Feast for Thieves (9 page)

The girl turned around and headed back up the trail. Again I followed her. We walked past the trees and bushes and wildflowers and we were both quiet until we reached the building. The girl and I stood out front near the road and looked at the structure. I sensed a strong need to switch directions conversationally, cleared my throat, and asked, “So you held the church together for a couple of years in your spare time. How’d that go for you?”

Again she was silent for a time, then she said, “You don’t realize how patronizing that is, do you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The sentence that just came from your lips. My ministry at the church was not part-time, even though I was doing my schooling simultaneously. I worked my tail off. And I did more than just hold this church together, too. Don’t look so surprised, because the church will expect more from you than you can ever deliver.”

I might have been insulted at the remark, but instead I stifled a snicker and said, “Look, I appreciate you taking the time to show me the ropes today, but I don’t want to keep you from whatever else you got to do. If I can parachute into Normandy, then I can do this. How hard can this job be anyway? All a preacher ever does is work one day a week.”

The girl stopped breathing. I’m sure she did. Her ears turned
red and I caught the clue too late. She found her breath in a jiffy and exploded.

“One day a week? One day a week!? You have a pencil on you?”

I shook my head.

“Into the office!” It was an order, and she pointed toward the annex. “You’re going to want to take notes on this.”

I followed her inside. She dug out a pad of paper and a pencil from Mert’s desk and handed them to me.

“Your week will begin Tuesday morning at seven-thirty a.m. with a staff meeting,” she said. “It’ll only be you and Mert, but she’ll demand a full account of your previous week, including all attendance figures and a complete list of who
wasn’t
there on Sunday—which is the much harder list to generate, you’ll soon learn. You’ll go over the list and see what needs are evident in the congregation, needs you’ll have to address throughout the week. That list will comprise the bulk of people you call on pastorally to see how they’re faring.”

“So I visit a few people. Okay. Duly noted.” I sat down in Mert’s chair and swiveled to the side.

“You’re not taking notes.” Bobbie pointed at me. “You better start taking notes, because I haven’t begun to get started. Following the staff meeting you’ll prepare your sermon for the following Sunday morning. Always be thinking ahead. A good sermon takes at least eight hours to prepare. Usually more, but you won’t have time for more. Your day on Tuesday, like any weekday, will be broken up with people dropping in to the office. They’ll say the same thing you did—that a preacher only works one day a week, and then they’ll chat away and eat up hours of your time. These are well-meaning folks, mind you, and the conversations will be important parts of your ministry. But each day and every day, a few people will drop in, and that adds up. Soon enough it’s past supper on Tuesday and time for the deacons’ meeting. That begins
at seven p.m. and will sometimes last until midnight, depending on how much church business and praying you need to attend to.”

I stopped swiveling in the chair. “Church business? What kind of business happens at a church?”

“Deacons’ meeting is always a full agenda. You worry over how to replace the leaking roof when there’s no money. You debate how to encourage more people to come to services. You squabble with each other because two people want to be married at the church but they have no good reason to get married and folks think it’s a bad idea, so the deacons need to get involved. Catch my drift?”

“Okay, you have some business talk. I gather that.” I swiveled some more, then started to take a few notes.

“Then comes Wednesday. On Wednesday morning you’ll meet with the deacon board again during breakfast. They’ll want to go over any points they missed in the agenda the night before. After that you’ll come back to the church and prepare your Wednesday night devotional, the one you’ll give for prayer meeting that night.”

“Devotional?” I stopped writing. “What’s a devotional?”

She gave me a cold stare. “It’s like a sermon only shorter. But don’t let that fool you. You still need to prepare. Devotionals don’t grow on trees.”

“That’s a cliché again,” I foolishly said.

She sat down on the edge of Mert’s desk. A cruel smile began to form at the edges of her lips. “After lunch on Wednesday you’ll begin your visitation rounds. You’ll visit homes in the area until dinnertime, then come back to the church for the prayer meeting. Only five people have been coming to the prayer meeting, but they expect you to be well prepared. You begin at seven p.m., give your devotional, and then pray as a group for the next forty-five minutes about any needs in the community. You should finish your day by eight p.m. unless you’re called to counsel afterward.”

“Counsel? Who do I got to counsel?” My pencil was dull, and
I shaved it on the top of the paper to sharpen the point.

“Lots of folks. When you’re a preacher, people talk to you about their problems. You’re their sounding board. They vent to you. Cry to you. Unburden the loads on their backs. You listen. And listen, and listen, and listen. Very rarely do you speak. I realize that’s going to be hard for you.” She laughed an ornery laugh. “You should be home by midnight.”

“Okay. Another long day. I can handle long days.”

“Oh, it isn’t the long hours.” Her nostrils flared. “It’s the mental load that will get to you before long. Being a pastor isn’t like chopping wood all day. You got to bear people’s burdens and then put those burdens somewhere so you can sort them out yourself. I’ve seen men stronger than yourself crack under the pressure.”

I stood and started pacing.

Bobbie continued. “On Thursdays you’ll hold a men’s Bible study during breakfast. I never held this myself, but it will be an expectation that you begin one, for sure. Somewhere along the line you’ll need to prepare for that, but you’ll need to cram that into your schedule somehow yourself. After breakfast, come back to the church. You and Mert have another staff meeting, this one briefer, where you go over your plans for Sunday and she makes up the bulletin. Included in this meeting, you’ll give her a list of all the hymns you want sung on the upcoming Sunday, any special music from soloists that might be sung, any Scripture passages you want read apart from the sermon, and any notices of special events that folks might need to have publicized in the bulletin.”

“Special events?” I was trying to slow her down, but the girl was on a roll.

