Election and the church

And no, this post has nothing to do with predestination. Or does it? Maybe it does if you want it to. And maybe if you went through the door that is this post it would have "blog post" written on one side and "predestination" written on the other. Confused yet? I can always try harder. My apologies to all who don't get the Spurgeon reference.

Bible Baptist Church had its business meeting to vote on the church's next pastor tonight. Both the deacons and the pastor recommended me to the church. In secret ballot voting, there was one vote against, and I'm guessing 30 or 40 for (I never did get the exact count, but I think that's about the number of voting members present tonight.) Human nature makes me wonder who the one dissenter is, but it really doesn't matter now -- I've just got to do the best I can by God's grace for everyone, whether they like me or not. Maybe it'll keep me on my toes to know that not everybody necessarily is sold on me. I had privately adopted a 90% requirement for taking the church -- if 90% of the people didn't want me, then I would take that as God's will that He didn't want me there. A church divided in its support for its pastor is a dangerous place, especially for a young pastor.

They also adopted a salary package (adequate but not extravagant) and announced that I will go on full-time in May, then take over as head pastor July 1.

Along with the business meeting, we also started Missions Month a day early tonight. Ray Kennedy, a church-planting missionary from our church, brought the message tonight. He's a high-energy preacher (there's no way I could keep that energy level for a whole service -- and he didn't do it by screaming and shouting, either), had loads of good content, and finished neatly on time. I was impressed.

And so with the election over my wife will sleep a little easier tonight. Okay, I'll confess that I was the tiniest bit nervous. But honestly not much. I forget how scared some people are of being up in front of people until I see someone who isn't used to controlling that deer-in-the-headlights feeling I suppress every time I get up. The poor gentleman who gave the recommendation of the deacon board tonight looked more nervous about asking people to vote than I felt waiting for the vote. I think he'll sleep better tonight too.