THE RESPONSIBLE AUTHORITIES
Outside of my family there were several people I needed to talk to regarding my decision. These were the authorities that I was in submission to listed as follows: my sectional presbyter, district officials, church board and supporting churches.
My presbyter, Don Cox, has been a great asset in my ministry. He is the most devoted presbyter I know. He is retired and that allows for a lot of interaction and care. I know he has prayed regularly for me, and stayed in close enough contact to know my seasons of struggle. He too, as I found out, started a church and left it a year later, merging it with an area church. For that common experience he seemed to identify with what I was going through. When I told him I was planning to resign he said, “Well, you know how that goes, don’t you?” He was referring to a mutual friend that has been out of the pulpit for over two years unable to find a church to hire him. I said that I understood the risk, but believed I was supposed to resign. Then he said that he was not surprised by it, and that he believed I was a good pastor. The next part of our conversation was very disappointing.
I had expected that at this meeting I would receive instructions on what to do next. I would be asked questions to quantify the state of the church, be told that the “powers that be” would take it from there, or at last provide me with a road map of protocols for closing the church. Instead he looked at me and said, “What happens now?” This was not what I was expecting at all...Read More Chapter 2
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