Pastoral Paternity

"Was your dad a pastor?"

I have fielded that question more times than I care to count, and it surprises and slightly perplexes me to say so. It is not that the question is as troublesome as have been some of the more traumatic experiences—combatting rampant sexual misconduct and abuse, coming face-to-face with the pettiness and meanspiritedness that has infected some congregations, shepherding a congregation through devastating loss. These things have been very difficult along the way, but I anticipated those difficulties, having been warned about them. The question of whether my dad was a pastor was such an unexpected question and it so deeply—albeit unwittingly, I'm sure—undermined and trivialized the circumstances by which I entered this ministry.

For the record, my Dad was not a pastor, although pastoral ministry is just about the only thing that my Dad did not pursue at some time or another. He applied to West Point, but the physical exam revealed a medical problem that barred him from entry. He was the youngest Comptroller in the history of Arkansas State University. He was an Administrative Assistant to our U. S. Congressman, running the home office. He ran for Mayor of Lake City, Arkansas, once…sort of. He started so many businesses that I lost count. As a child, when people asked me what my Dad did for a living, usually I really didn't know. Finally, when I was fifteen, Dad started a business that endures to this day, Ashley Lighting, Inc. (I try not to be offended that he named it after my younger sister rather than after me). Dad was a deacon and a Sunday School teacher, but he never was and never considered being a pastor.

Furthermore, although he had enough piety and fatherly wisdom never to tell me so, I don't think that pastoral ministry was what Dad had in mind for me. He wanted me to go to Harvard. He would have been delighted for me to remain with the family lamp-manufacturing business in Arkansas. He didn't oppose my being a pastor, but I think it was a long time after I announced my vocation before he took it quite a seriously as I did. In that respect, he was probably in the majority of those who knew me. God called me to preach when I was eleven years old, and that's pretty young. Looking back, I think there were very few people who were convinced from the very start, and I can understand why.

I began to preach when I was fifteen. I found myself in leadership of a small rural congregation as a high-school senior. During those years and then while I was at Baylor, I lost count of the number of people who, upon learning that I was serving as a pastor when able and training to spend my life serving as a pastor, would ask me if my father was a pastor.

I used to wonder about my fellow classmates at Baylor. The one majoring in Russian, did everybody ask him if his father was Russian? Did the friends of my pre-med cousin presume that his father was a nephrologist, too? I never heard anybody ask my bride whether her parents were elementary educators. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention to all of the times that these other people were asked the paternity-vocation question, but for now I'm proceeding based upon the assumption that people ask this question of young pastors-in-training but not of people bound for myriad other trades.

I can see some good in this phenomenon. It probably means that people presume that pastors don't enter the ministry for the easy money. When a college student says that he is pre-med, most people probably think, "Money!" That's probably true as well for the student in law school or the guy getting the Executive MBA. Poli-Sci major? Power! Art History? Dementia!

OK, my apologies to the Art History people out there. And to the demented people out there.

I expected that people learning for the first time that I was pastoring and working toward a seminary degree would automatically ask me about my experience of being called into the ministry by God. Certainly, some people did precisely that, but the surprisingly high number of people who asked if Dad was a pastor caught my attention.

I wonder?…

1. Do we really have that much nepotism in the ministry? Maybe so. When I looked around at my fellow Baylor classmates, I saw several instances of guys whose fathers were indeed pastors. Some of them were the children of prominent pastors. Looking beyond Baylor at the Southern Baptist Convention, I saw a lot more of the sons of prominent SBC pastors receiving prominent placement in our convention.

   But it isn't as simple as calling it nepotism and then decrying it. Get to know some of these guys and you'll discover that they are passionate ministers of the gospel, very well qualified, doctrinally sound, and hard-working. These second-generation pastors are blessings to me and to our cooperative ministry. It would be evil of us to adopt a mindset that the son of a pastor must not enter the ministry.

   Instead of acting like we ought to be putting up barriers or removing enticements for sons of pastors to become pastors, maybe we ought to consider whether we ought to take down barriers or more strongly to entice other people's sons to become pastors. Maybe there is too high a proportion of pastoral dynasties because of a dearth of the other folks who ought to be in pastoral ministry.

