It's the time of year where life is filled with news. Students are graduating and saying good-byes to old friends while they plan their next hellos. They are celebrating and remembering. Looking back and looking forward. They are anxious about what tomorrow will bring. Many hope for some consistency--friends to travel to the new destinations with them. They are hoping that they will encounter friendly faces and that their roommates will not turn into Bridget Fonda's character in Single White Female and try to steal their identity and murder them. Ministers are doing the same... though, the SWF thing plays out a little differently. Many of the same feelings of insecurity, confusion and anxiety exist.
It's exciting; it's scary; it's nerve-racking. Not what Cole Porter had it mind: it's not delovey....
As a minister, I cannot help but think about Timothy. Timothy was a young pastor who was sent to a church that needed some extra support. All churches are that way, I guess. No offense to churches. They are just filled with people who are open about their need for God, though they sometimes forget that is why they are there and why other people are there. Timothy was sent. As a Methodist, I too am sent. And in this time of transition, I pray not only for the church that has been told that they are about to receive me (whether they wanted to or not), but I pray for myself and other ministers and churches experiencing the same thing. I pray that I may lead them like Barnabas, teach them like Paul and love them like Christ... and that in that process they may come to know me and love me as well. That God will work in us and through us.
