When I worked at the funeral home, I was usually the one who went out on late night calls when someone, under Hospice care, had died at home. (If they weren't under Hospice care and they died at home, the coroner was called as it was immediately assumed to be a homicide until proven otherwise.) I occasionally helped retrieve the deceased, but usually I was there in my role of staff clergy to calm the families down and tell them what was to happen next. I always asked if I could pray with the family, and I NEVER was refused in nine years. Even if there had never been a prayer uttered in that house, they always said 'yes' to prayer.

    In nine years there was only one time that I responded and found a pastor there already. Granted, the calls came in at one or two or three o'clock in the morning, but a good and loving pastor should get out of bed and go to see to his people if he is at all physically able. Pastor Darin Avery is such a pastor.

    I had been in Indiana just a very short time when one of our people was transferred from the hospital in Ft. Wayne to the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland. Fearing that this gentleman might pass before I could get there, I called Pastor Avery and asked him if he could possibly go to the Clinic and pastor that family. He was fifty miles distant, but that was a lot closer than my three hundred plus. He never hesitated. 'Not a problem, Brother. Don't you hurry. I'll go.'

    In the few months before we moved to Indiana, Marsha and I attended Pastor Avery's church. It was a new start church and was growing at a nice, steady pace. They met in the same school building I had gone to high school in and that afforded them some interesting opportunities. They met in the cafeteria and every week someone would bring pastries and make coffee. Everyone sat at the round tables scattered around the room. Having coffee and pastry during church made Marsha and me uncomfortable, but it didn't stop us from having coffee and pastry. It was a comfortable setting. Their music was all praise music, which didn't really sit well with either of us, but the preaching was good and the coffee was hot and they were growing in grace and in numbers.

    After we had moved, Pastor Avery got involved in a much bigger ministry, shepherding almost one hundred churches in the greater Cleveland area. He became a pastor to the pastors, something he is extremely good at. This ministry cannot afford a full timer, so Pastor Avery continues to pastor his church and also do all he can for those churches and their pastors. Obviously, he is a busy, busy man.

    Sunday, October 29, I finally made it out there to visit the church. I went early so I could visit with some of the folks I knew before church. I walked in and the pastry table was full. The coffee was hot. But just two men stood there. Usually, a half hour before church, the place was full. 'Well, you see, Pastor is awfully busy and it has kind of fallen off.' Because this was not my church and never had been, except for those few months, I didn't say anything. But my mind kicked into gear. So, the pastor has been busy??!!!?! So what??? What about the people of the church??!? I took a breath and sat down. It is okay. Probably a hundred and fifty or so. A little down, but OK. 

    Pastor came in and headed straight for me. We talked until time to start. I hadn't noticed the crowd until then. Thirty people. That is a big 3-0. Still the same snack bar, still the same praise music. And all of thirty people.

    I left after church and went to Lake Erie to process this information. Knowing Pastor, I figured the energy he had poured into the church in the beginning he was now pouring into this other ministry. From the worn look on his face, I figured it wasn't going to be long until he isn't pouring energy into anything. A person can take only so much. But in the early days of the church, he had become used to doing everything that needed done to stimulate growth. Without his realizing it, the people were coasting. The folks were not inviting people to church, much less to Jesus. Oh, someone took care of getting people to make the pastries. There were four or five in the praise band. A couple ran the sound and the video. But once church was over, that was it until next week. The real WORK of the church was neglected.

    So here is the point. Praise music does not cause a church to grow. Sharing the Gospel, in word or deed, is the starting point. Then, it could be completely traditional or contemporary music and there would be growth. Controlling your temper and your language would be the next step. Being humble, accepting responsibility and looking for opportunities is the next step. Don't let your service in church be your only service to the Lord.

    The county I now live in is the smallest county, by land area, in Ohio. The population is 234,000 people. The county I just moved from in Indiana is Wabash County. Population 31,000. My current county is about seven and a half times larger in population while being much smaller in land area. My county has about half the churches of Wabash, so every one of them should be full to over flowing. But most run about sixty people on Sunday morning and most have praise music and other amenities to make them more attractive. It doesn't work.

