CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Reminiscences of An Old Preacher—WELL, BLESS YOUR HEART [6-29-26]

 

In Methodist churches, the appointment year for pastors starts July 1. That’s when the transition to a new pastor starts, as it did for Wesley UMC in Mason City, Iowa, when we lived there.

We lived in retirement in Mason City because the grandkids were there, I was the occasional unpaid assistant pastor at Wesley UMC. Whenever Dave Shogren, had to be gone, he’d have me preach. Then the bishop appointed Dave to be a District Superintendent, and Bill Poland came to be our pastor.

Bill began to make changes. Church people don’t much like changes, but everyone liked Bill, so we were in a conundrum.

One change Bill didn’t make was asking me to preach whenever he was gone. So, one Sunday, I thought it good to take on that matter of the changes he was making. Here is the abbreviated form of that sermon…

I call where I come from, in southern Indiana, “The Mississippi of the North,” for how we deal with race, and for the humidity in the summer, and for the way we talk. In either Mississippi, you can say anything you want about a person if you follow it with, “Bless her heart; she’s doing the best she can.”

“That meatloaf she brought to the church picnic could choke a giraffe. But bless her heart, she’s doing the best she can.”

“He’s the poster boy for lead paint, but bless his heart, he’s doing the best he can.”

Our pastor, Bill Poland, is gone today, so we can say anything about him that we want to, as long as we bless his heart.

Bill keeps making all these changes, and every time he makes one, attendance goes up. Bill thinks it’s because we like the changes. But we don’t like change. We like Bill. We don’t just like him, we love him, because we know he loves us. So we keep coming to church, and inviting others to do so, not because of the changes, but in spite of them.

Bill doesn’t understand that. He keeps going to these conferences about church growth, and they suggest some change, and he comes back and does it, and then he thinks, “Hey, it worked. I did that change Willow Creek told us to do and now the attendance is up.”

He went to a conference and they told him he should take out the communion rails. You see any communion rails? Nope, they’re gone. Instead of kneeling at the rails, they told him, we should get in line and shuffle along like convicts in the prison cafeteria, and when we got up to the front someone would give us a tiny piece of bread and one swig of grape juice and say, “God loves you, and keep moving.” That’s both good information and good advice, but… well, bless his heart; he’s doing the best he can.

He went to another conference and they said that instead of an organ to accompany the hymns, we should have a clavicorn…or clavicle…or…whatever that instrument there is. But, bless his heart, he’s doing the best he can. We got one of those clavimachines, and attendance went up.

And hymns? We don’t even sing hymns anymore. He went to yet another conference, and they said we should sing “praise songs” instead of hymns. Praise hymns are a grocery list of all the known words for God or Jesus. Praise hymns are “count-down” music—5 words sung 4 times to 3 chords from 2 screens to… bless his heart. He’s doing the best he can. Now we’re singing praise songs, and attendance is up.

But church people don’t like change. We love Bill, but we’re so tired of all these changes. So I went to God and prayed about it, and God said… “Bless your heart. You’re doing the best you can.”

Joh Robert McFarland