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How Many Pastors Did and the Reasons they Did it.

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How Many Pastors Did and the Reasons they Did it.

Recently, Jo and I heard about a situation in a local evangelical church that reminded me of a blog post I wrote in 2013. I thought it might be fitting to republish the relevant parts of that nine-year-old blog post:

Replay of an Old Blog Post
I just now read the troubling statistics about North American evangelical church pastors in Lance Witt’s 2011 book Replenish: Leading from a Healthy Soul. (Available on Amazon)

  • 1,500 pastors leave the ministry permanently each month in North America.
  • 80% of pastors and 85% of their spouses feel discouraged in their roles.
  • Over 50% of pastors are so discouraged they would leave the ministry if they could but have no way of making a living.
  • Over 50% of pastors’ wives feel that their husbands entering the ministry was the most destructive thing ever to happen to their families.
  • 71% of pastors stated they were burned out, and they battle depression beyond fatigue on a weekly and even daily basis.
  • Only one out of every ten ministers will actually retire as a minister.

(Research compiled from The Barna Group, Focus on the Family, Fuller Seminary, and the Institute of Church Leadership.)

Prevention is the Best Cure
These sad statistics would be prevented if all Christians everywhere obeyed the instructions given by the apostle Paul 2,000 years ago.

“And now, friends, we ask you to honour those leaders who work so hard for you, who have been given the responsibility of urging and guiding you along in your obedience. Overwhelm them with appreciation and love!” 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13 (MSG).

Okay, here’s where you stop reading and start praying for your pastors and plan to do something to honour them and show your appreciation. At least send them an encouraging email.

Really, take the next five minutes to do for your pastor what you are thinking about right now.
                                (End of the 2013 blog post.)

Why are Pastors Quitting or Thinking about it?
More recently, two to three years ago, Barna did another survey among pastors. They reported that 42% of pastors considered quitting the ministry. They then questioned the pastors about the reasons that drove them to consider quitting the ministry.

Over half of pastors who have considered quitting full-time ministry (56%) said, 1) “the immense stress of the job” has factored into their thoughts on leaving. Beyond these general stressors, two in five pastors (43%) said, 2) “I feel lonely and isolated.”

 Three more Reasons reported by Most pastors:
3) Political divisions in the church
4) Negative effects on the pastor’s family
5) The pastor’s vision for the church conflicts with the church’s direction.

 Five Reasons reported by Fewer pastors:
1 Pastor not optimistic about the future of the church
2 Pastor not satisfied with his job.
3 Pastor feels no respect from the congregants.
4 Pastor does not feel supported by the church staff.
5 Does not feel equipped to cope with ministry demands

Replay of the Prevention
The last three lines from the old blog post are worth republishing here:
Okay, here’s where you stop reading and start praying for your pastors and plan to do something to honour them and show your appreciation. At least send them an encouraging email.
Really, take the next five minutes to do for your pastor what you are thinking about right now.

From Ice Cream to Cash in Hand

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From Ice Cream to Cash in Hand

Cash is King
One of our concerns was having cash on hand when driving back from the village to Belem, usually a three-day trip. Credit cards were not common, so cash was king to buy fuel, food, lodging, repairs, etc. Because the inflation rate was so high, we could not take along enough cash from Belem for a two or three-month session in the village since we would lose  25% of the value in that time. So, we brought only enough to get us there. When we were ready to leave, we withdrew some money from our account in the bank in Barra do Corda. Money in the bank received inflation adjustments so was safe.

One day, about a week before leaving for Belem, I had to make a quick trip to Barra to buy medicines to treat a very sick Canela boy. I spent the last bit of cash on the meds and some food to take back to the village. I stopped by the bank to withdraw money from my account to cover our travel expenses back to Belem. I liked having travel cash in hand in case we needed to travel on the weekend when the bank would be closed.

Sorry! No Money!
When I walked up to the bank door, however, I was dismayed to find the bank closed, even though it was the middle of the week. A note on the door stated it would be closed for ten days or more since the bank was out of money.
I prayed, “Lord, you are our Provider, and you know Jo and I need cash to travel back. This is not a surprise to you. Please help us.”

