For the 2 of you that read this blog, you might be wondering what in the world happened to me.  I have not posted since Carter was President, or since the LAST time the Lakers were getting creamed by the Celtics.  But there are reasons.  Read on, happy camper.   1.  I have a family, and they are firstNo apologies need be extended here, my family is my life and I love them in deed, not just in word.  Since the temperature here in Western NC has been hovering around hell, we have taken advantage of the Broad River, upon whose banks we live, and we are trying to splash all the water out of it, just about every afternoon.  Also, my 5 year old Jacob graduated preschool (with a mohawk) and there was a week of festivities to be had.  All of them involved junk food or kids singing.  If you ever want free laughs, go to a preschool musical, within 4 seconds a kid will be eating a booger, guaranteed.   2.  I am writing a book and that takes timeI have written several books already, but none for a real life publishing company.  The manuscript is due to them soon so I am dedicating lots of time each day to the book.  I pray that you will buy a copy when it comes out, or else my book will end up for sale at Big Lots for $.25 and used as coasters throughout the southeast.   3.  I am a preacher first and a blogger, well, 13th!I love to blog, but unfortunately, preaching the gospel sometimes takes precedent.  I have preached at some FANTASTIC churches over the past few weeks, and will be preaching tonight at a huge youth camp in Toccoa, GA to over 1,000 students.  The camp is called Go Tell and it celebrates its 20th year this summer.  If you want to watch my message from last Sunday, click here.  4.  Crossroads is coming up and thousands of students will be showing up on our doorstep in a few weeks, expecting us to have a camp ready for them.  It takes a wee bit of time to pull it together, and most of the work is done by Jeremy, Matt, The Beckers, Justin, and the CDHers.  I simply supervise (not really, but it sounds official).  5.  I have been running.  Alot.I set a personal goal in May to be running at least 10 miles by the end of the summer.  I had worked my way up to 7 miles, got some new running shoes, and was feeling good.  Then Sunday night, at about mile 5, I felt like I could go all the way.  So for the first time in my life, I ran 10 miles without stopping, resting, or cramping.  I am not big on personal goals, but I feel like this was a big step to me.  Next step?  A half-marathon.  Then?  EVEREST.  So now that I have broken blog silence, expect to hear more out of me, but I keep my promises.  It will be substance.  I will not waste your time.  Or mine.  Because I have learned, I will always be busy.  It is what I choose to busy myself with that matters.   

About 8 years ago, I was speaking at North Greenville University when a skinny kid with a buzz practically attacked me before the message.  I will never forget what he said to me. ”Clayton King, my name is Steven Furtick, and I am going to work for you one day.  What is it gonna take for me to come and meet with you?”  I immediately knew that this guy was dangerous.  He was going to do great damage to the kingdom of darkness, and I wanted to be friends with him.   He graduated and he and his wife Holly moved to Boiling Springs where he traveled as an itinerant speaker for Crossroads for several years.  He also co-hosted my syndicated radio show with me for about 2 years, but his ultimate calling was to pastor a church that would change a city for Christ.  He told me this when was just 19 years old.  When Steven was a senior in college, he called me one day while I was on the road.  The conversation went like this…   “Clayton, a student here at North Greenville said he heard you cuss in a sermon once, and that he loved it!  He said it took alot of guts to say what you said.”   “Steven, I have never cussed in a sermon.  I am certain of that.  He must have me confused with Tony Campolo.  I give you my word, it has never happened.  I have too much respect for the pulpit to do that.”   “Thanks, Clayton, I will take care of it.”   End of  coversation.   Steven personally gathered every guy that lived in the house where this guy lived and asked all the guys who had heard the rumor to get everyone together that may have heard it from them.  Then with several dozen college boys sitting in a big room, Steven told them that he had spoken with me, that I had assured him I had never cursed in a sermon, and that though he had never heard every single sermon I had preached, he trusted my integrity and believed me.  He told every guy in the room to not only stop spreading the rumor, but to go back and find everyone they had told it to and correct themselves to protect my honor among those guys.   You might be thinking, “That is no big deal at all, so what?”  That is my point.  If he had my back for something as small as an untrue rumor about my pulpit language, think of how quickly he would get my back if it were something of greater significance.   I have the honor to preach for Pastor Steven tomorrow at Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC.   They were the fastest growing church in America last year numerically, and in just over 2 years, they have gone from 4 to 4,000 people in attendance.  Thanks Bishop, for believing me and for getting my back.

