My friend, the Reverend Dan Martin, is pastor of First United Methodist Church over in Hendersonville, NC. He is a wise and witty guy. What follows here is a little parable Dan wrote about schisms in church. Enjoy!

     “I know of a row of churches that live as feuding neighbors. Not long ago, the Church of the Store Bought Chimes (the SBCC) was built by a group of the disenfranchised faithful from a church, across town that had had a dispute over the preacher’s daughter replacing the church chime tape with a tape of 'Limp Bizkit'. Some people loved the preacher and decided to tolerate the little 'age appropriate' episode. Another group did not like the preacher and decided to angrily depart since, 'if the preacher cannot take care of his own home, how can he take care of us'.

     “The disenfranchised soon built the SBCC on some family farm land sold to them by a 'faithful sister,' who was pleased that her ne’er-do-well youngest brother had announced that he had up until now ignored God’s call to preach and found this the perfect opportunity to 'take the pulpit'.

     “However, it wasn’t long before the SBCC had a little riff in the family over whether the suddenly-called brother of the land-donating 'faithful sister' should be allowed to wear 'shorts' when he mowed the church lawn. To my way of thinking most churches consider a preacher mowing the churchyard a miracle, and a high calling, and would not care if the Preacher mowed in a bunny suit. Nonetheless, this became a huge issue and the church finally 'schismed.' The side that did not mind if the Preacher wore shorts got to keep the building and the fractious splinter-group were left without a location to preach their holy dress code.

     “However, within weeks they had located a preacher from within their own schism and had purchased a plot of land, right beside the SBCC, from the 'faithful sister' who had sold the original land for the heretical exposed-knee church.

     “The Church of the Covered Knees was built but the newly-called Preacher was caught designating money to balance his personal finances from previously 'undesignated' church missionary funds. You might imagine that some were against this pastoral 'designation' while others (mainly the Preacher's family who had just received new cars as gifts) thought it was fine for the Preacher to 'designate' as long as the Lord had told him he could (which the Preacher said, 'Was the case!').

     “Soon, those who thought the preacher should not 'designate' were out looking for a place to proclaim that only a church vote can 'designate' previously 'undesignated' missionary funds.

     “Soon, the Church of the Designationalist had 'designated' an 'Undesignating Preacher' from amongst their furcation and had purchased a little piece of land on the other side of the SBCC from the same 'faithful sister' who now had enough money that she became an Episcopalian.

     “So what you have are three churches, sitting so close to each other that you could spit from one to the other, all claiming great theological differences that amount to nothing more than an age appropriate preacher’s daughter, a 'faithful sister' trying to buy her slacker brother into respectability, a little cloth, greed over a new car, control of money, and being too cheap to hire a lawn crew, all done in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe I remember something in the Holy Bible referring to 'THE body of Christ', 'THE family of God', and 'Christ being THE Cornerstone'. I think I just heard God sigh!”

     There you have Dan’s fable. I am glad to report that churches that “furcate” tend to “fructify.” Dust off that old dictionary. Bye y’all!

• Back to Archive
• Back to Media Gallery