In Trouble? Eat Ice Cream!
I stopped for some lunch at a small restaurant, and for dessert, I ordered some ice cream. Ice cream was a relatively new luxury since Barra had been on the electric power grid for only a few years. The owner, however, said, “We don’t have any ice cream left. We only buy small quantities since we never know when the electric power will go off, and our ice cream melts.

God’s Reminder
Then I remembered! Many years before, in our old village house, we had used a small gasoline-powered generator but now in our new wooden house, we were using battery-operated lights and had stored the generator. So, I said, “What you need is a small backup generator. I happen to have one which I no longer use. Would you want to buy it?”

Happiness All Around
“Yes, I do!” he said, and we agreed on a price. I picked up the generator where I had stored it at the nearby MICEB mission campus and delivered it that same hour. He paid me in Brazilian currency, which solved my cash problem.

Yet Another God-Incidence!
As I drove back to the village, I mentally went over the amazing set of coincidences. Within minutes of the distressing bank closure situation and my prayer for help, I happened to order ice cream. Seconds later the solution appeared, and within an hour, God supplied the cash I needed. “Thank you, Lord, for arranging this God-incidence.”

This is an excerpt from the memoir Jo and I are currently writing covering our decades-long translation ministry among the Canela people of Brazil.
Working Title: From Adventure to Spiritual Warfare

 

 

Our God-Stories

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I was a young teenager, a recently arrived immigrant, when God gave me the faith to believe in Jesus as my Saviour. The church I started attending gave people the opportunity to tell their testimony, a story of what God had done for them. This idea of frequently telling others about what God had done in their lives was based on Revelation 12:11. This passage tells of people who “defeated Satan by the word of their testimony,” speaking of their faith in Jesus who died for them.

Some months after I became a Christian, my sister asked me, “What has happened to you. You don’t fight and argue with me anymore.”

That was my opportunity to tell her what Jesus had done for me. And in telling her, I defeated Satan, and God was honoured, as she, too, turned to Jesus in repentance and faith.

Beyond the story of our salvation, God continues to work miracles in our lives. Think of answers to prayer, miraculous protection, wisdom to make significant decisions, and God working out coincidences for our benefit. What wonderful God-stories!

God gives us four specific commands about these types of God-stories:

#1, Recognize:
God want His people to recognize when He does something in our lives, family, and church. We need to see it, notice it, and think about what He has done.
Ps. 66:5. “Come and see what God has done, His awesome deeds for mankind.”
Ps. 143:5, “I meditate on all your works, and consider what your hands have done.”

#2, Remember:
God wants us to remember, and not forget, what He has done for us.
Ps. 77:11, “I will remember the deeds of the Lord, yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.
Hebrews 10:31-33, “Remember those earlier days after you had received the light when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering.”
Deut. 8:2, “Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years.”
Mark 8:17, Jesus asked them: “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you have eyes but fail to see and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you Remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?”
(The word ‘Remember’ occurs well over two-hundred times in the Bible.)

#3, Repeat:
God wants us to tell, teach, and pass on the stories of what He did.
Deut. 4:9, “Do not forget the things your eyes have seen. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.”
Exod. 10:2, Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart so that I may perform these signs of mine among them so that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians.
Ps. 71:18, Don’t put me aside when I am old and grey. Let me tell future generations about Your mighty power.

#4, Record:
God wants us to write out a record of the story. We need to tell our God-stories in a permanent form to live on long after we are dead and gone.
Ps. 102:18, “Let this be written for a future generation, so that a people not yet created may praise the Lord.
Moses and other Old Testament writers wrote stories about what God did for His people.
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote the Gospels and the book of Acts as written records.

A Story We Will All Remember

Some years ago, before I stopped my travels and public speaking ministry, I taught a “Leaving a Legacy” God-stories workshop to about thirty retired people in San Francisco. At the end, I asked them to tell us in fifteen seconds or less the basic story they wanted to write.

One spry 90-year-old great-grandma said, “When I was nine years old, during the Great Depression, our family was destitute and often hungry. I prayed for a job for my Daddy. God answered my prayer and he worked for nearly five years on the Golden Gate bridge construction project. After that, we were never hungry again.”

