What Now?

[Warning: I was home sick yesterday and read a lot of news and watched a lot of news programs. In other words, I actually took my head out of the sand, and now I need to vent about what I saw when I looked around.]

I saw a program where a random group of Americans of various persuasions were being asked several questions by a pollster. The nuclear moment came with this question: “Do you believe America’s best days are behind her?” Nearly every hand went up. 

Someone will hate me for this, but I was forced to concur with the crowd. Yes, being honest with myself, I had to admit that this is something I have come to believe. I don’t want to believe this. I don’t know when I started believing this. I hope I’m wrong, but if I’m honest, I believe this nation was greater at one time than it ever will be again. I don’t think I felt this way fifteen or twenty years ago. Thinking back, I know I didn’t feel this way when Ronald Reagan was president. I’m not sure when I crossed the threshold of negativity, and I’m not saying it has all that much to do with who was president, that’s just the last time I can remember truly believing things would be getting better, not worse.

I would like the reader to understand what a revelation this is to me personally. I did not know this was how I felt. I had not come to grips with this until last night. I’m realizing today that this is a profound moment in my own personal history. I now see my nation, the one my grandfathers and my dad fought for, in a state of decline that will ultimately lead to its death, or the death of everything that makes it the country I love. I am shocked by what I just wrote, but I know history, and I know what I’m seeing, and that’s what I honestly see.

Now, understand that as a Christian, I can think beyond all of this, of course.  I realize my ultimate citizenship is in Heaven, and I have a higher allegiance and a higher calling than can be placed within geographical boundaries or nationalistic patriotism. I’m pretty globally minded most of the time, especially as it comes to the value of people and God’s desire to reach the world for Christ, etc., but even though I’m a pastor more concerned with the spiritual realm, and even though I have an eye to the eternal, can I just put all that on hold for a minute and talk about how I feel about the country of my birth and heritage? Yes, I can, because this is MY blog.

All patriotism aside, there’s also the simple fact that I live here. My children live here.  My children’s children will most likely be living here. And I’ve always known what a privilege it is to live here. People fought and died to protect what it means to live here.  Living here means more than we who have never lived anywhere else realize. Our nation has been truly exceptional and everyone in the world knows it. But I fear we are losing our exceptional status at an alarming rate. The problem isn’t just that less people think we are exceptional, it is that we are much less exceptional than we were twenty years ago. That’s a verifiable fact. That’s the hard truth of the matter. Everything that made the American Experiment so great, is being deconstructed while we watch.

Before I digress into the myriad problems we face as a nation, or all the ways we have chosen to erode our exceptional status, let me try to stay on point. What happened to my optimism?  More importantly, what happened to most of the country’s optimism? Is it just that we’ve had an extended down time and so everyone has gone negative? I don’t think so. There were always down times. Is it all because of President Obama? No, three more years, and we can have someone else who won’t be able to bring us real hope. See, there I go.

In the same show last night, another poignant question was asked. The pollster asked, “If I were to offer you 10 million dollars to live anywhere but America, who would do it?”  Most hands went up.  And he sadly said, “I think this is the first time in my life when American citizenship had a price tag.” The truth is many or most people aren’t so sure there aren’t better places to live right now. What if they’re right? What if we have fallen that far already? I don’t really think that, but what if that’s where we’re headed?  Can anything be done to stop our decline?

That’s another blog or book or series of books, I guess, but I’m not writing to solve problems here. I’m writing to face myself in the mirror. Maybe the first step to something greater for me is this revelation. I have lost faith that we can move forward.  I see a nation divided and falling. I don’t want to see this, but that’s what I see. 

My tendency is to start writing paragraphs now about what we should do next. Pray for revival… evangelize more… maybe be more politically active, etc., etc., but no, I think I just need to stay here for awhile in this place where I am stunned by how I really see my own country. I don’t want to feel this way. What now?

Top Ten Truths I've Learned as a Pastor

The following is a short message I did for the ordination of our youth pastor a few weeks ago.

Top Ten Truths I’ve Learned As A Pastor

(Presented at the ordination of Aaronn Nelson)

Since I knew brother Mark Bradley would be diligent to present a message from Scripture, I felt the freedom to share something drawn more from personal experience.  I do believe I could support each of these thoughts with a Bible verse or two, but since I only have about ten minutes, you’ll just have to trust me on that.  I’d like to share with our man of the hour, “The Top Ten Truths I’ve Learned As A Pastor.”

