Hello from Pastor John

Dear Gethsemane,

I am greatly honored that you have voted to call me to become your next senior pastor at Gethsemane Lutheran. I humbly accept your invitation and look forward to journeying with you in mission and ministry. Over the past several months it has been my pleasure to get to know your congregation. I am truly excited about what God is doing in your midst and the direction in which God is leading this community of faith.

Gethsemane has many gifts, both with a highly talented staff and a strong group of spirited lay leaders. I am delighted to be provided the opportunity to work with them. Together I know we will build a strong and united team that is focused on leading the whole congregation in growing deeper in their walk of faith and to reach out to the larger community with the love of Christ Jesus.

I will be joining Gethsemane right in the middle of Holy Week and can think of no better beginning than to journey with you to the cross of Christ and celebrate his glorious resurrection on Easter Sunday. God bless you and keep you in his grace.

In Christ’s Peace,

Pastor John D. F. Nelson

Goodbye

Jesus said, "Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." John 12.24 NRSV

It's hard enough to say good-bye, but then to follow that very quickly with a warm and genuine welcome can be challenging! Landlords know that; hospital and nursing home staffs know that; and congregations facing changes in pastors know that.

But as the Apostle John remembers Jesus teaching, the cycles of life apply to us all. Not only do we need to face our actual deaths, but during each lifetime we face myriad small and large deaths in jobs, in residences, in programs and in relationships. Jesus' use of the grain of wheat is instructive. The dying of the seed in the earth is not simply the passing of one item into oblivion, but rather a process that engenders the birth and development of something new. Not only is the process natural, but it is holy! God loves the bringing of new life and hope to all settings!

So thank you for treating me so well as we finished our interim work together and for sending me off well. I felt very sad about leaving you. I don't mean to be overly dramatic, but it was a bit of a death for me, and I hope that you can acknowledge a bit of that too. I have delighted in being one of your pastors for the past fifteen months, and I know that Libby was glad to worship with you and get to know some of you. Thank you for your gracious hospitality to us during this "in between" time.

Now we've left you, and are moving on with our lives. It is for us both a death and a resurrection. I will keep your pastors informed about my next assignments so that they can let you know through this newsletter what's happened to us. We will appreciate your thoughts and prayers of concern and support during this week, and want you to be able to celebrate our next steps in life as well.

But during this week you can and should switch your attention to the reconfiguration of your staff team with Pastor John's arrival. Welcome him well! Let him know how glad you are to add his ministry to the wonderful work of your staff team and lay leaders. Together you will accomplish great things in ministry together. Greet his family, and join them to the wonderful community that makes up Gethsemane.

I hope and pray for you to have a long and rich life together in mission and ministry for our triune God.

Moving Along

"While the church at Antioch was worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off. So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia; and from there they sailed to Cyprus." Acts 13:2-4 NRSV

The church has long had leaders called and sent by God’s Spirit. Saul and Barnabas left their congregation to work elsewhere, and new leadership stepped into the roles they vacated in the Antioch church. The pattern holds among us here this season.

Pastor John Nelson has accepted the call you extended to him during the congregational meeting on February 10, and will move quickly to join the staff at Gethsemane. He will join Pastor Laurie for the Maundy Thursday services, and will preach on Easter Sunday. You will have a welcoming reception for Pastor John and his family on Sunday, April 30.

That means that I will depart from my role on Sunday, March 9. That day I will preach to you as your interim pastor for the last time, and I’ll haul away that awful, ugly suitcase. (I’ll need some help packing it, so I’ve asked for the kids to come into the service for that purpose.) There will be a farewell reception between services in the Gathering Space, where I hope we’ll be able to savor the work we’ve done together over the last year and a quarter, and do our heartfelt goodbyes. The two weeks after that time I will use up my remaining vacation days to go with Libby to visit our son in Dallas, Texas, and perhaps see a few birds.

When family members or friends head off to school or for extended trips, we almost always say, “See you later,” or “see you soon.” That’s not true when an interim pastor leaves. When I arrived, you accepted me as one of your pastors, and you have related to me well during the fifteen months we’ve been together. But now that relationship truly has to end in order for your new pastor to step into that role unimpeded. You need to focus on building your relationship with your new pastor and your newly reconfigured staff. In order for that to happen cleanly and without confusion, I need to be utterly gone. So you will not see or hear from me for as many months as I’ve been with you. (That’s the usual formula we interim pastors use.) Please be very clear that my absence and lack of communication is not a sign of my not caring for you deeply; quite the opposite, it is because of my great affection for Gethsemane and for each of you that I want this next transition to go as well as possible. I will do my part by getting out of the way. (I will use this newsletter to let you know what my next assignment is, and that I’m still alive.)

So together we continue a pattern that has long existed in the church: some leaders leave to do new work and others step in to expand upon and further develop the church. Gethsemane is truly blessed to be able to move smoothly and with purpose into your next chapter of ministry! God bless you all!

Transition

A large part of parenting is dealing with transitions, particularly with small children. Getting them ready to leave the house – giving the child enough time to anticipate the change in environment, making sure they are dressed appropriately, that you've "set the stage" for the next thing, whatever that may be. Sometimes it works wonderfully, but sometimes it isn't as easy and there are less-than-smooth and sometimes funny results, ranging from the tears of a clinging child who isn't ready to be left somewhere, or young children who find it perfectly fine to wear their Superman costume or plastic high heels adorned with feathers to the store.

We as adults are not immune to the necessities of these transitions. For example, the packing of what we, as parents, need on these excursions, no matter how mundane. How often have you considered whether something was REALLY needed for the diaper bag? It’s sort of the Murphy’s Law of parenting that if you think you won't need it, you will, of course, need it urgently.

What I'm getting at is that as parents we spend a lot of time trying to help our children, and ourselves, make it through the transitions of ordinary days by carefully preparing and through thoughtful consideration. That is our plan, at least.

Anticipated Changes at Gethsemane

"They set up false witnesses who said, ‘This man never stops saying things against this holy place and the law; for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses handed on to us." Acts 6:13-14 NRSV

When the early church evangelist, Stephan, was preaching in Jerusalem, he had such success that eventually the synagogue leaders decided to have him "put away," as the mafia would say. They set him up by using "false witnesses" who simply argued that this guy represented change, and things should not be allowed to change. Certainly in that case, and in so many cases, standing against change is actually standing against what God is bringing about, and being open to change can be a way to embrace what God is doing.

Certainly, Gethsemane will continue undergoing change in the coming weeks and months. With the Call Committee´s enthusiastic recommendation of Pastor John Nelson for Call, there is a clear call for change. With the completion of my responsibilities as your Interim Pastor, there will be changes. With the integration of Pastor John into the staff team, with the election of a new council member and re-election of two members interested in serving second terms, there will be more change. With the gradual implementation of the capital campaign tithes for Faith and Health Ministry and the outreach partnership with St. Paul´s Lutheran, more things will be changing. Things are developing, and God seems to be at the center of all this change.