trying to get it right…

I have had some experiences in the church.

Listen for a moment and see if you do not agree that we deal with the most interesting and complicated human drama that exists and still find ways to love each other. (None of these situations happened at First Christian in Paris).

There was a church staff member overheard to say, “I am not a sinner,” after a sermon where I had mentioned that we are all sinners saved by the grace of God.

I was moving to a new church. We had used liquor boxes to move. The back seat was full of them. I didn’t know my new congregation. An older lady peered into my backseat with a disapproving look on her face. I thought, “Oh, no! Here we go.” Then she said with a look of disgust on her face, “Not my brand.”

At my first church I was asked to step out while they voted whether to call me as their pastor. Soon, an elder came out, clasped my hand and with great sincerity and warmth said,  “Congratulations young man. You won by one vote.”

There was a woman, who, if we had talked about such things, we would not have agreed on much of anything socially or politically, but her pure love for children, has them still talking about her twenty-five years later after they have all become adults. She would say, “I love you so good.”

There was the church where the attendance was below 100, where we tried to find a chair of the Board. We asked 13 people before someone accepted. It was the staff member who said, “I am not a sinner.”

As a young pastor, I had an idea. The grizzled war veteran grilled me with questions about cost, manpower and goals. After the meeting two very kind and gracious women in the group apologized for his demeanor and his challenges. I pointed out, “He was the one to make the motion. The rest of you were just going to let me do ‘whatever the new young pastor wanted to do.’” That man made us own our decision. (Still he could be a bit gruff in his “ways.”)

In honoring a Sunday school teacher who had been teaching for 35 years, I made the side observation to a trusted elder, “We let someone teach our children who had not been a Sunday school class member for 35 years.” It was a statement about how the church sometimes abuses its volunteers and does not allow them time to rest and grow spiritually.

The church is an interesting place where we are trying to get it right, but, inevitably, are caught in the twilight zone of being not sure whether we did or not.

Moving to the deeper places,
Jeff