Kids' Names and a Cat Named "Freezer Burn"

"Did I ever tell you about my cat, "Freezer Burn?' my church member asked as he entered my office.
"You have a cat named 'Freezer Burn?' " I tried to ask without sounding as ridiculous as the question obviously sounded.
"We lost the cat one day," the proud owner beamed. "We couldn't find him at all until we went into the garage and heard this faint "meow" coming from the refrigerator. When we opened the freezer door, there he sat, nearly frozen. His hair was stiff and he had this odd streak up his back. So when I took him to the vet, and the vet asked 'What's the cat's name?' I said 'Freezer Burn.' And the name stuck."
This particular church member has a knack for hanging strange names on people and things, so don't let him near your children.
Speaking of children, my wife and I worked hard to give our offspring absolutely normal names. This came as a result of my having to live with a name no one could pronounce or spell in spite of the fact that it is all of one syllable. (After a lifetime of "Lard," "Lord," "Leared" and "Lurid," I threatened to disown our daughter is she named any of her children after me. She did anyway, and the middle child shares my middle name.)
So when our one son came along, I opted for a safe and manly name: Andrew, which means "manly" and that was about as manly as I could get. Andrew is one of my favorite disciples because you always find him talking to people about the Lord and bringing them to Jesus.
Andrew it was until he came home one day with his name spelled D-r-u. I could have lived with "Drew"as a shortened form of "Andrew," but no, "It's D-r-u" he said. One of his friends had spelled it that way. One of his friends who couldn't spell.
What possesses children at any age to mangle a perfectly good name? Andrew (It's still "Andrew" under our roof) has a friend named Steven, another good biblical name. So naturally he calls himself "Spaz" to the utter consternation of his father.
Sure, there are people in the world with names like "Moon Unit" for example. But the parents are responsible for that. And there was a baby I heard about who was named something that sounded like "Pahja May" but is spelled P-a-j-a-m-a. ("From the Sears Roebuck Catalog" said the mother.)
So if you're one of those preacher's kids who is tired of your Bible name and yearning for a change, you might think again. You could have ended up like "Freezer Burn." Or I could just send over my church member to make suggestions. He also has a dog named Happy Killer.

Why Can't I Believe Now?

By the time I entered seminary I was tired of being alone, but there didn't seem to be any hope of change. Four hundred miles from home and away from almost everyone I knew, what chance was there that I was going to meet the girl of my dreams? One day when I was feeling especially lonely, the thought came to mind that if I didn't know who or where my future wife was, God certainly knew. So I decided right there to pray for her, that God in His providence would take care of her and some day guide her to me in His own time. The result of my prayer was a greater sense of peace and confidence that God would meet my need. Little did I realize that I was standing literally over my wife while I was praying. She lived in the apartment beneath me. We still laugh about the way God was bringing us so close to one another. We celebrate our thirty-fourth anniversary this year.
Looking back on that experience, I'm struck by how much God enabled me to rely on Him in faith. I had complete confidence that I would be married some day and that God was certain to bring my lovely wife into my life. No question about it. Now, however, I am faced with a new challenge, and I am a bit mystified at myself.
These days, my need is not for a wife but for growth in our fledgling church plant. We have a solid core, but we need serious growth in order for our new church to survive and thrive. We pray for growth and work toward that goal constantly. But as I pray and listen to myself, I've noticed something and it troubles me. I pray, but I don't seem to believe as easily that God will provide new church members as much as He could provide a wife.
What's the problem? If I could believe that God would send me a wife, why can't I believe now?
The answer is a lesson about unbelief. When I prayed about my future wife, I was willing to accept God's Word and His promises so completely that I would not allow myself to entertain doubt. There was never a "What if this doesn't work?" in my mind. Why? Because I knew two things: 1. That the situation was totally out of my control, and 2. that I had done all I could do about it. But when I prayed about our church the circumstances were quite different. As pastor, I still felt like there was something I could do, or rather that I had not done, so that I was not really trusting in God.
I've had to come back to the basics and realize afresh that our church is still God's work, not mine, and He is perfectly capable of taking care of it. The real issue is not His ability -much less His faithfulness - but my obedience and complete reliance on Him. If the church is His, He knows where the members are, now and in the future. If I have been completely obedient to Him, I have no reason to doubt that He will hear and answer our prayer and bless His church. I should be able to trust Him to take care of those people where ever they are, and to guide them to us in His own time. Someday I will learn about our church what I learned about meeting my wife: that I did all that worrying for nothing. When I found it so hard to believe, God was still faithful.

