Elections And Their Commercials

Well, the election has come and gone. I have to admit that I will be glad to not be getting "robo-calls" from candidates and those that endorse them. I will also be glad to have all of the attack ads off the TV. Now, it is not that I don't mind politics, it is just that so many of the attack ads are just stupid. I wish politician would learn the simple lesson that the most memorable way to get across a message is just to either be very straight forward, without being sanctimonious, or to be genuinely funny. The only example I saw of the latter was in an ad against the mayor of Winnipeg Manitoba. They actually have a clip of this guy in a soccer match where he kicks a young player in the face! The commercial went viral and is high on the list of Youtube viewings. Now that is political advertisement! I suppose it is not very substantive, but it certainly is memorable and in politics that is half the battle.

So, here is to all those that spend millions of advertising dollars. I am sure the TV, radio, and newspaper people love you, but could you spend a little more money and come up with some better commercials? If you have no sense of humor then just be straight with the public and tell them what you want to do. Be specific without being a policy wonk. If, on the other hand, you do have some sense of what will bring a smile to our faces then by all means do so. The Lord knows we could all use a good laugh, and who knows it might just win you some votes. Really good humor is a sign of intelligence and the world needs smart folks at the helm. Prove you are one of them by finding a humorous way to get your message across.

What Is The Big Idea?

On my bulletin board, just over my computer printer, I have a picture of one of my homiletical heros, Haddon Robinson. Dr. Robinson has been teaching preachers how to preach almost as long as I have been alive. He worked first at Dallas Theological Seminary, and then at Denver Seminary, and finally at Gordon / Conwell. I suppose though that his biggest claim to fame is the book he wrote years ago, entitled Biblical Preaching. I suppose I have read that book three times from beginning to end, and I have always profited from the experience.

I got the picture of Dr. Robinson from an ad for Gordon / Conwell where he is pictured with a quizzical look on his face and underneath are the words, "What is the Big Idea?" Anyone who has read Robinson's book will know that this referring back to one of his cardinal concepts about preaching, it must have focus. In other words, every sermon needs to be about something, which he calls the "big idea." I hate to admit it, but I have heard messages where the subject of the preacher's sermon was so disguised or confused that you just couldn't find it. Sadly, some of those sermons were my own!

That is why I have the picture where I see it every time that I sit down at my computer. I need that reminder that what I have to say must be focused if it is going to communicate. On more than one occasion I have refined or even rejected an idea because I just couldn't state it clearly enough. Clarity is an important goal for me.

I think that is essentially important in the day that we live. This has been called the "information age," and I suppose that is as descriptive a name for it as any. The implications for me as a preacher though are arresting. There are tons of "messages" out there which the average attender at Bethlehem Church is exposed to in the media. Some are tedious, others mundane, but a few are malicious. That is why it is so important to effectively communicate God's message to the church. It is, after all, the good news. It is so important to get that message across. I need all the tools of the effective communicator to accomplish that task. Humanly speaking, one of the keys it focus. I don't want anyone leaving church on Sunday asking, "Now, what was the big idea?"

Friends

Yesterday I had opportunity to eat lunch with a couple of guys that I have known since my college days. While we have not always been in close proximity to one another, we have for the last four years. Our lunch conversation focused on areas of common interest with a joke or two thrown in for good measure. I suppose it was while I was driving home that it struck me just how important it is to have friends.

Maybe that is one of the reasons that fellowship is such an important part of church. I suppose we could get the information that we receive in Sunday School or worship from television or by reading a book, but that interactive element would be missing.

Thinking of friendship, and its role in Christian discipleship I think it is pretty clear that we need it. I have to admit that my friends have been a help to me in terms of my Christian walk. Now, this is not some sort of accountability group where you expect that sort of thing. No, this is just people who care about me manifesting that concern. I am grateful for it, and I have to hope my friends get as much benefit from knowing me as I do from knowing them.

There Is Power!

Currently, I am reading a book by Chuck Swindoll entitled, "Flying Closer To The Flame." I'm only about half way through, but it seems to me that Dr. Swindoll wrote this book to correct an error which he sees in the evangelical church. From his perspective, there is so much fear of "wild fire" when it come to the Holy Spirit that, many evangelicals act as though the Spirit is not part of the Trinity. No, we are not about to change our doctrinal statements, but in practice we are nowhere close to what the New Testament says we can have.

