Back to Beth-el: Part 2

The scene was familiar to the young pastor; he’d seen it several times as a lay member, but this time it wasn’t happening to his pastor…it was happening to him. The congregation was split and people were furiously calling for his head on a platter. You could cut the tension with a knife. The music director tried, vainly it turned out, to get the people to focus on worshiping God instead of their anger and desire for revenge. It was a valiant effort but ultimately fruitless. The young pastor knew he was in trouble because there were more people in attendance this Sunday night than had been in months; some in attendance weren’t even members of the church. The phone lines had been burning for weeks. The stage had been set. All of the players had gone “all in” and were ready to lay their cards on the table.

There were two clearly defined groups divided by the center aisle of the auditorium. One faction wanted the pastor to answer for his “crimes” before he was run out of town on a rail. The other faction was firmly on the pastor’s side; a few because they liked the pastor but most because they didn’t like the members of the opposing group. The worship service continued; every hymn brought the showdown closer. The young pastor could feel his pulse racing. He looked out onto the crowd of people and watched their faces. He found it amazing that they could sing these hymns that spoke of God’s grace and mercy all while plotting to remove him and his family. Their faces told the whole story. He closed his eyes and felt the last fragments of his battle scarred heart shatter into pieces.

The pastor was an emotional wreck. He’d been preaching to, praying over and fighting and feuding with this group of disgruntled members for over 3 years in a vain attempt to end the gossip and the judgmental backbiting. He learned too late that the root of bitterness runs deep and many of God’s children will fight to the death to keep that root healthy. What had started as very minor differences of opinion had now escalated into a full fledged turf war. All of his charm, his efforts, his sermons and his prayers had done nothing to prevent the inevitable public battle.

The song service ended and the worship minister turned the pulpit over to the embattled Pastor. He sat in his seat on the stage trying desperately to find a way to avoid what he knew was coming. He wondered why God was so silent. Was He really going to allow this travesty to continue? After several long minutes of silence the young man finally took his place behind the “sacred desk”. He half-heartedly ran through the announcements and prayer requests before leading them in a prayer. He had barely uttered the text for that night’s sermon when the deacon raised his hand and asked for permission to address the church. The old World War II veteran, survivor of Normandy and many subsequent military campaigns in Europe, slowly made his way to the stage to fire the first round of the night’s battle. The young pastor took his seat on the stage as the group of angry church members began the longest church service of his life.

The pain was indescribable. These were people he loved; widows whom he had visited, done yard work, electrical repair and other tasks for without a thought of recompense or reward. Now they were accusing him of verbal abuse, financial abuse and heretical teaching in their beloved church. One of these spiritual lynchers was a middle aged woman who had hosted the church’s weekly home bible studies over the last year. Now she was accusing the pastor of crimes of negligence and financial impropriety. The deacon standing at the pulpit was the spokesman for the group. He spoke with barely contained anger of the pastor’s mistreatment of the church widows and thinly veiled accusations of financial corruption. The agony of hearing these people angrily accuse him was more than the pastor could stand. He could feel his broken heart hardening with every word they spoke. The final bricks of a psychological wall of self-preservation were being laid with every tick of the clock.

The evening ended with high drama. A hastily called for vote of confidence (which the pastor won) was followed by an ugly mass exit of the group of bitter head hunters who wasted no time in calling the local police to come to the church and investigate charges of abuse of the elderly by this young upstart of a pastor and his followers. The police came and went without much incident due to a church full of witnesses who testified that the only ones guilty of abuse were the ones who had called them. When the police were gone, there was a celebration by those who were left as if a major victory had been won. The only one not celebrating was the pastor. Only he seemed to see what had just happened. No one had won anything and the church was now in shambles.

It wouldn’t take long for those who had supported the pastor that fateful night to see what he saw. Vows of allegiance and faithfulness were quickly and quietly forgotten as the ugly reality of rebuilding a shattered group of people with a damaged reputation in the community into a spiritual powerhouse for God’s kingdom set in. The young pastor was disillusioned, discouraged and frankly, bitterly angry at God and his people…ALL of them. It wasn’t just this heartbreak; it was all the years of watching God’s people in many different churches fight and split over curtain colors or music styles or some other mundane issue that did not matter in light of the eternal kingdom of God. It didn’t take long for the pity party to start in the young pastor’s heart. His dreams and goals of ministerial success had gone out the door with those angry, hard-hearted church members and he felt betrayed, abused and abandoned.

Where was God? Why had God allowed this horrible night to happen? Where was the fire from heaven or the splitting of the earth to swallow these stiff-necked rebels? Where were the legions of angels come to protect the embattled servant of God? Heck, he’d take a fat, lazy guardian angel at this point. God’s silence was deafening and the pastor concluded through his pain that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was either a sadistic liar or did not exist at all. He was stranded on an island of despair with a ragtag group of immature, carnal Christians who were as dependable as a broken clock in terms of rebuilding a church. His faith had been in vain and the God who swore to “never leave or forsake” him had done just that. He had called him to this church, placed him in this pulpit and then left him to be eaten alive by these sharks in sheep’s clothing. The horrifying truth was too much for him to bear and at age 29, after 8 years in full time pastoral ministry in two different churches, the pastor bitterly resigned and vowed he would never stand behind another pulpit in another church for the rest of his natural born life.

Thankfully the story did not end there. Although the young pastor had years of prodigal rebellion and suicidal depression to get through, God was not finished with him; not by a long shot. What this disillusioned young man did not realize was that he had just completed a course at Real Life University (R.L.U.). I wouldn’t say I passed the course with flying colors, but I did learn a few things; in fact, truth told, I’m still learning from that experience.

One of the things I learned is if you are not careful, you will become the very beast you are battling. I am still humbled at how quickly I transformed into a bitterly angry man and how close I came to throwing my life away and becoming exactly like those I was railing against. I will never stop flooding my Refuge and my Strength with praises and eternal gratitude for rescuing me from myself. But, that was not the most important thing I learned from that night.

I had a counselor tell me that there would come a day when I would be thankful for the events of that night. He told me that instead of anger and hate, I would feel pity and godly love for people who wouldn’t have lost an hour’s sleep if they had succeeded in throwing me and my family out on the street that very night. Of course, at the time, I thought he was insane and told him so in as ugly a way as I could think of. But I can confess to you now that the man knew what he was talking about. I am more thankful now than ever for those people and that fateful evening because a funny thing happened to me after the longest church service of my life…

…I met God.


to be concluded...