Chapter 7b - Pushed To Confront
** Be sure to read Chapter 7a first! **
"My boy," my father said, "I think the time has come for me to leave New Hope."
"Alright pops. Whats goin' on?"
And off we went.
My dad went on to explain that he and his wife (my step-mom) had been thinking and praying and felt a call to give more attention and focus to their undeniable, long-standing calling towards the people of ghetto in our city. (Just as an example... they live smack dab in the middle of said ghetto and have built a 1500 sq ft Teen Center in their backyard. My dad has also had a "gym" in his basement that he opens up for all the teenage kids in the area to come work out and hear about God.) Though I didn't doubt for a minute his sincerity, I pushed further, "Well... what does that have to do with leaving New Hope?" You have to remember that his church had been just about everything to us. Now don't take that to mean that we didn't love our families or that we did not love Christ with everything we had... its just, New Hope was largely the battlegrounds of our lives... the place where we pursued our faith and good works. In some ways, you could say that our entire life was invested there. Yes, that analogy fits perfectly. We FULLY invested our Christian lives in New Hope. Very little diversification in our spiritual portfolio.
Yeah yeah, what about this CONFRONTATION? Read on...
And so that night I pushed my father to explain further why he felt that this calling to ministry in the ghetto required him to leave our church. To be honest, I don't remember what he told me that night or if he gave much of an answer at all. But, I do know that he admitted that there was something more to the story. I know this because I told him that he owed it to the leaders of the church to tell them completely what was going on. He couldn't just up and leave. He said he'd think about it.
The next day, he called me on the cell phone with a marked difference in his voice. He told me that he had spoken with his good friend of thirty years, Tommy. Not surprisingly, Tommy had encouraged him along the same lines I did. And so, my father wrote out all that was on his mind, what would later be known as the infamous Eleven-Page-Letter (henceforth referred to as the "EPL").
But what brought this all about? Where was this coming from? I'd like to tell it all in gruesome, gory details... but it would not be fair to anybody involved. So, I'll tame it down, change names, and summarize the stories down as best I can.
One particular week, my step-mom was verbally assaulted at home by a member of the church (cussing, yelling, etc). This type of stuff is not completely foreign to anybody who has ever served as a pastor (or as a pastor's wife), but of course it cannot be taken lightly either. When my father and step-mom tried to talk to the couple about it later, they were unwilling to apologize and refused to talk about what happened. That week at the weekly elder's meeting, the issue was brought up and my father was assured that the issue would be addressed by the senior pastor and one of the other pastors. They suggested my dad stay out of it until some progress could be made. Three weeks later, the couple turned in their keys to the church announcing they were no longer going to be members. But then, a twist... the church secretary informed my father that this couple was approached by the two pastors and asked to stay at the church. They were encouraged to stay as members, but to stop going to services on Sunday morning so as to avoid contact with my dad. Stranger still, they were encouraged to remain in ministry... the mid-week Music Ministry (one of the areas of the church asked my father to oversee). And so, my father was baffled to find a couple serving in the ministry he oversaw who had recently cussed out his wife, were unwilling to talk about the event, and definitely unwilling to apologize for it. And all of this without a word being said to my father about it from the other pastors. Even more importantly, there was still no progress towards reconciliation between the couple and my father and step-mom.
You would think this would be a simple thing.. after all, yelling and cussing at somebody is unkind in a very basic way. And in fact, it should have been easy to achieve reconciliation, for my father and step-mom loved this particular couple in a very real way. But the conflict got messier as the couple not only refused to get together and talk about the incident, but the senior pastor did nothing to intervene, and even went so far as to say that my father and step-mom were out of line to push for the issue to be addressed. And as this mole hill grew to the size of a mountain, evidence surfaced of long-standing slander and gossip from the mouth of another elder against my father. Worse yet was that this habit of gossip had been witnessed several times over the years by many people, yes the elder had a reputation as a gossip... and his failure to control his tongue continued without much attention or action from the senior pastor.
WHAT A MESS!
It was through trying to resolve this conflict that my father was left convinced that the leadership of the church had failed in its role to protect the congregation. Though in the past he had spoken out against unjust leadership decisions, he had weakened in recent years in his resolve to do so every time. In the past, he had put his position on the line, willing to remove himself from office if the leadership continued down certain paths. However, his failure to stand up for what was right every time had contributed to the mess he now found himself in as the failures of the broken leadership had now touched his own home.
