I'm not sure how long he had been with the congregation before the members began to notice. Surely, he must have been on his best behavior for at least a few months.
Some of the members first noticed the night he failed to show up for the scheduled meeting place cleanup activities. The next day, members learned that he explained to a brother that the reason he didn't attend was because one of his children had an important event. "I knew you could go on without me," he said, smiling, at the brother.
He also missed several Wednesday night Bible studies. And although he always provided a substitute teacher, the congregation expected the preacher to be at the Bible study. His usual explanation was, "I had some remodeling work to do at home, and I had to get it done. It wasn't much, but it was really bothering my wife."
Then he missed a Sunday evening service! The week before, he had spoken about the essential nature of worship and the importance of Christian fellowship! His explanation was, "Since we had a guest speaker and he could do my job, I didn't attend. I was very tired and wouldn't have gotten much out of the service, so I just stayed home with the family."
The whole problem came to a head when he didn't show up for the Sunday morning service. Do you know why he was absent? The members found that the preacher decided to go for a walk and went to the lake to do some fishing with his family! "There aren't many good fishing days left," he explained.
That was the last straw. The men held a meeting and decided to fire the preacher. The announcement appeared in the church bulletin as follows: "The decision has been made to dismiss the current preacher. It is clear that he cannot be the minister here because he insists on behaving like the members."