My father-in-law and mother-in-law have served for the past 20 years as Senior Pastor of a church in the town of Peru, Indiana which incidentally is also known as Circus City, USA!
They have done an incredible job in the face of some serious odds.
The biggest of course being the fact that the statistical average tenure for ministers at any one church here in the United States is less than four years... what an incredible testament to both that church and to my wife's parents!
In a really weird way, we were celebrating and remembering both their twenty years there and how much of our life as a couple and family has been shared with that same church. For example, that same church has witnessed their Senior pastor and his wife's son graduate from High school, the marriage of their oldest daughter and then that same son's marriage, they have witnessed us move to Canada, our return to the US, a move to Indiana and then a move back to Illinois, they have also witnessed the arrival of their six grandchildren and more than likely will then watch as the oldest of the grandchildren graduates from High school and heads off to a Christian college with plans to enter the ministry and serve the church just like his grandfather!
It has by no means been an easy twenty years, I know my father-in-law (just like all of us) can be a handful and (as you can probably gather from last week's post) churches can be filled with "prickly" people as well but all things considered (and that is a lot) this pretty cool!
I guess the thing that has amazed me recently is that this church of around 200 people, recently purchased, completely renovated and updated a Civil War era firehouse in their town. The Firehouse has quickly become the place locally for catered wedding receptions, retirement parties, birthday parties and just like we did last weekend, anniversary celebrations. On top of all that the second floor of the building is a Student pastor's dream space with pool tales, video games and flat screen TV's. The entire building is a WiFi zone as well!
So while I shared my frustrations last week( So You Think You Can Lead A Church Huh?), let me also say that there are quite a few churches that do allow their leaders to lead and quite a few leaders (like my father-in-law) who when all is said and done, lead quite well.
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