Delpdowns: The Legacy of the Burns Flat CPC

 

DelpDowns

This part is difficult for me, not because these things have become imbedded in the culture of this body, but because of my directions from God’s word.

Love does not keep a record of wrongs.

Some reconstruction of attitudes and events was required, thinking that I had no further use for the memory, just the lessons and actions required of me.

I also think about just being wronged. I don’t want vindication. I want to leave this assignment, knowing that I have not left an ambush for whomever is next, including you.

Our current situation requires me to reconstruct the past decade-plus. How’s my memory?

If you have ever faced danger or had to make life-defining decisions in the moment, those moments are etched with clarity and precision, though I've successfully kept them from being recounted. Until now, that is, that some unilateral action on my part is required by duty and conscience.

What was put behind me has been recalled; recounting what transpired in the course of a season of gaslighting and ad hominem forays launched from the land of Delpology came with clarity.

DelpDown #1. Satan glorified in the sanctuary. I am thankful many may have been too young or not yet with us to witness this, but it is germane to what is in play in this body and its leadership.

Early in my ministry here (called as stated supply but not yet ordained, Rick Ellis offered to do the children’s sermon. He wanted to know if he could use my robe. I said that he could but not to use the stole, which is often considered a symbol of ordination. Yes, I already had one in my office, believing that God would complete what he had begun with me.

His sermon was something of a watch-out-for-wolves-in-sheep’s-clothing message, with Satan being the one to watch out for.  In my time at the Burns Flat CPC as a member and elder, I had heard Phil talk many times about not wanting to mention Satan during worship.

Rick didn’t really have the skill set for this particular children’s message. Of the things that I know of Rick, I would not affirm the spiritual gift of a teacher of children in him. He used repetition a lot, but within some reasonableness.

At some point it hit the tipping point in Delpology. Junior and Phil walked out. Jimmie joined them moments afterward. I don’t think Jimmie had received his MDiv in Delpology yet. He looked perplexed but joined his father and brother.

This was irreverent and disruptive. It glorified Satan. If the servant of the Lord Most High would not take a knee before Delpology, the servants of Satan would make a visible protest. The Delps had accomplished what they said they didn’t like by their very overt, very dramatic actions.

While the Delps departed, I had been listening intently to Rick, not for teaching skills, but for biblical fidelity. I heard nothing contrary to the word of God.

Some days later, Phil came to see me and wanted to know what he was to do. That was encouraging.

We don’t do rosary beads, Hail Marys, or the cleansing of the sanctuary for blasphemy (though we are not prohibited in this area).

As far as addressing the congregation, there was no way that I was going to give a servant of Satan a second bite at the disruption and chaos apple.

I prayed this episode was just a lost battle to sinful human nature, but my readiness level remained high any time Phil would speak to the congregation.

 I would rehabilitate this body by doing what I knew to do.

Eyes fixed on Jesus.

Known by our love.

Take the good news to the world.

And of course, some Proverbs 3:5-6 and the Parable of the Talents.

I would be ever wary of what Phil had to say for the remainder of my days here. This experience was one of two defining moments early in my pastoral time here.

DelpDown #2. The first pay cut. In the latter part of the first decade of this century, we had the fear-governed elder retreat.

Before the meeting, Junior darted into my office, slapped a paper on my desk, and said my pay was too much for a preacher (something in the thirty thousand range), that it was going back to what it was when I started, then darted out the door. I had never seen Junior move so fast on the way out. There was no discussion, just swoop in, dump his load of crap, be on his way. Seagull management is the term.

When we did the budget at the meeting, Junior led the charge, telling the other elders what the line item would be, and I’ve already told him.  A couple of other elders asked me if that was okay.

I said if I were in this for the money, I wouldn’t be here.

The economy was struggling, but nobody here had taken big financial hits yet. People did what they always did when things changed. They adjusted, but this time Delp-led fear governed in advance of what was anticipated.

This was the first time I introduced the Bible as adult curriculum. It surfaced in the context of this money-saving track we seemed to be on, though I had wanted this for a while.  Junior exploded that we can’t do that. No explanation, just total resistance without explanation.

DelpDown #3 (across several months, maybe a couple of years). Adult curriculum. Paula Miller had sent an email asking if we could consider other adult curriculum for Sunday school.

I replied to the email sent to many that I was excited to see people interested in exploring this instead of just accepting the status quo.

Junior was back in my office the next Sunday morning, holding up a printed paper (it looked like the email) and asking, "What is this?"

I said, “That is interest in our education as Christians.”

Junior went to meltdown mode. His face and his stomping about were the leading indicators.

I told Junior he might want to take a breath and compose himself before returning to class.

That intensified the meltdown.

