It shouldn't happen to a Pastor?

I have just got off the phone from an irate man from Eastleigh wanting to speak to someone at the church about a pastoral matter. The phone call gets put through to me eventually and I endeavour to placate the very upset individual! "The music is too loud!" he says, having heard this complaint regularly, I start to apologise with the standard line that I use. Most Sundays there is someone who thinks the music is too loud and it is never the sound engineer or the drummer... I wonder if people ever complained about the volume of the pipe organ when it was first introduced into the local parish church? Still it is a part of modern church leadership that you can have the dead being raised, people overcoming addictions and new people discovering the way of Christ but somebody will ALWAYS complain about something unnecessary and mundane. It normally tends to be the ones who have been in the church for decades and feel they have the right to vent their frustrations about the change that has been imposed by all these new people that have recently joined the church.

So I am used to complaints, some I take in my stride and make all the right noises to encourage the complainant that I am listening and taking them seriously, but there are some that seem very personal about my style or my approach or my lack of this, that or the other and I always take them personally (funny that!) - my friend Jim says "you're a wee bit sensitive, Sim!" which always offends me!! :o)

So, I am on the phone to this guy upset about the volume being too loud trying to placate him with my normal grunts of encouragement when he says "and it was 3 O'Clock in the afternoon!" - what? oh, he's not talking about our Church worship band after all he is talking about his neighbour! He just wanted someone to talk to, to complain to, to have his say and for some reason went through the yellow pages and rang me at Central Hall. A strange phone call to start the week off, but if someone in desperation sees the church as a place of refuge and a place to be listened to then I am all up for helping out the needy for surely that is what Matthew 25 tells us.

So if you need help and you want someone to rant to about the stuff that life throws at you give me a call the confessional is open!!!

This week I am in a bunch of meetings with our Church Fun Day on Saturday in Victoria Country Park for a BBQ and games for about 300 people, then speaking on Sunday morning. Great day yesterday morning with an awesome response to the offering - God is good...