Of course it started when I paid an unscheduled visit to the Emergency Room at Jackson General Hospital in Jackson TN. It was there and the following four days that my life has taken a little bump in the journey that was going along so wonderfully. Notice I said "wonderfully", not good, not swell, not perfect. There had been some challenges, but life is like that. No matter who you are, or how you live, there WILL be challenges that get in the way of your concept of a perfect life.
Mine was going along in a direction I had not dared dream of before it was opened up to me. I had been filling in church pulpits for quite a few years and enjoying the blessings it was giving me. Those blessings were the ability to share the Word of Christ to those that came to be shared with. The list of churches was memories of diverse and loving folks that wanted to be fed the spiritual manna to allow them to grow in faith and happiness.
Sometimes it is difficult to provide such a message that will do that for everyone. . . so I learned that any particular message would not fit every listener. That is a fact. So I tried my best to provide something of interest in a message that had/has a story to it. That is what I am. I am a Story Teller. I try to relate the Spiritual Message, of course based on a Bible Passage or Passages, and through a story, show the listener how it could relate to them.
Recently, as is my format, when diving in to an area that I think may be a new place for the congregation, I set a foundational explanation of the "who's who", and the terminology and what it means, real quick like at the beginning, and move on to the message. i.e. "Today we are going to be talking about Lake Wobegon. Lake Wobegon is an imaginary place thought up by Public Radio author, singer, and story teller, Garrison Keillor who has a weekly radio show out of the University of Minnesota. He has created Lake Wobegon, a mythical place of perfection, "Where all the men are are strong, all the women are good looking and all the children are above average." I then went into the sermon telling about in real life, things are not always as they appear. I also I found out from this particular sermon was that not everybody in the pews on any particular Sunday morning is listening. Oh, they always come up to you afterwards and say things like "Nice sermon preacher", or "Good message today Pastor". But it may not necessarily be very accurate.
Recently there was a sermon I preached about a new pastor discovering that a previous one had asked a family to keep their special needs child home on Sunday morning because it was "disrupting" the service. He walked across the field out behind the church building and visited with the parents and met the child. He invited them to come back to church. They did not show up the next Sunday, so he made another walk across the field out back of the church building and told them he would like them to come back to church this next Sunday. He followed up with "If I have to delay Worship to come back her and get you, I will." They showed up. The Dad eventually became the Church Council Chairman, a Special Needs Sunday School class was established with SIX children, and their son Jimmy was the first recipient of that classes perfect attendance pin! The Scripture was l Corinthians 13. That is commonly called the Love Chapter. I had been having the Youth of the congregation take notes and grade my sermons on Understandability, and overall grade of usefulness, signed and given to me after the service was complete. I got an "A" that day and notes like: "I really liked the story about Jimmy. I like the meaning of it." and this one in particular struck me as remarkable: "If a child doesn't go to church, how are they going to learn how to worship?" Those were coming from a couple of the youth. Some adults did not seem to understand that message, I am told.
So I have pondered this dilemma for some time now, beating myself up for not being able to reach the worshipper. After sinking to a great depth of despair, and grief, along with some pretty extreme physical challenges of which I am trying to heal, I have discovered that it had nothing to do with ME! I discovered that those who were voicing their concerns were not not rejecting me, the messenger . . . they were rejecting GOD's Message! Children, youth, with open hearts . . . understood.
Some adults . . . "LOVE" on the outside . . . rejecting God's message, perhaps with unprepared hearts on the inside. Just like we get ourselves physically clothed to attend church we must prepare our hearts as well, to hear the message that God has so lovingly prepared for us on that day.
So, there is the message for this most unusual message today . . . this day of traditional Christian Worship of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. For those that hear without getting ready to hear first, or are, in so many words: Just "playing church", with bright smiling faces, and false words like "We LOVE You", consider your condition before expounding it to others. That will not only spread your condition unnecessarily, but infect and spread it to the detriment of the church body. Rejecting the message is ok.....but not good if, in the process, you do harm to the messenger. That is not a good thing . . . for either.
I read somewhere a statement that seemed to fit: "God didn't send a Pastor to a church to make the Congregation happy. He sent the Pastor to that congregation to share GOD's message."
The life of a person of God is not always an easy or smooth life. Be kind to your Pastor(s) they are doing remarkable work for God trying their hardest to Spiritually feed you and help you. An honest compliment goes much further than a bitting, hurtful and, most often, misdirected verbal slap in the face.
Blessings,
Gary
Good, candid point of view.
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