Where Have All the Minister's Gone?

Today while I was in class (New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary), I happened to overhear a conversation between several young guys (18-20yo). The majority of class time for these young minister's is spent surfing iTunes, gaming and linking up their webcam's with each other on their Apple MacBook's (Apple laptops) as opposed to paying attention and participating in the class discussion.

Anyway, the conversation started with one of the young men asking another what he was working on (evidently some sort of presentation on his laptop). The young man's reply was that the presentation was for a home school groups graduation ceremony. A second question was then asked (with a bit of disgust), "A home schooler group? Why are you working on that???". The reply from the young minister absolutely stunned me......

"Because they are paying $400, that's why!"

Here is a "minister" who has the opportunity to encourage kid's with the word of God and challenge them in their transition to life's next level and he made it explicitly clear that he was in it for the money. His pal's then jeered him on and expressed their desire to get such an "easy" task with high paying benefits.

1 John 2:15-17 (ESV)
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For all that is in the world— the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.


At this moment I feel distressed and wounded from fighting a bitter battle in a foreign land. Where is this foreign land? Bibb County, AL. The area surrounding our place of corporate worship is a land sown with the seeds of marijuana, fertilized with crystal meth and irrigated and nourished with booze and spirits from every color bottle. I have encountered children playing on garbage heaps, adults sleeping the cold hard floors of mobile homes without any tangible way of heating a can of condensed soup. I have viewed with my own eyes a 12 year old girl playing the role of a mother to three or four younger siblings. I have been cursed, mocked and even had dogs turned out on me.

What I do, I do not do for pay. What I do, I do not do for my own name recognition. I do what I do because I have no choice. I have absolutely no choice but to serve my Master. The One who's life's blood bought and purchased my very soul from the depth of an eternal hell. I pray and enslave myself to the word's and to the service of the almighty God, by the blood of the One who saved me and through the Spirit of the One who keeps me, with the eternal hope and anticipation that He may receive glory for my actions in attempting to win the lost.

Jude 17-19
17But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. 18They said to you, "In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions." 19It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit.

Father, may I never scoff at nor take lightly the opportunity to share the greatest story of all time.