I can now see why people go to Alaska, and why so many never come back. It is a stark and beautiful place.  No surprise there.  But I believe it is that sheer ruggedness that draws people like the Death Star’s tractor beam into the cold wilderness.  Some people go for a few days, like us.  Some go and stay for ever, and others never come back because that place takes the life.  After reading “Into The Wild” by Jon Krakauer, it is no wonder that Chris McCanless never made it back to him family in Georgia.  Alaska is cold, brutal, unforgiving, and awe inspiring.  Enough about that.  Tomorrow I will begin my new series called GOT YOUR BACK.  I will telling some stories and making some important points on how important it is for brothers (and sisters) to love their friends in deeds and not just words.  Recently, it seems the most popular thing to do in the new church age is to find a preacher you disagree with and start a hate club.  I hope to show that this is counter-productive to the gospel, hurtful to the kingdom, and sinful. I also pray that the entries inspire you to look for ways to “get somebody’s back” when they are attacked, when they are the recipient of gossip, the topic of a hurtful rumor, or the just getting kicked around for no reason. If you have ever had someone get your back when you needed it, you know how great it is.  If you have ever had someone abandon you when you needed them to get your back, and you were all aloe with no ground support, then you know the sick feeling of being exposed and defenseless.  Stay tuned, the first post will be ready on Saturday. 

One great thing about this blog is that I have not made any sort of promise to post a certain number of times a week (my hat is off to my good friends who are more dedicated than me).  I have always believed it is better to focus on quality instead of quantity, and I would rather post twice a week when I have something substantive to say than to post every day and write about my dog, why I hate American Idol, or how often I sneeze.

Therefore, I wanted to let you know that my wife and I leave for Alaska tomorrow morning and I will most likely be practicing “radio silence” on our vacation for the next 10 days.  We intend to sleep alot, eat alot, see alot and be together, enjoying each other’s company and the beautiful world that God made for us.

Pray for us as we celebrate 9 years of marriage in one of the last unspoiled places on earth.  Talk to you soon…

The gospel of Jesus Christ (the story of His life, death and resurrection) is the only hope for the human race. Political leaders cannot save us. Recycling cannot save us. Cutting carbon emissions cannot save us. Even eating healthy and exercising will only prolong the inevitable. One day we will all die, and then the only thing that matters is what we did with the gospel. It is good news. It is the person of Jesus. It is our only hope.

There are lots of reasons why I still preach the gospel. It is true. It works. God called me to do it. I actually believe it. Obedience to Christ. But there is another reason.

I still preach the gospel because I believe in heaven and hell, and I believe that people who willingly reject the gospel spend eternity there, without God, forever. Therefore, I am a slave to the gospel, and by God’s grace I intend to preach it until my dying breath.

But don’t take my word for it. Below is a real life true story emailed to me by a Liberty University student. Not something you just read or hear about. This happened this weekend to a teenager who repented of his sins and trusted Christ this past September while I was preaching at Liberty University. He was tragically killed this weekend, and is now in eternity, forever, with Christ.

“I work with the high school marching band at Liberty Christian Academy. They are a great bunch of kids with an amazing director, Mrs. Deike. A few weeks ago I helped them with auditions for a leadership position in marching band. One of the students who auditioned was named Jamie. Mrs. Deike asked him to share his testimony with us. For a while he discussed how he had doctrine thrown around at him for much of his life, and it really caused him confusion as to what salvation meant. He then went on to tell us that after hearing you speak at LCA last fall, he finally realized what it meant and gave his life to Jesus. That life has been tragically cut short. On Friday night after a dance at the school, he was killed instantly in a car accident. I learned this on Saturday morning when Mrs. Deike called me sobbing. I write this to ask you to pray for us. We are all hurting pretty bad. Jamie was a loved member of the band. But I know after hearing his testimony a few weeks ago that he is now with Jesus. So, I also write to thank you for allowing God to speak through you, so that Jesus could save his soul. That’s the reason Jamie’s in Heaven right now.”

God be praised that this young man proclaimed faith in Christ. This is why I still preach the gospel. May we all be praying for the family that has lost a precious son. And may each of us preach, teach, live, sing, show, and proclaim the gospel daily. I intend to preach it until The Gospel Himself calls me home.

We live in a precarious day. Notwithstanding all the shifts in culture, politics, world events, and technology, things within the church, particularly the evangelical church, are to say the least, moving pretty fast.

