Tootsie Rolls and A Bitten Snickers

October is a big month for Southern Baptist Churches.  It is the start of a new church year, which translates into new literature, new classes, church letters, annual meetings, and pastor’s appreciation. 

What, did you forget it was pastor’s appreciation?  Some churches have a special day on the pastor’s anniversary date.  That is good too, but who says you cannot do both.  Pastors do not receive enough recognition for all the work they do.  Most weeks for a pastor become emotional roller coasters.  In one day, a pastor can go from a newborn’s home to the nursing, and to the funeral home before actually going home.

Many pastors face burnout prematurely.  The task of ministering seems overwhelming.  The pastor’s office is often a place of stress and strife.  It is often a sad office with tears of frustration, pain, and heartache.

It seems as though the fight against evil is a losing effort.  Pastors need love, affirmation, and encouragement.  It is amazing what nourishment a Sunday dinner will give the pastor.  It is incredible how much power a twenty-dollar bill has placed into the pastor’s shirt pocket.  The amount of energy a pastor has after fishing, or a hunting trip is enormous.

Small things go a long way.  I remember having Evangelist Danny Daniels for an Easter revival at the Friendship Baptist Church in Clanton, Alabama.  Danny preached preliminary revivals for Dr. Billy Graham Crusades and wrote a book, Mortal Midnight, about his conversion during the Viet Nam War.  He was on staff with Dr. Rick Warren, his best friend, at Saddleback Church.  He was a big-time evangelist at a small church.

After the morning offering, one of my ushers said we had an unusual offering.  He showed me four tootsie roll candies that were in the offering plates.  Danny said, “Praise God, I love tootsie rolls.  Someone knew I wanted some.”  Danny confirmed that it was going to be a great revival.  Someone ministered to him in ways they will never understand this side of heaven.

I had a pastor friend whose church gave his wife and him a trip to the Holy Land.  He was elated having always wanted to go.  The church paid for everything.  While they were gone, the church had a special called business meeting and decided to terminate him.  When my pastor friend and his wife returned home, the church informed him that he was fired.  He has been shy of trips to the Holy Land ever since that time.

My pastor, Evie Megginson said the most unusual pastor’s appreciation gift he received was a Snicker’s candy bar.  It had a big bite taken out of it.

Celebrate the ministry of your pastor.

Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.  Go your ways: behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves.  Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes: and salute no man by the way.  And into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, Peace be to this house. And if the son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon it: if not, it shall turn to you again.  And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the labourer is worthy of his hire (Luke 10:2-7 KJV)

Chernobyl, Katrina, and Hope

Earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods remind us that there are more opportunities for ministry than normal.  Watching tragic events unfold before our eyes makes one realize that our world is in a mess.  It is messes that help us keep the perspective that we need a Savior.

Hurricane Katrina was a reminder of how quick death and devastation hit.  Missing people, sex predators, and disregard for human life are demoralizing to any society.  Overnight, New Orleans turned diabolical.  What happened in moments will take a lifetime to rebuild.  Some things will never recover.  Local residents told me that one third of New Orleans’ population will never return.

There seems to be no end to world turmoil and the reality that at any moment there could be a nuclear holocaust that would make Chernobyl look like a boy scouts’ campfire.  The Chernobyl explosions and the resulting fire sent a plume of highly radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and extensive parts of western Soviet Union, Eastern, Western, and Northern Europe, and North America.  It had four hundred times more fallout than the A-bomb of Hiroshima.  Ireland experienced a light nuclear rain.  The Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were badly  contaminated.  My friend Alice was teaching school in Italy at the time of Chernobyl and witnessed the devastation.

Speaking of first hand Chernobyl experiences, I had the honor and privilege of flying to Los Angeles to spend a week at Dr. Rick Warren’s Saddleback conference several years ago.  The man sitting next to me on the flight was a retired editor from Time Magazine.  He was returning from an editorial summit in South America.  He had been there to judge young journalists and rate their potential as writers for major magazines.  He was very articulate and global in his conversation.  I shared with him that I was a former cement worker.    

When I asked him to share some of his travels, he related my cement vocation to the Chernobyl incident.  He told me of a Russian general he had befriended while in Russia.  He said that this General was wealthy by American standards and lived an extravagant lifestyle, but could not enjoy it because he dying from radiation poison.  He had been exposed to radiation while working in the Chernobyl nuclear facility when it developed the leak and became one of many victims.  The editor said the world would never know just how many died trying to save the earth from radiation poison.

I told him that I had a friend who was teaching school in Italy when it happened and that she said the devastation was so severe that livestock and vegetation were died where she was teaching.  It was then that he told me the horror of what happened according to the general.

The general said that the radioactive material from the leak was eating into the earth at an alarming rate.  Russian scientists feared that it would eventually eat to the core of the earth causing worldwide catastrophic problems.  Hundreds of workers perished as they tried to stop the leak.  Massive earth moving machines raced to dig below the material to pour concrete several feet thick to contain it.  They were trying to form a bowl.  After several unsuccessful attempts, they finally stopped the leak.  The human cost was great.

This is one of many detrimental incidents to our planet.  All the things that we have done to the spaceship we call earth has a price.  Hurricanes, earthquakes, wars, and rumors of wars are the result of sin.  Sin caused the creation to fall from its perfect state.

“The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.  For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.  We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” (Romans 8:19-22 NIV)

How has a catastrophe affected your life?

Are you optimistic of pessimistic about the future? Write down your feelings.

What are you doing to help the environment of this planet we call earth?

Prayer: Father, as believers, we can see the world physically decaying and spiritually degenerating. Help us to be optimistic and not to be pessimistic, because we have a blessed hope. Thank you for the brighter days that lie ahead for the whole creation, for a time is coming when the curse will be removed, and creation will be restored to its original splendor. Thank you for the promise of resurrection with our glorified bodies, like the body Christ now has in heaven.