Dogs & Doghouses

(I wrote this last summer, but it's still true).

The other day I was mowing the grass and I caught myself singing the opening lines for the theme of “F-Troop”. You may remember them as well. It starts out like this. “The end of the civil war was near when quite accidentally….” I can remember almost the entire song. Isn’t it amazing what the human mind has the capacity for? I haven’t seen an episode of “F-Troop” for at least 20 years, but I still remember the theme song.

I bring this up because of some sobering words that the prophet Hosea spoke to Israel (Hosea 4:1-7). He said that God’s people were, “…destroyed for lack of knowledge…” and because God’s people had rejected knowledge, that God would reject them. Destruction and rejection by God is the price of willful ignorance of His Word. Our nation, by and large, is very ignorant of what’s in the Bible and there is a price to pay for only knowing useless things. And we who say we believe in Jesus Christ are sometimes more worried about having things our way than we are concerned about having things the Bible way.

Please take some time this week to read and then think about some part of the Bible. Let it change your life.

James 1:19 - Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: (20) For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

There’s an old joke out there. If you stay a Baptist long enough I’m sure you’ll hear it. I think it’s a commentary on giving advice wrapped up in a backhanded compliment. Anyway, it goes like this:

Somebody comes along and tells the pastor, “One of these days you’ll make a good pastor.” Never mind that the pastor in question has been a pastor for the past dozen or so years and never mind that he just delivered what was probably a really doctrinally sound and spiritually edifying sermon and that he’s doing quite well where God has placed him. Haw haw, get it? It’s funny (sort of) because the poor guy is already a pretty decent pastor. It’s sad because the first person can’t bring himself to just give an honest compliment – it has to be mingled with sarcasm.

Anyway, I can’t help but notice how, when preachers get together they talk about other preachers and other churches. In surreptitious tones, off in groups of twos or threes they mostly talk about those who aren’t present or represented in the current get-together.

Early in my ministry I had an older preacher take me to the side and tell me, “If you don’t let them tell you what to do, they’ll talk about you.” At the time I didn’t know what to do with that advice. Now I know it’s very true. The guy was warning me.

A lot of Baptist pastors say they believe in the local church. In other words, the local church makes decisions only for the local church. They’re not controlled by a convention or a group of people hundreds of miles away. They say that’s what we see in the New Testament. And I agree with that. But listening to our concerns about others, we make sure and voice lots of advice, not to them, but about them.

For example, there is always plenty of commentary about who they just called to be their pastor, or the type of activities they’re doing these days and about how we (the current gaggle of preachers) would do or did things differently if and or when we used to be pastor there. For all the talk of the local church it doesn't sound like we respect the concept.

If pastors were old women we’d call it gossip. But since pastors are doing the talking, it goes without a name.

True story: I remember one time when several people were sitting around talking about how a fellow Christian always acted so paranoid and how sometimes that person would do things that just seemed odd. Finally, someone spoke up and said, “Yeah, I don’t know why she’s so paranoid. It’s not like we sit around talking about her.” The subject changed pretty quickly.

Consider Ephesians 4:21 – 29 (bold is my emphasis):

“But ye have not so learned Christ; If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labor, working with [his] hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.”

In between the parts I made bold are the ideas of corruption, deceitful lusts, controlling anger, giving place to the devil, not stealing, and being charitable. Since we don’t seem to be able to stop our mouths from running all the time, I’d say the next best thing would be to try and get a handle on what’s coming out of them.

Pastors especially should watch their petty, catty, repartee. It’s just not that edifying.

It used to be that the church I pastor would get three types of mail. The first type was the stuff that would never get opened – flyers from furniture stores, coupon books, and those little squares of advertisements for Christian things (usually about 40 to a pack) wrapped in cellophane. This was the stuff for the trash. The second type had to be opened. This mail included things like bank statements, electric bills, insurance announcements, and other functions associated with operating a modern church; the necessary requirements that had to be responded towards in some manner (usually with an enclosed check). The third type of mail was from other churches in the association. This mail included things like invitations to Bible conferences, missionary reports, and an occasional call for a special function like a revival or an ordination.

