The Frustrating Work of Helping Sinners Not Sin

THEM: I’m not growing any fruit, what should I do?

ME: Pray. Stop sinning, Pursue holiness.

THEM: What else ya got?
@FailingPastor

 

 

This was a real conversation I had with a guy. Through our entire relationship he was adamant that good works were not necessary, and that sin wasn’t that bad because Jesus had forgiven him. Yet I’ve never met anyone so burdened with guilt. He was constantly beating himself up and depressed.

“How come I don’t have any spiritual fruit? Why doesn’t sin just stop?” he asked.

“Because you don’t think sin is that bad and you don’t think good works are that good.”

“Yeah, my good works are just filthy rags and all my sin has been dealt with in Christ. But I just don’t understand why I’m not growing.”

“You should do good things. Paul says in Titus to do good works so you are not unfruitful.”

“Yeah, well, there you go slipping into legalism again.”

We got nowhere. He later left the church.

People are suckers for get rich quick schemes. We all want the shortcut to success. This is just as true spiritually as it is monetarily.

I think most Christians admire Jesus Christ and would be cool with being more like Him. I really think most Christians have a desire to be better people. In fact, most people desire that.

Continue reading “The Frustrating Work of Helping Sinners Not Sin” →

The Pain of Pastoral Phone Calls

“Please go to voicemail. Please go to voicemail.”

–me, every time I have to call someone
@FailingPastor

 

 

I hate talking on the phone. Cellphones are the worst. If you begin speaking while the other person is speaking it gets cut off. Then both pause to let the other go. Then both speak at the same time. Then they go under a bridge or out of coverage and they are gone, only to call back later where you can hear every third word. The only thing worse is when the connection is clear and you can hear every word.

I hate talking on the phone.

The only people who still talk on the phone, are people who like talking on the phone. Everyone else texts. There is nothing worse than talking on the phone with someone who likes talking on the phone.

There are several lovers of talking on the phone who call me. If I’m not home, they will leave a message, asking me to call them back. I hate calling people back.

I also know, every month or so, there are certain people who like talking on the phone who would like me to call them. So I do. And I pray and I pray, “Lord please, I’m begging you, let this go to voicemail.”

If I can just leave a message, then these folks will know that I tried. I gave them a call and they didn’t answer. It’s not my fault! I wanted to talk on the phone, but no! You did not! Ha, I am now off the hook.

People who like talking on the phone generally like talking about their problems. Pretty much the only time certain people call me is if they have a new problem, which is strikingly similar to their old problems. Usually it has to do with arguments and fights with other people. Because for some reason, and I think we need more research on this, people who like to talk on the phone are typically fighting with everyone.

Talking on the phone to someone who likes talking on the phone about all their drama is life-suckingly horrendous.

There are many phone calls that end with me hanging up and sitting back and praying, “Dear Lord, thank you that is over. Please fill me with enough energy to get out of this chair and go on.”

Continue reading “The Pain of Pastoral Phone Calls” →

I Preach the Word and People Don’t Come

PASTORAL ADVICE: If you preach The Word, people will come.

ME: When The Word came, people crucified Him.
@FailingPastor

 

 

I had a guy tell me “Preach the Word and people will come.” I preached on a passage of Scripture that contradicted one of his favorite doctrines and he left the church. I love the irony.

If you preach the Word, one thing you will never preach is “If you preach the word people will come,” because the Word never says that.

What the Word says is stuff like: God’s wisdom is foolishness with man. Men hate the light and love the darkness. They will not endure sound doctrine but will heap to themselves teachers who will scratch their ears. And, of course, the chief example is when the Word Himself became flesh and dwelt among us–He came unto His own and His own received Him not.

Are we aware of what that means? It means people who think they wanted the Messiah didn’t really want Him once He showed up.

John describes Jesus as being the Word of God made flesh. There is much depth to that statement and I don’t pretend to be plumbing its depths here, but at least it means Jesus Christ is as much a revelation of God’s righteousness as the Scripture is, if not more. If people didn’t like Christ, what makes us think they will like His Word?

Try it sometime. You know the passages people in your church have agreed to ignore. You know the ones that will get you in trouble.

Maybe it’s Paul telling women to be silent in church, or wives to submit to husbands. Maybe it’s stuff about repentance and the necessity of good works in faith in James 2. Maybe it’s the Sermon on the Mount or the book of Revelation. I don’t know what it is for your church, but you do (if you don’t know your church’s weirdness, ask people outside your church that are familiar with people in your church! They know!).

What you’ll find is that people, in general, are not at all interested in what the Bible says. That’s why we defend our accepted niche of church tradition. As long as I can quote old, dead guys it doesn’t matter what the Bibles says. And they are OUR old, dead guys! They can’t be wrong!

