Pastoral ministry demands a high emotional investment, especially in times of tension, and sometimes you wonder if there’s a return.
—Marshall Shelley
William Barclay defined a saint as “someone whose life makes it easier to believe in God.” For a pastor caught in the middle of conflict, it’s easy to question whether you’re doing any good for God at all. You find yourself questioning not only your effectiveness in ministry but also your own standing with God. The biblical command to “make your calling and election sure” is never more difficult than amid relationship distemper.
Even in the best of times, pastoral ministry demands a high emotional investment, and sometimes you wonder if there’s a return. With the addition of conflict, you’re tempted to conclude ministry is a total loss.
Not long ago, 1 sat with Kevin Miller, then Leadership senior associate editor, on a park bench in downtown Denver, and together we listened to a pastor describe his first two years in his congregation. This young pastor was still shaking his head at the anger and accusations that had been directed his way.
He still didn’t understand the significance of it all, but he was beginning to see glimpses of grace, faint movements of God working in himself and the lives of people in the congregation.
Kevin worked with this pastor to disguise the identities but to retell the story. It helps us gain a bit higher ground as we try to get some personal perspective amid the confusion of church conflict.
The service had ended an hour ago, and Pastor Brian Wells had long since said good-bye to the last departing worshiper, but here he was, still lingering in the cool of the narthex. He didn’t know why, really; all he knew is that he felt satisfied.
He’d already sent Carol and the boys home while he closed up, and he knew they’d be impatiently waiting to start Sunday dinner. He leaned forward against the tall panes of glass separating the sanctuary from the narthex and gazed over the empty pews one more time.
The message had been strong that morning. At times his energies had been so focused that he’d seemed to enter what athletes call “the zone,” a feeling of effortlessness and euphoria when your concentration is most intense. He was tired now, but it was a good tired,, and he wanted to savor it, like a basketball player after a big win.
As he looked across the sanctuary, Brian found it hard to believe he’d been at Community Church of Madison only eight months. He and Carol had fit right in. They’d been asked to dinner more evenings than not. Brian’s eyes followed the smooth oak beams up and across the ceiling of the darkened sanctuary, and they seemed like great arms embracing him.
Well, Carol’s waiting, he thought, and he started toward the door. He noticed a morning bulletin on the floor near the coat rack. I Ie leaned over and in one smooth swoop picked it up. It wasn’t a bulletin after all, he realized as he looked at it, but some sort of leaflet.
restore community church to its history of biblical integrity! it said in flaming red. remove pastor wells!
“Unh.” Brian groaned reflexively, as if he’d been punched in the stomach.
“Brian Wells is bent on imposing his liberal views on our church,” the leaflet explained. “His utter disregard for the inspiration of Scripture will tear Community Church from its cherished biblical moorings—unless we act now …”
Brian scanned down, looking for something identifying who wrote it, but the paper ended with only the words act now
He stared at the leaflet. It was his name all right, but he wasn’t sure it was talking about him. If anybody was committed to the trustworthiness of Scripture, it was he. He’d even gone to an inerrancy conference last year.
Who would write something like this? His mind quickly filed through people he’d met since coming, but nobody seemed capable of it. Do a lot of people feel this way, or is it just one or two? Why didn’t anyone say something to me?
Normally, Brian prided himself on his sensitive pastoral antennae. When there was discontent in the congregation, he quickly knew it. But this came without warning. Why didn’t I sense anything? Brian crumpled the paper in his fist.
When Brian walked into the kitchen at home, everyone stopped eating and looked up. “Your dinner’s getting cold,” Carol said.
Brian didn’t feel like talking, much less eating. He uncrumpled the ball of paper and handed it to her. Carol read the leaflet silently and then looked up with wide eyes. “Brian, who would write that?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out,” he said, sounding braver than he felt. He walked down the hall into the bedroom and picked up the phone. Then he put it down again. He wasn’t sure whom to call. From his predecessor, J. Walter Landis, he had inherited one associate pastor and a youth pastor. They were cordial but still tentative about him. Brian had to admit that was fair; he was tentative about them, too. Still, right now he needed solid support. He finally punched the number for Henry Meyers, chairman of the elder board and a member of the search committee that selected him.
