What I Know With 10 Days to Go

Ruby, resting up for the big adventure!

September 30 is my last Sunday serving as Interim Senior Pastor of my current congregation.  For the first time in 19 years of clergy life, I am leaving a ministry setting without knowing where the next ministry setting will be, or if there will be a "next ministry setting" at all.

"What are you going to do?" I get asked this a lot.  "Where will you go?"  I don't have many answers to "What's next?"

I do know that I am moving.  My house is for sale.  I have given away lots of stuff.  I still have too much stuff. This I do know!

I do know that this interim ministry is ending as it needs to  and when it had to.  The work was hard and good. And hard.  A lot.  The congregation worked very hard, and is still working.  Hindsight is helping us all to see how far we have come. We are finding some hope in that.

I do know that on October 1, I will pack up the cat and some stuff in my smallish car and drive to Baton Rouge and be there for awhile, or longer.  It has been 25 years since I've lived in my native Texas or in my adopted Louisiana. That adds up to 25 years in Ohio and Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia, Dayton, Bradford County (PA), and the Lehigh Valley (PA).  The kids were 2, 8, and 9 when we moved. We were married back then, too.  One seminary education, seven congregations, and a few serious "life-quakes" later, it's just me and a cat named Ruby taking on this new adventure.

I do know that there is a chance I will be in a ministry setting somewhere in the area.  I am in "that dance" right now with a couple of places.  I will be fine if one of them works out.  Even excited.  I'm not burned out. Just done.  Here.

I am counting on having other options, one of which could be a return to my first career as a medical technologist.  Another wild card dream job or two are also swirling around in the mix.

That's all I know about what happens on, and after, October 1.

Ten days -- and two Sundays -- to GO.  I'm going. Yep. I really am.