The people's voice of reason
The people's voice of reason
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It was a church slogan used in many places years ago: “The end of your search for a friendly church.” But let’s think about a new slogan: “The end of your search for a perfect church.” I remember a lady who presented herself for membership at the church I pastored at the time. I’d met her about two years before at a neighboring church when I led a Bible study. She came to us and quickly presented herself for membership, but from a different church than where we’d met. Thus she’d been a member a...
We grew up as high school friends and he became a music leader for church congregations. He told me the most embarrassing day was when he mounted the steps to the platform to begin worship, tripped and fell headlong onto the floor. Fortunately, he wasn’t hurt, but there are better ways to begin worship. I thought of this lately when another pastor told a group of us about a famous pulpiteer from another generation who said as he mounted each stair that he would pray, “Fill me. Fill me,” besee...
I’ve seen a few incidents that make me wonder if it’s true football is a religion. At a funeral a few years ago I read a sign posted on the chapel door. It said, in effect, not to talk about the day’s earlier football game since the family had been busy and planned to watch the recorded game after the funeral concluded. I wondered who they thought might have stepped in to speak a word of comfort to the grieving family and brought up football, or worse, ribbed them about their team’s defeat?...
It happened twice in recent months and taught me a lesson about priorities. I saw one lady at a political rally where she asked for support in an upcoming election. Her family joined our church when she was a child, and she reminded me, “Pastor, you baptized me at our church.” And I saw the second young lady at a 12-year-old football game. Her son and our grandson were on the same team. “You baptized me when I was a little girl,” she said. Few things are as important as taking time for boys an...
I met him while visiting our daughter’s church lately, and we had a brief conversation. I asked about his lifework, and he said he was an attorney, but he’d considered Christian ministry as a young man. My response, conditioned on recent research I’ve seen, was, “You could do both!” He indicated he’d thought about this, but our conversation was interrupted before we could delve into details. Most denominations report a shortage of pastors, including a shortage of bi-vocational pastors--th...
My sister and I attended the Peter Noone concert last Christmas and heard "Herman" from the original Herman's Hermits who celebrated his 77th birthday recently. I remember he joked that at his concerts there was no danger of anyone rushing the stage. He said this as he looked out at our audience, many of us with knee replacements, bad backs and walking canes! My generation grew up with AM radio and rock and roll. And we still like both, though AM is getting harder to find. Research shows that...
It all started with “Facebook Live” that so many of us began to experiment with during Covid-19. The U.S. government forbade public gatherings, and churches were included in the order. Thus “two weeks to stop the spread” morphed into several months with no public meetings. Our church, like many others, was thrust into the broadcast business without warning. Our first efforts were feeble, indeed. We struggled with getting a good Internet connection in our worship place, and then we used my lapt...
I don’t get to attend other churches much, so it was nice to visit another church lately. I attend a hobby club every year in Georgia and have most often driven home Saturday night. However, last year I hit an obstacle on the darkened road and blew a tire, so no more night driving on unfamiliar roads! This church had the ambiance of other Baptist churches. People talked and visited before and after. Someone turned off the sanctuary lights at some point which is the Baptist way of saying, ...
We sang it recently in worship. It’s a beautiful song about the word of God. It was called “contemporary” years ago but now seen as mainstream. Our congregation sang it loud and proud. No one got upset about it, but I remembered a person who did. At the time, a number of years ago, the lyric writer, whose name was inscribed at the bottom of the page, had been in the news the week before. She had a very public separation from her husband, and reportedly was in love with someone else alrea...
I’ve written good-natured laments in recent months about young preachers. I was one, and was called on at 15 and 16 to speak God’s truth. One of my friends told me about his first sermon as a teenager. “I had three points,” he said. “Go to church, read the Bible and be good. That’s all I had!” I suppose, likewise, I spoke sincerely but with little profundity. I was interested to see a recent story in Baptist Press about the Francis Lake Baptist Church in Georgia. Not only is the congregation...
I showered and dressed on a recent Saturday and drove to nearby Hoover for a Christian fest event. However, the parking lot was sparse when I arrived a few minutes before the scheduled hour. The nice reception lady searched the calendar and told me the event was the following Saturday. I suppose in my eagerness to attend I neglected the important detail of verifying the date. But I’m not the only one who’s been dressed and ready and missed an appointment. History is replete with those who...
It’s a new day in book-reading since audio books and podcasts abound. And many bibliophiles now prefer e-books. Bookshelves can pile up with a lifetime of book purchases and handling boxes of books can be backbreaking when moving to a new place. I was interested in a discussion about books I heard in a recent ministers meeting. One participant said he listens to audio books, and sometimes listens to fiction audiobooks as he goes to sleep. I wondered if this particular reading counts in the n...
It was in 2007 after attending a continuing education event in Washington, D.C. that I had a little discretionary time on the weekend. I drove to Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va. to visit influential pastor Dr. Jerry Falwell’s church thinking I’d hear him and say “hello.” I attended the early service and heard his son speak and remained for the Bible study hour to hear Dr. Elmer Towns who I’d met and heard previously. Not knowing that the elder Falwell was only speaking in the later...