Preach the Word, in season and out. Do it all the time and watch the people leave. Be prepared to take a pay cut, maybe even be prepared to eventually shut the doors of your church.

It’s not sad to shut for good the doors of a church that promotes terrible doctrine, this might actually be the best thing you’ve ever done for the Body of Christ!

There are way too many churches today and way too many pastors and way too many people pretending at Christianity. Start preaching the Word and weed out the pretenders. Stake your career on it. Go a Sunday without getting paid because there’s no money. See the embarrassment on the treasurer’s face when he tells you not to cash your paycheck. I’ve seen it.

If you preach the Word, I guarantee you your church will shrink. Guaranteed to happen every single time it’s tried. Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you. Do you have the faith and the guts to do it?

 

 

But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness
–1 Corinthians 1:23

When the Pastor’s Family Avoids the Pastor’s Church

When you’re a pastor and your family comes to visit,
but once again makes excuses why they can’t stay for church.

Or is that just me?
@FailingPastor

 

 

“I think we’ll leave before church,” my mom said. “We want to get home before midnight.”

Here’s the thing: my parents live about five hours away and my church ends at 11am. Unless they stop for food for eight hours, there is no possible way they would get home after midnight.

My parents have been to my church one time together, and that was within the first months of me preaching here. Since then one of them has been to a Sunday morning service three times.

This would make sense if my parents were atheists or Mormons or something, but no. My parents are not only long-time Christian folk, we are all in the same denominational affiliation. But they won’t come to my church.

But that’s not all. My wife’s parents have been to my church twice. And, also, just so we’re clear on timeframe, I’ve been a pastor for about 20 years now. In twenty years they’ve been to two church services.

This used to really bother me. It still kind of hurts. At the same time, now it’s more a game for my wife and I to make bets about when they will leave and what the excuse will be this time. Oh, and by the way, all of our parents are currently retired. It’s not like they have anything they need to get back home for.

Nope, they just don’t want to come to my church.

I’m not entirely sure why this is the case. It could just be me. It could be the content of my messages or my delivery or my humor. It might just be the annoyance of listening to the punk kid preach at ya. I get it. I see why that would be hard. But here’s the other thing: my brother in-law is a pastor and my in-laws go to his church multiple times a year. They know people on a first name basis in his church, while knowing no one from our church. And he’s only been at his church for three years. So it has to be more than just a kid preaching.

I’m always told the verse “the prophet is without honor in his home town.” That would make sense except for my brother-in-law shoots that theory to pieces. It depends who the prophet is I guess.

Perhaps my church is the culprit. We’re not a typical church. We don’t have fancy programs and buildings and decor. We don’t have a praise team and largely avoid contemporary music. I know there are worship preferences at play. But I’m your son!

Does it really pain them so much that they can’t endure my church for one hour a year? Apparently. I had no idea how painful my ministry could be to relatives.

I threw this tweet out there to see if other pastors had this experience. Sure enough, quite a few did. One guy said his parents couldn’t make it to his church because his dad had to get home in time to put the garbage out. He says his parents live four hours away.

I’m not the only one who puts up with this. My dad, who used to be a pastor, used to complain that his parents and in-laws never listened to his preaching. Funny how he is annoyed with his family on that but that’s still not enough to get him into my church.

Ministry is hard enough, but to get rejection from your family over it is completely unhelpful. You don’t hear about this sort of problem addressed at fancy pastor conferences or in pastoral ministry books. But this is a deal.

I’m a grown man. I don’t need my mommy’s approval. But it would be nice to know there’s some support out there somewhere. Many Sundays I have gotten hurt by people in my church and it would be nice to call a parent and unload a bit, but I can’t. It’s a layer of comfort and support that does not exist. I don’t know how much difference it would make, how could I? I have never had it. Having that underlying subconscious thought in your head that “even my family thinks I suck at this” sure doesn’t help though.

Anyway, I’m just stating a fact of pastoral ministry I’ve never heard dealt with before. I’m not sure what the answer is. I’m also not sure what would be worse: having my family stay away from my church or having them in it!

 

 

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.  And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.
–Luke 14:26-27

Can You Truly Count How Many Got Saved?

I’ve never matched Peter’s success at Pentecost,
but I did save the same kid at youth group 3,000 times.
@FailingPastor

 

 

Pentecost was by far the most productive evangelistic meeting in the Bible, outside of Jonah in Nineveh. It is certainly the largest revival in the New Testament.

Pentecost is often held up as a model, a comparison to make you feel pathetic about your terrible ministry.

There are reports from time to time about massive evangelistic revivals and thousands coming to the Lord. I am skeptical. I just am. I can’t help it. I wish I could believe that your thousands of people who got saved at your revival truly got saved, but I’ve been around awhile now and I’m skeptical.

