"No" is a complete sentence

Like most people, at times I have found myself overwhelmed with things to do. I allowed myself to be overcommitted because I found it difficult to tell people no. Especially as a younger pastor, I seldom refused any request from anyone. I didn't want to disappoint people, and perhaps I had a fear of what is today known as the "fear of missing out (FOMO)." I didn't want to miss an opportunity to experience something new. Unfortunately, staying overcommitted is a sure ticket to burnout, stress, and a host of other problems.

I had to learn to set priorities for my life because if I didn't others would put their priorities on me. When that happens we are living their lives, not our own. We are helping them achieve their dreams and not fulfilling our own. That is not healthy.

One of the dangers today is that we tend to see too many things as priorities. When the word priority first came into English usage it was singular. It wasn't until 500 years after the word first appeared that we began to think about multiple priorities. The problem is when too many things become priorities, nothing is a priority. Perhaps today it's unreasonable to think we can only have one priority for our lives, but we must be very careful to not see too many things as priorities or we become unable to focus on the truly important things we need to accomplish.

I also had to learn to say no to people. In reality, often the things that people ask me to do I'm not the best person to do them anyway. There would be other people far better equipped to do them than me. Not only did I need to learn how to say no, I had to learn that I didn't always need to justify the reason for my declining their request. Sometimes I probably need to offer a reason for saying no, but not always. No is a complete sentence. It states everything that needs to be said in many instances.

Saying no is an important part of setting boundaries for your life. Those incapable of ever saying no to a request have no boundaries. This is a dangerous thing for someone in leadership. As a young pastor I was becoming overwhelmed with all the responsibilities I was feeling in our small church. I spoke to our denominational representative about it, and he explained that I had become the church. I was allowing everyone to dump their responsibilities on me. He further explained that this was not only harmful to me, but it was harmful to the congregation because I wasn't allowing them to be the church God had called them to be. The next Sunday I told the church I would no longer let others give me their responsibilities. If they had accepted a responsibility in the church I would not cover for them when they didn't fulfil that responsibility. If someone asked why something wasn't done I would invite them to ask the person who was supposed to have done it. If I could assist someone or resource someone in their area of responsibility I would do it, but I would no longer do it for them. From that day forward I became more comfortable saying no, and it helped our church and it helped reduce the stress in my life.

Some of you may need to practice saying no. Just stand in front of a mirror and keep repeating no until it becomes easy to form your mouth to say the word. You'll find it doesn't hurt to say the word, and very often it will make you feel much better! It will also allow you the opportunity to focus on the things God has called you to do. 

2020 Election

 Tomorrow is election day. Some of you have already voted, Due to the early voting many are predicting this to be perhaps a record turnout for voting. No doubt people have strong feelings for both presidential candidates and others on their local ballots. I'm a traditionalist and have waited until election day to vote. The only time I have ever voted by absentee ballot I was sitting on an aircraft carrier off the coast of Vietnam. Since returning home I have voted in every primary and every general election in person on election day.

This election cycle has been rough with strong words coming from both camps. Polls show the election could be close again, but after 2016 I'm not sure how much attention we should pay to the polls. While most focus has been on the presidential race, we should not forget the congressional seats up for election as well. Many of these races are tight and the results of those races may, in some ways, be more important than who sits in the White House.

I think it is a sad commentary on the state of our nation when stores such as Wal-Mart have pulled their guns and ammunition from display in their stores due to the election. Many fear riots will break out across the country regardless of how the election turns out. In light of what happened after the 2016 election, and since, that fear is well-founded. This speaks volumes about how divided our nation is and the total lack of respect for one another that now exists in America.

In every election there are winners and losers. In the past, the losers went home and vowed to work harder next time. They didn't use their loss as an excuse to burn down homes and businesses and loot and shoot.

Today, partisanship rules our elected officials. Compromise is no longer a reality. The good of the nation no longer is the focus of our elected officials but the good of their party and their own pocketbooks. Statesmanship is no where to be found. Leadership is largely absent. This is true on both sides of the aisle.