“Henry, have you seen the leaflet about me?” Brian asked.
“What leaflet?”
Brian explained what it said.
“That’s crazy,” Henry said.
“Henry, who in the world would write something like that?”
“I don’t know for sure. But I guess you should know something that happened just before we extended you a call. Landis heard about our intentions and called me long distance from his new church. He said, ‘I hear you’re going to extend a call to Brian Wells. Let me tell you, Brian’s not your man.’ “
“But Landis doesn’t even know me!”
“No, but he knows you went to Stanton Seminary, and in his mind that brands you. He used to talk against Stanton from the pulpit”
“C’mon. I’m as orthodox as they come”
“I know. I’m just telling you what he used to say”
“How did you respond when he called?” Brian asked.
“I told him, ‘Thanks for calling and sharing your opinion, Walter, but the committee feels good about Brian, and we believe he’s the person God has led us to call.’ That was the end of the conversation. But my guess is some people are against you because of Stanton”
“How many people?”
“Who knows? Probably a handful”
As Brian hung up the telephone, he finally understood why Landis had preached so often on doctrinal dangers. He must have been utterly devoted to purity. But he’d left the people—some of them, at least—ready to shoot anything that moved.
The next ten days were quiet but unnerving. Brian couldn’t shake the feeling he was being watched. Writing his sermon was excruciating. No matter how many times he scrutinized each line, he still feared it could be misinterpreted. In the pulpit he knew he was holding back, yet he felt powerless to do anything about it.
As he shook each hand following the service, he wondered, Are you for me or against me? When everyone was gone, he searched the narthex floor for something he hoped he wouldn’t, and didn’t, find.
The one reprieve was when Larry stopped by his office after the service. Larry’s wife was a committed Christian and for years had been trying to persuade her husband to come to church. Larry, an insurance executive, was frank about his distaste for religion, but he had finally consented to try church again. They ended up at Community a month after Brian arrived and had attended regularly ever since.
Larry walked into Brian’s office and sat down. He was a big man in his early forties, though he looked older. He leaned forward and looked at Brian. “Pastor,” he said, “I want to tell you something. I’m not a Christian yet, but I’m just about there, and it’s because of you. You’re doing a great job”
When Larry said that, Brian had to smile. If only you knew how others felt. But something in the words released the tension.
“Larry, I … you don’t know how much those words mean to me,” Brian managed. “I’m glad you’re close to becoming a Christian. You know, there’s no time like the present to make that decision, if you’re willing”
Brian and Larry talked for fifteen or twenty minutes, and then Larry said he’d made up his mind. He knew it might be hard following Christ, but he was ready to start. They bowed their heads, and Brian led Larry in prayer. When Brian looked up at Larry afterwards, he didn’t know which of them was happier. He threw his arms around Larry and gave him a hug even a man his size would remember.
On Friday Brian was sorting through the morning mail and came to a letter with no return address: “Dear Pastor Wells,” it began, “You will have to answer to God for your perverted teaching that there is a Mr. and Mrs. God. We can no longer sit back and watch you lead Community Church into error … “
Brian quickly read to the bottom: unsigned. Brian read the letter again, but there was no clue, either from the paper or typewriter used, as to who sent it. The line about a “Mr. and Mrs. God” galled and perplexed him. He could understand, perhaps, some people’s misconceptions of Stanton Seminary, but this charge was utterly unconnected to reality. It made him sound like a cultist.
Then it hit Brian: George Mason! George, a devotional teacher with a national reputation, had spoken at the Wednesday evening service. He had said something like, “We need to be careful in our devotional life that we do not view God as the traditional father, if by that we mean one who is aloof, distant, and uncaring. He’s the perfect parent, who also like a loving mother takes a child to his breast.” Brian admitted it was a new thought for some people in Community Church, but it certainly squared with Scripture.
