By Joe McKeever, Preacher, former Pastor of seven churches, and retired Director of Missions at the Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans.

I’m pro-pastor, but I’m not blind.

These men (in our denomination, pastors are men) are called of God and assigned some of the most difficult work in the universe, and for the most part they labor well and long and you never hear a complaint out of them. They are my heroes.

Most of them.

The typical pastor in our denomination serves a church running 100 or fewer in attendance, which tells you the offerings are insufficient to provide much of a living for him. In some cases he holds down a second job or his wife works. Or both. Or, most amazing of all, he manages to live on what they pay him.

I believe in these guys. They are my brothers and my admiration of them knows no bounds.

Most of them.

But there are times when some of these ministers do the most self-defeating things. Not all of them, thankfully. But enough to warrant our addressing the issue as a caution to the rest of the Lord’s stable of shepherds.

Here is my personal list of the 5 most frustrating things pastors do.

FIRST: It’s frustrating to see preachers cut corners on sermon preparation.

What is bizarre about this is that the Sunday sermon is 50 percent of their job, as far as most of the congregation is concerned.

I grant you that in the more liturgical churches that isn’t so, with the ministers’ homilies often appearing as 5 minute reflections thrown together just before he entered the sanctuary.

But in the world I live in, the only time 90 percent of the congregation sees the pastor is on Sunday morning. If he does poorly there, he has just about sealed his fate with the membership as a whole.

And yet.

From the scant attention given the Sunday sermon by many ministers, from the small study time allotted to its preparation, and from the haphazard delivery of this message during the morning worship service, one would think neither the members nor the minister put a value on the sermon.

It is the single most important thing the pastor does. If he is smart, if he values his ministry, and if he wants to go on receiving a paycheck to provide for his family, he will give great prominence in his schedule to planning that message.

SECOND: It’s frustrating when preachers miss the entire point of what a sermon should be.

Many a preacher–not all, thank the Lord–think a sermon is a rumination on some text they’ve studied or have been reflecting on. Many think this is the time to issue a grand pronouncement on some hot-button issue in the public mind. Others think of the sermon as their moment to proclaim their convictions before a people looking for answers. And, to some, it’s an instruction time when they may educate people seriously deficient in spiritual things.

A sermon is none of these things.

God said of the false prophets of Jeremiah’s day: If they had stood in my council, then they would have announced my words to my people, and would have turned them back from their evil way (Jer. 23:22).

That’s what a sermon is: the words of God, received by a servant of the Lord who has taken the time to “stand in His council,” and is willing to deliver them faithfully and with full courage.

The minister’s message is called “The Word of God” for good reason. This is what God has said for us today.

One of the most common errors of pastors when they began looking for a message to preach is to assume that since the Bible itself is called “The Word of God,” anything in it they decide to preach suffices as God’s message for this Sunday. Not so. The Bible is a huge book, a library even, one containing thousands of messages and potential sermons. It does not follow, therefore, that these are all-occasion messages, able to be preached interchangeably, with the Spirit doing with any one what He could do with any of the others.

The wise minister will tell himself, “The Lord has a message for our people next Sunday. He alone knows who is going to be present, and what each person is struggling with. Therefore, I will go to Him in prayer, asking what He would have me preach.”

Then, as he prays, the minister reads the Word. He listens for God’s voice. He waits and he reads, and thinks about what he has received. Then, in God’s own time–either at that moment or hours or even days later–he knows, “This is what the Lord wants preached. This is His message.”

It’s a great feeling.

THIRD: It’s frustrating to see ministers issue instant assessments on how well the sermon worked today.

In our denomination, it’s a rare sermon that is not followed by a public invitation or altar call during which a hymn that calls God’s people to action is sung and the minister invites people to “walk the aisle” in response to whatever God has told them. When he gets a good response to the invitation, he feels affirmed in his preaching and ministry. But when he doesn’t, when the congregation stands there like department store mannequins, he tends to feel he has failed them or God.

When a minister feels like a failure, nothing good results. Often he will adopt one of two extreme measures: he will either throw in the towel, give up and quit, or he will adopt manipulative tactics to get people down the aisle one way or the other.

Neither is wise. Both are self-defeating and unworthy.