So  why bother to vote? I believe as Christians we have an obligation to be good citizens of the place we now call home, and that obligation includes participating in determining who our earthly leaders will be. We have an obligation to vote for those persons who best represent our values and will promote policies that are good for all people and the nation, not a select few. When the election is over, regardless of who wins, we have an obligation to pray for those elected.

As I've written before, our salvation will not come from the White House, the State House or the Court House but from God's house. God is ultimately in charge. Let's be good citizens while we are here and work for the betterment of this world, but let us always keep our eyes focused on God and our eternal home. 

Taking responsibility

By now you've probably heard that Hillary Clinton has published a book that explains why she lost the recent presidential campaign. In the book she evidently blames just about everyone for her loss: Bernie Sanders, Matt Lauer,  James Comey, the Russians, WikiLeaks, President Obama and VP Biden and even female voters. For some reason she seems unable to take any responsibility for her loss herself.

Since the election I've been amused at how the Democrats have been in a panic over the results. Even before the new President was sworn into office there were talks about impeachment. After all, they had rigged the primary so no one but Clinton could get the nomination, and when Trump became the Republican nominee I'm sure they thought they had the election won. Trump wasn't a politician. He said some really stupid things at times and was certainly not politically correct in most things he did. He had very low trust rating. The problem was, so did Clinton.

After the election I believed that if Democrats had ran anyone other than Clinton they would have probably won the election. People did not trust Clinton. There were too many unanswered questions about Clinton's handing of Benghazi and the blatant lie she told about what incited the attack. There were other questions about her truthfulness such as the time she claimed she landed in Bosnia under sniper fire when video clearly showed just the opposite was true. Many people rightfully questioned the vast wealth the Clintons amassed after leaving the White House, and of course there were the missing emails, some of which contained classified information. The Democratic party had many people who would have been a more viable candidate. People may not have liked Trump, but they had even more concerns about Clinton.

One of Clinton's problems is illustrated once again in this book. She simply cannot accept responsibility. Even when she says she is responsible that statement is always followed by a "But...," at which time she shifts the blame to someone else.

What does all this have to do with persons in ministry? None of us enjoys admitting when we've made a mistake. Taking responsibility for our mistakes isn't easy or fun, but it is the adult thing to do. Trying to shift the blame to someone else just compounds the problem. And, when we try to avoid responsibility we really aren't fooling anyone.

A key element of leadership is admitting when we're wrong, and we will be wrong many times. That's the nature of leadership. If you never make mistakes you're not leading, you're managing. Leading dares to venture into new territory, and not every venture works out the way we want.

Zig Ziglar used to say "Failure is an event, not a person." Failing at some task does not make a person a failure. It simply means the individual did not succeed at that particular effort. The wise thing to do is to admit the failure and begin to look for a better way that will succeed.

People know when we've messed up. The good news is that many of those people are willing to forgive when they see us take responsibility for our mistakes. Few people expect us to be perfect, so they are often willing to forgive us if we are willing to admit those mistakes and take ownership of them. Admitting responsibility for our mistakes will actually cause people to trust us even more which is essential to a successful ministry.

Fake news, spam and sermons

There is a lot of useless information out there. Fake news sites have been blamed by some, including President Obama, for the defeat of Hillary Clinton in our recent election. These sites publish fake stories and place them on social media where many of them quickly go viral. Because they confirm what people on both political sides want to be true, they share them with others, and these stories take on a life of their own. Many of these fake stories are spread through Facebook which has promised to clamp down on them.

It's a shame that many of these fake stories are spread by Christian people. In the recent election my Facebook was filled with such stories being shared by Christians on both side of the political spectrum. While some of these stories sounded plausible, many of them were so far out there that one would think no discerning person would spread them without confirming whether or not they were true. I'm concerned that some of these stories are written just to see if gullible Christians will believe them.