    We are told in the Word to go out and share the Gospel. Tell others about Jesus. How much time is spent in the New Testament telling us how run our Sunday mornings and how much time is spent telling us how we should live and what we should do?

    The Bible tells us that the fields are white and ready to harvest. You don't have to be much of a farmer to know that the fields are outside of the barn.

    Blessings.

Obviously, things change. There was a time when McDonalds was strictly a walk-up place. You stood on the outside and spoke through a window to the people on the inside. And you paid less than a dollar for a drink, fries and hamburger. Then, eventually they made an inside lobby, but you still went in and then came out with your food and went to your vehicle. But the order was still under a dollar. In time, a new McDonalds was built only ten miles from me and they had an eating area. Wow! Talk about high class! Still, the food was under a dollar. On my first date with Marsha, I picked her up in our farm truck, which was a no-no. Then we stopped at McDonalds and I went in and left her sitting in the truck. I paid less than two dollars for both meals. Then we sat in the parking lot and ate in that smelly, old truck. She assumed I was ashamed to be out with her. I wasn't ashamed of her at all. It is just what I had always done. She told me years later that I was lucky I was so cute, or that would have been our last date. Hmmmmmm.....

Anyway, I am talking change. I assume that few people complained when dishwashers came out. When microwaves arrived, people complained that the food didn't taste the same, but everyone has one now. When people discovered that you could draw pictures on sheep's skin with a piece of charcoal, they quit writing on rock faces. When parchment came on the scene, sheep everywhere breathed a sigh of relief because people quit sheep skin. When inks were figured out, they got rid of charcoal. Folks found out the tip of a feather, dipped in ink, made writing so much easier. In the 1800s it got fast and furious. In 1848, an American inventor by the name of Azel Storrs came up with the first real fountain pen. Birds everywhere breathed a sigh of relief. In 1868, a group of American inventors filed a patent for the first typewriter. Then, in October of 1888, John J. Loud, an American inventor, filed a patent for the first ball point pen. All of these inventions were accepted pretty quickly (except for those who struggled through typing classes) and writing became much easier. In the 1960s the word processor was developed which allowed the writer to see the last sentence he/she had written and enabled them to correct any mistakes. This was an expensive little thing and they were not bought by individuals very often. But they were a boon to offices.

And then, the advent of the personal computer. We got our first one in 1994. I had worked with computers, had even done some programming. This one, though, came with programs in it, but you could still add some things. We got it on sale for only $2000. We made the purchase so our son could learn on it.

But I found it quite helpful, too. In 1985 I had been called to a church where the pastor wrote a monthly newsletter article. The lady who put it together told me to just write it out with a pen and she would type it out for the newsletter. With the computer I was able to type it out, put it on a floppy disc and give it to her. She could load it into her word processor and ta-da!!! Less work for her.

The computer has become a valuable and useful tool. I use it for everything. I have at least a thousand sermon outlines, just as many funeral outlines and a ton of Bible studies which I have transferred from computer to computer. Not to mention all of these articles/blogs. The computer has been great!

Until it broke down.

OK, get it fixed. Has to be cheaper than buying a new one, right? Actually, no. This laptop is only seven plus years old, but it is ancient in computer life. It could be fixed, but the information probably couldn't be transferred. Since the hard drive had crashed, the information on it would be fragmented. Transfer was possible, but it wouldn't be complete. And that transfer would be really expensive. Why don't you buy a new computer? You can play all kinds of games.......

I am not a gamer. Still, I was faced with a real problem. Part of that problem is that I am frugal. Some would say I am cheap. Maybe so, but I did not want to part with the money. Back when I wrote with a ball point pen and the pen quit, I bought another for about seventy five cents. I couldn't see my way clear to spend the money they wanted for the computer.

On the way back to the apartment I saw a little mom and pop repair shop. OK, I thought, if I must spend the money, I am going to keep it close to home. 

WOW! Seventy percent less than the big chain store and no pressure to buy new. I hated to part with even that money, but I can live with it. And the old girl has life.