One could wish every minister knew several critical things about the practice of preaching:

–often, it’s more planting and cultivating than harvesting. Be wise.

–just because people do not register a commitment to Christ within five minutes of the end of your sermon does not mean the message did not do its powerful work or that you did poorly. Be patient.

–people are complex beings, and build mighty defenses against the work of the Holy Spirit. Destroying those barriers–which the Spirit of God alone can accomplish–takes time and repeated assaults. Be faithful.

–you are not the judge of your own effectiveness, not now and not ever. Be trusting.

–and finally, even the Holy Spirit does not manipulate people into decision-making but allows each one to “choose this day whom you will serve,” so neither should you.

FOURTH: It’s frustrating to see ministers ignore the great sermon-building resources the Lord has put all around them.

Often when I’m with a pastor in the middle of the week, I’ll say, “So, what are you preaching Sunday?” He tells me the text or the subject, and then I say, “May I give you a thought on that?” He says yes and I’m off.

What I’m doing is what I wish someone had done for me as a young pastor: prod my thinking, stir my juices, tell me something on a text I hadn’t thought of, pass along a great story on that subject I might be able to use.

All around the minister are other pastors. Each one is a mother lode of information and insights, experiences and concerns. Tapping into that resource is as simple as making a phone call: “Bob, do you have a few minutes to meet me for coffee?” And then, in your office or the coffee shop or the fast food restaurant or down at the service station, after you’ve exchanged pleasantries, you say, “Can I pick your brain? I’m preaching Sunday on Philippians 4:13, ‘I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.’ Talk to me about that verse. Anything at all that comes to mind.’”

Have something to write with. Jot down what he says. Take the conversation wherever it goes. Then, at the end, whether that’s 2 minutes or 20, thank him and end that portion of the discussion. If you or he need to leave, do so.

Repeat as often as needed. He’s not the only pastor in your town.

Oh, and one more thing that is so obvious it should not have to be said, but it does: do not limit yourself to ministers of your denomination. Some of the best insights you’ll ever get will come from men of God who did not attend your seminary or any seminary for that matter, but who have devoted themselves to the Word and the ministry.

Ministers tend to be loners. How self-defeating this is. You will not find a pattern for going it alone in the Scriptures. We do see a few men who tried it, but rarely with positive results.

FIFTH: It’s frustrating to see ministers constantly frustrated.

A preacher will see and learn and know what he needs to do to be more effective, but because of a heavy load of administration or pastoral work, he does not have the energy or will or time to change. To make radical changes means adjusting his schedule and that frequently requires the support of the ministerial and office team as well as the congregation. That takes time and energy and patience.

And so he goes on, laboring ineffectively, digging a deeper pit for his ministry, growing more frustrated, doing more and enjoying it less, all the while seeing his efforts bearing little fruit.

Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.

That line from “Me and Bobbie McGee” has stood me in good stead for a long time. When you are at the end of your rope and have nothing to lose, it’s actually liberating. Anything you do will be better than nothing.

So, take that courageous step, pastor. Free yourself of the frustrations that hound you when you know more than you are doing, from spinning your wheels as a result of busy work someone else could be doing to free you up for more profitable ministry.

I have a strong feeling that if we are frustrated at our ineffectiveness, the Lord is moreso. In fact, He may be the One who sent us the frustration in the hope that we would take drastic action to rearrange matters in our lives.

No one lacking courage need apply for this work.

You can do this, pastor. Stand strong. Trust God. Do right.

This article appeared earlier in Dr. McKeever’s blog, joemckeever.com, and is republished in SBC Today by permission of the author.

I’m afraid that we have a lot of Christians in the pews of Baptist Churches that really have no depth to their faith, whatsoever.  They do not know the Bible.  They do not know doctrine.  They really do not know what they believe nor why they believe it, if they do believe it.  We may even have Baptist Churches with people, who believe that you can lose your salvation, if you do something really bad like watch porn, get involved in a homosexual act, or commit suicide.  I mean, surely those people will go to Hell, right?  We may have Baptist Churches with people, who believe that the Church should just accept any baptism.  I mean, why make such a fuss about little Tommy Jones and his momma, Lucille, having to get baptized when they were a member of the Covenant Presbyterian Church for years?  What right do we have  to ask them to get baptized by immersion?  I mean, really…ain’t we carrying this stuff just a little too far?  Folks, I’m afraid that we have Baptist Churches that have a lot of people sitting in the pews, who really could not tell you the difference in the Methodist Church and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and they really could not care less to know.  They would say that we’re all nearly the same.   We all follow the same God.  We’re all going to the same place anyway.  You’ve probably heard all of this before, just as I have, right?

