A friend of my wife’s recently handed her a series of books, insisting the she and I would love them.  As she handed them over to my wife she said, “As I read them I just couldn’t help but think of you and Wes.”  This both fascinated and shocked me.  It shocked me because, while I love this friend dearly, I expect her to be reading with more of a “Left Behind” mind-set and I was a bit mortified that I’d be seen in that sort of genre.  I was fascinated because I really have no idea what my wife’s friend thinks of me (I’m a bit “liberal” to be her pastor, the liberals who know me disagree and think I’m a fundamentalist).  Jen dutifully took the books and read them.  About two chapters into the first volume she said, “Oh my gosh, you have to read these.”

I love being wrong about my assumptions of others, it leads to surprises like the Harmony novels.

It’s hard to describe the amusement of reading these novels as a pastor.  I know these people (many of them live in MA), and there are times where I think Pastor Sam has to be based on my own experiences.  This should be required reading for any person called to the pastorate, and for all the laity of a small church that needs to laugh at themselves.  These books are both hysterically funny and rather profound.  Heck, I have to give a nod to any author who is able to summarize in one paragraph the problem I’ve been having with Baptist Ecclesilogy for 10 years:

The trouble with belonging to a religion founded on rebellion is that the spirit of rebellion is never exhausted.  It just finds different things to rebel against.  First rebelled against empty religious practices, then against war and slavery.  Now we had toilets squarely in our sights.

How wonderfully put.