Who are You Trying to Impress?

That was the question the conference leader asked a group of about 500 or so pastors and church leaders. “Who are you trying to impress?” I was a very young associate pastor and being a typical Baby Boomer know-it-all, I answered to myself, “I’m not trying to impress anyone. I just want to be me.” Then, the leader went further and said “Who would you most like to hear compliment your ministry? A friend? A parent? Another pastor? A seminary professor? Who would you most like to hear say good things about your preaching and your leadership?” Well that brought the question home to me. I thought I would love to have some of my old profs (I was about a year and a half out of seminary) tell me I was doing things the right way. This conference leader had started his church with nothing and led it to be, at that time, one of the fastest growing and most effective churches in America. He said, “I decided when I started that if I could get a compliment from anyone on my ministry, I wanted it to come from the unchurched in my town. That is who I decided to try to impress.”

To me, that was a brand new way of looking at ministry, and it has become the way I have tried to conduct myself as a pastor. Because Jesus’ command to us is to make disciples, I knew I needed to make an impression on those who don’t know Him. How else could I help influence them to join me in following Christ? This idea began to color the way I sought to preach, the programs and events I led my church to do, and even the kind of building we eventually built. Sometimes, it’s meant choosing to do things in a way that was not impressive to my profs or even the older leaders in my church. From time to time, those people made their disappointment with me very obvious. But the Lord did not assign me to impress them. Jesus had the same problem. Most of the religious people of His time were not impressed with Him at all, while the regular folks followed Him.

Impressing the unchurched does not mean becoming like the unchurched, but it does mean sharing the Gospel in ways that get their attention and speak to them. It means treating them with respect and loving them. It means doing your best to make them feel accepted, comfortable and loved in your presence. You won’t have to point out their sin (the Holy Spirit will take care of that), and it’s not your job to judge them (I believe that is reserved for Christ). Your job is to care about them and want them to join you on the journey to heaven.

Too often the practice of congregations does not match its rhetoric. They say they want to win people to Christ, but they leave the unchurched feeling like they are a bother. When people do decide to join the body, the congregation often keeps them on the fringe of the fellowship for a long time. (Right after becoming the pastor at a church, I heard some of the core people talking about the “new family.” Turned out the “new family” had been attending and giving to the church regularly for 5 years.)

Lesson for Pastor: It’s easy for your office to become an ivory tower. You can find yourself surrounded only by Christians and people who try to act like Christians when they are around you. Find ways to get to know unchurched people in your community and be Jesus to them. Join a service or hobby club, play on a ball team not sponsored by the church, volunteer as a police or fire chaplain, coach your kid’s sports team. Do anything that will put you in close contact with people you might be able to influence for Christ. Then, get to know them. Become friends. Share life with them and thereby earn the right to share Christ.

Lesson for Church Leaders: Help your pastor develop a culture in your church that expects and welcomes unchurched people. Realize that they will bring baggage with them from the world and be willing to help them deal with it when they’re ready. Don’t expect people who don’t know Christ to act like Him. Be real with them. You probably aren’t as Christ-like as you should be either. Share the road to Him with them.

My mentor, Dan Harman, used to say when I was his associate at First Church in Fresno, CA that he wanted there to be three kinds of people in Fresno: 1.) People who are members of First Church. 2.) People who are members of another church, but say, “If I didn’t have a church home I would go to First Church.” 3.) People who don’t go to church anywhere, but say, “If I decide to go to church, I think I’ll try First Church.” We didn’t get that far, but we worked at it. I challenge you to work at it too.

Think about it. From whom would you like to hear a compliment? Who are you trying to impress?

I Saw A Giant

Now, those of you who know me have probably noticed that I am a pretty big guy.  I am not NBA tall, but I tend to be kind of obvious in a crowd.  Well the other day I saw a real giant.  Not a physical giant, but a spiritual giant is.

I am a kind of interim pastor filling in for our lead pastor, Rev. Earl Wheatley, as he battles pancreatic cancer.  A couple of weeks ago I preached a message in preparation for National Back to Church Sunday.  I talked about some of the ways that the church turns people off.  Particularly, I talked about how we tend to put people in categories and we are often seen as judgmental.  I closed by challenging the people to strive to be known for loving their neighbors, co-workers, and others who don’t know Christ. 

At the close of the service I invited people to come forward to pray at the altar rail for people they know that need a relationship with Christ; for ways they might show Christ’s love for them; and for openings to invite them to join us in worship.  The Spirit was moving among us and many people came to pray for their own attitudes, and/or people they might be able to reach out to.

