“Dropping Your Net”

Mom told me that the night I got married she cried all night.  He eldest left home never to return.  Dad said mom cried for several days. I think dad was glad I was gone.  I never understood why mom cried all night until I had children.

Fast forward a few years and I realized why momma cried.  Taking our seventeen-year-old daughter away to college to play volleyball was one of the hardest days of my life.  I knew when she left that my little girl would never come back home to stay.

I was proud that she received a scholarship to play volleyball.  She had prepared and trained since the eighth grade to play and earn a scholarship.  She had an offer from Washington State, which won the National Champion in girls’ volleyball the previous year.  Other offers came from Notre Dame, Annapolis, University of Alabama Birmingham, University of Montevallo, and Samford to name a few.  She chose UAB, which sent her to Wallace State Junior College in Hanceville to prep for two years.  She was moving less than a hundred miles away, but the reality that she was gone produced tears.  I had hurt, a sick feeling, deep in my soul.  There would be days of joy watching her play for the next two years, but I knew she was gone.  Daddy’s influence would become secondary to a newfound freedom and a world that was exotic and appealing as opposed to rural and Christian Chilton County.

As a dad, I tried to instill Christian principles and ethics that would enable my children to make wise decisions.  I had faith that all my children would make wise decisions in everything they encountered.

All three of my children have good ethics, which is something that is missing from the moral fabric of society today.  They have not been perfect, even though I wanted them to be.  All three have thanked me for teaching them how to work and live.

Not many years ago, Aaron, the baby son, thanked me for teaching and enabling him to perform many tasks.  He apologized that he lived in Texas and could not spend much time with me.  He lived at home longer than the other two.

He thought for a long time that he would never find a good vocation or a good wife.  Having found both, he left home.  It was hard to lose my sidekick who had been with me since he was seven.  He is ten years younger than my daughter is, so her moving to college was my segue into taking care of Aaron.

I told Aaron that from the moment of his birth I began to teach him how to become a man.  I instilled him with principles and skills to leave home, discover a vocation, find a bride, and raise Christian children in a world that would constantly grow spiritually darker and would need men and women to share the love of Christ.

Having faith that I did a decent job, allowed me to release my children to find their own way, make their own decisions, and pass their knowledge to my grandchildren and others along their way.

Dr. Scott Bullard, Judson College in Marion reminded me at a Monthly Minister’s Conference that sometimes we overlook some intriguing moments in the Bible.  One such moment we find in here:  And when he had gone a little further thence, he saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the ship mending their nets.  And straightway he called them: and they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, and went after him (Mark 1:19-20KJV).

 

Scott called our attention to the James and John leaving a very lucrative vocation to follow a little-known carpenter.  Scott called it “Dropping Your Net.”

The sons of Zebedee became the “Sons of Thunder.”  In a few moments in time, James would be killed for following a carpenter and John would spend his last days in exile.  The probing question is, “What did Zebedee feel when his two sons left the family business?”  I think he probably had hurt, a sick feeling, deep in his soul.

Had James and John remained fishermen, their influence would have gone no further than filling some stomachs and some wallets.  But, since they dropped their nets and did as the carpenter instructed, they became part of God’s Word to us.  Because of John’s experience with the family business, he could be in the inner courts during Jesus’ trial and left us the first-hand account of what happened.  His time on the Isle of Patmos gave us the Book of Revelation

For each mom and dad that will face the departure of that son or daughter, you are not alone.  One day that son or daughter will thank you for teaching them how to live.  I know I thanked my mom and dad.

 Happy First Birthday to Jack Barrett Hopper!!!!

Aaron teach him well.  It will be a blink of an eye and Jack Barret will be dropping his net.

Pastor's Appreciation Month

God calls men into the pastorate to build people.  Unfortunately, many pastors are guilty of using people and the platform God gives them for self-promotion and self-ministry.  God divinely assigns people to His pastors to whom the pastors are spiritually responsible before God.  The wise pastor is a good steward edifying believers entrusted to him.  He cares for them as a “shepherd” cares for his sheep.

The same is true for the church.  Churches are sometimes guilty of not caring for God’s man.  The Holy Spirit sends a man into ministry.  The church recognizes this and releases him to do the work God calls him to perform in the framework of the Lord’s local church.  The pastor does more than work a couple of hours a week.  When people ask me how they can get a job where they work only two, maybe three, hours a week, I say, “Get right with God and you can.”

The pastor’s job is not simply to preach, to administer the ordinances, perform funerals and weddings, or simply lead the staff and administer the affairs of the church.  It is the pastor’s solemn and signal duty to care for his people, to “shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.”

Part of Pastor’s Appreciation is furnishing the pastor with generous resources to shepherd.  There are those who have the philosophy, “Lord you keep the preacher humble, and we will keep him poor.”

I had affiliation with a church that was guilty of holding back on a visiting preacher.  The church announced that a pastor would be coming to do a week of revival.  The host church’s pastor and members of budget and finance committee agreed to pay a certain amount for each service and to take a love offering for the visiting pastor.

The revival came.  It was a wonderful revival and the love offering was very generous demonstrating true revival.  The member of the budget and finance who wrote the checks informed the pastor that the visiting pastor did not get the love offering.  When asked why, the member said that budget and finance chairperson told her not to do so.

The host pastor investigated.  The chairperson told the pastor that the love offering was more than the visiting pastor deserved.  The pastor reminded the chairperson that the church voted to designate the love offering to the visiting pastor and that that was where it was going.  The chairperson refused until the pastor explained the legality of the situation.   The pastor said one call to the State Board of Missions, the IRS, or to the legal counsel of Samford law school could make the chairperson rethink the situation.

The chairperson asked if the visiting pastor had a church and if that church paid him while in revival.  The pastor said yes to both questions but reminded the chairperson that was immaterial.  The pastor told the chairperson that the amount of the love offering was irrelevant.  The pastor said that there was a man in the congregation known to place a $1,000 check in the love offering designated to the visiting preacher.  If the love offering was $1.00 or $10,000, it was going to the visiting preacher.

Had the visiting preacher been aware of the conversation of the pastor and the chairperson, he would have refused it.  Knowing the visiting preacher as I do, he would have authorized the check and gave it back to the church.  The visiting preacher would have said, “Here you need it more than I do.”  I know this because the visiting preacher had a pastor friend who did just that.

Most pastors trust that the church will do the “right thing” in the matter of compensation.  Many pastors live frugal lives to afford some of the good things of life.  Some churches act as though the pastor is to be a “hireling” of the church.  A God-called pastor does not work for the church.  He has a higher calling.

But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep.  The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep (John 10:12-13).

Be generous to those called to shepherd you.