Prayers needed!!
At the end of the board meeting Tuesday, my pastor submitted his resignation, which entails a 30 day notice, beginning this Sunday. We have no other leadership at our church, or at least paid leadership. He is it. This is kind of a good thing, as in the Nazarene church, when a new pastor comes to town, the other leadership is asked to leave. We don't know what's going to happen exactly, we are waiting for our district superintendent to contact us and call a board meeting.
This is a good thing, ultimately. He is a good guy, a good father, husband, etc, just not a good pastor, at least for some of us. He has some issues with accountability and integrity.
I am worried most of all about my teens. They are not taking this well, mostly because we just lost our youth pastor; he got reassigned, Praise the Lord! Also because Pastor has 4 kids, 3 of which are in the teen department.
There is also the consideration that he is resigning without a job to go to. He has 4 kids! And a wife! And a mortgage! God will provide, if this is His will, but great day in the mornin! To quit your job with nothing lined up in this economy, it boggles my mind!!
I am glad that I made peace with my anger and resentment toward him before he made this decision. I have been screamin for his removal (somewhat quietly, among trusted friends) for some time now, and this is an answer to prayer. Now we are potentially on the road to recovery as a church. We are broken, and damaged. My prayer is for the right person to come along and help us begin the healing process.
Thank you for your prayers! I love you all!
Grace & Peace,
Jenn
We lost our pastor three years ago due to a divorce from his wife. We are un-denominational so we searched for directions. We didn't have any organization just to step in and send someone to fill the position We dwindled down from over 1000 to about 400 per weekend. Honestly I think God used that time to weed out some people that needed to move on for whatever reason, either there work was done or they needed to find a new place. About a year ago we were blessed with our new pastor. We always had faith God had a plan and it took patience for us to wait on that plan. We have grown to almost 2000 in the past year. We have gone to 4 services and still have standing room only on a couple of the services. We had over 40 people baptized at our last baptizimal. Our men's group dinners have over 200 men attending. It is so awesome to see what God is doing in our church and our community. As our pastor often says God never promised to keep you from a storm, but he promised to walk with you through that storm. I will pray for you and your church.
Ginny ( Jack's wife) - I am not a WLS person and don't have my own login. I read the boards daily. He is 5 years out and I have been with him every step of the way. Maybe someday I will have the surgery and become one of the group too.
Never think that you are not part of our group because you have not had WLS! Each spouse is welcome, and we have many that are an integral part of our group. My husband feels more than welcome, and though he doesn't log in, he comes to the dinners and some meetings with me, and looks forward to it. There are many people that don't recognize me without my husband. I think that's hysterical! Your life has been touched in a powerful way by WLS, and you are just as much a part of us as Jack is.
Thank you for your testimony about your church's journey to healing. You have such an amazing perspective, to have been through that kind of growing pain. I have hope and faith that mine will be what God has in mind one day.
Grace & Peace,
Jenn
