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I heard all of these (and many more!) when I was growing up. I had (OK, have) a very short attention span. Focusing on anything for any length of time has always been a challenge to me. If I’m going to study for a sermon, I’ve got several tricks I use to make sure my attention stays where it needs to. Some days, I’m more successful than I am on other days.

Not paying attention is a growing and dangerous problem in our culture. People drive and text. Others try to carry on conversations while they check social media. Meeting attendees check email and work on other projects while they’re supposed to be paying attention to the meeting they’re in.

One of the places this lack of attention is so destructive is our marriages. Trying to listen to your wife and watch TV doesn’t work. Listening to your husband while you scroll through Instagram actually shuts down communication. It doesn’t enhance it.

We have enough studies to know one thing for sure: we don’t multi-task well. In fact, most of us can only do one thing at a time.

And that is especially true in our marriages. We can only do one thing at a time. We can only focus on one thing at a time.

So, when it’s time to focus on your marriage, put down everything else and focus on your marriage. Turn off the TV, unplug your gadgets, and focus on each other. Look into her eyes and turn your body to squarely face each other. Listen—with your whole self—listen! Listen not only to the words, but to how the words are said. Listen not only to what words are used, but how their use changes or shapes their meanings.

You notice things when you pay attention. You pick up on small details you had overlooked before. You learn things and discover things that have been there all of the time.

Focus will do the same thing to your marriage. So, pay attention. Focus. Who knows? You may find another reason you fell in love in the first place.

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Figuring out how a church works usually takes about a year. The pastor has to go through everything once. Then, the pastor will work with the church’s leadership team to tweak the processes of their new church over the next year. For a lot of pastors, this will be considered a successful ministry.

Did you notice anything missing? The new pastor will never engage the local neighborhood. The pastor never walks around the streets in the community around the church to identify the people who actually live around the church. They never meet the business owners, the local political leaders, or visit local schools. They never identify “persons of peace” in their communities.

Most importantly, they never identify the “people group” their church is called to reach. Think about it. No missionary goes to reach an entire nation. They’re always assigned a people group within that nation. For some reason, most churches and pastors never identify their people group. If you ask them, they’ll say they want to “reach the city” or “reach the nation.” This, of course, never happens. In this overreach, the local church never reaches the family down the street.

In post-Christian America, local churches and pastors are going to have to start thinking like missionaries.

That means we’re going to have to understand the people groups our church can reach. We may not be sent to save the whole city, but the families who live between Main Street and the interstate. We may be called to serve those who are just starting their families or careers or those who have recently retired. These are two very different groups.

Yet, because most churches never identify their designated people group, they end up throwing ministry ideas up against the wall trying to find something that works. The pastor goes to conference after conference, bringing home new books and videos with ideas that have worked everywhere else. As a result of this scattergun approach, a lot of money is wasted and the church members are worn out.

Who is your church’s mission field?

What “language” do they speak?

Where are the points of service in the community where the church could begin conversations with their neighbors?

How is the local church uniquely gifted to reach their community?

Local pastors are no longer chaplains of the Christian status quo. We are missionaries in our post Christian neighborhoods. That’s a different calling. That’s a different way to think and nothing is going to change until we start thinking as missionaries instead of chaplains.

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I’m pretty self aware, so chances are I would notice it before they did. While we don’t have many examples of this kind of leadership transition, it does happen. In the secular world, CEO’s step down and remain on the board. College presidents retire and stay on campus in some kind of advisory role. Like I said, it may not happen much, but it does happen.

So, let’s begin with the obvious: I have to go to church somewhere.

I want to go to Brentwood Baptist Church. I have family here, both natural and spiritual. I get to see my grandkids when I go to church here. I love the music and the ministries of our church. With all that, we’re still dealing with a new, but undeniable truth. I’m not in charge anymore. We can have the “was I ever in charge debate” on another day, but right now, everybody knows I’m no longer the senior pastor of Brentwood Baptist Church. That changes things.

For one thing, I’m having to learn to be a good church member. I need to find my place in the body life of the church. I need to be connected to a life group. I need to tithe. I need to participate in worship services. And I need to stay on my side of the lines.

What do I mean by that?

I mean there are rules about how to be a good church member when you were the pastor. What are some of those rules? Here are a couple that quickly come to mind.

