I don’t like big changes. I guess I’m pretty normal in this respect. To play with the decor of a room is one thing, but to sell that room and move house is quite another thing. There has to be a powerful reason to compel me into all that upheaval. I’d sooner stay put and potter about with wallpaper.
To move us out of the little church we had attended for nine years it had to get horribly hot. We didn’t want to leave. We didn’t want the upheaval of change and we certainly would never have thought of starting a house church if it hadn’t got hot.
I had heard you can detect people who are on the way out of a church by their sitting patterns. The further up front they are, the more bonded with the church they are. Steady progress towards the back, row by row, week by week, is a sign of progressive detachment, taking on Children’s Church to escape the service is the final retreat before flight.
When we first attended Last Church, we crept in the door and slunk into the back row. We were still recovering from an abusive church experience that had resulted in the entire 250 strong church quickly dwindling down to 20. We were wary and nervous about committing ourselves. The Pastor was a blind man with an outrageous sense of humour. Little by little he won our confidence and love. Each week we sat a row closer to the front. Eventually we took regular possession of the pew behind the front seat reserved for kids. We became strongly bonded, loved the people and were happy. After a few years we changed cities for ten months so Ian could go back to College. Beloved Blind-Pastor left while we were away, and Golden-Boy took his place. Golden-Boy was the pride and joy of Last-Church’s denomination. He was handsome, smart, seminary trained and looked the part of a wholesome young family man.
He was also a bully.
He emotionally abused anyone he perceived as weak. He particularly honed in on women alone.
We sat in our customary seat on our home coming Sunday. But as time went by and we started to see through Golden-Boy more and more, our seat position shifted closer and closer to the door. Finally it got so bad that we called a special meeting to have Golden-Boy removed.
He went and we shifted back up to the second front row and had a delightful eighteen months of church without a Pastor. There were no young Christians at Last-church so we swapped the preaching and jobs around on a roster. It was wonderful and we all had fun.
Last-church was small, but without the wages of a pastor the money built up and we were able to give it away to missionaries and worthwhile causes. Eventually the ruling powers of Last-church felt we couldn’t possibly function without a collage trained professional, so they sent us a missionary from America.
Missionary-Pastor and family were lovely. They were the kindest Mom and Dad. The glitch was, we were like adult kids that had married and left home to raise their own family. Just as married kids resent parents shifting into their house and treating them like minors again, we all struggled with adjusting to deferring to a Pastor. The whole congregation shifted their seats back a few rows. Eventually we adjusted and learnt to cope, but the joy and spontaneity had departed. I often felt trapped.
After a year, Missionary-Pastor and family went back to America and Australian-Pastor and family arrived. Australian-Pastor started introducing flaky ideas into Last-church. All sorts of strife, tensions and undercurrents arose. We sat in the back row.
“How can we ride it out?” Ian and I asked each other.
To know less and get a distraction seemed the answer.
We pulled off the Board and took on Children’s Church. For a time the strategy worked. Every Sunday we escaped the tedium and tension of the preaching by teaching the kids. We had fun making popcorn, acting out bible stories, coloring in pictures and singing. The kids loved it and it and grew. But alas, we couldn’t be left alone to enjoy our sanctuary. Assistant-Pastor rightly discerned we were hiding away in our Children’s Church bunker and ferreted us out. She insisted we were missing out on such a huge blessing it wasn’t right. She said she would take over our class so we could bask under the showers of blessings falling from Australian-Pastor’s lips.
It is astonishing how the tension of one morning a week can permeate the entire week.
Sleeping took on a predictable pattern.
Sunday night. Lots of agitated late night talking, lots of tossing and turning, little sleep.
Monday night. More agitated talking, more tossing and turning, patchy sleep.
Tuesday night. Less talking, less tossing, better sleep.
Wednesday night, chatting and reasonably good sleep.
Thursday night, great sleep.
Friday night, nervous talk, anticipating the coming Sunday and patchy sleep. Saturday night. Agitated talk, restless sleep, round the circuit we go again.
Our church attendance became erratic. Then the great dilemma arose. Which was worse, a suffering Sunday, or a Monday, “where-were-you “? phone call?
We felt trapped and oppressed. If we could have, we would have sat in the entry.
For years we had survived church by acting on the often quoted idea, “you don’t go to church for what you get out of it, but for what you can give to it,” Australian Pastor had put an end to all lay preaching, Assistant Pastor put an end to Children’s Church, and even cleaning had restrictions clamped on it.
The end came with the introduction of unbiblical doctrine and practices. We stood against them and won, as they were totally against the constitution of Last-Church, but it was too late. The night Assistant-Pastor came round to our house crying because we had refused to just trust her and Australian-Pastor was the finish. I quit church altogether and Ian took the kids to the only church in the town we hadn’t tried.
And somewhere, during that horrible time of upheaval beginning with Golden-Boy, we bought 32 plastic chairs and started Mount Tiger Chapel, once a month, sitting right up in the front row
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