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Copyright © 2012 ChurchLeaders.com
The four-year-old who says, “I can
do it by myself” has a lot in common with the typical pastor.
Pastors are notorious for their lone
ranger approach to ministry. It’s what I call the number-one failure of 90
percent of pastors. They prefer to go it alone.
Even Jesus needed a buddy. “He came
to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, ‘So, you men could
not keep watch with me for one hour?’ ” (Matt. 26:40)
Sometimes it helps to have someone
nearby, praying, loving, caring, even hurting with you.
The word paracletos from John
16:7 is translated “comforter” and “helper” in most Bible versions. The literal
meaning is “one called alongside,” the usual idea being that the Holy Spirit is
our Comforting Companion, a true Friend in need. And each time that word is
found in the New Testament—John 14:16,20; 15:26; 16:7; and I John 2:1—it always
refers to the Lord.
However, here’s something important.
While paracletos does always
refer to the Lord in those Scriptures, the word parakleesis (also a
noun), for comfort or consolation, may refer both to the work of the Lord in
our lives as well as the effect we have upon each other.
Don’t miss that.
Here’s the Apostle Paul …
We were afflicted on every side,
conflicts without, fears within. But God, who comforts the humble, comforted us
by the coming of Titus. And, not only by his coming, but also by the comfort
with which he was comforted in you, as he reported to us your longing, your
mourning, your zeal for me; so that I rejoiced even more (2 Cor. 7:5-7).
The great apostle was hurting. He
needed something God provided by a friend, Titus. When this messenger reported
to Paul how faithfully the Corinthians were serving God, when he told how they
cared for Paul and grieved over him, that pumped him up.
Titus himself was elated by the work
of the Corinthians, Paul says.
God
made us to need the companionship of fellow disciples.
If you read the Scriptures and miss
that, you have missed a great element in the Word.
“It is not good that man should be
alone” was spoken of more than marriage. That is a fact of human existence.
God made us gregarious. We are
social creatures. We do not do well in isolation. We are all about social
networking, to use a term on everyone’s tongues today.
When we humble ourselves before God,
repent of our sin and receive Jesus Christ—that is, when we are born again—we
begin the process of moving back to God’s original plan for us: to rejoin the
family of man, so to speak.
The night God saved me as an
11-year-old, I found myself loving the brothers and sisters of all ages in our
country church. That was a new experience for me, one that no one had mentioned
to me and for which I was totally unprepared.
It was a wonderful surprise.
New believers need the fellowship of
other believers. There is not a preacher in the world who doubts that or
preaches otherwise.
We teach that, we expect new
disciples to join themselves with other believers for worship and growth, and
we warn them that to fail to do so endangers their growth and effectiveness in
the Kingdom.
This is true on another level for
God’s servants called preachers. God has made us so that we who are called to
proclaim His word need the fellowship, comfort and encouragement of others
similarly called. We need the accountability, the exhortation and occasionally
the rebuke of our peers.
We need friends in the ministry.
One
of the first effects of sin is to isolate us.
The roaring lion in search of supper
does not take on the entire herd, but looks for stragglers—an isolated member
that is sickly or elderly, too young to keep up or too headstrong to stay up.
Bingo, he’s got his next meal.
Your adversary, the devil, prowls
about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8).
He’s looking for the loner.
If I was to discover as an
11-year-old that a new relationship with Christ filled me with love for His
people, in time I found the other side of the coin: When I drifted away from
Him, my need for and appreciation for the Lord’s people waned also.
As the saying goes, I did not come
down in the last rain. I’ve been in the ministry for a full half-century. I
don’t know a lot of things, but I know some things very well, and this is one
of them: The sinful heart resists fellowship.
Over these years, pastoring six
churches and serving on staff of one and a half (that’s a long story), in each
city I joined the fellowship of ministers. In Greenville, MS, Columbus, MS,
Charlotte, NC, and New Orleans, LA, there were interdenominational fellowships
as well as conferences of Baptist ministers meeting regularly.
