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RELIGIOUS PEP RALLIESI heard a preacher tell a story many years ago about a Bible college president who lamented the fact that so many of his graduated preacher boys would quit the ministry after only a few years in the pulpit. He said the man failed to realize that he had not actually been TRAINING preachers sound Bible doctrine. Instead, he had been running them through a two to four year pep rally. After a year or two in the real world, the excitement would wear off and they would grow weary and quit. He never knew how to fix this problem because he had never been effectively trained in the word himself. He was largely a religious cheerleader who trained younger cheerleaders, and their Bibles were mere pom poms that went with the job.As a God-called preacher, my Bible is not a pom pom, and my calling is not to get people "fired up" with religious emotionalism. The proper order is fact, faith and feeling, not the opposite. The Book comes first, and when it doesn't you don't have a Christian soldier. The Bible is our field manual, not our pom pom. My duty is not to merely "use" the Bible, but rather to KNOW it, BELIEVE it, LIVE BY it, PREACH it and TEACH it. That has kept me going as a preacher, and I trust it will take me right on across the finish line (Heb. 12:1-3).