Dear Pastor Potter:
They’re showing “A Bridge Too Far” on Channel 3 tonight. I love that film. I’ve seen it five times, and I still cheer when Robert Redford stands up in the boat crossing the river, like Washington crossing the Delaware.
The bass fishermen are meeting tonight, too, at the VFW Hall. Lenny Hekhuis is showing slides of his float trip down the Shenandoah last fall, and I was going to go, but I stuck with Robert Redford.
You and some others are down in Finney Hall in the church basement stuffing 20,000 flyers and invitations into 20,000 envelopes for the Madison County Deeper Life Campaign at the fairground. I guess I should be there. You asked for volunteers last Sunday, and I had my hand halfway up when you announced hymn number 263, “Work, for the Night Is Coming.”
As you’ve probably guessed, I’m feeling a little bad about that and about not getting to choir practice and dropping off the planning committee and canceling the literature distribution training session scheduled for our house last month.
Now, before I go any further, I want you to know that this is not a criticism of you in any way, form, or fashion. You work harder in the church than anyone, for heaven’s sake. I don’t see how you keep it up—without getting discouraged. But I thought perhaps it would help if I told you how I feel and what it’s going to take to get me to stuff envelopes or drive a bus or chaperone a junior high school burger bash.
For one thing, pastor, I think I’m burned out—spent, pooped, empty. I’ve been hearing about it lately, and they say that if you’re not careful, it can lead to dropout. I always used to say I didn’t mind burning out for the Lord, but lately I’ve been afraid I might go up in one big poof.
You know how they say, “If it’s Tuesday, this must be Brussels”? Well, I had so many things going on I was saying, “If it’s prayer meeting, this must be Wednesday. If it’s softball, this must be Thursday” etc. Now, I don’t want you to worry about me. You notice we’re still there on Sunday morning (about halfway back on the American flag side, right behind Eddie and Alice Turner and their troupe). A couple of months ago you preached on that verse in Galatians, “Be not weary in well doing,” and I’ve been thinking about that, too. To tell the truth, I’ve got energy left, but I keep finding a lot of other things I want to do. It’s like I’ve discovered a world I’d forgotten was there. And Marge agrees, too. She’s out tonight, taking a pottery class at the high school. We had an evening home alone last week—first one in months.
Meanwhile, I have a suggestion. You know I work out at Tri-State Coin Machine Co.—going on twenty-two years. Well, last year our personnel director, Buddy Blankenship, gave us all a form to fill out, two pages with questions like “What sports do you like best? Have you ever learned to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation? Which one of these social events do you prefer—dinner/theater, miniature golf, a tour of the natural history museum, or stock car races?”
Of course, they want to get everyone involved in the life of the company—happy employees produce more, and all that. Anyhow, later on Buddy and his new assistant from the university talked to everyone of the employees, all 165, a personal interview. They signed me up for the Memorial Day picnic committee.
Well, I was thinking we ought to have a form like that at the church. For one thing, a lot of people like me are just real slow to put up their hand. We sort of get a stiff elbow about the time anyone asks for volunteers. Maybe those four years in the army cured me for life. Or maybe I’m just a little self-conscious. I’m not sure, but as I think about it, I realize that everything I’ve done in the church is because someone came and asked me personally—sometimes twice.
Maybe the deacons or the young people or some other group could make up a form like that and take it around to everyone and talk to them. For one thing, you’ll catch a lot of those people who fall between the cracks. You know the ones who come every week, put a buck in the plate, and you never see them again? I have a hunch you could get a lot of those people stuffing envelopes or serving macaroni salad when the state convention meets here in June.
Another thing it would do is to get the right people in the right slots. One year the church put my name up to serve on the public relations committee. Me? I’m a tool-and-die man. You might just as well ask me to make curtains for the preschool room. The crazy thing is I almost accepted, thinking it was my “duty.” When Marge about tell off the porch laughing, I got the point and told the committee no. You know more about that kind of thing than I do. As I say, I’m a tool-and-die man, but I think the idea is pretty good. It would help fit a guy like me in the right jobs, and it might help keep some others from getting burned out.
