Stories for the Interim

Kopp Disclosure

(John 3:19-21)

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    Admitting my struggle to practice what I preach, I try to do that.

    Failing causes me to thank God for Jesus.

    God knows I don't know anybody, especially me, who outgrows her/his need for Jesus as Savior.

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    When I taught homiletics, I taught what I was taught with an occasional novel inspiration/indigestion to express myself.

    Vanity.

    Anyway, I often said, "People remember pictures and poetry pointing to principles more than principles without pictures and poetry."

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    Principle.

    If we don't stop the bleeding, we will hemorrhage.

    Putting it another way, pay now or pay later with interest.

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    Story.

    He was sooooooo happy to be the interim pastor.

    Installed pastors envy interim pastors.

    As a very popular evangelist often says when guest-starring, "I can come and say whatever I want to say and leave before the posse catches up with me.  Your pastor has to stay and live with you."

    Though professional interims will object, it's true.

    More than free lunches, perks, and unusual courtesies extended to interims so the church doesn't get such a bad name that no one will consider..., interims who know what they're doing get to do the right thing without the usual politics, posturing, pandering, posing, and...then move on to do the right thing all over again somewhere else.

    Again, installed pastors envy interim pastors.

    Back to the story, this particular interim decided he wanted to become the installed pastor even though his denomination's polity did not allow for such succession.

    When that was pointed out by people in the church who didn't really want him to be the installed pastor because he was doing his job as the interim pastor in pointing out what needed to be done to..., he turned on the people who he had formerly esteemed or rather pretended to esteem for those free lunches, perks, unusual courtesies, and...

    Pulpiteers aren't really that much different from pewsitters.

    Go back to the first section of this KD.

    Getting back to the story before slipping in more principles, he got sooooooo mad about being denied what he wanted that he called them really bad names.

    He told everybody in town and all around that the church was filled with jackals.

    It took many, many, many years before the church could begin recovering.

    Many of his friends and foes had learned how to hate from him; and they would have to go before the church could grow...again.

    Regardless of hate's source - self-righteousness coincidentally related to our Lord or the adversary itself - it's always destructive.

    Hate never heals.

    It's bloodthirsty.

    Encouraged to leave after the damage was done, the interim pastor along with his friends and foes burned more and more and more bridges.

    Their hatreds still...burn; as they have consumed themselves along with too many others by their flames.

    The remnant has come to understand character is never exposed when things are going well.

    What's deep in the well comes up in the bucket.

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    Denouement.

    Doing the right thing doesn't always stop the bleeding; but it can prevent hemorrhaging.

    When bleeding is allowed to become hemorrhaging because we sometimes forget bleeding turns into hemorrhaging if we don't stop the bleeding, we are flirting with...

    Or as we read in The Diary of a Country Priest, "Salt stings on an open wound; but saves you from gangrene."

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    That story goes back 30 years.

    History has a way of repeating itself.

    Without Jesus, there's never a good ending.

    With Jesus, stories end with His living happily ever after.

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Blessings and Love!