The Meeting – Part III

The evening went on like that with people shouting everything from claiming that the board were fools to claiming some on staff are not as quick to confess their sins as pastor had been to confess his, etc.  Of course the adulterous woman and the stones was brought up, etc.  I’ve never seen such angry people preach forgiveness and it seems the only forgiveness they’re willing to extend is to the one person who actually did something wrong here!  He is not held responsible by these people in any way!

 

Finally a sweet elderly woman who has been with our church for a million years got up and said that she wanted us to take a vote to bring pastor back.  The Vice-Chair of Finance said we were not prepared to do that tonight.  We had called a special meeting with the purpose of imparting information only.  By the bylaws we were not going to do other than the purpose for which the meeting was called.  Again the shouting started.  “We are the members, we can make a motion!” 

 

Finally, our minister of music rose.  He is a large commanding man whose day job is to sort of patrol the students with discipline problems at the local high school.  He took he microphone and, in a loud voice, stated that everyone was out of order here.  This is a house of God and he would not allow this to happen, HERE, in the house of God.  He got everyone somewhat quieted down.  Once that happened, a woman stood up and said (quietly) that she realized this was a house of God but that Mother (nonames) had stood up and made a request and the board cut her off.

 

The chairman said, “I don’t believe the board cut her off… the congregation cut her off.  Mother? Did you feel the board cut you off?”  Of course the congregation cut her answer off again but at least the general yell this time was that the congregation HAD cut her off, not the board.

 

The chairman asked the Mother to come to the front and take the microphone.  Again she said, “We want our pastor back.”  She wanted us to vote to have him re-instated.  The crowd agreed with her (a little more quietly this time).  The Chairman responded that the pastor was not UN-instated.  Pastor’s leave is due to end July 12th and he will be back then.  We couldn’t vote to bring our pastor back because he is not gone.

 

They kept trying to get around that then pastor got up and didn’t say he wouldn’t be back before the end of the leave but said there were things that the board put in place and that he was complying because he had done something wrong, after all.  

 

That quieted the crowd a bit.  Then there were more questions.  Did the board ask to have pastor’s credentials revoked? They were asked in an accusatory manner.  They replied that they forwarded the documents onto the state board.  Why did they do that without asking the congregation first?  Because the board is in charge of the business of the church, particularly the financial business.  Was anything being done to collect the money?  The pastor’s wife said she would answer that.  She said, first, that the house was not purchased with the tithed money.  She said they had supplied the board with documents stating that the money put down on the house was from severance pay from pastor’s (other) job along with monies he had withdrawn from his retirement account.  Also, she said, she had gotten a call after praying during Holy Week; a person they had helped once called and said that now they would like to help pastor in return.  They said they would give him the money to repay these funds.  It fell through in May because, as we all know, satan will send out his demons to stop these things, but it was on its way because God will always have the victory.

 

Of course, everybody cheered.

 

On and on it went, just like that, including a little part where pastor got up and said this was not a time to leave the church, giving this analogy.. “You know how after there’s an airplane crash, people say, ‘I’m not going to take THIS airline any more.’  That’s the worst time to do that.  It’s the best time to take the airline because there’s so much less chance of it happening again.  What are the chances of this happening in this church again?  I promise, I will never deceive <I style="ms

o-bidi-font-style: normal”>this family again in order to help other!”

 

Honestly, he said that!  That is a direct quote.  The “evil” me couldn’t help leaning over to my daughter and saying, “Yeah, but he didn’t promise not to deceive this family again in order to help HIMSELF.”   I also made comments to my daughter when people were talking about how much he helped them.  If you really think about it, he got paid quite well to help these people.  He had a $124,000.00 bonus over the past two-three years!  I’m TRYING not to be bitter.

 

Anyway, somehow it finally broke up. The bottom line is that there was more persecution of the innocent and more idolatry of the guilty.  That’s what it boiled down to.   A portion of the congregation feels like I do.  I would venture a guess that maybe 10%.  We were not going to be vocal because there was obviously no point to it.  Also, it’s just not in our nature to be mob-like.  I think what will ultimately happen is that pastor will return in July.  If not before that, those of us who feel like I do will find a new church at that time and quietly leave.  The church of pastor will eventually die because the crowd that yells and screams now are the same crowd that doesn’t show up on Sundays and are the same crowd where very few tithe.  I would venture a guess that only 2% of the people that got up and yelled so fanatically were actually tithers.  Some, though, I know tithe and many are living on very low incomes so it hurts my heart to see this happening.  Meanwhile, pastor got an extra $124,000.00 in his income (not to mention what he collected elsewhere) but has had to pay no taxes on it nor take any responsibility for it.  During his leave he has been paid until this month when they cut off his pay and laid off all but three of us (our interim pastor, one maintenance man, and one administrative person – me), so that we could pay our mortgage on time.

 

I’m not sure why the board didn’t bring up other facts it had.   As recently as March 10th, a letter was generated supposedly from the “secretary” of this international ministry to our pastor that listed out some of the places the monies were sent and that claimed this woman who is in missions in Haiti was on the board for this ministry.  The woman who signed the letter wrote an email to our pastor saying that he knew that HE had drafted this letter and given it to her to sign claiming that he wanted her to be secretary of this ministry and that she had signed it having no knowledge of any of the figures listed there.  Now she realized there was no job, etc.  Pastor doesn’t know that she sent a copy of that condemning email to the board.  Obviously, his wife doesn’t either.

 

And, as a little background, you have to understand that for several years our pastor continued to receive a salary from us and his family continued to live in the parsonage even though he had a fulltime job in an adjacent state with the main church organization and he would only drive or fly home most week-ends to deliver a sermon.  It was during this time that this bogus ministry was established.  He has treated this church most unfairly and unethically and, worst, unGodly.