I think that some of the MasterCard commericals are cheesy! You know the ones that end with..."Time with my son - PRICELESS!"...."expression at their first baseball game - PRICELESS!"...."indigestion relieved - PRICELESS!" (Sorry for the satire). Nevertheless, as soon as I poke fun at something - I recognize the wisedom of advertisers.
We are doing a major facility overhaul at our church. Some of it is being handled by the contractor and all therest our staff and volunteers are doing the work. Part of the remodeling is completely re-doing our bathrooms. Back in May our facility manager went looking for bathroom prtitions and found a company in Chambersburg PA that was a dealing of the dividers we wanted. He placed an order and the salesman requested "payment in full on special orders." I guess it is not uncommon in the industry. So we sent $5000 to the company in anticipation of our partitions.
By mid June our staffer was wondering where the dividers were and started calling and emailing with no return call. Time was getting closer to get the job completed and this week we started to really track him down. We called the office and the number was disconnected (that's not a good sign). Finally he got a home phone and called him, only to find out that the business was out of business and our $5000 was gone!
After telling me of us getting blinked for the money -- I went into "seek and destory mode" (not so much destory but certainly seek). I decided that the only way to deal with these kinds of things is to have "face to face" contact! So one of the assistant pastors and I jumped in my car and headed for Chambersburg (2 hours away). I brought someone with me not just for a witness but to bail me out of jail if the guy wised off (again just joking!).
We went to the owner/saleman/crooks house and you can imagine he was surprised to see me. Without emotion he said that he did not have our money - that was obvious! And we have a heated and forth right conversation about his ethics, him taking our money and not having a supplier who would sell to him and preying on churches by having a "cross and fish" on his website. It was in the middle of my tirate that he said... "look i don't need ridicule but PRAYER!"
PRAYER! The only way I was praying for this guy is if he REPENTED! But his prayer comment lead me to ask -- "What church do you go to? WHo is your pastor?" He told me and to my surprise -- I KNEW THE PASTOR! I called him and was able to talk with him about the situation. he was surprised but NO surprised.
The pastor told me that he knew that he was having problems and certainly there was family issues -- but what really upset the pastor is that TWO WEEKS ago this man was BAPTIZED and gave this heart wrenching, tear jerking testimony of how Jesus had changed his life. He even commented in the testimony of having cheated and scammed people in the past, but that God had changed him and his ways! HOLY MACKREL!!!
Obviously there is something very wrong! As I was talking with the pastor I realized that our situation turned the light on a potentially dangerous, church wrecking problem. Obviously by his fraudulant testimony he had gained favor and acceptance with the church and the pastor. His deceitfulness and now known embezzling ways have been brought to the light. The man owes many people and the government.
We are out $5000 -- it will take three additional weeks for the partitions to arrive -- and I have little hope to get the money. Yet I weigh that in comparison with being used by God to uncover a pretender who had slipped into a church of the Lord Jesus and was getting in position to potentially "take others" in that church. Partitions can wait -- revealing an apostate has eternal consequences. PRICELESS!