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After our church disbanded, Rory and I found a new church plant meeting in a temporary facility as they searched for a building. We thought we might avoid problems with church leaders in a small church that needed help and had not defined itself yet. We later learned the church had been much larger. The exodus of members forced the church to move to a smaller, cheaper facility.
We were acquainted with the pastor, and he knew about Rod’s background working with children. The pastor thought God had pruned his church so it would grow back stronger. Our arrival meant his church would flourish again. Rod became the children’s pastor, and he assigned me to teach on Wednesday nights.
I noted the signs that we were headed for another church failure, and I hoped I was wrong. Attending a regional meeting with the national superintendent of our fellowship proved my hope was vain. The superintendent gave a list of things to do for churches to become healthy and grow. When he invited us to ask questions, I stood.
“I have been in more than one church that did all the things you said are necessary, and every one of those churches fell apart. Why?”
He pondered the question for a moment and said, “They will work if the leadership is clean. God will not bless a church led by sinful men.”
It made sense to me. I sat down.
The following Sunday, our pastor requested a meeting with Rory and me after the service. He had discerned I needed healing, and he was going to heal me.
Rory and I looked at each other, then back at the pastor. We did not have a clue what he was talking about.
He finally told me I should not have asked the national superintendent “that question.”
Why did I need healing because I asked an honest question and received a wise answer that I appreciated? Was it the question I asked that made this pastor uncomfortable or the superintendent’s answer? I doubted the pastor of a church in decline, who got sermon ideas from watching Oprah, possessed enough of God’s wisdom to heal anyone.
The following Sunday, his worship leader quit, and he led worship with prerecorded music. The next Sunday he preached his last sermon and closed the church.
When I learned the pastor of the church where I had taught Sunday school had resigned, I wanted to return, thinking I could recapture the past under the leadership of the new pastor. Rory was not keen on the idea but consented.
The church had been stripped down to its foundation. All but two of the deacons we knew had left. They had stopped Sunday school and children’s church. But the new pastor was supportive, and the deacons who knew us vouched for our character and abilities.
I talked to the pastor’s wife about starting a women’s ministry. She was not interested in starting one, so I asked the pastor if I could start one. The first meeting drew 90% of the women in the church and continued to do so for months. One day, the pastor informed me I was a leader in the women’s ministry but not the leader. His wife was the leader. The fact that she did not want the job and made that clear to me before the ministry started did not matter.
Their quarrel foreshadowed a future disaster with me caught in the middle. I released the ministry to another to be “a leader but not the leader” and started a drama team. The short skits I wrote were performed during the church service. The drama team flourished. The pastor’s wife wanted to do a complicated skit that exceeded the boundaries of our purpose. I declined. She did it without me. The church did not need two drama teams, so I stepped aside.
Then my pastor read material I had written and offered to finance the production of a book. We met to discuss book publishing. I was prepared to give the church rights and the profits from the book, so they could recoup their investment. But I wanted my pastor to understand the perils of self-publishing before he presented it to the board. During our lengthy conversation, I accepted that my God-given purpose was writing.
After the meeting, I called a friend and prayer partner. We prayed God would “shut the door” on this opportunity if it wasn’t from him. Several weeks later, my pastor called and said, “Teena, the door is shut.” He told me I could ask the congregation for an offering to finance my ministry of writing. But the board had already shut the door, and I did not think trying to circumvent their decision would be wise. I turned down the offer.
Hope dawned when a deacon announced that they were forming a Sunday school department. The deacons knew me and my ability to teach, but they were not interested in letting me teach again. I finally accepted that my husband was right. We did not belong there.
I knew it was time to leave the church when I wrote an essay opposing a rule the board wanted to add to the bylaws and read it at a business meeting. The list of requirements to become a member of the church had become a weed choking life from the garden. I compared the simplicity of faith that gives us access to the kingdom of God with the multitude of rules to become a member already in the bylaws. It was easier to get into the kingdom of God than to become a member of the church. The congregation voted against adding another rule. The next church meeting started with an announcement. We were no longer allowed to read our position on church business before voting. Another rule to stop me from swaying future votes that did not need a vote of approval.
After we left the church, I learned why God shut the door. The young pastor and his young ideas had created a rift between him and the board of older men who did not like change. The breaking point came when the pastor wanted to sell the church and move services to a strip mall. They tried to remove him from office and failed. One by one, the deacons resigned, and the congregation scattered. The pastor sold the church and started a new church plant in a strip mall.
TO BE CONTINUED…
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