At the close of the workshop, I sought her out.
“That’s a fascinating story,” I said, “Have you ever written it?”
“No,” she said, “I have never told anyone this story until just now.”
“You mean your kids don’t know it?”
“No, they don’t.”

It turned out that she had never even told her late husband, nor any of her many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I got the feeling that those fervent prayers as a nine-year-old and God’s wonderful answer, were a special, private, experience between her and God. When I encouraged her to tell the story now, she got excited and told me she had a great-grand child who loved to write stories and would be happy to write it for her.

I could not help feeling disappointed on her behalf. After all, for 80 years, several generations of this grandma’s family had regularly been driving across that massive orange bridge, never realizing it symbolized God’s provision for their great-grandfather’s family during those dark, desperate depression years of the 1930s. Had they known, they would no doubt have thanked and praised God for his miraculous answer to that long ago child’s prayer.

God commands us to Recognize and Remember what He has done and Repeat the story to others, even to the point of Record it for future generations. Obeying these commands is obviously a good thing for us to do.

Why Does Our Almighty, All-knowing God Want us to Pray?

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It was Wednesday evening at the Bible translation centre in Belem, Brazil, the night when all the missions personnel gathered to share stories and pray for each other. For nearly two decades, whenever we returned from the Canela village for a consultant break on the centre, our whole family attended these prayer meetings. Now, however, we were within a few years of finishing the translation program, and our daughters had left Brazil for university. Valorie studied in Los Angeles, Leanne in Edmonton, and Cheryl in Capernwray, Germany.

The Story
Our neighbour and colleague, Marj, had something to share. “I just got a letter from our son Ken in Texas. A few weeks ago, he was riding home on his motorcycle around 1 a.m. after working late at his part-time job. He was exhausted, very drowsy, and suddenly collided with another vehicle. The impact threw him off his motorcycle, but he landed unhurt on the lawn of somebody’s house.

Then I remembered how a couple of weeks ago, I suddenly woke up around 4 a.m. feeling anxious about Ken. I immediately prayed for him until the fear left; I was at peace and went back to sleep. Today, when I read Ken’s letter, I checked the date and the time zone difference. Sure enough, God woke me up to pray for Ken on the very night and time as he was riding his motorcycle home.”

Does God Need Our Help, or What?
Hearing that story, Jo and I felt a firm assurance that God was taking care of our children as well, and we committed to be sensitive to his urging in our hearts to pray for them, not just regularly in our devotional time, but when the urge to pray hit us. Marj’s story also reminded me of the term the apostle Paul used to describe himself and his team in his first letter to the Corinthians. In 3:9, “We are co-workers with God.” In 6:1, “We are working together with God.” Paul was writing poetically about planting and watering, and that it was God who made things grow.

God had awakened Marj and given her the urge to pray for Ken who was in danger while riding his motorcycle 6,000 kilometres away. Why did God need her to pray? Because He wants His people to work together with Him. As we pray, He works to answer the prayer.

Two Stories From Long Ago
The fact that the outcome of God’s work somehow depends on our prayers is vividly illustrated in Exodus 17:8-15. The first battle after Israel’s escape through the Red Sea was an attack by the Amalekites. Joshua fought them on the open plain while Moses stood on top of a hill and lifted his staff to God as a symbol of prayer. As long as Moses lifted his staff high, Israel was winning, but when he got tired, and his staff sank and wavered, Amalek prevailed against Israel. Aaron and Hur found a rock for Moses to sit on, then held up his arms on either side, for a full day, until sundown and Israel won the battle. Verse 14, “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it.’” Joshua needed to know that God had won the battle working together with Joshua’s army and their swords, and Moses and his staff of prayer.

Many centuries later, the people of Israel had abandoned the worship of God. Ezekiel the prophet kept urging the people to return to God, warning them of disaster ahead. At the end of a long description of how He planned to destroy the nation, God said, “I searched for one man among them . . .  a man who could advocate for the land, a man who could convince Me not to destroy it; but I found no one. Ezekiel 22:30. The next verse starts, “So, I will turn my anger loose on them . . .” The nation was destroyed, but even just one person interceding for mercy could have stopped the judgment.

