20
Sep
09

Fond Farewell

The following are excerpts from my final blessing over the finest congregation a pastor could ever hope to minister before…Beloved, it’s been a swell gig…(thank You, Lord)…

Passing On the Mantle...

Seventeen years ago today, I began my pastoral ministry in Douglas County. I was 31 years young, with great ambition and vision. Some thought I was foolish to end a road ministry that was quite successful and pass into obscurity in the small town of Douglasville, Georgia. But the litmus test of success in God’s economy is not position but obedience and Sandy and I both knew God was calling us to a more localized ministry where we could invest our lives in a particular group of people for a prolonged period of time. The starry twinkle in my eyes forecasted I would see a church of hundreds emerge over a span of a few years and then, after 10 years, I would resume life out on the road.

But God said, “Not so fast, big boy.”

I soon discovered I was not in Douglasville to build a church so much as I was put here so God could “build the man.”

When God wants to drill a man, and thrill a man, and skill a man
When God want to mold a man to play the noblest part
When He years with all His heart to create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall praise
Watch His methods, watch His ways
How He ruthlessly perfects whom He royally selects
How He hammers him and hurts him
And with mighty blows converts him into frail shapes of clay which only God understands
How his tortured heart is crying and he lifts beseeching hands
How he bends but never breaks when God’s good he understands
How He uses whom He chooses
And with every purpose fuses him
And by every act induces him to try His splendor out
God knows what He’s about!

Mrs. Pastor with one of her "girls"

When God wants to take a man and shake a man and wake a man…
When God wants to make a man to do the future’s will;
He tries with all His skill…
When He yearns with all His soul to create him large and whole…
With what cunning He prepares him…
How He goads and never spares him! How He whets him and He frets him and in poverty begets him…
How often He disappoints whom He sacredly anoints!
With what wisdom He will hide him;
Never minding what betide him…
Though his genius sob with slighting and his pride may not forget;
Bids him struggle harder yet!
Makes him lonely so that only God’s high messages shall reach him…
So that He may surely teach him what the hierarchy planned;
And though he may not understand…
Gives him passions to command.
How remorselessly He spurs him…
With terrific ardour stirs him
When He poignantly prefers him.

When God wants to name a man and fame a man and tame a man…
When God wants to shame a man to do His Heavenly best;
When He tries the highest test that His reckoning may bring…
When He wants a god or king;
How He reins him and restrains him so his body scarce contains him…
While He fires him and inspires him…
Keeps him yearning, ever burning for that tantalizing goal.
Lures and lacerates his soul…
Sets a challenge for his spirit;
Draws it highest then he’s near it!
Makes a jungle that he clear it;
Makes a desert that he fear it…and subdue it, if he can -
So doth God make a man!
Then to test his spirit’s wrath, Throw a mountain in his path;
Puts a bitter choice before him and relentlessly stands o’er him…
Climb or perish, so He says…
But, watch His purpose, watch His ways.
God’s plan is wondrous kind – could we understand His mind?
Fools are they who call His blind!

When his feet are torn and bleeding;
Yet his spirit mounts unheeding…
Blazing newer paths and finds;
When the Force that is Divine leaps to challenge every failure,
And His ardour still is sweet -
And love and hope are burning in the presence of defeat!
Lo the crisis, Lo the shouts that would call the leader out…
When the people need salvation doth he rise to lead the nation;
Then doth God show His plan…
And the world has found a man!

                                                             (Anonymous)

God was gracious to add seven more years to my ten to finish the work and on April 10 of this year, I heard Him say “Your work here is finished.” Somewhere along the journey we’ve managed to make ready for the Lord a core of people prepared for His coming, yes, but there has been a long and lasting work done in my wife and me. We are not the same people we were 17 years ago. Character has deepened. Faith has been strengthened. A life of more “apartness” and “otherness” is being realized compared to when we first began this journey.

For those who know us best, the past few years have been some of the hardest of our ministry lives, beginning in 2002. Pressures from within and without, destructive forces working against us, loss of hope, sleepless nights, tears seemingly without end. Perhaps the most difficult years, yes, but we stand before you with the testimony that they have been necessary and we have learned to Praise Him in the Storm. Continue reading ‘Fond Farewell’

19
Sep
09

From Double-Breasted to Blue Jeans

It’s Saturday and I don’t know what to do with myself.