My father had witnessed other serious problems as well, beyond what I'm listing here, including a regular pattern of forgetfulness by the senior pastor... to the point of forgetting critical pieces of the puzzle when needing to make an important decision that affected the lives of real people. Of course, you can't fault a man's character for forgetting... but there does come a time when that inability to remember can cause some serious pain.
As these things became evident in my father's mind and heart, he also was reminded of other decisions the leadership had made, equally disturbing (and some worse), that caused him to be unwilling to continue on as part of the leadership any longer. He was no longer willing to have his name attached to what he saw was obviously unrighteous leadership.
As I re-read this, it does not seem to do the damage justice... it sounds like the grumblings of disgruntled schoolgirls. But I assure you, the stories behind this brief summary would enrage any person, believer or otherwise. Would it be a bit odd to have an elder of a church publicly joking about the weight of a member of the church... indeed about how her "boobs" jiggled as she danced? Or would it be distressing to know that yelling was as much a part of elder's meetings as prayer? Or would it bother you to know that after a wife was discovered to have been scratching herself(from despair and psychological distress) while in the shower ... the focus of the church was on how she had "wronged" her husband by doing so? She was then forbidden from taking showers for the next three months. ... (some stories slightly amended here to try to provide anonymity for those involved)
It is these types of things that occurred behind closed doors, away from the public eye. And as a matter of fact, my father bears some responsibility for them, for he too fell into many of the same mistakes of an overzealous leadership. (he has since apologized to many people, more on that later) Over the years, there were many times he fought against it, but because he did not stand and fight for what was right all of the time, in some respects he was as guilty as the others.
But now the failures of the leadership had come knocking on his OWN door, and so he became uncomfortably and personally aware of these failures in a brand new way.
My father determined that the leadership needed to change and his EPL called for quick action. The first ten pages outlined the failures in which he had played a part and others that he had been witness to. On the last page, he suggested that both elders (the senior pastor and other pastor) had been found according to Scripture failed in their call to leadership (one for gossip and slander, the other for an unwillingness to stop such things). Because of this, he wrote, "though it troubles me to suggest it, me, or somebody else" must pastor the church during the interim and that the church IMMEDIATELY find a new senior pastor. The plan called for the senior pastor to remain at same pay, but to be moved to a teaching role instead since he had failed to protect the congregation from a loose lipped elder. The EPL called for the other elder/pastor was to be removed from office due to his gossip and slander.
As for a suggested replacement pastor, my dad suggested that "The Axeman" be sought to come back from his studies and mission-work in the Netherlands. The Axeman had grown up in the church as the son of one of its founding pastors, but left left to pursue formal education at a Bible College. The Axeman was a young, but powerful minister and my father felt he had the education and background knowledge of the church to be able to rescue this church from any further damage. The EPL suggested he be brought in as an elder (at first) with the intentions of moving him in to the role as Senior Pastor years later.
And so, the EPL was complete and ready for presentation. At first, not desirous to confront the issues at hand, and then passionate about what he wrote, my father was now willing to lay it all on the line and in the end walk away if necessary.
But as my father reviewed the letter with his friend Tommy, who had suggested its writing, a curious twist to the story occurred. Though they had been through it all together over many years, and Tommy agreed on all of the failures testified to in the letter, he told my father not to read it. Why? Because Tommy was worried that the elders would interpret the letter as an attempt to take over the church. He told my father that the other elders wouldn't HEAR any of the letter's truth. That instead they would hear and focus on one thing: that my father wanted control of the church. And therefore, after prodding my dad to write the EPL, Tommy warned my dad and asked him to refrain from giving any suggestions as to the remedy... to stick only to the accusations.
But would my dad view Tommy's prediction as a good justification for not pursuing justice and righteousness and standing up to the failures in leadership?
How would the EPL be perceived?
How would the confrontation meeting go? According to who?
That and more... in Chapter 7c - Things Get Messy
** Continue the story with Chapter 7c **
"My boy," my father said, "I think the time has come for me to leave New Hope."
"Alright pops. Whats goin' on?"
And off we went.
My dad went on to explain that he and his wife (my step-mom) had been thinking and praying and felt a call to give more attention and focus to their undeniable, long-standing calling towards the people of ghetto in our city. (Just as an example... they live smack dab in the middle of said ghetto and have built a 1500 sq ft Teen Center in their backyard. My dad has also had a "gym" in his basement that he opens up for all the teenage kids in the area to come work out and hear about God.) Though I didn't doubt for a minute his sincerity, I pushed further, "Well... what does that have to do with leaving New Hope?" You have to remember that his church had been just about everything to us. Now don't take that to mean that we didn't love our families or that we did not love Christ with everything we had... its just, New Hope was largely the battlegrounds of our lives... the place where we pursued our faith and good works. In some ways, you could say that our entire life was invested there. Yes, that analogy fits perfectly. We FULLY invested our Christian lives in New Hope. Very little diversification in our spiritual portfolio.
