The Closing Of Severn River Church -- Chapter 3 The Congregation

THE CONGREGATION

Sharing the news of my resignation with the congregation was one of the greatest challenges that I have faced in my life. These were close friends, partners in a common mission. Now I felt that a major change was at hand, and I had to be very careful with the way the information was distributed. For the weeks between my decision and the time I would share my decision, I felt like I was living a duplicitous life. My personality is typically very candid and transparent. For instance, I kept a blog for five years, and updated it regularly. My congregation had grown used to seeing my daily posts. When my resignation became the news in my life, I withdrew from posting, and I wanted just to explain, but that was not a fair treatment of the issue.

My coach had told me years ago that I should enjoy what I could do with thirty people, because I could do things with thirty that would not work at sixty. I decided that with thirty people I could visit each family personally.

I remember thinking that I would change after making the decision to resign on October 6^th. I thought I would suddenly feel different about the people I pastored. In fact on October 7^th we had a band rehearsal scheduled. I knew that we would never even play all the music we would practice. I wondered if I would be able to get motivated for rehearsal. Would I be able to hide my true feelings? Then they started arriving, and I remember thinking how much I loved each of them. I was surprised by this feeling. I loved them just as much as I did before resigning, but I could not put the announcement off too long. We were starting to have issues of canceled events and other unanswered questions. The biggest was a Halloween Outreach that we had been planning and promoting. We felt that it was unfair to ask our small congregation to put a lot of work and effort into a huge community event, then turn around and announce my resignation.

Most of my people had come to SRC because of a conversation in their living room. I felt like that was the best place to let them know I was leaving...Read More

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