After nearly thirty years

of bring in the "people business," for that's

what ministry truly is, I finally have come to the

conclusion that I have a few worthy thoughts to share.

It's not that I'm the brightest bulb in the socket, I've

just been in the socket a long time.

These few things that I

would venture to share are, I believe, applicable not

only in the ministry, but in life, work, family, and in

other places where we encounter people. I have two

questions that I ask myself when the situation turns

sticky. These are vital questions and the asking of them

has spared me a great deal of heartache and the ignoring

of them has cost me dearly.

The first question is this:

"Is this hill worth dying for?"

Military leaders are well

aware that some territory is strategic and worth the

sacrifice while other ground is unnecessary and not worth

the cost in casualties. Some people believe that every

hill is worth dying for. These people refuse to consider

other points of view, argue their point long past the

time when anyone really cases, and see each issue as a

matter of principle.

These people, to put it

bluntly, are stupid. Sometimes, the issue is not

principle but pride.

A number of years ago, I

was the pastor of a church that needed new restrooms. The

church, set in the lush valleys and hills of Tennessee

was a beautiful white frame structure with stained glass

and a bell tower. The rest rooms, however, consisted of

two outhouses on the rear of the church property.

Spring and autumn seasons

weren't terribly uncomfortable, since the weather was

mild, but in the summers, the outhouses were hot, muggy

and smelled. In the wintertime, worshippers often had to

trudge through the snow, and enter a frigid toilet in the

howling winds, to do their business.

At the church board

meeting, after an elderly lady had finally gotten weary

of freezing to near-death in the outhouse, action was

taken. The church voted to build two indoor restrooms,

one for each gender, and close the ancient outhouses.

All was fine until the

board decided to cut my salary by a few dollars a week in

order to have the money to relieve (excuse the pun) the

distress of the congregation. It's not that I had the few

extra dollars to spare, either.

In the end, however, I

decided that the issue wasn't worth dying for and held my

peace. Whenever I wasn't able to buy enough groceries, I

took some small comfort in knowing that little Miss

Mattie could potty in style!

On the other hand, when, in

a Southern congregation a few years later, a powerful

board member said, just after my arrival as pastor,

"You know, pastor, this church isn't ready for black

people to worship here," I knew that the issue was

one of spiritual life and death. I also knew that he was

deadly serious. After a moment of silence, I replied

calmly, "Well, it's ready now."

The battle lines were

drawn, but the issue really was one of principle, one,

over which, I was ready to lose my job, if it came to

that. This hill was worth dying for. Within a few months,

he was gone, black people were in attendance, and the

whole church was better for it.

The second question is

this: "Is my dog in this fight?"

In east Tennessee, when I

was a boy, nearly everyone had a dog that ran loose due

to the nonexistence of leash laws. A couple of times a

week, a terrible sound could be heard throughout the

neighborhood as dogs fought it out over territorial

rights.

If you owned a dog, you

would run to the window to see if your dog was in the

fight. If so, it behooved you to run into the midst of

the fray and rescue your dog. If not, you went back to

whatever you were doing. No sense in risking getting torn

up by vicious dogs if it wasn't your dog in the fight.

In the late 1970s I worked

as a counselor of a state agency. One of our coworkers

resigned and, later, tried to get his old job back. He

was having difficulty getting rehired, so, having faith

in the quality of his work, I took up his cause.

I made phone calls and

wrote letters to superiors. I spent a great deal of time

pleading his case for him. In the end, he did not get

rehired.

When promotion time came a

few months later, I was passed over, much to my shock and

dismay. It seems that I had unknowingly gotten into the

middle of a power struggle and that dog jumped up and bit

me! And my dog wasn't even in that fight.

However, there have been

times when I have waded into the middle of a situation,

risking the wounds, because I did have a stake in the

outcome. The cost of losing was unthinkable and the

consequences too great to sit on the sidelines and simply

listen to the howls of the battle. Then, no risk is too

great and no honorable person can refuse to do what is

required.

In any event, these two

questions have served me well and continue to provide

guidance for action or inaction. May they help to reduce

the causality rate of unnecessary hills and futile dog

fights.

[Father David Epps is a

priest and founding pastor at Christ the King Church. He

may be contacted at [email protected] or www.ChristTheKingCEC.com .]