For seventeen years running my weekend ritual has been to use the seventh day of the week to shut myself in the house, keep the TV turned off, and stay bent over the Word of God and the notes He had given me for Sunday’s sermon, tweaking them and generally whiling away the day in the Presence of the Spirit, my Teacher. Occasionally, my van and I would venture out to our “quiet time spot” and stay parked for hours on end, allowing the Eternal Word to filibuster my mind and the Third Person spark on the tinders of my soul until the man was set afire and given the Father’s ringing endorsement as a delivery service.

But it’s Saturday and I don’t know what to do with myself.

I am now a pastor without a congregation. My stained-glass memories will have to suffice and I find them helpful reminders that I am still a man with a call on his life though I do not know what my next assignment will be. So I steal a glance at my home’s all-too-familiar work station, where my sermon paraphernalia would normally have hijacked a section of the dining room table and my heart feels a little squeeze. Sandy’s table décor is still intact, the settings and centerpiece unmoved, no sign of Sunday anywhere.

As I remain fixed here in desultory reserve, questions of “what now?” and “what’s next?” pollinate my mental stigma and everything is…abnormal. Tomorrow a new pastor mounts the platform that has been home to me for nearly two decades and I sigh, not for him but for me. As a shepherd who has loved those sheep, I feel like an unfit parent, a papa with a rolling stone complex though I know this has been in the Plan for some time and my faithfulness in the pastoral role is not in question.

But still…

I chuckle now as I recall a conversation Sandy and I shared in our kitchen that set all these past seventeen years in motion.

“I think God is telling me that I am to be a pastor,” I said, watching for any reaction it might yield.

Sandy hesitated, then made a sound like hmmmmm…

“What?”

“What what?” she blinked.

“What are you thinking?”

“About?”

“About what I just said!”

“About you being a pastor?”

If duh was in my vocabulary back then, I would have used it.

“Yes.”

There was a long space of time then she turned away from the sink and looked straight into my eyes.

“I don’t think you have a pastor’s heart,” she confessed.

I knew she was right. I could sweep into Anytown for a few days, preach and engage for the short-term, then be on to the next assignment; it was how I was programmed, what I was built to do. In the in-betweens I would hide in my cave (home) and recharge my batteries until the next church, school or camp called. Using the metaphor of theater, it is fairly easy to be “on” for the performance (don’t read into that word) then exit the stage and disassociate quickly. Pastoring is a whole ‘nother animal altogether as it requires being “on” all the time, across the span of years, overly exposed, voluntarily observed, painstakingly involved.

I chuckle again as I am afforded the luxury now of looking back. There I sat on a tiny stage on one end of a rented church library, coiffed hair (I had more to kwoff back then) and double-breasted suit, shoes shined to military code and I looked out on maybe seventy or eighty folk who gathered on that brilliant sun-shiny Sunday to celebrate the birth of a fellowship. I, the veteran of hundreds of church services the previous ten years, often preaching before thousands, found myself nervous and uncomfortable preaching before tens. But the people were beaming. They were part of something new. And in my Hybels-slash-Warren eyes-bigger-than-reality dream state, I could only see us going up and up and up.

The next Sunday, reality fell like Damacles’ sword, and I preached to a crowd of twenty.

I’ve seen God add to those twenty through the years, but nothing that would jiggle Richter’s needle much and certainly nothing that would cause Hybels-slash-Warren to turn their dual heads in our direction. But the people love me and know that I love them and would lay my life down for them. They’ve gotten close enough to see the warts and gangrenous imperfections and I’ve let them. And I’m glad I did. I’ve held their babies, buried their mothers, shared their griefs (and they mine), lovingly rebuked, liberally encouraged and earnestly taught, both with my life and the opening of scriptures each week.

Last Sunday was my last as pastor in its official capacity. The house was full; I even saw several I hadn’t seen in a long time. They came to say, you’ve been very important in our lives, Scott. We want you to see us and know we are your crown of rejoicing…I tear up, receiving no praise for myself, but thankful I did, in fact, get a Grinch-like heart transplant. A very close friend wished this upon me: “I pray that when you leave this building today and drive off the parking lot, you will hear the sound of angels standing and applauding a job well done.” I think I did. And I know Who they were standing for.  

