Go Big or Go Home

Our second Wednesday of each month is focused prayer. Our number one request for the rest of the year is ten new souls baptized in Jesus name and filled with the Holy Ghost evidenced by speaking in other tongues. For a humble congregation like ours, ten shiny new saints would be an awesome boost. I had originally suggested ten baptisms, but Bro. B, who leads up the focused prayer felt led of the Lord to upgrade the request. Go big or go home!

Pastoral Appreciation

At church today we had a pastoral appreciation lunch. Wow! I feel very appreciated today. I also feel stuffed. There's nothing like a church potluck and the Pentecostals have taken it to an art form! All the food was southern-themed today. Partly, I suspect, because one of the ladies organizing it is from Texas and partly because I like to say "y'all" and claim that because I'm from southern England, I'm allowed to do so.

I See A Pattern Here

We baptized an ex-Wiccan two weeks ago. We can call her Sis. M. now. In the last two and a half years, that brought the total to two wiccans and a Satanist. This morning Sis. M introduced me to her fiance and explained that he had been further into Wicca than she was. By the end of the service he requested that we baptize him, so I will be meeting with him later this week to teach him a bible study about repentance and baptism so that he understands what he's getting into. I'm seeing the start of a pattern here!

A Quiet Week Except For When It Wasn't

Thankfully. Sis. Geek and the geeklets had a quiet night in on Tuesday, although I was late home from work. Because my lesson for the midweek service was already done last week, I spent the evening getting some basic household needs caught up. I went to the hardware store for a new neon tube for the bathroom light and then Farm and Barn for salt for the water softener. I installed those and then started a load of laundry. While the laundry went through, I sorted a large stack of mail that we hadn't touched in a week. In the end, I got to bed a little before 11pm.

Midweek service went well, but everyone was in a talkative mood so we didn't end up closing up until nearly 9pm. Home and straight to bed.

Then, Thursday night, the busyness got to us and we were all tucked up and lights out by 8:30pm. (This is why you shouldn't call your pastor in the evening unless it's an emergency ... he might be trying to catch up on his sleep.)

Friday was date night. One of the families in the church offered to watch the geeklets while I took the lovely Sis. Geek out for dinner. This was our Valentines dinner that we couldn't take on the 14th as Sundays are busy and then ours was more busy than usual as we prepared for Sis. P's funeral the next day.

This morning we slept in a little. Then it was off in a couple of different directions. I took my car for an oil change and Sis. Geek headed off to the church to meet Sis. M to clean. After the oil change I stopped by to help Bro. M move some stuff up to the attic. And now I'm working on my sermon for tomorrow.

So, now you know what pastors do outside of that hour on Sunday mornings.

Funerals Are A Full Day's Work

The funeral for Sis. P took place today. I was at the funeral home for 9am and didn't leave until 5pm. Between the viewing and then the service and then the graveside, it was quite an amount of work. I'm ready for an early night.

My life as a roller-coaster

This week I experienced the death of a member of my congregation, Sis. P. Then Saturday was my youngest's birthday and we celebrated life. Then today the Lord directed me to preach on mercy and now tomorrow I conduct the funeral for Sis. P.

I'm normally a fairly level kind of guy emotionally, so I'm feeling a little like I'm on a roller-coaster right now. Hopefully everything will calm down this coming week and I can get my bearings again.

The Worst Part of the Job

After two and a half years of pastoring, the day I haven't been looking forward to arrived and I lost a member of my congregation. Sis. P was involved in an automobile accident yesterday and went to be with the Lord this afternoon.

Much as I love pastoring, it hurts and I don't ever want to get used to that feeling.

Does Evil Really Exist?

Clayton Cramer has an interesting blog entry about the reality of evil existing and that while he is an agnostic, he gave much credibility to an account of Roger L. Simon over at PJTV, who had recently met Ahmadinejad the president of Iran and who had found himself staggered by the presence of pure evil.

So, let's answer the question of does evil really exist.

Short answer: Yes.

Longer answer:

As I'm absolutely sure that I have previously explained that I am a recycled atheist, I feel qualified to comment on going from not believing in spiritual things, to, very obviously, believing in them.

