Today marks exactly three months since Pastor Bufenkamp’s retirement dinner. I’ve really been trying to be a good Christian and open up my heart to the new pastor, but the truth is, I just don’t trust him yet.
Pastor Logan seems like a good man. Maybe a bit too young to lead a flock, but still a good man. Nevertheless, he does a lot of things differently from Pastor Bufenkamp, and I simply cannot approve of some of them.
First off, there sure is a whole heck of a lot more fooling around in church under Pastor Logan. He lets the parish’s children take turns reading the Word of God the first Sunday of the month, and, honestly, it just isn’t working: Most of the children either giggle through the entire reading or speak too softly to be heard. There’s also a lot more singing going on during services. Three Sundays ago, Pastor Logan went so far as to let two guitarists play the communion hymn. Can you believe it? Rock-and-roll instruments in the Lord’s house!
Then there’s the small matter of the cartoons that have started to crop up in the Sunday bulletin, right next to the “Next Week’s Ushers” listing. Now, I’m all for having a little fun, but I hardly think last week’s drawing was appropriate for a church bulletin. It depicted a pastor delivering a sermon, and, sticking out from behind the pulpit, there was a set of golf clubs. And as if it weren’t bad enough that a pastor would drag his dirty old golf clubs right up onto the Lord’s altar, the pastor in the picture is saying, “I’m going to keep today’s sermon short…”
Goodness! A pastor should have more important things on his mind during a Sunday service than a golf game! Even though Pastor Logan doesn’t play golf himself, I don’t think he should find this sort of casualness on the part of another clergyman—real or cartoon—funny. I know Pastor Bufenkamp wouldn’t.
Then there’s Pastor Logan’s style of dress. At service, he always wears his robes and nice dress slacks. But during off hours, it’s a whole different story. He actually showed up for the mother-daughter banquet wearing tennis shoes! I’ve got to remember that God loves all kinds and turns away none, but I personally can’t imagine saying a prayer over a meal dressed like that.
And speaking of church events, Pastor Logan up and moved the date of this year’s Spring Flower Raffle and Pancake Breakfast. Just up and changed it on the church calendar without even talking to me, who has only co-organized the event for the last 11 years! That Spring Flower Raffle and Pancake Breakfast has taken place the weekend of my birthday for the last 11 years, but not this year. And why? Because the new pastor is organizing a youth-group trip to that awful Splashwater Gulch waterpark over in Plovis. All I can say is, the Lord works in mysterious ways.
To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t be surprised if that no-good choir director, Diane Francona, was behind all of this. She’s been in like Flynn with Pastor Logan from day one. In fact, I’m beginning to think that all of us in the Church Wives’ Circle hardly even matter anymore. We invited Pastor Logan to sit in on our June planning and prayer meeting, but instead, he went with the choir to an ecumenical sing-off over at that Methodist church down the street.
Maybe, in time, I will come to understand the new pastor and even trust him as much as I did Pastor Bufenkamp, bless his soul way down there in Tampa. But in the meantime, I am asking the Lord for the strength to accept the things that I cannot change.