The more he thought about the letter, the angrier he became. He hadn’t even asked Mason to come; Landis had made all the arrangements before he left! And to construe from what George Mason had said that Brian believed in a Mr. and Mrs. God was absurd. What am I supposed to do, anyway, Brian thought, rip the microphone out of the hands of any guest speaker who has a fresh idea?
“Cheap shot,” Brian muttered under his breath.
Brian had been preaching through the Book of James and had planned to cover James 4:1-12 on Sunday—but now, no way. He’d had enough of being the sitting duck, the passive minister who lets people fire away and keeps on smiling. He might not know who sent the letter or who wrote that leaflet, but they were going to hear about it Sunday, whoever they were. It was time to take a stand.
By three o’clock Brian had an outline and rough draft. The thoughts had flowed. Brian was surprised how productive he could be when he was fired up. Titled “Honor and Honesty,” the sermon was going lo call to account members of the congregation who had been disregarding both.
Brian was about to head home when the phone rang. It was Vern, an old friend who pastors a large church near Denver. Vern had been through it all during his years of ministry, and even though they didn’t see each other often, they made it a habit to check on each other periodically. In fact, Brian had thought about giving him a call a few days earlier.
Brian told Vern about the leaflet and the unsigned letter. “But this Sunday I’m going to set things straight,” Brian said. “I can’t let this kind of thing keep happening”
“I can appreciate how you feel,” Vern said. “But I’d think twice before I blasted anybody from the pulpit. When I was an associate at Third Street, Sawyer started being attacked by people, and he took the battle into the pulpit. All that did was make people defensive and angry. The people who hadn’t done anything wrong felt. Hey, I like him. What’s he after me for?”
“So what am I supposed to do?” Brian asked. “Just let these people continue their guerrilla warfare?”
“Truth will triumph. Where you’re wrong, admit it. Where they’re wrong, don’t defend yourself. But just focus on what God has for you to say. As hard as it is, don’t take your fighting into the pulpit—truth will win out”
Brian lay awake in bed that night. The leaflet and letter hurt so much he didn’t want to think about them, but he couldn’t stop. They were so unfair, so one-sided, so insane. But Vern was usually right. If he dropped the bomb on Sunday, he’d wound not only the guilty but also countless innocents. Part of the passage in James he’d studied began to come back to him: “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” Then Brian drifted asleep.
When Brian walked into the pulpit Sunday, he slipped out of his pocket a card on which he’d handlettered truth will triumph. He laid it in front of him and took a deep breath. He’d never been angry and afraid and calm all at once. But somehow he was. He launched into, ironically, James 4:1—”What causes fights and quarrels among you?”—and when he finished preaching eleven verses later, lie walked back to his seat with his head up. He’d had the chance to lash out, but he hadn’t used it.
After the service, Henry Meyers pulled him aside. “Pastor, I think we’ve found our man”
“I got a call late last night from Ed Anderson,” Henry continued. “He said that under your teaching, Community Church was falling into error and that we as elders were responsible to do something about it”
“What did you say?”
“I said yes, that was our responsibility and asked him what sort of problems he was having with your teaching. He said that you did not believe in the inerrancy of the Bible and as a result had fallen into deception, including that there is a Mr. and Mrs. God”
Henry stopped and looked at Brian, and Brian nodded for him to keep going.
” ‘Well, Ed, to be honest,’ I said, ‘the other elders doubt very seriously whether he believes there’s some sort of husband-and-wife God.’ “
Brian was encouraged by the support.
“Then he got really mad,” Henry continued. “He said he wasn’t the only one who felt this way, that a lot of other people were also concerned, and that if we didn’t care about the Bible, they’d find a pastor and elders who did”
“What did you say?”