1. I won’t entertain gossip. If someone begins to tell me things about current leadership or another church member, I will reply, “What did they say when you talked to them as we’re commanded to do in the Scriptures?” Nothing tears a church up faster than gossip. I won’t be part of it.

2. I won’t criticize the pastor or leadership of the church. Period. If I have something to say, I’ll say it directly to them. I still have their phone numbers.

3. I won’t criticize decisions. For one reason, I no longer have the inside information that guided that decision. So, while everyone assumes I have the scoop. I don’t. Not only that, I don’t want to know anymore.

4. I need to find my place, get there and get to work just like every other member of Brentwood Baptist Church. After all, it’s not about me or the new pastor. It’s about the mission. If I can be helpful in accomplishing that mission, I want to be involved. If the time comes when I’m no longer helpful to the mission of the church, it’ll be time for me to move on. I want to find the place where I can be of the best service to Christ — wherever that is. I want to be a good member of Brentwood Baptist Church. I want to encourage and strengthen the people around me. There’s enough negativity in the world and I don’t need to add to it. I don’t want to be on the “inside” anymore. I don’t want to know the scoop. I want to be left alone to live my life.

For all the books we have on leadership, we need to have more books on being good followers. I’m learning to be a good follower. I still have my place in the church, but it’s further back in the line. I’m not in front of it anymore. And that’s OK. Not only is it OK, it’s good. In fact, it’s very good for our church and for me. I’ll visit friends in the hospital and go to the funeral home when my friends lose someone they love., but I will only go as friend. I won’t go as their pastor. They have a pastor and it’s not me. I won’t do any counseling. I don’t do that anymore. Besides our church has trained and gifted counselors to point people to. I would be wrong to hinder someone who needs help if I put my ego in between them and the help they need.

If I’m involved in a funeral service, it will be at the invitation of the pastor. That goes for everything else in the church as well. If I’m there, it will be because the pastor asked me to be there. Otherwise, I’ll be doing other things. Yes, I’ll be at church. I’ll come with my wife and we’ll find our seats. I’ll join the worship and listen to the sermon. I’ll get up and leave when service is over. I’ll shake some hands and talk to some friends. Then, I’ll go home.

I’m learning to be a good church member, but I won’t be the pastor. The church doesn’t need me up front anymore. The church needs me in my pew. At my age, I’m grateful to be needed anywhere…

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They used to demand we treat them the same. If one got a cookie, the other demanded a cookie. They reasoned, that since they looked the same, they should be treated the same. I would tell them, “I can’t do that. You’re not the same people. You’re very different and unique. What works for one won’t always work for the other. You’re asking me to be a lazy father and I won’t do that.”

One of them was born old. Have you ever known a child like this? From the beginning, he seemed to know who he was and what he was going to be doing. He always had a plan. We didn’t so much raise him as much as we checked in with him and his plan.

The other was happy-go-lucky. His theory was “it’ll come back around and when it does, I’ll be sitting right here.” He loves people and has all kinds of friends. He can walk into a room full of strangers and walk out with a room full of life long friends. It’s the most uncanny thing I’ve ever seen.

One, when punished, suffered like a political prisoner. The other, punishment crushed him. You had to be very careful when you punished them. With one you had to sit down and explain exactly what behavior brought the punishment and how the misbehavior and punishment were aligned. If not, he’d argue the punishment was unjust and he’d been wronged and thus, he was the victim. I can’t tell you how many times he turned the tables on me.

The other you had to sit down and explain that yes, he was being punished, but we still loved him very much. The after care of the punishment sometimes took longer than the punishment. For him, punishment meant he wasn’t loved. Like I said, they were two very different people.

One size doesn’t fit all. Never has.

One of the things you discover as you grow up is there are no two things that are just alike. There are no two snowflakes that are just alike. There are no two people – even twins – that are just alike. If you do find something that is an exact copy, it’s usually fake. Our God seems to take creation very seriously and He never repeats the same expression of His creativity twice in the same way.

It’s the same with churches. There are no two churches that are exactly alike. You can’t use a box formula to lead a church to its kingdom destiny. Most church leaders find a successful model and think they can reproduce that model anywhere else. They can’t. What we usually find out is there is a particular quality to that congregational context that made that unique model work. Try that same model anywhere else and it fails. Nashville seems to have a new church of the month club. They’ll announce their start up with an explosive flair and for a few months, they are all the buzz and then, nothing.

