For the last eighteen months, since May 2006, I have been in the process of searching for a new call—looking for a new church to serve as pastor. Last Wednesday, I accepted a call to another congregation; following subsequent developments, I’m finally feeling secure that nothing’s going to happen to derail this.
I have no doubt that this is God’s move in God’s time, from the way everything came together; but it’s still hard. For one thing, I had a lot of hopes and dreams for this congregation in this place, for what Christ could do in this community . . . and most of them haven’t been realized. What has been accomplished is really pretty remarkable, given the history of this church; I’ve been here longer than any full-time pastor in Trinity’s history except one (though my “temporary” predecessor was here on a part-time basis for eighteen years), and in that time, I think we’ve managed to break the congregation out of its death-grip survival-ministry mode, which is no small thing. There were a lot of issues and a lot of buried conflicts from past events in the church’s history, and it took a long time and considerable work to bring those out to the point where they could be addressed; mostly, I think, we’ve done that. One of my colleagues in Michigan likes to say, “In ministry, you’re either digging rocks or you’re following the guy who dug the rocks.” Here, the rocks were big enough and heavy enough that digging them needed two stages: before they could be moved, they had to be excavated. That much, at least, we’ve done. It’s not nothing. But it’s so much less than what I’d hoped, it still doesn’t feel like enough. I’ve learned to accept that, largely thanks to colleagues in the presbytery; but I’m still a little disappointed.
That’s ministry, though, often enough; and at this point, what’s done is done and cannot be changed, and it’s time to pack up the dreams I brought with me, using the lessons I’ve learned here as packing material to keep them from breaking, and carry them along to Indiana. I still don’t think there’s anything wrong with dreaming big, and I go forward hoping that what I didn’t see God do here, I’ll see him do there; after all, what’s the point in asking for less than his best? And if I’ve begun to understand along the way that it truly is Christ’s ministry, not mine—if I’ve come to see, at least dimly, what Andrew Purves means when he talks about the crucifixion of ministry (on which more shortly)—well, while it’s been painful, it’s been worth the learning. God send grace that I will be the pastor my new congregation needs to become everything he wants and calls them to be, now and (I hope) for many, many years to come. Amen.