You can't solve problems with the people who caused them

I did something last week I've never done before. I talked to a caller who said she was conducting an impartial political survey. Normally, I hang up on such calls as soon as I know what they are, but this time I thought I would give them my views. I found some of the questions misleading, some were confusing, and a few were obviously not impartial.

The question that most peaked my interest was when she asked if I leaned more towards the Republican party or to Donald Trump. I asked her to repeat the question to make sure I didn't misunderstand. After she repeated it, I responded that the question didn't make any sense since Donald Trump had been elected president on the Republican ticket. She moved on to the next question.

Now, it can be argued that Trump is not exactly the typical Republican, and that many Republicans dislike him as much as do the Democrats. Still, I felt it was a loaded question and represented an obvious bias against Trump. After all, I was not asked if I leaned more towards the Democrat party or to Hillary Clinton. I wasn't even asked if I was a Democrat or a Republican. I answered a couple more questions and said I was done and hung up. I had wasted enough of my time.

Every election cycle I say it can't get much worse, and every election cycle I am wrong. It can and does get worse. Every candidate is long on attacks against their opponents and short on ideas for improving the country. We hear a lot of generalities and few specifics. Every candidate promises to improve health care, but none explain how they will do that. They all want to fight the war on drugs, but none say what they will do to actually win that battle. A lot of attack ads, a few general statements guaranteed to appeal to everyone, and no specific plans for doing anything.

As I told someone lately, our nation is plagued with a lot of office holders and few leaders. The majority of politicians are running for an office, a position, but few offer any real leadership. It's amazing to me how Congress can have such low approval ratings and yet the same people keep getting reelected.

Our nation has serious problems, and you can't solve problems with the same people who created them. Most of the ones who are in office today have proven they have no solutions to the problems facing this country, so why should they be returned to their offices? People often call for term limits, but there is no way anyone in Congress is going to vote to put themselves out of a job. However, the American public doesn't have to wait for them to vote in term limits. We have the power to set term limits every time there is an election.

We vote out the ones who are doing nothing and replace them with their opponents, and if they prove incapable of doing the job we replace them the next time they are up for reelection. We should expect and demand real leadership from our elected representatives or we replace them with those who will provide it. If enough American voters take this approach perhaps those running for office will realize we are serious about wanting real leadership from those we elect to represent us.

Every Christian should vote, but our involvement in our political system cannot stop there. Scripture also mandates that we pray for those in office. That includes the ones you voted against. We have no right to complain about our leaders if we do not exercise our right to vote, and we have no right to complain about them if we do not pray for them regularly.

If you have  not voted early I encourage you to vote tomorrow. Too much is riding on this election to sit home.

Pastors must work the angles to be truly successful

Eugene Peterson, one of the truly fine Christian ministers of our time, has passed away. As a pastor, professor, and writer he influenced thousands of ministers during his lifetime. I was one of them. Although I never met the man, his books found their way into my library where they were read again and again. My favorite was Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity.

In that book Peterson pointed out that many of us in ministry focus on the visible tasks of ministry: preaching, teaching and administration. After all, it is in these areas where our congregations evaluate us. After a few short years in ministry almost anyone can become rather skilled in each of these tasks and enjoy a respectable ministry.

However, it is in the invisible, quiet tasks of ministry that gives integrity to what we do. These invisible tasks are prayer, scripture reading and giving spiritual direction. These are what Peterson called the angles of ministry, and he wrote that if we got "the angles right it was a simple matter to draw in the lines. but if we are careless with or dismiss the angles, no matter how long or straight we draw the lines we will not have a triangle, a pastoral ministry."

He then reminded his readers, "We can impersonate a pastor without being a pastor. The problem, though, is that while we can get by with it in our communities, often with applause, we can't get by with it within ourselves."

I've had seasons in my ministry where I felt I was merely impersonating a pastor. While I was going through the motions, at times it felt like I was robo-pastor. Just push a button and out pops a sermon. Push another button and I show up at the hospital. But, during those times I felt empty, and I knew I was not what God had called me to be.

The first time I read this book I realized what was missing: the angles. I had abandoned the times of prayer and scripture reading I needed to feed my own soul, and when your soul is sitting on empty it's hard to give spiritual direction to another. Any time I felt myself falling back in my old ways I would read this book again to be reminded of what God had called me to be as well as what He had called me to do.

A number of Peterson's books sit on my shelves. While all have benefitted me, none touched me or impacted my ministry as much as Working the Angles. The church lost a great Christian leader, but Peterson's influence will be felt for many more years to come.

Every pastor needs a friend

I have been in the ministry now for over 35 years. Fourteen of those years were spent in judicatory ministry working with hundreds of churches. In addition, I have traveled the country and parts of Canada leading conferences and workshops for hundreds of small church pastors. One of the things I have learned is that ministry is often tough, and many pastors are struggling. Another thing I've learned is that many pastors do not have a close friend to help them with their struggles.