“At that point, I knew we had to give him a chance to air his grievances. I asked him if he’d be willing to talk to the elders about his concerns, with you present to defend yourself”
“Did he take you up on it?”
“We set a meeting for this Saturday, provided you and all the elders can make it”
On Saturday morning, Brian was in the church lounge at 8:30. The meeting wasn’t scheduled until 9:00, but he wanted to pick a chair he’d be comfortable in and also to pray fur a few moments. He had bags under his eyes from a sleepless night. Every time he had awakened, though, he thought through what he could say to defend himself; so he was feeling confident about the meeting.
Brian didn’t know much about Ed except what Henry had told him: in his fifties, a fairly wealthy attorney, and a natural leader used to running his own show. He had wanted to be on the board, but Landis had twice nixed the idea, and he was probably still smarting from that.
When Ed arrived, shortly after nine, he chose a chair directly across the room from Brian. He grunted a “Good morning” to everyone so far gathered and sat in silence.
When the last elder arrived. Henry wasted no time beginning the meeting. “Ed, we’re here to listen to whatever you have to say to us. We’ve asked Brian to be here to answer questions that come up and to clarify what he believes and teaches. So why don’t you start”
Ed glanced down at a legal pad in his lap and then looked across at Brian.
“Pastor,” he said, “how many epistles arc there in the New Testament?”
Brian panicked. He didn’t know what Ed was driving at, and he wasn’t prepared for that question. “I don’t know the exact number offhand,” Brian said, “but let’s see … there’s Romans, two to the Corinthians …”
Brian’s mind went blank. He couldn’t even think of the next book in the New Testament. “Uh, I don’t know, but I’d say about twenty or so”
“Twenty-one,” Ed informed him. “What I want to know,” he said, looking around at the elders, “is why you wrote in the last church newsletter that there were twenty-eight”
“I, uh …” Brian stalled, and then it came to him. “I said in that article I was also counting the letters to the seven churches in the Book of Revelation. Besides, the point of the article was not the exact number but that each of us is an epistle, known and read by all. People read our actions to see if our faith means anything”
“That’s a nice, allegorical way to avoid the fact that you don’t know the Bible very well”
“Regardless,” Henry broke in, “that’s a minor issue. Let’s get to the heart of the matter”
“All right,” Ed said. “You don’t believe the Bible is inerrant, do you?” He leaned forward and looked at Brian.
“That’s not true. I believe the Scriptures are without error.” “But you never preach on it”
“Well, not all the time, but since I’ve been here I’ve preached one sermon on the reliability of Scripture, and all my sermons show the Bible as our sole authority”
“But would you be willing to sign a public statement saying that you believe in inerrancy?”
“I already have. When I accepted the call to Community Church, I signed a statement saying I was in complete agreement with the church’s constitution and statement of faith, and that includes inerrancy”
Gordon, one of the elders, joined the attack. “You went to Stanton Seminary. Would you say they teach inerrancy?”
Brian was stunned that Gordon was supporting Ed’s cause. “I can’t vouch for all the professors there, but I know I believe in inerrancy”
“Gentleman,” Ed said, looking away from Brian, “what you have here is a man who says he believes in inerrancy, who will even sign a statement saying he believes it, but who in his heart of hearts really doesn’t believe it. How can a man like that be our pastor?”
Brian didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Was he supposed to sign in blood?
The rest of the meeting was a stalemate. Ed refused to accept Brian’s professions of belief. Henry finally tried to close the meeting. “Ed, thank you for being willing to share your concerns with us. I don’t know what to say. Pastor Brian says he believes in inerrancy and has even signed a statement to that effect. To us, that’s enough proof. If it’s not to you, we’re sorry”
“You mean you’re not going to take a vote?” Ed demanded.
“A vote on what?”
“A vote on whether we ought to remove this man as our pastor”
“I don’t see why that’s necessary, but yes, if you want us to go on record, we can take a vote. All those in favor of removing Brian Wells as pastor of Community Church, say ‘aye.’ “
“Aye,” said Gordon loudly—with Ed, who couldn’t even vote.
