Does Church help??

I was trying to put together some thoughts for an orientation and examination next Saturday at church. At Buffalo Church, we have left the PC/USA and are joining the EPC. Next Saturday they will be "examining" all of the elders to determine if we meet their standards. If you know me, you understand that I am concerned about this process. I was trying to write a few things down  tonight and had some thoughts that I sent to a friend. I will go ahead and share them with you.

I was writing a few thoughts about church and got to the range and Mary R. incident. First, I am still angry about the whole thing. But beyond that, I realized that I have mellowed some and can deal a little better with this kind of thing. Here’s a story to prove my point.

In the late 1990’s, I was active in the Triad Mensa group. The editor of the monthly newsletter “retired”. So I volunteered to take his place. At first, it wasn’t very hard. It was a matter of assembling Mensa news items and events and contributions from members into a newsletter. After someone else took care of getting it printed, several of us would meet one night to fold, staple and mutilate(prepare for mailing) the newsletter. Someone else would haul it to the Post Office the next day for Second Class Mailing.

You can guess what happened. Over the next couple of years, the volunteers all dropped by the wayside. By the end of the second year, I was doing it all myself. For the next three years, I did everything connected with the newsletter including listening to an occasional complaint about it. Then, we elected a new local chapter leader. He sent me a message telling me that he expected a draft of the newsletter by the 15th of each month so that he could approve it and that it was to be printed, assembled and  mailed by the 25th. I read his message and thought about it overnight. The next morning I got up and put all of their supplies and materials into a box. I took a 5X8 index card and a black marker. I wrote “F**** You!” on the card and dropped it into the box. A quick trip to the Post Office and my days in Mensa were over. I never went to another function or contacted anyone in the group.

So you can see from this story that going to church has obviously been good for me. The good news for you is that I probably won’t include this story in recounting my “walk with Christ” at next Saturday’s meeting. HA!!