I think that the esteemed president of Dallas Seminary may be onto something. Let's face it, the Charismatics are all over religious TV and some of them are just down right strange. I don't want to be associated with them, but has my fear of that kept me from a balanced appreciation for the ministry of the Spirit? I think it has. That is why I have begun making a study of what the Bible says about the Holy Spirit and, to the best of my ability, I intend to personally apply it.

One illustration that Swindoll used made me smile even as it made its point. I know there is power in the Spirit, just like I know there is power in an electrical outlet. I know it abstractly, intellectually. If I were to put a paper clip into that outlet I would know that there is power in the outlet experientially! That leads me to say that I'm not doing this just to better understand the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, I want to feel that power!

Multitasking?

We live in a day when people want to make the most out their time. The result is what has been dubbed "multitasking." Now, I have read my share of books on time management and I own more than one "productivity tool" which is intended to help me multitask, but I have to ask, is all of this good? Really, I have come to wonder if some folks over commit to secondary things just so they will have an excuse about not doing the primary things.

I am sure that someone reading the previous paragraph would be thinking, "well, the real issue is priority." I would agree, but there is something even more important which we need to remember. There is value, from time to time, to doing nothing. Truth is, by doing "nothing" you are doing "something," but I mean the kind of nothing that can't be checked off a "To Do" list. The thing that most often escapes me is that elusive thing called serious thought. Just rolling something over in your mind and mentally looking at all the aspects of something. If you fail to do this, you may end up making major decisions in too hasty a manner. Who wants that? Believe me, I have done enough of that for a lifetime and I always see the value a little more thought would have brought to the process.

Another aspect of this is captured by the phrase, "a jack of all trades, but a master of none." It takes time to master things. If that area becomes primary in your life, it may mean the neglect of some secondary items, but then that is why they are called secondary.

So, if after reading this post you think not just in terms of the "To Do" list but also of the priority of those things I will have accomplished part of what I set out to do. If you move on to spend some time in the mastery of the primary, even if it means the neglect of the secondary, I will have hit the bulls eye.

Unending

Whenever I think of an unending task I think of the pile of articles I have waiting to be read and filed. When I was in Seminary I took a Christian Education class where we talked about filing systems. I promptly adopted the one that made the most sense to me and happily began filing things away. That system involved using hanging folders and as many subcategories as you could think of. For instance, I had a file on Church History and behind that I had a file on Baptist Church History, and eventually I had a file on Free Will Baptist Church History. I think you can probably visualize this idea. The beauty of this was in putting all the articles on a given subject in the same file, which could be done with just a glance at the article.

Along the way I began to get frustrated with this plan. I had probably been using this method for 15 years when I decided to revamp the whole thing. I was finding that it was not easy to cross reference an article, to find something by a bit of secondary information, like who wrote it or what publication it appeared in. What I decided upon is a modification of another plan that was also presented in Seminary. What I do now is to use hanging folders which will hold 25 articles. The tab simply reads, "1-25" or "576-600," etc. Whatever article I am currently reading becomes the next number. These articles are then indexed on my computer using Bento, a scaled back version of File Maker. This means that I can cross reference all of these articles by all sorts of secondary subjects and the result is much more use from the articles I have filed away. The down side to this is that I really have to digest the articles to know what all the secondary subjects are. That initially meant rereading everything that I had filed in 15 years of ministry. Once I got past that task, I decided to cut up all my back issues of Christianity Today and file them. I now have two huge stacks of articles, mostly from Christianity Today, but also some other sources, that I need to read, index, and file. I have steadily worked at this for something like three years and have seen some progress. It does seem to me that about the time I really make a dent in this mountain of papers another stack gets added. I suppose it could be called an unending task.

