A New Direction in Life…

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. I had a few things going on! The final interview went fine and I’m pleased to announce that I’ve accepted the position of Director of Discipleship and Family Ministries at Thomasville First United Methodist Church. It’s a great opportunity to work with a great staff. I’m really excited about it. So what will I be doing? Everything family. Children’s ministries, small groups, marriage and family spiritual formation, member assimilation. I start in two weeks after a quick vacation with the family.

TFUMC is an unusual place. It’s a unique mix of traditional and contemporary worship. It has a membership of around 1200 or so. Big church for a small town. But what is most interesting about the church is that there has been a personal and individual revival going on for about four years now. No one announced it – it just began to happen one person at a time. People are hungry to know God more and are excited about worshipping him. We are in the middle of a large building program to accomodate the steady growth. The staff began to gauge my interest in ministering there about six months ago – which was a surprise. We went there, not only because we were spiritually feed, but also because we could remain “under the radar” while finishing school and entertaining ministerial positions elsewhere.

We honestly didn’t think the opportunity was there to minister. But we have grown to love that church and are extremely excited about the chance to “give back” to a church that ministered to us in such a personal way. Plus we get to stay close to grandparents and friends. So, when the chance to stay was presented, we jumped at it! We were looking to serve in an associate role in a larger (1000+) church anyway. We just assumed we’d have to move across the country to do that. So, God met our needs in every way. He’s good like that, you know…

On Friday, I graduated from the doctoral program at International Seminary in Orlando, FL. Thank God I’m done with school! I’ve learned soooo much and have enjoyed my academic training. I’m interested to see how that aspect of my ministry finds a place at TFUMC. I was part of a class of about 95 graduates – and International is truly that. I sat next to a doctoral graduate from Ghana during the ceremony and another two seats down from me travelled from Singapore. Cool huh? The funniest thing about the trip was our inability to find a restaurant before or  after commencement. We ate fine quisine at Checker’s before the ceremony and three hours later, Beth grabbed some pizza on Church Street while I circled the block since we couldn’t find parking. We celebrated by heading back to the hotel to watch the last half of “The Wedding Crashers” on TV.

I know it’s normal for doctoral students to end up teaching somewhere…and maybe I will. But right now, I think I’ll stick with pastoring in a local venue. That’s really where my heart is anyway. I did school for me, not for an occupation. I suppose I’ll keep blogging if that’s okay with everyone. Though I don’t know if I’ll have the time to do so quite as much. If they are less frequent I’ll do my best to make sure they’re worth your reading them. So, a new stage of life begins – we’ll see how it goes.