Good News/Bad News

When I’m not out preach­ing, our fam­i­ly attends Path­way Church in Palo Alto. Path­way is an 8‑month old church plant. Good things are hap­pen­ing there–a Mor­mon lady con­vert­ed last week, for instance.

But any­one who’s ever start­ed a min­istry from scratch knows that some days are just painful to be a part of. Things go wrong that you would nev­er imag­ine could go wrong.

This was one such day.

  • Good News: guest shows up based entire­ly on our inter­net ads.
    Bad News: while chat­ting with the pas­tor before the ser­vice she is struck solid­ly in the neck by a fris­bee and has to go home, take some med­i­cine, and lie down.
  • Good News: I brought five stu­dents from Stan­ford to check out the church.
    Bad News: every sin­gle one of our reg­u­lars who was­n’t help­ing missed church today. Every. Sin­gle. One. Dur­ing wor­ship it was me and the stu­dents in the con­gre­ga­tion.
  • Good News: the songs were real­ly cool songs.
    Bad News: two of the micro­phones stopped work­ing between the sound check and the start of ser­vice and some­how the key­board became pos­sessed by a demon. At least, that’s my best guess. It sure moaned as though pos­sessed.
  • Good News: Scott’s ser­mon was thought­ful and well-pre­sent­ed.
    Bad News: the trans­la­tion that was shown on the screen was dif­fer­ent from the trans­la­tion Scott was read­ing despite being pur­port­ed­ly the same (fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion reveals there are two edi­tions of the New Liv­ing Trans­la­tion–our pew Bibles are the first and our com­put­er Bible is the second–who knew?). The effect was dis­con­cert­ing and dis­tract­ed from an oth­er­wise excel­lent mes­sage.

I’m not one to hyper­spir­i­tu­al­ize things, but I see a cor­re­la­tion between the suc­cess our church has been enjoy­ing late­ly and all the “nobody’s fault” glitch­es that popped up today. The Bible teach­es us that we have an ene­my, and some­times he leaves scat behind.

This is clear­ly going to be one of those ser­vices we spend a lot of time laugh­ing about in a few years… espe­cial­ly the fris­bee in the neck bit. How ran­dom is that?

One thought on “Good News/Bad News”

  1. Very fun­ny sto­ry. I am in min­istry as well.
    I have a lit­tle sto­ry of my own. Only this sto­ry con­sists of infor­ma­tion that hap­pens on a dai­ly basis.

    I am a pas­tor’s wife and have a 7 and 2 year old. This was my day.

    -Woke up to my 2 year old’s dia­per. Clothes soaked through.

    -Old­est son 7 could­n’t find his wal­let which he was fran­ti­cal­ly look­ing for in order to give a boy at school a one dol­lar bill that he had stolen ear­li­er in the week. It nev­er was found.

    -Two year old went in room and emp­ties out a bas­ket full of books onto the floor. He then used the bas­ket to climb up to his old­er broth­er’s dress­er. He then grabbed a box of mar­bles and ran to the liv­ing room. After show­ing me the mar­bles I began chas­ing him only to have him throw the mar­bles down the hall­way and they go in every direc­tion.

    -Old­est son was late for school.….…

    -Vis­it­ed a church with my hus­band. 2 year old ran up and down the alter at the front of this very con­ser­v­a­tive Unit­ed Methodist Church. He jumped off choir lofts and kneel­ing pews. Speak­ing of pew, I had to take him home to change anoth­er dia­per. It’s O.K.! I could­n’t wait to get him out of there.

    -Con­tin­ued my day by Gro­cery Shop­ping in the pour­ing rain.

    -Tryed to call my mom on the phone while putting away the gro­ceries. 2 Year old kicked and screamed to eat.

    -Had to hang up. Could­n’t hear to think. Found many of my appli­ances in the garbage.

    -After feed­ing child, I layed him down and cleaned my house for 5 hours. Yes it is pos­si­ble and no my house real­ly was­n’t that messy to begin with. Just nor­mal sweep­ing and pick up, laun­dry, etc.

    -Cooked sup­per, made brown­ies, did old­est son’s home­work with him.

    -Youngest child gets up only to reject my food cry­ing for toast. I refuse and he eats half.

    -Locked myself in my room for a half hour of prayer while the 2 boys ran through the house destroy­ing my 5 hours of hard work in 20 min­utes.

    -Went to prayer meet­ing only to find out there was no nurs­ery work­ers. Watched my child and 2 oth­ers for an hour. Final­ly a nice lady came to releive me.

    -Went to prayer.

    -Came home to a house full of teens who were leav­ing from a Bible study my hus­band was lead­ing.

    -Ate piz­za and brown­ies and then felt guilty.

    -Helped hus­band clean up.

    -Got kids ready for bed, read sto­ries to them, prayed with them, loved them.

    This is a typ­i­cal day in the life of a young Pas­tor’s Wife. Wel­come to real Min­istry.

    Sin­cere­ly,
    Over worked and under paid,
    Rebec­ca

    PS Did I men­tion that yes­ter­day morn­ing I woke up to a box of Rice Krispies all over my kitchen floor??????

    Reply

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