"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 blog article to share with you as your Senior Pastor at McKendree UMC -- these past four years have come and gone so quickly (especially with two years of a pandemic thrown in)! As most of you know, I’ve been appointed to serve as the new Senior Pastor of Cornerstone UMC in Newnan, GA, and the combined, blended worship service at 11:00am on May 29th will be my last time of worship with you. In my May 3rd blog post (read it HERE), I shared a number of good things that I believe God has accomplished in and through our ministry together at McKendree UMC which allow me to confidently be at peace about accomplishing exactly what God sent me here to accomplish.
Your new pastor, the Rev. Dr. Cyndi McDonald, will be with you for worship on July 3rd, and her first Sunday preaching will be July 10th. You are in for a true blessing under Cyndi’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 Cyndi... Pray that God would prepare she and her husband for the move and to give her a servant’s heart for you as God's people. Support her 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 Cornerstone UMC. Like Cyndi here, my first Sunday "on the job" there will be July 10th. In the meantime, we have already sold our house here in Lawrenceville, bought a house in Newnan, and Trish has found a teaching job at Evans Middle School in Newnan. But we still have the move itself to do, along with all the headache and challenges that go with that. So, while God is good, please still pray for us!
3) Don't compare. Remember, just as I was not Julie Boone, so Cyndi McDonald is not Brian Germano. So, don't compare or make hasty judgments based upon whether her ministry style is like mine or not -- it may be very different, but that may be exactly the style that God knows you need next (just as my style may have been exactly what God knew we needed for the season that I was here)!
4) While McKendree 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 Cyndi’s role as your new Senior Pastor. As such, allow her the privilege of doing your weddings, baptisms, counseling, etc – please do not ask me back to do those things except through Cyndi’s invitation ("this is the (Methodist) way," by the way! any Mandalorian fans out there???)
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 Julie, Brian, Cyndi, 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 four years, and for the change and growth that God will bring through Cyndi, as well! After all, McKendree is not my church, not your church, and nor will it be Cyndi’s church, either – 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 McKendree UMC, 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
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