A Life of Preaching--Rev. John Harrell--Part 4--Helping Preachers

I appreciate all the e-mails and comments that have come my way during this time that I am honoring Brother Harrell from Bridge City, Texas. One week from this coming Sunday (March 20), Brother and Sister Harrell along with the church will be celebrating their 40th pastoral anniversary.

Along with the consistency and stability that Brother Harrell has modeled for the last forty years, there is another outstanding quality that he has that goes along with his preaching. He is very willing to help preachers. Whether it is with a sermon they may be working on, a church problem they are attempting to work out, or personal problems that are deep-seated and challenging, he does his best to help them out. This is not something that has just started but has been going on for years.

In the neighborhood of thirty years ago, a young preacher from Texas lost his wife and son in a tragic motor vehicle accident. At the time, in addition to being a pastor, he was also the Texas District Youth President. When Pastor Rex Johnson wrote his book, A Palm and A Willow, he documents that Brother Harrell called him every day for a year to help him get through that terrible accident. You have to remember that this was in the days before cell phones so there wasn’t much multi-tasking going on. You were confined to wherever the phone was. This is just one of the examples of many that Brother Harrell has helped over the years.

He was also more than willing to help young preachers get the hang of preaching. For those who listen to preaching, I will tell you that it is a whole lot harder than it may look! In years gone by numerous young preachers have gone to Bridge City and sat down with him and while he talked, they scribbled furiously on legal pads. They ended up going away from that meeting and working with that material and turning it into a sermon. I know of several prominent men both in the UPC and in other circles who would have a series of camp-meetings to preach and would spend time with him preparing for it. Brother Harrell laughingly told me one time that then they would go off and preach it better than he could. Just for the record, I don’t believe it!

One such man he has helped who has in turn done the same thing is Pastor Ken Gurley who is also the South Texas District Superintendent. Brother Gurley has helped multiple young preachers over the years. In fact, Brother Gurley was one of my instructors in Bible College and I attended his church numerous times during my time in Houston. He is also a masterful preacher.

After I graduated from Texas Bible College in 1992 and had come back to Alabama, I became involved in Senior Bible Quizzing. I had a tournament up in north Alabama on a Saturday more than fifteen years ago and found out that Brother Gurley was to be preaching a Friday night service in the Huntsville area. I drove about 300 miles to be in that service with hopes of possibly being able to catch up with him. That night he preached a message Dance Like Nobody Is Watching, a classic Pentecostal sermon about worship.

After the service, I found out that he did not have any commitments and so we went to a local Appleby's in Huntsville. So for about two hours we talked about preaching, books, putting messages together, and sermon delivery. I left that night with the proverbial wagon loaded and further forged my friendship with Brother Gurley.

Here is where Brother Harrell enters the life of Brother Gurley. He told me that in the early days, that he was an administrative assistant to E. L. Holley, Texas District Superintendent. One of his responsibilities was to go and preach in churches that were in transition between pastors. After he had been out of the circuit a bit Brother Holley started getting complaints about how terrible of a preacher that he was. He told me that everyone would always say, "Brother Gurley is the nicest young man but he is the most terrible preacher we have ever heard!!!" He was devastated by all of this and started trying harder to put it together but he just could not do it. It seemed as if the harder he tried, the worse it got.

I am not sure if Brother Holley sent Brother Gurley to Bridge City, Texas or if he had Brother Harrell to call him. However Brother Harrell soon took an active interest in Brother Gurley. He said that Brother Harrell started calling him twice a week. He would call him on Thursday night and say, "Ken, what are you preaching Sunday?" Brother Gurley would say, "Well, I don't know yet." He said then that Brother Harrell would start "rambling" about a story that he had heard and then would connect it with basically a Scripture that went with a sermon. Then Brother Harrell would call him early the next week to find out how things had gone.

Brother Gurley said that it took him about a month to figure out what Brother Harrell was doing when he would call. He said then that as soon as Brother Harrell would call on Thursday or so, that he would go flying through the house and find a legal pad and then scribble down everything that Brother Harrell said while they were on the phone. Then he would go preach it on the weekend!

But then the piper had to be paid!!! Brother Gurley said that when Brother Harrell would call him early in the week and ask him what he had preached that Brother Gurley would say, "Ahh, uhh, well you know, Brother Harrell, ahh, uhh, I just sorta preached what ahh, uhh. . . me and you talked about last week." I will never forget Brother Gurley telling me this in that Appleby’s in Huntsville. I laughed until my sides hurt when Brother Gurley told me about all the hemming and hawing he did on the phone. He said that Brother Harrell never criticized, castigated, or humiliated him. He said that Brother Harrell was always very affirming with his comments.

Brother Gurley told me that Brother Harrell called him for a solid year or so until he had determined that Bro. Gurley had a grasp on putting things together. What a thing to be said! This is where mentoring must play a role in the lives of preachers! As time has passed, I have met a number of men who Brother Harrell has helped.

On yesterday, I requested that those who had heard Brother Harrell preach memorable messages to send me an e-mail with those sermons. I got the following responses.