Now, what possible lesson can be gleaned from this little snap shot of my office work? First, it is good to have an efficient information retrieval system. I have benefited from this in my work, especially on sermons. I am glad that I have a good system. Second, I may never finish this task. I suppose I could say I know that I won't finish. Short of stopping my subscriptions to all periodicals and my mother in law not giving me any of hers, I will always have a constant flow of information coming in. In fact, I have articles coming in faster than I can get them read, indexed, and filed. That led me to a realization the other day. When I retire, die, or for whatever reason, end my ministry I will have a stack of unread papers on my desk. That is a subtle reminder to me that the work of the church, whether you are thinking about a local church, or the entire Christian movement, is bigger than me. You might be thinking, well you are quite the egotist to ever think it wasn't bigger than you, and you would be right. I am convinced though that I am in a long line of pastoral egotists who have entertained the same thought. There is always more than can get done and when an undue portion of it falls to you time after time you begin to think it all depends on you. Wasn't that Jeremiah's lament, "I alone am left!" Well, Jeremiah was not the only one left, and neither am I.

So, back to that mountain of paper, which has come to symbolize to me the work of ministry. Will I ever get through all of it? I don't think so, but I can get some of it done and there will be benefit from that. A perfectionist might throw his hands up in frustration, but a pragmatist will take the next article from the top of the stack and start reading.

Dedication

While on my vacation I decided to read an autobiography that my wife had recommended to me. It is entitled Gifted Hands, The Ben Carson Story. It is story of one of the most gifted neurosurgeons alive today. It has some really touching moments and some stories of truly remarkable operations, but by far the most interesting part to me was the dedication of Ben Carson.

Steve Martin used to have a comedy routine that started, "I was born a poor black child..." Well, Ben Carson really was, and yet through the prodding of his mother, a strong faith in God, and boundless determination to achieve he graduated from Yale and ended up as a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins. Now, it is pointed out in the book, and hinted at in the title, that Dr. Carson possesses a remarkable gift of eye hand coordination, but what would that have been without his determination to use it as a surgeon? Who knows, maybe he would have focused on athletics and even have made it to the professional ranks, but what is that compared to the ability to perform even one life saving surgery?

As I see it Dr. Carson is an example of someone who had a natural talent and used it for the the greatest good. I have to believe that part of the reason for that is what I alluded to in an earlier paragraph. Ben Carson is a man of faith. I believe that he allowed God to channel his life into becoming a neurosurgeon. It was not an easy path, even for a man like Dr. Carson but it is clear from his book that the destination was worth the trip.

Personally, I believe that God has gifted all of us is one way or another. We know what Ben Carson did with his gift, what are you doing with yours?

A Small Gift

If you have read the last entry in this blog then you might have come to some conclusion about the black cloud that seemed to have been hovering over me. Well, I am here to give you a further weather report. The first ray of sunshine came on Wednesday night. It seemed to me that there was an exceptionally good spirit at the mid-week Bible study. This is really surprising given that I had labored all day under the impression that it was business meeting night. I had decided to work ahead of myself and study the passage that I had planned to preach from Sunday night in our Life Group. About ten minutes before the service I realized it was not the date for the Quarterly Business Meeting! I walked in with the notes for the Sunday night message and it went over much better than I would have expected.

One of the things that has always confirmed my call to preach is when I preach well. Now, you might be thinking, how do you know if you are doing it all that well? It is partly how it feels to me, it is partly the response of the audience, but mostly it is the subjective sense that I have "delivered my soul." That is the way that I felt when I walked out of the church on Wednesday night. It certainly didn't hurt any to see Joy smiling at me while I was preaching or to hear her words of affirmation afterwards.

This was followed up by all the tasks of Thursday and the realization that the church softball team would be playing at 8 p.m. It was at the game that I got a small gift that really broke up what black clouds remained. While watching the game Joy and I had also been noticing and talking some with the Johnson girls. At the end of the evening Kayla, the oldest, came over and sat close by me and offered me some of whatever it was that she was eating. I didn't take any, but the offer really touched me.

The kindness of a child is a wonderful thing. I am glad that I get to say I am Kayla's pastor. My prayer is that I will be able to say that for a long time.

A Straw Poll

I remember seeing a college football coach giving an interview after being asked to leave the school he worked for. He commented that there were only two types of college coaches, "those that have been fired and those that will be." I remember thinking that there was something a bit cynical about his perspective, but it also rang true.