Why? Because they didn’t take into account the unique nature of the greater Nashville area. How’s it different? For one thing, the church better have excellent music. Everybody in Nashville (except me) plays, writes, or sings. When someone leads worship, they have to be very talented and deeply faithful. Pretenders are soon spotted and dismissed. Have you ever had someone leave your worship service because they didn’t like the way the music was being mixed? I have. Welcome to Nashville.

Each church, like each child, will have its own dreams and gifts, struggles and joys. There will be a collective memory in the church from the moments God showed up in the congregation. A wise pastor will hear the testimonies of those moments, the long sighs of their griefs and from their stories, the pastor will give word to the unifying themes of these moments. When this happens, the people will recognize themselves in vision that has been called out from them.

There is no shortcut. There’s no formula to this. The pastor listens until they recognize the Spirit’s current and can give word to what the Lord is doing in and through His people. Pastors don’t bring vision. They call it out.

One of the interesting things about Jesus and His followers is He never tells them what they can be. He never says, “One day you will be…” He says, “You are.” To Simon, He says, “You are the rock.” In the sermon on the mount, He says, “You are salt and light.” In the same way, the faithful pastor tells the congregation, “You are.”

And with every church, as with every child, that moment is always different. Always has been. Always will be. John isn’t Peter. Peter isn’t John. Ephesus isn’t Corinth. Corinth isn’t Ephesus. Your church isn’t any other church and any other church wouldn’t work where you are.

One size doesn’t fit all. Never has. Our God never tires of bringing new life to new things.

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And it’s time for me to get busy doing what God has called me to do now. Nothing lasts forever. Not churches. Not pastors. Only Christ and His kingdom survive and I’m grateful for my little part of it.

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“Sure,” I answered.

“I have a friend who loves Jesus. She really does, but she’s never going back to church. There has been too much water under the bridge and she’s too disillusioned to ever trust organized religion, but she told me the other day how much she missed going to church. She missed seeing the people and having a place to belong.”

I asked where she lived and we talked about churches I knew in the area. I offered a few churches and pastors that were in that area. Each time I mentioned a name, he shook his head and said, “No.”

“I’m telling you,” he said, “She’s not going back to church.”

I looked up from my plate and asked, “Has she got a Bible?”

“I would think so.”

“Does she have a coffee pot?”

“Yes.”

“Then, I’m guessing she has 10 friends who, for whatever reason, aren’t going back to church. Tell her to call her friends, get together, study the Bible, take care of each other, find a way to do good in the community, and they’ll be fine.”

“That’s it?” he asked.

“Yes, that’s it. We’ve been doing this on the mission field for years and guess what? America is now a mission field. We’re going to have to get used to doing things the way we’ve been doing them all over the world.”

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a big fan of organized religion. I’ve spent my life working in local congregations and with national and international organizations. I’ve had the privilege of being part of disaster relief efforts, feeding the hungry, rebuilding substandard housing, and supporting medical teams working with AIDS patients. In my experience, I’ve seen a lot of people do a lot of good. They’re still doing a lot of good.  Despite all of the criticism leveled against organized religion, much of it deserved, the church does a lot of good.

However, I’m not naive. I know what’s happened in our churches across America during the last decades. Children have been sexually abused, money has been stolen and power-hungry pastors have inflicted severe psychological abuses on their staff and congregations. Most of the time – though not all the time – these situations were handled and churches moved on toward healing.

But not all the time. There are people who were caught up in these moments who will never get over them. Something happened deep inside of them and they’ll never feel safe inside a church again. While most people will be able to move on, not everyone will. These friends won’t find a complete healing until Jesus wipes every tear from their eyes. Like it or not, that’s the truth.

We’ll have to find other ways for them to grow in their faith and find community. The answer is as old as the church itself. Start a group. You can meet in a home or a local venue like a gym or coffee shop. Read through the gospels. Talk about what’s going on in each other’s lives. Pray for each other. Find a place to help out in your community.

One of the unspoken graces of a small group is that they recreate the family structure. Jesus promised He would give back to us whatever the world took away from us because we chose to follow Him. That means Jesus will give you a father and mother, brothers and sisters – all in the faith. In a group, you will find a place to belong, people who need you, and a moment to make a difference. You’ll find a church.