I know 3,000 got saved when Peter preached because God said so in the Bible. God did not make any pronouncements about how many got saved at your revival. The test of time makes those numbers look ridiculous. Does Christlikeness show up in those lives? Usually it doesn’t.

People are fixated on numbers. I think we love hearing about Peter’s great success at Pentecost because it feeds our numbers obsession. We think the effectiveness of a revival or an evangelistic opportunity is proven by how many got saved.

If no one got saved then “the Spirit did not move.” If many people got saved then you know “the Spirit was moving.”

I disagree. The Spirit moves all the time. Even “failed” evangelism, by which I mean no one got saved, is still better than no evangelism, and quite frankly, still might work for a more non-obvious reason.

Bottom line is this: the guy I lead to the Lord 3,000 times is just as important as the 3,000 individuals Peter saved on Pentecost. The Spirit may be moving in both cases.

Most ministers will skip the opportunity to talk with the guy who has been saved 3,000 times for the brighter lights of revival crowds. We base the expenditure of our time and energy on what the payoff is. It’s like the priest of Micah’s who took off when the tribe of Dan came calling. Why serve in a guy’s house when you can serve a whole tribe? (That’s in Judges 17-18 by the way.)

I think we hold up Peter’s response on Pentecost as our goal, anything short of that is a failure. Here’s the thing: Peter never duplicated that event. In fact, none of the apostles did. Pentecost was a special event; it was the coming of the Spirit with power. It created a big response.

The bottom line is that I don’t know who is saved. If you claim to have saved 3,000 souls, I don’t know. How do I know that? If I claim to have finally saved the guy after the 3,000th time telling him the Gospel, I still don’t know.

God is the judge. Don’t compare your supposed results to other’s results. Don’t fixate on numbers. Preach the Gospel. Love people. Pray. Let God do the judging. He’ll do His job; we should do ours.

 

 

And they said unto him, Hold thy peace, lay thine hand upon thy mouth, and go with us, and be to us a father and a priest: is it better for thee to be a priest unto the house of one man, or that thou be a priest unto a tribe and a family in Israel?
–Judges 18:19

My Thoughts When Someone Tells Me They Watched a Televangelist Instead of Coming to Church

Telling your pastor what TV preachers you watch while you skip church is not helping your cause.
@FailingPastor

 

 

One thing I hate about being a pastor is listening to people’s excuses for skipping church. I’m not interested. If there is a reason you weren’t there, that’s fine, but excuses drive me nuts.

One of the justifications for not coming to church is telling the pastor what other means of edification you partook in while skipping church. This frequently involves telling your pastor what televangelist you watched Sunday morning instead.

Here’s the thing: The majority of pastors on TV are heretical nut-jobs. Yeah, I said it.

If watching a televangelist makes up for not coming to hear me preach, then good Lord, I should have quit years ago.

Watching heretics is about the worst possible thing you could do while skipping church. You’d be better served getting another hour of sleep. Or wake up and drink coffee and stare out the window Talk to your kids. Even going to their baseball tournament is better than watching televised heresy.

Telling me that you watched a televangelist is not winning any points with me. It makes me worry that you think my messages are similar to what you saw on TV. That imbibing in that drivel equals drinking, what I thought, were rivers of living water proclaimed from God’s Word in my sermon.

I’m now more worried for you. I now feel that you need at least four more church services just to make up for the heretical information that is now swimming loose in the slosh of your brain. Instead of justifying your absence of one church service, you now indebt yourself to four more of my church services.

Continue reading “My Thoughts When Someone Tells Me They Watched a Televangelist Instead of Coming to Church” →

Church Growth Advice From a Church Shrinking Pastor

Church Growth fanatics should remember that the plants that grow quickest are weeds.
@FailingPastor

 

 

Pastors of small churches are often allured by church growth advice. Who doesn’t want to reach more people? But as soon as a pastor of a small church starts reading this stuff it becomes laughable. Taking my little church in this rural community and doing Southern California suburban church approaches? Riiiiiiight! Pretty sure these church growth antics would shrink my church faster than it currently is.

Get Rich Quick schemes abound. People get scammed in amazing ways by buying into shortcuts. Church Growth and Get Rich Quick schemes sound similar in approach, guarantees, and results.

Ever notice how many mega-church pastors take terrible moral falls? It’s a pandemic, and yet before they fall, all of us little pastors were told to follow their anointed means to achieve spectacular ends.

Why is it that a pastor who has more people suddenly becomes the expert on everything that everyone else must do? What verse in the Bible says, “If something attracts a lot of people it is good and anointed from on high?” There are none, yet there are plenty that talk about popular things being wrong. Remember the broad road with many on it? Remember where that road went?

Since when does popularity equal truth? Since never. Jesus was left alone at the end of His life. Paul stood alone. The prophets thought they were all by themselves, so much that Elijah claimed to be the only one left.

There is zero evidence from scripture that pastoral success looks like lots of people.

