Every Sunday my wife picks up a copy of the Christian Standard. I almost never remember to look for a copy - something people reading this probably find hard to believe. But it’s true.

Then sometime on Sunday afternoon I usually get around to having a look inside the CS. Everyone who is reading this probably knows the kinds of things I notice - strange things. And fairly often, I find them there.

But on March 20, 2005 I had one of the strangest experiences with strange things of all my days. I read "Is This What God Wants?" by Brian Jones and "Gargoyle-Shaped Jealousy" by Paul S. Williams.

As my readers know, I usually write about such things because I think they are amusing, and perhaps even a little wrong-headed. But this time something else bubbled up inside me. I felt extremely sorry for these two tortured fellows.

Poor Brian Jones. He tells us he thinks his very soul is being slowly destroyed by the demands of institutional maintenance for a large congregation. He is tired of what he calls "machine-building." But his article ends on the pitiful note, "I don’t know what the cure looks like."

It seems rather obvious to me, and I’m guessing it was obvious to many other readers. Why doesn’t Brian find a new job? He could deliver milk. He could even be the preacher at a small church. If he was at a small church and it began to get too large, he could just move on to help another small church.

But the obvious probably isn’t very helpful here, because one thing implied but never stated in the article is that Brian could never be happy in a congregation that was not machine-like. He sounds a bit like the drug addict who both hates what his habit does to him, all the while knowing he would never want to leave it.

There has been a regrettable tendency in the American church to turn the preacher into the C.E.O. It’s clear that Brian no longer wants (and perhaps never wanted) to be a C.E.O. It also seems that he thinks he could never be happy in a church that didn’t want him to be her C.E.O.

I wish I had an answer for Brian, or anyone else like him, but I don’t. Bachelors are unmarried, and there is not much anyone can do about that.

And then there is that fellow haunted by the green-eyed monster, Paul Williams. It’s fairly freaky stuff. My question is: who has that much time for jealousy? I’m sure many people are touched with it now and then, but old Paul seems to have expended hundreds, maybe thousands, of man-hours developing his. So again I have to ask: where does he find the time?

Maybe he should pick up a real hobby!

While it is one thing to work so hard at jealousy, Paul takes his strangeness one level deeper. He seems to think that lots of people, especially ministers, are as friendly with the green-eyed monster as is he.

Maybe I just don’t know enough ministers well enough - or maybe Paul just has a serious problem. In either case, I suggest that if Paul has any other problems like this, he might be wise not to spill it all in print in the Christian Standard. Perhaps some strange things are best kept to oneself.