Do you know what I believe to be an even sadder situation?  There are some Pastors out there who don’t see it either.  We have pulpits in the SBC where the Bible is not really preached and taught.  We have pulpits where sermons are preached every Sunday that could be preached at Baptist Churches, or at  Methodist Churches, or at Pentecostal Churches.  And, the Methodists would amen…quietly…the sermon, as would the Assembly of God people…more loudly, of course.  The same sermon could then be preached in the Baptist Church, and they would amen it.  These  sermonettes have no depth; therefore, the people have nothing given to them to make them grow deeper in their faith.   They hear little, self-help-psychological-”how-to” sermonettes every time they attend their church. How can we expect those people to be deeply grounded in their faith, knowledgable about doctrine?   How can we expect people to be sound in their faith, and to stand strong on the Word of God when THEY DON’T KNOW IT!

My friends, we’re seeing a movement among the younger crowd that I applaud.  They want to hear the Bible, not our traditions.  Not our thoughts.  Not our philosophies and theologies.  Not our opinions. They want to hear the Bible.  They want to preach the Bible.  They want to teach the Bible.  To that, as a Christian who is the Baptist flavor of Christian, I say a hearty AMEN!  Let’s teach the Bible.  Let’s preach what the Bible clearly says.  When we do, then people will be Baptist, Southern Baptist.  If not in name, then in doctrine.  Oh, they may not join the SBC (and if they don’t, that’s fine).  Let them be whatever it is that they feel led to be, but, at least they will be sound in doctrine.  If our SBC Pastors, Seminary Professors, and our Sunday School literature writers, etc., will teach the Bible, then we’ll be steeped in Southern Baptist doctrine.  We’ll hold to the clear teachings of Scripture, because the BFM2000 is what we believe the Bible clearly teaches, and it is.  May God help us to grow in our understanding and knowledge of His Word and thus get to know our Creator better and better and better every day.   May the Lord help us to love Him more and more and more every day.  To God be the glory.

This brings me to the point of my post.  I received a private email from a young pastor that expressed to me the reason my last post could be used to further divide an already suspicious group of young pastors.  In his email it was expressed to me that I painted with too broad a brush referencing the voices of the young pastors that I did.  I want to address some of these things and then express my commitment to listen to younger pastors.  I also want them to understand where I will refuse to back down but still love them and express my support for them to reach their Jerusalem.

Allow me to address the issues I covered in my last post.  I do not believe that all younger pastors partake in the social function of sipping the beverage alcohol in moderation.  I do understand that one can hold to a biblical view of moderation but hold to a personal view of abstinence.  Also, I do understand that many young pastors do not hold to the view of homosexual acceptance as advocated in the USA Today article I referenced and neither do the majority hold to the ecological views of the author of that article as expressed in the Southern Baptist Environmental and Climate Initiative.  The roles of women in ministry is another area that I understand the majority of the younger pastors clearly hold to the views as expressed in the Danvers Statement of the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.  I want to say that I also understand that many of the younger pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention have not made up their minds concerning the combining of the mission boards and they are seeking more information both in favor of these boards combing and in opposition.

Having said that, allow me to proceed to express my commitment to younger pastors.  I preached on the Church at Ephesus this past Sunday and one of the points I made was that Jesus commended that church in their hatred toward the deeds of the Nicolatians.  The point I was trying to make was that Jesus just revealed to the church a fatal flaw and that was they left their first love.  Now he commends them on their hatred.  What does it say to a church when they are known more for what they are against than for what they stand?  I certainly do not want to be seen as one that is against everything that comes down the line, but I certainly am not going to keep silent when I know there is something out there that our Lord is against either.  So, allow me to encourage all you younger pastors out there.