   What I don't believe is that God, in His calling of people into the pastoral ministry, has a preference for the sons of pastors. I'm presuming that the proportion of pastors' sons entering pastoral ministry should, across the broader span, be very close to the proportion of pastors' sons within the collective membership of the churches.

2. Are we failing to teach sufficiently the idea of vocational calling? I am a pastor today because I experienced a dramatic and unmistakeable calling from God in the Summer of 1981. I submit that every person who asked me, "Is your Dad a pastor?" is a person who has fundamentally misunderstood the idea of a call into ministry. My father's occupation simply is not relevant to God's calling.

   Really, if you ponder the matter for a while, I think you'll become more convinced of this problem. The evidence of it permeates this post. The fact that we presume the pre-med student to be in it for the money belies our failure to understand the idea of vocation. The fact that we presume the Art History major to be destined for his parents' basement apartment also demonstrates our failure to grasp the concept of Christian vocation. For every Christian college student, regardless of major or future plans, it seems that our beliefs would require us to ask universally, "How did you come to discern God's calling into this field? How does your service in this vocation execute your steward's responsibility to carry forward the Kingdom of God?"

3. How will I interact with my own son's vocational choices, particularly if he announces that he plans to be a pastor? That's really a tough question for me. He has already announced that he wants to be a pastor like his dad (sandwiched in-between the vocational choices of gladiator and whatever it is that The Man in the Yellow Hat does for a living). I replied by telling him that his mother and I simply want him to do whatever God tells him to do. In fact, virtually every night since before he was old enough to understand, he has heard either his mother or myself (or both of us) tell him after prayers, "Mommy loves you, Daddy loves you, and Jesus loves you. Mommy and Daddy want you to grow up to love Jesus and to do what He wants you to do." At his present age, anything he says about wanting to be a pastor doesn't have to be taken all that seriously.

   But what about later? Perhaps the conversation won't arise later, but if it does, what should I do? Wanting to make certain that he is genuinely responding to a divine calling and not simply trying to please me, should I push back a little and try to discourage him? I can see how that approach might pass as wisdom, but I am glad that nobody took that approach with me. I generally try to avoid telling my son not to do what God is telling him to do. On the other hand, should I actively encourage my son to enter the pastoral ministry, running the risk that he feels that no other choice will please me?

   I'll cross those bridges if I come to them, but I think that I've settled on this much—I'm not going to give my son a job serving together with me on a church staff. I don't think that I'm going to lean on my friends or otherwise lobby for a position for him, either. To do so would diminish his opportunity to learn about depending upon God to provide an assignment to His servants. It would, I think, interfere with his ability to respect himself and for me to respect him fully as a man. I also think such actions breed among our congregants a confusion about the mechanics of calling into vocational pastoral ministry, distracting them from the sovereign calling of God and leading them to conclude that men come into the pastoral ministry at the behest and under the provision of their earthly daddies.

In conclusion, I think that I preach about this matter far too infrequently. My congregation needs to know forwards-and-backwards just how it is that I came to be a pastor in general and their pastor in specific. They need to know how to sort out their own questions of vocation. Qualified men need to be prepared to recognize and respond obediently should God call them into pastoral ministry. Among the other responsibilities that come with my calling is probably the responsibility to help them in that regard.

The One-Woman Man in the New Testament

Slowly, after much careful deliberation, I have begun to lean toward a new understanding of the phrase "one-woman man" (often translated "husband of one wife") in the New Testament. I am under no illusions that this position will ever gain any widespread acceptance among my peers, but I will not be reviewing my life with my peers when it is over.

I am coming to conclude that the phrase means to indicate a man who is married to no more than one women throughout his entire lifetime, no matter what may happen in that lifetime. To state it less technically, but perhaps more understandably, I have come to believe that the New Testament precludes the remarried widower from serving as a pastor (as well, of course, as precluding the divorcé and the polygamist).

