If You Are On Deputation....

[Anon]

....just a little word of friendly advice.

Please. Just present your ministry and give a helpful, average length message. You are not an evangelist. You were not invited to hold special meetings (usually). You are someone who was graciously allowed to come present your ministry and give a thought provoking or helpful message. You are NOT there to preach on your hobby horses or on sins in the church or preach extra long (and be proud of it) or to otherwise preach on topics that are the actual pastor's responsibility to care for in his church. Everything you say should be said in light of the fact that you do NOT know the background of various churches, and you could easily say something offensive to scare off that new visitor or that new Christian...and then the pastor will have to clean up the mess you leave behind.

Just saying. Thank you. :-)

(Don't worry. We don't have any messes to clean up. I don't think. But I will admit that today I sort of wished a certain somebody would just stop talking already, before he chased off one or more of our new converts, or otherwise offended somebody!)

[Salyan]

What was the hobby horse? :frog:

[OLD fashioned preacher]

I understand the situation. While I agree there are preachers who can create a disaster when not remembering (or caring) that they are in "someone else's home" so to speak, please allow me to point out some other thoughts on this subject.

 

Any guest preacher is capable of falling into either the aforementioned trap -- or just not preaching anything that might get anyone upset.

 

If a preacher actually gets his message from the Lord and it hits something he (or the pastor) didn't know was there -- oh well.

Example: I know a preacher who 3 nights consecutively found himself hitting fornication -- he stopped and asked, "What are yawl doing here anyway??"  What he didn't know was that 2 visitors there were having an affair -- the one was an IB deacon, the other an IBC secretary.

 

I NEVER tell a guest preacher ANYTHING of the conditions at our church -- it the message hits it, so be it.

 

2 years of preaching nothing but missions can make it hard to shift gears when you hit the field.

 

Just some input from a pastor.

 

btw -- that doesn't diminish nor negate the fact that a guest preacher is still NOT the pastor and should not seek to complicate things.

 

 

Oh yeah, if you're a pastor (Kitagrl, I know you're not) and your answering machine (or secretary) told a missionary that if he were to "leave a message and I'll get back with you" ....... don't be a sorry, no-good, lying dog -- CALL THE MAN BACK!!

You'd be shocked at how many pastors don't!

[JerryNumbers]

....just a little word of friendly advice.

Please. Just present your ministry and give a helpful, average length message. You are not an evangelist. You were not invited to hold special meetings (usually). You are someone who was graciously allowed to come present your ministry and give a thought provoking or helpful message. You are NOT there to preach on your hobby horses or on sins in the church or preach extra long (and be proud of it) or to otherwise preach on topics that are the actual pastor's responsibility to care for in his church. Everything you say should be said in light of the fact that you do NOT know the background of various churches, and you could easily say something offensive to scare off that new visitor or that new Christian...and then the pastor will have to clean up the mess you leave behind.

Just saying. Thank you. :-)

(Don't worry. We don't have any messes to clean up. I don't think. But I will admit that today I sort of wished a certain somebody would just stop talking already, before he chased off one or more of our new converts, or otherwise offended somebody!)

 

 

Good clear advise & should be heeded.

 

Not the same, yet one Sunday I invited a friend to preach, the 1st 10 minutes seemed as if he was telling them how great he was & trying to get them to call him to be their pastor, & it turned off everyone, & hardly anyone paid attention to the rest of his message which was pretty good.

 

How do I know, because most everyone asked me not to invite him back.