Dear Members & Friends of FCC,
Our Church Council has invited you to an All-Church meeting
following worship this coming Sunday. I plan to attend and encourage you to
come and be a part of the conversation. Certainly, we will come with a wide
range of feelings and our elected leadership wants to listen. We will come with
many questions, which I believe the Council members will address as best they
are able.
Last April, as the Church Council began to address various
complaints, I told them and the members
of my Pastoral Relations Committee that I trusted they would work diligently to
discern God's leading and would make decisions based on what is best for the
whole church. I know that this decision-making process was truly difficult and that
for some of them quite sad. I trust everyone honored their role as a church
leader when they determined it was not possible for them to work with me to
address the challenges facing our church. Thus, a change in pastoral leadership
is best for the whole church.
This is not the decision I would have made. However, I have
always trusted that the Holy Spirit moves among us all. In our congregational polity, pastors are
called to work with the elected leadership and the whole membership to
strengthen the Body of Christ. If this is not a shared trust, it is not
possible for us to move forward together.
Paul's encouragement to the Romans may stand us
all in good stead: “For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not
hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we
wait for it with patience. Likewise the
Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought,
but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words."
Like Paul, I encourage you to join me in the hope
that God is preparing someone to come here with whom your leadership can work
to move FCC in different directions and
that God is preparing a place for me where it will be possible for me to use my
gifts and skills to build up the Body of Christ.
It is imperative for all of you to come to the
meeting and share your thoughts, questions and feelings. Most of all, come to
listen for the leading of the Spirit, as you prepare for an important journey
of transition.
In Christ, Laura Lee
Texts for This Week:
Note:
The texts in bold type will be read in the worship service and the one
with an asterisk will be used as the focus for the proclamation of the
word.
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