Emmitt was among the finest Christian men I’ve ever known. He was retired and available to help make pastoral calls when I was the new pastor learning my way around. He was also a Gideon and distributed Bibles regularly. As a successful businessman, he offered wise financial advice, and he served as treasurer for our church. But one thing Emmit wouldn’t do is attend any meeting at church when we ate, including coffee and cake at after-Sunday night fellowships. Accordingly, he didn’t favor spend...
The late Robert Schuller noted that the way we treat the English language is terrible. We say, for example, “This is the worst thing that could ever happen,” or “I’ll never get over this.” Most of us have said this at some point, and, most often, after dreadful things have happened. We probably believed the truth of our immediate response, though in retrospection would admit neither is true. But we continue to misuse words. I read someone lately who cited another misuse; namely when we say to...
I’ve often commented on our Baptist system whereby young ministers are sent to the pulpit immediately after announcing their call to divine service. Thus, some of us began to preach at 15 or 16 years old. And I have friends who began to pastor churches by age 18. Having young pastors might become more common since research shows a shortage of pastors. I’m yet searching for answers to this trend. A denominational official told me lately that he thought churches don’t encourage commitment to vo...
“The National Congregations Study of Expressive Worship,” in cooperation with Duke University, published some interesting research findings about American worship. In summary, worship has become more expressive in recent years. Those who raise their hands in the worship of God (churches, synagogues and mosques) are numbered in more than 62 percent of our congregations, up from around 25 percent in 1998. I can’t remember people raising their hands in my boyhood church, or in most of the churc...
I talked with her lately and she told me, good-naturedly, about her “divided” family. “I’m Episcopalian, and I married a Pentecostal,” she said. There’s nothing wrong with this. I’ve known several “divided” families who made it work. I think the main thing to consider is the children, whether they’re in dad’s church or mom’s church. The most unique blend I ever knew was when Aaron and Sarah showed up at our Baptist church. They made a point to ask me if they were welcomed. Then Aaron explained,...
He was a local business owner and a music director in a Baptist church. He asked to have a planning and prayer meeting at our church one evening to share an idea. I said fine. I’d be there and I’d host. Several of us met on the appointed night to hear him tell about the county-wide crusade he’d already planned. He said he called the local Baptist association and found nothing planned that week, and he called the high school about using their stadium that week and it was fine. He told us furth...
One of the ministry traditions I grew up with is that older ministers would often give us younger ministers a treasured book—either one from their libraries or a copy of one they found encouraging. I think this tradition is all but over now. Many of us older pastors have tried to give away portions of our libraries we’re not using now, only to find that the “young bucks” don’t value books like we do. Research suggests the typical pastor in my day acquired a library worth $50,000 or more. I think...
Pastors and music leaders have had good-natured arguments for years. Musicians insist pastors will be idle in heaven with nothing to do since preaching isn’t on the agenda, whereas music is. And pastors retort that the music program is the source of much church conflict on earth. As radio preacher J. Vernon McGee used to say, “When Satan fell from heaven, he fell into the choir loft!” I remember years ago when the piano music just before the message was simply gorgeous. I said this before I ope...
I met her at a conference in our state, and she quickly turned the conversation to her church, of which she was very proud. She loved the pastor, the members, the worship and the ministry. All of this is fine. Then I asked her where her church was located. I knew where she lived and was surprised that her church was 40 miles away Our denomination has traditionally supported members belonging to local churches through which they can serve their communities. The Church Covenant that evangelical...
Our music leader announced the first hymn for the "Let's turn to hymn 666." she said. Everybody broke out in laughter since 666 is the well-known "mark of the beast" in the book of Revelation. I remembered another music leader announcing the same hymn, but he said, "Let's turn to hymn 667 and go back one!" It seems that our hymnal publisher would've left page 666 vacant like buildings skip floor 13 in their elevators. John the Revelator wrote about a charismatic leader who would beguile the nati...
In an old biography of William McKinley, the author noted the president’s assassination was on Friday, Sept. 14, 1901, “as were the two previous assassinations on Friday.” It was Good Friday, April 14, 1865, when Lincoln was shot in Washington, and Friday, July 2, 1880, when President Garfield was shot in D.C. Then it struck me that the terrible event that traumatized my generation--the assassination of President Kennedy--was on an awful Friday in Dallas, Nov. 22, 1963. This is one of the inexp...
I thought about it last fall before a two-day hobby convention in September—our first in several years due to COVID. This trip was to neighboring Georgia, so not too far. I remembered years ago being invited as part of the Alabama delegation to a Christian citizenship conference in Washington. I remember the exact year since I’ve often referred to a prayer breakfast we had with Chaplain Richard Halverson from the U.S. Senate. He said he didn’t hear many prayers for public officials in his itine...