Jerry Dean— He preached a message called “Oil from the Flinty Rock” to the General Youth Committee. I am not positive that the title is exact but I never forget the sermon. I think the text may have been from Psalms where it says something like oil from the flinty rock.

Shannon Stanley—I guess I contribute an incredible amount of my ministry to Pastor John Harrell - someone that I have admired and been touched by over the years (especially my formative years). I owe probably 75% of my personal library to Pastor John Harrell's recommendations. The sermons are: When We Walk, We Save Something; That Which He Took In Hunting; Yokes of Wood and Yokes of Iron; A Branch on the Breakers; A Thief Named Familiarity; An Appeal From the Past; How to Argue with God and Win; Making Change Your Friend; and Rest Your Soul in a Patch of Light. You are free to use any of these. I also could list others, but I think you listed a lot already and I was trying to list a few that I hadn't noticed.

Tony McCall—In my opinion his legacy is much like that of Spurgeon, who he often references. He is truly the "Prince of Pentecostal Preachers." I have a neighboring pastor that originated in his church. Every time I'm around him he gives me a handful of Harrell CDs to listen to. I've never been disappointed and often I've been challenged. Many of them have found their way into my preaching. In response to your request, my all time favorite sermon by Brother Harrell is "The Bitter is Better", about the bitter springs that God first took the Israelites to in the exodus from Egypt.

Alfred Gibson—Brother Harrell was my pastor for 17 1/2 years. One of my all time favorite sermons was "Treasures of the Snow."

Jonathon Sanders—One of my favorite sermons that Brother Harrell preached based on Pilgrim's Progress was "Forgetful Green, the Most Dangerous Place In All These Parts." Powerful message. “When Prayers Are Feeble" changed my life.

Thanks for reading. . . More on Monday. . .

A Life of Preaching--Rev. John Harrell--Part 3--Stability

I am using this series of blogs leading up to the 40th anniversary service of Brother and Sister Harrell in Bridge City, Texas on March 20, 2011. For all of the church growth experts who pontificate that you can’t build a church on preaching ought to go visit Bridge City! It has become even more obvious to me as I have written just two blogs about Brother Harrell and his preaching how much effect he has had with his devotion to preaching.

My first visit to Bridge City was in December of 2003. After the morning service, I went to eat with Ken Raggio and his aunt and uncle at a restaurant just outside of Bridge City. While we were eating, Brother Raggio’s uncle started talking about Brother Harrell’s preaching. I think I am correct in saying that he has been attending the church for more than thirty years. He started pulling out titles of the sermons from the ‘80’s. I have to admit that I cannot recall the sermons that he mentioned but I do remember him saying that during some of the most difficult times in his life that not only were the sermons effective but he also talked about the stability that Brother Harrell modeled. He said that no matter what was going on in his life or in that of his family, he always knew that Brother Harrell was going to be in that pulpit on Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night.

The longer he talked, the more I felt something rising in me. I wanted to do the same thing with my own preaching here in Dothan. However, I did not just want it for myself; I wanted that for every friend of mine who pastored a church and those younger men coming along behind me. I do have to add to this post that in my own situation, I knew the same stability with my own pastor who later became my father-in-law, Joe Patterson. That stability modeled in those elders lives needs to prevail in our day too! I am reminded of the strong character trait of stability when I think of Brother Harrell. In character of this thought, I am reminded of a sermon that he preached entitled, “Oh Consistency, Thou Art a Jewel.”

When you think of stability, especially in the context of being a pastor, you realize that there is an opportunity to create a vast body of work. With that in mind, the following is nothing more than just a listing of some of the different series of sermons that came out of the Bridge City pulpit.

The Favorite Sermons series was initially preached in 1994. Brother Harrell reached back into his tenure of twenty-three years of preaching and re-preached some of his favorite sermons. A similar series was repeated after Hurricane Rita came through in 2005. The listing of the original ’94 series is as follow:

1. When God Smiles
2. When Jesus Sighed
3. The Day I Declared My Dependence
4. The Seed by the Wayside
5. Three Precious Things
6. Doubting Our Doubts
7. Power to See Life Through
8. You Can’t Carry Your Own Cross
9. Supposing Him to Be the Gardener
10. Long Ropes Need Strong Stakes
11. Oh, Consistency, Thou Art a Jewel
12. I Will Love You, Tomorrow

Another series of messages he preached was called Messages on Comfort which was preached in 1996. They are listed:

1. Healing In His Wings
2. Jesus Is So Approachable
3. The Foothill Principle
4. You Can Face Into the Wind
5. Branded by the Marks of Jesus
6. Chains
7. The Storm of “Not Yet”
8. Light Sown
9. The Father Is With Me
10. Mysteries That Defy Explanation

Another series of messages was on the life of Peter in 1995.

1. Peter and His Call
2. Peter and the Question that Never Got Answered
3. Peter’s Lesson on Forgiveness
4. And Peter Followed From Afar

Brother Harrell preached a series of eight messages on the life of David in 1994. Other various series of messages came at different times and I do not have the dates available to me for those. There were fifty-six on Genesis, Exodus had forty-four, there were six messages on Nehemiah, Luke had thirty-six, Acts had twenty-seven parts, Romans had twenty, 1st Corinthians had eighteen, Ephesians had twelve messages, Hebrews had nine messages, 1st John had eight, and the Revelation had sixteen. He also did a fifteen-part series on the Tabernacle. Women of the Bible comprised a fourteen-part series. He also did a series on “Thoughts” and on Justice.

