Seriously, coming up with titles for blog posts is just about the hardest part of writing a post. So attach little or no importance to what I actually come up with. (Reminds me of life under Mrs. Brown, who insisted on titles on all our papers, which added just one more layer of challenge to her class. Wish it got easier!
Well, it's a week of ups and downs, good news and not so good (not bad, but just sad). The good news is that we submitted 1076 names to the presbytery meeting. Not all of those were members; apparently the list included some (I heard about 200) who are not Covenant members but who want to be a part of our new church. I think that still means there are more people joining the EPC body (name this week) than actually voted to be dismissed. I gather that presbytery accepted the list without comment.
The sad news is that this week was the hard week of finding out what staff could stay on as actual staff and who would have to find a new job. I think this process is complicated by the overwhelming number of members joining the new church--people kind of expect that with that many members, we will be able to keep on our full staff. Unfortunately, that's not true, as we are still leaving behind many members who are choosing to remain at Covenant (unfortunately it looks like the belt tightening there will include having to go down to one part time administrative assistant, so it's not as though those who cannot be hired by the EPC can just stay on in their current jobs). I've fielded some comments on it this week. I'm sad about it, too, because we have really come to love and value our whole staff, but I do understand that the decisions being made were really hard to make. And the fact remains that not all could stay on full time.
Bill told us yesterday morning that he had a call from a pastor up in St. Petersburg, who told him that our church was legendary. Bill asked him why, and the pastor explained that we are the largest body to date that has been willing to walk away from our property in order to follow what we believe God is calling us to do. This pastor's church walked away from their property last year to join the EPC and he told Bill that their session was praying for us (and rooting for us, I guess). To that end, their session voted that yesterday they would take a special offering to send down to us, to help our church plant. Wow. How humbling. You never think that people are talking about you, do you? (Well, maybe you do if you are Hillary Clinton or Britney Spears)
This puts us in the final three weeks at Covenant. So much to be done on so many fronts! Thankfully, Andy is one of the staff who is keeping his full time position, which partly means that he, along with everyone else, will be wearing some extra hats. Even I am getting in on the act, as I volunteered to do the website--thankfully a friend volunteered to help me (although whether he'll be helping me or I'll be helping him is another question altogether). Me and my big mouth!