Lessons learned; first, always check with the mom and pop places when you need to buy something. Keep it local. Two, when you are doing something for the Lord, He will provide. These blogs are all I have right now as far as ministry is concerned. I do it for Him. And three, I wear the same clothes for years, I drive a nine year old car and I have one computer that is seven years old and another one that is fifteen years old. Quit being a cheapskate!!! So, you know what? I went out and bought a new shirt! I am so excited!

OK, enough of that. Mondays will be a regular blog and Thursdays will be a Bible study. We are starting in Galatians for reasons that will be explained.

Blessings.   

This blog is for all to read, but this particular blog is written for the folks at Urbana Yoke Parish.

I have known many pastors who have wanted their churches to suffer after they have left. Even if the relationship was good, they have wanted the church to have problems. This is because it would prove that the departed pastor was the one who had made the church successful and not the people or the Spirit. There is a satisfaction in feeling like you are indispensable. I have never felt this way, and now that my most recent church has called a new pastor, I am excited.

So, let me meddle one last time and offer up some advice on how to deal with a new, much younger, pastor.

First, do not think that it is the pastor's job to grow the church. In 1 Corinthians 3, the Apostle Paul is admonishing the people who are following various individuals for their Spiritual guidance rather than following the Lord. In verse one he says that he could not consider the people of Corinth a Spiritual people since they were fractured by following different teachers. That had become a great argument in the church at Corinth. Let's look at verses 5-9; 5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. We are to work together to achieve God's purpose. The Greek word for 'pastor' is 'poimenas' and it means 'shepherd.' I know you know this but remember that the shepherd leads the flock. He doesn't cause them to add to the flock. That is the job of the flock. As a Christian, he is part of the greater flock and is therefore compelled to increase the flock, but it is not his job alone. 

Second, he does not know everything about the Bible. It is easy to assume that he does have great knowledge, but he is on the journey toward wisdom just as you are. The exact number would vary somewhat depending what version you are using, but there are somewhere around 783,000 words in the Bible. He has probably read them all at one time or another, but that does not mean they are all locked in his brain. Give the man a break.

Third, the new pastor has roughly the same experience level as you. I was called to the church because of my experience, but the new man has been active in church mostly as a good member. I could be asked in a Board meeting what I thought of something. I often started by say, "Well, in my experience..." That meant something. But here and now it is different. If you rely on one's experience alone, you will miss the joy of taking a path set for you by God. And, brothers and sisters, there is great joy in taking that step of faith where experience is set aside.

Fourth, the new pastor has emotions. Do not go to him on a Sunday morning before church and hit him with some issue. "Did you know that Winnie Bago has been taking toilet paper from the church?" If you set the emotions off, the preaching will suffer. Do not be the tool of Satan. Also know that the pastor and his wife will have disagreements, he will, at times, be angry with his children and he will also be dealing with a dozen different issues at once. Being a pastor is a hard, hard job. Let him work into it.

And, fifth and last, I love you all as only a pastor can. However, I am not your pastor. Begin to take things to him. Don't ask me to come back to do a funeral or a wedding or a dedication, because I will not. This young man can only be your pastor as long as you let him be your pastor. Give him room to grow.

Treat him at least as well as you treated me. It is Pastor Appreciation Month, so buy he and the wife a meal at Appleby's. Bless the family at Christmas. Don't snarl at his kids and say that they need to behave because they are the pastor's kids. That will just hurt the children. They are not the ones called to the ministry. Love the wife and treat her well. And pray for each and everyone of them as you pray for each other.

We all have our purpose. My purpose was to keep everyone on an even keel as we did things that could have caused hatred and ill feelings. The church turned that corner and is now ready to move onto something greater. That is the purpose of the new pastor and you, the Yoke folk. Let the Lord lead and make His will happen.

Blessings.                               

