Jump Start # 4051
Psalms 133:1 “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity.”
Throwback Thursday: an article written from the past
The Splittin’ Tree
Greetings once again from all us folks down here at the country church. Its been quite a while since I’ve last wrote to you’uns and I reckon the busy fall has kept us just too busy for words.
We’ve had a rather big ruckus down at the church this summer. The whole church was a buzzin’ about it for some time. It seems that Timothy Pritchard, whose land butts up to the church yard, was wanting the big cherry tree back in the corner of the church lot. That tree had out lived just about everyone around. It was brother Pritchard’s grandfather who donated the lot for the church to build a meeting house on. That’s been well nigh over 90 years now. The Pritchard family has always tended the grounds around the church building and have helped themselves to some of the trees now and then.
Bro. Pritchard asked one of the elders one day if he could cut down the cherry tree for lumber to make some furniture. The elder supposed it was ok with him but thought it’d only be proper to bring it up at the next business meeting.
Well, at that business meeting, things didn’t go well concerning the cherry tree. Some of the men thought that if bro. Pritchard wanted one or more of the poplar trees that they’d see no problem with that, but that nice cherry tree, with the price of lumber these days, must be worth a large sum of money. It was suggested that maybe the church ought to get a lumber man in to give an estimate on the value of the tree. Then the church could sell the tree to bro. Pritchard. Some thought that it’d only be brotherly to sell it to him at a reduced price, seeing that he was a member of the church and all. Others weren’t so sure about the notion.
Bro. Pritchard let it be known that he was not about to buy back what his grandfather had given to the church in the first place. He felt that the church owed it to him for all the years of service that his family has provided. Bro. Daniels insisted that if the tree was given to the church then it belonged to the church. And, if the Lord wanted the church to be in the lumber business, we’d read about it in the New Testament.
One of the elders asked bro. Pritchard what he was planning to do with the furniture that would be made from the cherry tree. Bro. Pritchard said, “Sell it.” Folks got uneasy then. They thought that any money made for the church’s tree ought to belong to the church. Another one of the elders felt uneasy about just giving the tree away. “If we do that,” he said, “we’d have to give a tree to everyone in the church, and then there’d be no more trees on the church lot.”
Bro. Pritchard got mighty sore and walked out. Some heard him say that he might not ever come back again. The rest of the men decided that they needed more time to work through the delicate situation, so they moved to make a decision at the next meeting.
At the next meeting, the cherry tree was the main topic of discussion. Bro. Pritchard didn’t come to this meeting. He still couldn’t figure out why folks were getting so worked up over a tree. Some men were afraid that bro. Pritchard would leave, and thought that if they just gave him the tree then he’d stay. Bro. Silas felt that there were mighty principles involved here. Well, it was pretty certain to all of us that we needed more time to think things through. So we decided to wait until the next month to come to a decision.
The elders contacted bro. Southerland from the Pinewood congregation to see if he’d come over and present a special lesson on what the church should do. It seemed that the country church was about as unsure as to what to do as ever. Bro. Southerland agreed to come and a date was set. The elders called a special meeting on Wednesday to announce that there’d be no more meetings about the cherry tree until bro. Southerland had preached his special sermon.
The following Saturday afternoon the cherry tree fell to the ground. The whole church was talking about it the next day, as men and women alike came and looked it over real well. It was discovered that the tree was eaten up with termites from the inside out. It was nearly rotted all the way through. The tree had fallen on bro. Pritchard’s fence. He asked the brethren if they could have it removed so he could repair the fence so his cattle wouldn’t get out. Some thought that since bro. Pritchard usually took care of the church yard, that he should just clean it up. But since there had been so much turmoil over this particular tree, the elders decided to hold a meeting about cleaning it up.
It was decided in the meeting that since the situation had changed and this had certainly taken a different twist than what we were expecting, that we’d think about it for a month and decide at the next meeting. The elders were greatly concerned about what to do with bro. Southerland and his special lesson. They certainly did not want to offend the good brother, so they told him to come and preach it, just in case a similar situation ever came up again.
Bro. Pritchard decided to put up a whole new fence since the tree had damaged so much of the old one. And, believe it or not, but when the fence company came to put in the new fence, it was learned that the cherry tree was actually more on bro. Pritchard’s property than the church’s lot all along. At least that was according to the survey. Well, being the kind of people that we are, the church paid for the section of fence that was damaged by the cherry tree. The tree was hauled off to a hollow and burned.
Once again, this shows how peace and harmony reigns down here in the country church. We just had a notion that things would work out.
At our last business meeting, one brother suggested that we ought to do something with the stump from the cherry tree. Since not all of the stump belongs to the church, it was decided that we needed more time to think about it. We’ll decide on this next month.
Roger
November, 1992