Just some cautionary words, and maybe it’s just me, but the nature of the mail I’ve been receiving lately seems to have changed. Of course we still get the world’s junk mail. The trash can is still nice and full every week. And of course we still get the bills that have to be paid. Though someday, we’ll prayerfully be finished with the mortgage payment for the building. The change in our mail has come, unfortunately, with what we receive from other works in the association.

Lately, it seems like we never receive anything that doesn’t include a request for money or a plea for a love offering, or a special one-time call for funds to help pay off a building. I’m sorry if I sound hard hearted, but everybody who cares to write these days does so with their hand out, just like the world. Even the last couple associational meetings, aside from the fellowship, have struck me “conventionish” and have had the feel of large-scale fundraisers. At those events too, most everyone with a booth was asking for financial support or had something to sell.

Has the American Baptist Association been reduced to a group of churches so in debt and so strapped for cash that the greatest communication between the works is a cry for money and a monthly financial report? It’s easy, I suppose, to go ahead and ask, falling prey to the, “Everybody else does it,” and the intellectually sluggish, “It can’t hurt to ask,” mentalities. These strike me as the world’s ways, carrying with them a tone of being entitled, possibly driven by looking down the street at what some other denomination has and saying, “I want that too.”

And I hear people say, “We’re just trying to build a strong church for the Lord.” But one thing to remember is that God sees strength differently than we do. It’s the natural thing to want “nice things” and bigger buildings. But when we are at our weakest in this world, being faithful with the God-called work, being service rather than results oriented, is when we may be at the peek of our service to God. Hebrews chapter eleven is a wonderful catalog of strong, faithful, people. Compare them to the temples of their respective times and you’ll see the contrast.

Have we entrenched ourselves into the world system so deeply that we are now indebted to it, fearful that the Lord isn’t going to take care of us? Or have we impatiently trusted in the shadow of the mortgage bank, strengthening ourselves in the easy line of credit, and now find ourselves asking God about it as a secondary thought (Isaiah 30:1-5)? And why does it feel like we’ve turned our backs on the example of Paul who, at both Corinth and Thessalonica, worked doubly hard to make sure he and his fellow workers were not financially burdensome (I Corinthians 9:15 and II Thessalonians 3:8-10)? In Psalm 37:25 we read, “I have been young, and [now] am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.” God isn’t going to abandon the obedient to starvation.

And speaking of debt, Paul advised in Romans 13:8 (to) “Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.” With that in mind, doesn’t it make sense to shy away from building projects that leave us trapped in debt for 15 to 20 years to the point where we have to send mass mailings begging for money? Should we not be more content with what we have (Philippians 4:11 and I Timothy 6:8) and less eager to financially overextend ourselves to the point of having to panhandle from the brethren?

And I really try not to be a Scrooge about all this. You remember Scrooge? He’s the guy who had to be visited by ghosts before he finally loaned the money to Tiny Tim’s dad for the surgery. I would like to be more financially supportive to many of the missionaries and pastors whose mail I receive. But you know what? The church I pastor only has so much. I wonder whose son didn’t get surgery because there was no more money. I imagine even Scrooge only had so much (maybe someone should have a talk with those ghosts)? And you know what else? After nearly ten years on this field I still work a part time secular job to help ends meet. There is no guarantee in God’s Word that I’ll ever be a “full-time” pastor. It’s part of the territory. Do you know any pastors that still have to do that, who yet struggle and feel guilty because they can’t help out with every call for money? Yet as pastor it’s part of my duty to see that the assembly spends what money it does have wisely.

The point is often made that, “If just one soul is saved then it doesn’t matter how much money we spend.” While that sounds good and has helped open many a wallet to enable some to build bigger buildings and fund many other endeavors, the New Testament provides a cash-free system (let that sink in a moment, a system that NEEDS NO MONEY) whereby the debt we owe to God was paid in full – it cost Jesus His life. It’s already been paid. Our task, as God-called Pastors and teachers is to tell others about this. We shouldn’t worry so much about spending enough so that we can impress the unchurched into visiting. We are to go out to all the world, not sit in and build bigger barns.

I don’t want to belong to an association of fund raisers.