By the way, before I forget it, I want to ask you something else about that verse, “Be not weary in well doing.” You preached on the first part of it, but you didn’t say too much about the second, “for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” That’s what I’m not sure about.
Forgive me for another illustration from Tri-State Coin Machine, but, as you can see, if I were a preacher, I could get a lot of sermon material there. Anyhow, pastor, out there, when we reap, we know it. The guys have production quotas, and at the first of the month, old man Shurtz comes out into the shop and smiles a lot—if we make it. If we don’t, he holes up. Then, of course, we also get that old check every Friday, and that’s a kind of reaping, too.
Well, the church can’t give out little yellow envelopes every Sunday with three or five or ten stars. I understand that. I’m not looking for a reward. Like it said in the hymn we sang on Pledge Sunday,
Wait not for men to laud, Heed not their slight. Winning the smile of God Brings its delight.
Someday we’ll know the final score. Meanwhile, it just might help a little bit to know if we’re five runs ahead or two behind with two outs and no one on in the top of the ninth.
Here’s what I mean, for example. Take Eddie Turner with his five kids, three of them teenagers. He’s into everything. Practically eats and sleeps at the church. Now what if someone said to him, “Hey, Eddie, two kids in the youth group accepted the Lord this week. All that driving around you’ve done to take the kids to Camp Ocheewahbee and the roller rink and everyplace really helped. You had a part in it.” Not that Eddie needs anyone to say thanks, you understand. But the way he’s going, he’s going to need a little encouragement.
Or, take the people down at the church tonight. They should be real thankful they can work for the Lord like that—and I imagine they are. But it may be a little hard, as someone put it, to see the eternal value in running a damp sponge over 20,000 envelope flaps. It might help to get some of those folks back next time if someone stood up in church and gave a report on the Deeper Life Campaign, even said a special word to all those envelope stuffers and other workers.
I suppose what I’m saying may sound a little unspiritual. Here’s where I need your help. I’ve looked for a verse in the Bible that says something like that, but all I find are things about faith or about seeing through a glass darkly or about working while there’s still time to work.
Well, pastor, the British finally lost the bridge to the Germans, and the eleven o’clock news is over, but I just want to mention one more thing. I said I keep finding a lot of other things I want to do besides go to church, and I’m having a real problem here. For example, last year when the stewardship committee met on the same night the Steelers played the Cowboys, I didn’t give it a second thought. I stayed right through the meeting, even though only three people came and we couldn’t vote because we didn’t have a quorum. Anyhow, I got to see the second half, and the Steelers lost.
But I don’t know about this year. The bass fishermen are having a tournament, and I promised Jimmy Lucarelli next door I’d help him frame out his garage, and Marge wants to catch all those band concerts on the mall. She and Alice Turner get front seats every other week.
One thing about it, though. I’m getting to know some of those guys a lot better, and I figure that’s when real Christianity comes into it. Now we’ll see if it works. (Speaking of that, I think Jimmy Lucarelli and Cathy might come to the meetings at the fairground with us. We’ve been praying for them.) Anyhow, you see the problem. I could use a little counsel here.
By the way, are you interested in entering the bass tournament? I need a partner, and I think you told me you’d like to do a little more fishing.
Well, to close, pastor, like I said, I haven’t dropped out. Maybe I just need to hear you say it once more: “Wilson, it’s the ninth inning and we’re two runs behind. We’ve got two outs and no one on and you’re up. We’re counting on you to hit, because Eddie Turner is right behind you and he’s the best clutch hitter we’ve got and he leads in RBIs. So go get ’em!”
Of course, on Sunday morning, you might put it a little differently. Maybe if I heard that hymn just one more time:
Work for the night is coming, Work through the morning hours; Work while the dew is sparkling; Work ‘mid springing flowers. Work when the day grows brighter, Work in the glowing sun; Work for the night is coming When man’s work is done.
I like that! That guy really had a way with words. Oh, yeah, one more thing, why don’t you give me a call after church?
Your brother in the Lord,
Ronald E. Wilson
