Reflections on my first year as a pastor

This coming Sunday will mark one year since I was called to be pastor of Lavonia Presbyterian Church.  A year ago, I was just graduating seminary.  Laurie was pregnant and was finishing up her job at the Pittsburgh Presbytery.  We were moving to the south for the first time… in fact in was our first time living outside of Pennsylvania.  It’s been challenging trying to learn so much at much: what does it mean to be a pastor?  What does it mean to be a father?  What does it mean to be a husband in this context?  What does it mean to be Presbyterian in the south?  All these questions are still circling around in my mind all the time.

I think things are going relatively well on most fronts.  Charlotte has changed me in ways I had never imagined… but it’s so incredible watching her grow and experience life!  Laurie is adjusting… even though I think she misses her family.  We’re making friends and growing into the people who we were meant to be.  Our relationship with the Church is great.  We love the people there… they are supportive and generous, giving and hopeful.  We’ve started some fun new programs, we’ve challenged everyone with new kinds of music and activities, we’ve gotten to have an impact on people’s lives!  I feel like I can really see God moving in this place… there’s a spirit of hope that’s really coming alive.

I still struggle though.  I struggle, firstly, because of who I am as a person.  I have expectations, hopes, and dreams that don’t always match up with reality!  There are a lot of things that I want in my own life that I realize I just can’t have.  I struggle because I’m a human being, with my own unique strengths and flaws, and I often feel like I wish I could be someone I’m not or do things I’m built to do.  In my relationship with my wife, often I can be highly pessimistic and Laurie is almost optimistic to a fault!  I struggle with myself.  I struggle with my denomination.  There’s so much fighting and tension going on right now… I don’t know what’s going to happen.  It seems worse than it’s ever been.   I sometimes feel that what the Church really needs right now is young people with skills… skills that are much deeper than mine. 

Yet, even with all of this, I’m proud of who I am.  I’m proud because I believe that God has called me to be proud… that he’s spoken grace into my life and forgiven all my faults.  He’s created a community for me to live and grow into, where I don’t have to be everything to everyone.  He’s created grace so that we can be broken together.  He’s bonded the Church together, so that even when I feel like I’ve fallen flat on my face, God is there and God is bigger.  I think in the end, what the Church, and probably all of the world, needs right now is a faithful, humble, enduring hope.  We need hope, because always need to remember to look to what is to come.  Hope needs to have faith in God and in one another.  It needs to be humble, putting one another before ourselves.  Most of all, hope must endure all of the difficulties that we encounter.

My prayer is that we would be a people of hope.  No matter what our circumstance, context, or situation… may we be a people of hope.