The reality is that most people don't think about the existence of a spirit world while living their life. This doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Those who do think about it don't get much further than getting goosebumps or feeling spooked in dark, creepy places. These sensations are real, but minor enough that they don't give them any further thought after the event.

The landscape changes when you receive the Holy Ghost. (Naturally, I mean the "real" receiving the Holy Ghost, where folks end up speaking with other tongues.) Having the spirit of God inside you conveys a whole new raft of abilities that often catch the newly filled by surprise. Suddenly, your weak perception of spirits starts getting stronger. How much stronger does it get? That seems to depend on a number things.

Some folks get very little improvement to their ability to sense spirit things, while others get very detailed ability to identify them and even visibly discern them. I started out toward the lower end of the scale after I came into the church, but with practice that increased. Then another jump in my ability to sense spirits came when I became a pastor.

That increase really caught me by surprise. Not that I wasn't able to feel the spirit of the Lord when he moved. I certainly could. I could feel the change in the spiritual atmosphere before either an altar call or when one of the gifts of the spirit was about to operate. The thing that really surprised me was the other spirits that I could now sense.

Suddenly, I could sense spirits that I had not previously felt and was plugged into the spirit in ways that I had not previously been. A few examples would be in order here.

Every pastor inherits interesting members in their congregation. The definitions of interesting vary, but while most are harmless, a few are malevolent. Bro. L. was one of these. Nice until you disagreed with him. And downright argumentative if you disagreed over his favorite subject of the "end times". And as I had had to correct his behavior a few times during the pastoral transition before the resident pastor left for his new assignment (the corrections were in private, of course) he really didn't like me. I say all of that to introduce the fact that there was no love in the situation. Once I took over the pastorate a funny thing happened. I started being able to sense when Bro. L. entered the building. For real. I was often up in the sanctuary praying before service and I could feel that an evil spirit had entered the church. A few minutes later, guess who would walk in. I discounted this the first few times, but after it happens every time I started realizing the correlation was real. After trying to work with him for six months, the board and I decided that he needed to go and ever since he left, I have not felt that particular spirit again.

As a pastor you need information to help you minister to people. Unfortunately, many people do not want to tell you the truth. (They still want quality guidance though.) A few times now, the Lord has dropped the information I needed and that they weren't telling me into my mind. This then helps me give the advice that people need to hear. Getting them to follow pastoral advice is another long blog post best saved for another day.

My final example is where I was feeling that our congregation had hit a spiritual wall and while we had good services and the congregation was being fed, we weren't reaching those outside the walls of the church. This is a troubling situation for a pastor. So I was talking to the Lord about this and some other situations and asking him what could be done about it, when he answered by dropping the information that I needed directly into my mind. He told me that the problem was that we were dealing with a spirit and the name of this spirit was "Independence".

The interesting thing about names is that people don't realize how connected we are to our name. This is doubly so in the spirit world. Not having a body, a spirit effectively is it's name. Knowing the name of the spirit allows you to directly address it, targeting it for prayers of binding and casting down. Knowing the name of the spirit that had set itself against us, I started praying against it and encouraged the church to join me in this.

I knew that it would happen, but when it did it was still a little surprising. I was awoken a little after four in the morning by a feeling that was very distinctive. I knew who, what and why even before I was fully awake. The spirit of Independence had come calling. We live in a raised ranch style house, so I walked from the bedroom down the hallway into the living room and it was just light enough to see that while I was the only physical being in the room, I wasn't alone.

I suppose that I should have been scared and nervous, but I'd had a few similar interactions before and to be honest, was really angry about losing an hour's sleep so that some upstart spirit could try to stop me and the congregation fulfilling the objectives of the lord. So, I didn't bother worrying and went straight on the attack. Maybe ten minutes later I was alone again. I'll spare you the details of spiritual warfare, except to say that it's real and doesn't involve anything looking like kung fu.

About a week later, it was back and made the mistake of waking me up early again. This time I think it took about two minutes to toss it out.

This took place about a month ago and with the spirit of Independence mostly out of the way, our congregation has been having even better services than usual and we've baptized three people in four weeks and have at least one more scheduled for next week.

