Teena Myers

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Our church had dwindled to less than fifty when the pastor asked Rory to attend a board meeting. They informed Rory that they could no longer afford to pay him but hoped he would stay as a volunteer. God revealed their deception through the loose lips of a deacon who said, “We need your salary to hire a worship leader.” Rory told me that you could cut the tension in the room with a knife.

The board had decided that hiring a full-time musician to lead worship would stop people from leaving. It never occurred to them that their pastor’s selfish ambition had created the problem. And I have no doubt that being Rory’s wife—who had been a thorn in the pastor’s side for no other reason than being a good teacher—made Rory expendable.

During the meeting, he felt as if a puzzle piece in God’s plan for us had fallen into place. He returned home ready to look for another church. If I had known we would move from an unpleasant situation to a worse one, I would not have been so happy.

My son wanted to attend a church his friends attended after their family left our church. That church had a large youth group, with many activities for teenagers. Rory and I were leaning in that direction when a close friend called. She told me about the independent church she attended after she left ours and asked us to join her next Sunday. 

Rory had to work that weekend, so I met my friend at the independent church. The gifted, charismatic pastor preached an impressive message. My friend told me how the wounds inflicted by our former pastor were healed through this pastor’s ministry.

My son overheard me say, “I will be back with Rory next Sunday,” and as soon as we got in the car, my son told me how much he wanted to go to the other church his friends attended. As he was talking, he suddenly grabbed his chest, then said, “Something is telling me in my heart that we have to go where God wants us to go.” That comment scratched his friend’s church off the list of a possible new church home.

Rory and I attended my friend’s church the following Sunday. He was reluctant to attend my friend’s church because of the pastor’s belief in amillennialism. The church we attended considered Amillennialism a false doctrine. My church believed Jesus would return in the flesh to reign on earth for a thousand years. The amillennialists believed the kingdom of God came to earth when Jesus was born, and he now rules the earth from heaven. I was ambivalent about the pastor’s beliefs. My church taught things I did not agree with as well. After much discussion, we decided to become members.

When the pastor learned we were ministers, he asked Rory to teach a class for children and asked me to teach a class for adults on Friday nights. Rory developed the BBK club with BBK, being an acronym for Blood-Bought Kids. I continued teaching a series about Israel’s wanderings in the wilderness.

I had forgotten about my manuscript and publishing until a friend sat next to me in church. We were listening to church announcements when she leaned over and stuck an offering envelope in my hand. Perplexed, I looked at the envelope and said, “Do you want me to put it in the offering basket?”

“No,” she said. “It’s for your ministry.”

“What ministry?”

“Your writing ministry,” she replied.

I shoved the envelope back into her hand. “Put that in the offering basket when it comes by. I don’t have a writing ministry.”

She shoved the envelope back into my hand. “No, it’s for you.”

I pointed to the name of the church on the envelope. “It’s not for me. It’s for the church. See the name.” I tossed it onto her lap.

She glared at me and tried to put the envelope into my now tightly clenched fist. “I’m not taking money in a church’s offering envelope,” I whispered through clenched teeth.

She ripped open the envelope, dropped the cash onto my lap, and said, “It’s for your ministry.” The look in her eye threatened a physical altercation if I dared give the money back.

Lest we start a World Wrestling Entertainment SmackDown in the middle of a church service, I put the cash in my Bible and said, “Fine.”

I didn’t know what to do with the money, so I put it in my file cabinet to await a burning bush experience or at least a voice from heaven offering direction.

The following Sunday, she donated more money to my non-existent ministry. I put the money in my file cabinet. After receiving donations for several months, she said, “So what are you doing with the money?”

I was reluctant to disappoint my benefactor with the truth. Then I remembered the editor’s discounted offer to fix the grammar in my manuscript. I smiled, “I’m paying an editor to prepare my manuscript for publishing.”

Lest I burn in hell for being a liar, I sent the editor an email as soon as I returned home. He was still interested in doing the work at the discounted price. I matched the money she had given me for my non-existent ministry and sent the editor my first chapter. When the work on the manuscript concluded, the editor recommended a new publishing house called Publish America.

Publish America’s website boasted that it was a “traditional publisher,” but used, at that time, a new technology called print-on-demand that revolutionized the publishing industry and changed the stigma of self-publishing into something trendy. They did not charge authors to publish their books but did little to help them market.

They were a secular publisher, so I researched well-known Christian publishing houses. The same sign hung on each of their doors: “Don’t call us; get an agent.” My paraphrase of, “We don’t accept unsolicited manuscripts.”

Getting a manuscript published was not going to be easy, and “published author” was never on my bucket list. Publish America did not need an agent, so I sent the information they required and tossed the edited manuscript on a shelf in my closet, thinking I’d come to the end of the road.

TO BE CONTINUED…