| | After Jayme's resignation, the church went into an eerie stun. Dad more
or less took over preaching duties for the majority of December,
putting all of his road presentations of Maranatha on hold. Ken Black
had taken over the office manager position, and was settling in nicely.
I had been planning some caroling rounds to our shut-ins, as well as a
Christmas concert featuring our younger musical talent in the church.
Not much was heard from Jayme, however. Any phone calls I tried to
place to his cell phone were abruptly cut off, but I chalked that up to
the pitiful reception that is ever-present in Natchez.
It bears
noting that before she and Jayme had left for Bossier City for their
counseling with Bro. Dennis Blankenship, Mandy had come before the
church to apologize for her actions. Forgiveness was granted by the
church unanimously.
One night in very early December, around
December 14th, I was going over a musical piece with church pianist
Sandra Bailey and her son. Suddenly, perpetual church visitor Karen
Riley, a stereotypical middle aged "cat lady" with an obsession for
alternative medicine and (her own) personal sob stories, interrupted
our session with a brilliant idea.
Karen claimed to have fully
supported Jayme as "her pastor." (Even though she had not been, nor was
at the time, a member of Victory.) She said that, though it had only
been about two weeks since Mandy's return, Sue Jackson (Jayme's mother)
was reporting a remarkable "change" in her attitude, and a genuine love
for Jayme. She had apparently gotten over the emotional bars that her
upbringing had given her. In fact, Dennis Blankenship himself could
arrange it so that Jayme could pastor on the weekends, and get further
counseling during the week! She wanted to know if we would stand behind
such a proposal.
Rather floored by the idea of a pastor who
needed family counseling, I very cautiously said that, while I admired
Jayme, this was not a decision that should be made on emotion alone.
Much time would be needed by both sides for healing and counseling.
Karen agreed, but pointed out that the Jacksons' rent would expire at
the end of that month, and it would be nice if he could be called back
before then. Sandra and her son agreed with Karen, saying that they
"never wanted him to leave in the first place."
I immediately brought this concern up to Dad, who more or less dismissed it as idle speculation.
He stopped dismissing it the next day.
He
confided in me that Dennis Blankenship himself had called and claimed
that over the last three sessions that he'd had with Jayme, all Jayme
wanted to talk about was coming back to Victory. Jayme Jackson wanted
back in the pastorate.
I was mortified, but knew that I had to make sure before I started getting mad.
So I called Jayme's cell phone again.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Needing
urgently to speak with Jayme, I called David Blankenship, the son of
the pastor who was counseling Jayme, and a good friend of mine. I asked
him to confirm Jayme's cell phone number for me.
This he did,
confirming my suspicions that Jayme had switched his phone number with
the mysterious disclaimer: "But...you didn't hear that from me, okay?"
Somewhat amused and confused, I said, "Oh...heh...okay. This conversation never happened, then."
David then cut the conversation short and I called Jayme directly.
I
was very honest with him. I stated that there were rumors in the church
and elsewhere that he was planning to come back. If, indeed, he was
planning this, I was letting him know that he would need a new Minister
of Music. I pointed out that President Franklin Pierce in his inaugural
address stated, You have summoned me in my weakness; you must sustain me by your strength. Two
presidents and less than a decade later, we had a civil war. I reminded
him that the church had been through tough times and was weak, and the
last thing it needed was a shepherd almost mortally weakened by an
attack of Satan. Besides, people had been apparently talking about this
behind Dad's back without even asking his opinion, which was a fine
thing for someone who Jayme himself appointed to lead the church.
Jayme
sounded surprised, and stated that some of the members of the church
had indeed contacted him about coming back, but he had no intention to
do so at that time. Moreover, he realized that his family situation was
week, and needed "at least another month" to repair. Basically, he
said, he needed to get away from Natchez and get his family in order,
and that he really wished everyone would stop calling him.
I
told him that I understood, hoped he did get his family in order, and
hoped that he could make it down to listen to our concert in a few
weeks. We left on good terms, and I was convinced that some dire
misunderstanding had occured.
Well, Jayme "made it down", alright. And it turned out that the only misunderstanding was on my part...
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| | Posted 4/29/2006 12:29 AM - 1 view - 0 comments
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