A Mistake or Not?
If it was an error, its causes were honorable.
Ovid Those who commit first-class blunders and blatant sins usually know it, and can begin to work on them. But sometimes the categories blur and the markings of a genuine mistake become indistinct. Is everything that appears to be a mistake a mistake? Alan Taylor felt he was growing fat at First Presbyterian Church in Auburn, California. Not that he was putting on weight; Alan's trim, well-groomed appearance spoke quietly of accomplishment. He suspected his ministry was assuming the indolent ease. His nine years in Auburn, a burgeoning Sierra foothill community where forty-niners once panned for gold, had been happy. Maybe too happy. After unbroken success, Alan began to wonder, Am I becoming content to relax and enjoy the journey? His people freely expressed their affection for the Taylors, giving them tickets to the Sacramento Symphony and the use of ski condos at Lake Tahoe. Alan could never be called a freeloader. First Church had grown from four hundred to nearly a thousand under his leadership. But his tendency to reside in the ease of a comfortable position disturbed him. Writing had provided Alan's recent excitement. His two books produced speaking engagements and ego strokes. Writing stimulated him, while the church remained a predictable, mastered enterprise. "I don't want to just be coasting in my forties," he confided to his wife, Sue. "I need to stay alive, to be challenged by my ministry, not just by my next book." Alan's daughter contributed to his growing restlessness. "For fifteen years Nikki was a kid you'd want to order from a catalogue," Alan explains. "She was everything you could want." But adolescence didn't treat her gently. Boys twice broke her heart, she ...
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