May I speak with the Owner please?

Matthew 3:7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 10 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

I serve on the board at our church. Currently, we are between pastors, so the role of leadership has fallen to us. I'm not bragging or anything, in fact, I would say that I am doing about as much the opposite of bragging as I can - I am very concerned that we all keep praying and hearing from God as we go through this time. I think we all know just how seriously God takes spiritual leadership. The Bible has countless stories of men in high positions who blew it. Moral failures, bad choices, catastrophic battles, bad leadership resulting in lost wars, whole nations wiped out, other nations which should have been wiped out but were not, political coups and even the simple collapse of families. All this proves two things - these men were human, and these men became targets once they stepped up.

So - were does that leave me? I am not part of any Pharisaical community, nor am I (currently) a pastor. I do preach at our church about once a month, but I am low on the list of guest speakers so I don't really know how often or when that will take place, nor do I know if it will happen once more, or no more times.

BUT -

I am part of the spiritual leadership of this church which God called us to. And as such, I am painfully aware of the very same two things I mentioned above -

I am human,
I am a target.

LORD! HELP!

My faith is being refined, and I take solace in the fact that as much as I want this church to continue to grow during our transition period (and be ready to explode as the new pastor comes on scene) I do have to remember something that I have told others countless times:

This is God's Church, not ours.