These are the kinds of things a man can do if he will go in and stay through thick and thin. I realize that as one looks back over a forty year period that it was not always a yellow brick road to walk but through discipline, determination and devotion, Brother Harrell has impacted the church in Bridge City.

I have had a number of e-mails sent concerning his preaching. They have originated from both laity and ministry. I have a request for you. Next week, I am going to pick out the best sermons that I heard Brother Harrell preach. I realize that all hearers listen differently to preaching and some sermons seem to home in you because of the state of mind and life you may have been when you heard the sermon. My request is that you would e-mail me your favorite or even a “top ten” you have heard Brother Harrell preach. My intentions are to list the titles next Friday as a last entry for this series of blogs. I will place them there with your name by them or if you wish to remain anonymous that will be fine also. This is where I need your help beyond just reading. My e-mail address is philipharrelson@gmail.com .

Thanks for reading. . . . More tomorrow. . .

A Life of Preaching--Rev. John Harrell--Part 2--A Pilgrim's Progress

I am continuing the series on Brother Harrell and his preaching at Bridge City from yesterday. I mentioned how that Brother Harrell had encouraged me to dig into Pilgrim’s Progress and dig out the treasures that were there. He told me that he thought that Pilgrim’s Progress was one of the most neglected books among most Pentecostal preachers. When I really started applying myself toward it, a vast storehouse of material was opened up to me.

The whole allegory is concerned with Christian getting to the Celestial City (Heaven) and the battles and characters that he encounters along the way. Mr. Facing Both Ways, Worldly Wiseman, Hopeful, Faithful, and the Man in the Iron Cage are just a small few of worthy characters that will work for very good “sermon spice.” Over the years Brother Harrell has preached from multiple angles using the characters in that book.

One of the most memorable sermons that I heard him preach was “A Loaf of Bread and a Flagon of Wine.” It just so happens that I was in Bridge City on a Sunday morning when he preached it. He worked with the portion where Christian descends into the Valley of Humiliation and has a long protracted fight with Apollyon. Bunyan described the fight in a notable way when he said that you have never heard such a battle in all of your life—the clanging of weapons, the shouts of anguish, the cries of pain, and the sheer noise of it all was disconcerting to say the least. Christian almost loses the fight but in the end manages to find his sword and barely escapes with his life. The whole scene is indicative of any man who serves the Lord and his certain battle he will have with the devil.

Brother Harrell went to the scene immediately following the fight when Christian reaches in his backpack and finds a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine. It is what the porter’s daughters had placed in his pack prior to him leaving the Palace Beautiful (a symbol of the church). The bread and wine revived Christian and healed his wounds after the battle. Brother Harrell went on to say that there are untold benefits that you get every time you go to the house of worship. There are things that are put into your spirit that you may not find for months but when you descend into the Valley of Humiliation and have to fight it out with the devil, after the battle, you will reach into your pack and discovery a bit of bread and a flagon of wine that will bring communion with Christ! It was an incredible message that I will never forget!

Brother Harrell would also take specific characters and build messages around the characteristics that formed these characters. He preached about Mr. Ready-to-Halt which is one of the characters who seems to get challenged by every situation he faces along the way. Every straw along the way is the one that breaks Mr. Ready-to-Halt’s back. He seems to thrive on discouragement and much of his life is live in the “ain’t it awful club.” When you hear sermons like this it makes you want to do better and get out of the doldrums and man up and do your work. We all encounter difficulties along the way but we must continue to go on.

Another character he preached a sermon about was Mr. Fearful. Mr. Fearful had one overarching fear that made him miserable. He was concerned about whether or not it would turn out well for him when he died. He seemed to manage to do well with most of the difficulties of life except for this overriding and unreasonable fear that he was going to be lost in the end. Interestingly when he was in the Palace Beautiful and he was around all of the shields, weapons, and past trophies that were on the walls to commemorate the victories of many in the past, his faith would soar and he knew all was going to be well. However, when he left that room his faith sank like a rock. Brother Harrell would uniquely use these characters to motivate you to get some grit for your craw to make it for another round.

He also preached a sermon on the “Three Shining Ones” that Christian met along the way. He met them when the burden of sin was removed from him. The first Shining One tells him after the burden has been removed that his sins have been forgiven. The second Shining One brings him a royal coat to wear during this journey. Up to this point, Christian clothes had been ragged and torn and worthless but they were soon replaced with something far more valuable and worthy to him. The third Shining One came forward and put a mark on the forehead of Christian to show that he was owned by God.

