Life Chapters: End One, Begin Another

Thirty-three years ago I began my service to the local church, Calvary Baptist Church, in Barnwell , SC, my hometown. Since that time, I have had the opportunity to serve Pleasant Hill Baptist Church in Greer, SC; Mt. Lebanon Baptist Church in Greer, SC; Buckeye Forest Baptist Church in Spartanburg, SC; Jeffersontown United Methodist Church in Jeffersontown, KY; Walnut Street Baptist Church in Louisville, KY; and Oak Grove United Methodist Church in Decatur, GA. During this time I have also had the honor of serving the Montgomery Baptist Association in Montgomery, AL; Birmingham Baptist Association in Birmingham, AL; and the District of Columbia Baptist Convention in Washington, DC.
 

Throughout these 33 years I have journeyed with congregations through births, celebrations, tragedies and deaths. The one thing constant through all was God’s sustaining grace. God has never called one person to be perfect but has called all to be faithful. In my years of ministry within the Church, I have sought to be faithful, loving, and compassionate and filled with grace. I have sought to love all, including the unloving. I have sought to meet the needs of people where they are not where I want them to be. I have sought to be a minister of redemption not one of judgment.  Did I succeed in all my attempts? No, but I tried and when I failed I asked for forgiveness.

This past April, I retired and ended the chapter in my life of directly serving the local congregation by beginning a new life chapter through another ministry opportunity.  What precipitated this change? I retired not because of my lack of passion for the Church, but because I sensed the need to write another life chapter that would reconnect my ending with my beginning.

At 50 years of age, I asked myself, “How do I want to end?” That question haunted me for some time, especially since I loved Washington DC and all the initiatives in which we were involved. But there was still a yearning for something different. Different?  I was in the most powerful city in the world and rubbed elbows with powerful people and pastors every day. What can be different than serving the Church in DC? 

Nothing, so I found myself serving the Church in a different way. From the concrete jungle to the mountains of Appalachia Kentucky, my wife and I moved. Moved to a world far removed from what I had known and experienced for some time. A life where technology is still struggling to infiltrate, a people whose average individual annual income is $11,000, where 42% of the population lives in poverty, where only 10% of the population have a bachelors’ degree or higher and a state where 7,500 children are in the custody of the State.

As I begin to write the first sentences of this new life chapter I do so with a heavy, yet excited heart. Providing leadership to Buckhorn Children and Family Services is an awesome opportunity and challenge. I will keep you informed as I write this new life chapter.