Consider that for every young man entering the pastorate today, by some estimates there are 2 older minsters leaving, retiring, or burning out. Consider that the church planting movement is now a multi-million dollar industry with conferences, books, seminars, weekend retreats, and thousands of blogs and pastoral bloggers all involved around starting churches. Consider that a great number of new churches that have started over the past 15 years have loosely modeled themselves after Willow Creek, the trailblazing church that set the pace for the modern church growth movement, (under the genius mind of Bill Hybels, part pastor, part C.E.O., part Billy Graham and part Bill Gates) and that Willow Creek has recently confessed that their original model was flawed. Consider that Christian contemporary music has now passed Jazz and Blues to take a larger market share of the industry than both combined. Consider the emergent, emerging, neo-reformed, house church, and simple church movements. Most can’t even keep up with the names.

We are living in some dangerous, exciting, historical days. And while the church of Jesus Christ expands and His Kingdom advances, there is also a back door through which many millions have chosen to leave through. Speaking of the American evangelical church, everyone from Barna to Dobson has been lamenting the mass exodus of hordes of people from the church for years.

The angry. The misunderstood. The theologically moderate. The wounded and confused. The bored. The busy. The books written about this migration out of the church could sink a battleship, so I feel no compulsion to add to their already significant research.

But in light of all these tectonic shifts, the enormous volume of my generation that leaves the church for the aforementioned reasons, and knowing what I know (and having seen the ugly side of Christians and church life), there is really one question that I keep asking myself, and I think you need to ask yourself as well.

WHY AM I STILL IN THE CHURCH?

What keeps me coming back over and over again? And for many, this is just a Sunday question because Sunday is about it, as far as attendance and involvement goes. But for me, church(es) are my life and my livelihood. At least 4 days a week most weeks, I am at a church, with a church, in a church, with church people. After 21 years and with so much angst from my generation toward a church that they think cares little for them, their needs, the enviroment, the poor, or even the gospel, why do I stick around?

There are many answers, but I only want to mention one today. Take it or leave it, argue with it, do what you will with this, but this is the over-arching , all-encompassing reason I still love the the church, and all the other reasons must be secondary to this one.

I STILL LOVE THE CHURCH BECAUSE IT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO. IT IS RIGHT BECAUSE THE CHURCH IS GOD’S IDEA, I BELONG TO GOD, AND I OBEY HIM.

I can (and probably will) give many more reasons, but they all flow from this reality. I did not invent the church, nor did you (nor did powerful rich white men, the Illuminati, or anyone from the DaVinci Code, despite what some books would have you believe). The church was God’s idea, His way of continuing His work in the world that He began with Abraham, through Israel, through Jesus Christ, and now through His Body, the community of faith. The church IS NOT AN OPTION. It is a necessity, the vehicle through which the sacrament of salvation is served to the cosmos, a family with wierd cousins and creepy uncles and fights and splits and arguments. BUT IT IS STILL THE CHURCH and I still love it.

The bottom line for me is that I belong to God. I was purchased by the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. From that moment, I ceased to be my own anymore, meaning that when He became my Lord, I began doing what He wanted me to do, not what I wanted to do anymore. So for me to deny His family, to remove myself from His body, and say that I don’t need it, is akin to taking back Lordship from Him and saying, “No thanks, God. I tried you out as Lord, and did not like your leadership or your church. I will now take back control of my own life, thank you very much.”

I can hear the bloggers in cyberspace reading this and saying, “But you don’t understand. It’s not that easy. I have been hurt, the church is corrupt, my pastor had an affair, we had to wear DRESSES AND LONG PANTS!”

I would never minimize the hurt and pain that church issues cause people. But I will also not minimize the Church of the Living God, His very body, because some of His children can’t quite get it right and fight over how to make it work, either.

So I still love the church because, simply put, it is right to love the church. Even with all it’s trouble and splits and plagues, power struggles, ego-maniacs, and denominations, the church will always be God’s idea, God’s people, and ultimately, God’s business. Since I am also His, I choose to continue loving, and living in, His church. And in my opinion, so should you.

If you have never witnessed a church split, then part of me hopes you never do but another part of me honestly thinks it is good to see one, just so that you will never be surprised at the depth of sin and ugliness that Christians are capable of.

When a church splits, it is always ugly and painful. Some people eventually bounce back from it and move on in their walk with Christ. Others never quite recover, and the split becomes the defining moment in not only their Christian journey, but their entire life. The hurt and frustration, and the unspeakable disappointment, fester into resentment and bitterness.

