The Poker Chip Flipping Prison Chaplain

Buck and Petula's Wedding and the Future

Stephen Ministry believes that there are too many care-giving responsibilities for the pastor to handle without help from the congregation. Stephen Leaders train Stephen Ministers to be care-givers to care receivers in the congregation. One of the care-giver's most important tools is listening.  The Monroe Street United Methodist Church sent three more church members to Stephen Ministry training to join Buck and Steve on the Stephen Ministry team. Buck, Steve, Sharon, Charlene, and Barb train church members to be Stephen Ministers. Once they have a class of trained Stephen Ministers, Buck's job is to match care-givers with care receivers. The rule of thumb is to match men with men and women with women. It is a blessing if you can match a care receiver with a care-giver who has faced a similar crisis in their lives. Buck learns quickly that men are slower to call the church to say, "I need a Stephen Minister." Men are slower to admit they need help. 

Buck has to know his care-givers well in order to make good matches. He has to know their life experiences, their sorrows and joys, and their strengths and weaknesses. He found Stephen Ministry to be the most rewarding aspect of his 28 year ministry.  Buck had been drawn to Stephen Ministry because he is an excellent listener.  

One day, Buck's intense, focused listening nearly lands him in hot water in the Church's Fellowship Hall during a craft fair. Buck and Petula are talking in the crowded fellowship hall when a couple from the neighborhood comes up and begins a conversation. With Petula by his side, Buck is engaged in a conversation with the couple. He is making eye contact and hanging on their every word. Buck is passionate about listening. He does not enter a room saying, "Hey, look at me!" Buck enters rooms saying, "Hey, look at you! How are you?" Buck is not a person who is always thinking of what he is going to say next. He concentrates on what the other person is saying. He empathizes with their feelings and thoughts. He remembers what they said one day, and asks in future conversations, "How is that situation now?" Pastor Buck's active listening empowers many people to share their feelings and thoughts with him. His quiet nature makes others feel uneasy and uncomfortable. They say, "When you encounter him in person, he is nothing like he is in the pulpit." Why is Buck different in the pulpit than he is in the fellowship hall or at your kitchen table or at the grocery store or on the street corner? Why is he different in the pulpit? Buck said his pulpit personality was his "altar" ego!

With his wife by his side, Buck is listening to a couple. Suddenly, he feels the compulsion to give his wife a love pat. While he listens to the couple, he slowly drops his right arm, wraps it around his wife's body and gives her a slap on her real end all while maintaining eye contact with the couple as he listens to them. Then Buck glances across the room, and he sees Petula! Wait! What? If Petula is across the room, who is standing next to him? Whose rear end had Buck just slapped? Buck meekly peeks over to his right, and he sees a prominent woman in the church standing there. His face turns a little red, and he whispers, "Excuse me," and he makes a beeline for Petula.

"You won't believe what I just did," Buck says to Petula. After he tells her the story Petula says, "I believe you, Buck. I believe you this time. I will fix it this time." Buck understands that there will not be a next time.

Petula talks to the woman and she is able to smooth everything over. The woman simply says, "I was wondering why he did that."

Petula returns to Buck and says, "Everything is fine. If this happens again, I will not believe that it is a mistake. When you are listening to people, you need to be aware of your surroundings."

Petula thinks Buck's habit of carrying two red poker chips and one white poker chip wherever he goes is peculiar. His practice of using three poker chips to make decisions made her mad only once. It was at their wedding!

Petula was already bracing herself for what was going to happen when the minister had Buck repeat the wedding vows because of a stunt Buck's Hastings Lions Club buddies were threatening to pull. At every Lion's Club meeting, the President asks new members a question. The President asks a question like, "How long have you lived in Hastings?" or "How long have you been married?" or "How long have you worked at your job?" The new member could say two weeks or twenty years. The Lions would always yell the same response: "That's a hell of a long time!" Buck's Lions friends say that at the wedding when the minister says, "Repeat after me, I, Buck, take you, Petula, to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part"—the Lions are going to yell, "That's a hell of a long time!"