The church was an interesting and
attractively well kept small church. There were probably about two hundred and
fifty people in regular attendance. The building sat in a “T” formation right
next to a hospital. There shared part of their parking lot. The church had very
few parking spaces. The education wing was to the left and the sanctuary to the
right. The pastor’s office was on the second floor at the top of the stairs.
I don’t think I had an office. I
could be wrong but I usually just used an available classroom. I never had a
relationship with the pastor. I was never in his office except for board
meetings. We never met for anything, not even to get acquainted. He never asked
to meet with me and he delayed every attempt I made to set up a time to meet. I
just wanted to know his goals and dreams for the church. I assumed he had some.
I thought they might even be written down somewhere. I think I was wrong. It
was clear that lay people ran the various ministries of the church. Faith had
served as their Christian education director but it was a big load for her as a
full time elementary school teacher. As far as I could tell, the pastor
preached. He may have done some visitation and met with some people, that’s
what he said, but I didn’t see that he did much else. I honestly didn’t
understand his role.
The church had some past
difficulties with pastors and let one go that maybe they should not. This made
them somewhat cautious in confronting him. Besides, he was a great storyteller
and people seemed to enjoy his preaching. He was humorous. I did not find him
inspiring and didn’t really pay that much attention, but I laughed with
everyone else. I should have been more focused. I know Della never liked the
man. The first time she met him he hugged her and she felt contaminated. She
promised that she would never let him touch her again. He tried, but she
managed to avoid him every time.
I was at the church so seldom and
had to make every moment I was there count so I finally gave up trying to meet
with him. I didn’t know what was going on, but the church was running smoothly
and I wasn’t real sure why they needed me, but I was glad for the job. Della
and I debated how involved we should be and whether to even let ourselves get
too close to the people since we would only be there two years. The deeper the
commitment the harder it would be to leave, and we were leaving. I had a future
commitment. In the end we decided is would not be fair to the church or to
ourselves if we held everyone at arms distance. We would only have a ministry
is we jumped in with both feet. And that we did! That was a good decision. We
established some of the deepest relationships of any place we ever lived.
I spent the first several weeks
meeting with the heads of the various ministries attempting to get the pulse of
the church. The worst problem I could see was that because of everyone’s busy
schedules and commitment to their ministries they just weren’t talking to one
another and that created some schedule and cross purpose problems. I set out to
establish a Christian education committee to pull them together.
I spent a great deal of time with
the Rouses and Stanwoods talking about the church. These two families in
particular took us in and cared for us in ways we never expected. They invited
Della and I to join them and some other couples in their supper club. We were
taken to some of the most wonderful and unique restaurants in the area.
Our first visit to Disneyland was with the Greater Los
Angeles Christian Education Association. Faith had secured tickets for everyone
at the church who wanted to go. Disneyland was rented for a party and as most
first time visitors we were also in awe.
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