I have come nowhere near the level of certainty with regard to this conclusion that I would lead our church to change our official applications of the biblical qualifications for pastors and deacons—that destination is not even within sight. . . not even on the map. But my personal uncertainty about the matter is strong enough that I think I would either remain unmarried or leave the pastorate if (Lord, please forbid it) I found myself facing the disastrous situation of losing my precious wife.

Doctrinal struggles sure do have personal consequences, don't they? And knowing that many of my readers will feel the personal implications of this question in their own lives, I'm obligated to make my case carefully.

It all boils down to this: It seems increasingly clear to me that the relevant passages are appropriating into the pastoral qualifications by the use of the phrase "one-woman man" a Christian male adaptation of the Roman phenomenon known as the univirae ("one-man woman"). This Roman concept explicitly referred to a woman who was never married a second time for any reason whatsoever. The phenomenon is very well documented in classical studies. There are a great many aspects of the univira concept that connect well with the particular subject matter of these Christian letters.

1. Being a univira qualified a woman for certain ministry positions in pagan Roman temples. Thus, we see that the phrase "one-man woman" invoked an explicit concept in the Roman mind of the avoidance of second marriages as a qualification for religious service.

2. The precise time when the concept of the univira was gaining its most widespread popularity was the time when Paul and other apostles were being inspired by the Holy Spirit to author the New Testament.

   Marjorie Lightman and William Zeisel's article "Univira: Continuity and Change in Roman Society" outlined the movement of the "univira" from its initial exclusive setting among the elite families of Rome proper to a widespread adaptation and adoption throughout the Roman Empire and among all classes of Roman society. The environment out of which the Holy Spirit brought forth the New Testament was precisely this environment in which the concept of the univira had attained widespread distribution.

3. Although univira is a Latin phrase, the corresponding Greek phrase ("monandros") is strikingly similar to the phrase of the opposite gender, "mias gunaikos," that serves as the "one-woman" in "one-woman man." Even more similar is the wording of "one-woman man" in 1 Timothy 3:2 to the wording of "one-man woman" (henos andros gune) in 1 Timothy 5:9. In turn, the phrase for "one-man woman" in 1 Timothy 5:9 is strikingly similar to language on tombstone inscriptions from the period that extolled the virtue of women identified as univirae.

4. To summarize these points in a conclusion, at precisely a time when the entire Roman world was extolling the virtues of "one-man women" who remained devoted to one spouse for a lifetime, and who consequently were qualified (at least in that respect) to serve in certain restricted religious capacities in Roman religion, the Holy Spirit led the Apostle Paul to identify being a "one-woman man" as a qualification for service in a certain restricted religious capacity in Christianity.

   That's a pretty tight parallel, in my estimation.

In addition to these thoughts, I point out that there is no Old Testament snippet of language or marital concept that seems to serve as the source of Paul's wording of "one-woman man." Paul does not seem to be alluding to any teaching of Jesus expressed in the gospels. What other compelling candidate is there to compete with univira as a source for Paul's wording?

I also note that this interpretation of "one-woman man" goes back at least to within 160 years of the life of Jesus. Tertullian held this view, for example, as did a great many others who lived far closer to the New Testament age than do we. The evidence of the Church Fathers alone does not compel us. Indeed, for quite some time, aware of these opinions, I wrote them off as the biased interpretations of people unhealthily obsessed with celibacy. As the exegetical considerations above have gained force in my reasoning, I have had to reconsider whether it was Tertullian who was biased against remarriage, or me who was biased against Tertullian.

My great objection to this interpretation, of course, is that I don't like it at all. If I were widowed at this age and with my children at their present ages, I would likely want to remarry. Indeed, I'm not saying that I wouldn't remarry; I'm just saying that I think I would need to leave the pastoral ministry in order to do so. I find that restriction quite onerous. I don't LIKE embracing this understanding of the text.

But my job is not to interpret the Bible according to my liking; my job is to love the Bible correctly interpreted, as an aspect of loving the Author of the Bible. Perhaps the true measure of our obedience as disciples is found in our doing of the things that we don't (at first) like but are nonetheless commanded to do.

