At our weekend services I did the communion meditation (we have communion every Sunday). The sermon for the day was Jesus Restores Relationships, and James (our associate minister) did a very good job. For the meditation I took my 3 month old son up with me and I paralleled how much I love my son and how I would do anything for him, with how much God had to love us to do something TO his son for us. It came off very well with a lot of people it seemed, and having a visual like that was the “money shot”.
I realized, though, that was probably the last time I would be in front of this congregation. I am going to tender my resignation tomorrow. I have had to wait only because my Senior Minister has been on vacation in Hawaii. I hate to drop it on him like this, but the timing has just fallen this way. But after I have given my resignation I seriously doubt that I will be up in front of anyone. I am not sure how this process usually goes, but I would imagine they would start communicating and making this transition pretty quickly.
So, it was a bitter sweet day. It was great to feel like my last impression was a high note, but it is hard to know we are leaving. Not hard in a regretful way, but hard because we have some good friends and relationships here and we are just going to miss them. And there is some level of uncertainty about how everyone will react to us deciding to leave.
But we will weather that with God’s blessing just as he is opening doors for us where we are going. I am sure there will be hard conversations and there will be ones that are a blessing for us, but it is so good to have the peace of God inside as we take these steps.