My pulpit is open and will always be open to encourage younger pastors to fulfill their calling. You can ask any of my pastor friends and they will tell you that I am known as one that will allow young pastors to fill the pulpit in my absence.  I have allowed young pastors to preach for me to my detriment when I returned.  It has not been just one time that I was greeted by one of our Deacons with; “I know you are trying to help this young man, but he preached something that I do not agree with.”  I can take that heat because I had to start someplace.  I remember the older pastors that allowed me to preach in their pulpits.  I remember my first sermon.  I preached it at the church that later ordained me.  In that sermon I used the pulpit furniture as an illustration of the subtle ways Satan can destroy your life before you realize it.  Not exactly an expository message, but one that I preached.  At the end of the message the communion table was out in the isle, the communion chairs were over by one end of the pews and…well you get the picture.  I never heard anything from that message but I know that my pastor probably heard from some scaly back deacons that week. :)  It did not bother my home church pastor because it was about three after my ordination that he called me and asked me to do a revival for him.

My counsel is available and will always be available to encourage younger pastors to fulfill their calling. I remember one older pastor that would allow me and two other young pastors to travel to his church in Goldsboro, NC and he would purchase lunch and we would sit and discuss theology.  It was in those discussions that I was able to hammer out my theology on the local church.  I remember sitting for hours and discussing various theological matters with older pastors in a local restaurant on Friday mornings. It is a result of those discussions that I was able to set some parameters in my ministry.  For example, Dr. Bill Tomlinson a retired pastor from a church in Rocky Mount, NC was one whose advice enforced the advice already given me about keeping one’s ministry above reproach.  He told me of an accusation of womanizing against a pastor he knew that was false.  However, the pastor’s ministry succumbed to the accusation because the pastor would go to lunch with women that were not his wife.  Not only would he have lunch with them, but he would drive them there also.  As a result of that word from an older pastor, I have a set standard that I do not take ladies, that are not my wife, to lunch without someone else going with me.  It was this type of counsel that helped me in my early ministry and I desire to pass on to other younger pastors.

My resources are available and will always be available to be used to encourage younger pastors to fulfill their calling. When I first started preaching I had a Matthew Henry Commentary in One Volume, a Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, and a Schofield Study Bible.  If Schofield and Henry didn’t say anything about, I would not preach it. :)  However, over the years I began to build my library.  I would look for books anywhere.  Early in my educational training in Wake Forest I would peruse Stephens Book Shop for books.  I found that one could find conservative scholars writings in that place for a very reasonable price.  I would look through there for hours.  After I got married my wife could not understand why I would purchase a book and never completely read it.  I explained to her that my books were tools much like mechanics have various tools.  When a mechanic needs a tool it may be only once or twice a year he would use that tool, but when he needed it he would be able to place his hand on it.  Thus, she allowed me to continue a budget for building my library.  Today I have approximately 1400 volumes in print with another 500 volumes in digital format.  Many of the tapes and videos I do not count but I have a large library.  I tell you all of this because over the years I was challenged by Dr. Paige Patterson to invest in a library.  I have done so and it has benefited me greatly.  I will share my library with young pastors (those I know will return my books) in order to help them in the ministry.  It is this encouragement I want to pass on because I remember what it was like to need a book and not be able to get my hands on it.  I remember how I longed for a set of AT Robertson’s Word Pictures of the New Testament.  I could not afford to purchase the set and watched for it to get to a price I could afford.  I remember the day I found it in Christian Book Distributors at a price I could afford.  I was like a kid at Christmas when UPS delivered that package.

Conclusion

Having expressed my desire not to alienate younger pastors, allow me to conclude by expressing where we must begin.

First, do not be like Rehoboam.  Look around you and identify from whom you are receiving  advice.  Are those leaders you are following listening to wise older leaders, or are they surrounding themselves and following the advice of others your age and with little or no experience in the pastoral ministry?  Many times young pastors are following other young pastors without realizing they are doing so.  How?  By heeding advice from older leaders who are getting advice from their children and their friends children who are young in age and without experience. Sometimes these very leaders have little to no pastoral experience.  (Interim pastorates while serving as professors is not true pastoral experience.) Many times these older leaders are listening to the younger pastors exclusively because there seems to be a desire to maintain some semblance of control over their own turf.

