Changes

Well, today and yesterday we got a little taste of winter here in the Sunshine State. It was 38 degrees overnight and 40 when I woke up this morning. There was actually frost on the rooftops. Of course, now it's back up in the sixties and it will climb to about 74 for tomorrow. But for one brief moment, it was really nice to wear soft, warm snuggly pj's to bed and turn the heat on in my car.

More developments have taken place, regarding the whole drama going on with our church, since the meeting happened Monday night. A few of the youth pastor's supporters wrote a letter to the elders apologizing for their behavior and asking for forgiveness. Yet others have decided just to leave quietly. Gregg informed me yesterday that the Children's Ministry Director quit her position because she "could no longer submit to the leadership of the church". Incidently, she was one of his biggest supporters from the very beginning.

The complainants are dropping their complaint by not taking it to General Assembly (which is the next step in the process). However, they are now going ahead with filing charges of sin against at least three of the elders, which they made known in a mass email. This is their right, according to the Presbytery. I misunderstood one of the committee members that if they pursued this course of action, it would destroy the church- he meant that if they continued to circulate the complaint among members of the congregation it had the potential to do that.

This whole charging of sin will be handled in private, with them going directly to the elders and then on up the "chain of command". It's confusing, but a complaint is different than a charge. With a complaint, they can't ask for a trial, so they're taking it one step further. They first tried to have a hearing at the congregational level, which would have been completely inappropriate. In their most recent email they didn't outline the specific sins they're going to address, quite rightly, because the congregation doesn't need to be involved. We were never supposed to get involved.

So our church is undergoing some major pruning right now. Families leaving because they can't submit to the leadership, and still others wrestling with where they really stand on this issue. Some may leave simply because our church is so unstable at this time. The session, on top of everything else they're dealing with, needs to fill three staff positions. We haven't even been here a year yet and just within the last four months, the church has lost three of its staff members. And there are only nine to begin with.

I wonder what's going to happen next? I know God has a plan in all of this, and that sometimes pruning is necessary to accomplish His will for His church and people. Please continue to pray.

Tonight Gregg and I are going to a movie night at one of our small group couple's house. The film slated for viewing is Cars, which neither one of us has seen before. Should be fun! We don't have any plans for the weekend as of now. I know that I really need to get the house cleaned, since I've had very little time to this past week. It's supposed to be another beautiful day tomorrow though. Enjoy your weekends, everyone!