Transitions

This past Sunday, Ben and I announced to Good Shepherd UMC that we'll be leaving to go to full time ministry with The Vine as of July 1, 2013. We are excited to embark on this "new" adventure with God though we are also sad to leave behind working with the congregation in a pastoral capacity. (If you want to read the announcement we e-mailed to our folks, you can find it here.

What excites me the most is that we have this splendid opportunity to go "all in". For me, this is "make it or break it" territory. We have this incredible chance to really see what God can do with us being single-minded and focused.

We've got some funding (for a little while). We've got some passionate people gathered around us. We've been itching for the chance to get to this point for a long time now - not to say that there weren't good reasons for waiting until this point. There have been a number of timing challenges that taught me patience and trust in God since we've landed here in Haverhill. That being said, this change will bring about significant changes in the way of life that Ben and I will be living - changes that, all in all, will be good for us and good for The Vine.

So this bumps up the house hunt (we really don't want to be doing incarnational ministry underneath a bridge). It also adds a few things to our plate about how we transition well and set Good Shepherd up for success with whomever their new pastor will be. We're also undergoing a shift in structure with The Vine as we focus more on creating micro-missional communities that reach out into specific neighborhoods or population groups. There's enough work on our plate for a year that will be crammed into less than six months. Add to the mix the mission trip to Guatemala, and yeah...I'll be lucky if I'm not carted away on a stretcher come the end of June.

It's all good though. That's the wonderful thing.

Remind me of that when in a couple months I start panicking.