The pastor and the miser

I once had a church member who was a miser. To protect the guilty, I'll call him L.B.

Years ago, I was pastor a little rural church in southwest Mississippi. Soon after I came to the church, I began to hear tall tales about L.B., who was a long-time inactive church member. They said he caught rides to work 20 miles away, and would walk home rather than pay for a ride. L.B. lived simply, but he was not poor. "He's got so much money in the bank that they had to put him on the board," one of my deacons claimed. They said he was so miserly that he drove his old pickup truck at night with the lights off to save his battery. (I didn't believe that story.) L.B. owned the land around our church. It had been so long since he nailed his barbed-wire fence to the trees that the trees had grown around the wire several inches. The wire was so old and rusty that it often broke, and his cows wandered onto our church lawn.

Being the good pastor that I was, one Sunday afternoon I took my wife and went to visit L.B. Mary and I could barely get to the door for all the junk piled on the porch. We were greeted by L.B., his parents and dozens of cats. Mary sad down on the couch and noticed a live chicken in a bucket next to the couch, with chicken wire on top. L.B. and his parents rolled their own cigarettes and smoked as we talked. I talked to them about the Lord. They said they believed. I encouraged them to attend church; they made a few excuses, and we left.

I didn't see or hear from L.B. for a long time. He never came to church, and he never gave any offering. Then one Wednesday, we had the church windows raised during prayer meeting, since it was a mild autumn evening. Suddenly I heard a man's voice calling, "Ooo! Ooo!" We looked outside, and there was L.B. with his truck parked in the middle of the road, throwing a bale of hay on the road and calling up his cows from all around our church to feed. We were so far in the woods that he had time to finish feeding them in the road and leave before another car came by that way.

Although it was rare to see a vehicle on the road in front of our church, one night as I was driving near the church, I suddenly saw a pickup in the shadows turn on his lights. As we drove by, I saw the silhouette of L.B. in the cab of the truck. Then as he passed, the lights went off again.

Jesus warned, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven...For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matthew 6:19-21, NIV)

Not many Christians are as extreme as L.B., but are you, like L.B., so consumed with making money here on earth that you ignore the church and the Lord right next to you? Don't wait until you meet the Lord head-on to turn on your lights. It may be too late.

Copyright 2008 by Bob Rogers.

Dads, Dead Squirrels and Teachable Moments

A father and son were riding home from church, and the boy was filling out a crossword puzzle. The boy said, "How do you spell God?" The father was excited to help in his spiritual development, and gladly replied: "G-O-D," and asked, "Anything else?" The boy said, "Yes, how do you spell "Zilla?"
Brian Harbour tells about a little boy who told his dad that he saw a squirrel flattened in the road. The father saw it as a teachable moment about safety, and said, "That's what can happen to you when you play in the road."
Later, the boy was playing with his friends, and he said, "My Dad told me what happens to you when you die." His friends got wide-eyed, and asked, "What?" He answered: "You become a squirrel."
Sometimes our kids don't understand us, but we fathers have an awesome opportunity to influence the values of our children. Research shows that fathers have more influence than mothers in values development of children, especially spiritual values. A recent study found that when Mom attends but Dad does not, only 2 percent of the children grow up to be regular churchgoers. But if Dad attends and Mom does not, 44 percent of the children grow up to attend church regularly!
No wonder the Bible specifically tells fathers to bring up their children in the training and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). Hey men, this Father's Day, set the spiritual tone in your household, and take your family to church with you. You'll be glad you did!