I was nineteen. Ambitious. Big plans. It was a chilly day in Tennessee. Not cold like I was used to growing up, but still, in the hills eighty five miles from my college, it was chilly. The congregation at the small store front church I had just preached at had voted at the end of the service to call m as their new Youth Pastor. Of the twenty five or so there, ten were youth. All this was really good for two reasons. First, it would earn me credits at school. And second, it was just the first step in what I knew was going to be an epic career. As I said, I was ambitious. I had big plans. I was going to pastor a BIG church! I was going to be on radio and maybe even TV! I was going to speak at conferences around the country! I was going to bring the Gospel to those worldly, state run universities! I was going to attain high academic acclaim! I was going to write! I was going to teach! It was going to be an incredible career! Where I was going to find time for all these things was another story. But as I walked out of that little church that brisk morning, nothing seemed impossible.

The date was October 5, 1975. Forty eight years ago today.

Every year on October 5, I review the year past. Now, however, given my place in life, I am thinking about the whole ministry. All of it. I am drawing some startling conclusions.

I did pastor that big church. Not as big as I had thought back then. But still. We baptized several times a year. Twice we baptized seventeen in two separate services. The church was dying when we went there and it grew and grew and grew. I did do a little radio, but through the world wide web we put the Word out a lot farther than just radio or TV could. I spoke at several conferences and only quit doing so when I realized how much time preparing and then presenting those talks were taking away from my church. I did get to speak at Kent State University several times, but I was not welcomed with open arms! If you sit down with a book by some well known Christian writer, you would find that my academic credentials are equal or exceed his or hers. (How many of you actually know I am Dr. Larry Wade?) I have written. The blog, numerus magazine articles, newsletter articles going back to 1987. A group in Illinois took three hundred pages from articles I had written and made them into a book. I think my mother read it, but that was it. However, a good portion of my doctoral dissertation found its way into a college text book. I even found time to teach night classes at a Bible institute. So, in a way, I managed to accomplish all those goals. 

And I never think about those things. I really don't. 

Looking back, the things that click in my mind are the quiet things. The things some would consider mundane. But as the years passed, I realized that these were the important things. Holding and rocking a baby whose organs were on the outside and rocking him for the last time. Holding a little girl and looking into her eyes and watching her die. Stopping a volleyball game our church was involved in and complaining to the ref that the bright gym lights reflecting off the other pastor's head was blinding our players. Working with our Youth to clean up the yards of out elderly and doing odd jobs around the house. Over the weekend Marsha was in the hospital. My son and I were headed for the cafeteria and we came to a juncture where I was uncertain witch way to turn. "Come on, Dad. You've been here before." "Son, you have no idea how many hospitals I have been in over the years. They all blend together." Once at Hospice House in Cleveland, one of our people had just passed. I had gone out of the room to let the family have some time. I slumped down into a chair to collect myself. A lady came by pushing a cart with fresh baked chocolate chip cookies for the patients. She stopped at me and reached into a box and pulled out a cookie. With a smile but with a sad face she said, "I keep a few extra for tired preachers." It was a great cookie.

The point is success in ministry is not based on how well someone preaches or the churches they build or the or the books they write or any of that stuff. Success in ministry has to do with the people you minister to and your faithfulness to the Word of God. Turning away from temptation and being the same in private as you are at church. It is sitting with an elderly person and hearing the same story for the tenth time, but knowing it is OK because you are keeping them company. Sitting on a sofa drinking a cup of coffee and talking with someone while their pet sheep nuzzles you. Ministry is meeting each crisis with steadfast resolve, walking the family through and then going home and weeping. And ministry is holding a newborn baby and feeling the pride of the new Mom and Dad. And before that, sitting in your office and having the young husband and wife come in and telling you they were pregnant before they told anyone else. Ministry is fun, it is joyful, it is painful, and ministry is immensely sad. I have always felt that the big name guys will get to the end and feel like they have missed something. And they have. They have missed the people.

Another thing ministry is, it is fast. Forty eight years. It just seems like yesterday that....well, I won't bore you with stories. Those are for me, anyway. God has given me a memory that holds onto those things. Let me just say this; the readership of my blog has gone up of late. Many I have never pastored. But for those of you whom I have had the honor of ministering to over these last almost five decades, I want to say thank you. You have made my life so rich, so diverse, so meaningful. If my life were a book, it would be in the final pages. But it has been a really good book. 

Thank you all.