There's the joke about a minister who gave R1000 at a wedding, and a rumour went round that he took R1000 at a funeral. A rumour came back to me this week, which has come back to me several times before: the entire diaconate resigned when my city Church voted, in 1998, to become independent -- I thereby "devastated" the Church. In fact this was the beginning of an upsurge, both in income and in numbers. However, we momentarily lost about 10% of our members (and kept 90%). Half the Church's diaconate (servanthood) resigned -- not all -- and this over a period of several months. The reason was not the Church's becoming independent, but that diaconate members had departed from Church polity (not the minister's polity). Two resignations seem to characterise all resignations: "The reasons for this decision ... We do not hold Congregationalism." There was, however, another major factor. Those who resigned had just moved, so that Church attendance for most of them was a 70km / 45mi round trip. I said well before they left that this would not last. OBSERVATION: In spite of the loss of half the Diaconate over a relatively short period, it did not seem to me to be a major disruption. A deacon came to me at the Communion table one Sunday and said: 'Are you worried? I'm not worried.' Nor was I -- at least, not when he asked me that question. Rumours have the tendency not only to distort the truth or to invert it, but to over-simplify. Yet even the above is too simple (see tomorrow morning's post). Mostly, one does not know a rumour's origin. In the case of this rumour, it was the Church accountant.
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