SHE PACKED MY BAGS

I was twenty-four years old when I received my appointment to the Jeannette, PA Free Methodist Church.  Debbie and I had been married almost three years.  Travis was three-months old.

The congregation had just built a brand new facility on twelve acres of property outside of Harrison City - right in the middle of a new development of homes.  However, the congregation had divided over the building process and the pastor had left after preaching only a few times in the new building.

I had been pastor at a small, country church in the Hoosier Mountains of southern Indiana for a year-and-a-half.  I had a college degree and three years of seminary training.  I thought I knew it all!  I set out to grow the greatest church anyone had ever seen!

Evenelle Gess, a leading lay-woman, started taking me around to meet the members before our boxes were unpacked [we lived in a 70' mobile home behind the new church]. 

Since people were most likely to be home in the evenings, I was gone night-after-night visiting!  Days were spent at the church trying to prepare for Sundays and Wednesdays.  I was home very little.

I drove a 1974 Mustang II at the time.  One evening, returning home late, my lights flashed on the small, front porch - it looked like luggage sitting there.  When I approached the front door of our trailer-home, it was my luggage - packed with my clothes.  The door was locked.

I knocked.  Her angry voice from inside said, "What?"

I said, "Let me in."

She said, "No!"  Then, she lowered the boom:  "If you want to be married to the church, go live in the church!"

[More tomorrow]