“All those opposed?”
“Nay,” said the rest of the room.
“I want to warn you,” said Ed as he stood up. “Gordon and I aren’t the only ones who are concerned about the pastor. His own staff doesn’t support him. I love this church. It kills me to leave it. But if you men are too weak to remove a pastor who’s subverting it, we’ll find a church that does preach the Word.” Then he left, with Gordon close behind.
As Brian drove home, he felt sick. What had Ed meant by “his own staff doesn’t support him”? Was that another one of his outrageous claims, or was there some truth to it? And how did Ed know? Had he and the staff been meeting behind Brian’s back? It hurt, too, that Gordon, who ought to know better, had turned against him. He’d been so supportive on the elder retreat, and now in the middle of a meeting, he decides he can’t trust his own pastor.
Brian was proud of the rest of the elders, though. They’d been pure gold, tested and refined. They and Brian had “won,” though strangely, Brian almost didn’t care. Maybe that’s what bothered him most about this whole thing. No matter how wrong Ed and Gordon might be, the whole affair had inflicted such a severe emotional beating that Brian hadn’t felt good for anything. What kind of ministry can you have when you’re constantly under siege? he wondered.
Three weeks later Brian found out that Ed and Gordon and about seventy-five other people had started meeting on the other side of town. He called Henry Meyers to let him know.
“So they carried through on their threat,” Henry said.
“Yeah. They’re renting the Seventh-day Adventist church building on Sunday mornings, and they’re talking about calling a pastor soon”
“There’s not much we can do about Ed, but it sure hurts to see so many people go with him”
“It hurts me, too,” Brian said, “but in a way I’m almost relieved. Maybe this is natural fallout when a new pastor comes. Maybe now things will calm down and we can get back to ministry”
“Brian, I hate to tell you this since you just said that, but remember in our meeting with Ed, how he said even the staff doesn’t support you? I’ve been puzzling over that statement ever since”
“Me, too,” Brian said. “I couldn’t tell whether he was bluffing or whether he knew something we didn’t. And I couldn’t exactly confront Doug and Tim: ‘Are you loyal to me? Have you been meeting with Ed?’ “
“Well, my wife was talking with Tim’s wife, and she said that the month before that leaflet came out, Ed invited Tim and Doug over to his house. He wanted to know what they thought about how things were going in the church. Apparently Tim supported you, but Doug was pretty negative. It upset Tim and his wife, but they didn’t feel right saying anything about it earlier”
Brian hung up, leaned back in his chair, and looked at the ceiling. So it’s not over, he thought. Now the problem rumbled within his staff. But what could he do, fire a person because he criticized him? During his own days as an associate, he hadn’t always agreed with his senior pastor. Still, this was different, and Brian didn’t know what to do.
Several Sundays later, just before his sermon, Brian looked out and saw Larry sitting near the back. Suddenly all the anger and frustration he had felt over the past months came bubbling up. Here’s this new believer, he thought, looking for a warm and safe place to grow in Christ, and we can’t give it to him. My faith is hardly strong enough to stand all this backbiting and gossip, and we’re subjecting him to it. He’s never going to make it.
Complicating the whole matter was that Larry and Doug lived near each other, and their kids had become good friends. Brian wasn’t sure how close they were, but if Doug were making comments critical of him or the church, Larry would probably hear them. And if Brian and Doug had to part ways, Larry would witness the whole mess. Brian didn’t know if Larry’s tender faith could withstand any more church dissension.
In the spring, Brian asked Christian scholar and writer R. T. Bradfield to speak at Community Church. Following the church’s usual policy, he had his secretary send Bradfield a copy of the church’s doctrinal statement to sign. Bradfield called him the next week and said he deeply wanted to come to Community, but couldn’t in good conscience endorse some of the fine points of eschatology that were part of the statement.
