Lesson learned as a small town pastor

Somewhere around Halloween of last year I was running around hanging up flyers around town for upcoming events at our church. (I try to keep the community informed of things going on at our church, and we have a great newspaper woman that allows me to write about upcoming events for the newspaper) As I was hanging up these flyers, I ran into a sweet lady from the library board who encouraged me to come to the Friends of the Libary meeting. She wanted me to come because our church has a book club, and she was interested in how that worked, and maybe if I could do the same thing in the community at large.

I decided to go to a Monday night meeting at the library, which is a little over a block from our humble abode. While at the meeting, I was elected President of the Friends of the Library. Choosing to agree to serve in this position has been the worst decision of my short ministry here.

You see, I thought that being President of the Friends of the Library would allow me to use my skills to bring structure, purpose, and direction to an organization that had not officially met in a number of years. To a certain extent in the last couple of months I have been successful with that. We have put together goals and objectives. We have gotten a skills inventory together of Friends of the Library members. I feel good about getting this done in only a few months, and with no bi-laws or structure telling us what to do.

However, in Fowler, being a part of the Friends of the Library has a dark side. I soon came to discover that the library board revived the organization for the sole purpose of sheltering the money they recieved and raised from our city government. Thus, friends of the libary was not so much a place to serve, as it was a organization formed out of political conflict. And stupid new-guy me gets caught in the crossfires.

Laast meeting I went to, I went to dreading even being there. The President of the Library is a very angry woman, and generally treats me with contempt. She sighs when I speak, she rolls her eyes, when she responds to me she uses a very harsh tone. And when it came time for me to report, I had to bring up a very uncomforatble subject. That subject was establishing clear lines of relationship and accountability between the Friends of the Library Board and the Library Board. Especially touchy was the fact that all of the money being raised for the library was in the Friends of the Library account, but that the Library Board believed that the Friends of the Library should have no input or authroity on how that money was spent. I suggested clear written guidelines. The Library Board president said, "The only thing we need you for is to get us money." A few minutes later she ammended her statement, but at that point I was seeing red. I felt used, angry, and disrespected. And I feel determined to quit that board. Which is too bad...because a lot of the things that other Friends' groups do, like programming and gathering people together, I would do fairly good at. But now it is a month later, and I am still feeling like quitting, and worried that if I do people in my church may be disappointed.

Oh well....at some point I am going to have to do what I have to do.