Life Goes On, Regardless

This past week, I learned that one of our young adults in church is about to become engaged. His sister is already engaged and preparing for her wedding later this summer. Two young people from one family preparing for marriage at the same time. I said I was thrilled for them and I am. Sort of.
I can't help feeling a bit wistful as I watch two outstanding young people prepare to move on with their lives. Sure, it's exciting and I am happy to know they've met the right people for their lives. No doubt, God answered prayer and that's a wonderful thing. But I also know that quality people are hard to replace - really, really hard - and these two are going to be missed profoundly.
As happy as I am to see them moving on, I can't help feeling sad that they are indeed moving on. But that's life, and life is always moving. No matter what we do, we can't keep things the way they are. Life is going to move on regardless of how much we try to hold it in place. Kids grow up, get married and move on. Church members come and go. People age. Grand kids have the audacity to arrive and then grow up before you know it. (I've discovered to my chagrin that our grandchildren have found a way to grow up faster than our own kids.)
The simple, stark truth that life is going to go on means there is no such thing as reaching a point where we can just "put it on cruise,"certainly not in church. The surest way to kill a church is to do nothing. It will grow up, grow old, die and disappear all on its own. We who inhabit the pulpit on Sunday morning do not have the luxury of waiting until tomorrow to build the church. The problem is not, as some people think, that tomorrow never comes. The truth is that tomorrow comes too often, too soon and too quickly.
I do not want to reach the end of my ministry and wish I had my tomorrows back.

Faith and Obamacare

After the U. S. House of Representatives passed the President's health care bill Sunday night, my wife and I had a serious conversation about our future. Certain facts were clear and indisputable. We are growing older and approaching retirement age. Her employment is our only source of health insurance. My pastor's salary is not enough to pay for the health insurance required by the government under the new health bill. Given those circumstances, my wife observed, "I won't be able to retire." She's right. If she retires, we won't have insurance. If either one of us retire, we won't have enough income to live on. Social Security is flat busted broke. If we depend on the government to provide health care, it won't happen because:
(a.) Obamacare takes 500 billion dollars from Medicare in order to finance the new government-run health care. That deficit is shifted to the individual states - a burden they cannot possibly afford. Older citizens are going to have to do with less so that younger citizens can be covered.
(b.) Obamacare is noticeably geared toward younger people. They have a tax-paying future. My wife and I don't. We simply won't be a good investment of the government's time and money. The older we grow, the more we will be a liability to the system.
Add to this the fact that businesses - especially small ones - are going to be forced to hire more and more part-time workers as a way of coping with the outrageous expense of providing health insurance for full-time employees. That's sure to impact congregations, particularly small churches like our own.
So we are facing a future with less and less health care as we grow older combined with less income and ever-shrinking Social Security. What are we to do?
For starters we could trust the Lord. "God knows we have this situation," my wife said. "He always has." Yes, and there's no expiration date on the promise "Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you." There is also another observation in the Psalms: "I have been young and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his children begging bread."
I couldn't help thinking of one of my favorite people, George Muller of Bristol, England. It was Muller who founded orphanages, built schools, financed missionaries and pastored a church all by prayer and without a cent to his name. Penniless and yet he received from God everything he needed as if he owned every bank in Europe. Muller never claimed to have the gift of faith, but he did acknowledge using the faith he had better than most people.
There is a lesson here for us. Our health care and retirement - once the envy of the world - may be history as we know it. But God isn't. He is still good to His word, and His word tells us we can trust Him to provide when all human programs have utterly failed. I don't know what is going to become of our country, our health care or our lives as Belinda and I face retirement - if it ever comes. I just know that when we get to that point, God will be there. What a comfort.

Racism, Balance and the Current Administration

I met a very nice gentleman recently who, as it turned out, is quite liberal in his politics. He is a thunderously worshipful supporter of President Obama and the present administration. When I gave a more conservative point of view to him in writing, some people interpreted my remarks as an expression of racism and that is more than a little inaccurate. There aren't many preachers who can put "ordained in and pastored a black church" on their resume'. But I can. Many years later when our family served as home missionaries in Louisiana, we were the minority in a neighborhood that resembled the "rainbow coalition" on steroids. Our kids had no idea what the word "racism" meant. We never taught the meaning of the subject because we didn't need to. It would have been as useless as discussing various brands of poison. Why bring it up? It was no accident that our older daughter requested that two very dear friends - "Americans of African descent" - sing at her wedding.
So when someone takes my differences in politics as a latent form of racism I have reason to be upset. I do not have a problem with the President being an African-American. I do not have a problem with the President being an Anglo-African-American for that matter. I do have a problem with the President being the kind of political person he is regardless of his race.
But I do think the President's race is an issue and here's how. Barack Obama is a reflection of the particular liberal ideology in which he was educated and to which he has exposed himself over the years. How do I know? I had the same education a la Wright State University. It was there that I learned "black liberation" theories of history. That doctrine teaches a twisted form of racially cynical attitude combined with a superiority complex such as one finds in the rantings of Louis Farrenkahn or Jeremiah Wright. If the President buys into thinking of that kind, he will come across to the average American - of any race - as condescending, entitled, and not really one of us. An attitude like that will drive people away because we elected a president - we did not anoint a king. And the last thing we want in the White House is an insufferable snob. What this country needs is exactly what the Scripture demands of a leader: "to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God."