Sometime later, the topic came up elsewhere and prompted Junior to come see me. He told me that this was his coffee shop discussion topic. For twenty bucks, he could have paid one of his discussion buddies to order a teacher’s copy for the year with their church order.

He didn’t melt down but just stared at me like I was clueless.

I did not venture into the discussion about using church funds for private gain. That was a bridge too far.

DelpDown #4. Cavalier Consideration and manipulation. Income had picked up quite a bit. The session decided to increase my pay to $50000. That was a nice bump especially after the thus saith Junior experience, and within what we forecast for offering based on current trends.

Phil divided the number by 12 and got $4166.66 and said that’s too many sixes.  So he took a few thousand off and got a number he could live with.

Taking off $100 would have eliminated all the sixes at a monthly contract fee of $4158.33.

While I was happy with what I received and would have been content with any number, including no increase, I don’t think the sixes were the real issue.

In the Delp world, the pittance that we paid Jim Fisk was more than enough for a preacher.

I accepted whatever the final number was but was disappointed at the capricious nature with which the matter was decided and the obvious Delp perception that I couldn’t do math or wouldn’t dare once the Delp’s had spoken.

I dealt with the cavalier approach as I had done with my first pay cut. This time I bought 2 goats and 4 chickens from World Vision to remind myself how blessed I was (still am). That’s all I needed to deal with any pettiness on my part and get back in my race.

DelpDown #5. How much is enough? Through the years, I had pushed to have the session act as a finance committee several times, usually two or three months before the retreats. If adjustments were needed, including a cut in my contract fee, a small meeting among those most current on the church finances would be the most effective way to explore and prioritize possible courses of action.

Phil’s resistance to this deliberate approach and attachment to the surface-level once-over at the retreat is consistent to this date. Discussion discounts deception and gives it little purchase when propositions are explored.

Even the fly-by discussion of my contract consideration was truncated. When I asked the session to consider their promise to review this once a year, it was received with some consternation.  Every ordained elder present at my ordination and installation made that commitment. At the session meeting (retreat) it was agreed to do the review (that whole let your yes be yes thing).

Those who came aboard after that time did not make this promise. Those who were were present were expected to pass this on in their handover of duties to their successors.

I don’t think that occurred much, but I noticed that the apprehension to do this was much less with new elders in spite of not being ordained or present at the time of my installation.

So, after a review of my contract, I think most could read Phil’s apprehension), I received a COLA generally consistent with the government’s assessment of the cost of living.

A true assessment could have included a reduction, no change, or another level/process of increase. It could have included a variety of options not available within the fear-based approach.

DelpDown #6. How much is enough?!?

A few days before a somewhat terse dialogue between Phil and me at a session meeting, Phil said he needed to talk to me in love. It was about my pay.

 I said, “Finally!”

After hearing him, I responded.

Speaking the truth in love isn't so much about telling the guy who needs rent money to get a job, but about the growth and maturity within the believer to have a genuine conversation without fear, condemnation, or the need to be right. Let’s explore this as believers who have taken the yoke of our Master. It’s the not-about-us sort of stuff.

Phil was very emotional. I think he wanted the Seagull style that I had seen repeatedly in his father. Here’s what I have to say. That’s it.

A response from me triggered something. He blurted out, “How much is enough!”

I told Phil that I had never asked for a raise. Why are you asking me? The session should decide what the right amount is. Yes, I could concur or not, but since my first pay cut (DelpDown #2), I've clearly said I wouldn't be here if it were about money.

I didn’t give Phil an answer. He was in full meltdown mode.

But I owe you an answer!

I have no upward limit. I might have read the Parable of the Talents more than once. I was ready to put whatever God gave me through the session to work without delay

In the same vein, I discovered I could do the same with the smallest amounts. I didn’t know this until my expenses exceeded my income the first two years, and occasionally thereafter.

Any other response is to belie what the Lord has taught me through the parable and the full biblical witness.

I asked for a little grace and already had a means to make that short of a burden: Lead time.

I have adjusted my personal budget many times not to survive with what I had but to thrive with it, whether it was more or less.

I learned this from my experience in the Corps. Money falls into place where passion and purpose are in play in your calling.

How much easier is this for the second major calling upon my life. By the way, this calling is so much greater than the first that every personal pity party that I thought might be coming on was never allowed to enter the perimeter. A goat and two chickens are my concertina and claymores. I have my bayonet fixed but not bloody.  These thoughts that might cause me to lose focus have not breached the perimeter. I’m running out of opportunities to share my Marine Corps lexicon with you. A little levity might be in order at this point.

Better answer: No weapon formed against me shall prevail.

DelpDown #6. Financial Report in aggregate. Three times, I have broached the subject of the financial report's fidelity with Phil over the years.

His response has always been immediate. Do you want to do it?!?

I prefer to do what God called me to do and not what Phil said his calling.

