to happen.
Forty years ago this month I arrived at seminary to start work on my MDiv. I was somewhat anxious about it having been out of the classroom for six years or so and not having any Bible school background. I didn’t know any better than to approach the experience from the standpoint that I knew nothing and wanted to learn. I knew next to nothing and in three years succeeded in becoming educated beyond my intelligence. Though almost a decade younger than I, Dave Miller pretty much says what I would say. It may not be how others would look at it but after all these years I consider that it was a providential blessing that I didn’t have a college degree in anything related to the Christian ministry.
I’m pretty eager about attending, God willing, the SBC convention in Birmingham next June and I’ll get the jump on it by telling my pastor brethren that they ought to make time to visit the Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark. I’ve been there and it is fascinating. Besides, many of my windbag pulpiteer colleagues would feel right at home. It is a blast furnace, after all.
LifeWays’s Facts and Trends provides a lot of content for pastors. I found the piece 4 Dangers Facing Pastors interesting. It’s too vague and generalized to be of great help, I judge. The article said the pastor needed protection from: fans, critics, the devil, and himself. The old standby for pastors includes just three and is far more relevant, I think. The pastor should watch out for: women, money, laziness. Each of those three main points can have unlimited sub-points and all will hit home for pastors or prospective pastors.
If you’ve been at your church for a decade or more why not ask the church to give you a month sabbatical where you would be out of the pulpit? My church just did that (actually he got six consecutive Sundays off) and the guy is a ball of fire since returning. Well worth the investment for both pastor and church.
Have a good Lord’s Day this weekend.