So My Pastor Resigned Today...

In the fall of 2001, on my way to school, I heard on that radio that a plane had hit a building in New York.

I thought it was a total joke and shut the radio off in my disgust of their wasting my time.

It wasn't until I got to school and saw the commotion about a second plane that had hit the WTC building that it finally hit me that this was no joke.

This morning my pastor gave an announcement about his pending resignation (to be fulfilled in October). My reaction was pretty much identical to what happened to the WTC towers on 9/11. The first few minutes I was all smiles, thinking that this was some sort of joke (he had just come back from a 2 week vacation in California with his family) but then as he continued my expression changed from amusement to a gaping mouth full of shock and confusion.

HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?! This man is a big part of the reason why our church is how we are today, for better or worse. Why all of a sudden get rid of someone who has pastored his flock for seven and half years, who has been through the joys and pains of ministry over the years?

No one knows at this point other than the Session... All we know at this point was that the resignation was NOT due to some immoral behavior (i.e. cheating on his wife, messing with church finances, etc.)

What bugs me most about this is that the Session (comprised of Elders in this hierarchical tradition of Presbyterians) talks so much about "being transparent" but in their explanation (which was lacking) they were not so transparent. I can't help but think of the IBM commercials where company executives are always talking about Innovation but are not really innovative:



We're supposed to find out more next week at a special meeting once the dust settles... and surely there's a lot of dust to settle. So I guess we'll just have to be patient and wait until next week... But I can't help but think the onus is going to be on the congregation to ask the questions and that not all things will be told (one would hope so but my experience with this Session has been that we need to come up with the question... and that I will definitely have to do as it would be injustice to see all this transpire without the proper questions being asked and decisions being held accountable. He's not going out without a fight.