Nevertheless, this much is certain—more than ever before, I'll be delighted for you to demonstrate to me where I'm wrong.

In conclusion, I would like to identify some of the interesting implications of this interpretation:

1. The explicit and jarring transformation of an always-female-applied phrase to a made-up-for-this-instance male-applied phrase strengthens the already overwhelming case that the New Testament qualifications for elders and deacons are explicitly written to be applicable to men and not to women. Surely the female phrase would do quite nicely unless females are not at all in view here. Because Paul had to have a male phrase to apply to a male category, he had to go to the extraordinary lengths of creating his own male adaptation of this female phrase.
2. The general Roman concept was quite the double-standard, with the "one-man woman" being praised and extolled while men were entirely within the bounds of respectable behavior to avail themselves of prostitutes and to marry a second time upon the death of a wife. The New Testament's application of this concept to men, therefore, represents a subjection of men to a binding commitment to their wives—to their wives having authority over their bodies—in a "turnabout is fair play" manner that was foreign to Roman culture.
3. One need not go so far as to suggest that remarriage of widows or widowers is at all immoral (unlike divorce, which is always immoral on the part of at least one party). Indeed, 1 Timothy 5:14 mandates remarriage of at least one category of widows. In view here is not what is moral or immoral, but rather what qualifies one for service as an elder or deacon.

Handling Criticism While in Leadership

When you're the leader, how do you handle criticism? I believe that the answer to this question goes a long way toward revealing what is in a person's heart as well as doing much to determine what kind of outcome any person will have in leadership. A proper response to criticism will arise out of an optimum combination of internal security and humility. These two concepts are not really in tension with one another for a Christian. A Christian avoids insecurity not by abandoning humility, but by humbly acknowledging that my many failings and weaknesses are amply corrected by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Don't let the voices of your critics dominate your thinking. I'm especially speaking to those of you who, like me, serve as pastors. It is easy, depending upon your personality, to drift into the delusion that your critics speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. However, that's rarely the case. Even if there is truth to what your critics are saying, it usually isn't the whole truth. Did God call you into the ministry? Did He call you into your present position of service? If so, then in addition to whatever shortcomings your critics may see in you, there are the good things that God is doing in you to equip you for the calling that He has given to you. The criticisms also may not fit the category of "nothing but the truth." Sometimes critics will take what is a real weakness in your life or your ministry and push it too far for their own reasons. A wise person listens for the encouraging voice of the Holy Spirit for support in the midst of attack.

On the other hand, don't shut out the voices of your critics entirely. Your critics often will not be speaking lies and nothing but lies, either. Not always, but most times, criticisms that have no basis in the truth whatsoever will also be no threat to you whatsoever, and you'll know that instinctively. For example, if someone were to allege that I, Bart Barber, drink up all of the coffee at the church and leave none for the rest of the staff members, then that allegation wouldn't make it very far—I don't even drink coffee. Only the plausible accusations gain a foothold, because they have some basis in the truth. Sometimes, there is information in an accusation that can be helpful to me, even if the person delivering that information wishes to harm me with it.

I think that there are many mistakes that people often make in dealing with criticism:

1. Automatically moving all critics to my "enemies list." If you have this habit, you'll quickly wind up with a full list of enemies and an empty list of friends. The person who disagrees with you or criticizes you on topic A may turn out to be your strongest ally on topic B.

   Make this mistake, and you are doomed to finding a new church every few years.

2. Demeaning valid criticism. When people have reasonable criticism to offer, you must respond to it reasonably. If you do not, other people will perceive it as a weakness on your part and you will wind up strengthening your critics with your actions rather than weakening them.

   A prime example of this is President Obama's treatment of Fox News. Obama's dismissiveness toward Fox News gives an impression of him as imperious at best and unable to answer his critics at worst. I wish I could say that pastors or denominational leaders never act the same way, but that's just not the case. It is hard—really hard—when passions rise to treat critics with dignity, but that remains the best course of action in defense of a worthy cause. I have failed often in this regard, but I try to remind myself of this truth.

