"What then is Apollos? What is
Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each.
I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who
plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the
growth."
(1
Corinthians 3:4-7)
It's hard to
believe that this will be my last newsletter to share with you as your Senior Pastor
-- these past three years have come and gone so quickly! As most of you know, I’ve been appointed to
serve as the new Senior Pastor of McKendree UMC in Lawrenceville, GA, and the
combined, blended worship service at 10:30am on June 17th will be my
last time of worship with you. In the May edition of the FLAME, I shared a
number of good things that I believe God has accomplished in and through our
ministry together at LaGrange First UMC that has allows me to confidently be at
peace about accomplishing exactly what God sent me here to accomplish.
Your new
pastor, the Rev. Dr. John Beyers, will begin ministry with you on June 21st,
and the combined 10:30am worship on following Sunday (June 24th)
will be his first service with you. You
are in for a true blessing under John’s ministry and leadership! But before I leave, let me ask you to do
several things to help make this pastoral transition a smooth one:
1) Pray for
and support John. Pray that God would prepare him for the move and give him
a servant’s heart for you as God's people. Support him with your openness,
friendship, presence, attitude, and enthusiasm.
2) Pray for
Trish and I… that God may prepare to use us in a great way at McKendree
UMC.
3) Don't
compare. Remember, just as I was not Harold Lawrence, Greg Porterfield, or
Gil Watson, so John Beyers is not Brian Germano. So, don't compare or make hasty judgments
based upon whether his ministry style is like mine or not -- it may be very different,
but that may also mean that it's better suited to LFUMC’s present needs (just
as my style may have been exactly what God knew we needed for the season that I
was here)!
4) While LaGrange
First will always hold a special place in my heart, please remember that I
will no longer be your Pastor. While there's nothing wrong with keeping
in touch with Trish and I as friends, please respect John’s role as your new Senior
Pastor. As such, allow him the privilege
of doing your weddings, baptisms, counseling, etc – please do not ask me back to
do those things except through John’s invitation (this is the Methodist way, by
the way!)
5) Finally, let
me encourage you to read carefully the scripture at the beginning of this
article and remember that it is GOD who grows a church -- not
Brian, John, or anyone else. “God gives the growth,” so we should give GOD
the glory for the change and growth that has taken place over the last three
years, and for the change and growth that God will bring through John, as well!
After all, LaGrange First is not my church, your church, or John’s church – it is
GOD’s church, and God is the one who causes it to grow.
As I close, let
me leave you with some of Paul's words to the church at Philippi that
accurately reflect the feelings that Trish and I have for you at LaGrange
First, as well:
“I thank my
God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my
prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first
day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among
you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. ...This is my
prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full
insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you
may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that
comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God. I want you to know,
beloved that what has happened to me has helped to spread the gospel!” [--Philippians 1:3-6,9-12]
Above
all,... never, ever, ever forget that God
loves you and I do, too!
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