Thoughts on the Ward's Departure

Posted this on my family blog that my parents and brother and sisters (and assorted in-laws) use to keep in touch. It kind of shows where I am with things. Thought perhaps the folks who read this blog might be interested in seeing it.

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Since I arrived at West Springfield, somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 folks have moved away. No one has been angry or upset (at least, not that I know of). It's been stuff like a military family that was transferred to another assignment, or folks who finish their studies here and move on to another place to get a job, or folks who loose their job here find one somewhere else.

The problem is, in that 60 people who moved away was the core of this church. Several of those folks were the folks who were able and willing to show up and work. They guy who did youth ministry, the family who did everything, they two strong song leaders, the guy who was willing to teach, the lady who always taught the third grade class – they’ve all moved off! Some of the folks who moved left little hole behind themselves, but several have left a vacuum (when that happens, it really sucks! Har).

This morning, the Ward family announced that they would be leaving to move to Oklahoma. Sharon Ward is a founding member of this church. Alan is kind of like the church father – his leadership keeps things going.

So now, I’m looking around, and what I keep thinking to myself is “The Lord is God.”

The reason I keep thinking this is simply this: if this church is going to live, it is because God wants it to live. Because it seems to me that this church does not have a lot of oomph, not a lot of will to live, and it seems to me that the support system is being shut off. Either the systems will kick in and begin to function, or the church is going to shut down and die.

And here’s the other thing – the boiler needs to be replaced. If we do not replace it before this winter, we will have to shut down the building for the winter. Winter is very, very long here. Very long.

Yikes!

Oh, and our education system at church is failing. We no longer have the number of teachers we need to keep a cradle roll going. We have never been able to staff Children’s Church unless Ashley was willing to run it (which she did for 8months!). It isn’t that we don’t have enough people – that would be sad, but it wouldn’t be irritating. But we do have folks who could teach, if they were only willing to do it. But people are actually refusing to help.

Oh, and I forgot to mention we have a pretty substantial mold problem. There is a beard on a few of the carpets, and there are actually mushrooms growing on a couple of the walls. We actually expect to put children in these rooms? Yikes!

Oh, and I’m beginning to have a morale problem (both my own, and a few other folks that I am sensing).

Oh, and Godzilla attacked our building last week, and burned up my library. [Okay, I made up the last one]

SO . . . starting to wonder, am I just not good at this job? Is this church failing and dying because I am not a very good minister? Beginning to wonder.

But the Lord, he is God. He can take care and He will do what is wisest and best. The Lord is God, and I will trust him. It's hard sometimes to understand and to believe and to trust. But I suppose those are the most important times to remember that the Lord, he is God.