And just in case you think I'm bragging on myself (I'm really not) I'll wrap up with an observation that I heard from one of our missionaries about other organization's missionaries in Africa. You see Africa is an interesting place. It's beautiful and dangerous all at the same time ... and I don't mean the lions or snakes. Have you ever wondered why Africa is called the "dark continent"? It sure isn't for a lack of sunlight; Africa is spiritually dark. The witch doctors and shamen there have demonic power at their command. They rule, each of them, in their own villages or region. Their rule is one of terror. Those who cross them generally end up dead. This includes missionaries. Well (and remember I got this from a retired African missionary) the missionaries from these other organizations seek out our missionaries and get themselves baptized in Jesus name and prayed through to receive the Holy Ghost so that they will have power to resist and overcome the evil spirits behind the witch doctors. I won't share some of the stories of what the witch doctors did because it still makes my hair stand up on end when I think about it. But there is pure evil in the world and Africa is one of the easier places to find it.

If you're still reading at this point, I hope that I've showed that evil does exist. Most people do not come into contact with it, so when they do, such as meeting the president of Iran, it shocks them to the core. Now that I move in more spirit-filled circles, it loses it's fear and now I just find it annoying. (I suspect that evil is starting to find me pretty annoying as well! :-)

A Pastor's Evening

Ever wondered what a pastor does in the evenings? Wonder no more! Last night was busy enough that I thought I'd record what I did because else people may find themselves thinking that pastors just sit at home drinking tea all evening. (I wish!)

The evening started by getting home late from the day job. Ride-sharing is great for the shared gas costs, but it can be challenging from the trying to get everyone ready to leave at the same time perspective. Just before I leave, I get a call from Bro. M. asking if I can lend him some money to pay some bills. Bro. M. has a long history with this congregation and is a hard working fellow, so I cut him some slack and hit the ATM on the way to run a few other errands. I needed kerosene to burn the wet leaves on my vegetable patch that are offending my neighbor who has his youngest daughter's graduation coming up at the end of the month. And then I had to get some gas for the church lawnmower and weedwhacker.

After getting home from that, I saw the church's banker out in his back yard, so I wandered out to talk to him about the renewal of the church mortgage. (We were waiting on some documents to sign.) Hey, doesn't everyone chat with their banker in the back yard? Try it sometime, it's the only way to conduct business.

Getting in from that, I had a voicemail from Bro. K. letting me know ahead of time that he would be unable to make it for midweek service as he had work to do in nearby town that evening. Thankfully I didn't need to call him back.

At this point, I could finally check my email and make a cup of tea.

That done, I then grabbed my materials for tonight's lesson and started working on it at the kitchen table, interupted on a regular basis by the lovely Sis. Geek and the geeklets wanting either hugs or tucking up in bed. Unfortunately no one was left awake to tuck me up when I finally managed to get horizontal at about 11:30pm.

And that's just one evening.

Did I mention that I was geeky?

So I'm a little geeky. Really, it's not a huge problem. I'm not addicted. I can stop any time I want. I can.

How geeky are we talking about here? Well, our church may be the only one in the UPCI this year to generate it's annual contribution letters with AWK and process them with LaTeX into PDFs for printing. (The lovely Sis. Geek did the statements using QuickBooks.) It all worked so well that I'm already planning on generating the whole contribution package next year with scripts.

Not quite how I expected it to go

I mentioned the other day about not enjoying preaching some sermons. Well, on Sunday I preached an anti-Halloween sermon and thought that I'd get some serious push back from it. Wow, was I surprised. When I announced at the start that this was going to be a standard anti-Halloween sermon, I got several enthusiastic amens and after the altar call, I had a line of people asking for a copy of my notes so that they could explain to their families why they shouldn't/wouldn't be celebrating Halloween this year.

I had wasted quite a bit of energy being concerned about how it would be received. I shouldn't have worried. While this congregation normally listens attentively, they were hanging on my every word and soaking it all up like sponges. It's hard to make predictions in pastoring. (Except for Ice-cream socials and pot lucks, you're pretty much guaranteed that they'll go well! :-)

Didn't Wanna Do It

I hear tell that some denominations send out the lessons to their pastors and the pastor's job is to read the lesson, shake everyones hand and lock the doors after folks leave.

I wish!

Here in the United Pentecostal Church International we do it the old fashioned way. We talk to God. Directly and personally. I don't check with my Presbyter or my Superintendent first. I get the lesson directly from Almighty God himself.