“At least one a month. Sometimes more. Fall Harvest potluck. Thanksgiving service. Veterans Day honor service. The whole Christmas hullabaloo. New Year’s watch-night service. Valentine Mothers’ luncheon. Spring cleanup days. Summer barbecues. As a rule, church folks like to meet and eat, and they expect you do
the same. You’ll figure that out as you go. If you don’t, Mert will be sure to remind you. Where was I in the weekly schedule?”

“Thursday afternoon.”

“Right. On Thursday afternoon, the women’s committees meet. All these special events take a whole host of volunteering to staff. You won’t need to lead each committee meeting necessarily, but the volunteers will expect to see your presence when they gather. If they’re working at the church building, then they figure you should be working at the building too. Then, on Thursday night the young people meet. We only have a handful of youths, the ones who come anyway, and the church will expect you to build this group up. This age will tell you exactly what they think of you. They say it straight to your face, and it’s seldom complimentary. Give them messages that they can relate to, and get used to being called names. Listen to their problems. Encourage them. Help them along. Your day will end about ten p.m.”

“I’m sensing a pattern here.” I was scribbling faster now, still pacing behind the desk.

“On Fridays you’ll want to get to the office early so you can prepare your Sunday evening sermon.”

“There are two sermons?”

“Sunday morning and Sunday night. Sunday night is the more sparsely attended service. Maybe eight or nine people instead of the regular twenty or so. But the folks who come are all die-hard churchgoers. There’s no way you could ever cancel the Sunday night service. Besides, it does a mite of good.”

“I believe it.” My pencil broke and I hurriedly stuck it into the sharpener on Mert’s desk and turned the handle.

“Friday after lunch you’ll do more visitation, schedule any special counseling appointments that need to happen—marriage counseling, funeral preparation, baby dedications, meetings with the sheriff to discuss the jail ministry.”

“Jail ministry?”

“Friday nights you go down to the jail and meet with the prisoners. Give them a short devotional if any will listen. Talk to them about why they’re in jail and try and help them along. That brings us to Saturday.”

“Day off?”

“Nothing doing. Three out of four Saturdays per month will be filled with a special event. Maybe an apple-picking party with the young people. A fund-raiser for the women’s mission society. You can always catch up on your visitation if there’s no event. That brings us to Sunday.”

“The one workday?”

“Yeah. The one workday. You get up early and spend an hour in prayer. Trust me, you’ll need it. After that you’ll clean the church sanctuary from top to bottom including the outhouses. On cold mornings you’ll shovel enough coal into the furnace to last until afternoon, and again in the afternoon to last until evening. If there are leaves to be raked, you’ll rake them. If there’s snow to be shoveled, that’s your job too. Make sure the building looks presentable—and I confess that’s an area I could have done better in. A man with your skills could surely organize a work party to fix the roof, paint the walls, thatch the grass. You teach a Sunday school class for the children, then preach in the morning, visit in the afternoon, preach again in the evening, and then you’ll be done for the week, which brings us to Monday.”

“My one day off.” I was scribbling furiously again.

“Yes, your one day off. One day per week, and only one day, and usually not even that. Folks won’t understand you taking Monday off, because it’s a regular workday for them. So they’ll want to get together and talk about church matters. They’ll get huffy if you say you need one day when you don’t talk to people and just go fishing or cut firewood for yourself. So that’s something you learn to deal with, too—huffiness. You’d think church folks would have their act figured out when it comes to forbearance, but they’re the same
as everybody else. At least once a week you’ll have somebody mad at you. They’ll have high expectations that you won’t possibly be able to fulfill. Be prepared to be hated on a regular basis. No, it’s not parachuting into Normandy, Reverend Slater, but I can assure you that being a minister is no walk in the park.”

She stood and pushed Mert’s chair back toward the desk to straighten it. By then I’d fallen silent.

“I understand your belongings will be shipped later,” Bobbie added. “You have a study Bible you can use until then?”

I shook my head.

“There’s an old pulpit Bible in your bottom desk drawer. It’s as big as three phone books stuck together and has been in the church for decades, but it’ll work in a pinch. Any questions?”

Again, I shook my head.

“Good, then I can drive you over to the café. It’s almost time for lunch. Or maybe you’d rather walk?”

NINE

I
t was only 11 a.m. by the time we drove back to the Pine Oak Café, but Bobbie Barker was tasked to bring me back for lunch, and I could tell she didn’t care to spend any more time with me than absolutely needed. She dropped me off in front of the eatery, emphasized her need to go home and wait for a long-distance phone call from her beau (some pencil-necked jasper who used too much Brylcreem I wouldn’t doubt), then stuck her jeep in gear and drove off in a huff. She was a spunky one, I’ll give her that. Tackling a job fit for a man like she’d done.

Augusta Wayman met me at the door even before I could set foot inside.

“Reverend Slater—I am so sorry for what happened this morning with my husband,” she said. “You must be starving. Come right in and let me fix you something to eat.”

Well, I liked the sound of that. Just the same, I gave a careful glance around the inside of the joint to make sure Cisco wasn’t hiding with a shotgun, waiting for my return. Augusta hustled me over to the lunch counter and plopped me down.

“Cisco isn’t normally like that,” she said. “He’s just been so angry lately.” Here she paused. It seemed calculated, like she had much to say about the matter but was purposely containing herself.

“It’s all been squared away then?”

She nodded. “Sal from the sheriff’s office phoned over saying
that Sheriff Barker had phoned from Rancho Springs midmorning to make sure somebody filled us in. Cisco took the call, so he understands who you are now. I’m sorry again, Reverend Slater, for the both of us. You’re such a nice young man. So nice indeed. Won’t you stay a bit and eat an extra helping, just for me?”