Please forgive me if my rantings are offensive. My fed up, sick to the core, discussed heart is broken after the tireless dealings with my ‘so called’ fellow brothers, who are SBC Pastors! Please, by all means……Stop it!!!! Stop giving me numbers to validate your ministry! Stop telling my people that they need to build or remodel to grow! Stop telling me that I need to have some special event to gather visitor so that we can show them that SBC churches are fun! Stop telling me that some churches are doomed, just because they don’t choose to have a dog and pony shows during the services! Stop telling me that I should not worry with my inactive members and just pray for them because I wouldn’t want to cause trouble! Stop telling me to preach shorter sermons! Stop giving me advice that will only kill the ministry God gave me and snuff out the little fire my people have to love and serve the Lord. Stop trying to help with your damming counsel that only kills, steals, and destroys…
…and instead why don’t you take time to get on your knees and pray with me, and challenge me to be faithful to the Word of God! Help me by pointing me to men in the ministry who have gone through rough times in church & life, and yet, who have remained faithful to Christ and His ministry! Show me how I can rightly divide the Word of God from the pulpit. Show me how to usher into heaven, members that are dying with cancer. Model for me a ministry that stands on the Gospel of Christ instead of the backbone of the World. Show me what it is like to be a man of courage when I feel like a total faithless failure.
Please my SBC Brothers, I pled with you… stop finding your answers to ministerial problems by going to the world, and then advising other pastors to do the same! Go to the Bible and see what God says!!!!!!!! It kills me, I mean it absolutely kills me how I am surrounded by older men in the ministry (some who have been in the ministry longer than I have been alive) and yet I am the old fashioned one, who holds that the Bible demands to be preached not just talked about as true! Who longs to see quality in his people above quantity in our buildings. Who believes that ministry ought to be by the Bible not by “that’s the way us Baptist do things.” My people need God, not cokes and jokes! They need to know the character and nature of God, and love Him for who He is, not for who they think He ought to be!
“O God send an awaking to our hearts…I beg you! Please don’t give us what we deserve. Continue to make Yourself known! Help me not to grow impatient with shallow, weak-minded brothers. They are deceived and I am no better. I am just as shallow and weak-minded in my own way… yet my heart breaks as others make Your ministry superficial. We want Your ministry done Your way, for Your Glory… this I pray. Amen!”
May 6, 2008 at 10:35 am
I will pray for you and your ministry. I will pray that your heart will break with desire for the proper preaching and teaching of God’s word. I will pray that the flock you shepherd will continue to grow towards God, exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit. I will pray that your church will be a “creed AND deeds” church – a church consumed with a desire to reach the lost, and to have glorious fellowship with the Father.
May the Lord bless you Yogi.
May 7, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Thank you Rob. It means a lot to me to know that you are laboring in prayer with me. I want our people to love the real substance of God and His glory and not entertaining paraphernalia of Christianity.
In addition, I desire for fellow ministers to take seriously their call to preach the full council of God – from and by God’s Word!
Again thanks,
Yogi
May 10, 2008 at 12:20 am
Wow. Wow. Wow. WOW.
Many amens and many prayers for you, brother!
May 12, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Yogi,
I can only say “Amen” brother! I am surrounded as well by pastors that want to do whatever works, but when we get together, no one seems to be cut to the heart by God’s word.
I find myself weak; weak in faith, weak in confidence in the Lord, weak in preaching, weak in stedfastness. I find myself weeping by myself, asking Christ to fill me with unspeakable joy, despite being pulled at, and tugged at by the world that is tellig me “sit back, eat, drink, and be merry”; I open up my Bible, study, pray, preach, and it seems that the appetite of those in my pew are already satisfied with the world’s junk food.
Right now, I can only say that God has called me to preach Christ, enjoy His amazing grace for a wretch like me, and proclaim the Good News of the King to all that will listen.
Yogi, enjoy your Savior, your salvation, and your calling, no matter what other pastors are doing. Press on my brother. I’ll be praying for you as the Lord brings you to mind.
Blessings from New York(Sodom and Gomorrah)
May 14, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Steven & Tom, thank you for your kind words and prayers. Tom I appreciate the fact that you seem to deal with similar issues. I gather that New York is a very difficult place to minister, but the south is really no easier – just different.
The painful thing is that my church may or may not suffer at their hands, but the convention will! That’s upsetting, for I want to see God use the SBC as a choice tool for His glory! And I think He is and will continue to do so, but I pray that He will continue to raise up pastors/theologians/missionaries who take serious their offices!
Thanks!
Yogi
May 16, 2008 at 9:15 pm
I am in a similar boat of frustration and anger. Today was especially difficult. I have no experience in youth ministry, and here I am as a music and youth minister struggling to get kids to understand and failing miserably.
Following in the footsteps of a youth minister that was a big kid and shallow theologically. I can’t seem to say anything right, build relationships, get the youth to feel comfortable coming to me with issues, plan accordingly or far enough out. There is no desire from the youth to grow spiritually, I feel like I have adults that are looking for ways to tear me down. I try and teach, and when I am over their heads theologically (which is almost all the time) the pastor gets comments from people that they feel I’m talking down to them, but when I dumb it down (as best I can) I feel like I’m talking to my 3 year old daughter.
On top of that, my pastor is concerned that I may have some issues with the SBC that could pose a problem with me staying in this position. I’ll probably have to give a defense of my views this next week, pray for me. I am so tired in every way.