The Nays Have It
So it won't be Cincinnati.
After two hours of interview by phone, I waited all day yesterday to hear from __ Baptist Church's pulpit committee as to whether they wanted me to come "candidate" (visit their church, preach, we get to know each other, leading to a vote by the members).
I had mixed feelings. The interview process did not have a great vibe to it. There were seven men on the pulpit committee, out of an average Sunday School attendance of 30ish. That seemed odd.
Then in two hours of interviews over two Sundays, they questioned me for all but ten minutes about the intricacies of standard Baptist doctrine. This after they told me up front that the doctrinal statement I had sent with my resume was the most detailed that they had seen. So that was weird, too.
But the weirdest was the second hour, this past Sunday. __ Baptist Church prints a doctrinal statement on the back of their bulletin every Sunday (indication of priorities), and they wanted to go through it with me and have me state my Scripture proofs for each point (there were ten). So we got started with the first point, and I gave them two Scripture references as my proofs.
"Do you have any more?"
I was not prepared for this. I told them that I didn't have another one off the top of my head, and after a few moments of awkward silence on their end, they said ok and moved to the next point.
It went like that for the entire rest of the conversation. If I offered two refrences, they wanted five. If I offered New Testament proof Scriptures, they wanted Old Testament prophecy. If I gave four Scripture references, they wanted me to quote the Scriptures. And I couldn't give hardly any of it to them - not off the top of my head, not over the phone in some theological pop quiz format. I was honest with them about that.
They resorted to volunteering possible proof Scriptures for me to use, as if they were trying to help me out. One gentleman, after I couldn't quote a proof Scripture word for word, asked me if I knew what Psalm 119:111 said.
After fifty minutes of that, they asked me if I had any questions for them. I said that, after two hours of conversation with them, all I knew about __ Baptist Church was that there were seven men on the Pulpit Committee, so, why don't you tell me a little about the church?
So they did: average Sunday School attendance of thirty, church building, parsonage, nursing home services, yada, yada, yada. I asked them about the average drive time of the established families (trying to get a sense of how connected they were to the church). They said they were all within twenty minutes.
K__, the chairman of the committee, said that they were an older congregation, and they were needing someone to bring in younger people. He got out the one sentence, and then the sound of piano playing in the background signaled that the conversation was over, because church was about to start. They said they'd get back to me, and hung up.
So I left the interview a little embarrassed, but mostly miffed and saddened. In two hours, not once had anyone asked me about the vision God had given me for leading a local body of Christ followers. Not once had they asked me... well, they just hadn't, and it was not what I was expecting.
But K__ had said they needed someone to bring in younger people, and several things were in place that could make __ Baptist Church an opportunity to do something special. I figured that if, after all this, if they still wanted me to come, there must be some level of openness to what God might want to do.
So I waited. I waited Monday, though I wasn't expecting them to call then. I waited all day Tuesday, and no call. After work, I go home to watch the kids while Kristy goes grocery shopping, and I wait, my pulse picking up every time the phone rings.
A little after nine, the call finally comes. It's K__, calling me during a break from his second-shift job. He says he hates to be the bearer of bad news... and I zone out as he finds some nice way to say that they don't want me to come.
K__ seems to genuinely like me. He tells me that he told the committee that if they want a younger pastor, they're going to have to be flexible. (Their previous pastor had been there 20 years before developing cancer and passing away.) K__ tells me that he'd like to stay in touch to see how I'm doing, and that he's genuinely enjoyed the time spent together on the phone.
I thank him, and as I hang up, I'm sad. This wasn't unexpected: if I were any kind of pragmatist, I would have been surprised at any other response. But, for a couple of days, I dreamed of a group of people in Cincinnati who had reached a fork in the road of their journey, and had decided to consider the one more real, more holistic, and in our Baptist churches, perhaps less travelled. For about five seconds, I mourned the loss of that dream.
I would have mourned longer, but at that moment Trey, my four-year-old son, brought a ball up to me and said, "Wanna play soccer?" I almost audibly heard him - or Someone - say: Do you want to keep dwelling on people who are stuck in the past, or do you want to come play with your dreams, your future?
Do I want to play soccer, Trey? Why, yes. Yes, I do.