Every pastor needs a friend. We need someone who loves us unconditionally, and someone we can trust with our pain and hurts. Many of us have been told that we should not make friends with people in our churches, but I never accepted that advice. Some of my closest friends today were members of a church I served for 20 years. One person in particular would do absolutely anything for me as I would for him. I consider myself fortunate to have him as a friend, especially when I know that many pastors do not have even one such person in their life.

Every pastor also needs a pastor. There are things that happen in the life of a minister that only another minister can understand. Sometimes we need advice that only another minister can provide. We need someone who can speak biblical truth in our lives, and we need someone who can keep our confidences.

When I went into judicatory ministry I assumed I would be that person for many of the pastors I served. I soon found out some did not consider me a safe person to tell their stories to. Eventually I learned the reason. Although Baptist leaders do not appoint pastors to churches, we do recommend potential pastors to our churches who are seeking new leaders. Some were afraid if they told me their weaknesses or failures it would hurt their chances of being recommended to a church.

If a pastor does not have a trusted friend or a pastor who does he or she talk to when things get difficult? Often, it's our spouses, but that can be very unfair to them. While they are willing to help us with our struggles, it's not fair to dump everything on them. Doing so may lead them to resent our ministry or the church we serve. When that occurs it only leads to even more stress in the clergy home.

I recommend every pastor seek out a friend and a pastor. Your friend should be someone local who you can see and speak to regularly.  I have more than one such person in my life, and you should seek to have as many such people in your life as possible.

Your pastor may be someone further away. It might be a former professor, a former pastor, a retired minister, or an active minister in another community. It just needs to be someone you can trust to keep your confidences and who will be honest with you.

Ministry will have its challenges, but with friends and a pastor it can be easier.

The secrets we keep

Secrets are a serious problem because most of us have them. I was recently reading a book about estate selling, and one of the things the writer cautioned people about was to make sure they didn't leave their secrets for others to find. The writer is a 20-year veteran of selling estates. As he has gone through houses preparing them for an estate sale he has discovered many things that would be very troubling if loved ones found them. For instance, he says that in about 80 percent of the estates he sells he finds pornography, which he does not sell. He finds pictures of people in compromising situations which would hurt family members. In my auction business I have also found items that would be very hurtful if family members had seen them.

Of course, one of the problems with secrets is nearly everyone has them. There are things we simply do not reveal to anyone. Some of these secrets may be relatively minor, but others have the potential to do great damage to one's family or to others. Of course, they have even greater potential to do harm to us. I often tell troubled churches they are only as healthy as the secrets they keep. The same is true for individuals.

Perhaps the quickest example of this in the Bible is the story of David and Bathsheba. King David had an affair with the married Bathsheba while her husband was fighting in a war David should have led. The affair led to her becoming pregnant. When David learned of this he sent for her husband thinking he would be intimate with her while he was home, and everyone would assume the child was his. However, her husband refused to sleep with his wife while his fellow soldiers were fighting a war. His refusal led David to send him back with secret orders to have him placed on the front line and abandoned so he would be killed. When word was received of his death, David married Bathsheba hoping that no one would know of his sin.

For approximately a year it seemed that his secret was safe, but David admitted that his strength had left him, that he had lost the joy he once had known through his relationship with God. Still, he kept his secret until God sent a prophet, Nathan, to confront David. Once confronted, to his credit, David admitted his guilt and cried out to God for forgiveness. God did forgive him, but he and his family paid a terrible price for his disobedience and his attempt to hide his secret from others.

Secret sins have a way of eating at us. Satan uses them to cause us to feel great guilt and shame which robs us of the joy of the Lord. Being unwilling to confess our sins we often become unable to overcome them leading us further and further away from God. They not only alienate us from God, they can alienate us from our loved ones.

In Psalm 51 we read David's prayer of confession. Like David, we need to repent and seek God's forgiveness for the secret sins we might be keeping. There are many reasons why some people are unwilling to admit their sins, but none of them make any real sense. God already knows our lives, both the good and the bad. It's not like we are hiding anything from Him. When we refuse to confess our sins we are only deceiving ourselves.

The author of the book I'm reading is right. If you have physical things in your home that you would be ashamed of someone finding, you need to get rid of them. More importantly, if there are secret sins in your life you need to deal with them so you can be spiritually whole. If you do, like David, you will find that God will quickly forgive you and set you back on a course of spiritual healing.

Preaching with authority

Billy Graham was always known for preaching with great authority. Throughout his messages he frequently began a statement with the words, "The Bible says...." As a result of his belief in what the Bible said his powerful preaching brought millions of people to faith in Jesus Christ.

What many do not know is that at one time his faith in the authority of the Scriptures was shaken. After a crusade that produced poor results a fellow preacher and friend told Graham that he was too dependent on the Bible. This man had graduated from a liberal seminary that had convinced him that the Bible contained errors and was untrustworthy. For a period of time Graham didn't know what to do or believe. About that time he reluctantly accepted an invitation to speak at a camp.