3. Failing to spot the difference between criticisms and questions. Sometimes you will encounter people who are just trying on the opposing viewpoint as an exercise in making up their own minds. The difference between a questioner and a critic is one of certainty. Unloading both barrels on someone who is just trying to make up his mind is a great way to make up his mind in the wrong direction.

The best steps for overcoming criticism, in my opinion, are understanding, explaining, and trusting. Your first obligation in dealing with criticism is to demonstrate that you truly understand the rationale that the critic is putting forward. The right kinds of sentences in this regard might begin with, "I can see why Fred might wonder about that, because…" You're helping to demonstrate that Fred (your critic) doesn't know something that you don't know. Ideally, you'd like people to believe that you have already considered exactly what Fred is talking about, and that you've nonetheless come to a different conclusion. Indeed, you want people to conclude that you know everything that Fred knows, and that you still know a little more besides that, which is why you've come to a different conclusion.

Well, actually, ideally you don't just want people to draw that conclusion—ideally you want that actually to be true. If Fred is presenting a point of view that you don't understand or that you haven't considered up to this point, do yourself the favor of taking a moment to consider it.

Once you have come to understand your critics point of view, and have demonstrated to everyone that you do understand it fully, you need to explain why you have still, even understanding all that your critics say, have come to a different conclusion than they have. It may not be iron-clad syllogistic proof. Most things in life aren't quite that clear-cut. But it needs to be a sound bit of reasoning that people can grasp for themselves. Good sentences along these lines often start with, "Even though I understand all that Fred is saying, I think we've got to give careful consideration to…"

Finally, there comes a time to trust in the Lord and in the people. Do so internally and communicate it externally. Tell people, "I'm glad that we're looking carefully at all of the points of view. I'm confident in the case that I've made, but I'm even more confident in the leadership of the Holy Spirit and in the way that each of you can listen to Him as you weigh all of this prayerfully and we decide together what to do."

Really, I believe that President Obama is a great illustration of this whole concept (and if you hold a different opinion of President Obama, don't let that make you miss the point of this little essay). Dictatorial leaders who demand adoration and will not brook any criticism may be very successful for a while, but they are ultimately doomed in any free society. Great leaders will be able to learn from criticism and grow through criticism, demonstrating thoroughly to the people whom they lead that they have no interest in protecting themselves at the expense of the mission. If this is true for political leaders and business leaders, how much more ought it to be true for people who claim that their own selves have been buried together with Christ and are beyond protection anyway?

An Exemplary Pastor

When I was an impressionable tween, my home church (First Baptist Church, Lake City, Arkansas) lost one beloved pastor and gained a new one. As many pastoral transitions are, the period was somewhat tumultuous. The pastor whom we called became a cherished mentor, and his sons became my dear and lifelong friends. He served at FBC Lake City throughout my Junior High and High School years, and well into my further education.

He had taken a cut in pay to come to FBC Lake City, but came anyway because he believed that God had called him there. He worked hard. During his ministry at the church, a heavy snowfall caused structural damage leading to the condemnation of the sanctuary. This man hammered more nails, cut more boards, and hung more sheet rock on the new facility than did anyone in the congregation. He visited the sick. He witnessed to the lost. He kindled a warm fellowship at the church. He worked hard at preaching and teaching.

After his tenure at Lake City came to an end, he moved back to Mississippi, where he continues to this day (far past retirement age) to serve as a pastor of tiny country churches. If he has uttered a curse word in the past thirty years, I didn't hear it (even if I knew some people in the church worthy of one or two such syllables!). He never embarrassed the church. He never caused anyone to doubt his morality. If people ever criticized him, they did so to suggest that he was too good, too cautious not to offend or to cause anyone to cast aspersions on the Lord and His church. He has spent a lifetime living cautiously and wisely.

But, God never called him to a large church.

