Pastors are forever discerning the boundaries related to what they can get away with before their church members become too anxious or oppositional. It varies from one place to the next, from one year to the next. If you are new to a place, or to a denomination, it’s easy to misjudge the boundaries. The electric fences are often invisible and you’d never know they were there unless you bump into one… and then ZAP… you know! Once in a small town I dared to hold services on the church premises the same day as the annual cemetery day, which sent some of the old-timers into orbit. Two life-timers quit their membership over that infraction. ZAP!
