This is the time of year that I have a mild longing for my alternative life as a college professor.

“No matter how obnoxious a student was, I always knew that I only had to put up with them for one semester.

The church, though, doesn’t seem to work that way. The same people tend to show up for years. And the most irritating people do not self-select and move on to another church after four months.¹ (Actually, a few of them do, but not many.)

This means that my natural leadership style of passive-aggressive conflict avoidance is not as effective as I would like in the congregational context.”

Read the full reflection in my Wits’ Ends Day column at Rev. Gals.