It's a rush!

Anytime the Blessed and Only Potentate, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords chooses to communicate with this imperfect and humble fellow, it's awe inspiring. And every single week (that I've been scheduled to preach) since taking over the role of Pastor at this church the Lord has given me a message for the congregation. Sometimes he gives me a couple of messages for the coming weeks, but mostly he gives me a single message and that's what I preach on the Sunday. Mid-week service is teaching of Apostolic doctrine, so while very important, it's less evangelical and more structured.

The messages have varied greatly in content and direction, while still having a discernible objective. The Lord is trying ground our congregation in the basics so that we will be positioned for growth. Shallow roots and growth do not mix well, so he's trying to get us to drive our roots deep to be ready for the heights that he wants to take us to.

It's exciting!

The messages on preparation are fun to teach. I love the encouragement messages. I love to talk of the coming growth in congregation size and that we need to prepare for an influx of new people, even with all of the work that it would involve. New believers are wonderful. We love to see them, but they are like spiritual babies. There is much to teach them and the occasional spiritual diaper change required. You just haven't lived until you've heard a new believer expressing how wonderful they feel in their new life with Christ. It takes you back to when you were new in the Church. (Of course, sometimes, being so new in the Church, they express their strength of feeling by using the kind of four letter words that would make a sailor blush ... oops ... hence the spiritual diaper changes and damage control! :-)

But then sometimes the Lord needs to apply a more serious correction to the congregation. There are times when the Lord is aware of matters that would be dangerous to the congregation if left unchecked. Guess who gets to deliver those messages? Yup. Me.

Not fun.

I had to deliver one this Sunday and I'm here to tell you it was not fun. Not even close. Of all the aspects of pastoring that I have experienced so far, the delivery of a chastening sermon is my least favorite thing to do. I besought the Lord to see if there was something else I could teach instead, but I received no license to teach an alternative. I even tried ignoring my lesson on the Thursday and Friday evenings and worked on the district newsletter instead, hoping that the Lord would have mercy on me and would give me something lighter and more "fluffy bunny" to present instead.

No dice.

Having tried everything I could think of, except saying "no" (never a good idea to say no to the Lord), I started working on the sermon.

Remember this next time you feel like the pastor just tap-danced all over your toes and you feel mad at him. Understand that there's a pretty good chance that he didn't enjoy it either.

An Hour On Sundays

Pastoring is many things and it's very hard to describe to people what it is. It really is something that has to be seen up close or lived through to understand. But I find when I'm trying to describe what a pastor's life is like, it's easier to describe what it isn't ... it isn't an hour on Sundays.

Let me tell you about last week. Even though we're just a small congregation, we handed out two sets of groceries to those in need on Sunday morning. I went for breakfast with one of the men of the church on Saturday morning to discuss various matters and play catch up because he and I hadn't had any time to get together for a couple of months now. Then I zoomed over to our local farmer's market to help my wife with the church stall we had there. That took up the entire rest of the morning, leaving me with only the afternoon and evening to prepare my lesson for the following morning. Naturally, the Thursday and Friday evenings had been spent preparing for the farmer's market; we made peanut brittle on Thursday evening and I printed and matted some photography on Friday night to sell. And I think I forgot to mention that on Wednesday nights one of the ladies in the church has my wife watch her daughter after school and then usually stays for dinner with us before we head off to service. And then Sunday evening, I updated the district news website. Phew. Good job this pastoring stuff only takes an hour!

We are constantly on the move and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't very draining. So draining, that I'm exploring available options so that I can give the church all the time it needs even at this early stage in its growth. Naturally, I have also been seeking the Lord's help to get through this difficult time. As I observed to a friend of mine yesterday, the congregation don't contact us in proportion to the time we have available for them. They have needs and call their pastor regardless of the time or convenience for us. My wife fields as many calls as she can, but even then she often needs to escalate the issues to me.

On one level this is obviously me feeling sorry for myself, but it is also to let people know that if their pastor isn't just coasting through, then they are one of the busiest people you know. As a bi-vocational pastor, I work a day job, but even the full-time pastors I know pull down a quantity of hours per week that would make a lesser man cry.

Allow me to leave you with this thought. Think of your pastor as a swan: quiet and graceful to see, but paddling like crazy underneath to make progress.

