What They Really Wanted

Days later, after the meeting regarding the conference, there was a Men's meeting at someone's house in the church. Eric received a phone call from Dave Barrueto. It started with some small talk and led into Dave asking Eric if he or our eldest son would be attending the meeting. Eric said he hadn't planned on attending the meeting. The elder went on to make some encouraging comments about how great it would be to have him there. The conversation ended.

After the phone conversation Eric pondered going to the meeting but just couldn't muster himself. It was a good thing he didn't go because we found out later that evening that Patrick actually showed up at this meeting to apologize to the men.

In Dave's conversation with Eric, he never mentioned that Patrick would be attending the meeting. No one other than the elders knew Patrick was going to show up at the meeting. What if Eric would have changed his mind and taken our eldest son to the meeting? Why did Dave have to be so passive and sneaky about something so important to us and something we had just agreed upon days earlier? Communication! Remember, look at what they do, not what they say!

I believe it was the very next night that Eric called Jim Cameron and officially said we were leaving the church. Jim's immediate response was,"Could you give that to me in writing?" I wanted to swear again! If they had it in writing that we were not attending the church, then Patrick could attend again. (There was a court order in effect that stated that Patrick couldn't attend the same church as our family.) Remember, Patrick's father was still the pastor of our church. "Eddie hadn't done anything wrong," so biblically he didn't need to step down as pastor, was the thinking.

The church leaders finally had what they REALLY wanted: Patrick back. That way, they could pretend that nothing had happened.

We never sent the letter stating we had left the church.