Second, understand that older pastors are not living and longing for the 1950′s to return. I was born in the 1950′s so I can tell you that I do not want them to return.  However, neither am I going to throw out the principles that brought about the greatest era of evangelism and church growth seen in the history of the SBC.  I truly do not know anyone that is arguing for all churches to go to a unified envelope system.  I also do not know anyone that is calling for the SBC to require all of her churches to have a RA and GA program.  Whenever some of our leaders say things like this they are only setting up straw man in order to make those of us who are calling for the principles of the 1950′s look as if we are trying to hinder growth in the SBC.  Also, if I hear; “If we ever go back to the 50′s our convention will be ready”, one more time I will be sick on my stomach.  No one is calling for a return to the 1950′s.  As an older pastor I will be the first to admit that there needs to be changes.  No one in the convention can look at ourselves realistically and not say there needs to be changes.  However, what we are trying to say is the system for change is already in place.  If the GCRTF wants to implement something of importance in the SBC in order to generate more funds going to the mission field there is one place for them to start–TRUSTEES.   It is the trustee system that needs to be reformed and held accountable.  If the GCRTF desire to make recommendations I believe they should begin with clearly identifying the weakness in our Trustee system and shoring up that weakness.  One other thing about the GCR.  Those calling for a GCR are trying to have a GCR in one year.  Changes will probably come and after Orlando we will hear all kinds of statements about the SBC is in the throes of a GCR.  One needs to remember that the Conservative Resurgence took nine years before we saw any visible fruit in the first conservative majority trustees seated at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.  The messengers of 1979 did not go to Dallas under the banner of beginning a Conservative Resurgence.  They went to Dallas to vote for Adrian Rogers because they wanted a conservative president.  What am I saying? I am saying that we are not going to see evidence of a GCR in one year.  We will see changes and then we will hear others tell us these changes is evidence of a GCR.  But what happens when the changes do not produce the fruit the young pastors desire at the rate they desire it?  Do you pack up and leave only to leave us older pastors with the ruined entities and the dismantled ship that resembles more of a tug boat than the great aircraft carrier she is now?

Third, older pastors are able to warn against those Isaiah 56:10 tells us about. As you look around  and hear all of the sounds coming at you from all of the different directions remember this point.  Isaiah was warning Israel about the false prophets that were in their leadership. (I am not calling any of our leaders false prophets so do not take this point to that extent.)  Notice what Isaiah said about these false prophets in verse 11.  He said these leaders, could not understand and he then gives the reason they cannot understand.  They are looking for their own way for their own gain for their own territory.  As I said earlier I do not believe our current leaders are false prophets but there is a principle here that we must heed.  False prophet or not, we all have the tendency to look for gain in our own territory.  As a young pastor ask yourself this question concerning our current state of the SBC.  Who is subject to gain the most if the GCRTF recommends combining agencies?  From the voices that are calling for changes along with the voices that are calling for restrained patience; which voices are set to gain the most?  In other words, if the rumored changes become a reality who will gain from that combination?  Remember, the combining of mission boards was not something started in the blog world–see here and here.  The bloggers are only speaking about the suggestions that we see those intimately involved in the GCRTF speaking publicly.  Certainly the missions will gain, but do you not see that Seminaries will gain an increase in their funding?  Why?  If a combined missions board is something that comes to be reality then that one board will retain 85% of CP funds.  I am certain that % will mean something then.  Look at the various entities and tell me which ones you see that have no voice in this GCRTF?  The only entity heads you hear pushing a GCR are those that will probably gain the most.

I say all of this to help you understand where I am sitting and the cards I am holding.  Kenny Rogers wrote a country song some years back about a gambler.  His famous line was “You’ve got to know when to hold them and know when to fold them”.  It is the same for you as younger pastors as it is for me as an older pastor.  You have to know when to speak out and you have to know when to keep quiet.  (My wife tells me that I have not learned well the second part of this advice. :)) If voices from other younger pastors that are being heard in the SBC are not what you believe, then by all means speak out.  If these same voices are saying what you believe, then keep silent and allow them to continue speaking.  But please do not blame me when I paint with a broad brush because there are no young pastors speaking out saying they do not agree with these young pastors voices.