There are some good reasons for a church to split, and I will mention them in a later post. But for today’s purpose, I want to talk about the most common reason churches fall apart. It usually revolves around two words that are kissing cousins…POWER AND CONTROL.

It seems that my post on Restoring Honor touched a nerve. I have moderated more comments on that one than any other I have ever written, and I only posted a fraction because some of them were just to raw. Others decided to email me for privacy. But what blew me away was how many pastors and their wives, and get this…their kids, were emailing me about being hurt and wounded in a church split.

This is a plague that is killing the church, and it is destroying lives by the thousands. I have a theory on why most (not all) church splits occur and it goes like this…

After WW2, the American evangelical movement hit full swing. Churches popped up all over the place, people were going back to church, Patriotism was at an all time high, largely in part to the threat of Communism in the U.S.S.R. as it crept as close to us as Cuba. Billy Graham (my personal hero) became the most recognized face on earth, and several professing born again Christians and a few Southern Baptists even became President (Carter, Reagan, Clinton). And what the evangelical church did was give people, mostly, what they wanted in a church experience. Lots of programs, short and sweet worship services, tons of weekly events to choose from, and musical styles that suited their preferences.

And so now what we have in the evangelical church (I speak generically, not specifically) is a generation of baby boomers, and even some Gen Xers, who are used to getting what they want, how they want it, when they want it. And when we don’t get what we want, we pitch a fit. But not like a little kid, because children don’t have much weight to throw around when they are told “NO, WE ARE NOT DOING IT YOUR WAY.”

Adults, on the other hand, have expendable income, a weekly tithe check, relationships with other influential people, or a vote on the deacon board to throw around. So when a new pastor takes the pulpit and realizes the church is getting older, new people are not coming, nobody is being saved, the old Sunday School system is doing nothing but fostering cliques, the community around the church is growing by leaps and bounds but the church is actually dwindling in attendance, and he wants to do things differently to reach the lost, you can pretty much set your clock. A power struggle is coming, and a split is likely.

I have seen this happen 3 times in my life, once when I was only 14, once in my 20’s and once in my 30’s. And the destruction that was left in the wake of a few arrogant baby boomers who did not like the new pastor messing with “their church” or “their music” was akin to nuclear holocaust. One gentleman actually went as far as to say “we have a graveyard outside this church full of our ancestors, and we have a legacy to protect.” This kind of statement needs no comment from me. If you cannot see what is wrong in this kind of thinking, then I would be wasting my time and yours trying to explain it to you.

The church belongs to Jesus Christ. The real question is, “Will I set aside my personal preferences in order to see the body of Christ grow and mature, reaching the lost in our community and building the kingdom worldwide?” If I am unwilling to set aside my personal preferences, that attitude will transform into an ugly, evil sense of entitlement, which will lead me to get rid of anyone I disagree with.

Welcome to the world of church splits, friends. Let us pray fervently for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, that our generation will be known more for love than power struggles, more for serving the world than for killing each other. And let’s pray, honor,and support those we know who have lost a job, a family, or their soul in a church split. And, if you have never been through one, consider yourself lucky. I pray that you never have to.

I am lit up like a school bus right now, because in just a few short weeks, the 4th installment of the Indiana Jones movie adventurefest will be seen by millions.  And rightly so.  It should be seen, by the entire planet.  What excites me the most is that an entire generation of rookies not raised on the original trilogy, innaugurated by “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” will have their chance to be introduced to the greatest action hero in history.  That’s right, I said it.  GREATEST ACTION HERO IN HISTORY.  Then, if they have not seen the original 3 movies, they will be compelled to.  Then, as a result, their lives will be changed, like mine was as a little boy watching this semi-awkward, every-man-turns-into-a-death-defying-damsel-rescuing-hero.

And this is something that plagues the church today.  We need some heroes.  NOT CELEBRITIES.  Got enough of those.  NOT SUCCESSFUL AUTHORS OR STARS.  Plenty of those to go around.  We need some honest to goodness women and men that are not flashy, funny, or fantastic to look up to, to model, and to admire.  And the Christian merchandise machine cannot give us these heroes.  The local church is the only supply chain where we can find these much needed examples of faith, simplicity, and character.

Our culture manufactures heroes because they want to sell us stuff.  In order to sell us stuff, huge companies create stars out of athletes, movies stars, or ordinary people.  Consider the phenomenon of American Idol.  Carrie Underwood was just a plain farm girl from Oklahoma who could sing until she “made it to Hollywood!”  Now, everytime I am in a tight spot or my kids are driving me nuts, I just whisper “Jesus, take the wheel” and I feel better.  Hollywood created that “hero” for us.  And I like Carrie.  But if there was no money to be made, none of us would have ever heard of her.  (But man, can she sing!)

