Post scripts …
—Keep in mind that these are notes written the night before the sermon was preached. Jotting these down helped me firm up the thoughts.
—If indeed the sermon was preached this way, I can see numerous omissions and areas that needed work. But, since we’re not in a preaching class here, there is no point in dissecting it. But I merely want to point out to young preachers this is not a perfect sermon in any way.
—Now, my notes for the next day, written Sunday night, include the following:
1. Some visitor was impressed by the way my wife and I taught the Sunday School lesson in the sanctuary to the Auditorium Bible class. (We sat on stools holding two microphones and went back and forth.) The guest said, “Do you rehearse it?” We laughed and said, “No.” We love it.
2. After church, deacon Clyde Ethridge came up and said to Ken (minister of music) and me, “My Sunday School class really got into it this morning.” What was the issue? (Thinking it was a scripture or a doctrine.) He said, “You,” looking at me. I answered, “Thank you for telling me. But I don’t need to know any more.” However, before leaving, he said a little group of men—who are permanently disgruntled, in my estimation—had said all I am interested in is numbers. That is so amazing. I am the least that way of any pastor they’ve had in 30 years Clyde, Ken and I discussed how these men needed the message of today’s sermon—that if you don’t like who you are teamed up with, don’t criticize! Tell it to the Coach. He’s in charge. I feel like announcing, “I’m 55 years old. I have no intentions of leaving until I retire in 10 years. So either get with the program or find yourself another church.” In truth, I thank the Lord—seriously—that this stuff is not bothering me. I feel good knowing that God is up to something here.
That’s it from my journal, January 1996. I suspect this stuff was bothering me more than I let on in those notes. But as any preacher will testify, some days it hurts and sometimes it just stings and you laugh it off. In any case, I remained as pastor there until the Spring of 2004 when the Lord made me Director of Missions for the SBC churches of metro New Orleans. I retired from that in 2009, and still belong to the wonderful First Baptist Church of Kenner (across the street from the New Orleans airport). In my 26th year of membership in this church, I’ve have seen it change enormously over these three decades. I pray for Pastor Mike Miller and take considerable pleasure when he tells me the deacons are his best friends, that he loves this church and hopes the Lord lets him remain here for the duration of his ministry. God bless him, and bless His church. Amen
