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Esther
“So he finally gave you a resume?” Vicky had just stepped into the church’s upper room and glared down at the six of them.
“No,” Cathy said without looking up. “He gave it to me on Thursday, but this is the first time I’ve had a chance to get here.”
Vicky scowled. “How are you so busy that you couldn’t let us know between Thursday and Saturday morning that he’d given you a resume?”
“Sit down, Vicky.”
Esther looked at Cathy quickly. That was the rudest tone she’d heard Cathy use in some time. Maybe ever.
It worked, though. Vicky sat down. Cathy handed her a copy of Adam Lattin’s application packet.
The founding ladies of New Beginnings Church were gathered to evaluate their first and thus far only pastoral candidate. They hadn’t even posted the job opening yet, but Mr. Lattin had shown up at Sunday service and announced that God had told him to apply.
Vicky scanned the first page. “Short resume. Wonder why it took him five days to write it.” She seemed to be talking to herself.
“I imagine,” Cathy said slowly, “that it took him a few days to gather the letters of reference and the transcript.”
Transcript? Esther flipped through the small stack of papers until she saw the official looking spreadsheet. She scanned the grades. Not an A in sight. Many Cs. A few Ds. And one F. In Exegesis. What was exegesis? She had no idea. Maybe that meant it wasn’t very important.
“If you’ll look at his reference letters,” Cathy said, “I think you might be impressed.”
The small room was quiet as they read. Esther pulled her sweater tighter around her. It was full on fall now, creeping up on winter, and they hadn’t fired up the furnace today. The one space heater in the room wasn’t quite keeping up with the drafts seeping in from around the old windows.
Vicky broke the silence. “Can you be a pastor if you flunk out of Bible school?” She had gotten to the transcript.
“He didn’t flunk out,” Cathy said, her voice even. “He chose to walk away.” She took a deep breath. “He says he’s eager to get to work and that school was holding him up.”
Vicky snickered. “Sounds like something someone would say right before they flunked out of college.”
“Stop it, Vicky,” Rachel said. “Wait until you hear him talk and you’ll understand. This isn’t about flunking. He really wants to get going with his ministry—”
“Easy for you to say.” Vicky folded her arms across her chest. “You got to talk to him for hours on Sunday.”
This was true. When Adam Lattin had shown up on Sunday morning and pronounced his mission of becoming their pastor, Cathy had welcomed him warmly to their service and then entirely ignored him for the duration of it. However, afterward, she had beckoned to Esther and Rachel, and they had talked to him well into the afternoon.
Now Esther understood, at least in part, why Vicky was so wound up. They’d left her out of that part of the interview.
“You’ll get another chance to talk to him,” Rachel said.
“Yes,” Cathy chimed in. “I think we should all talk to him. But I thought we might want to look at his application first, without him here, in case there was anything we wanted to discuss.”
Vicky shook her head. “I don’t need to look at his application. I think he’s too young to be our pastor and I think his grades are terrible.”
Esther scanned the resume. He’d worked in landscaping before going to college. “I don’t think he’s that young.” She did some mental math. “I put him at twenty-six or twenty-seven.”
“Twenty-seven is a baby!” Vicky cried. “And why doesn’t a healthy, godly twenty-seven-year-old have a wife and family of his own yet?”
Cathy groaned. “Which is it, Vicky? Is he too young to be a pastor or is he too old to be single? You are obviously going to be displeased no matter what, so does anyone else have anything they want to discuss?”
“These letters are amazing,” Rachel said. She read snippets aloud, “A man after God’s own heart ... servant-hearted ... a good listener ... patient ... good with people of all ages.” She looked up. “I say we give him a shot.”
Cathy nodded. “Let’s interview him again, formally this time, and then yes, I agree. Let’s give him a probationary shot.”
Vicky’s silence surprised Esther, and she looked at her. Vicky was chewing the inside of her cheek.
“Do you think he can preach tomorrow?” Barbara asked. “That would give us an idea of how he’ll be behind the pulpit.”
“Good idea,” Dawn said.
“I’m not sure he’ll be able to prepare anything that fast,” Cathy said, “but we can certainly invite him to.”
Esther thought he probably had a sermon in his pocket for just such an occasion. She didn’t say this aloud, though.
“Someone once told me,” Vera started, and everyone sat up straighter. Vera didn’t talk much, so when she did, they paid attention. “If a pastor ever claims to hear directly from God, then you should run as fast as you can in the opposite direction.”
“I hear what you’re saying,” Cathy said, “but I think that’s a dangerous rule to follow. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If we say he can’t talk to people directly today, then we’re saying that we don’t believe all the biblical accounts of him talking to people.” She looked exhausted.
Esther felt bad for her. “I don’t think we should necessarily take him at his word about this calling he heard, but neither should we dismiss his testimony out of hand.”
“Then I just have one more question.”
Cathy looked relieved. “What’s that, Vera?”
“What is exegesis?”