Brian said he didn’t think that would pose any problem, but he wanted to get the board’s approval. He was still tender from the blow-up over George Mason’s comments.
At the elder board meeting the following Thursday, Brian explained what Bradfield had said.
“I’ve read two of Bradfield’s books,” said Henry. “Heavy stuff, but good! And didn’t he write the book on biblical inerrancy? To refuse to allow him to speak because of a minor point of eschatology is ridiculous”
The other elders agreed wholeheartedly. “Of course, we’re going to have him,” said one. “Besides, nothing in the constitution says a speaker has to sign the statement or he can’t preach”
Brian thought Doug looked disgruntled. But he wasn’t sure.
At the next weekly staff meeting, Brian was going over the preaching and worship calendar for the coming quarter.
“How’s it look to you?” Brian asked Doug.
“I’ve been meaning to say something about this, and now seems like the time,” said Doug. “A lot of people have said to me, ‘We need more meat, more depth in our messages.’ So I was thinking it might be good if you preached on Sunday morning and let me feed the people on Sunday nights”
Brian consciously tried to keep his expression steady. He could handle criticism, but if “more meat” meant a preaching style like Doug’s, he had grave reservations. One time Doug was preaching and asked all the men in the congregation to stand. Then he said, “Women, look at these men. If one-third of these men became as spiritual as they ought to be, this church would be a different place.” He was a master of intimidation.
“Let me think about that for a while, Doug,” Brian said. He wanted to make sure he handled this right, and he was afraid if they got into it now, the quiet exchange might escalate into verbal war.
The following week Brian decided on his strategy. He was going to be on a badly needed vacation the following month, so he asked Doug to take the Sunday evening service while he was gone, and at least one Sunday night each month from then on. As much as Brian disagreed with some of Doug’s preaching tactics, he wanted to support him; Doug was a capable discipleship leader and had given six years to Community Church.
When he presented the idea, Doug seemed happy for the opportunities, and that helped blunt the news that Brian didn’t think it was time for him to take every Sunday evening just yet.
On the first Sunday evening of their trip, Brian and Carol stayed in a Holiday Inn outside Indianapolis. Brian was sitting up in bed reading USA Today when the phone rang. Who could be calling me? he wondered as he walked over to the phone. No one knows I’m here.
“Pastor, I’m really sorry to bother you, especially so late.” It was Henry Meyers.
“Henry! What’s going on?”
“It’s Doug. You know he preached tonight”
“Yes?”
“Brian, he really blasted the elders. He said we were weak, not being completely truthful with the congregation. And since we didn’t measure up to the biblical standards, we shouldn’t be followed until we return to complete truthfulness”
“Oh no”
“I feel bad calling you like this, but the congregation is in an uproar. I’ve had five phone calls about it in the last hour. I hate to suggest this, but I think if you could be here, you could calm things down”
The next morning, Brian headed their Reliant wagon north on 1-65 back toward Madison. Carol sat in silence, and the kids, knowing something was wrong, were subdued. Brian didn’t know what to say to Carol. She understood—she really did—but he felt like Scrooge tearing her away from this vacation. She’d been waiting for it for months, and all the promises that they’d get away again soon sounded cheap.
As they drove past the fields of knee-high corn, Brian formulated what he would say to Doug. And every now and then his thoughts would wander to Larry. I was afraid this was going to happen, he thought. How’s he supposed to understand that Christ is great and it’s just us Christians that are the problem? Larry, friend, if you give it all up, you have no one to blame but us.
That evening, Brian and the elders met with Doug in an emergency meeting.
“Doug, you have publicly charged the elders of this church with not being truthful,” Brian began. “That’s a serious charge. Explain what you mean”
“I’ve been in this church for six years,” he said, “and I’ve always been able to support and work with its leaders. But it deeply disturbs me when I see elders who don’t have integrity on fiscal matters and who hide the fact they let any speaker, no matter how off-base, into the pulpit”
“Which speakers, for example?”
