Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall. (Proverbs 16:18)Right now I am in the middle of a bunch of depressing psalms in my daily Bible reading. And it is somewhat depressing.
Turn and answer me, O Lord my God Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die. (Psalm 13:3)
The main reason, I suppose, is that my life is not going very well right now.
I used to have a sparkle in my eye and do not now. I am heavy on my feet and ponderous in my movement. I look dour and not happy. I do not think I would want to be around me if I were not me. in fact, I really do not want to be around myself now, but do not know what else to do, short of dying or something.
A lot of things have happened, both good and bad in the past few years – going back to 1994 in fact. In 1994, I finally left the Church of Christ and went into the Christian Church. It seemed like such a move of the Lord in my life, but it wasn’t what I thought it would be.
Ten years later, I left the Church of Christ in a move I was sure was from God and went into the Assembly of God. I suppose there are few things in life that could have gone worse than that. There were no churches that wanted me. My style of preaching and ministry in general was not what they wanted. I was just not Pentecostal enough to them.
Of course, what they did was confuse the style with the substance. I didn’t bang the pulpit or use a KJV or any of the things they expected and it bothered them.
At one meeting right before my ordination, I was at a revival. As I was standing there talking to the pastor and the evangelist I mentioned that they looked like Pentecostal preachers and I looked like a Presbyterian going out to play golf. They were dressed in black suits with colored shirts and ties, I had on a pair of Dockers, a red knit shirt and a blue blazer. The difference between us was striking.
And that seemed to be the way it went the whole ten years.
I finally left them and came into the Foursquare Church where I had felt very welcomed at a convention in Dallas. The Foursquare Church seemed so open. I told a friend that they were Pentecostals if Pentecostals were normal. When we came back to Boonville, we joined a Foursquare Church there and began the long process of credentialing.
After a year or so, I went to Lincoln as the pastor of a Foursquare Church. The Sunday before I was installed, they had a secret meeting (which I found out about and attended) in which they complained that my style was not right and i was going to change too much. Mind you, I hadn't changed anything, but they were worried about future fears.
It was a fight from the day I cam to the day I left and I left in such a massive depression from which I still suffer. It also destroyed my desire to minister to a Pentecostal church.
The odd thing is both denomination went out of their way to welcome us and ordain me, but when it came down to it, deserted me when I needed them
Now I am alone in that I do not belong to any denomination. And I have no desire to do so. I have always been a Kingdom guy and will remain.
But the problem is what do I do now. No denomination wants me so where do I go? It is a hard question and I have no answer.
No comments:
Post a Comment
To comment, post your comment and click the anonymous button. It would be nice if you signed it so I could know who you are.
You are welcome to say anything you want as long as it is nice. If I don't like it, or it is ugly, I will take it off, place it into the garbage disposal, grind it up, and allow it to be flushed into the Gulf of Mexico where it will be eaten by a fish and then excreted where it will lie on the bottom of the ocean until it is covered up by other comments.