What follows is a humorous and tragic story of a man I met in church.
In 2003, my family and I moved to Clare, Michigan so I could assume the pastorate of Victory Baptist Church — a Southern Baptist congregation. I pastored Victory Baptist for seven excruciating months. This would be the last church I pastored. While at Victory, we lived in a gated community called White Birch — north of Farwell, Michigan.
One evening, my family and I drove to Mt Pleasant to do some shopping at Meijer. When we returned home, I noticed that the red light on the answering machine was flashing. I clicked play and heard the following:
Hello, this is Elvis. I am staying at the Doherty Hotel in Clare. I would like to talk to you. Please call me back at ______________.
I thought, “yeah right. Elvis?” I thought one of my preacher friends was trying to put one over on me. So I called the number, expecting to reach a jokester on the other end, but come to find out, it really was Elvis.
Well, actually it was a man named Barry, and Barry believed he was Elvis.
I don’t remember how Barry got to Clare, but he was on social security disability and lived in a rented apartment.
Barry wanted to attend our church. And so he did . . .
Barry didn’t come to church every week, but when he did, he came dressed in bright colors, scarfs, and spangles just like Elvis wore. When Barry arrived, everyone paused to look, not saying a word. He definitely stood out among the more “normal” people who attended the church. I would later learn that he was likely the most honest man in the room.
Barry had mental health problems, and quite frankly a lot of church members didn’t know how to handle him. He was “different,” and “different” is not something the church understood. Barry and I got along quite well. I learned that he had been sexually abused, misused, and taken advantage of by several Pentecostal churches and a homeless shelter in the South. They mentally and emotionally crushed Barry, and it is a wonder he didn’t end up in a mental hospital.
I tried to be Barry’s friend. I knew he needed people to love and encourage him. Unfortunately, Barry had a tendency to say whatever was on his mind, and a lot of church members found his verbal outbursts upsetting. One Sunday, we were sitting around the table in the Adult Sunday School Class — also known as the Heresy of the Week Class — discussing the Sunday School lesson. The Sunday School teacher, an older man by the name of Steve, asked if anyone had anything to share. Barry did:
I need prayer, I have a problem with masturbation.
Dead silence. Instant offense showed on the faces of many at the table. The teacher didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. I quickly told Barry that we would talk about this after church.
Barry definitely spiced up the church. I have often wondered what happened to him. I hope he found someone to help him, love him, and accept him for who he was — even if he thought he was Elvis.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Ashame he was so abused, but it doesn’t surprise me; nothing surprises me with churches anymore. And I, too, have always gotten along with people who were “different”; I guess being different yourself helps with that
Funny how folks can ask for prayers for all sorts of things (I’ve spent plenty of time in prayer meetings) but when it comes to real issues they want to act as though it doesn’t exist.
I like Barry—and his matter-of-fact honesty. That masturbation comment sounds like something i might say in the same situation or in a conversation with 10 guests in my living room. It is sometimes fun to say things like that just to see how people will respond.
I was driving down a mountain road this afternoon—feeling much better after a couple of bad days of medical news, and the old saying came, “I have something that I just have to get off my chest.” Then I thought, “no.” That means something is weighing down on your chest so you cannot breathe—and you have to get it off. That’s not me!!! Then I said, “I have something that I just have to get off my dick.” That is me. Who cares what’s on your chest. Every man knows that his member is his most important part—and if something is weighing down on it—it ain’t gonna work. That is far more important to most men than mere breathing.
So yeah, I like Barry (a.k.a. Elvis). There’s nothing better than a flat-out honest man. The world needs more of them. They just get defined as being in need of mental health services by the people who need those services a hell of a lot more.
Yes, Barry was far more honest than any of the rest of us sitting around that table. There’s something about childlike honesty that is refreshing. When we had a Christian school years ago, I always loved hearing the children talk about how things were at home. Funny thing…their view of home was very different from their parents. 🙂
As a Christian, and now post Christianity, I think people like Barry are my favorite Christians. They are way too authentic to fit in at church. In the buffet that is Christianity I always chose the part that made saints out of the misfits and weirdos, the people “this world is not worthy of”
It is so sad that Christian churches beg for confessional expression but have narrow boundaries about it. The poor fellow had a problem with masturbation because he was at church and buying into the lies spread by Christians. Rather than allow him open humanity, they pursued harm and rejected his feelings. Christianity is designed to harm us and Church is the collective harming. Poor Elvis.
Churches are very narrow about who they will accept – just like any other social club. Except they make a big deal about “come as you are” while expecting you to change to fit their mold.
OMG OC. Bruce’s post brought a memory back of when I told some church members that I was winning over an eating disorder (bulimia). (This was 35 years ago and things are under control now.) Well, afterwards a man came up to me, all encouraging like and saying he understood because he used to snack in between meals!? Even in the depth of my religious beliefs, I was shocked someone could equate bad habit = mental/emotional disorder.
Hello, all. I’m real sorry to hear how Barry was mistreated, especially among those Penta-poopies and shelters in the (as usual) American South ! I wonder if he is on the ASD classification. His frankness makes me think he could be. Is there a way to see how he is doing and his condition ? He should be in Sec. 8 housing for disabled tenants. His wandering could be dangerous. The IFB and Pent-ups are alike in many ways.