I’ve been trying to get Joyce to fit into my church for a long time; six years to be exact.  It hasn’t worked out so far.  What happened between last Friday (18 January) and today nailed the lid on the coffin.

I had a dinner meeting with my church friends last Friday (18 January) to plan for our church youth ministry.  I invited Joyce along in the hope that everyone would get to know one another better, and to tap on her amazing insight into all things practical.  Joyce wasn’t in the best mood, and my friends were unfortunately (and typically ?) not very friendly, perhaps even hostile.  Needless to say, the meeting didn’t go well. 

Turn the other cheek.  I decided to apologise for “screwing” the meeting up by bringing my girlfriend along without telling anyone in advance.  I e-mailed to say that “looking back, wish to apologise for getting Joyce to [join us] without warning …” (I think that generally one shouldn’t have to apologise for bringing a friend to meet other church friends, so we are quite off the mark as far as the “love one another” ideal is concerned).

What really disappointed me was that (except for Kenneth who advised everyone to “cool down”) no one, not even the pastor (who was on the e-mail cc:), stepped in to mediate.  (Hasn’t it occurred to anyone that the ideal – or even if it is no one else’s ideal it definitely is mine – is that a couple should be attending and serving together in the same church ?)

Then came the e-mail that was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back :

“… I need to apologise for not wanting to speak up.  I guess I am just not comfortable with the presence of Joyce”.

Right, and this lack of love will take the ministry to greater heights ?  How ironic that in the subsequent paragraph that person also wrote :

“I think the agenda [of the meeting] is not the key.  I think it is the heart attitude.  I believe God is looking at the heart when He looks at us.  HE works with ‘clean heart and clean hands’ people”.

Well, a positive outcome from this is that I now know that Joyce and I should start looking to settle in a church other than my current one.  To try to get her to fit in would be a waste of time and will probably cause more grief to both parties.

Though I feel hurt by the entire incident I don’t hate my friends for what happened.  In fact I am sad that I have to leave.  Unfortunately, Christians aren’t perfect (sometimes they downright suck!) and this sometimes means that our differences become very difficult to reconcile.  In these circumstances, the wise thing to do may be for both sides to go their separate ways, trusting that God will one day heal the differences and bring about reconciliation.

In times like this I draw hope from the apostle Paul’s life experience.  There was a time when Paul, intolerant (as always) of stragglers, fell out with Barnabas because Paul didn’t want to take John Mark, whom he considered unreliable, along with them on their mission trip.  Subsequent to this, as John Mark presumably matured, he proved himself to be an effective leader.  Paul realised his error as he neared the end of his life, and in 2 Timothy requests for John Mark to be sent to assist him in ministry.

“Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, ‘Let us go back to visit the brothers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing’.  Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them [before] … and had not continued with them in the work.  They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and left …”

- Acts 15 : 36 - 40

“Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry …” (Paul)

- 2 Timothy 4 : 11