I know we have a few church people here. Any of you ever walked out on a sermon? I have. And that's bad when you're the organist.
This is a bit long and complicated, so strap in.
One of the churches I play for is an American Baptist church in town. I've been there since 2010. At the time, they had a pastor named Rob who was honestly one of the nicest men I've ever met in my life. Friendly, funny, loving, able to deliver a meaningful sermon, and overall probably the best pastor I've ever witnessed in all my years of organ playing. However, he had a couple of health issues, including neuropathy and low blood pressure, and announced that he would be retiring in June 2019. However, some internal church drama that I was not privy to ended up turning that into "now". So throughout the fall and winter, we rotated among a few different supply pastors. By Christmas, we'd narrowed it down to two: a Romanian immigrant named Clau, and another guy named Mike who had just moved from downstate. Mike was decent, but he seemed a bit fawning at times and had a voice like Kermit the Frog. I really liked Clau, though: interesting backstory, witty, well-educated, friendly, and contemporary. Mike even got baptized and officially joined the church. For a while, we were going back and forth between the two, and I thought all was well.
However, around March, the "pulpit committee" announced that they felt that they had been turning the new-pastor search into too much of a competition by pitting the "final two" against each other. They also said that they would reassess the qualities they were looking for in a replacement pastor. The monthly church newsletter had a letter from Mike, who said that he was declined because his educational background was not in the ministry, but that he would stick with his decision to attend. I don't know if this means that Clau is out of the running too or not. However, right after this, I noticed that a few members had left, including one of the two music leaders and his wife, who would lead the prayers. The remaining music leader said that she didn't want to go into any details as to why they had left, but that arrangements were being made to try and get them back. Their granddaughter works with me at McDonald's, and she told me that apparently, he left because he had shown support for Mike in a church meeting and the other people in the meeting weren't taking him seriously.
After a couple more guests, the pulpit committee decided that Ron, who had been a guest pastor a few times before, would be the interim pastor until the next permanent pastor was found. And truth be told... I don't like Ron. At least not as a pastor, temporary or otherwise. He's a decent person, but his sermons are incredibly bad. He is constantly repeating himself; going off on odd irrelevant tangents that have no bearing on the sermon; misreading his notes; reciting old marriage jokes that even
Reader's Digest would've called hackneyed in the 1960s; et cetera. He just spent the last 3 weeks preaching on the book of Ruth, and thanks to his slipshod preaching style, I STILL don't know what the book of Ruth is about. However, I do know that he has apparently never heard of the book of Esther, he really wants a fishing boat, he once almost made an exchange student lick dog poop off her hand, and he once had a senior moment that almost led to him pouring milk in the washing machine instead of fabric softener.
But worst of all is when he gets political. I don't think that politics should stay entirely out of the pulpit entirely, mainly because in the modern zeitgeist, it's pretty hard
not to get political now and then. But back in March, he was preaching on the story of Moses, and he brought up an abortion bill in Virginia that would apparently change the terms of late-term abortion. He claimed that this meant that they were trying to legalize infanticide, and compared it to how the Pharaoh had ordered all of the newborn Hebrew boys to be killed. I actually walked out -- first time I've ever done that -- and spent the rest of the sermon downstairs. I found this to be in very poor taste, to insinuate that abortion in any form is infanticide, or to think that "late term abortion" = "kill the baby for literally any reason at any time". Or hell, to bring up a bill that was a.) in an entirely different state and therefore irrelevant in Michigan, and b.) not passed anyway. He's mentioned abortion a few more times since then, and usually in a tone similar to
this shockingly tasteless and very likely factually inaccurate radio ad I heard last fall on a road trip. Since then, he's brought up his abortion views no fewer than three times (once during congregational prayer instead of during the sermon), and while none of the other times was bad enough to make me walk out again, it was still off-putting.
I'm not bothered by the fact that he's pro-life and I'm pro-choice. I'm not bothered that the American Baptist Church, from what I can tell, also upholds pro-life beliefs. I
am bothered by how misinformed he appears to be, and how often he keeps bringing up his misinformed viewpoints. My mom did her own research and came to the conclusion that she, too, is pro-choice. On Saturday, during music rehearsal, she brought it up to the music leader, who suggested that she put it in writing to both the church elders and Pastor Ron himself. If he gets the message, then I hope he doesn't end up finding another political drum to beat instead. I would hate to leave a congregation that genuinely enjoys my music, just because of the pastor.