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. - The Bible, Jeremiah 29:11
After two hours of interview by phone, I waited all day yesterday to hear from __ Baptist Church's pulpit committee as to whether they wanted me to come "candidate" (visit their church, preach, we get to know each other, leading to a vote by the members).
I had mixed feelings. The interview process did not have a great vibe to it. There were seven men on the pulpit committee, out of an average Sunday School attendance of 30ish. That seemed odd.
Then in two hours of interviews over two Sundays, they questioned me for all but ten minutes about the intricacies of standard Baptist doctrine. This after they told me up front that the doctrinal statement I had sent with my resume was the most detailed that they had seen. So that was weird, too.
But the weirdest was the second hour, this past Sunday. __ Baptist Church prints a doctrinal statement on the back of their bulletin every Sunday (indication of priorities), and they wanted to go through it with me and have me state my Scripture proofs for each point (there were ten). So we got started with the first point, and I gave them two Scripture references as my proofs.
"Do you have any more?"
I was not prepared for this. I told them that I didn't have another one off the top of my head, and after a few moments of awkward silence on their end, they said ok and moved to the next point.
It went like that for the entire rest of the conversation. If I offered two refrences, they wanted five. If I offered New Testament proof Scriptures, they wanted Old Testament prophecy. If I gave four Scripture references, they wanted me to quote the Scriptures. And I couldn't give hardly any of it to them - not off the top of my head, not over the phone in some theological pop quiz format. I was honest with them about that.
They resorted to volunteering possible proof Scriptures for me to use, as if they were trying to help me out. One gentleman, after I couldn't quote a proof Scripture word for word, asked me if I knew what Psalm 119:111 said.
After fifty minutes of that, they asked me if I had any questions for them. I said that, after two hours of conversation with them, all I knew about __ Baptist Church was that there were seven men on the Pulpit Committee, so, why don't you tell me a little about the church?
So they did: average Sunday School attendance of thirty, church building, parsonage, nursing home services, yada, yada, yada. I asked them about the average drive time of the established families (trying to get a sense of how connected they were to the church). They said they were all within twenty minutes.
K__, the chairman of the committee, said that they were an older congregation, and they were needing someone to bring in younger people. He got out the one sentence, and then the sound of piano playing in the background signaled that the conversation was over, because church was about to start. They said they'd get back to me, and hung up.
So I left the interview a little embarrassed, but mostly miffed and saddened. In two hours, not once had anyone asked me about the vision God had given me for leading a local body of Christ followers. Not once had they asked me... well, they just hadn't, and it was not what I was expecting.
But K__ had said they needed someone to bring in younger people, and several things were in place that could make __ Baptist Church an opportunity to do something special. I figured that if, after all this, if they still wanted me to come, there must be some level of openness to what God might want to do.
So I waited. I waited Monday, though I wasn't expecting them to call then. I waited all day Tuesday, and no call. After work, I go home to watch the kids while Kristy goes grocery shopping, and I wait, my pulse picking up every time the phone rings.
A little after nine, the call finally comes. It's K__, calling me during a break from his second-shift job. He says he hates to be the bearer of bad news... and I zone out as he finds some nice way to say that they don't want me to come.
K__ seems to genuinely like me. He tells me that he told the committee that if they want a younger pastor, they're going to have to be flexible. (Their previous pastor had been there 20 years before developing cancer and passing away.) K__ tells me that he'd like to stay in touch to see how I'm doing, and that he's genuinely enjoyed the time spent together on the phone.
I thank him, and as I hang up, I'm sad. This wasn't unexpected: if I were any kind of pragmatist, I would have been surprised at any other response. But, for a couple of days, I dreamed of a group of people in Cincinnati who had reached a fork in the road of their journey, and had decided to consider the one more real, more holistic, and in our Baptist churches, perhaps less travelled. For about five seconds, I mourned the loss of that dream.
I would have mourned longer, but at that moment Trey, my four-year-old son, brought a ball up to me and said, "Wanna play soccer?" I almost audibly heard him - or Someone - say: Do you want to keep dwelling on people who are stuck in the past, or do you want to come play with your dreams, your future?
Do I want to play soccer, Trey? Why, yes. Yes, I do.
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. - The Bible, Jeremiah 29:11
posted by pastor mike at 9:23 AM
1 Comments:
Don't get too upset about it. There's a place getting ready to have you come take over and give them the best preaching and leadership they've ever had.
So there.
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