My insomnia was sin. I spent hours a week awake in bed envisioning our church as another church. I even had a new name and logo, Emmaus Road Presbyterian, in the trendy all lower case letters with an ancient, but modern, open Bible and broken piece of bread. At 2 a.m. I agonized over our worship, wishing it was passionate, "authentic" (whatever that means).

Committee nights were either couch nights, so my wife could sleep, or medication nights, so I could sleep.

I remember a particular couch night several months ago—worship committee. The agenda consisted of discussion about the controversial change in schedule from our 10:30 service to 10:00, the excitement of the traditional singing of "For All the Saints" on All Saints Day, and when to decorate the church for Christmas, since Advent started in November last year.

Insomnia and church transformation are not a good combination. My insomnia was sin because these were the people who called me to be their pastor. These ...