"You're Not Called!"

I bumped into an old friend of mine the other day. He's a really great guy! We have a long history together too. We grew up in the same town, went to school together, my brother dated his sister and he even sung at my wedding.

Randy and I, as we are both wont to do, quickly found ourselves in a religious discussion. I can't remember the specific topic, if there was one, but he being a preacher, began to give me some of his insight into preaching and the mechanics of preparing sermons. He explained that many preachers make sermon preperation hard on themselves and how they should realize that there is so much information in the Bible that they could easily spend week after week on the same chapter and/or passage.

The following story jumped into my mind. I made it a point to share a “Reader's Digest” version of it with him.

My brother, Joe, and I once went to something called a “bi-vocational conference.” The idea, I think, was to be a help seminar for men in the ministry who worked a regular job and also pastored. I, unlike my brother, was not a pastor or a preacher, but I was a music leader at the time and, besides, I think Joe wanted some company.

We attended the conference at the Sweetwater Associational Office in Madisonville. I suppose someone considered that a central location for the event.

I soon discovered I was the only layman present for the meeting. I suppose that didn't make me feel too awful uncomfortable. Being me, I just sort of went with the flow. I can't remember too much about what was said during the meeting. As I recall, though, the first half hour or so wasn't too bad. Then, sadly, things began going downhill.

The next, maybe, forty-five minutes, the men leading the conference spent their time, er, helping those present come up with simple ways to create sermon outlines. It even, I would say, descended to the point that they were having the attendees call out random books, chapters and verses with the leaders giving quick subjects and synopses for sermons off the tops of their heads.

It reminded me of when, as a teen, we would watch the “Mac Davis Show.” He always had this part of his show where he would ask the audience for random words and phrases which he would quickly turn into cute little songs. Some of them were actually quite good and they were always funny. He was a really talented guy.

Joe and I were, at this point, both becoming uneasy and irritated at the entire episode. We thought that we were there for advice and training on how to be better church leaders. We weren't looking for quick and easy ways to come up with sermons that amounted to no more than three points, a poem and a prayer. (They always forgot to include the poem, though.)

I can't recall exactly what homily there were attempting to construct, but big brother Joe had had about all he could stand. He spoke up, strongly and loudly enough for all to hear, saying, “If you can't preach that, you ain't called!”

He got a lot of looks from around the room and most smiled or nodded in agreement. I may have even heard and amen or two. Sadly, though, I fear the point was lost on all of them.

From what I can tell, at least from my own experience and observation, SBC seminaries decided some decades back, that it is less their job to teach the Holy Scriptures to their students than it is to teach them how to preach. They've apparently concluded that you can take an intelligent, glib young man, (soon they'll think woman,) and prune him into someone who can deliver three sermons a week like a factory turns out widgets. You know, mass production. Henry Ford would be proud!

In far too many churches, the pulpits are populated by men who see pastoring and preaching as more of a vocation than an avocation. It's a job just like any other job to them. You put in your hours; you put together a sermon; you deliver it on Sunday. You take your vacation every year and expect a raise likewise. You're smart; you're eloquent; you're mundane; you're also superficial.

There still remains the question: Are you called?

My dad was a preacher/pastor. (He had even been a deacon previously.) He took his calling very seriously. I would find him many nights, very, very late, sitting at the kitchen table, studying his Bible. Often, it was, I imagine, in preparation for a sermon. Still, knowing him, he did it mostly for love of God and desire to know Him better.

I recall him telling a story about another preacher we know named Jimmy. It happened on the advent of Jimmy's first sermon, Dad, in his own way, taught him a lesson I'm sure he never forgot. I laughed every time I heard the tale. I still laugh whenever I remember it.

Dad and Jimmy were sitting on the front pew and Jimmy was anxiously studying the notes he had prepared for the sermon he was about to give. Dad sat next to him for some minutes, watching him sweat. As the moment of truth was almost upon the new, young preacher, dad asked to see the man's notes. Jimmy obediently handed them to him. Dad took them, ripped them to pieces, looked Jimmy in the eye and said, “Now, go preach the Gospel!”

Jimmy was horrified, but learned a valuable lesson that day. He learned that good notes don't necessarily make for a good sermon. He learned to trust God and not his own intellect.

Dad was always prepared, studying and praying fervently. He was not above making notes, but you could never call them copious. Still, he never trusted in his own knowledge and preparation. He trusted in God! On more than one occasion, after hearing him preach one of, what I thought, was among his best sermons, he'd confess to mom and I in the car on the way home that he had no real idea what he was going to say when he got behind the pulpit. There is a certain horror in living that way that keeps a man honest, methinks.

In my mind, helping a man become a better speaker, less repetitive, more eloquent and assisting him in avoiding bad habits like, well, picking your nose in front of a congregation are all things that seminaries could do to contribute to the success of the acolytes sitting in their classrooms. Still, I can't believe it is not the job of human professors to teach men artificial, affected ways of producing canned, uninspired sermons that have no more effect than keeping the pastor in a church that supplies a regular paycheck.

I understand the desire of young men today, and yesterday, to preach. Many are glib, loquacious, talented, intelligent and truly do want to serve God. The problem is, themselves or someone else convinces them that the only way to do so is to “surrender to the call.”

Some people are pushed into the idea. They are the victims of someone else's desire to live vicariously through them. Maybe they are the eldest or only son of a deacon or other church “leader. ” Perhaps, they were pushed into the idea by someone with an ego simply trying to prove themselves right concerning a “prophecy,” or other such silliness, regarding the young man in question. Some are even coaxed by their friends or fellow wanna-be's. My dad would often refer to these poor souls as, “momma called and daddy chosen.”

Women too struggle with the “calling.” Many also love God and want to serve Him. Like men, they often see preaching as the only way to serve God. They forget the sermon the Lord preached about the eye, the ear, the foot and the hand. I guess everybody wants to be the eye.

In my family, what with so many preachers and deacons populating our ranks, it was inevitable that I too would struggle with the Lord's calling in my life. I suppose I was called to preach by everybody but God Himself. Fortunately, I suppose, I was never convinced that it was actually the Lord seeking that path for my life. (That's for another blog though.) Furthermore, I had sense enough to know that God needs well-versed, studious laymen too.

I've known plenty of men who started preaching at a very early age. (Some, perhaps, not so early.) They seemed to have a real desire to serve God, but to me, and it seems to my Dad also, that something was just out of place with so many of them. He would sometimes say of these somewhat deluded men that they spent so many years trying to preach and yearning to preach that, as he would put it, “The Lord just finally called him.”

It seems to me, and I think the Scriptures will back me up, that if God calls you, he'll provide you with the message. He didn't say, don't study, don't prepare and don't pray. He said it would come from him and not from our own selves. I like to think it's like owning a gun. You load it and God will tell who you how to shoot...and what to shoot.

I fear the problem boils down to fear. There is fear for so many preachers in merely trusting the Lord. They don't want to face a single Sunday not knowing exactly what they are going to say. They can't just yield their voices to the Holy Ghost believing that He will fill them till they overflow into the congregation seated before them. No, when it really comes down to it, they, like so many of their parishioners, can't seem to find a way to let go and simply let themselves fall into the Hands of God!

Letting go? Falling into the hands of God? I can think of worse things!