What are you going to do now?

February 14, 2008. That was the day I began my life at Petro Express (which became Kangaroo Express, and will soon become Circle K). I remember that day well. There was a man who had robbed several convenience stores and shot the clerks despite their cooperation, he robbed the store down the road that day, and shot the clerk. There were deputies everywhere looking for him. I recall one deputy walking in the store, talking on the phone and saying, “And we don’t think he’s done.” What a beginning!

They caught him by the way. After another robbery. And although I was robbed once, it wasn’t by him. And I wasn’t shot!

July 1, 2015. My last day at Kangaroo Express. That’s right, my last day. After 7 ½ years I am quitting.

I have told a few people and they always ask the same two questions:

Why?
What are you going to do now?


Why?
The answer is complex and has many layers. I can summarize it this way: it was time, and certain things happened which gave me the freedom to take this step.


What are you going to do now?
I confess, I have nothing lined up yet. As I told a friend, my plan is (1) escape Circle K, (2) go to Ohio for a week (3) look for something else. I told Mary I could go on EBT, but she didn’t like that!


I have met some neat people and made a few friends. I will miss the interaction with some of the people but I am glad to be getting out. No idea what I will be doing, but did I mention I am glad to be getting out?

My journey as pastor – Beginnings

I became a Christian in 1973 while living in Nashville. I was Catholic in my youth but in my teens I had become an atheist/agnostic seeker for spiritual reality. I began my spiritual life in a Baptist church and was an active “Christian worker” in all the churches we attended. When I went off to college (1974) I was introduced to the charismatic renewal. Well, before that, my pastor in Nashville had challenged us one night to read a book by R.A. Torrey, The Holy Spirit: Who He Is And What He Does. I read it and thus began my drift away from the Baptist Church.

When Mary graduated from Nursing School we moved to Memphis so she could work and I could attend Mid-South Bible College. Mid-South was dispensational, baptistic, and moderately Calvinistic. That’s a mouthful! I don’t even want to attempt to define all the terms but perhaps this will help: it was like an independent Bible church.

I received a good theological foundation. I never bought into the dispensationalism, which made it fun navigating the waters. And I was never comfortable with the Calvinsim vs Arminianism they proposed - in their minds these were the only two possibilities, and Arminianism wasn’t an acceptable alternative.

We were taught about the Reformers, but never read them. Of course, the Reformers wrote a lot of stuff… I really learned a lot once I began reading Calvin and Luther and Zwingli. The Fathers? They were mentioned and dismissed in almost the same breath – ‘they had a merely childlike understanding of the faith’. Oh what I learned by reading them! My Bible college was also very anti-pentecostal. More fun!

Then came the break with the Baptist church – over the Spirit, gifts, healing, and worship. That was when I found the Christian & Missionary Alliance (with their distinctives of sanctication/deeper life, healing, and missions).

Every group I was affiliated with was basically baptistic in their view of church and the sacraments, excuse me, ordinances. That is, no liturgy ever. Never. That would be Catholic at worst or simply un-spiritual at best. We never even prayed the Lord’s Prayer. And the ordinances are memorial acts and nothing more.

So that was me when I began pastoring: theologically trained and equipped, baptistic background, charismatic leanings, and very little practical experience. Well, I had a lot of personal work experience (teaching in Sunday School and Training Union, children, young people, VBS, backyard Bible schools, and a lot of evangelism) but very little experience as pastor. Very little? I had none!

So, when I got to my first pastorate in Pensacola (Brent Alliance Church), I could preach and teach but didn’t really know how to pastor a church. It was a small church and I did everything but play the piano. I knew nothing about administration, so I was merely going from Sunday to Sunday. After a while, the Lord began to convict me about administration. My response? “Lord, I don’t know anything about that. I don’t know how to do that.” His response? “Just do it.” Ha! He doesn’t coddle you. Thanks be to God, I learned. And by the time I got to my last pastorate I had quite an excellent team assembled.

That was how I began. So green but God was so good. And I threw myself into what I knew: preach and teach the Word; love and visit the saints; door-to-door evangelism. They took us in and loved on us and we learned and grew a lot in Pensacola.

The marks of a Christian

1 Thessalonnians 1: 9 . . . how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; 10 And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.

