We spent Christmas Eve at my dads church seeing his last official service as a pastor. This is his 3rd retirement, but he says it is really his last one. He is a great leader, commands much respect, and has accomplished so much in his life planting new churches, resurrecting near dead churches, and helping to change lives by the dozens. Sometimes I wish I could say I had an abusive father or one that at least neglected me. That way I would have an excuse for issues I have in my life, but I cant say those things. I imagine that if you drew up a perfect dad, my dad would be about as close as you could possibly achieve. The only complaint that I could possibly make is the fact that because he was both my father and my pastor for 21 years I have sort of a skewed sense of what a father and a pastor should be. There are things that you should be able to say to your father that you just cant say to your pastor and vice versa. Consequently, I didnt say much too him. I guess in hind sight I couldnt really pursue either relationship fully because I could not separate the two. Ill never know what it feels like to have a beer with your dad and just talk I just could never cross that line. I did hear my dad curse once. We lived on a farm and he told me to clean up that cow shit. Im not sure you can really call it a curse word if it is actually real shit that you are talking about, but that is as close as he ever came to sinning in front of me.

Ive read many books about theology since I left home and Ive been to many different types of churches. Ive probably been subconsciously trying all this time to disprove the theology that my dad taught me in some sort of need for rebellion and individualism. Ive never had a good opportunity to discuss with him how different I viewed the bible now and how I think some of the things he taught me might have been wrong. It isnt an easy subject to bring up, but armed with a few more theological books under my belt and a new zest for debate I thought maybe I would get my chance. After my dads last official sermon my whole family was back home sitting around the table eating and my sister began talking about how one of her friends wouldnt go to a particular church because it was the wrong type of church and her friend didnt think those people were "really Christians". A small discussion about problems in the church broke out and I thought this could be my chance. I thought maybe my dad would interject something from his old out-of-date theology that I might disagree with and I could finally get a little satisfaction in my need for religious rebellion or maybe I would even be able to respond with something I had read by a modern theologian that had figured things out long since my dad attended seminary over 50 years ago. About that time my dad answered the way he always does, by saying so much without really saying that much at all and he left me with only one possible response...

dad said... Well, when we get all the people in the world going to church then we can work on fixing the church, but until then we should just try to get them all into a church.

My response..."Shit!