Brother Harrell preached two sermons on Vanity Fair when Christian and Faithful are attempting to navigate through it. I am not sure if they still have these available but you would be very well served by these sermons. Vanity is the city and Vanity Fair is the place of commerce in this vile place. It is created by the construction of the devil as he attempts to get every saint along the way to trade spiritual things for the superficial. Vanity has been around for a long time, in fact its origin is from Babylon. It is populated with cheats, fools, knaves, rogues, and apes who spend their time fooling about with games, thieving, murders, adulteries, and false swearers. These types are the salesmen of the things that are being sold. In reality the merchandise there are nothing more than idols of distraction for the travelers.

It is a carnival that lasts year round and its devious salesmen are masters at their trade. According to Bunyan, they are selling merchandise to entrap even the heartiest of souls. The wares they offer are houses, land, trades, honors, titles, countries, kingdoms, lusts, pleasures, and sinful delights of all kinds. In addition to that other things for sale are husbands, wives, children, masters, servants, blood, bodies, souls, silver, gold, pearls, and even a mix of precious stones. There is something for every man because the trade of Vanity Fair is a serious affair. In fact it is as serious as heaven and hell and the currency of trade there is not money but rather the souls of men. The whole goal of Vanity Fair is to get men to turn away from the path of salvation and throw away their hope.

Immediately striking about this place is the voices that call out and attempt to get Christian and Faithful to turn from the path and sell out their soul. However, it was not very long before the hawkers of Vanity Fair realized that these two men were not going to be dissuaded. “Sir’s, if you aren’t interested in buying what we have, what do you want to buy?” Christian speaks quickly and surely, “We buy Truth.” That is the only real commodity in the realm of the Kingdom of God.

When the citizens of Vanity heard this they immediately began to persecute them for three reasons. First, for the way they dressed. They were dressed simply and modestly compared to the citizens of Vanity who were dressed provocatively and immodestly. In fact their clothing was in such contrast that the citizens of Vanity called them fools. Secondly they were persecuted for the way they talked. Their speech was clean and godly compared to the coarse, vile words that poured out of the heart of Vanity’s barbarians. Thirdly, Christian and Faithful did not even want to look at the merchandise that was for sale in Vanity.

Brother Harrell did a fantastic job with it! There is much more to the scene at Vanity Fair but you find some unsavory characters there. Men like Judge Lord Hategood, Lord Carnal Delight, Mr. Blindman, Mr. Live-Loose, and many others.

As with “A Loaf of Bread and a Flagon of Wine,” he would take scenes out of the book and make them work for him. One such message he preached was entitled “What Faithful Met On the Hill of Difficulty.” The Hill of Difficulty was a huge towering spire that was filled with various obstacles that were meant to hinder the progress of Christian and Faithful along the way.

There are multiple other sermon illustrations from Pilgrim’s Progress that Brother Harrell used over the years to weave into his preaching. There is one scene that reminds me of Brother Harrell in so many ways. It is where Christian is approaching the Palace Beautiful at dusk. He looks up the lonely road and discovers two huge lions along the path of the trail. He sits down in discouragement, ready to quit. Soon he notices the great doors of the Palace gate beginning to open. He notices that a beam of light runs the length of the trail and a voice from the inside calls him to come in. He starts to argue with the man inside and informs him that if he comes up the trail that the lions will devour him. The comforting reply returns back to him that if he will stay on the trail and walk in the light that the lions cannot reach him. The lions had heavy chains about their necks and the chains would not allow them to get on the trail to devour him.

The character who opened the door and called out the instructions was the porter. He is symbolic of a pastor. How many times in the last forty years has Brother Harrell stood in that pulpit in Bridge City and his voice called out instructions and his actions sent a bold beam of light for folks to walk on? Not only did they make it past the lions but the darkness did not stop them. The goal was to get in the Palace Beautiful so they would be equipped to make it to the Celestial City. If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we will not fall prey to the lions that Satan has at the sides of the trail.

When Brother Harrell told me to get a grip on Pilgrim’s Progress, I started looking around for various commentaries on it. One of first ones that I found was a tattered, dog-eared copy of Alexander Whyte’s “Characters of Pilgrim’s Progress.” There are four volumes of Whyte’s musings but they are absolutely essential for one who wants to look a little deeper. I also found a Pilgrim’s Progress devotional written by Cheryl Ford that also was useful because of the summary that she did with characters and scenes. Additionally, I found a book by Barry E. Horner entitled Pilgrim’s Progress—Themes and Issues which is also loaded with thought provoking nuggets. I also found the updated version by L. Edward Hazelbaker published by Bridge Logos to be an excellent resource.

As I mentioned yesterday about Brother Harrell reading Spurgeon, I also purchased MTP from Pilgrim Publications. It is a hefty investment but they still offer the same opportunity to subscribe and get books monthly or quarterly. When I read Spurgeon and his interest in Pilgrim’s Progress, Spurgeon mentioned a number of Puritans that also used Bunyan’s allegory. Thomas Watson, Thomas Brooks, William Gurnall, and Jeremiah Burroughs all used illustrations that have helped me with preaching. So I commend these works to you although you will quickly find that the content is nothing like a lot of the lighter things that are selling today. Reading Spurgeon, the Puritans, and Bunyan is something you will have to grow into but it will transform and church and the next thing you know folks will be showing up to hear you preach!

