My Last 2¢

Here is my last article for my newsletter for the ONE in Christ parish.



Pastor’s Ponderings

Thank you for the opportunity to serve you, and to serve God in this corner of the kingdom. I hope that these churches are in a better position now than when I arrived.

I have two final requests for you all, weighing in with my final two cents. You can use them or disregard them.

One is on page 5, a request to continue the internet and social media work that we started.

The second is about the short and long-term steps that you will be doing. In his message, Kaj Petersen writes that the first step of the call committee is to create a profile of this parish that prospective pastors will receive.

Please, take your time and be honest when you work on this. Describe the church and parish that you truly are. Do not describe the church and parish you think that you are. Do not simply tweak the profile I received seven years ago this week. You are not those churches.

The priorities of Our Savior’s and Emmanuel from 2011 should not be the priorities of Our Savior’s, Nazareth and Emmanuel in 2018 and beyond.

Describe who you are now. Determine what you want to be in the future. How do you want to serve God here in Greenwood, Owen-Withee and Longwood? How do you want to serve your neighbors?

Then figure out what gifts you need your next pastor to have to help you to be the churches and people of God that you are called to be.

Filling out that profile is the first step in the relationship you will develop with your new pastor. Please do not lie to her or him.

God’s Blessings Be With You All,
Pastor Brian

The article referenced on page 5.

Social Media Person Needed

Pastor Brian set up and maintained the parish website, Twitter and Instagram accounts, and each church’s Facebook pages. With his leaving, someone needs to take over those responsibilities. Not counting special events when photos would be uploaded, this would take 30 minutes to an hour per week. Most could be done while you are using these accounts for yourself.

These accounts have a much larger reach than just inside our church. Last week, our website had almost 700 page views by over 400 unique visitors. Articles on each Facebook page were seen by more people than have liked the church pages. These are outreaches beyond our doors. These impact people, and I ask someone to come forward to maintain them.

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