Still Faithful - Chapter 2 : Faith's Journal

 

Still Faithful - Chapter 2 

Excerpt from Faith’s journal

As I sit here watching my niece Cassie thrive after the awful events of the last year that had her acting out and running away from my sister, Andra, she is finally beginning to thrive. I didn’t take her out of the Compass Point Kids since she was doing so well there and even Dad was getting comfort over there from a bunch of ladies over at the Village, a community center for the elderly Norman had put into place after I was chased out. My heart still aches, but I know one day I may be called back there since my heart is still faithful to that community. I can feel myself reawakening and noting the little things again. You know what I am noticing right now? Insights and memories.

I’m recalling how my old pastor would converse with his wife on a Sunday morning. He was all smiles and fun but Hailey was so solemn and sad looking. I continually wondered what was going on there with the two of them. Neither seemed happy just being a couple. They stood apart from each other and it felt so clinical and blank of emotion. I wanted them to be happy, to be that perfect couple who would show the rest of us how to be a couple loving and living with Christ in our lives. 

But there was nothing there to latch onto. No side hugs, or bear hugs, I could totally see Norman being a bear hug type, but my old pastor was just too standoffish. It was quite a difference from when we first called him to church. He proudly showed me his year of sermons in a spread sheet. Totally mapped out and ready to go. Before he left, he had just been phoning in his sermons, no passion for his topic and strangely, re-inventing the same sermons from a year or two earlier. Made me sad. He was just a creative guy who had somehow lost his inspiration not only to lead but to serve his people and city.

I am sitting here wondering how big our church could have been if he hadn’t limited himself to just a certain demographic. He wanted the young and hip people just like him. But young and hip people do not a church make. You need elders with their wisdom and children with their innocent faith in what could be. The man had been so talented and friendly. He had all the aspects to create a mega church. But secretly he was pushing out elderly and older adults to form a specific church. We need all generations to create a balanced church. The young church alone couldn’t keep the church afloat and it began to fail. Then Norman and Ross stepped up after the pastor ran away. The whole thing reminded me of a 4Him song: Future Generations - “I won’t bend and i won’t break. I won’t water down my faith. I won’t compromise in a world of desperation.”

That was exactly what he did. My old phone pastor had compromised his faith. I think we all do that at times, but in his case the kicking out of the older generation hurt his church growth. My old church where I served in a choir did the same thing but in the opposite. They embraced the older generation and kicked out the youth. 

The church is meant to appeal to everyone — to be a shelter in the storm of life. I prayed my old pastor and Hailey would come together and find each other again. I prayed that creative spark would be embraced by his heart in an amazing way and maybe make whatever church he would serve at again be blessed by his obvious talent.

The pastor had outed a deacon right before he left. He said, if you find yourself in a dark place, you aren’t being pushed out by God, you are being planted. Prepare to grow. I am praying Norman and Ross can make Compass Point grow again. And I pray my old pastor finds his inner light, his God spark, and shows the world the man I knew was inside of him.