The Pastoral Visit

The pastor of my old church was in the office building and decided to stop by - he's tried to visit me at home, but I came up with a load of (valid) excuses....

I didn't think he knew who I was, as I've only seen him a few times and stopped attending before he started duties as a pastor there. But he knows my parents (my dad was a pretty well-known pastor here in South Africa before they left for Australia), so I was out of luck there! :)

We had an interesting discussion on church, styles of doing church (didn't even GO THERE as far as BEING church is concerned), needs and cultural differences and his vision to bring all the 20/30-something who are "out of the church" (read ME) back for a Friday-night meeting type thing. I could sense a very strong traditional undercurrent in his thinking, so didn't push my luck in too many things, but we had a pretty good theological discussion.

I don't think I'll be back as a regular member though. Attending a service there still gives me more of a frustration headache than a worship experience. But at least now he's had his say and I've had my pastoral visit.

(I've also just emailed a LONG story of my current journey through to my parents, trying to explain where we're at so they have some understanding of what we're up to and there are no awkward questions or silences because we're not doing what they expect, or they don't know what we're up to... The "read receipt" is in, so they're reading it right now....)