Larry Leader has had a rough day at work. He and his construction crew are in the middle of remodeling an old home. Nothing is going smoothly. The old home’s floors aren’t level, its walls aren’t straight and its foundation is cracked.
Every small step toward renovation becomes a huge headache because no surface is true or plumb or level. Old houses hide many flaws, but, when Larry renovates a house, he’s building a home to last.
K-9 cops
Larry’s at home now for dinner, and he’s ready for some escapist TV. Larry’s watching that show about K-9 cops, the crime show where policemen use trained dogs to track down and capture law-breakers who are trying to escape. In this episode, a cop and his canine partner are hot on the trail of a robber. They chase the fugitive through a neighborhood and finally corner him in a backyard against a high wooden fence.
The episode winds down. The bad guy is arrested and taken away in handcuffs. The happy dog gets a treat. The breathless policeman is talking into the TV camera about the chase. The policeman points to the yard fence and sums up the chase, “Perimeters catch people.”
“Perimeters catch people.” Spotlights flash on and sirens go off in Larry’s head. So simple, but so true, he thinks. Perimeters — foundations, floors, edges, walls, and fences — catch and stop me on the job every single day. Hmm. Larry ponders some perimeters in his life.
All Alike’s perimeters
Then, Larry goes to church in his mind. That’s common, because All Alike Baptist Church is never very far away in Larry’s thoughts. Two recent church events with perimeters that catch people come into focus.
Paul Policy had just about driven Larry over the edge during last Wednesday night’s business meeting. The church was trying to elect a new deacon to replace an old saint who’d moved away in retirement. Larry’s a deacon, and he knew a replacement was sorely needed for the demands of deacon ministry. One after another, Paul raised a dozen picky questions about parliamentary procedure. In Larry’s mind, none of Paul’s objections were that important. But Paul, who obviously fasts and prays over the constitution and can recite the church’s bylaws by heart, insisted that every “i” be dotted and every “t” crossed as his personal version of church policy required.
The final vote was unanimous, but it took half the meeting just to get past Paul’s quibbles. Larry knows Paul’s one of those “by the book” types who means well, but he felt fenced in and caught by Paul’s perimeters.
The other “perimeter” at All Alike that has caught Larry recently involved a townwide outreach project. All Alike is slowly growing beyond its little neighborhood and becoming an area-wide church. That’s a good thing in Larry’s mind.
But some of the long-time church members can’t “cross the river” running through the center of town. For them, All Alike has always been a “south of the river” church, and, if it was good enough for Grandpa and Grandma, it’s good enough for us, according to the charter members. It’s almost like, in the old-timer’s heads, they still live in an era before the bridge was built. To save their souls, they can’t see why All Alike should reach across the river. That’s not our territory, they insist. Larry realizes the river is a fence-like perimeter that catches and limits the church’s vision. Larry wonders, What will help us cross the river?
Climbing fences
Larry hopes that he and other members of All Alike can find ways to get beyond the perimeters that catch and complicate their lives. He prays that worshippers will remember Pastor Dee Parsons’ sermon from Sunday about the Samaritan woman in John 4 and the “fences” Jesus climbed to convert her. Sometimes, you just have to move beyond the perimeters to expand your faith, he thinks.
Bob Dale ([email protected]) is a leader coach in Richmond and a retired seminary professor and denominational worker.