Divided vote eventually unites church

I heard about a church that called a pastor with a vote of 200-3. The pastor spent his first six months trying to find out the names of the three who voted against him. Then he spent the next six months trying to please those three. At the end of the year, the church voted to fire the pastor. The vote was three to keep him, and 200 to get rid of him!

There's an old saying that you can't please everybody, and that is certainly true in church, which is why we need to try to please the Lord first. However, if the church is evenly divided, it is wise to back off a decision and seek to bring spiritual unity before proceeding, especially when voting on a pastor.

A pastor told me an interesting story about a close vote to call a pastor in a rural Baptist church near Claxton, Georgia. The church voted 51% in favor and 49% against calling a man as their pastor. Ignoring conventional wisdom, the preacher accepted the call, and came to the church as their pastor. After a couple of years, however, he resigned. Upon his resignation, he said, "I have unified the church. When I came, half of them were against me. Now all of them are against me."

Elections can either unite people or divide people. Unfortunately, our country is pretty divided over politics. But as Christians, God calls us to be uniters, not dividers. In fact, however we voted, we are called upon to pray for those in leadership. Scripture says, "I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone-- for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness" (1 Timothy 2:1-2, NIV). Someone might say, "Yeah, but our politicians are so bad these days." I would remind that person that in New Testament days, the politicians threw the Christians to the lions, but the Christians still prayed for them.

We can do no less.

Copyright 2008 by Bob Rogers.

The myth about "full-service restaurants"

The people promoting the February 5 liquor referendum here in Effingham County have one mantra: "Vote for full-service restaurants." They are promoting the myth that unless we allow distilled spirits, we cannot attract top-quality, national chain restaurants. It sounds reasonable, but it isn't so.
These kind of restaurants are very expensive, requiring an investment of about $1 million to open. Thus they have strict site requirements for a new franchise about population, traffic, and economic demographics in an area. If liquor were the only thing keeping chain restaurants from coming to Effingham County, then why have we not already seen a Golden Corral or Ryan's Steakhouse, which do not even sell liquor?
Liquor proponents will reply that while the restaurants require traffic and population, they also require liquor. That simply is not true. If the population is there, they will come, with or without liquor. Look at Rankin County, Mississippi, a county in several ways similar to Effingham County. Rankin County is the suburban county east of Jackson. They had two liquor referendums in the past decade and each time liquor proponents told them they had to have liquor to get good restaurants. Both times, the voters said "No." After the first vote, Applebee's opened in Rankin County. Today, they have Applebee's in two locations, Ruby Tuesdays in two locations, as well as O'Charley's, Logan's Steak House, Texas Lone Star, and several other "full-service restaurants."
Now here is the difference between Rankin County, Mississippi and Effingham County, Georgia-- Rankin County has an interstate highway, and it has 150,000 people. As Effingham County grows, we too, will see more restaurants open. Don't believe the myth that we must have liquor to get them. No, with a smaller population, what we are likely to attract with loose liquor laws is seedy bars more than nice restaurants.
The truth is, we are not voting on restaurants. We are voting on bars and liquor! Why vote for something that brings all kinds of social problems with it? Does Effingham County really want to be just like Savannah? I don't think so.
Learn more about this issue on the web page of the Effingham Family Association at www.effinghamfamily.org.