Pastor Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle has been the focus of Southern Baptist headlines this week. If Pastor Driscoll has made mistakes, we ought to be gracious about them. I have faults. You have faults. We all make mistakes. If unwholesome words come out of his mouth, we ought to be gracious about that. If his church's web site will lead you to pornography in three or four clicks, then we ought to realize that they may not realize that—that they don't create the content of the sites to which they link. Clearly this is a man who wants to proclaim the gospel to people, and like all of us, he meets that task with personal foibles intact and in the way.

But here's the thing: A great many Southern Baptists and some of our institutions have come to the conclusion that people like Pastor Driscoll are exemplary pastors, while my former home pastor is not. This conclusion is put on display by the fact that Driscoll is invited to speak at seminary conferences, is featured in media coverage, is extolled by SBC trendsetters, etc., ad nauseum. My former home pastor and the thousands like him never were and never will be.

How big your church is and how "cool" you are—that's what some segments of our convention value. Respectfully, I wish to submit that these are the wrong values. And thus, the question before us is not whether Pastor Driscoll ought to be tarred and feathered. He shouldn't be. But neither should we be putting him up before ministers-in-training as an exemplary pastor. The line of people more qualified than he for that honor is far too long, and far too many of them have gone completely unrecognized.

The Current Void in Background Checking Technology

I'm so thankful that we live in an age in which churches are able to investigate the background of candidates for pastoral office so thoroughly. Churches can and regularly do perform criminal background investigations, credit investigations, driving investigations, and the thorough questioning of provided references. Here at First Baptist Church of Farmersville, when they called me nearly ten years ago, they asked my references to provide the names of people who knew me, and then asked those people to provide the names of people familiar with my ministry, going three levels deep to investigate my background.

What a great idea, since all pastors are not alike, and since there are some predators and bad apples out there who can do major damage to a church!

Some have suggested that the Southern Baptist Convention set up a database of sexual offenders in the pulpit, reacting, I'm sure, to the fact that the vast and rapid improvement in resources to investigate pastors still has not eradicated the problem of clergy abuse. What remains to be demonstrated is not that a problem still exists, but that any of the proposed solutions would actually accomplish more good than harm.

So, not all pastors are alike. But neither are all churches alike. I'm keenly aware of that fact, being blessed as I am. First Baptist Church of Farmersville, having been founded here in 1865, has never terminated a pastor and has never split. The congregation has faced good times and hard times, seasons of growth and seasons of challenge. We have weathered all of the storms of over 140 years and have done so, so far, without acting abusively toward those whom she has called to serve. Not every pastor, I have come to realize, enjoys the blessing of serving at a church like this one.

But the government does not maintain a database of abusive churches. No national bureaus report whether churches pay what they have promised to pay or deal fairly in their conduct of business or follow the rules of their own governing documents. Where do you turn when a Pastor Search Committee lies to you? Are you certain that the local Director of Missions will tell you the truth? Will he risk alienating a contributing church to give the honest truth to a rank stranger? Some will and do, and we all thank God for them. But sometimes pastors walk into abusive situations with no fair opportunity to learn all of the facts.

Here's hoping that the onward march of technology will result in some system that holds rogue congregations accountable for their actions. I would much rather that it be an informal system than a formal system. The staggering decline in the number of people interested in pastoring existing congregations is, to some degree, influenced by the abuses of these bad-apple congregations. There are fewer of them than we suspect, I am convinced, but the difficulty in identifying them poses a frightening prospect for pastors. The stories of pastors and their families brutalized by congregations may not outnumber the stories of good things done for pastors, but they certainly stick in the memory and move the heart. A great many pastors have had their zeal for ministry and their love of the church beaten out of them by cowardly bullies masquerading as Christians.

Ideally, churches and pastors should find one another in a free and open exchange of critical information. But it needs to be a two-way street. And it needs to be centered around the conviction that God brings pastors and churches together, and that He rewards the actions of anyone who deals honestly and justly in submission to His will and with respect for His children.

I Will Make of You a Great Church

"It is easier to deliver a baby than to raise the dead."

