“I am submitting my resignation…”
I feel numb.
It is the annual church meeting, a stodgy yet necessary evil we universally hate. We have been working with Pastor Real for eight years. Laughter, tears, countless parties at his house laden with sublime food and red wine, brainstorms, award-winning floats, all the blood, sweat and tears pouring into producing events late at night and early in the morning, building an incredible new auditorium which thanks to the 24/7 oversight of both DH and Pastor Real, is still one of the best acoustic spaces in Tiny Town. We have poured out those irretrievable glory years between 30 and 40 on this mission, having forsaken other careers, financial stability and my desire to be in a bigger city, and now the pastor we connected with so well is leaving. He reaches the last sentence: “Signed, Pastor Real. April 1, 2006″ Or whatever year it was, I’m not exactly sure.
Hysterical.
There is a pregnant pause while the penny drops, and we explode in the kind of convulsive laughter that can only be the result of masterful comic timing, a buildup of tension followed by the vaguest of clues that yes, this is indeed a joke. I can’t believe he did this. Complete deadpan face reading a page-long explanation how he loved all of us and treasured his years of ministry here, but it’s time to move on, he’s ready for God’s next chapter, he will miss us all, and we all fell for it, hook, line and sinker. Suckers, one and all.
A couple years later, this happens again, only this time, it really happens.
Pastor Real… is leaving.
I will never know exactly what came into play, secrets whispered behind closed doors, a scheme, a Churchie strategy to restore this wayward mission to its conservative Bible-thumper roots. I do know that it was some kind of forced resignation, and I’m not sure he actually wanted this, the coercion involved making the situation rather murky. The whole affair stunk, a rotten limburger of clandestine activity. I could go into detail, but I’m here to entertain you, not present a case.
One thing I do know is that Pastor Jock has been talking shit about Pastor Real for quite some time, and Pastor Real has gone through some things with his family that aren’t exactly popular with the church gossip chain. What I know now is if you really want to get rid of someone, you can dig up enough dirt on any human being to make them look like they are the problem, the one that’s ruining everything, the bad apple, and they need to go. Not a single one of us has a complete absence of skeletal remains hiding away behind some long forgotten closet door that can’t be hunted down and dragged out, rattling the bones in your face “SEE?? LOOK WHAT THEY DID!!
Pastor Real isn’t Pastor Perfect, and it seems as if the volume on the the usual whispers is now a buzzing, a chatter, a demand among the Churchies that Pastor Real has gone too far in any number of ways. Scandalous! I had always wondered how he handled the overly conservative segment of the church in the first place, those who wouldn’t even make it through reading this book for the random cuss word involved. How ironic he was hired because these people wanted to reach out, to modernize and make things relevant, to grow the church, and Pastor Real delivered, and they hated everything that came in the sidecar of the vehicle called church growth. His success was his undoing.
This also effectively removed a vital buffer we had. Pastor Real had a constant stream of Churchies at his door raising complaints about the latest whatever to pick us and our ministry apart. He was very protective of us, and defended our ministry, trusting as professional musicians with 18 years of experience in multiple churches, we probably had a fairly good idea of how to do this. We appreciated this layer of insulation, probably not as much as we should have. You see, in a church, no matter what you do, you will have haters, cold concrete statues weighing down the pews, arms crossed and brows furrowed because THAT is NOT how it’s supposed to be done.
Pastor Real has been deflecting this for us the entire we’ve been there, having been in full support of our constant pushing of the musical envelope, bringing in a stream of different music, creative visual arts, concerts, personal development courses, leadership training, field trips and whatever else we could come up with. Inventing, creating, leading, experimenting.
And now he’s gone.
We are without a senior pastor for a year, the hunt is on to find someone to pastor this congregation. His departure leaves us with four pastors, one of whom is my husband, and they take turns preaching the Sunday message, and share the Senior Pastor responsibilities. We carry on like this for a year, and it isn’t too bad. Pastor Real built this solid, a well-oiled machine even without him at the helm, his spirit keeping the plates spinning though he is no longer the one holding the poles.
Commencing is a countrywide search to replace a pastor who isn’t very replaceable, but the committee also starts looking under the church hood at who right here may be qualified. They ask my husband DH if he is interested in being the Senior Pastor. He says no freaking way, after all of the shit he has seen in the church, he’s understandably not too interested in being in the position Pastor Real had been in. I am relieved, until…
They start discussing Pastor Jock.
Uh oh.
DH and I both think this is not the best idea since sliced bread. He has only been in ministry a relatively short period of time. He’s a great youth pastor, and is very charismatic and popular, as is his wife, but there is something unsettling to me about the way they talk about others. And going from youth ministry to pastoring a congregation of 500 seems a bit like jumping from doctor to surgeon without all of those pesky years in between practicing and learning how to cut apart and sew a body back together without killing the patient or creating a Frankenstein monster on the operating table, OR nurses looking on in wide-eyed horror. But the thing turning my stomach sour, having worked closely with him in youth ministry and listened to many of his messages, I observe an undertone of overly strict doctrine behind his slick stylish wardrobe, tattoos and cool haircut, and when he preaches certain topics, I get an uneasy feeling in my throat that I haven’t had since I was in Pastor Strict’s church.
It’s that same feeling I had in the first sentence of this book, a lump in my throat that makes me want to cry, that is telling me you are not in control of what happens to you. you don’t get to decide for yourself. this man gets to decide for you. he knows best. trust the man of god to instruct your destiny.
Around this time, I am also working on a CD of original Christian music. The first song I pen for the album is called Joy, a fun, jazzy tune that a friend of mine dubbed A Great Song For Driving.
But the music flowing from me is changing and evolving as this situation unfolds, and it is becoming increasingly dark, a dusk journey that started well enough on a sunny day in the park and journeyed to a pitch-black graveyard heavy with the stench of death.
By the time I finish the album, my life will be unrecognizable.
We have a new Senior Pastor.
It is Pastor Jock, and his lovely wife, Sporty Spice.
Worship Leader Gone Wild 