Monday, June 13, 2005

Tales of Gossip and Church Dissension

I just couldn't resist quoting Mississippi Squirrel Revival by to Ray Stevens. Fortunately, my local church isn't a bit like the First Self-Righteous Church of Pascagoula, but there is a bit of dissension in the ranks because the evil C word: "change".

There's been a lot of turnover in the staff of late. The children's minister had to leave because personal life issues. Her replacement had to leave because she tore apart the entire kids program (running off several families) and then wouldn't listen to criticism about it. Our outreach minister went to start a new cross-town church just before the area of town he went to was hit by a massive tornado. The high-school minister committed credit card fraud. A "church doctor" helped kill the (IMHO ill-advised) plan to buy some high-priced land. Now, we're going from two to three services, and the Bible Fellowship classes are all being torn up by moving.

I happen to be a strong supporter of the move, including the most controver sial part, a young people's "Emerging" service. We had a good start of one last year, but the high schoolers kinda took it over and made it feel too much like a concert, so it missed its target.

I've been a bit disappointed so far by our college program, but I'm still working in it and I've decided to pray and fast this week. It's hard to make a college program that fits needs, so I'm hoping that the guy heading it can get some experience and get it going well.

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