The first person at the altar rail was the pastor I am subbing for.  He felt well enough to be in worship that day and sat on the front row with his wife.  The following Tuesday he was scheduled to undergo some tests that would tell what progress the cancer was making and if the very uncomfortable chemotherapy treatments were helping.  Right away, I figured Pastor Earl wanted us to pray for him and about the test results he would get that week.  I moved over to join him, but before I got there I could hear him praying.  To my surprise, he wasn’t praying about the tests, or his pain, or his cancer.  He was praying for people in his neighborhood that need to know Jesus, and asking God for guidance in how he could best approach them.  Of course, I agreed with him in prayer.

After his wife helped him back to his seat.  I just sat down on the steps to the platform.  I have to admit I was stunned.  Here was a man in a fight for his life and his prayer was for his unsaved neighbors.  I was in awe.

When everyone had finished praying and returned to their seats, I said to the congregation while still sitting on the steps, “I want to be Earl Wheatley when I grow up.”  Then I told them of Earl’s prayer.  We have a giant among us.  His body is emaciated, but his spirit is huge.  I am proud to know him, call him friend, and know him as a brother in Christ.  He challenges me to put the first thing first.  Call it what you want: making disciples, filling up heaven, or seeing people saved.  It is all about sharing the love of Christ.  It is this love that gives a man like Earl the sweet assurance of his own salvation and the deep desire for others to experience it too.  I want to be like that.  How about you?

Bill, the Innkeeper

Every year I hear folks complain that Christmas is so busy and rushed. I guess the only time Christmas isn’t busy is when you don’t have anyone to celebrate with, or anyone who is counting on you. Bill was one of those folks. He was making it through Christmas as a spectator, not a participant.

You could call Bill an innkeeper. He was an assistant manager at a fairly large hotel and he worked the front desk from time to time checking guests in an out: a modern day innkeeper. As Christmas approached, all the employees were asking for the day off. One of the maids even quit to make sure she wouldn’t be asked to work on the Holiday. Everyone who worked the front desk was hoping that they would not be the one stuck with the duty. In staff meeting Fay, the manager, said that she hated to choose someone, but that the hotel would be open, and while it was not going to be full, there were guests with reservations coming. Someone had to work the desk and be on call. She said that from midnight to noon they could probably get by with just one person. All the desk staff held their breath, each afraid he or she would be the one to have to go home and tell the family they had to work on Christmas. Most of them had children or grandchildren they wanted to be with. Bill knew he would not be asked because as assistant manager he could pull rank on everyone except Fay.

Before Fay could even ask for a volunteer, Mildred asked that she be excused because her son and grandchildren were coming from California. Nicole quickly said, “Well, I want to go see my parents at Christmas. I worked Thanksgiving when Mildred’s daughter came.” Chad said, “I need to be with my kids. My ex is going skiing with her husband and I get the kids.” Then, it all became a jumble of words, with a few tears, and Bill could tell shouts would come next. He put his fingers to his lips and whistled loud and shrill. Everyone startled and stared at him. The whistle had the desired affect—the room went silent. Bill said, “Fay, I will work Christmas. I have no plans and everyone else does.” Bill had only been in town a few months and was living in a one-room efficiency apartment. His parents were dead and his sister lived three states away. He was still reeling from a rough divorce. This Christmas was not one he was looking forward to. Thirty-eight years-old and on his own, he had hoped to have a kid or two by now, but his wife made it clear she did not want to be a mother. He found out what she didn’t want was to be the mother of HIS kids. Just last month he heard she had a son by her new boyfriend. Bill would work. It would give him something to do besides sit at home and watch sentimental old movies on TV. Besides, he could do that sitting at the front desk on a slow day like Christmas promised to be. Everyone thanked him, including Fay. He didn’t really want to be at work on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, but there wasn’t any other place he wanted to be either.

Bill arrived at work on Christmas Eve at 8 p.m. He decided to work half of Marcia’s shift so she wouldn’t miss the whole evening with her family. The hotel had very few guests. It wasn’t even 20 percent occupied. The restaurant had just shut down and none of the meeting rooms, which had been so busy with parties the last two weeks, were in use. Christmas Eve drug by. He watched “A Christmas Carol” and looked for “It’s a Wonderful Life”, but had to settle for some college choir singing classic Christmas carols. The lobby was deserted all evening. The guests came in and went to the elevator. One couple came to the desk because they needed an extra key. Two people stopped by to ask if the restaurant would be open on Christmas Day. It would, but not until 4 p.m. There was one security man on duty. Bill talked with him for about a half an hour, but later he was hard to find. Bill suspected that he was staying away, because he had been consuming Christmas cheer and didn’t want the assistant manager to smell his breath. It was what he had feared—a long, lonely night. He found a deck of cards and laid out a game of solitaire. Even that brought him down. His life was solitaire. About 2 a.m. he did the night audit, which kept him busy and made a couple of hours pass more quickly.

