Thursday, April 14, 2005

Praying the Church Will Be On Fire

Today I had a lunch meeting with the other members of the administrative commission that served for a couple of years to the Church Under Fire. (See previous posts March 18 and March 20).
We were celebrating the ministry of the commissioned lay pastor who served as an interim for the past year at this church. He brought each of us a future plan for the church developed by the session, and the further good news that the strong stand taken by the church to bar the troublemaker and his cohorts from the premises has worked so far.
The best news was that the church is now united and the session able to work amicably together to move the church forward. Reminiscing about the experiences we had shared together we all agreed that none of us would have forseen this happy turn of events.
It was a joy to hear the interim pastor relate how prayer and his experience of the Holy Spirit moving in the worship and work of this congregation have saved this church which seemed destined to dissolve in bitter acrimony of the kind we saw when we first met with some members of the congregation.
Legal battles still continue but are now reduced to nuisance-level thanks to the pro bono work of one of the finest Christian lawyers any of us are privileged to know. This was quite an experience for everyone. The lunch was the perfect way to thank the interim for his inspired ministry as he and his family relocate to another part of the state.
With God's help, the Church Under Fire will become the Church On Fire for Christ.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

It's amazing how much good can happen when a congregation acknowledges why there is trouble, who is fomenting it, and what their own responsibilities are in seeing that it does not continue. And what a beautifully appropriate Easter season conclusion to the story!