Sold!

Thank you to all who prayed with us about the sale of our house. It was only on the market for 2 weeks! Our realtor gave us an estimate that it would be on the market for 100+ days. We only had until the end of August to sell because we are relocating to a new place of ministry.

God is good! We worked hard to fix it up and prep it for sale. The house is in extraordinary shape and should be a blessing to the new owners.

I haven't done any blogging the past two weeks because I was busy cleaning, painting and moving things to storage. I jokingly told my wife that I should love her enough to do these things for her rather than doing it for the person who is buying the house.

We plan on taking a trip to Jacksonville early next week to solidify our housing there. We will initially rent, actually our son and daughter-in law will rent and we will move in with them temporarily while we figure out our long term living arrangements.

I plan to start work in early September. This allows us a couple of weeks after closing to settle in and maybe throw in a mini-vacation before the daily grind.

Many of you have asked what it is exactly that I'll be doing. I promise you a full post on the topic in the very near future. I am excited about what I will be doing. I know that I will miss pastoral ministry, but the next challenge ahead has it's own blessings to enjoy.

Blessings to all of you

When People Leave Your Church

After 30 years of ministry, there is one subject that was perhaps the most sensitive to me. What do you do when people leave or are talking about leaving your church? I always struggled when anyone would leave. I have loved every single person I had the privilege to pastor, but many times the love was not reciprocal. That doesn't mean that I got along with every person, or that I or they didn't have quibbles and faults that were annoying. People are people. All of us have faults. We can't get along all the time. But we can learn to disagree without being disagreeable.

This pastor has an insightful column dealing with the issue of people leaving our churches. Take a moment to read his response to an honest question and then let me know your thoughts.