At 8:30 a.m. a man and wife and two kids came in carrying sound equipment, a box of books and some decorations. As the man walked by the desk on his way to the meeting rooms he looked over his burden at Bill and said a hearty “Merry Christmas.” For a moment, Bill was at a loss. He saw the man hurry back and forth taking stuff to the meeting room and looking like he knew what he was doing. It suddenly occurred to Bill that it was not only Christmas, but it was also Sunday. This must be that new church that had been meeting for the last several months in one of the ballrooms. He’d heard about it, but he had never been at work when the church met. The man parked his car and came up to the desk with what looked like a microphone stand in his hand. He said “Hi. I’m the pastor of the Hope Church that meets here. You got stuck with desk duty today. Mildred told me last week she was hoping not to be here today.” Bill said, “Yeah, she had plans, and I didn’t have any. So here I am.” The pastor said, “Well that was a nice thing to do, but it must be a bummer working on Christmas Day. Excuse me, I gotta go set up for worship.”

In about twenty minutes the pastor was back in the lobby to open the door and greet people. When no one was coming in, he stepped over to the desk and talked with Bill. “Expect a crowd today?” asked Bill.

“Don’t know, we usually have 80 or 90 people, but a lot of them are young families and I’m sure they have Santa on their minds today,” said the pastor. “I know my kids do.”

Just then a lady came in carrying a big sheet cake. When it was time for the service to start the pastor said, “Hey, if you can get away from the desk, why not come down to the service?” In a few minutes Bill heard the familiar Christmas carols. He couldn’t really be away from the desk, but he did slip down the hall where he could hear the singing a little better and still see the front desk. When the service was over the people drifted out, talking and laughing, and many of them took a moment to say Merry Christmas to Bill. Some of the men helped the pastor load all the stuff back into his car. Finally, the pastor’s wife and kids came by along with a few more people. The pastor’s little daughter had a paper plate with a big piece of cake on it. She said, “Have a piece of birthday cake.” Bill said, “Whose birthday are you celebrating? Is it yours?” The little girl looked puzzled and replied, “No, it’s Jesus’ birthday.” Bill felt a little embarrassed.

The pastor was the last person out. When he stopped by the desk he reached out to shake Bill’s hand, suddenly, Bill didn’t want to be alone. He asked the pastor what his plans were for the rest of the day. Then, he asked him how long the church had been meeting at the hotel, and how long he expected they would be using it? How many members he had? What was their denominational affiliation? Bill kept asking questions, even though he could tell the man needed to go. Finally, the pastor said good-bye and Merry Christmas and left. Bill felt rather foolish for talking the man’s leg off when he knew the man had family to attend to. It was just that the loneliness seemed to crash around him when the church people reached out to him.
The cake caught his eye. It was a big piece. Bill thought to himself, “How dumb am I? ‘Whose birthday?’” He found a fork and took a bite. As he was chewing, he noticed that someone had left a Bible on the counter. Just then the phone rang and it was the pastor asking about his Bible. He asked Bill to keep it there at the desk and he would pick it up later.

As he finished the birthday cake, he opened the Bible to the place that was marked by one of those ribbon bookmarks attached to the binding. He didn’t figure the pastor would mind him reading his Bible. It opened to Luke chapter 2 where it tells about the birth of Jesus in the Bethlehem stable and the angels appearing to the shepherds and directing them to go see the baby. When it said there was no room for them in the inn, he thought to himself, “They should have stayed here. We have plenty of room.” He came to the part where the angels said they had good news of great joy which was for all people. It stopped him cold. Suddenly, he realized his problem this Christmas. That was what put him in his funk. Sure, he was in a rough spot in his life right now, but he usually handled that okay. He knew that things would get better, but Christmas had brought him down, because it seemed to be for other people: for kids, and people with kids, for families with big meals to share. But the angel said the news of Christmas was for everybody. Was Christmas for him too? The angel went on to say that the baby born in Bethlehem was a Savior, Christ the Lord. The pastor had written a little note in the margin by the word Savior that said “rescuer” and by the word Christ that said “anointed leader.” Bill was going to have to think about this. Jesus was born to rescue people and be their anointed leader. If this news was really for all people, could that mean it was for a lonely man like him too? The shepherds believed it. Could he believe it? Maybe he would ask that pastor about it when he came by to get the Bible.

Slowly, the desk began to get active with phone calls and people checking out. No one could see any difference in Bill on the outside, but something was different inside. He wasn’t sure he believed it all yet, but for the first time in months he felt hope. And hope is just a short step from belief.

(Based on a real-life incident)