And with those words a couple of decades ago, an acquaintance described to me his rationale for determining to be a church planter rather than to be open to serving as the pastor of an existing church. After all, who can argue with the logic? If you go to an existing church, you're going to have to work within existing structures of other people who are trusted by the congregation as much or more than you are, and consequently who have a lot of independent influence among the people. You'll encounter traditions that may be different from your own (and brother, believe me, you've got your own). And the people in the church can be stubborn and cause you lots of problems. They grumble sometimes. They aren't always very appreciative of your efforts. If you start your own church, then nobody has been a member any longer than you have, and nobody ever joined without knowing on the way in about your expectations and visions of ministry. But at an existing church, you're the newcomer for a long time in some people's eyes, and their perspective will influence their decision whether to follow your leadership.

Church planting is hard work, but I don't doubt that in some ways it is a lot easier than pastoring in an existing congregation.

Nevertheless (you knew there was a "nevertheless" coming, didn't you?), I think we pastors can all learn something from the heart of Moses. In Numbers 32:9-10, while Aaron et al were down frolicking with the golden calf, God made this offer to Moses:

I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people. Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation.

Imagine for a moment that you as a pastor have just sunk into your office chair after a particularly brutal meeting. God shows up and says, "These people at this church are all wrong and you are all right. I'm mad at them with you. Let's leave this church behind, and you let me send them off into oblivion. Let's go deliver a baby instead of trying to raise these dead. I will make of you a great church!"

How do you reply to God's offer?

Here's what Moses did: He loved His people, even in spite of the fact that they were all wrong and he was entirely right and they were constantly, stubbornly giving him terrible trouble. Moses took it upon himself to talk God out of it. Moses harbored no ambitions of personal greatness; he wanted to serve God and love God's people in spite of themselves. He had to be really patient. He had to endure a lot of sidetracks. But in the end, God accomplished all that He had promised.

So, do you love the church and her people that passionately? Do I? And don't we serve a God whose calling card is the fact that He can, has, and does indeed raise the dead?

Somehow in my cutting and pasting, this original ending didn't make it into the post until now. Sorry:

Of course, Paul did have that desire not to build on another man's foundation, and church planting is a critical part of what we need to do to reach the world with the gospel. But the search for what is "easier" doesn't lead people to plant churches in the difficult pioneer and missions area that need our attention so acutely. I wouldn't begrudge anyone for faithfulness to follow the calling of God. We just need to make sure that we serve where we serve because of His calling, and not because of our quest for whatever is easiest or whatever is most likely to contribute to our own personal greatness.

An Encouraging Thought for Pastors

I found myself sharing this to encourage a friend today, and in mulling it over, I thought it worth sharing with you all.

Do you ever have those times when you realize that you're not the best preacher in the world, nor the best administrator of a church in the world, nor the best to visit a hospital in the world, nor the best to comfort the bereaved, nor the best to make peace in a conflict? Do you ever have those times when you see yourself as average in all areas of your ministry? Below average?

In over twenty years of pastoral ministry (yes, I got an early start), I've had plenty of moments when I wondered why God had assigned this task to me. I see my own inadequacies so sharply, and it hurts all the more to see those inadequacies not in the pursuit of some trivial task, but in the service of the greatest, most critical function in all the world. Sometimes it makes me want to step aside and leave the pastorate to those better qualified, because I encounter them and know that they are out there.

But then two things steel my resolve:

1. God DID call me to this task. It was real. It was dramatic. It changed my life. And that moment in the summer of my eleventh year has been one of my touchstones since that day. I cannot abandon my post except by deliberately disobeying my Lord.
2. The Southern Baptist Convention consists of more than 42,000 local congregations, or so we hear. That means, if I could name 5,000 pastors who are all better gifted than me in every single area of pastoral ministry, there are still more than 7 out of 8 Southern Baptist churches that need a pastor just like me.

So, start working on your list. I'll bet that you don't make it to 42,000. I'll bet that you don't make it to 5,000. I'll bet that you don't even make it to 1,000. If God called you to preach, He did so for a reason. The need is too great for you to throw in the towel. In face of such a compelling need, our only responsible action is to obey God, serve faithfully, and try by God's grace to improve a little every day.