My pastorate ended on the anniversary of my pastorate’s beginning but with seventeen wonderful years packed between. I set out in a double-breasted suit and sat down in well-worn blue jeans. Perhaps that is a commentary on those years:  God gave me a pastor’s heart after all and got me comfortable in the call.

Well, it’s Saturday. I think the van and me’ll head on over to our “quiet time” spot and get before the Lord for the next few hours. I need to get ready for Tomorrow

01
Sep
09

From Theology To Biography

This is my final newsletter article as pastor of New River…

Our New Testament is fifty-one percent pedagogical (teaching, training) and forty-nine percent practicum (application). Jesus spent ample time with His followers in the classroom of instruction but also sent them into the labs and out into the fields so they could discover the Life for themselves. They did, and marveled greatly.

The Book of Ephesians is a perfect balance of doctrine and exercise. The first three chapters offer fundamental instruction while chapters four, five and six deal with how such a creed looks walked out. I have heard that John Wimber, the now-deceased founder of the Vineyard Fellowship of churches, used to spend the first portion of his conferences giving a lecture then segue into what he called “clinic time” where the power of the Kingdom was manifested, the expounded word would come alive.

The Apostle Paul stressed both the “hearing of faith” (Romans 10:17) and the “obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5; 16:26). This is how the ancients learned. While our educational system is purely academia, based on information-gathering, memorizing data and dates and names of battles, the ancient people of God were educated with an interactive approach of learning and doing.  

Recently, I picked up a book that served to attack the conspiratorial presence of the religious right throughout the history of America. It was written by a New York University professor and while I admit to his secular world view, I could not help but be impressed with his comparison between the religious zealots of America and the church that was once upon a time in a place called Jerusalem. In the early centuries, the author commented, the reputation of the church was not only its theology, but its corresponding “biography.”

I love that!

These were a people who not only internalized truth, but externalized the way and the life as they spilled out onto the streets, so that what was said about them (biographical) were things like:

“See how they love one another!”
“We cannot defend their beliefs but we also cannot deny their lives”

In my twelve years as pastor at New River, I have delivered in the neighborhood of 750 sermons, devotions, talks and Bible studies, not to mention the generous dousing of articles, blogs and other written instruction. In recent years the Lord sparked in me a desire to lay down a more solid foundation through the two semesters of the LIFE Institute. I didn’t know it then, but the last couple of years have been my “Deuteronomy” to the flock, the final preparations for our moving from theology to biography, if you will.

That’s not to say that the time of teaching is over. It does mean that you are getting ready to go into the fields with Kingdom power; you have been equipped thoroughly for what is coming. A new era is dawning that marks a vital transition from the “first half of Ephesians” into the next three exciting chapters where you get to go on adventure and walk it out (Eph 4:1,17; 5:2,8,15)!

As in Romans 12:1, you are entering ‘THEREFORE’ ZONE! The first eleven chapters of Romans offer instruction and equipping and in light of all the revelation given, Paul gives what should be our only “reasonable” response:

Therefore…present your bodies a LIVING sacrifice…which is your
reasonable SERVICE…”

As for me, I couldn’t be more thrilled. A people prepared, a Joshua waiting in the wings, and a whole host of victorious campaigns await. Beloved, a sizzling, hot biography is going to be written about you. Just be faithful to all you have learned and all will be well. Amen.

05
Aug
09

THE Sin and an Unregenerate Church

Pharisee_and_Publican

Here is an exercise for you aspirants of theology. Search out the significant differences between the sin, sin and sins in the Greek New Testament. I assure you, it has been the glory of God to hide these matters in plain sight. And it has been the glory of the sons of His Kingdom to search them out. What is found in such a search will deliver us from the incomplete gospel that would only save us from our sins…and the Gospel of the Kingdom that Jesus, His disciples and Paul preached that truly brings Life.

Paul said “the sting of the death is the sin” in 1 Corinthians 15:56 (Young’s Literal). The definite article in the original implies a particular sin, the sin of all sins. It is this sin that men embrace all the way to hell. 

