Living through it, as we might say around these parts, is gonna be a whippin.'
It's a hard place for any church to be in, facing a new year down one minister. (We are a big enough body that he is not the only minister... but he is the senior minister.) It isn't easy, no matter how strong and stoic we try to be, feeling a bit adrift and anxious about the long process hunkering in front of stability.
But finding ourselves in this place, in this church, seems harder still because of all the ugliness. I hope not to exaggerate or inflame in my reporting, just to come clean: We are a house divided, and our problems certainly aren't over because the lightning rod removed himself from the situation.
I have been slow to react to the news of the senior minister's departure, and I wonder if I've really reacted yet. It's possible I've felt nothing yet...
I do know, though -- it's gonna be a while before anything is remotely "normal" in my church family again. If normal is ever to be found.
I've come up with these self-imposed House Rules I'm gonna try to live by during the storm:
- No PERSONAL maligning. (But accurate descriptions of actions taken seem to be fair game. It ain't slander if it's true.)
- No speaking out or writing (even to friends) in moments of absolute rage or indignation.
- A mandatory re-read for all emails BEFORE they're sent -- at about 24 hours after they're composed, with deletion the only option for posts that shame the Spirit so few hours later.
- ...And pretty much any emotion I feel is fair game. No berating myself while I feel it. This is a real spiritual fight I feel myself up against. And I'm not sure just how, today, but I know I've gotta get through it.
I hope the rules will help. Maybe I should make them public and create a place where more of us can post -- where we can ALL work on gettin' through it. But this place is mostly just personal, anyway. I keep it around in the belief that the written record will remind me, later, how God was in motion through every detail of my life way back when. :)
I believe He's here, ya' know. In every contentious corner. He's got all our backs. He safeguards my soul and He will not turn me free from the church universal just because the church in particular has turned into a battleground. My soul is fine. It's my heart, I'm afraid, that's about to be broken.
1 comment:
Hi Ginger,
Couldn't help but notice a post near and personally dear to my heart. I have had quite a few years to ruminate over these happenings and I can tell you, "I feel your heart".
It is a fearfull thing but not uncommon. Something most folks don't know is that after playing a center-stage role in the Great Awakening here in America, Jonathan Edwards had to resign from his pastorate just five short years after preaching that now very famous sermon, SINNERS IN THE HANDS OF AN ANGRY GOD. It became the center-piece sermon, both here in America and across the ocean because many people who were present at that meeting confessed that they literaly felt themselves dangeling over the fires of hell and could not wait to flee to God for forgiveness and salvation.
After resigning, he went on to the presidency of Yale University. Why did he resign? He became increasingly concerned for those members added to his congregation during the awakening because their lives, though touched by the revival, seemed to him to lack the outward appearance of those who had been truely converted. He began asking for evidence of conversion before he would allow the taking of communion in his church. It didn't take long before his congregation "handed him his hat".
I know encouragement is hard at times like this but I can tell you that a Great Light is about to shine on the earth and there will be plenty to do for all of us! (Isaiah 60:1-5)
God bless and look up:)
Terry
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