New Leader 17

The Saturday night cell group met in the community centre in Lostwoods which had boarded up windows.  Pastor David, his wife Sarah and Mikey had decided to pay a visit to this new church plant.  A dozen people sat around a table with a leader who was in his 20s.
"Hello.  I don't believe we've met," said the young leader.
"I'm Pastor David and this is my wife Sarah."
"I'm Billy Graham David Watson.  My parents decided to name me after two of the greatest preachers of the late 20th century."
"Most people just call him Bill," said Mikey.
"How do you find it, planting a church in such a difficult area?" asked Sarah.
"You could plant a church on the dark side of the moon, if you wanted to," said Bill.
"If you did plant a church on the dark side of the moon, would the aliens come and join you?" asked Mikey.  "Planet Nibiru is coming closer to Earth.  There should be a lot more UFOs around."
"I was simply saying that I could plant a church anywhere.  It's a question of using the right techniques."
"It's not a matter of techniques," said Pastor David.  "The leaders of the church need to humble themselves before God."
"I'm the most humble person you've ever met.  I eat humble pie for breakfast.  Every day I thank God for making me so humble."
"Bill, do you want a cup of tea?" asked a young woman.
"Yes please."
"I'm afraid I haven't got any humble pie.  You'll just have to make do with a Bakewell tart." 

 

Sarah looked at an old lady.
"Hello.  Do you come from Lostwoods?" Sarah asked.
"Yes."
"What do you do for a living?"
"I've retired now.  Me and my family were all nutters."
"Nutters?" asked Sarah.
"We used to make a living by picking nuts from the woods.  Chestnuts, hazlenuts, almonds.  My father had a huge nutcase - a big suitcase that he would carry his nuts home in.  We used to sell them on market stalls.  Not many young people want to do it now, they get more money in benefits.  My father bought a flat in 1965.  The mortgage was almost nothing compared to now.  A nutter could afford it.  But when you have to pay £150 a week to live in a one bedroom flat, that's no good.  That's more than we used to earn.  I can't blame the young people if they just want to claim benefits."
"Can you go nut picking now?" asked Mikey.
"You still could," said the old lady.  "As much overtime as you want in the summer.  Autumn and winter are a little bit dead.  Then you'd have to rent a market stall."
"Maybe I could pick the nuts and sell them to the Christian community.  Then I wouldn't need a market stall."
"Mikey, you've got good A' levels," said Sarah.  "Aren't you going to go to university?"
"I thought that was all supposed to be mammon and the spirit of the world."
"We don't believe in a life of poverty anymore," said Pastor David.  "We haven't got enough money to pay the bills.  You tell people things like that when you have plenty of money.  Why don't you become a teacher?"

 

Pastor David had brought his guitar.  He began leading the worship.  The small group began to sing,
"It only takes a spark to get a fire going, and soon all those around are warming in its glowing.  That's how it is with God's love, once you've experienced it, you spread his love to everyone, you want to pass it on."  There was a knock on the door.  Someone opened the door to see a middle aged woman with untidy hair and an anorak which had seen better days.
"There's a car on fire in the street," she said.
"It's not our car, is it?" asked Sarah.  Pastor David put down his guitar and went to the door to have a look.
"No," he said.  "It's one further up the street."
"It happens every day in Lostwoods," said a teenage boy in the group.  "I used to do things like that.  Now I know the Lord."
"You've got to have a car in Lostwoods," said the old lady.  "If you don't, you're frightened to go out at night."
"If you want to live in Lostwoods buy an old car from the £500 used car website," said someone else. "Then you won't worry about having it set on fire.  Simple."  Everyone sat down again.  Bill put a big mobile phone in front of himself on the table and started reading from the screen.
"Tonight's meeting," he announced.  "On the subject of How to Be A Superapostolic Prayer Warrior.  The Superapostolic Christian knows how to pray all through the night.  It is possible to sing hymns to yourself or to pray in tongues for several hours at a time, lying in bed."
"I fall asleep if I try to do that," said Sarah.
"It's a very good way of beating insomnia," said Pastor David.
"I can do it all night," said Bill.  "Praying in tongues and singing in hymns isn't very hard work.  So you can keep at it."
"Wouldn't you feel tired the next day?" asked Sarah.
"No.  Your body accepts worshipping God as being rest.  It's just as refreshing as being asleep.  Oh, in Heaven we will do it all the time."
"Can we not wait until then?" asked Mikey.  "I can't imagine praying for a whole night and actually enjoying it."
"If you were superastolic you would enjoy it."
"Is that because you would be so humble?" asked Pastor David.  Bill fingered his mobile phone once more and looked closely at the screen.
"I have seen the most amazing healings in answer to my prayers," he read.  "A woman had a lump disappear from her ear."
"Was that Samantha?" asked Mikey.  "I know how upset you were when you thought she had cancer.  You used to fast and pray in the cellar at lunchtime.  Oh, you like her a lot."
"I am a celibate warrior.  I care about Samantha in the Lord.  My thoughts are pure."
"I've got a Bible verse for you," said Mikey.  "Psalm 37.  Delight yourself in the Lord and he will grant you the desire of your heart.  You wanted Samantha to be healed more than you've ever wanted anything."  Bill continued reading from his mobile phone.
"A teenage girl was healed of a painful kidney infection at the exact moment I prayed for her," he said.  "She experienced a deep burning heat in her kidney."
"That was Sally," said Mikey.  "We all know what you think of her.  I saw you crying when she was getting married."
"I love her as a brother."
"You love her as a husband," said Mikey.
"Nothing to be ashamed of," said Pastor David.  "I wonder if it's easier for God to heal people when you're very fond of them?  Just imagine, when a family have taken their seven year old disabled daughter to the other end of the world to see a faith healer, how much they want her to be healed.  How much faith do they have?"
"And Bill feels the same way when he fancies a girl," said Mikey.  "Aaah!" 
"It's God who heals people," said Sarah.  "It isn't the Christian."
"You can be a one million volt transmission line for God's power," said Bill.
"Channels of God's power," said Sarah.  "Not one million volt transmission lines."
"Don't go too close to him," said Pastor David.  "At that kind of voltage electricity can arc."
"Yes, you will arc," said Bill.  "Anyone who comes anywhere near a superapostolic Christian will be seriously struck by God's power."  Mikey started laughing.
"Anyone who comes anywhere near a superapostolic Christian will seriously want to strike them in the face."