Now, before I share these, I want to recognize the fact that I’ve left out some of the more obvious truths, such as the need for personal prayer and Bible study. Brother Aaronn already knows that very well, so I’ve selected ten, possibly, less-obvious truths I’ve learned, and as you might guess, I’ve learned most of these the hard way… Number ten…

10.)  If you play for an Audience of One, your life will be less noisy.

Being a pastor is a noisy job.  There are many voices vying for attention, not the least of which are those voices in our heads.  Our job, like it or not, is very much performance based.  We are constantly evaluated, if not officially, then casually, and any one person’s opinion of us can turn on a dime.  Come in late one morning, the wrong person notices, and suddenly everyone in the church thinks you’re sleeping in every day until 10:30. 

And the fact is that we are accountable to the church.  However, what is our accountability to the church compared to our accountability to God?  If you play well for an Audience of One, you won’t have to worry about what the church thinks, unless your church is totally out of tune with God, and if that’s the case, you may just want to find a new church. 

Ultimately, you will give an accounting to God for your leadership, and if you remember that He sees the heart and knows what really matters… and stay focused on pleasing Him almost to the exclusion of all other voices… well, maybe, just maybe… you won’t go crazy.

Number nine…

9.)  If you make your ministry about keeping people happy, you’ll only make yourself miserable.

This is similar to the first truth, but worth mentioning separately.  Understand that leadership will almost never take you down the path of least resistance.  You just need to know going in, that being a pastor means not everyone is going to be happy with your personality, your hair style, the way you dress, the frequency of your shaving or more importantly, your decisions.  If you try to make everyone happy, you’ll wind up spinning around in circles until you finally get dizzy and collapse. 

The eighth truth I’ve learned after 20 years as a pastor is this:

8.)  If someone else can do it, let them.

Conversely, if no one else can do it, then do it yourself.  I really mean what I’m saying here.  If someone else CAN do it, let them.  There are certain things no one else can do, because it is at the core of your calling, or they are simply not trained, equipped, skilled or have not been endowed with the leadership to do that particular thing.  However, if it can be done by someone else, ask someone else to do it.

The reason for this is NOT only so you can be freed up to do other things.  That’s just a side benefit.  The main reason to let others do whatever they can is because the most productive thing you can do as a Pastor is develop other leaders… and the best way to make other leaders is to give them leadership.  As Andy Stanley puts it, “People learn on a need-to-know basis.”  If you want to grow leaders, ask them to do things on the edge of their ability.  If someone else can do it, let them.

Number seven…

7.)  If you don’t make mountains out of mole hills, you’ll less likely make mole hills out of mountains.

“Pick your battles” may be an over-used phrase, but it is still a critically important concept in the ministry.  If you spend your time dealing with stuff that doesn’t really matter, you’ll wind up neglecting the things that really do matter.  If you spend your leadership capital on small potatoes, you won’t have that capital in the bank when you need it for big potatoes. 

The best way to be ready to deal with the really important stuff is to make sure you let little stuff go.

The sixth truth I’ve learned as a pastor is this:

6.)  If you risk nothing, you will gain nothing.

This is the basic idea of faith in Scripture… Faith is doing what Abraham did when he just started walking, not knowing where he was going.  Faith is what Joshua and the 2^nd generation after the Exodus did, when they set foot in the Jordan, and the waters parted, but not before they stepped in.  This principle is absolutely everywhere in the Bible.  God gets involved when we get out on a limb.  God steers moving objects.

I’ll tell you what else this means, practically.  If you apply this, you’ll be attempting great things for God, and sometimes, because we don’t hear an audible voice from God… and because sometimes, God even leads us down a road just to test us… sometimes, it is going to look and feel like you failed.  Sometimes it will seem like you went through the wrong door… and walked the wrong path. 

Sometimes you’ll need to realize God isn’t blessing something, and you’ll need to let it go and go back to the drawing board.  But listen, there is no such thing as failure as long as you are risking for God.  I could preach a whole sermon on that right there, but just remember as a pastor, that if you risk nothing, you will gain nothing.

Number five…

5.)  If you avoid difficult conversations, you’ll miss out on ministry.

Nancy Beach, a staff member at Willow Creek Church in Chicago said, “Ministry is a series of difficult conversations.”  Now, I must say when I first heard that at a conference I attended, I thought it was kind of bland.  However, after twenty years, I now see it as one of the greatest truisms I’ve ever heard.