I have had several very positive e-mails from all over about Brother Harrell. Some have asked about how to get CD’s. The lady in charge of that is Paula Thompson and you can reach her at the church. The number is 409-735-5844. Sister Paula, as everyone calls her, has been doing the tape/CD ministry for a long time and can tell you more about Brother Harrell’s sermons than anyone, except Sister Harrell and Jahnette, Brother Harrell’s daughter. One of the most terrible things happened when Hurricane Rita blew threw a few years ago. Brother Harrell’s library and notes were shredded by the storm and every one of the cassettes at the church were lost.

On a closing note, one of the funniest e-mails that I got was from one of the young men in the church. He said that one of the elders told him that he hoped he died before Brother Harrell retired. That is the kind of preaching I want to do in Dothan, I want to preach my way into these folks heart’s. It may take forty years to do but Brother Harrell’s example shows all of us that it can be done!
More tomorrow. . . . Thanks for reading. . . .

A Life of Preaching--Rev. John Harrell

A Salute to Rev. John Harrell--UPC Bridge City, Texas--Part 1

On March 20, 2011 the United Pentecostal Church in Bridge City, Texas will celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Rev. and Mrs. John Harrell in the role of pastor of the church. For the next several days, I intend on saluting Brother Harrell on the Barnabas Blog. He literally has lived out a life of preaching and has affected a vast amount of people, both laity and ministry, with his preaching ministry. Perhaps the noblest thing about it is that he rarely ever preached out of the church in Bridge City. His preaching in that pulpit has been the sole place of his efforts. In fact, I only know of four places that he has been to outside of Bridge City over the years. He preached for Pastors David Fuller at Atlanta West UPC, Ken Raggio in Commanche, Texas, Ken Gurley at his 25th anniversary in Pearland, Texas, and Ron Macey at Royalwood in Houston. Pastor David Fuller was a peer and the rest of these pastors were those whom Brother Harrell spent time working with when they were young preachers.

I first heard about Brother Harrell in the mid-90’s when I went to preach for Ken Raggio in Birmingham. Generally when I get around closer friends, I immensely enjoy talking about preaching, sermons, the craft of sermon building, books and tools that will help me become better, and other various elements of pulpit ministry. I can remember so well talking about preaching one night in Birmingham with Brother and Sister Raggio. We were at the kitchen table and as the conversation progressed, I told them who one of my heroes was among our men in the UPCI.

Almost immediately, Brother Raggio said, “I know where he is getting his ‘stuff.’” Mentally, I went into my scoff mode and asked, “Really! Where is he getting his stuff from?” Brother Raggio then told me, “From Johnny Harrell in Bridge City, Texas.” The scoff mode really went up then because I had never heard of Johnny Harrell much less Bridge City. But I went along with the whole thing and got a little more inquisitive. I asked him about some tapes and he told me he had a drawer full of them but did not have any blank cassettes to make copies. However, he promised me that the next time I came up to preach in Birmingham, he would have some tapes for me.

As time went by, I forgot the conversation until six or eight months later when I went up to Birmingham to preach again. I look back at the foolishness of some of the things I did when I got an opportunity to preach. I was still full-time at the hospital so I had to be back at work on Monday morning at 7:00 AM. I would drive up to Birmingham and get there in the middle of the afternoon on Saturday, and then preach Sunday morning and Sunday night. After the Sunday night service, Teresa and I would go out with the Raggio family and I would be pulling out of Birmingham around 11 or so and drive the three plus hours home arriving usually a little after 2 or so. By the time the car was unloaded with kids and such, it would be pushing three and I would have to be back up shortly after six to make it to work. I look back on that time and wonder how in the world it was managed.

On that next trip back to Birmingham, Brother Raggio had a bunch of blank cassettes and Chad, his son, made me a set of twenty-five of the sermons that Brother Harrell had preached. Still somewhat skeptical because I had never heard of Brother Harrell, primarily because he was not on the conference circuit, I put in one of those tapes. I started south on I-65 and hadn’t gotten ten minutes into the tape before I thought to myself, “Where has this man been?” It wasn’t long before I put in the second and the third and the fourth one before I reached home. I wasn’t the least bit sleepy despite it being after 2 AM; I had discovered another hidden treasure among Pentecostal preachers.

I still have those cassette tape copies that I got from Brother Raggio. The first sermons I heard of Brother Harrell were:

• The Lame Shall Take the Prey
• The Root of Prayer
• When Wounded Men Rise Up
• A Talk about Prayer
• Conformed to the Image of the Son
• Moab Is My Washpot
• Snow, Hoarfrost, and Ice Melted by His Word
• The Snare of the Fowler
• A Sermon on Diamonds
• No More Sea
• The Palanquin
• The Favorite Sermons (total of 12 which I will blog about later)
• You Don’t Choose Your Own Cross
• Messages of Comfort (total of 10 which I will blog about later)

Those tapes were my introduction to the preaching ministry of Brother Harrell. I finally met Brother Harrell in October, 2003 when I was honored by the Raggio family to assist in preaching the funeral with him for Sister Raggio who fought a long drawn out fight with cancer before passing away on September 29, 2003. It would be in December 2003 that I would go to Bridge City and spend a weekend with the Harrell’s and Brother Raggio. (The connection with the Raggio’s and Brother Harrell is that he was their pastor in the early ‘80’s.)