“R. T. Bradfield. And anyone who can’t sign this church’s statement of faith ought not to be allowed to speak in its pulpit”
“We discussed that at the elders’ meeting,” Henry snapped. “If you had a problem with it, why didn’t you say something then, rather than immaturely blasting us in a public worship service? There’s nothing wrong with Bradfield, anyway. He’s as orthodox as anyone here”
The meeting lasted over an hour. Doug never did produce any evidence of financial wrongdoing—Brian knew he couldn’t because there wasn’t any. The issue at heart was Doug’s objection to the church’s “weak leadership”
Near the end, Doug said, “I’m stunned. Community Church has been my home, my family. But since it’s clear that you men are not willing to lead this church in a godly direction, I can no longer be part of it. I resign”
Brian hurt inside, but he didn’t try to stop Doug. In truth, he didn’t know any other way to resolve the problem. How do you answer a charge that you aren’t godly?
“Doug,” Henry said, “we accept your resignation, though we want you to know we’re sorry you feel this way. And I personally want to ask your forgiveness for snapping at you earlier in this meeting. Please forgive me”
The room was silent. Then Doug nodded at Henry, stood, and walked out.
On Sunday the church held a farewell reception of sorts for Doug following the service. Brian saw Larry say good-bye to Doug. Larry’s kids were crying, Larry had to know all the dirt behind the resignation. Brian wanted to run over and say something to him, but what could he say?
For five weeks Brian didn’t hear anything about Doug. Then the leader of an adult Sunday school class told Brian half his class had stopped coming; they were meeting with Doug on Sunday mornings now. When Brian checked into it, he found that in the two weeks since Doug’s group had met, attendance had swelled to over one hundred.
The news sent Brian into an emotional tailspin. When Ed and all his people left, he’d almost felt relieved, but to have the same thing happen again so soon was too much. I must be setting some sort of ecclesiastical record, Brian thought. He could imagine the headlines in the Stanton alumni magazine: wells’ church has record second split in his first two years
What am I doing wrong? Brian thought, spinning a pencil in circles on his desk. Oh, God, I’m tired.
Brian looked down at his desk calendar, hoping his afternoon would magically be open, but two appointments stared at him. The first was with Larry. His secretary must have set it up.
That’s the crowning blow, he thought. Lorry’s going to come in here and say, “Pastor Wells, I’ve given this Christianity thing a fair shake, but it’s just not all it’s cracked up to be“
Larry came five minutes late, and when he walked in, Brian thought he looked troubled. He sat down in the brown chair across from Brian’s desk, then leaned forward. Brian braced himself.
“Pastor,” he said, “this last year has been hell for me.” “That sounds rough. Tell me about it,” Brian said mechanically.
“My boss is the most abrasive person I’ve ever known,” he said. “He never has a kind word about anyone or anything. For three years I’ve sweated under that, and then I came to Community Church—”
And you found we Christians aren’t any better, Brian mentally completed his sentence.
“And I watched you,” Larry went on. “I watched the slander, the accusations, all the guff. You had every right to retaliate. And you didn’t”
Brian was silent.
“I figured if God could help you not to retaliate, with all you went through, then he could help me not to retaliate with what I went through. So I went back to my boss, and I did something I’ve never done before in my life—it had to be God, because I couldn’t do it—I apologized to my boss, and I asked his forgiveness for the way I’ve bucked him and for the bad attitudes I’ve had”
Brian opened his mouth to say something, but he couldn’t get anything out.
“So that’s why I came in here today. 1 wanted you to know that in the last year you not only helped me meet the Lord, you also proved to me that, in the middle of hard times. God is real”
Brian’s eyes started to well with tears.
“If you didn’t come to Madison for anybody else. Pastor, you came for me”
Brian started to cry. He knew he must have looked like a fool in front of Larry, but he didn’t care. He let the tears come.
—Kevin Miller
Copyright © 1992 by Christianity Today