 

The next morning Pastor David was preaching.  On the screen above him there was a picture of the world suspended in space, with a black man and a white man holding hands in front of it.  At the top of the picture was the word love in huge white letters.
"I'd like to share a reading from a book by Abbot Gregory Brown.  What is hate?  Hate is obviously cruelty.  But cruelty has to do with attitude.  Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.'  The Pharisees didn't want the children to come to Jesus.  But Jesus accepted them.  We must have the same attitude."  A couple came into the hall and struggled to get past some children who were sitting on the floor next to where their mother was seated.  "Excuse me, can you move to a seat on the opposite side of the hall and take your children with you?  No one can get in or out."
"It's all right, Pastor.  People can walk around."
"No it's not all right.  Look over there."  Pastor David pointed.  "There's a dozen seats and they're unoccupied because of you."  Pastor David looked at the table that was just in front of him under the screen.  "Why has that girl not brought the bread and wine?  Melanie?  You can never trust a teenager to do anything.  How can we have a Sunday service without bread and wine?"  Melanie came running with some bread and wine.  Pastor David looked down at his book and continued reading.  "The prostitute thought that Jesus would look down on her the way that everyone else did.  He did not.  Love is patient.  Love is kind.  It does not boast.  It is not proud.  How lovely are you?"  Some people came into the hall who were over an hour late for the meeting.  "What's the matter with you people?  We didn't put the clocks forward this morning.  Are we the only church in the world where a quarter of the congregation arrive an hour late?  You can't be bothered to get up on a Sunday morning.  You should be ashamed of yourselves.  What kind of Christians are you?"

 

That night Pastor David lay in bed next to his wife.
"Darling," he said.  "I'm thinking of leaving community."
"Why?"
"Life would be so much easier."
"For you maybe, not for me.  I've lived here for twenty years.  I'm institutionalised.  I wouldn't be able to cope.  I've no idea at all what things cost in the shops now."
"I never had an accident in my own car, I've only ever had an accident in the community car.  Naughty car."
"Look Dear, before you came here, you had no confidence in the car.  You hardly ever drove.  That's why you never had an accident.  You're actually a better driver now than you were then."  Pastor David picked up his big mobile phone, the one he kept by the bed and didn't carry around with him.
"I've been looking at this house," Pastor David said.  "It's fifty miles away from here.  It's only £50,000."
"Look at the interior photographs, Dear.  The house is a wreck.  You'd have to rebuild it."
"Look Darling, I'm tired of living in community.  My soul is tired.  My spirit is tired."
"You'll be even more tired if you have to plaster those walls," said Sarah. "And the house is in the middle of nowhere.  We'd have to drive everywhere.  I don't think there's a single shop within walking distance."
"Darling, I'm a failure.  It's not as if I could actually preach."
"That was the best sermon on the subject of love I've ever heard.  It was so real.  Anyone can talk about that sort of thing but actually trying to do it in real life?  You brought it down to Earth.  And anyway, there is a kind of uselessness about people in Newport Newtown."
"Maybe there's something in the water," said Pastor David.  "The water tastes funny.  I think that hippy Green Party council have put cannabinoids in the water."
"What are cannabinoids?"
"The active constituents of cannabis.  They make people lazy."
"That would explain a lot," said Sarah.

 

The next weekend there was a national church conference.   The senior leaders of the church stood on the stage.
"We had considered only having two conferences a year because Boris is so old now," said Pastor James.  "But no, the conferences are very important."
"I wish we had decided to have only two conferences," said Boris, who now sat down on a chair.
"Boris is a dear brother.  He lived in the Soviet Union at a time when being a church pastor was really tough," Pastor James continued.  "He has been in prison for his faith."
"If you didn't go to prison there you weren't very good," said Boris.  "You'd be a government stooge.  I could have had a comfortable career, believed in atheistic humanism, informed on everybody, and then become a vicar in the Church of England."
"We think that the time has come to appoint a younger man.  Can everybody take a nomination paper and return it to us by the end of tonight."

At the end of the night Pastor James came looking for Billy Graham David Watson.  He was sitting a few seats away from Samantha, not right next to her as he was a celibate warrior.
"Bill, do you mind if I call you Bill?"
"Don't worship him," said Samantha.  "That is his name."
"I think I know why you have come here tonight," said Bill.  "I have a prophetic gift.  I can feel something in my spirit."
"I know why Pastor James came here tonight," said Samantha.  "He wants you to be the new leader.  I just guessed."
"Why did you think I'd come here tonight, Bill?" asked Pastor James.
"You have chosen me to be the next national church leader."
"No.  I want you to move your car.  No one can get out of the car park.  The decision on who should be the new church leader won't be made for a few days."  Bill got up of his seat and took the car keys out of his pocket.
"So much for your prophetic insight," said Samantha, laughing.
"People get so excited about being able to predict the future," said Bill.  "It's more important to hear what the spirit is saying to the church."
"Bill, you are going to be the next church leader," said Pastor James.  "Two thirds of the people who returned the nomination forms recommended you."
"Maybe I am a prophet."
"Shut up," said Samantha.