My admonition is this: Have the one-on-one conversations.… Work through stuff… Bring in a mediator if needed, but when there’s something sitting there, don’t let it become a land mine.  Don’t wait for an undercurrent of conflict to explode into lightening at the worst possible moment.  Swallow hard… schedule the meeting… go to the person and have the difficult conversation.

Number four…

4.) If you learn to flee sexual immorality, you’ll take away most of the enemy’s arsenal.

I know of no other potential area of sin, from which the Bible tells us to flee.  When the Apostle Paul tells us to flee sexual immorality, the imagery is to run wildly with arms flailing in the air, screaming the word “No.”  Ok, maybe I’m taking a little liberty there, but that’s the general idea.

In my opinion, when it comes to pastors, i.e. men in the ministry, there is no other area nearly as dangerous as this.  Find every way you can to run from sexual immorality.  Don’t try to stare it down.  Just run.

And on a practical note, I’d encourage you to read the book: “Every Man’s Battle,” if you haven’t already… and read it again about every five years.

Number three…

3.)  If you confess and repent regularly, sin will not gain a foothold.

You won’t be perfect, but you can have times of purity, make no mistake.  When I came here in view of a call, I shared that at that time, as far as I knew, I was pure before God.  Some people thought that was a bold claim, but purity is something the Bible calls for, and therefore it is possible.  The Devil is the one who whispers that purity is not possible.  Purity is possible.  And by purity, I mean, that there is no known, ongoing sin in your life.

At the very least, you can have seasons of purity, and those times are precious.  But honestly there will probably be other times where you are just battling, and frankly, sometimes you won’t win every battle.  When you watch a movie you shouldn’t have watched or fail to change the channel quickly enough when the Victoria’s Secret commercial comes on… or when you lose your temper with your kids… or respond to someone’s anger in kind… you’re going to need to be quick to confess and repent.

We are not perfect, folks.  You won’t be perfect, Brother Aaronn.  But if you confess quickly and repent regularly, that is to catch yourself and turn away from your sin in sorrow, then sin will not gain a foothold… and I don’t even want to talk about what happens if sin does gain a foothold.  I encourage you to confess and repent regularly.

Number two…

2.)  If you don’t know where you’re going, don’t try to take people with you.

Pray, pray, pray.  Seek a vision from God.  Seek His direction.  Make plans and take action when you feel like God is in it.  However, and you may not hear this anywhere else, if you don’t know where you’re going, stop leading.

I’m saying there’s a time to wait on the Lord.  I’m saying there is a time to let things be, if you don’t have clear direction.  I’m saying it is possible to do more damage than good with haphazard leadership. I know, because I’ve done it.

The thing to do if you don’t know where you’re going is not just take off somewhere.  The thing to do is seek God with all your heart… and until He, at least, gives you an inch of vision, don’t go anywhere.  You won’t read this in any book I know of, but there is a time for maintenance in our ministries.  There’s a time to let fruit develop for a bit. There’s a time to wait on God.  There’s a time to just be faithful in the basics, while waiting for direction in the specifics.

I might add that we are not in a waiting time currently at First Baptist Church.  Not at all.  Instead, “it’s go time.”  And we’re going to keep going until I don’t know where else to go.

Now, the number one truth I’ve learned as a pastor… is this:

1.)  If you really care about people, they’ll really care about you.

There’s no substitute for love and relationships in the ministry.  I believe God gives shepherds a heart for the sheep.  I have always had a special love for the people God places under my spiritual care.  I really believe this is a God thing, so I don’t know how to be practical with this, other than to tell you to pray for it.  Beyond that, honestly, if any pastor doesn’t care deeply about the people, it may be time to find a new job.

Now, I also want to say that especially in a church or a ministry of any size, you can’t be close to everyone.  You can’t know everyone or even most people well.  And you can’t always be there for everyone.  People will sometimes ask for more than you can give, and that goes back to some of the other truths, but what you can do, is care, and you can show that care every chance you get. 

My main point here is that if you do care and learn to show that care, the investment will bring a return, and the positive cycle of love that is created between a pastor and his congregation or area of ministry, can become one of the most fulfilling parts of your life.

My time is up.  I hope these truths have been helpful for our newest pastor.  I’ll close by saying that I am honored greatly to be ordaining Pastor Aaronn into the Gospel ministry tonight.  Thank you.