Back in Colorado

We had a good trip to California with the visit to Karen's family. We spent a couple of days with Karen's parents getting her dad back on his feet after a terrible bout with the flu. And we spent a couple of nights with Karen's brother Jack and his family.
Of course, we also visited with the church in Rail Road Flat. (I asked someone about the name of the town, but they didn't know the origin because it certainly wasn't "flat" and it never had a "railroad".) Anyway, Karen and I both agreed that we would not be a good fit for their church. It seems that they are very "in-grown"--they want a pastor who will preach inspirational and devotional sermons and who will visit all the members of the church. (They got rid of their last pastor because he didn't spend his time visiting them--instead he spent his time on outreach to the community. And he wasn't a preacher--he was a teaching pastor.) They had no vision for reaching the community. They liked the church the way it is and want it to stay that way. When we asked about a possibility of starting a 'contemporary' service on Saturday night, they really didn't want that because "it might grow to be big and then take over our church." I also asked if the deacons would be willing to have regular prayer with me for the church--Their response was, "Prayer? How often and how long would it have to be?" Not too encouraging from the leaders of the church!
After we had this conversation with the 3 deacons, they wanted me to lead Bible study. I asked them how long they wanted it, "About 10 or 15 minutes would be fine." Kind of weird for a church with "Bible" in their name. I gave a 'brief' overview of our Purpose as Christians--Karen said it seemed that I was talking to a brick wall.
I just read an article that I think this church needs to consider. It is a review of the book "Shopping for God" by James Twitchell. Here are a couple of excerpts from the article:
...based on research he says, "Chances are that if you go to your church and see a hymnal or a pew Bible in the rack in front of you, you are seeing the end of your church in the distance."
Of course Rail Road Flat Bible Church only wants to use hymnals. And most of the members are widows over 60.
...Commenting on mainline churches where over half the members are women over 60, Twitchell writes, "As any advertiser will tell you, when you see this demographic, you are not looking down the barrel, you have already swallowed the bullet."

We are praying that God will lead us to a church where the people are excited about reaching their community, no matter what it takes!

By the way, I also left a few reference letters with them, but after they read them they should realize that I wouldn't be right for them. Here are a couple of excerpts from the reference letters: Shawna says, Pastor Paul is what I like to call a teaching pastor. If you want to be preached at from various scriptures each week, he is not the pastor for you. If you want to learn from the scriptures as he teaches his way through books of the Bible, you have found the right pastor for you. Chris writes, Paul brought some modernizing ideas to our worship service...