The deacon made no attempt to hide his disgust with his preacher. As far as he was concerned, preachers were the hired servants of the church. And, as a head deacon, that put him in charge.
“Preacher, I have some new rules for you.”
“You have rules for me?”
“From now on,” said the old man, “you will keep a written account of every copy you make on the copier. And you will keep a notation on every phone call you make.”
And that was not all.
“Furthermore, you are not to make any personal calls from the church office. If you have a personal call to make, you will go to your house and make it.”
Pastor: “What if I need to call my wife when she is at home?”
“Then, you will get in your car and go there and talk to her. But you will not call her from the church phone.”
This conversation actually happened, just this way.
The pastor said, “I’m sorry, sir. This is not going to happen. I will use this church phone in any Christ-honoring way I see fit. And I will not be keeping a record of every call or every copy made on the copy machine.”
“Now,” said the pastor, “is there anything else you wanted to talk about?”
There wasn’t.
The old fellow left, one unhappy camper.
The pastor survived and serves that church to this day (i.e., to the day I wrote this). That deacon, however, after fuming for a year or more, was suddenly summoned home to meet the Lord of the Church (see Matthew 16:18) and give account of his stewardship.
There’s no record of how that visit went.