The Difference Between Church and Facebook

I am rapidly becoming a Facebook junkie and I've discovered I have a lot of company. Pastors are popping up all over Facebook. It has become an alternative outlet for ministry, not to mention a great way to advertise books, cd's and - Duh! - blogs. What a natural and fun way to keep up with all kinds of people, especially celebrities we would not otherwise be able to meet, much less talk to.
People seem more inclined to talk with one another on Facebook than any other medium I've witnessed thus far. They are more open about themselves, more willing to reveal details and certainly more willing to talk to total strangers - not always a good thing.
From a pastor's point of view, this quality of openness on Facebook has had a fascinating consequence. I find that people are more willing to be themselves before the whole world on Facebook than they are willing to be before a handful of people in church. I suppose this quality has always been with us. Church is the one place where we really want to put out the best impression for general consumption. We tend to conduct ourselves according to what we think people expect of us. So when someone asks, "How do you do?" we wouldn't really tell him how we are doing, and we don't really expect someone to tell us. It's all a formality, you understand. Not that we are purposefully trying to be deceptive; we are just putting out our public selves for all to see, the same public self that most often goes on display at work or in class.
Facebook is another matter. For some reason, people take off the mask when they sit down to the keyboard. I've learned a lot more about people from watching them on Facebook than I ever learned about them in church. I learn their real likes and dislikes, their tastes in music, clothes, politics and the world in general. I learn their language - the kind they would not dare use in church. I learn who their real friends are, and who they are not; who they love, and who wishes they had someone to love, or to love them.
What fascinates me the most is that people who wouldn't tell a soul these things in church don't mind telling the whole world on the internet. Now, everybody knows. The pastor knows. God knows - not that He needed Facebook, anyway.
All this raises a question in my mind: Why would anyone be one way in the privacy of church and another way before the whole blooming world on Facebook? And as long as we're not keeping secrets, what's the point of behaving one way in church (where only a few people can read us) and another way on the internet, where everybody can see us?
Maybe the answer is just too obvious. After all, if the life I'm living on Facebook is not one I can live in church, why am I living it on Facebook in the first place? Maybe the answer is that I already know this. And maybe, just maybe, I know better but I don't want those people in church to find out. Maybe I can keep my "public" life propped up in church while my real life goes on in the rest of the world. And maybe the people in church won't find out. Maybe they don't read Facebook. Just maybe.

What's a Day Off?

I'm exhausted. I've arrived home at 8:15 p.m. after a day full of meetings and errands; shuttling my parents to various places, doing their shopping and watching after my dementia-laden dad. Of the dozen or so things I had on my "to do" list, I accomplished most, but not all. I'm just too tired. And today was my day off.
Many pastors have "days off" just like mine. We only work "one day a week," or so we're told. We should be fresh. We don't punch a time card. We have lots of time for an errand or two. Or three. Or a dozen.
Preachers have so much free time, so the legend goes, that they must be instructed in the proper use of it - some people think. I had a deacon once who interrupted my study time, smack in the middle of it, to - get this- instruct me on how to use my time in the study. To facilitate his "lesson" he brought along a dozen pages of photocopied sermons from John Gill on how Gill used his time. Oh yes, I'm sure Gill had the same kind of routine pastors have these days: the phone ringing, the computer developing a glitch, and deacons arriving to waste their time. Well, maybe he had the deacons.
The truth is that the average pastor spends so much time being the pastor and doing pastoral things that he has a hard time finding time to do family things. The average pastor spends about sixty hours a week on the job. That's sixty hours on top of whatever other job he may have if he happens to be bi-vocational. There is a never ending urge to do something else, and there is always something else to do.
There was actually a time when I had a day off. I used to take off Mondays back when I had a church large enough to afford me taking one day a week to tend to my family. That was before we were missionaries, before we were church planters, and before the deacon arrived to complain that I wasn't spending more time in the study.
No, I wasn't. And neither do most pastors. They have to get out of the study because "study" is only a part of the job. Staying in the seclusion of the pastor's office is the surest way to kill the church. There aren't enough prospects in the pastor's study; not enough lost people to witness to, not enough to invite to church; not enough people to pastor.
So the pastor may be out of the study, but he is never out of the job, not even on his "day off." That's why I'm typing out this post on my laptop at home. My wife urged me to buy it so I wouldn't have to travel back to office to work on all the things that have to be done. I'm still tired and now it's 10:15 p.m. on my day off. I still have not finished editing the article I am writing for Regular Baptist Press. It will have to wait until tomorrow along with work on the Sunday morning message that I meant to start today. The job never ends.