Saturday, March 15, 1997

Tempers flare at trustees' meeting

By MICHAEL O'CONNOR

The Trustees' meeting Sunday night at First United Christian Baptist Church stopped short of violence, but tempers flared and feathers were definitely ruffled.

Pastor Isaac Matthew Wright Jr., I.M. II to both friends and foes and Junior to his face, attended the meeting that night, a rarity for pastors in the UBC denomination. After a brief agenda that included mundane items such as renewing the janitorial contract for the church, newly appointed chairman R.A. Bild yielded the floor to Wright.

"I know you're wondering why I'm here," he said. "Ordinarily your job is to take care of routine matters concerning the physical plant, so I usually don't attend. After all, I barely know the difference between the air conditioners and the heaters, and I've never really figured out how the air gets inside the building."

Although he smiled, no one else seemed to think his attempt at humor was successful.

"Ahem. Well, anyway, another part of the responsibility of this group is to recommend additions to the facility to the Official Board. After some discussion with a variety of people in the church and the community, I want to propose that we consider building a gym. I've already talked to some people about the costs ..."

Bild was the first to interrupt.

"Now wait a minute, Junior. What do we possibly need with gym?" he asked.

"It would be a great point of entry for those outside the church," Wright said.

"A point of what?"

"Well, church growth studies say that people come into the church lots of different ways, like through the youth group or the women's group or even through the AA group that meets in our building. That's called points of entry. Gyms are great points of entry. We could have basketball programs, volleyball tournaments, stuff like that. Invite people who don't belong to the church. Then they get used to coming here for non-church stuff and might consider coming back sometime for something church related."

Bild and the other members pondered this for a moment, then Bild said, "Sounds like a Southern Baptist thing to me. We ain't Southern Baptist, least last time I looked we weren't."

Timothy Christian, a member of the church who had joined because of his involvement with AA and because of the acceptance he had found from the church's oldest member, Joshua Caleb Martin, muttered something under his breath.

"What was that?" Bild snapped. "You want to share with all of us?"

"I just said, heaven forbid we should do something the Southern Baptists are doing," Christian said. "They're only the only major denomination that's showing any growth."

Bild began to turn red in the face.

"But we're not doing bad ourselves. Attendance and membership are up since Junior came. I don't see why we've got to go starting to act like Baptists."

"We are Baptists," Wright said.

"United Christian Baptists, and we just don't do things that way," Bild said, his irritation growing.

"What way. R.A.?" Christian said. "You mean reaching out to the lost in any way that's not illegal or immoral?"

Christian knew he shouldn't have said that, but Martin wasn't present that evening to help him restrain his impulses.

As Bild's face began to take on the color of wine grapes, the vice chairman quickly suggested tabling the matter and moved to adjourn. The motion was seconded, and the members voted by leaving hurriedly.