Frankly, I didn't even want to be at that night's meeting. I hate meetings, even church meetings, especially church meetings. But as the representative from the Commission on Ecumenical Basketball, I felt obligated to be at the monthly meeting of the Board. We met in the Seekers Sunday School classroom, sat in rows of grey, fold-out metal chairs. The meeting began with prayer. Minutes of the last meeting were read and approved. Then the Chairman said, "I call the monthly meeting of the Board of First Church Philippi to order.

"As many of you know, Paul -- the one to whom we here at First Church Philippi owe our existence as a church -- is in jail. Caesar got him. He could have been free, had Paul not asked for a trial in Rome, but now he's in prison there, awaiting his fate, a fate which,…