And then there is spam. Every day my computer is filled with spam emails. I've been able to block many of these on my computer, but because Apple doesn't care about spam these emails still make it to my I-Phone and I-Pad. Every evening I have to spend several minutes deleting all the spam messages on these two devices. I see many complaints on the Internet about Apple's refusal to correct this issue. Since they've not addressed it I can only assume they don't care about the inconvenience. It's about time to get a new phone so this will be one of my considerations when I start looking.

This post isn't really a rant about fake news sites and spam. It is meant to be a caution to those of us who speak to our congregations each week. People are inundated everyday with false and misleading information. When they come to church they need to hear a message that is filled with truth and hope. After listening to bad news all week from the various news channels they want to hear something positive, something that will inspire them and fill them with hope in something eternal.

Yes, sometimes we have to speak on difficult subjects. Sometimes we are going to step on toes, but even these messages do not have to be negative or delivered in a mean-spirited manner.

Several years ago I realized that my sermons had become rather negative in recent months. As I reviewed my sermons during that time I was convicted about my negativity. The next Sunday I apologized to the congregation for this and promised that I would be diligent in making sure that did not happen again. Even when I need to speak on difficult subjects I can do so in a positive way and not come across as beating up the people.

We also need to ensure that we use reliable resources as we prepare our messages. It's very easy in this time of social media to grab information from one of these fake news sites to use in an illustration. If we do that it will eventually undermine our credibility, and people will begin to question everything we say.

If God has entrusted you to preach to His people He has given you a tremendous privilege and an even greater responsibility. Those who teach are under greater judgment. This is not a call that should be taken lightly. Speak the truth in love. Do so with authority and only after careful study and much prayer.

Accepting responsibiity

The day after the election a news program was interviewing various people about the results of the election. One of the interviewees was a former adviser to Bill Clinton when he was President. In fact, I think he might have managed one of Clinton's campaigns but I do not remember. Regardless, he had been in close proximity to the Clintons and had seen behind the curtain.

He was asked how Hillary Clinton would take this surprising defeat. He was certain that she was blaming various persons, that she was not one to admit that she might be responsible for losing the election. It appears he may have been right.

She reportedly did tell some of her campaign staff that she had "stepped in it" when she said that half of Trump's supporters were "deplorables." However, according to news sources, in a telephone call to large donors, she was putting much of the blame on the FBI's letter announcing that new emails had been discovered on another computer, and the case was being re-opened. Her internal poll numbers immediately went down. They rose when a few days later the FBI reported there was nothing new in these newly discovered emails, but she claimed that report re-energized some of Trump's supporters even more.

The fact is that these emails would not have been much of an issue in the election if (1) she had not used a private server to send classified information and (2) if she had not lied about it to the FBI and the American public when it was discovered she had done so. The FBI is not responsible for her email problems, she is.

Clinton's response to her election loss is typical of many of us today. We always want to find a scapegoat to blame instead of looking at how we have responsibility for our problems. It is so easy to play the "victim" card and pretend that all our problems are the fault of others.

Maturity comes when we accept responsibility for ourselves. Instead of pointing the finger at others when we fail we look inside to find out why we did not succeed as we wished. After our family-owned small business went under I could have blamed the economy, our suppliers, our competitors, our employees, but the truth was that none of them were ultimately responsible for our problem. As the owner/manager I was responsible. As Harry Truman said, "The buck stops here." After the business sold at auction I wrote a book called Mistakes: Avoiding the Wrong Decisions That Will Close Your Small Business. The book is available for either Kindle or NOOK devices.

Some who have read the book have said that I was too rough on myself, but I don't think so. The closing of our small business was the direct result of poor decisions I made. I accept total responsibility for it. I wrote the book to help others avoid similar mistakes that might lead to losing their businesses.

Our God is a God of grace and forgiveness, but in order to receive that forgiveness we must first admit that we have made mistakes. We have to own them and stop blaming others. Maybe the environment we grew up in wasn't the best. Factors outside ourselves may have made it easier to make bad choices, but ultimately the choices we make in life are ours. While it's never easy to admit we messed up, it is the only way to true redemption and ultimate freedom and success. Own your mistakes, and ask God to forgive you. He is far more willing to do that than many people believe.