When Jesus came to be baptized to fulfill all righteousness, the Baptizer exclaimed, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” He did not say, contrary to how the verse if often misquoted “who takes away the sins of the world.”

Jesus didn’t zero in on sins when He went to the cross—although they, too, were rendered powerless, praise be!—He came to do away with, once and for all, the sin that brings about the death. Sins (plural, without definite article)  are, put simply, berries on the tree of rebellion, but God made provision through Christ to go to the root of mankind’s problem.

Which is…

…the nefarious nature to rebel against the authority of God and His Kingdom which is, ultimately, His reign. THE sin is man taking the throne. It is Adam casting his vote for himself and ruling God out of office. It is the created being casting himself in the lead role and leaving the Creator God on the cutting room floor.

Say what you wish, but the sin is not just evident in an unregenerate world of hell-bound men today, it is also the Great Plague of the professing church, mostly evident in those places on the map where there is little or no persecution, where abundance is greedily scarfed down by portly epicureans, and where the Gospel has been watered down from its original, robust recipe and abridged into the costless, cross-less, insipidly banal concoction it is today. Continue reading ‘THE Sin and an Unregenerate Church’

30
Jul
09

Cruise Control

ocean liner

“I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course…”
(Paul, Acts 20:24)

“…I have finished my course…”
(Paul, 2 Timothy 4:7)

Of late, I keep hearing the words “finish well.” A seminary professor once did a study on 100 Bible characters whose placement in the scriptures figures prominently. In all actuality, there are over 800 chief leaders in the Bible but only sufficient data is given for a C-note’s worth of them. What he found is quite revealing in this matter of finishing well. The study cites each of these conspicuous luminaries concluded their lives in one of five ways:

  • They were “cut off” (Samson, Josiah)
  • They finished poorly (Gideon, Saul, Solomon)
  • They finished “so-so” (Hezekiah, Jehoshaphat)
  • They finished well (Abraham, Job, Joshua)
  • We’re not sure (just not enough data to determine)

The professor uncovered an alarming fact: barely 30% of all leaders in the pages of the Bible finished well. Thirty percent, beloved! More than two-thirds were sidetracked or shipwrecked by abuse of power, pride, ego, illicit sexual affairs, or improper use of finances.

The inspiration for this piece comes from something I read last evening as I was lounging in my backyard, utterly absorbed in a novel. The main characters in the book were aboard an ocean liner, not for pleasure, but to uncover a murderous plot. But that’s beside the point. One of the story’s protagonists referred to the vessel as a “cruise ship” during dinner conversation. The ship’s First Officer corrected her, pointing out they were sailing aboard an ocean liner, not a cruise ship. There is a “world of difference” between the two; the point of the cruise ship is the cruise itself. The predominant purpose of an ocean liner is to transport people to their destination.

That got me thinking.

Many—and I’m talking about those who wear the moniker “Christian” here—approach life as if merrily sailing along was their God-given right, taking in the sights, living from meal to meal and occasionally enjoying ports of call whereby they may stretch their legs and amass souvenirs of the trip. That sounds okay, except it has one fundamental flaw. That’s not living on purpose!

The ocean liner is built for speed and sea-keeping. Because its hull is more pointed than a cruise ship, it can travel upwards of 30 knots (35 mph). Its hull is also stronger, making the vessel well able to cross the open seas in all kinds of weather. While a cruise ship runs away from storms, the ocean liner draws a bead on its destination and nothing, no nothing, can deter it. The ocean liner will plow straight through a storm, never veering from its course, always with the objective of arrival. On time. In one piece. With no loss of life.

This is the life we were meant for. While some opt for the cruise, those who truly know what they are designed and destined for, will gladly forego the joyride and treasure the journey. That’s not to say we will not have seasons of refreshing—like reading a novel in the backyard. Oh, there will be opportunities for stargazing and feasting in lavish banquet halls, but we must always be vigilant to “fight the good fight” against the elements that would sink us. They’re out there, and they are relentless.

Keep your eyes to the shore, fellow oarsmen. Let’s finish the course. And let’s do it together.




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