We got to Bridge City late Friday night and stayed in Beaumont. Saturday morning around 10:30, Brother Harrell let me into his world. We went to this hole-in-the-wall restaurant called Sartan’s. It was a seafood joint that didn’t look like much on the outside but to this day, I have not had fried crab like I did on that day, it was fantastic. While we were eating, I started asking Brother Harrell about the ins-and-outs of preaching. I was not disappointed! For the next six hours or so, I got my wagon loaded! We finished there and he took us somewhere in the vicinity of Bridge City to a place called Rao’s where we had coffee, dessert and talked about preaching while I furiously scribbled on multiple napkins. When I got back to the hotel, I translated those scribbles into a notebook that I kept specifically for material like Brother Harrell had given to me.

Brother Harrell told me that when he first started preaching that he was off somewhere up in a little town in Louisiana working as an evangelist. In those days (late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s) the Pentecostal evangelists would stay in the homes of the pastors. So Brother Harrell told me that one of those pastors encouraged him to read Charles Spurgeon. He said one night after they got home from church the pastor lent him Volume 8 of the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit which was being published by Pilgrim Publications in Pasadena, Texas. Long into the night did he read! It ended up that the pastor realized that he liked the book so much that he gave it to him.

At the time, Pilgrim was printing one volume or so about every two or three months. They had formed a subscription service of sorts and Brother Harrell said he started getting the MTP. He told me that he could hardly wait for the next volume to get to his house and when it did he would devour it. Over and over he read the Spurgeon sermons and gleaned things from them. Another fortuitous thing happened with this also. Spurgeon read Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan over one hundred times during his lifetime and he was so familiar with the text of Pilgrim’s Progress that it would come out in the illustrations that Spurgeon used. Brother Harrell encouraged me to dig into this allegory and it has also proved very useful to me also.

A few observations for the preachers who read this blog that I have picked up from Brother Harrell along the last seven years.

• You have to be a disciplined student to preach well.
• You are no better than your devotion to God.
• Good preaching does not just happen, you have to work at it.
• Your personal library will either make you or break you. Be willing to spend money to get better.
• You’re local church is where you are going to make the biggest impact. Do your work well there and it will get out to the world without you having to go anywhere.
• Do Your Work!!!!

I will pick up tomorrow with some other things about Brother Harrell and his preaching. I have to say that I immensely appreciate the way that God used primarily Brother Raggio to get me attached to Brother Harrell. Furthermore I am thankful for the time Brother Harrell has taken with me in the last seven years primarily by way of phone. He has made me long to be a better preacher.

Continuing Education for Ministers

If you have any professional license and practice some skill in the United States generally the board that provided your certification requires some form of continuing education. This is particularly true for those who work in the medical field. From physicians all the way down the totem pole there is a general requirement for at least 24 hours of continuing education in the course of a two-year period. This is a way for the varying boards that provide licensure to help keep these people at least remotely proficient in how they practice.

I am for this sort of activity because it sharpens the mind and usually provokes the mind to focus a bit so that certain skills will improve. It also keeps you aware of the various changes that are taking place in the field. However, since most ministers do not have someone holding their feet to the fire for continuing education, if it takes place at all, it is because of self-initiative and motivation.

If a man is not careful, after he has been in the ministry for ten years or so, the pounding his soul and mind takes through the normal avenues of ministry creates a very stale and often pessimistic view toward the church. Add to that various other hazards of ministry, church life, and denominational politics that he has to endure along the way and continuing education becomes an afterthought if it even merits that much attention.

I can remember the first John Maxwell seminar that I attended back in 1994. He made a very profound statement about putting yourself on a personal growth plan. I remember the three things that he said that personal growth would cost: time, money, and discipline. At the time, Maxwell was just beginning to step into the leadership genre that would move into the church world. Some of his influence has been very good while some other areas have obviously hurt the church. Particularly in areas where doctrine and lifestyle were directly sacrificed on the altar of convenience for church growth at any cost. But if there was anything that Maxwell said that stuck with me, it was the fact that any personal growth that took place in my life was going to be my responsibility.

Recently I have been reading Decision Points by George W. Bush. As I was reading one of his anecdotes about one of his history professors at Yale, I was bowled over by the statement that this professor made. He said, “My business is history!” Former President Bush said that this professor could make historical characters so real it was almost as if they were walking the aisles of the classroom and they were teaching instead of this professor. I thought to myself as I read, “My business is going to be the Bible!” I am going to give myself to it in such a way that when I preach or teach, I want people not only hear the Word but to encounter the Word. There is a price tag on being able to do that! That is where continuing education will have to take place.