Yeah yeah, what about this CONFRONTATION? Read on...
And so that night I pushed my father to explain further why he felt that this calling to ministry in the ghetto required him to leave our church. To be honest, I don't remember what he told me that night or if he gave much of an answer at all. But, I do know that he admitted that there was something more to the story. I know this because I told him that he owed it to the leaders of the church to tell them completely what was going on. He couldn't just up and leave. He said he'd think about it.
The next day, he called me on the cell phone with a marked difference in his voice. He told me that he had spoken with his good friend of thirty years, Tommy. Not surprisingly, Tommy had encouraged him along the same lines I did. And so, my father wrote out all that was on his mind, what would later be known as the infamous Eleven-Page-Letter (henceforth referred to as the "EPL").
But what brought this all about? Where was this coming from? I'd like to tell it all in gruesome, gory details... but it would not be fair to anybody involved. So, I'll tame it down, change names, and summarize the stories down as best I can.
One particular week, my step-mom was verbally assaulted at home by a member of the church (cussing, yelling, etc). This type of stuff is not completely foreign to anybody who has ever served as a pastor (or as a pastor's wife), but of course it cannot be taken lightly either. When my father and step-mom tried to talk to the couple about it later, they were unwilling to apologize and refused to talk about what happened. That week at the weekly elder's meeting, the issue was brought up and my father was assured that the issue would be addressed by the senior pastor and one of the other pastors. They suggested my dad stay out of it until some progress could be made. Three weeks later, the couple turned in their keys to the church announcing they were no longer going to be members. But then, a twist... the church secretary informed my father that this couple was approached by the two pastors and asked to stay at the church. They were encouraged to stay as members, but to stop going to services on Sunday morning so as to avoid contact with my dad. Stranger still, they were encouraged to remain in ministry... the mid-week Music Ministry (one of the areas of the church asked my father to oversee). And so, my father was baffled to find a couple serving in the ministry he oversaw who had recently cussed out his wife, were unwilling to talk about the event, and definitely unwilling to apologize for it. And all of this without a word being said to my father about it from the other pastors. Even more importantly, there was still no progress towards reconciliation between the couple and my father and step-mom.
You would think this would be a simple thing.. after all, yelling and cussing at somebody is unkind in a very basic way. And in fact, it should have been easy to achieve reconciliation, for my father and step-mom loved this particular couple in a very real way. But the conflict got messier as the couple not only refused to get together and talk about the incident, but the senior pastor did nothing to intervene, and even went so far as to say that my father and step-mom were out of line to push for the issue to be addressed. And as this mole hill grew to the size of a mountain, evidence surfaced of long-standing slander and gossip from the mouth of another elder against my father. Worse yet was that this habit of gossip had been witnessed several times over the years by many people, yes the elder had a reputation as a gossip... and his failure to control his tongue continued without much attention or action from the senior pastor.
WHAT A MESS!
It was through trying to resolve this conflict that my father was left convinced that the leadership of the church had failed in its role to protect the congregation. Though in the past he had spoken out against unjust leadership decisions, he had weakened in recent years in his resolve to do so every time. In the past, he had put his position on the line, willing to remove himself from office if the leadership continued down certain paths. However, his failure to stand up for what was right every time had contributed to the mess he now found himself in as the failures of the broken leadership had now touched his own home.
My father had witnessed other serious problems as well, beyond what I'm listing here, including a regular pattern of forgetfulness by the senior pastor... to the point of forgetting critical pieces of the puzzle when needing to make an important decision that affected the lives of real people. Of course, you can't fault a man's character for forgetting... but there does come a time when that inability to remember can cause some serious pain.
As these things became evident in my father's mind and heart, he also was reminded of other decisions the leadership had made, equally disturbing (and some worse), that caused him to be unwilling to continue on as part of the leadership any longer. He was no longer willing to have his name attached to what he saw was obviously unrighteous leadership.
