- Brother Rick has done well in his first few months as pastor at Lakeview. If numbers can ever be used to gage the spiritual vitality of a church, they bear out that the church has responded and the Lord has been blessing. Almost every Sunday that he has been pastor, we've had someone join the church. In addition we've had more baptisms in the last three months than in the last few years combined. One of our goals as a committee was to extend his honeymoon as long as possible. His honeymoon is ongoing.
- The Pastor Search Committee has morphed into the Pastor Support Committee (we kept the acronym the same so could keep using the same letterhead). Once a month or so we sit down with the pastor to provide an opportunity for accountability and for him to bounce ideas off of us. We've given him feedback, both positive and negative of his time with us.
- Brother James has stopped attending the church. He quit coming the week after we called Brother Rick and he hasn't been to a service since. Efforts to contact him have proven ineffective (phone calls and emails not returned). Brother Rick has contacted him to arrange a time for a visit and no time has been convenient. Through the grapevine (I'm sure you're stunned to hear that a Baptist church has a grapevine) I've heard that he disagreed with the procedure of our committee.
In another day or two I'll post some final thoughts about this process and mercifully this series will come to an end...
(Just joking about the PSC letterhead, but you knew that already).
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4 comments:
you did a very nice job with this series. good stuff. if churches are able to find it, i am sure they will gain insight from your writing.
please ´don´t generate a lot of energy trying to reclaim brother james. let him go gracefully. i am afraid that if you work hard, or the pastor works hard at getting him back, he will only create havoc in the future. he is probably doing you all a great favor by his departure.
as time allows take the leash of off your pastor as a committee. he needs one or two people to talk with, but not the psc...that is too much, imho.
sorry for typos, on a foreign computer in puerto vallarta.
dd
I'm with DD here. 1)Too much time spent courting a disgruntled member will draw the focus away from Christ. If his heart is pure, he'll find his way back; if his desire is to be a controller, he'll cripple the church one way or the other.
2) Your desire to be support may turn into crutches rather than foundation if you bear down too heavily on your new pastor. You have called him to lead--with wise counsel he will do that.
Blessings.
DD and Benjie,
Thanks for your kind comments and DD, I curse your name for rubbing in the fact that you are commenting from a beach.
Brother James is gone. I decided a few months ago not to expend any more mental energy in trying to find out exactly why he left.
I'm a little uncomfortable with the leash metaphor. I think I'll address your concerns in an upcoming post.
ok, i am back in a cold house in va...please remove the curse! the cold air is rough on a sunburn.
also, leash metaphor can change. What do you think of...
tether?
muzzle?
ankle weights?
ball and chain?
umbilical cord?
jerry jones?
my brain is tired or i would write a few more.
dd
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