Leaving Things Better Than You Found Them

 Twenty-First Wednesday after Pentecost

I'm back in the OBX, having safely retrieved my pills. It was three 3 1/2 hour journeys in three days, too much for an old man. I am now happily ensconced on the deck of our condo in 75 degree splendor.

Thanks to Chris for his comment. My question remains, "Does God have anything directly to do with these 'God things?" It's too heavy a question for me today.

United Methodist pastors and their spouses are taught that, when they move on to another pastoral appointment, to leave things in good shape, particularly the parsonage. This maxim also should apply to how the pastor leaves the church. In my first appointment, a small church in rural Tennessee, I came in to replace a pastor who had just run off with the choir director and had left a wife and three children in the parsonage. He also left several debts to community businesses. This was not the way to leave a church. 

My last appointment, in N. Wilkesboro, NC, was a totally different story. The pastor I replaced, Sydnor Thompson, had done an amazing job of cleaning up the dirt and fixing all the troubles. The main thing was that he had shepherded the church through a 2 million dollar building project from start to finish. 2 million for a 500 member church in the first years of our present century is a lot of money. With the spending of a lot of money comes a lot of flack. Those on the liberal end think the money was "wasted" and should have been "given to the poor." (I'll give one point in our ongoing quiz for whoever is first to tell me what Biblical character said this). Those on the conservative end think that the money shouldn't have been spent at all. The church was just fine the way it was. We're going to be badgered and guilted into giving a lot more money to the church, and we already give enough. The pastor, the one who does the requisite badgering, takes the flak. Some members leave the church (and take their money with them) in protest. 

Sydnor took the flak and was there to enjoy the new addition for only a year after it was completed. I got to enjoy it for six years. Since I was not there when the decision to build was made, I didn't have to take any flak. It was a done deal when I got there. I also didn't have to raise the money.

There had been another difficult personnel matter that was resolved a month before I got there. The organist/choir director was a much better organist than she was a choir director. Staff-Parish Committee had the difficult job of demoting her to being just organist and of hiring a new choir director. It was another fight, with her supporters being very upset at her demotion. Thanks to Sydnor, when I got there, it was all resolved. No flak for me. 

A week before I got there, the teenage son of a couple in the church committed suicide. Sydnor gave pastoral care  to the family and conducted the funeral. There were many other smaller ways in which Sydnor left the church better than he found it. He made the church better for everyone but in very special ways made it better for me. I'll be forever thankful to God for him.

About two weeks before I retired, Marianne and I were taken to dinner by the wealthiest family in the church. The son in the family, who had been my Finance Committee chair and was himself the retired CFO of a major corporation, gave me a one sentence assessment of my six years of ministry there: "Chris, you're leaving the church better than you found it." It wasn't exactly an accolade, but coming from him, I considered it a high compliment.

I did leave the church in good financial shape, having weathered the Great Recession.  I left with about 80 more members than when I came. I left the church with no major internal conflicts and  no personnel problems. I left my successor with the church in good shape--except for one thing. In my last year there, we had had no deaths--no funerals--no ringing of chimes on All Saints' Day. During my successors first year he had 22 funerals. He told me that they had all waited to die until I left  I don't think I had ever had more than 6 funeral in any one year there.

 

It was a great six years for me and Marianne there. 

Faithfully,

Christian