I have spent the last few days calling people I dearly love here in Tyler to tell them our family is moving to Houston, and I have spent the last few days on the phone and emailing people in Houston who are in the process of welcoming me as the new Senior Minister at Bering. This has been an emotional rocket-ride like I have never experienced.
Some things I have learned:
1) Never underestimate people’s ability to show grace under pressure. I have experienced the love of those I am leaving and those I am joining in ways that have once again affirmed my belief that God is constantly at work in pouring out His Spirit upon those who seek to live lives in Christ. Even in the midst of change and uncertainty, our hope rests in the promises of one who is bigger than our limited understandings.
2) If you talk on the phone for 12 hours straight, expect an incessant buzzing in your ears. I have spent hours and hours on the phone with people over the past three days. It is simply because I have learned—especially at Glenwood—that the only thing that matters in Christian ministry is contact and love with people. Take every budget meeting and staff meeting and decorating meeting and program meeting and meetings about meeting, take all of those, combine them, and they still do not outweigh the sweetness of a single conversation when you exchange the phrase, “I love you,” especially when that “I love you” is narrated within the story of the living Jesus.
3) Rumors abound. My favorite one I heard so far was that I had been ejected from the building and banned for life from ever entering Glenwood again. What’s up with that?
4) The things I am leaving that frustrate the dog out of me are only a fraction of the things I will miss, as well as those things to which I am looking forward. Let’s face it: I have had some frustrations at Glenwood. But looking back, I had frustrations in Paris, frustrations in Munday, and frustrations while I was in college. What I have come to realize is that all of those places had one common factor: Me. I am responsible for my own frustrations. And while I look forward to walking away from a select number of headaches, Glenwood has been the place where I have witnessed redemption in people’s lives like I have never known.
5) God is good. Not to sound overly cliché or simplistic, but through the ups and downs and transitions in the life of any church, whether Glenwood or Bering or any other for that matter, when people seek the heart of God, the Lord is faithful. Enough said.
I wish I had a good way to end this particular entry.
