Healing Ointment

When I went to the Talbotton Church back in the mid '70's, I went as a bruised and battered preacher.  The appointment served before going to this west Georgia community had been filled with hard confrontations that I was ill prepared to handle and by the time the dust had cleared, going to any other place seemed like heaven.  Of course, such is never really true, but it is also true that sometimes those are our feelings.  What I have learned over the years is that many church leaders run into rough places in their ministry.    

What I also remember from those days of leaving one place and starting over in a new place was the encouraging words of a couple of pastors.  One who remained a mentor type through the rest of my ministry shared some of his own struggle and then pointed me toward some positive things I could do to put myself on the road toward healing.  The usual preacher response to another preacher's trouble is to pretend nothing bad has happened.  I am thankful this guy was an exception.     

And, of course, as the years have moved along, I have unfortunately seen many others who sought to be spiritual leaders get banged up and broken by some institutional confrontation.  It is strange that the conflicts in the church are seldom about theological beliefs, but about the color of the carpet.  In other words our majoring on the minors creates major problems for the church and the clergy and lay people who seek to give it leadership.  Maybe one day, we will get it right and learn to live as a people motivated more by grace than by what must be, but that day has not yet come.  In the meantime, we can pray that those who still bear the open wounds might be bathed in healing ointment.