A Young Preacher Began A Ministry At A Church ...

A young preacher began a ministry at a church that was rife with disunity, so he devised a simple method to eliminate the bickering. Whenever a member came to him to complain, he would take a spiral notebook out of his desk drawer. It was brand new-still had the Wal-Mart sticker on it. Across the cover of the notebook he had written in magic marker, "Complaints." Then he would say to the member, "I’m glad you’re here. Let’s go over your complaints against so-and-so one by one, and I’ll write them down, and you can sign the complaint. At the next church meeting we’ll bring it up, and you can present your case then." When the church member saw the open book, he or she would inevitably back down, saying, "Oh no! I couldn’t sign anything like that." During ten years of ministry the preacher opened that notebook dozens of times, but he never wrote anything in it.