Here are the challenges that a preacher faces with our generation:

• A very low-level biblical knowledge of any kind has become the norm for even regular church-goers.
• A highly distracted society because of the various forms of electronic media that is overwhelming our minds.
• Shortened attention spans because of the effect of television and highly appealing mental and visual stimulation that takes place.
• A mostly unconcerned population concerning what takes place after they die.
• A lack of hunger for spiritual things or instruction.
• A mentality that is appalled at a sermon that lasts for an hour but thinks nothing of watching a sporting event that may last 2 ½ to 3 hours or a movie that lasts for 90 to 120 minutes.
• A population that rarely reads anything but web-pages and text messages (txtn mkng us dummer n dummer 2day). Thought I would throw that text message in for you so you could see!
• An attitude that scoffs at anything that even half-way promotes an absolute view of anything. Which is what the Bible does.
So how does a man who has the very words of life combat all of this?

First, he has to be a man who is given to prayer and the care of his soul. Continuing education has to start with a minister forcing himself into a place of prayer. I do not speak of the kind of prayer that we do when we are in our cars traveling to various pastoral appointments and so forth but the kind of prayer that puts the world on hold until the soul can be emptied of the world and filled with the things of God.

How many men are willing to put themselves on a personal growth plan for prayer? We often relegate prayer, especially in Pentecostal circles, to being spontaneous, vehement, and passionate. Spontaneous prayer holds an important place but what if our praying was more prepared and systematic than the disorganized way that it often is. What if for six months you developed a list of specific people and specific needs that you desired for God to take care of? I am mostly told that prayer doesn’t work as if pragmatism is the whole reason that we pray anyway. My standard response to people who say that prayer doesn’t work is that the only prayer that does not work is that which is never prayed. The common reason that prayer does not work is because we are not given to consistent and organized prayer. America is mostly prayerless until some national disaster strikes and then people pray for a couple of months after that and then drop back into their prayerless state. Just in case you are wondering, listening to someone else pray does not count for you praying.

The continuing education of a preacher means that prayer is on the agenda. I doubt you would want a surgeon to perform surgery on you if he did not scrub his hands for ten minutes prior to the procedure taking place. I can only wonder how many times that Charles Conner and Joe Sugg, two of Dothan’s finest general surgeons to operate and who have both retired been several years, washed their hands in a standard ten-minute surgical scrub prior to surgery? If a surgeon scrubs his hands prior to surgery, don’t you think a preacher ought to scrub his soul in continuous, sincere prayer?

The Lord needs for his servants to be abiding, praying, and fruit-bearing. Prayer attaches us to the Vine that is mentioned in John 15. Once I start abiding in the Vine, I will find that I want to relate to the Lord. I will want to reject what the Vine rejects and conversely in doing this I will receive great nourishment from the Vine. That is way that prayer works.

One of my favorite quotes on prayer was one I ran across years ago in Ralph Turnbull’s fine volume entitled “The Minister’s Opportunities.” Thomas Armitage said, “A sermon steeped in prayer on the study floor, like Gideon’s fleece saturated with dew, will not lose its moisture between that and the pulpit. The first step towards doing anything in the pulpit as a thorough workman must be to kiss the feet of the Crucified, as a worshiper, in the study. (Preaching: Its Ideals and Inner Life, 1880.)

Another way to jump-start the passion and purpose in your prayer is to memorize Scripture. I have undertaken quite a task this year. I am endeavoring to memorize the Sermon on the Mount. I am doing so in fits and starts but I can quote more now than I could at the beginning of the year. This is despite being about a week behind on the schedule that I discovered last November. The more Scripture you know, the more weighted your praying will be. You are going to find that Scripture pushes your prayer into areas you had never before contemplated. You cannot ask God in prayer to help you be humble, meek, and pure in heart and then go directly into the mud-holes of the world and have a clear conscience about it.

The prayers of the Puritans will help you grow too! You cannot read the prayers of Thomas Manton, Richard Baxter, and Thomas Watson and it not affect the inner spiritual life. Consider a portion of one of their prayers: I bewail my coldness, poverty, emptiness, imperfect vision, languid service, prayerless prayers, and praiseless praises.

Another tool to help your prayers grow is a little Moleskin. Go spend the $5 or $6 it will cost you and then set it up as a personal journal of sorts. Write down the date and then keep track of how long you prayed that day. I am certain that there will be those who will accuse me of being a legalist with this method but you have a choice with that. You can call me a legalist while I will smugly call you prayerless! No, not really. I would not want you or I to drop down in such a slime pit but I am challenging you to take a look at how little you really pray every day and the way you will assess it is to keep track of the time spent in prayer.

So I am encouraging you today to get yourself on a continuing education path for prayer. If Maxwell can cause us to reach for levels of excellence in leadership, then maybe this blog can cause you to turn the corner toward godliness and fresh revival for our day!

More tomorrow for continuing ed. . . .

The Struggle of the Will of God

Recently it struck me once again how challenging that finding the will of God can be. I can remember not too long ago how that there seemed to be a much more desperate search for God’s approval in the choices that people made that really affected the whole direction of their life. Decisions such as career choices, job transfers, choice of a spouse, and certainly a direction for ministry were deemed as crucial moments that would need the utmost approval of God.