God Does His Part; We Need to Do Our Part
Did God limit himself to work in this world, mostly in response to His people’s prayers? It seems like it. We do know he wants us to keep in constant connection with him. Maybe something is going on in the spiritual realm we know nothing about, like the story of Job. Let’s be sure we do our part and pray about everything that comes to our minds. Be in constant contact with God’s Holy Spirit and pray at ever urging. As the apostle Paul said, “Pray without ceasing.”

 

 

How God Prepared me to Trust Him

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The Problem
As a Dutch boy, I was proud of being Dutch and our dike-building engineering abilities. By the time I was in Grade Nine in Canada, the Dutch had turned 6,800 square miles (4.5 million acres) of sea-bottom into farmland. Here’s a comparison with Canada: Each homesteader was granted 160 acres of land. The amount reclaimed from the sea by the Dutch would have been enough for 27,200 pioneer families’ homesteads. I should have had plenty of that high self-esteem for which the Dutch are famous. But I didn’t. My classmates often called me Dummy, and I felt that they were right.

I was always the last to be chosen on a sports team. I sucked at carpentry-shop, and was worse in arithmetic. I especially hated being called to the blackboard to solve an arithmetic problem in front of everyone. I always made mistakes, and everyone laughed at me.

I believed in God in a general way. But I had no close relationship with Him. I always felt guilty, either for things I should have done and didn’t do or for something I had done that I shouldn’t have done. So, even when I occasionally prayed that I would feel better about myself, I didn’t expect Him to do much for me. And then, one day, He did.

What I Didn’t Know
I knew all the things I wasn’t good at. But I didn’t realize that God had been preparing me for years to be good at something. He had helped me to develop a valuable skill with words—and I didn’t know it.

Growing up in Holland, I biked to the library every Wednesday to borrow two or three books to read that week. I was twelve years old when we left Holland, and I had probably read 500 books. In the two years in Canada, I read library books in the way fire reads kindling.

The Story
Then came the day in Grade Nine English class when the teacher taught us how to write a letter. I listened with half an ear because I had written lots of letters to friends in Holland, and besides, I had a book open on my lap and was engrossed in a gripping story. The teacher said, “Alright, everyone, take a sheet of paper and write a one-page letter to a friend. You have forty-five minutes.”

I thought of a funny idea for my letter, then looked up from my book. The whole class was scribbling, erasing, thinking, and scribbling some more. I kept reading my book. Suddenly the teacher warned us, “You have twenty minutes to finish.”

I closed my book and wrote a letter to an imaginary friend telling him about my weekend visit to some make-believe cousins who lived on a farm.  I wrote about climbing up the windmill tower. I wrote about chasing pigs that had escaped and about a bull that chased us.

To make the letter unique and easy to read, I quickly drew a little cartoon picture to replace every noun. I filled my whole letter with tiny sketches of fat pigs, flapping chickens, skinny cousins, an angry bull, a windmill, apples, a glass of milk, etc. Then the teacher said, “Time’s up. Hand in your letter.” I signed my letter and took it to her desk.

The Solution
The next day, the teacher said, “I am happy to say that many of you wrote excellent letters. But one of your letters was outstanding. It was one of the most original and best letters anyone has ever turned in during this class. I am putting it up in the school hallway for everyone to read and enjoy. Jack, congratulations on writing the best letter!”

Wow! I hadn’t expected that! What a surprise! It had been so simple, taking only twenty minutes. Even though I stank at many school activities, it was good to know I rocked at writing.  And best of all, nobody ever called me Dummy again.

The Best Lesson
In the last month of Grade Nine, I attended an evangelistic crusade meeting, where I heard that Jesus would forgive all my sins and be my Friend. I gladly accepted this great gift. No more feeling guilty! Yea!

It was then I realized that it was God’s Spirit who had motivated me to read so many books and to love words and that it was He who had given me the idea of using cartoon pictures to make my letter unique. I knew then I could trust Him forever.

 

How God Stamped His Word “Holy” to the Canela

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The Problem
Each time I told a story to the Canelas about Jesus performing a miracle they told me a story of the great exploits of some Canela culture heroes from their legends and myths. We tried to tell them that the stories from the Bible were special, true, real, and unique. They were Holy, having to do with God. They didn’t get it. We prayed – a lot.