Recently, I was told that two different individuals had asked how to go about taking a vote of confidence on me. I have always wondered about the way churches use that phrase. In most parliamentary bodies it is not called a "vote of confidence" but rather a "vote of no confidence." Maybe church folks just want to say it in a nicer way. Well, nice or not, I have now come face to face with the issue for the first time in my pastoral career. I really did not know how to take this and I suppose my emotions were all across the spectrum. What was particularly irksome about all of this is that I had mentioned through the years that if folks wanted me gone, all they needed to do is come and explain to me why and tell me who agreed with them. That is not to say that I would leave over one crank, but there would at least have been the possibility of resolving the conflict rather than inflaming it and running the risk of embittering folks.

All of this led to a "straw poll" being taken while I was on vacation. I knew it was going to happen before it did and I suppose it had the virtue of assessing the feelings of folks before they polarized. Only 61 people voted and it was 44 to 17, or about a 70 / 30 split for me to continue as the pastor. Now, if I were a politician I would be elated with such an approval rating. The problem is I'm not a politician, I'm a pastor. The question I have to ponder now is, can I be effective if 30% of the church are wishing for me to move out of the parsonage? It is also troubling to me to think about who would follow me. Now, I have a healthy ego, but I don't think I'm close to being the best pastor to ever open a Bible. Could the church attract a dynamic, hard working, energetic guy who could motivate those who have not been motivated or better yet, find enough new folks, to remake this church? I really don't know the answer to that. I don't suppose anyone does.

One thought keeps circling through all of my thinking on this issue. Were people just thinking of this "straw poll" as a vote for the "status quo" or a vote for change? I would think that just about everyone would like to break out of the strictures of the status quo. I am convinced that Bethlehem Church could do more and be more than it is. I suppose that working at that for 15 1/2 years may have tired me out a bit. What I know for certain is that the critical issue here is not keeping either the pastor or the 30% happy. We must remember that we have a biblical mandate, a mission to fulfill.

Youth

Today I had reinforced in my thinking that I am getting older. Now, that is a note that can be heard in many different places, but this one came on the campus of Vanderbilt University. I had decided that I would drop by the Divinity Library to do a little reading and maybe check out a book or two. When I went to the counter I was informed by a very helpful librarian that my card had expired--about three years ago! "Don't worry, all you have to do is go to the Card Center in the basement of the Student Center and get a new one," she said. She made it sound so easy. Well, after going in two wrong buildings and asking twice for directions I arrived at the Card Center. Yes, they could give me a card, but there was a form that I had to get at the library which necessitated another trip across campus.

What this all meant was that I had to go through the Student Center twice, both times packed with students. It was on that second trip that I began to notice the age of the people. Sure, the big majority would have to be college age, it is after all a university, but I was struck by the fact that I didn't see one person who looked like they might be on the high side of 30. Of course, I am on the high side of 30, in fact I'm closer to 60 than I am to 30! Realizing that you are the oldest person in a crowded room had an unexpected impact on me. As much as I might covet the opportunities those young people have before them, I wouldn't change places with them. I remember all too well what that period of my life was like. I am far more at peace now at 54 than I was at 24. It would be nice if I were not afflicted with the pains and strains of moderate age, but if it takes that to gain wisdom then it is worth the trade.

Someone said that youth is wasted on the young. Maybe so, but just about any period of your life can be wasted if you fail to enjoy it. That is what I hope to do with however much time I have left on planet earth.

Unrelated And Yet Connected

The pinnacle of professional football, the Super Bowl, is just around the corner and this year it will be between the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints. The Colts have been to and won the Super Bowl, but the Saints never have. You would think that simple fact would be enough for a good number of folks to pull for the Saints, but I am already seeing something else looming larger.

Everyone knows that New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina and that the Super Dome, the home field of the Saints, was used as a disaster relief center. Some are suggesting that the Saints "deserve" to win the Super Bowl because it would be such a psychological lift to the city that has been down for so long. I don't doubt that New Orleans feels down or that winning the Super Bowl would be a big emotional boost, but what do either of those facts have to do with the game of football? All of this reminds me of my childhood when my Mother would instruct me to let my little brother win at basketball!

New Orleans may very well win the Super Bowl this year, but I think it will have a lot more to do with the play on the field than some sort of cosmic karma that determines the final score. What's more, I cannot imagine Peyton Manning, the coaching staff, or the owner of the Indianapolis Colts, giving such thoughts a moments notice.