I was asked to speak, many years ago, in a friends church.  The town of
Meeker, Colorado, high in the western Rocky Mountains, had a population of
about 1500 people.  The pastor, a good friend of mine, and once upon a time
was my pastor, too, had moved to this town by the leading of the Holy Spirit
to begin a new work.  He started with one family he knew there.  Eventually,
within a few short years, there were 150 members and the building was so
crowded, they were considering double morning services to fit everybody in.
The pastor had personally led nearly every member to Christ; he was just
that sort of a guy.

As I said, I was asked to be one of the guest speakers, the keynote speaker,
if you can believe that, in this man's church during the two day conference
he scheduled.  Several other preachers in the area were invited to speak as
well.

After the first day of services, we had a lunch set up downtown in a rented
building in order to house everybody who came.  Across from me sat a man who
didn't like me all that much.  He had asked me to preach five days on the
book of Revelation in his church years earlier, which I did for him, and
frankly, I liked him personally and believed him to be a great man of God,
who loved lost souls, and was a good Bible preacher and teacher.  The week I
spent with him years earlier were fun and I felt a closeness to him at that
time.  However, since I was a youth pastor in those days at another church
about 50 miles from his church, we often invited other churches to our
church in order to get more young people involved.  He brought a few of his
young people once and I preached that night, after a whole day of youth
activities which had been planned, and I had preached on the involvement of
Satanism in some rock groups and the worship of Satan in known occults of
that day.  This was in the late 1970s and quite frankly, few people had
heard any such type of preaching on that topic.  I had done a lot of
research and offered some quite graphical descriptions of Satanic worship
services and the involved of famous people in the occult at the time.
Later, this pastor, trying to make a joke about my preaching, said, "Brother
Scovell, I almost got so I hated you."  I asked why, and he said, "Well,
after the hell fire and brimstone sermon you preached to the youth that one
night, all my kids talked about all the way home was how wonderful you were
and that you were the greatest preacher they ever heard."  He was joking
but, as I said, he only tried making it sound that way when he told me the
story about their 50 mile trip back home that night.

Now, fast-forward to the two day Minnie Bible conference.  During Lunch, as
I began to say, this man sat across from me and we had a good time of
visiting as we ate.  Then he told me something quite unusual.  This brother
was quite the cookie cutter pastor.  By that I mean, he and, my pastor, had
been friends in the same Bible college.  This pastor I was seated across
from, was the standard salvation preaching pastor who rarely preached on any
other topic.  This particular day, he admitted to this very fact.  He told
me that his most faithful church member asked him if they could have a
personal meeting one day.  They made the appointment and upon meeting, the
member told the pastor he was thinking of leaving the church.  My friend
asked why and was quite astonished at the reason.  The church member said,
"Well, pastor, it is because I am dying on the vine.  I have been a
Christian for 25 years.  I know how to get saved and I have led people to
Christ myself.  Yet, on every Sunday, all you seem to preach about is how to
get saved.  I'm surely not against that but everybody in our church is
already saved.  It's almost like you don't know nothing else, brother, and I
know that ain't true."  I figured, knowing my pastor friend as well as I
did, the he was going to tell me that he attacked the man and pounded him,
Biblically, into the ground in defense of his ministry.  In stead, my friend
said, "Brother, you know something?  You are 100 percent right and I'm
sorry.  I have never pastored a church before.  I came here fresh out of
Bible college and I just figured this was supposed to be what a pastor did
but now that you mentioned it, I understand what you mean.  Listen," he
said, "if you'll stay for a few weeks and give me a chance, I promise that I
will begin including sermons that will build up the saints and not just
preach to the sinners.  They shook on it and my brother did as he promised
and the church member was happy and stayed and was his most faithful member.
That night in church, this pastor friend preached in the conference and his
preaching was the best out of everybody in the little conference and that
includes me.  His preaching had a heart for the people and it showed.

Phil.