I looked at Ellen. Before I could say one word, she said, "Phil, I'm pretty sure I know all the reasons you're thinking of, so you don't have to list them for me. Save that for Wednesday, and for them, and let them either agree with you or tell you why they think they're not problems. Some of your reasons are serious enough that I want to hear what they'll say, and I mean I don't knowâbut they're aware of them all already, so they must have something to say.
"What I've got to say is about your real objectionâand yes, I know you well enough to know what that is. You think you shouldn't be in that kind of leadership role, period. You think you're not up to the task, that you lack the gifts and abilities you need. And you are just plain wrong! If God ever prepared anyone for this, he's prepared you.
"Let me remind you of a few things. First, you grew up with a thorough knowledge of scripture, even though you weren't a believer. And I mean not just knowing what it says, but able to reason from that in detail, and with great insight and understanding.
"Second, I wasn't there, but I heard about it from people who were, and then Sam gave me what I'm sure was a more correct account, along with what she said to you. That first morning, when you two went to breakfast, someone made a commentâthat putting you two as partners was sadism on someone's part. And you explained, at some length, why that wasn't correct, and why you were both happy with the situation. I heard about what you said, several versions, but what I have in mind is what Sam said afterward, and that I heard only from her. She said that you put it in such a way that they all were interested in hearing you out and amused in a good way, so that they all understood it, and so that they all wound up on your side in spite of Sam's prior reputation. I realize that a lot of them had already seen for themselves that she'd changed, but seeing isn't always believingâand probably some of them had run afoul of her in the past.
"So we both saw, over and over again, how people responded to you. Back then, it was most obvious in the way any girl you made love to responded, and kept responding. I'm pretty sure some of it was just what we've all said before, that you were considerate and cared about them, but that's not the whole storyâeven adding in that they'd heard about you, and started off kind of excited to get a chance with you themselves. I know I warned you at least once, you need to be careful not to overwhelm people. You see people below the surface, and you know what to say to themâwhat they need and how to treat them. If you were unscrupulous, you would be dangerousâyou could be a con artist any day.
"Just to pick out some specific examples, think of Barbaraâboth Barbaras, in factâand Rosa, and later on Tammy. And Maggie. You took awful situations, and turned them around, like magic. Miraculously. That word gets used very thoughtlessly, but I mean it literally and seriously."
I broke in. "Um. Rosa?"
"You know how inadequate she felt about her body, and it was warping her hopes of ever being loved, as a woman I mean. You showed her different, and when she was skeptical, you explained. Yes, they picked the right guy for her partnerâanother awe-inspiring choiceâbut I doubt that would have worked so well if you hadn't laid the groundwork. You know how nice and confident she was about everything elseâbut she really had decided no guy would ever want her that way, and it hurt. It's a real testimony to her character that she was so cheerful and open in the face of that.
"Anyway. Third, remember Kelly, and how you wound up teaching her. Her personal response to you goes back with the second point. I mean something else. With you directing her studying, she grew and flourished at a truly amazing rate. Think of Pete and Tammy, coming to you asking for help studying, and the influence you had on the students and professors in your classes.
"Think of the Friday night Bible study here. That was dying because of a leadership vacuum, and you got it going so strongly that the church decided they needed to have one of the deacons lead it." Later on, it was someone who worked closely with that deacon since he had schedule conflicts. "That wasn't a vote of no confidence in you, it was a recognition of what you'd done, building the group into something that needed to be part of the church's regular structure." She meant that in that church, anything that was really a ministry of the church was under the charge of one of the deacons. Not that they tried to run everythingâthey didn't!âbut to try to see that things didn't spin out of control because no one was there to see. "If you try to tell them that you're disqualified because of 'able to teach,' I'll be at the head of the line waiting to tell them you're wrong.
"For that matter, that's a better example than I was thinking! You didn't want to be leading that Bible study. You thought you weren't qualified, when anyone who knew your history would have known better. But that group flourished once you were guiding it, even as little as you were willing to do.
"Phil, you've already been doing, informally, the kind of thing they want you to do formally! And this isn't some kind of sudden impulse on their partâthey've considered it, a lot! Think about the potluck last month. This isn't just a call tonight, it was in the works then."
What she meant by the last part was this. At an after-church potluck dinner, being held to celebrate something, four of the deaconsâand their wivesâhad sat down at the table we were at. Three of these had become deacons since we had gone through the membership process, so they didn't know all the things we had discussed at that point. Our kids had been invited to eat with another familyâwho had several of their own, and who also invited some other kids in that age range as well. Most or all of the younger kids who were present, in fact. Several teens and a couple of other sets of parents were there, too. They had taken possession of one of the rooms used for young kids, where there were incidentally lots of interesting playthings. Getting ours to leave, a little later, had been a lot harder than getting them to go along, but by that time they knew the system. They were reluctant and begged a little, but there were no temper tantrums and no whining after the fact.
In the course of general talk, one deacon had asked something about Ellen's and my past, and I'd said that I couldn't really answer then, since parts of it I wasn't comfortable discussing in such a public situation. And the more senior deacon had said, "It would be good for them to hear about it, and they should hear from you," and suggested we all move to one of the Sunday School classrooms to finish eating.
So I had wound up giving the half-hour version of our high school, including the game and sex ed class. How Ellen and I hadâwell, metâsome mention of Jenny and Sam and unspecified others, and the merest hint of how I'd wound up with Ellen instead of one of the other two.
That had led to our each explaining when and how we'd become believers, again on extreme fast-forward. It had been an enjoyable talk, actually, but at the time I'd wondered some about why it had happened. Now, it seemed completely obvious that Ellen was right. The newer deacons, who hadn't heard us on these subjects, had needed to know, and directly from usâbecause they were being asked to decide this.
Her arguments didn't convince me that I really should be in that position. They did convince me that my own immediate response wasn't as clearly right as it seemed to me. So anyway, two evenings later, we found ourselves at the meeting.
At the time we were becoming members of the church, we had met with the pastor and deacons. We'd met those then serving as deacons, collectively, which was routine, but weâor more often I aloneâhad also been in discussions with individual deacons, on many topics, quite informally. At the time, we were told about the structure and governance of that particular church, with special attention to some points at which it was somewhat unusual.