I had taken a week's trip to Upstate New York to visit family. When I returned and entered Short Creek United Methodist Church on Sunday morning, the lay leader greeted me, smiled and said, "I hear you preached a really good funeral this week."
"Really?" I replied, "And just where was that?"
It was at Duff UM Church, the other church on the two-point charge. The deceased was an elderly woman, a member of Duff in her youth, but who had been living for years in Indiana. The family had brought her back to be buried in Duff Cemetery.
So how did I get to conduct the service while being nine-hundred miles away?
When doing the write-up for the local weekly paper, the reporter realized the pastor conducting the service was not listed. So he called a member of the church, but one who had not attended the funeral. All she could provide him with was my name as church pastor.
After church I picked up a copy of the paper and there it was: "Service conducted by Pastor Gary Drum."
To this day I have no idea who did the service (and probably have no way of finding out). But somewhere I still have the newspaper clipping attesting to my, um, versatility.
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