Best. Church. Picnic. Ever.

Stuffed. Roll me home stuffed. Far too much food. And it was all good. Mmmmmmmm.

We rented a shelter at one of the local municipal parks and grilled too much dead animal and eat it with too many carbs for desert while drinking too many sugary carbonated beverages. And the guys talked about guns. Whats not to like?

Now, that's political humor!

Several good political cartoons over at Irons In The Fire. My favorite one is the one about John Bolton as president.

A tip of the hat to The Smallest Minority.

Bad Singing

More specifically, my bad singing.

I feel very sorry for Sis. Geek on Wednesday nights. We have midweek service and our normal song leader is still working on understanding the importance of making it to every service, so I lead the song service. I like to describe my singing voice as worse than a gravel crusher. I have the voice of one suited to written media. Various people have told me that I actually can sing, but I think they're just being nice. Even if they're right, there are still a couple of reasons why you don't want me behind a microphone when music is playing.

The first reason for keeping me away from a microphone is that I have no memory for song lyrics. None. Nada. Zip. Sis. Geek provides me with song sheets for the main service, but she picks songs according to the moving of the Spirit during altar service and that's when my bad memory really does me the most disservice. I loose count of the number of times, I haven't been able to remember the words to some really appropriate song that she's selected. Sigh.

The second reason is that I don't have a creative bone in my body and have no natural music comprehension. This shows itself in my inability to figure out how to lead the flow through a song. Knowing that I'm not a creative sort (and being fairly used to it by now) I applied some geeky analysis to the problem. I was fairly pleased with the result, but Sis. Geek still shakes her head when I use this technique. Allow me to explain.

Songs have verses and choruses and sometimes even bridges. I'm not really sure what the exact difference between a chorus and a bridge actually is, but my best understanding is that a bridge is kind of like an extra chorus. (Feel free to flame me in the comments if I have this all goofed up!) My problem is that with the new-fangled songs (rather than the traditional hymns, which I have no problem with) have very loose "rules" on which part goes where and when and in what order and which pieces you can repeat and even whether you finish at the end of a chorus or a verse. What is a geek to do?

Flow diagrams to the rescue! Check out this simple one:

  I -> I -> II -> II -> I -> II -> II -> II

This is a real example where the song has two parts and are best sequenced with the first part sung twice, then the second part sung twice, the first part once more and then the second part three times. I have this penciled at the bottom the song sheet and typically follow this sequence for that song.

Naturally, there are some songs with more leeway and flow diagrams allow for this. An example will help:

      .----.*
      v    |
 I -> C -> I -> C

This shows that the song starts with the verse, then moves to the chorus. It then alternates between the verse and the chorus (the asterisk depicts that the loop can be followed zero or more times), with the chorus being the end point of the song.

A very geeky way to solve a creative problem, but it works very well for me.

What is pastoring?

A worthy question indeed. And one that cannot be answered in a single blog post, or I suspect, a single lifetime. Pastoring is many things, but right now, sitting here at my kitchen table, it feels like love.

As a pastor, you find yourself loving your designated congregation. Not a gushy, worldly love, but the love of God himself flowing through you. I can only describe it as a family-style love. I feel fatherly towards my assigned congregation. (I can see how Catholics are tempted to call their priests "father", despite the biblical admonishment not to call any except God by that term.) I feel parental towards the saints under my ministry (with the exception of the young ladies, who I also feel big brotherly towards ... so, be warned, all you single guys, because I do have a shotgun!)

It's an incredible feeling to have that much love flowing through you. I don't know if it's describable in ways that anyone who wasn't a pastor would understand, but I'll try anyway. The closest non-pastoral thing that I can use to describe it is the moment when my first child was placed in my arms and I felt my life and heart enlarge to allow more love to fill my life and flow to this precious bundle in my arms. For the record, I bawled my eyes out and didn't care. Interestingly, I bawled just exactly the same way when the Lord confirmed my calling into the ministry. I guess I should have seen the connection then.