At one point, Phil had made a small change to the report. He wanted to show me something. It was a puppy-to-small-dog change.

Unprompted, he asked if there was anything else he should look at.

I chose to approach this incrementally.  I said that he might want to change the spelling of expence to expense. It was just a spelling thing, I thought. That hit a nerve!

He blurted out, “You make mistakes on the bulletin all the time.” Wow! I don’t get caught off guard too often, but I didn’t see that coming. The landmines were in the area of fidelity of the report, or so I thought.

Not wanting to escalate the situation, I calmly replied, “And I love an editor, especially before the last copy comes off the printer.”

I may be (hope I am) wrong about this, but that little syntax incident prompted me to consider ever so briefly that Phil might consider Spence synonymous with expense. Phil changed his spelling a few months later.

On another occasion, perhaps two, Phil was explaining something, and I suggested that he label it on the report. I said that, as much as possible, a report should anticipate questions and answer them.

He said that if people want to know, they can ask.

This was surely just a philosophical difference, but I hope you'll consider it going forward when you write reports.

Who is the primary target audience for our financial report? It’s not Presbytery or General Assembly. It is the people who gave without reservation or under compulsion.

It is those cheerful givers who trust the elders of the church to use their gifts and talents to further the work of God’s kingdom. The report is primarily for those who trust us the most. They trusted us when they returned a portion of what God had blessed them with to his church.

They can ask sits contrary to my servant nature and reeks of being sanctimonious.

I did one more self-check and did what Phil had rebuked me with earlier (Do you want to do it!).

I didn’t put actual numbers in a report but made a report that allows for transfer of funds without using the income lines.  Charge and credit where money is returned to the line it was charged against, and even used the spreadsheet functions to make the report preparer-friendly. It’s basic but eliminated the lack of fidelity that still haunts the integrity of this session.

Phil could have done the same thing (sans spreadsheet functions) in the same ten minutes ten years ago. But here we are.

Pending DelpDown. The unlabeled number in the lower right part of the Financial Report of something just under $71K has been there for months.

It is unlabeled, despite my previous requests to make reports as standalone as possible. I suspect it’s Phil’s track on what it has cost you to pay me for the continuous raises that I have requested, at least in his mind. This would be a cavalier and irresponsible guess were it not for what preceded it.

Before my second pay cut of just under eleven percent, Phil presented you with his records of my pay for the past two or three years.  There was no mention of doors, HVAC, doors, doors, HVAC. His only focus was my pay.

So while I don’t know the number, my guess is it is to show you what you spent/wasted or otherwise dispersed to pay me. I expect him to reveal this to you after I leave.

My gut (sinful human heart) prompted a counter to this tracking, if that’s what it is.  I suggest that somewhere near the mystery number, the number $73K be listed. That is my thirty-thousand-foot fly-over estimate of what we would still have after transferring money as we did, but investing the various surpluses we had over the years into CDs. The rates varied, and I didn't track this as we went, but without a year-to-year review of balances and rates, this back-of-the-napkin estimate should be pretty close and deserved no more of my time as nothing could be changed about the past.

I never broached this with Phil. I had hoped that the Delpdowns would slow down once I announced that I would not ask you to consider renewing my contract after 31 December 2026.

 I wasn’t going to launch the next DelpDown by asking Phil about this mystery number. We have too much to do to be distracted in the days remaining in this relationship. It’s been over a year since I gave the session a POA&M for a smooth turnover.  There was plenty of time to make this a viable turnover, but no time was allocated for any more frivolous forays into emotional meltdowns.

I will get under your skin now. I was disappointed that the session continued to approve reports with information that nobody knew what it was, but was willing to vote without explanation.

You witnessed Phil’s explanations of moving money into offering lines to reach the desired balance instead of using more accepted practices. I have seen Phil’s emotional attachment to his report manifested more than most. I can’t venture further into the ersatz nature of the report without entering into a discussion of Phil’s EQ?

Why cling to this convoluted form when it was dysfunctional? I expected you to have the eyes to see this without the burden of the emotions attached.

The alternative, and I have prayed that I am wrong, is that you did know and just kept this from the congregation and me. I don’t believe that's the case, but going forward, I will not be here, and your next pastor should not be saddled with a burden that should primarily fall on the elected elders.

Know what you are approving going forward. Back to the DelpDown business.

DelpDown History. I saw this with Jim Fisk. We paid him about $19K per year. That’s a little less than working a 40-hour week as a McDonald's employee, though the kid messing up your order has a couple of perks with his pittance.

That’s what I was paid as a boot lieutenant in 1979. I had medical, dental, and a retirement plan if I continued living my passion and purpose, at least until God called me to something more. 

