Finishing History

We've been wrapping up the church history at Susan Song lately.

I’ve had a hard time tracking down the previous pastor of Susan Song. As I’ve mentioned before, Brother Jones left rather suddenly. He showed up on a Wednesday evening for prayer meeting and said “Tonight is my last night as your pastor.” And walked out the door.

The impact on the church was substantial. They wondered the real reason why he left. People in the community stopped them in the grocery store and asked “What did ya’ll do to run him off?” The hardest part for the church members was to say “I don’t know what we did” and to wonder the answer to that question as well.

So after arriving I decided to track Brother Jones down and find out his thoughts on the church. I also wanted to invite him back for a celebration of his ministry that would provide closure for his time with the church. But I was warned by some of the church members that “He won’t talk to you and certainly won’t come back here!”

So I got his phone number and began to call him and leave messages with his wife. I tried unsuccessfully for a period of several months (August through October) to get in touch with him. I was unsuccessful. But then my secretary entered into the picture.

About ten years ago she was in his Sunday School class at another church. So she knew him and knew about my intentional interim ministry at his church. She also had not seen him for eight years. Around a month ago, she and her family went to breakfast at McDonald’s and ran into him.

After initial greetings, he mentioned that he had recently resigned as pastor at Susan Song after an eight year ministry. She said “I know, and do you want to know how I knew that? It’s because my boss is the intentional interim pastor there. And he’s been trying to talk to you for weeks.”

Brother Jones said “Oh…”

He then said something along the lines of “I guess if I ran into you after ten years, maybe God wants me to do something.

And the next time I called Brother Jones he answered the phone and we set up a meeting.

We would, as he said, “Break pizza together.”