What is different about Christians? What is it that marks them?
When I became a Christian, back in 1973, I was in church circles where the emphasis was: a Christian is somebody who believes in Jesus, goes to church faithfully, and doesn't smoke or drink or play cards or dance or play the pinball machine. The humorous summary was,
Christians don't smoke or drink or chew 
and don't hang out with those who do. 
When I moved into different circles the emphasis was: believing in Jesus, faithfully assembling, and a devotional life. I don’t really hear any of these emphases any longer; now the marks of the true Christian are faithful attendance at church, and of course giving.
I admit that when I was pastoring, or pastoring in one particular church, the Holy Spirit stressed to me that he was serious when he said, forsake not the assembling of ourselves together. So I kept a chart tracking the attendance of the brethren, not as a standard but as something that as the pastor I needed to be on top of. So, if I noticed that people were not assembling I would go visit them, just to check up on my flock. Then in another church I placed a great emphasis on the devotional life. I stressed it, I wrote a devotional guide and passed it out, when I encouraged accountability that was the main emphasis, and I encouraged testimonies from their devotions.
When I left the pastorate I re-read the Gospels and discovered that Jesus did not emphasize any of these things. And I've been thinking about, contemplating and pondering the question, What is the distinguishing mark of the Christian? What separates us from non-Christians or what is it that characterizes us as Christians?

I came to a five-fold conclusion. One day I would like to be able to teach this, but for now I present a summary. As we meditate on this we will easily see how radical these points really are.

• they embrace the faith of Christ, that is, they believe that Jesus is the promised Messiah who came, died, rose again, and is returning, and of course have been baptized into this faith

• they are waiting for his Son from heaven; their hope is the kingdom to come
They are waiting for, looking for, anticipating, living for the coming of Christ. Not politics, or power, or possessions, or vacations etc.

• they serve God; they seek to do those things that please Him
Before we became Christians we lived for different things. some to get drunk, some to party, some for fun, or excitement, or sex, or money or possessions - a lot of different things. In essence we were serving those things we were living for, doing what it took to achieve them, obtain them, have them.
I serve the people I work for, that is, they tell me how to dress, how to conduct myself, and they have a list of duties they expect me to do. Failure to abide by these things earns a warning and can get me fired. In a way this is how it is when I serve God: I want to know how he wants me to live and act and conduct myself, what pleases him and what doesn't. I serve Him.

• they do unto others as they want them to do unto them
Or as Jesus actually said it, Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. We have watered this down to mean, Be as nice to people as you wish they would be to you. But this is so much bigger. For example, consider all the people we encounter who ask for some kind of help or assistance. If that was me, what would I want? Wow!

• they love one another as Christ loved them
We have pretty much made Christianity a me thing. as if the whole purpose of the coming of Christ, his death and resurrection, was about me and all that matters is whether I have my salvation or not. No, biblical Christianity is a "we" thing. As soon as I believe in Jesus I become part of we. The non-Christian doesn't like Christians, and doesn't like the church. The mark of the Christian is His love for other believers. That's why Jesus said, by this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another. And this is so much more than greeting each other at church. I have really become impressed with this passage:

Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. Acts 4:34-35

That is loving one another!

• love your neighbor as yourself
This is very practical. Quoting John Wyclif:
“Christ tells in order six works of mercy — I hungered, and you fed me; I thirsted, and you gave me drink; you harbored me in your house; I was naked and you clothed me; sick and you visited me; I was in prison and then you came and visited me.

Then there are the seven works of mercy that we call spiritual — Teach, Counsel, Chastise, Comfort, Forgive, Suffer (longsuffering), and Pray (for our enemies).”


Now the tough part. Is this what people see when they look at me?

Oh, I could never do that

A man came in last night who I hadn’t seen in a while. I asked him what he was doing these days and he said he was roofing. As we talked he explained that he didn’t get paid by the hour but by the square. "By the square? Do you use a nail gun." “Oh yeah.”

I told him I used to roof and that we just used a regular hammer. “Oh, I could never do that” he said. I laughed and told him how I hit my finger so often that it ached for a year after I quit and that I was pretty sure I probably broke it.

I went on and told him that I helped this man frame his house and how we put the roof trusses up by hand – one man on each end; one would climb the ladder and place his end on the frame, and the other would do the same; then we would tie a rope to the peak and pull it up straight. “Oh, I could never do that” he said.

I said, “You probably have the bundles (of shingles) brought up to the roof by a lift, don’t you?” He said, “Yes.” I laughed and said, “Man, we had to carry the bundles up the ladder ourselves.” He shook his head, “Oh, I could never do that. That’s too physical.” I replied, “Ha, yeah it was physical!”

A little later on I recalled something I wished I had told him, how Willie Metzger, who at the time was older than I am now, would carry two bundles at a time up the ladder! After that I spent some time remembering Willie Metzger (and his wife Jean, and their son Carl). I liked that brother.

Sometimes, something pleasant happens in the middle of the night.