Continue reading “Church Growth Advice From a Church Shrinking Pastor” →

Why Do We Rely on Church Tradition?

Do something stupid in church long enough and it becomes infallible, authoritative Church Tradition.
@FailingPastor

 

 

“A lie told often enough becomes the truth.” Those are the alleged words of Vladimir Lenin, one of the greatest propagandists of all time. Lenin used his propaganda skills to gain power and wield it authoritatively over a helpless people.

One would hope only blatantly evil people would use such tactics to gain power. Unfortunately, hoping this would require you to be unfamiliar with human nature.

I’m stunned by people who believe things based on “church tradition.”

I mean, seriously, have you ever been to church? Have you ever hung around one for years, knowing its intimate details and goings-on? For the love of all things beautiful and good, why would you base your beliefs on what comes out of there?!

This is especially glaring for those who emphasize Sola Scriptura, the notion that Scripture is our sole authority for life and doctrine. Sole authority. “Sole” there means something. “Sole” means the only one!

“Well yes, but Scripture is hard to understand, so we need to get help. Relying on those who came before us is a safeguard for knowing what Scripture is saying.”

So, I need 2,000 years of insane people doing insane things in the name of Christ to properly understand the Scriptures? How about the Holy Spirit? Is He enough, or do I need all kinds of dead guys?

“Well, we test what the Spirit says by seeing if He said the same thing to others in the past.”

So, the only test of whether the Spirit is teaching me is if the teaching lines up with people I have no guarantee had the Spirit?

Continue reading “Why Do We Rely on Church Tradition?” →

Being Intentional About Not Using the Word Intentional

THEM: Evangelism should be intentional.

ME: Yes, the curse of accidental evangelism must be stopped immediately!
@FailingPastor

 

 

I am not a hip or cool pastor. I doubt “hip” and “cool” are even words “hip and cool” pastors use anymore. I don’t even try. Cool is subjective. Too many cool people look stupid to me. I don’t trust “cool.” It shifts with the tides of human esteem.

One of the ways people know I’m not cool is by looking at me. If that doesn’t do it, then listen to me.

I avoid cool words like the plague. Cool words like “intentional.” Just the sound of it makes me want to barf. I’m amazed I was able to type that without puking on my keyboard. Massive levels of restraint here; I have my body under subjection.

Intentional means “to do something deliberately, on purpose.” The antonym is “accidental.” I looked this up in a dictionary, because of that whole “I’m not cool” thing I was talking about earlier.

So, here’s my question: who are these people who are doing accidental evangelism? Furthermore, please explain, with as many small words as possible, why these people must be suppressed?

I’m totally cool with people doing accidental evangelism. There’s a chance it’s way more effective than your pre-planned, cookie-cutter, intentional approach.

I know, I’m just being an old curmudgeon, an old curmudgeon, by the way, who is not cool. But still, I will raise my point and scold all you young, hip guys that words mean things and we should be careful.

I was once told that pastors need to be “thought leaders.” As opposed to Feeling Followers I suppose. Am I leading other people’s thoughts? Isn’t that typically referred to as “brainwashing?” I don’t want to be in charge of people’s thoughts. I want people to have the mind of Christ.

Continue reading “Being Intentional About Not Using the Word Intentional” →

How Should a Pastor Respond When Someone Says They Probably Won’t be at Church Sunday?

WHAT THEY SAY: “There’s a chance we won’t be at church Sunday.”

WHAT I HEAR: “We won’t be at church Sunday.”
@FailingPastor

 

Typically people skip church without saying anything before, during, or after the skipping. You are left to peruse Facebook for the details of what they were up to. They’re probably just out having fun with the family. Or they have left your church in a huff and you’ll never see them again. One or the other.

If someone goes out of their way to say to you, “We might not be at church Sunday.” The only reason they are saying this is because they will not be there. When people hint at not being at church, that’s them telling you they won’t be there.

Incidentally, when people say “We will see you at church Sunday,” They probably won’t be there either.

Look, no one is going to be at church Sunday.

Just give up on that.

Content yourself with preaching to those nice quiet chairs that faithfully show up every Sunday. They never complain. They don’t open cellophane wrapped candies. They don’t get up in the middle of your finest sermon point to go to the bathroom. They don’t do that stupid crouching walk across the front of the church in an effort to avoid distracting people, which results in the oddest walk ever, which distracts absolutely everyone, so instead of repenting they are thinking, “People who duck to avoid getting attention actually seem to get a lot of attention.” Empty chairs don’t show up late. They don’t spill coffee on the carpet. They don’t cough and hack and blow loogies. They just sit there patiently and quietly, waiting for you to wrap it up so they can go back to whatever it is chairs do in the dark.

Continue reading “How Should a Pastor Respond When Someone Says They Probably Won’t be at Church Sunday?” →