God Showed Up at Our Unified Service

Thanks for any and all prayers that were offered on behalf of our Unified Service yesterday.

God showed up and made the day a great success. The Transition Team and many others are already saying that they believe that 15 years from now that people will look back on yesterday as a "watershed" event in the life of the church.

I know that we still have much work to do for complete reconciliation and healing. But there were many, many people who were talking to each other and hugging each other that I have not seen even speak to each other in the last three years. The 15-20 minutes of time when people were coming to the cross and to the communion table as a "place of forgiveness" were some of the most heart warming of my life. All across our gym you could groups of 2 or 3 huddled together making peace with each other.

Today is a day that I thank God for the opportunity of serving in the ministry. I am thankful for:
- A church where the leadership was willing to say, "our church is not healthy and we want to get back to spiritual health". This leadership team put their money where their mouth was and spent the needed funds for my intentional interim training and the costs of operating a Transition Team and several congregational events this year.
- Transition Team members that are humble servants of the church, intent learners of a new style of ministry, willing workers and have a spirit of cooperation. They are serving a model of what Christian group life should look like.
- A group of prayer warriors that will intercede before God on behalf of me and the church. Many hours of planning and preparation had been invested in the Unified Service. But only God could produce the harvest of reconciliation that our congregation needed.
- A wife who supports me in ministry. Being an intentional interim has increased my work. I am physically and emotionally away from her more now than ever before. Yet she gives me her support and the freedom needed to serve our church.

Our Transition Team is taking a much deserved two week break from their work. The team had nine meetings and an overnight retreat during June and July. When next we meet we will pick up the task of "Looking at Denominational and External Relationships". What does that mean? My one sentence answer is: We will try to figure out what it means to be a Wesleyan Church in Bessemer City.

I will be blogging about something during the next two weeks. So check back in and see what I may have posted. God bless you all!