lynch mobs

Well, that wonderful possible legal situation is only getting worse. According to California law, we MUST give 2 weeks notice before a called business meeting (the one they're planning to oust the man); our 50 year old outdated bylaws make no such stipulation, so now the group is willing to forego the law to meet anyway. The biggest personal problem I have w/all of this is that if any lawsuit arises out of an illegal meeting, ergo an illegal vote, the church leadership is almost always the ones who end up taking the full brunt of said law suit. Since Bob is the only staff member right now, that means us. It didn't make things any better that 2 of the people calling for the meeting told Bob that the outside advice he got to hold off, announce legally, etc was probably the right thing to do. By Wednesday's council meeting, they had decided to go ahead & proceed as they had originally planned. The doubt about if its time to leave is getting smaller & smaller by the minute. This is NOT how anyone should leave a church! I'm headed off to a women's retreat - I had decided to go last week or so, just to get away to feed my own soul - now I'll probably spend a lot of time in prayer about the whole thing. Bob will be meeting w/the deacons, then all of them w/the offender & his wife to try & deal with all of this. So, not only does he have that stress, he'll have the boys as well. Keep all of us in prayer...tears are welling even as I type...I know God is here, He has promised that, but it sure is hard to imagine that He is in this situation! People who claim to be godly are being punitive and judgemental; not allowing the healing Spirit to be in control at all - and it is going to tear too many people apart.