The family of God right now in the 50 states we call America really could use some local, low key role models.  Heroes we can look up to.  Like Randy Satterfield.  He was a volunteer at my church growing up who took all the boys camping and fishing.  He was a man’s man who knew the outdoors, how to start a fire, and how to catch bass on a Carolina rig.  All the boys idolized Randy.  He died of cancer a few years ago, but he left such an impression on me that I named my black lab after him, and I still remember things he said and things he taught me.

I wonder if the church is still creating heroes for a younger generation?  Do we even have time to get to know people from a different generation?  One of my favorite and most life-shaping memories as a child was hearing the older men at my church tell stories about World War 2.  Most of those men are dead now, but I worshipped the ground they walked on.

Maybe it’s not so much that we don’t have as many heroes as we need, maybe it’s more about being too busy or pre-occupied with other things to get to know each other.  Our schedules are full, ball practice and papers and sermons to prepare, grass to cut and clothes to wash, you know the drill.  But if everything I am reading about the generation that has abandoned the church is true, they are all saying the same thing.  They want meaningful relationships with real people.  They want older women and men to care about them, invest time in their lives, teach them how to be married and how to raise kids. 

But I have learned this.  It takes 2 people to have a relationship.  So if my generation is going to whine about not having mentors and heroes and complain about how the older generation never invested in them or does not care about them, then just remember this.  Older people have more time on their hands, work less, sit around more, and struggle with loneliness and isolation more than any other age group.  So if you, like me, are young and busy, and need a hero, then look no further than the senior citizens in your church.  Ask them to lunch.  Go pick them up and take a walk in the park with them.  Take your kids to their house and watch their face light up in the presence of children.  And ASK QUESTIONS.  Let them talk to you, and write down what they say, record it, lean over in your seat and notice the emotion on their face when they talk about using an outhouse, bringing water from a spring in a bucket, or taking a bath on Saturday  nights in tin tub.

Why would we not want advice and life experience from those who already have it because they have already lived it?  So to my generation I say, there is no real hero shortage.  There is a time shortage and a will shortage.  If we have the will to say no to unnecessary things that clutter up our lives, then we can make the time to get close to some of these unknown heroes on our communities.  I would give a year off my life to have another day with my grandfather and hear him tell about the day they found out Hitler had committed suicide and the Germans had surrendered.  He was on a ship in the South Pacific, and he said that grown men fell on their faces and cried like babies because they knew they would be going home soon. 

And who knows?  They may have some stories that would make Indiana Jones look like Big Bird.

I am sure that a post of this sort offers itself to misunderstanding.  I write it nonetheless, in hopes that you will hear my heart and glean the good from it.

The church in America seems to have lost the ancient, and dare I even say Biblical understanding of correctly honoring the man of God; one who dedicates his life to service to God and God’s people (this could be the worship leader, youth minister, or most often the pastor).  We have confused honor with obsession, treat our ministers like hired hands, and become addicted to personalities on TV or the internet and swallow anything they try to sell us while starving our local pastor on a salary that allows him to qualify for food stamps.

There is a distrust and skepticism afoot that is a result of the hideous scandals of the 1980’s.  And I do believe that the Swaggart and Baker scandals were, in the long run, good for the family of God.  That bubble had to burst, and the scripture had to come true that judgement must first begin in the house of God.  There have been plenty more, even the Ted Haggard scandal of recent days, that have caused the world to view us with a cynical eye.  We should expect this and live our lives accordingly so that the world can see a true Christian witness.  But in the wake of these scandals, not to mention Enron and WorldCom, there is a “mood” where it seems that churches treat pastors as expendable, replaceable, for hire and for fire.  We almost automatically distrust anyone in leadership now.

I am not advocating that the church makes the pastor a little king of a little kingdom with freedom to do or say whatever he wants.  That is insanity.  I am advocating for a return to honoring the man of God, not worshipping him, but understanding the heavy burden laid upon him, the struggles and pressures he faces on a daily basis that NOBODY else experiences, and the specific needs the pastor faces that are uncommon to all other people in the church.