I can remember reading in numerous biographies of those great men who accomplished something for God, the near state of spiritual angst that went with finding the will of God. One particular man wrote of very rapid spiritual growth that took place in his life but that spiritual growth was accompanied by an intense struggle to find the will of God. After the agonizing internal battle, he left to study for the ministry at a Bible school. In the process of doing this, he left an elite college to which he had a full scholarship to cover all of his expenses. His family was wholeheartedly opposed to this and expressed great concern that he was wasting his future. He went on to have a very fruitful ministry.

Our days seem to have left those things of inner spiritual struggle which are deeply thought through, earnestly prayed out, and allowing the Word to direct our choices. Maybe we are too busy and not given to much thought as to whether or not God approves what we are about to do. But the reality is that this inner tension is what seemed to mark some of the greatest of God’s men. The greatest longings of life are those things which are godly, righteous, and spiritual in nature. The hunger of the heart will never be substituted with anything less than God’s will being fulfilled in your life.

The servant of God has to go through the experience of things before he can make a study of those paths he had to take. How often have you endured struggles and trials and then looked back to gather the sweetness that came from the struggle? Honey came out of the lion’s carcass for you just as it did for Samson. There is a discipline of life and spirit that God uses to harness the great spiritual power of the soul. A few points about this process might help.

First, you will usually travel alone. In the dark hours of this decision, it generally will be a solitary place. Our society is so connected now that it is often frightening for us to get to a place where we are alone with the voice of the conscience. Most of this struggle will be hidden away somewhere from the prying eyes of the curious. The benefit of this comes when we discover and find great dependence on God.

Second, you will have to make some trade-offs. They will generally be clear to you but very difficult to embrace. You will know of anointing instead of acceptance. You will experience ostracism instead of inclusion. There will be the miraculous for the mundane. You will know the choice of being prophetic over being popular. You will find a trade involving the dangerous for the comfortable. It will be a life of sacrifice instead of ease. Ultimately the trade you are making means God instead of self.

One final thought on the process of making the trade: When you make them you won’t know the value of it until well into the campaign. It may take ten or fifteen years or even a lifetime to discover the importance of the choice you have made but go ahead and make the trade. There is a huge purpose of life that will never be grasped and realized until you make the trade.

Thirdly, you will have to resist the overwhelming urge to quit and go in another direction. Get beyond the idea of throwing in the towel. Stand up and persist! The longer I live the more impressed I am with the thought that those who make it and are successful are not the most talented, gifted, best-looking, and so forth. The people who make it are those who just stay at it. There is a blessing in doing something again and again.

I have a question for you. If you were to require a coronary artery bypass today would you want a surgeon who had done 10,000 over a 20 year period or a surgeon who had done 750 over a 20 year period? It is obvious that you would want the surgeon who had worked steadily for 20 years and did 10,000. The reason is because that just staying with something and doing it over and over increases your skill. Stay where you are and become great in that place! Resist the urge to always be looking for the greener grass somewhere else.

For this matter of quitting, if you quit, there are a host of blessings that you are never going to benefit from in the coming years in your life.

Thanks for stopping by. . . .

While Europe Slept

Last year, I was encouraged by two good friends of mine to add Daniel Silva to my reading stack. After listening to them for over a year, I happened to walk into a used bookstore and decided to spend a whole dollar for a somewhat beat-up hard-bound copy of Silva’s The Secret Servant. I was a little surprised at the alacrity that this new author drew me in. It was one of those books that you start in the evening and end up sitting up way too late to see how it ends.

The story was about an Israeli spy who ran throughout Europe thwarting the efforts of Muslim assassins and their plans of destroying democracy. However, what really captured me about Silva’s works was the endnote. Silva listed several sources that he had used to research the background for the book. I subsequently tracked down most of these books and read most of them over about a four month period.

What I discovered was that there has been a growing Muslim influence in Europe over the last thirty years as they have slowly infiltrated geographically by immigration, politically by their fear and intimidation techniques, and religiously by building mosques and developing multiple cell groups that disseminate Islam concepts. This spread of Islam is well-documented by multiple sources although a recent Pew forum seems to suggest it may not be spreading as rapidly as once believed. But despite the fact of the Pew forum stats, one would be foolish to suggest that Europe and for that matter our world has not drastically changed through the ominous influence of the Muslim extremists.

The first book that I read was by Bruce Bawer entitled While Europe Slept—How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West from Within. While I cannot vouch or even condone some of the sinful lifestyle choices of the author, the book is incredibly well written and his documentation is impeccable. He is not just spitting in the wind and pulling numbers out of the sky.

He starts the book telling about the murder of Theo van Gogh. He was killed by a radical Muslim for some of his views on the Koran. Bawer then moves on with extreme precision in documenting events all over Europe and the fear of the media and its politicians to speak out against the radical imams who host mass rallies that encourage violence against Jews, Christians, and other groups whom are perceived to be “infidels.”

Bawer also documents where free speech is coming under fire and it is being outlawed and some writers are being prosecuted because when they bring to attention the violence of the radicals. Be warned that there are some parts of the book where Bawer gets bogged down with stats and lengthy explanations concerning the backgrounds of the various groups on both sides of the issue.