As I re-read this, it does not seem to do the damage justice... it sounds like the grumblings of disgruntled schoolgirls. But I assure you, the stories behind this brief summary would enrage any person, believer or otherwise. Would it be a bit odd to have an elder of a church publicly joking about the weight of a member of the church... indeed about how her "boobs" jiggled as she danced? Or would it be distressing to know that yelling was as much a part of elder's meetings as prayer? Or would it bother you to know that after a wife was discovered to have been scratching herself(from despair and psychological distress) while in the shower ... the focus of the church was on how she had "wronged" her husband by doing so? She was then forbidden from taking showers for the next three months. ... (some stories slightly amended here to try to provide anonymity for those involved)
It is these types of things that occurred behind closed doors, away from the public eye. And as a matter of fact, my father bears some responsibility for them, for he too fell into many of the same mistakes of an overzealous leadership. (he has since apologized to many people, more on that later) Over the years, there were many times he fought against it, but because he did not stand and fight for what was right all of the time, in some respects he was as guilty as the others.
But now the failures of the leadership had come knocking on his OWN door, and so he became uncomfortably and personally aware of these failures in a brand new way.
My father determined that the leadership needed to change and his EPL called for quick action. The first ten pages outlined the failures in which he had played a part and others that he had been witness to. On the last page, he suggested that both elders (the senior pastor and other pastor) had been found according to Scripture failed in their call to leadership (one for gossip and slander, the other for an unwillingness to stop such things). Because of this, he wrote, "though it troubles me to suggest it, me, or somebody else" must pastor the church during the interim and that the church IMMEDIATELY find a new senior pastor. The plan called for the senior pastor to remain at same pay, but to be moved to a teaching role instead since he had failed to protect the congregation from a loose lipped elder. The EPL called for the other elder/pastor was to be removed from office due to his gossip and slander.
As for a suggested replacement pastor, my dad suggested that "The Axeman" be sought to come back from his studies and mission-work in the Netherlands. The Axeman had grown up in the church as the son of one of its founding pastors, but left left to pursue formal education at a Bible College. The Axeman was a young, but powerful minister and my father felt he had the education and background knowledge of the church to be able to rescue this church from any further damage. The EPL suggested he be brought in as an elder (at first) with the intentions of moving him in to the role as Senior Pastor years later.
And so, the EPL was complete and ready for presentation. At first, not desirous to confront the issues at hand, and then passionate about what he wrote, my father was now willing to lay it all on the line and in the end walk away if necessary.
But as my father reviewed the letter with his friend Tommy, who had suggested its writing, a curious twist to the story occurred. Though they had been through it all together over many years, and Tommy agreed on all of the failures testified to in the letter, he told my father not to read it. Why? Because Tommy was worried that the elders would interpret the letter as an attempt to take over the church. He told my father that the other elders wouldn't HEAR any of the letter's truth. That instead they would hear and focus on one thing: that my father wanted control of the church. And therefore, after prodding my dad to write the EPL, Tommy warned my dad and asked him to refrain from giving any suggestions as to the remedy... to stick only to the accusations.
But would my dad view Tommy's prediction as a good justification for not pursuing justice and righteousness and standing up to the failures in leadership?
How would the EPL be perceived?
How would the confrontation meeting go? According to who?
That and more... in Chapter 7c - Things Get Messy
** Continue the story with Chapter 7c **
posted by Miroslav at 4:28 PM
3 Comments:
Chew hard, don't choke. :D
Yes... I was at the leader's meetings for months and months after it all went down and heard the line of garbage, "We don't want to share what was in the letter to protect *Miroslav's Dad*." I mean really? You are protecting my dad by not sharing the letter? PLEASE! At one point, I stood up at one of the leader's meetings and said how ridiculous it was... that they needed to just let it out in the open and let the leaders of the church judge for themselves... but it was not to be.
But, you are pulling me ahead of myself here. I gotta go one chapter at a time or it will all become even MORE messy and confusing.
oh, and the kewl E is too complicated for me...
And FINALLY the EPL TRUTH comes out! For so long I have found bits and pieces for answers. For so long I have questioned my own faith and "Where are you Jesus?" rings in my head all to offten. Your musings are leading me farther on a journey I know I must take. I hope one day to trust people again and not think everyone is plasic and fake.
Rhonda,
I'm glad that my story has helped you better define your own. It was a hard time for all of us for sure!
Anonymous,
I am deeply moved by the deep and intimate thoughts you have so honestly shared here. I have also struggled ... sometimes dismissing others as 'fake'. But I will tell you, it gets old after a while. And its no fun. I prefer to TRY to trust people and give the benefit of the doubt. Better to love and lose than never love at all right? Sometimes life just HURTS that way. :(
May God help us each on our journies.
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