Then it got worse. The Brazilian government changed, and the new officials refused to renew the permissions missionaries needed to live and work among indigenous peoples We found ourselves exiled from the Canela village. We prayed – a lot.

The Permit
We kept on working on the mission centre in the city, completing seven easy-reading booklets and the books of Luke and 1&2 Thessalonians. When the newly printed books arrived, we made a formal request to the government to visit the village and deliver the nine books. We prayed – a lot.

We praised God when we received a notice that permission had been granted but with exceptions. I flew to Sao Luis to see the government official. He gave me the permit and asked me to read it. I noticed that although we were allowed to leave the seven reading booklets in the village, the books of Luke and 1&2 Thessalonians were excluded. I had to sign a promise that I would not leave the books of sacred Scripture in the village.

I took my pen, shot up a prayer to God to work this out in His own way, and signed the document. On my return to the centre I told my missionary colleagues, and we prayed – a lot.

The Excitement
The next day, John, a fellow missionary, and I loaded a steel drum with seventy sets of books packed in plastic bags onto his pickup truck and left for the Canela. Several days later the Canelas received us with great joy since it had been several years since we were there. Their joy turned into wild excitement when they saw the seventy-five parcels of nine books in their language. The chief and elders immediately ordered me to the village central plaza and report.

I showed them each of the seven reading books. The elders were pleased to see several of their favourite legends in print as well as the health and hygiene booklets. When I finished, the chief pointed to the two remaining books, the Scripture books. “What about those books?” he asked.

“Oh, those are different. I can’t leave them here.”

“Why not? What are they about?”

“One is about Jesus, the Son of God, when He lived on earth long ago. And the other is the counsel of Paul. He was one of the elders of the Jesus group.”

“Well, you can at least tell us what is in those books,” the chief said.

The Explanation
So, for the next hour I gave an overview of the life of Jesus, reading excerpts from Luke, then read parts of Paul’s letter.

“We really want those books!” the chief exclaimed, “Why can’t you leave them?”

I explained about the government permission and that I had promised not to leave the Bible books. “I will leave them with my friend Sr. Duca in town,” I said, “You can go there and pick them up and bring them in yourselves.”

The Canela elders were not pleased with that idea at all. “It’s seventy kilometres to town,” they said, “it’s a two-day walk and two days back.

“Do those government people have these stories in their language?” the chief asked.

“Yes, they have. These stories about Jesus were translated into Portuguese hundreds of years ago. All Brazilians have been able to read them for many generations.”

“Then, why won’t they let us have them?” the chief exclaimed. “Why can’t we read those books and choose for ourselves if we want them or not? They did!”

“Just leave them here,” one of the elders advised, “We won’t tell anyone you did.”

“No, I’m sorry, I can’t do that,” I said, showing them my copy of the document, “I promised the government chief that I would not leave them here and signed his paper.”

The Chief’s Anger
Suddenly the chief sprang up, pulling his machete from its sheath. He laid the sharp edge on his forearm, and, with his face inches from mine, shouted, “If I cut my arm what comes out? Blue stuff? No! Red blood. We Canelas are human beings just like those city people! Why do they treat us as if we aren’t people? Why can’t we have what they have had for a long time?”

I couldn’t answer, and we sat quietly for a while. Suddenly the chief said, “The counsel will talk about this some more, and in the morning, we’ll tell you what we have decided.” So, John and I went to our house in the village, and we prayed – a lot.

Making the Transfer Outside the Gate

At sunrise on the central plaza the chief gave us his orders. “Put all those books back into that steel drum. Load it onto your truck and drive back up the road twenty kilometres through the gate where the Indian land ends. My son will follow you on the government tractor. He will bring the drum back on the tractor and distribute the books. That way you will have kept your promise to the government, but our seventy readers will have all the books.”

God’s Solution
And that’s what was done. We heard later that the first books everyone wanted to read were, of course, the special books, the forbidden ones. Our prayers were answered!

It was a clear example of Psalm 76:10, “Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee” (KJV) when God used the government’s prohibition to draw attention to the uniqueness of His Word. From then on, the Canelas treated the Bible stories as special, true and unique.

When, ten years later, the partial Bible was published it was called, Pahpam Jarkwa Cupahti Jo Kahhoc. The Book of God’s Highly Respected Word