What I found never ceased to
surprise me.
The ministers who needed the
fellowship most never came.
Usually, these ministers fell into
two groups: pastors of the largest churches (who gave the impression they did not
require fellowship with the hoi polloi) and pastors of the smallest churches
(who appeared to look with suspicion on the other ministers with their seminary
degrees and larger congregations).
When I pastored the small churches,
you could find me in these meetings. I thrived on the fellowship. And later,
when my church was either the largest in town or one of the largest, I was
there. At no time did I feel I was “beyond needing” this hanging-out time with
these ministers.
Unless my heart was cold toward the
Lord. At those times—and yes, there were one or two such sad times—I resisted
companionship with other ministers.
Sin isolates. Just as it keeps
backsliding Christians home on Sundays, it locks pastors inside their homes or
studies lest they should get with a brother in Christ and be healed.
Preachers
need to hang out with one another.
The best thing groups of pastors do
with each other is not to sit in rows and listen to someone preach.
That’s the last thing they need as a rule.
What they need is to fill their
coffee cups, pull their chairs into a circle and have someone say, “OK, what
shall we talk about today?” and then wait.
Just wait.
In a minute, after an aborted
attempt or two to get something going, someone will open his heart and take out
a burden he’s been carrying and trying to handle by himself.
OK, pastors. This is a holy moment
now. He’s trusting you guys. Pay attention. Don’t fumble this.
His deacons have asked for his
resignation. His wife has served him with divorce papers. His doctor has said
it looks like cancer. His teenage son has been arrested.
Or maybe it’s one stage lighter than
that.
His church has cut his salary, and
he’s going bi-vocational and wondering how he can find a job and what he can
do, and whether this means he has failed.
He looks at you pastors and envies
you your success and grieves that his churches have never prospered the way
yours have. He has no idea you look at other pastors and their larger churches
in the same way he looks at you.
You need him and he needs you.
As iron sharpens iron, so one man
sharpens another (Prov. 27:17).
Pastor, do not wait for some
denominational leader to organize a retreat or a regular meeting of pastors.
You have a telephone? Call two or three preachers and ask them to meet you for
coffee. Go outside your denomination and you will meet some of God’s choice
servants.
After a couple of meetings, invite
them to your church where you can meet quietly and pray privately. Put on the
coffee pot.
See if your wife wants to cook
breakfast for the group sometime, or—if you have skills in that direction (I
emphatically do not)—cook it yourself.
Once you settle down into these
informal gatherings, here are a few questions, any one of which can fill up an
hour …
“What did you preach last Sunday?”
“What are you preaching next
Sunday?”
“What good book have you read
lately?”
“Do you use electronic books? Tell
the rest of us how it works.”
“Do you take an off day?”
“What’s the best thing you’ve
discovered in your ministry?”
“What’s the funniest thing that ever
happened to you in a funeral?”
I sure wish I could be there and
join in.
About Joe Mckeever
After five years as Director of Missions for the 100 Southern Baptist churches of metro New Orleans, Joe retired on June 1, 2009. These days, he has an office at the First Baptist Church of Kenner where he's working on three books, and he's trying to accept every speaking/preaching invitation that comes his way. He loves to do revivals, prayer conferences, deacon training, leadership banquets, and such. Usually, he's working on some cartooning project for the denomination or some agency.
After five years as Director of Missions for the 100 Southern Baptist churches of metro New Orleans, Joe retired on June 1, 2009. These days, he has an office at the First Baptist Church of Kenner where he's working on three books, and he's trying to accept every speaking/preaching invitation that comes his way. He loves to do revivals, prayer conferences, deacon training, leadership banquets, and such. Usually, he's working on some cartooning project for the denomination or some agency.
More from Joe McKeever
or visit Joe at www.joemckeever.com/mt/
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