One of the characteristics of a healthy organism is that it continuously undergoes change. Every day you lose about 200 hairs from your head (assuming you have hair) and they are (mostly) all replaced with new ones. Every minute about 300 million cells in your body die and are replaced with new ones. That’s a lot of change happening.
As followers of Christ, we should embrace change. Our very purpose is to see change happen in the people around us as we introduce them to God, and to see our own lives change as we draw closer to Him. We also willingly give up (or try to give up) control of our lives and ask God to use us as He sees fit. This often results in change in our lives as individuals and as a church.
This past Sunday, Pastor Glenn announced that he and Bonnie have accepted a call to the AGC church in Smith’s Falls. Their last Sunday with us will be June 20. While this was an unexpected change for many, we should embrace it for what it really means. In short, Glenn’s departure means that his work with us has been completed and God has a new challenge for him in Smith’s Falls. For us as a church, it means that our time of healing, re-grouping, re-visioning, and re-structuring is done, and we need to move forward to become the church God wants us to be.
We called Glenn to be our Pastor at a time when we needed someone with his specific skills and experience. We knew at that time that his assignment with us as our Senior Pastor would not be for a long time – we thought 3 to 5 years would be about right. There were some specific things that needed to be addressed: help us heal from past hurts, re-focus our mission – vision – values, re-work our constitution and organizational structure to make us more Biblically based and streamlined, review our name and identity to ensure it matches who we are and want to be, mentor a Pastoral candidate to prepare him for full-time ministry in our church or some other AGC church, and look at re-locating to a facility that will enable us to carry out our ministries more effectively. All these tasks except the relocation have been essentially completed with Glenn’s guidance. And Glenn isn’t really a “church relocation specialist” anyway so it’s not like we can’t continue that objective without him.
While I’m sad to see Glenn leave, I’m encouraged that the church in Smith’s Falls will have someone to lead them through a similar process. I’m also confident that God has equipped us as a church to keep moving forward.
So where do we go from here? Joel has been with us for about 2 years now, being mentored by Glenn first as an intern, then a part-time associate Pastor, and now a full-time associate Pastor. While it is tempting to just automatically extend a call to Joel to be our new Senior Pastor, we need to pause for a bit and seek God’s guidance on this decision. We need to spend some time reflecting on where we are heading as a church, and what characteristics we need in a Pastor to help us in that journey. We then need to compare those criteria to what Joel offers to us. There will be areas where he is strong and areas where he is weak. We will need to decide if Joel is the right fit, and Joel will need to decide if he is feeling led to take on this new role.
The AGC will help us through this process. We plan to meet as elders with George Boyd in July to get started, and I hope that by September, we will be in a position to either extend an official call to Joel or extend our search to other candidates if we determine Joel is not the best fit for us. Please join us in prayer through this process that we may follow the path God has laid out for us. Feel free to offer us your comments and questions along the way.
Don’t forget that we have a congregational meeting on Sunday, May 30 after the service regarding the new constitution. Also, we are planning a celebration dinner for Glenn and Bonnie for Sunday, June 13 at the church. Watch the bulletin for details.
As always, I welcome your comments. Prepare for change – it is one sure sign that we are alive and well.
Jac
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