Perhaps this is the reason so many pastors burn out and quit ministry.  The statistics are staggering, so much so that the Eli Lilly Foundation is pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into churches, seminaries, and other non-profits to try and figure out why pastors walk away and how they can help stop the mass exit.  When questioned as to this reality, pastors who quit most often say that a lack of support from the church and lack of understanding from the members as to the stresses and pressures of the job is the largest contributing factor to pastoral burnout.

Can we regain a sense of honoring the man of God without becoming obsessed with personalities or worshipping personas?  Of course we can.  Pray for your pastor.  Slip a $100 bill in his hand after church.  Send him and his wife on a cruise.  Give them gift certificates to their favorite restaurants.  Babysit their kids so they can have a night out to watch a movie and eat a good meal.  Stand up for them when you hear gossip.  Get their back when they cannot defend themselves against the untrue accusations of others.  Encourage the deacons or the elders to take up a special love offering for your pastors family once a year, honoring them with respect and generosity.

When I was a young boy, my daddy and I got our hair cut  every other Saturday morning at Garrett’s barbershop in Fountain Inn.  And everytime that a local pastor would come in the barbershop to get a haircut, all the men waiting would stand up, take off their hats, shake hands with the pastor, and it made a heavy impression on me as a little boy.  Since then, I have made it a personal goal to always honor the pastor when I go somewhere to preach, to always honor him from the stage, to tell him publicly how much I appreciate him and his family and their sacrifice for the church, and then to tell him personally and privately how much I look up to him.  This simple practice has opened up friendships between me and hundreds of pastors over the years.  Sometimes, they just need to know that we believe in them and that we’ve got their back when they need us.  Let’s restore honor, correctly, to the man of God in the church.

A 16 year old waitress spoke volumes to me and and some friends last night at Sonny’s BBQ in Powdersville, SC, and I want to share her wisdom with you today.

Among the many things that plague the church in America is a mass confusion concerning what it really means to be in ministry; i.e. to be a pastor, a minister, a vocational servant of Christ. This is a very personal and passionate pursuit of mine, considering that my life, for the past 21 years, has been guided by a fierce and unrelenting sense that God has placed some sort of yoke, or harness, as it were, around my soul, and though at times I am unwilling or obstinate, I just can’t seem to escape this Ghost that follows me daily. I have been CALLED BY GOD to ministry, to preach the gospel to the ends of the earth.

Sadly, this traditional sense of being called by God into service to the church and the world has been replaced by a more cancerous idea that “going into ministry” is a good “career choice.” May I not be misunderstood here…ministry is a great career, I would not be happy in any other line of work, and ministers must choose to obey the calling into ministry (not to mention that having an enjoyable and stable career should be a major life goal of every able-bodied person in this country.) But somehow, this dangerous concept has crept into the church that preaching the gospel, shepherding the flock, and pastoring the parishioners is nothing more than a career choice, that if for some reason does not work out, can be abandonded for a better career choice.

Why do I consider this a plague upon the church? Good question, glad you asked. Here is the answer, or actually, several answers.

1. A minister who feels called by God will ride out storms that career ministers would avoid. If ministry is nothing but a career, then I can bail out when the bullets start flying and take another job with less stress and more money.
2. A minister driven by a calling from God is more likely to say, teach and preach what God has told him to than one who is in it to advance his own career. Preaching hard against sin, selfishness, excess and waste will not endear you to the affluent in a congregation who need to hear such a message, and could endanger your “career.” The temptation is to preach for your career advancement instead of Kingdom advancement.
3. A man or woman obedient to a calling is less likely to appeal to other career options. A pastor once told me that if preaching did not work out, he could always use his engineering degree to get a better job. While this is technically true, it is also frightening. What if I went into my marriage with the idea that if things went poorly, I could trade in my wife for a new one? I would be reluctant to invest my life in a community of faith where I knew the pastor was eyeballing other career opprtunities and could leave at any moment to pursue them.

The young lady that inspired this little reflection was an intelligent and compelling teenager who brought us our food last night at Sonny’s. Some of the workers recognized me as the Teaching Pastor at Newspring in Anderson, SC and our conversation turned toward spiritual matters. When our waitress, Shelby Dakota, asked me about my job, I told her that I felt compelled by God at age 14 to preach the gospel for the rest of my life. She asked me if I liked my job and I told her that I LOVED IT! And what she said next was so ripe with wisdom that I promised her she would read her words here, since they begged to be repeated.

“I understand what you mean because we have been talking about that in my psychology class. If you just have a JOB, then you usually hate it. If you have a CAREER, you probably like it. But if you have a CALLING, then you LOVE IT.”

And to that I say AMEN!