While at the camp he continued to wrestle with the authority of the Bible. One evening he walked out into the woods by himself and his Bible. He later wrote that he laid the Bible on a stump and began to pray telling God he could not continue to preach if he could not be certain that the Bible was true. While praying the Holy Spirit began to move in him, and he rose to his feet fully convinced that the Bible was true. The next day he preached at the camp and 400 people came to faith in Christ. A few weeks later he held the famous 1949 Los Angeles crusade that launched his worldwide ministry.

Too many preachers are content to tell people what they think or what some professor told them in seminary rather than pointing out what the Bible says. Such preaching lacks authority to change people's lives which is one reason the church today is in the shape it's in. Some pastors believe if they refer to the Bible too much it confuses people because so many people are not familiar with the Scriptures. (Maybe they're not familiar with the Scriptures because they never hear them in the churches they attend!)

There's certainly nothing wrong with quoting people, referring to contemporary studies, and using other illustrations to support your points, but the most powerful tool in the pastor's preaching arsonal is the Bible. It is sharper than any two-edged sword able to penetrate even the hardest heart. The Bible is just as relevant and powerful today as it was when holy men of old wrote it. The Holy Spirit can take the words of Scripture to speak truth into a person's life.

I am convinced that until the church returns to the Bible and is willing to proclaim its truths to a postmodern age that it will continue to be weak and ineffective. We have God's infallible Word, and any authority our preaching may have will only come through that Word.

What does the small church have to offer?

During my 35+ years of ministry I have heard many people question the value of smaller churches. As the bivocational pastor of one of those churches for 20 years I occasionally heard people question my call to the ministry or wonder why I continued serving in a smaller church. Unfortunately, some people do not know all the things a small church can offer people.

1. In smaller churches it's easier to develop relationships with other people. Larger churches have to form small groups. A small church is already a small group. In the small church you do not become merely a member; you become part of the family. In our world today where it is often difficult to develop genuine relationships with people, the small church makes that possible.
2. People often have an opportunity to serve sooner in smaller churches. I often joke that a small church will work a new member to death if he or she doesn't learn to say no! In a small church you don't have to wait 10 years before you are allowed to serve in a ministry role.
3. Small churches communicate quickly. Sometimes too quickly I might add! When I would be invited in for a church conflict mediation one problem I often heard was that the communication was very poor in the church. People often did not know what was going on, and when people don't know the facts they sometimes create their own. In smaller churches people tend to know what's going on.
4. In small churches people are more important than programs. People are less concerned about your qualifications than they are about the type of person you are. Folks are not judged by their skills as much as they are by their heart.
5. This last one is a benefit of a small church that I enjoy most of all. They have some of the best cooks you'll find anywhere. I've been invited to a lot of larger churches when they had meals catered in. The food was good, but not nearly as good as when the church ladies brought in their finest dishes for the church pitch-in.

For years people have predicted the end of the small church. Don't you believe it. Small churches can offer things that the larger churches can't. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with large churches, and nothing I've written here should suggest that I believe there is. It's just that there are people who are looking for the things that smaller churches can offer. There will always be people attracted to smaller churches.

If you are called to serve in a smaller church, carefully pray about that opportunity. You may find you will love it as much as I have.

Good intentions

I just finished re-reading a book, Take the Stairs: 7 Steps to Achieving True Success by Rory Vaden that I would recommend to anyone involved in ministry. So many ministers complain about how things are not what they should be in the church but few do more than complain. Many never take any action to change things, and if they do they often run into opposition. It becomes easy to decide to sit back and do nothing but hope that someday, somehow, things will change, That is the escalator approach that the author warns against. Although taking the escalator might be easier, it often leads to compromise and mediocrity.

This is a book I read when it first came out, and decided it was time to read it again. Even though it had a lot of highlights in it, I was surprised at how many new ones I made as I re-read it. New thoughts jumped out at me in my second time through the book which confirmed I was wise to pick it up for a second reading.

Vaden talks about how often fear keeps us from doing what we know we should do. That has certainly been true in my life at times, and I'm confident it's been true for you as well. Fear tells us we can not succeed so we don't even try. The author told a powerful story about a woman who was so fearful of heights and enclosed spaces that she was willing to die in an apartment fire rather than escape. A firefighter found her, and when she resisted his efforts to lead her to safety, he kept telling her to "Do it scared." That later became the keywords that helped her make better choices in her life.

Sometimes in ministry, and in all leadership positions, we need to do things scared. It's true that we don't know the outcome of our efforts, but if we never put forth the effort nothing will change. Is the status quo really better than the possibility we might fail?

Another point he brought out is that we are much more likely to act our way into healthy thinking than we are to think our way to healthy acting. I've read that elsewhere, and it makes a lot of sense. It becomes too easy to just keep thinking about how we can do things differently but never move beyond the thinking phase. Nothing really happens until we take action. Just like nobody believed it was possible to run a mile in under four minutes until somebody did it, taking action has the power to change the way we, and others, think about what's possible.

It's a good book, and I do recommend it.