Here’s To Being “Ordinary”

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“Most pastors will not regularly preach to thousands, let alone tens of thousands. They will not write influential books, they will not supervise large staffs, and they will never see more than modest growth. They will plug away at their care for the aged, at their visitation, at their counseling, at their Bible studies and preaching. Some will work with so little support that they will prepare their own bulletins. They cannot possibly discern whether the constraints of their own sphere of service owe more to the specific challenges of the local situation or to their own shortcomings. Once in a while they will cast a wistful eye on “successful” ministries. Many of them will attend the conferences sponsored by the revered masters and come away with a slightly discordant combination of, on the one hand, gratitude and encouragement and, on the other, jealousy, feelings of inadequacy, and guilt.

Most of us—let us be frank—are ordinary pastors.”

D.A. Carson, Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson, p. 9.

Best Dressed?

I'm not sure how I feel about this one. I read this post (John MacArthur on Respect in the Pulpit) this morning, and while I understand his point, I tend to disagree on the "why". Now, granted I wear a tie on Sundays about 90% of the time. But I've often wondered if our "best dressed" is necessary to come to worship. We've had at least one person come to our church where their Sunday best was the only thing they had. I wonder if part of my role as pastor isn't to communicate that all are welcome to come and worship with us. Perhaps that message can even be communicated in how we/I dress.

What do you all think?

A place to dump my unused thoughts

I suppose I created this thing to share what's on my mind with anyone willing to read it. I've been reading enough blogs over the last few months to know that its really hit or miss when it comes to various entries. Some things people write are down right pointless. Other things tend to be quite thought provoking. God only knows what my entries will amount to.

I have a sneaking suspicion that it's the same way with my preaching. For a while I never imagined that I would ever be standing behind a pulpit one day. Now for the past 2 1/2 years I've had the opportunity to deliver a message almost every Sunday (yes, even pastors go on vacation once in a while.) There have been countless Saturday nights when I've been scared to death about what might leave my mouth the next morning that would be passed off as a sermon. The strange thing is that no matter how I feel before a sermon, most of the time I feel pretty good after a sermon. I'm usually exhausted by mid-Sunday afternoon, but I'm often at peace at what I've said. That's because I've learned to trust the Holy Spirit. I can never tell how the Spirit will communicate with another person's spirit in cooperation with the message I've given. Its weird that the points I intend people to walk away with may not come up again, but something I don't remember emphasizing does.

Preaching (and pastoring) is one of the hardest things I've ever done. Right now I can't imagine doing anything else. Some times I can't believe that I'm getting paid to do what I love to do anyway, that is to read and study God's Word daily and to share the Scriptures with others who need to hear it too.

If anyone out there in blog land ends up reading this, I suppose I would want to encourage you to let your pastor know what spoke to you from his latest sermon (that's assuming you have one; maybe a topic for another entry.) Not that he (I) needs his ego rubbed, but its always nice to know that what you've spent the week preparing for others to chew on was actually digestible.