Prepare Three Envelopes: A Parable about Pastoral Ministry

[Richard Floyd]

Indulge me in shamelessly promoting my blog, but I think many of you
will get a kick out of this:

http://richardlfloyd.blogspot.com/2009/07/prepare-three-envelopes-parable-about.html

Rick

Richard Floyd
rfl...@berkshire.rr.com

[Mike Frost]

Rick,

Now THAT's funny! Thanks for sharing it.
Makes me wonder what envelope I should be opening these days as I enter my
tenth year here.

Mike Frost
Zion's Stone Church
West Penn Twp., Schuylkill Cty, PA
www.zionstonechurch.org

[Richard Floyd]

Mike,

You may not need envelopes. Notice I never mentioned God, Jesus, the
Trinity, the Bible, preaching, the sacraments, creeds, doctrine, etc.

It's a funny shaggy dog story, but intended as parable to evoke the
modern congregation that is all procedure over substance.

Sadly, such congregations are all too common.

Rick

Richard Floyd
rfl...@berkshire.rr.com

[steveswope57]

Love the story! Reminds me, somehow, of another one my dad told:

Every day the pastor of a particular church left his study at exactly
11:00, walked a few blocks to the train station, and sat on a bench by
the tracks. The train passed, and when it had gone, the pastor stood
up and walked the few blocks back to his study.

He did this day after day. After a few weeks, people noticed - and
not only did they notice, they started talking. Finally, the church
moderator asked for an appointment with the pastor.

On the appointed day, the moderator entered the pastor's study and sat
down. "Every day," he said, "you have been seen to leave the church
and walk to the train station. You sit on a bench for a few minutes,
then you return to the church. What's going on!?"

The pastor smiled and said, "Once a day I like to see something moving
that I don't have to push."

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[Janet Keyes]

I clicked on the link for the blog, but my server says the page is not
available. Can you give it to us as an attachment?
Janet

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05:53:00

[Wanda Lester]

Both of these are hilarious...perhaps  because they both hold more than a little truth..Thanks so much for sharing!!

Wanda

[Thomas Dean]

Rick,

 

Great story.  I like the refection on the church that is all caught up in procedure over substance.  I heard the story of the three envelopes years ago with a variation to it.  The second envelope didn't say "reorganize."  It said "blame the denomination."  There have been those times when many of us can relate to that as well.

 

Keep the stories coming for future theological reflection.  It seems like Jesus did this on many occasions.

 

Tom Dean

 

[fcba%40comcast.net]

Tom,

 

Glad to see you in the meeting. It is good to have an ANTS person taking breaks in this group.

 

I like the story of the new efficiency manager of the local factory who was going around cutting cost by various methods.

The manager walked through one section of the office and he saw that a man was seated on a chair with his legs on another chair. He approached the secretary and asked what the man's name was. She told him that it was John Smith.

The manager went back to the treasurer and told him to make out a check worth two weeks salary to John Smith. Taking the check the manager went out to the room handed Smith the check and told him he was fired and told him to get out of the building.

Later he asked the secretary what Smith did and she answered "Oh, he never worked here. He worked next door cutting grass but he took his breaks here because of the air conditioning."

 

Tom, I hope you take many breaks here!

 

Chris Anderson

 

PS Anyone else get a two hundred dallor check from the Pension Fund!!!!! Yippie!!!!

----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Dean" <tfde...@gmail.com>
To: Confessi...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thursday, July 2, 2009 9:59:45 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Re: Prepare Three Envelopes: A Parable about Pastoral Ministry