Jim initiated what resulted in our revitalization program. We got some financial help that could be used for his pay. We had no contract in place, but we acted as if we did. I’m not sure how much went to Jim, but this was a one-time thing, not recurring income.

During this time, we purchased the van. Junior said to me, “Watch how quickly we pay this off.”

Most of the time, paying off debt early is a good thing, but doing it while leaving Jim’s pay the same seemed a little heartless.

In the final session meeting with Jim, his pay was still pitiful. We were looking at getting a new building.

Jim said he felt like we wanted a pastor or a building. I asked Jim if we could look at other factors for compensation. He had proffered taking a small paycut and going back to teaching. Essentially, he would be a tentmaker with a small stipend from the congregation.

I was about to look at other things when Junior jumped all over Jim with something along the lines of this is what we’ve got to give you. That was the end of the discussion in his mind. Junior was in meltdown mode.

Jim had other factors going on with health and home life, but Junior's attack was the tipping point. Jim was gone. This was beyond rehabilitation. A Delp had spoken.

The last thing he needed was to be at war with the Delps. He resigned.

Phil often related the story of how he hated a man until he started praying for him. He shared with the session that he had been hating me, but said that he realized what I was doing was to get our butts in gear.

It surely didn’t get us moving on matters of integrity and fidelity.  I see the hate has returned.

I don’t need sympathy. I am all in on God’s grace is enough, and no weapon formed against me shall prevail.

But it seems this hate is stopping the simple things that would fix our integrity issues.

When Duawn was here, Junior stepped down as treasurer. Duawn asked Phil if he wanted to take over from his father.

Before I could say anything (no, I didn’t want the job), Phil said yes.

When a man says yes that quickly, he is prepared and feels called to do it, acts impulsively, or has ulterior motives (control, personal gain, power). Believing the first, I did not offer my input. 

The treasurer’s position often comes with burdens unknown to the other elders. I thought we should give Phil time to pray about it, but Phil was all in.

Knowing what people give or don’t give can be a bigger burden than most want to handle. I had wanted to ask that we pray and consider this vacancy, but would not get in the way of Phil’s prompt response.

My concern for you going forward is that much of this Delp intimidation is in play with you.

I think that I am the first pastor (perhaps person) to assertively counter Junior since he was a kid.

In fairness to you, I did not grow up here, and whatever family, work, and other dynamics were in play were not ingrained in me. You (or others) will have to contend with them going forward.

I hoped and prayed that all of this was just human frailty, the sinful nature that we wrestle with, and not an acceptance of Satanic influence that would be as acceptable as the loyal opposition found in the predecessors of our national political processes.

I hope this is something in the realm of emotional intelligence, where mitigation strategies may apply. I did this with inmates, but they realized that their efficacy (yes, I inflicted this term upon them) hung in the balance, and that included their geography. They had selfish motivations, but those of us who have committed to pick up our cross daily should be able to do this selflessly.

 You have an additional duty here. Phil is the treasurer and must be absolutely trustworthy. This is an issue of the fidelity of the financial report and some manipulation of my paycheck and reimbursements for personal funds that I expended as Fund Administrator. The former is the only oversight duty that you incur in the immediate future.

I saw Phil’s manipulative tactics early and have adjusted my personal financial flexibility and strategy for dealing with his failure to respect the contractual agreement in my consideration. The latter being the greater risk but the easiest to address in terms of effort. I would just throw Phil under the IRS bus as lazy and irresponsible if the IRS sought an audit (unlikely, but it was a strategy needed to continue in this vulnerable status).

I suggest that if Phil continues as treasurer, you remove the contract option for the pastor. Both parties must reach a meeting of the minds, and neither party should have an advantage to manipulate the agreement.

I suggest your next pastor not serve as a fund administrator for anything, so he or she not vulnerable to manipulation by Phil.

In all of this mess, I must give thanks to God. In this cacophony of Phil’s desire to seek the lowest level of effort in a high calling, God has been showing me what is next for me, and it is good.

I hope that the session does not merely survive this, but that fidelity and integrity receive the focus they deserve as you work on what lies ahead, working for the Lord and not for men.

That said, I will do my duty even if it belies the desire of my heart.

Postscript. I thought that my truncated explanation of concerns at my last Session Meeting (21 December 2025) would alleviate the matter. The session did not want to correct previous reports but agreed to make corrections going forward. Unfortunately, the report has not been posted for all of 2026, and apparently the session is fine with this.

Offering checks are not deposited in a timely manner. The delay is such that any future offering will be done online, and no, I am not paying the transaction fees because Phil is lazy.

This accounting was intended for my own review so that I might reduce it to something manageable at the 21 December 2025 meeting. I did, and the session agreed to faithfulness in financial reporting going forward. I never envisioned that the session would not make the financial accounting readily available to those who gave, trusting in the faithfulness of their elected leadership.

But here we are.