The power of love is strong. By way of example, let me give you this little vignette. I had talked to one of our congregation earlier in the week and given some very strong advice and as my Friday evening went by I felt more and more like I needed to call and invite him to breakfast the next day. I eventually called him and we spoke for a while and he accepted my invitation. This morning, we had breakfast at my local Country Kitchen restaurant and he asked if Brother SoAndSo had put me up to it. I told him that no one had said anything, but that my heart was heavy with worry for him all evening and I felt that I had to call and arrange to get together with him. The supernatural power of God's love is powerful beyond what many of us ever suspect. Some days it still catches me by surprise!

An accidental pastor

It was never in my plans to become a pastor. Going further back, it was never in my plans to join the Church either. Obviously something happened to change that and this is (a condensed version of) that story.

See, there I was enjoying my IS career when I meet a nice family with an even nicer daughter. Well, they invited me to go to church with them and for some reason I said yes and started attending regularly. It didn't take long and I got baptized and then not too long after that I received the Holy Ghost. To prove that good things come in threes, I also married their daughter. (You saw that one coming right?)

So, there I am, a fully signed up, card carrying holy roller. Not in the plan, but it felt pretty good and I was happy with that. I love the people of God and enjoyed being in the family.

Next, I felt directed of the Lord to study. I wasn't sure what to study, so I asked my pastor and he directed me to study our organization's ministerial home study material. There was lots of good material there and for the next couple of years I enjoyed studying and reading.

A few years after that, I felt directed of the Lord again to up and move to the next state over and take a job at the big employer in that city. This I did and discovered that we had a home missions church in that place. The lovely Sister Geek and I attended the church and helped out however we could, including at least six months of teaching the mid-week lesson because pastor had to work second shift. It was around this time that I started saying things like "I'm glad I'm not a pastor!"

Roll forward a couple of years and I get duped, err, blessed with being appointed as the editor for the district newsletter. This is not something that I'd ever done before, but the district board bribed, err, encouraged me by supplying a brand new Mac computer with all of the software I would need for the job. I was then also required to attend district functions including several minister only events. I remind you that I was not licensed at that time, so it was quite an honor to be invited to such events. After having the opportunity to spend so much time with pastors and other ministers, I was more certain than ever that I did not want to be a pastor. This feeling was due to the behind the scenes view that I was given of pastoring, not from any lack of respect of the position of people filling those positions. The more I saw of pastoring, the more I realized that it was real work and involved a good deal more than just droning on for a while on Sunday mornings.

Things were good, albeit much busier now that I was the district editor. My anonymity was an early casualty and I quickly had to get used to folks recognizing me at events, coming over and commenting on the newsletter. Thankfully the comments were almost uniformly appreciative, so that helped.

Sister Geek and I, by now, were the longest continuously attending saints in the congregation and were still helping out in every way we could. As pastor was busy with his own district level position that meant lots of helping was required. Sister Geek was regularly playing piano during mid-week services and I was starting to get lots of preaching practice filling in for pastor.

Looking back, after the way that everything had been building up, we should have seen it coming, but it was a complete and total surprise when it happened. We had been invited over for lunch after Sunday service (and the annual business meeting if I remember correctly) and we were relaxing after an excellent meal when our pastor told us that the Lord had told them that they were to move to a different city on the other side of the state and take the pastorate there. This was quite a shock to us, but not as much of a shock as when they explained that the Lord had also told them that we should take over the pastorate for this city! We were pretty much speechless for the next half an hour or so. After that, I got right to work seeking the Lord and asking for a confirmation of this call. After a couple of weeks at a Sunday afternoon prayer meeting, I got the confirmation that I sought. This was the start of life getting much more interesting.

Now that I was confirmed by the Lord that I should take over the pastorate of the church I was attending, there was the small matter of not being a licensed minister. I got my confirmation in mid-March and needed to take over the church by July. Thank goodness the Lord had already caused me to get all of my required studying out of the way years before. Our current district had a couple of extra requirements and I was able to go through them in short order, so I was meeting the district board in June and was approved for my local license (the first level in our organization). I took over the pastorate in July 2007.

It has been an interesting journey since last summer. There are so many things that you don't learn about pastoring from any other source except real life. I suppose that those who have an opportunity to be an assistant pastor for a while first may have it easier, but I didn't get to do that, so I'm not in a position to be certain.

I like the term accidental pastor because it reflects the fact that while I do now love the role and even the responsibilities that come with it, it was not something that I sought out in any way.