Stewardship

Extravagant Stewardship

From 1979 until the summer of 1992, I served as the pastor of the same church in a small community located in the Texas panhandle. Every Sunday morning and evening, I was in the same pulpit preaching to the same people, for thirteen years. There was a great deal of comfort in that situation. The church took good care of my family and me. We enjoyed the hospitality of those folks – often in their homes, but always in their support and provisions.

That all changed when we moved to Fort Worth in the late summer of 1992. I took a job that required me to be essentially an itinerate preacher. Every Sunday morning I was in a different church, frequently Sunday evening with an even different congregation. I traveled and preached like that for fourteen years. One of the things I learned to appreciate during that time was good hospitality.

The overwhelming majority of churches were very gracious, taking care of my every need. However, there were occasions when it did not happen. I have spent a few Sunday afternoons wandering around the mall or napping in my van because nothing was provided between the morning and evening service. On one occasion, I was asked to write a special sermon for a specific occasion and then drive one hundred and fifty miles to preach it. Once the service was finished, they handed me a check for $25 and said thanks, not even providing Sunday lunch.

I am not complaining because God always seems to balance things out. I have received as much as $2,500 for preaching one sermon, and I will be the first to tell you, I am not that good. But, I have learned the importance of hospitality.

Imagine what it must have been like to be an itinerate preacher in first century Palestine. Jesus provides a good example of how one might have been treated. Obviously, he was more than a traveling preacher, but that is probably the way most folks treated him. Sometimes he was considered a great prophet worthy of the highest honor. At other times, he was branded a blasphemer, deserving of the death penalty.

Waiting for Our Ship to Come In

My wife is being sued. If the wrongness of the whole situation did not bother Sharon so much then it would really be no big deal. It started with a "fender bender" on the rain-watered streets of downtown Fort Worth, five months ago. When I use the term "fender," I am using it in the singular form. The front fender of my wife’s Honda did hit the front fender of a Chevy pickup, but only one fender was bent or damaged in any way. We anticipated that our insurance company would write a check to the damaged truck owner. The woman driving the pickup claimed to be a little shaken up but otherwise unharmed. Expected end of story.

The next thing we hear from our insurance company is that the woman is asking for nearly $20,000. After a little give and take from both sides (her lawyer and our insurance company), the latest request is for about $6,500. The insurance folks have offered $3,500.

Reading the various statements and descriptions of the incident, this is how I perceive the entire event. The accident happened, causing a few hundred dollars worth of damage to their pickup. It might even be accurate to say that the accident helped the right front fender match up with all of the other dents and bruises found all over the pickup. It seems doubtful that the result of my wife’s collision will ever feel the touch of an auto body repairman.

Having a rather fragile constitution, the woman returned home and decided she was possibly injured so she made a trip to the emergency room. After spending the necessary thousand plus dollars, the doctor could find no injuries and sent her home. A couple of days later, still fearing she might have serious injuries, she went to another doctor who found the same thing – nothing.

My insurance company is willing to pay all of her medical bills and the repair of the pickup, which amounts to approximately $3,500. I don’t know for sure, but I get the sense that they might even throw in another thousand dollars for her inconvenience if she would have asked. Instead, she hired an attorney.

Trouble In the Church

As a pastor, you know you are in trouble…

 

• when people starting asking to see a copy of the church constitution
• when people tell you that a lot of folks are upset but they refuse to identify these people
• when you stand in the pulpit and feel the need to explain that you are following God’s leadership
• when you wish that certain members did not attend so often
• when there is a large attendance at the church business meeting
• when people start asking about the pastor’s salary
• when the amount of designated offerings increases significantly
• when your strongest supporter frequently tells you they will always support your ministry
• when church members who have not attended in years begin coming on a regular basis
• when you tell those who don’t agree with you that they should just leave the church

Perhaps the greatest evidence is when those you have been called to serve are unresponsive to your leadership. 

Learing How to Shape Our Future by Looking to the Past

When facing an uncertain future, one of the best sources of guidance is history. Looking to the past is a great way to learn that others have suffered the same problem. Their solution may or may not work for us, but it is certainly good to know that they survived that which causes us so much fear.

As I become more and more experienced with life (my new euphemism for getting older), history has become much more important to me. As I open the history book of my life, I discover experiences that inform today’s decisions. My sons might complain that I suffer from the "good old days" syndrome, or get exasperated with another one of Dad’s stories, when what I am really trying to do is find a concrete experience to relate to a contemporary problem.

This is the tragedy caused by the passing of an entire generation. There has been significant discussion the past few months about the Great Depression and how it relates to our current economic situation. The onset of that era is dated as 1929, in late October when the Stock Market crashed. Anyone with reliable memories of that day is now approaching ninety years in age. If they have not already done so, they need to record their experience in order to teach us who follow.

As we wade into the murky waters of a recession that will hopefully fall far short of another Great Depression, perhaps the best thing we can do is look to the past. I don’t mean just for economic advice on how to solve the situation, but also for guidance in how to live. In my search for this guidance, I discovered a story reported on the front page of the Canton, Ohio newspaper, dated December 18, 1933. The attention-grabbing headline read, "Man Who Felt Depression’s Sting to Help 75 Unfortunate Families."

Winners and Losers

Back in the good old days of Sunday School, every first-class Baptist church provided little medals to all of those who attended Sunday School each week for the entire year. The reason I can remember this is because I never earned a prize. For some reason, I could never make it through an entire year without missing at least one Sunday. The same was true with perfect attendance at public school, although making it to class every day was never a real high priority for me.

However, I do have one streak that remains in place after forty-three years. I have watched every Super Bowl game, going back to the time before they even began calling it the Super Bowl. You will be glad to know the streak is alive as I plopped myself in front of the Samsung and watched this year’s game. Although I had no team preference going into the game, it did turn into a very entertaining evening.

In the week leading up to the game, there was another sporting event that seemed to capture the attention of many folks, and it had nothing to do with the Super Bowl. The girl’s basketball team from a Christian school in Dallas defeated an opponent by the score of one hundred to nothing. When I first read the story, I did not give it much thought because it has probably happened before. Basketball is the kind of game that one player can totally dominate another team.

I completely underestimated the impact of this game. Before the story was finally swallowed up with Super Bowl news, it turned into a serious mess. Both coaches were criticized. Parents hurled accusations at everyone involved except themselves. School administrators apologized and tried to forfeit the game. Finally, the winning coach was fired. Imagine that! You are hired to develop a winning team and you accomplish the goal to perfection and get fired.

My involvement with children and sports goes back a long time, before 1970, when my much younger brother began playing baseball and continued through three of my own sons. I am convinced that the hardest job in the world is to be the parent of a young athlete. As parents, we tend to set our sights too high. We want our child to excel at the game, to be the star of the team. A more realistic approach would be to see sports as an opportunity to help them learn about life.