Now, we’ve been doing this for years. Remember Lydia in Philippi? Any missionary trying to reach an unreached people group celebrates the beginning of an indigenous-led home church. We’re going to have to get more comfortable with small victories. After all, America is a mission field.

What about theological integrity? Won’t these house churches wander away from sound doctrine? It’s possible. I would say two things in response. First, yes, these groups could wander off into heresy, but it’s the same with entire churches and denominations. Control is no guarantee of fidelity. Second, the church has worked this way for over two thousand years. It seems to have done OK.

One size never fits all. One style never works for everyone and one type of church won’t reach everyone. You never go to the World Series on one pitch. If someone needs a smaller, more intimate venue, more power to them. If you love the grand worship of a crowded sanctuary, that’s fine.

Jesus promised wherever two or three of His children gathered, He would be there. Find one of them that works for you. Jesus will be there. Make sure you’re there too.

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Most wives want to know what the husband plans on doing when they don’t have a full time position demanding all their time. Not Jeannie. Other wives want to make sure their husbands stay active and engaged with some purpose or passion. Not Jeannie. She had only one question. What are you going to do with those books?

Now, she phrased it in different ways, but it was the same question. Sometimes she would say, “You know, you should give your books to young pastors who are just getting started.” Other times she would say, “You need to give some of your books to the church library.” Other times she would simply announce, “Don’t think about bringing those books home.”

I got the message. I would have to do something with my books.

Now, in my defense, I’ve been building my library for over 40 years. I have several rooms of books. And yes, I have read most of them from cover to cover.  To be certain, there were some books I skimmed, but let’s be honest, not every book is worth the reader’s full attention.  Over the years, however, I’ve developed a close and personal relationship with most of my books. We did life together. We traveled the country together. We worked on sermons, books and articles together.

My books and I were close and the thought of dumping them in the dumpster behind the church just seemed cruel. If I was going to do something like that, I thought I would need some kind of grand ceremony – a majestic funeral with a huge choir and reading from the King James Bible.

For Jeannie, the problem was simple. Books take up space. Books take up a lot of space and we just don’t have the space.

For me, it was harder. These books were part of my life. Letting them go felt like I was abandoning a friend.

But the task had to be done.

The first part of the job was easy. Which books do I no longer want or need? I gave away a bunch of them and I threw out a lot of them. A lot of my books weren’t timeless classics. They responded to a moment in time, a crisis in the church and then, that crisis faded away. One thing I learned from going through all of these books is there aren’t as many life changing moments as you think. Most of these were only issues because social media made them an issue. Once their 15 minutes of attention were up, it was over.

And I have a lot of books on COVID. If  I never see that word again, I’ll be fine. That took care of about one third of my books. That still left a lot…I mean a lot.

So, I started with Bibles. A Baptist preacher collects a lot of Bibles over the years. I had more than 50 Bibles. I had Bibles in different languages. I had pocket Bibles, notebook Bibles and every translation that had ever been printed. In short, I had too many Bibles.

Obviously, all I need is one, but how do I get it down to one Bible? I didn’t. I have several Bibles that are important to me. I have my father’s Bible. I have Bill Wilson’s Bible. He was the founding pastor of Brentwood Baptist Church. I have the Bible I was given by my home church when I was twelve. No way I’m getting rid of those.

And I kept one Bible for me. I kept a very nice New American Standard Bible. I kept the NASB because it’s the closest translation we have to the actual Hebrew and Greek languages. Yes, it reads a little rough in places, but that’s to be expected. If you want to read the Bible and know you’re getting as close as English can get to the original languages.

So, on my desk is one Bible next to my journal and it’s a NASB.

I also kept everything by C.S. Lewis. His “Mere Christianity” and “Surprised by Joy” are standards. Yes, the language is a little dated, but honestly, no one has done it better. Our time desperately needs a C.S. Lewis who can write with conviction, intellectual rigor and a sense of humor. It was, and still is, a rare combination.

Now, I’ve kept more books than those and I’ll let you know in future blogs about the rest. That’s where I started. We’ll talk about Dallas Willard and Finley Edge in coming blogs. I’m just getting the conversation started.

So, what about you? What books would you hold onto? Which would you toss?

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