A Season of Change

“With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity.” – Keshavan Nair

Arbutus Branch by Brent Unrau

Here we are again as a church family, perched on the edge of another amazing season of change. For the first time ever, we will be gathering for weekly worship services in the afternoon in an actual church building with real live traditional pews. It is hard to imagine how it will feel and what gifts God has in store for us in this new context. The space you worship in affects and shapes the nature and feel of your worship experience. Some things will be clearly missed from the gym, other things will be gained (I have a sense that no one will grieve not having to set up and tear down each week). Please be in prayer regarding these realities, as often the journey of getting used to change takes awhile and requires lots of grace, patience and flexibility. It also is advised for younger families to prepare your children for these changes for it is often the little ones that find it most difficult to adapt and understand the scope of the changes. For us, in particular, the shift from an open feel of a gym to worship in a smaller, contained space with clearer boundaries and fixed pews will be quite dramatic and will be felt immediately.

We will be bringing some familiar things with us from our services at Morgan Elementary to help create a sense of continuity and comfort. Most of our treasures and familiar patterns of worship–arriving early (3:30pm) for snacks and conversation, meeting God through music, teaching/preaching, sharing penny moments, prayer, giving and weekly communion–will continue as per usual. However, we will be trying a few new things, such as a weekly mystery box experience during the service, a clearly defined start time at 4:00pm and a simpler, leaner service time of around one hour. In all the newness of the change process, we will deeply value your feedback and input.

Another first involves getting ready to start the next chapter with our lead bi-vocational pastor, Anne Smith. What a great gift God has given us in bringing her our way and in preparing us for her. A big thanks to the search committee for the prayerful part they played in the discernment and matchmaking dance. It is truly a miracle to step back a bit and sense the over all sense of fit, timing, connection and synergy that has been a part of this process. Anne will be formally starting her position come the middle of September 2011 and I will be leaving my interim, part time, transitional…(you know what to add) position at the end of July. Thanks for all your patience, support and heart over the last 18th months. I look forward to continuing the story with you all in a more background, lay fashion (I am not even sure what that means at this point but I’m looking forward to finding out). The gap between my leaving the interim role and Anne coming is being taken care of. Already, most of the Sundays in between have been filled with great guest speakers (including our former pastor, Scott Simpson, on July 10th) and a few of our own Southpointers to encourage, teach and inspire us from God’s word and their own hearts.

So, thanks for coming along as the ride (faith journey) continues and for hanging in there with us and playing an integral part in the last 18 months of learning, growing and celebrating Gods care and Hesed love for us, a church family, each step of the way.

Cheers,

Brent