Had a couple of Skribit suggestions last week regarding my new position as worship pastor at Bethel Bible Church in Tyler. This may get a bit lengthy, but figured I'd give you the whole scoop!
Alright...I made my official announcement to the church yesterday. The Methodist church handles these things a bit differently than most, in that they typically will mail a letter to the congregation. This does a couple of things - allows the church leadership to be the primary source for info, communicates encouragement and joy for the staff member leaving, and gives a tentative schedule for a staff member's departure.
It works pretty well, and it really helped me with the whole "shocking" aspect of dropping it on folks during a Sunday morning service. (I had actually planned to leak it to the church, but as those things go, tons of people already knew it was a possibility. How does that church grapevine thing work, by the way?)
Back in March, Chris called me. Chris works for a guy named Dave. Dave is married to gal named Elizabeth. For the past year, Elizabeth has been managing the worship team at Bethel, where she and Dave are faithful members.
Through Chris, Elizabeth was following the worship-related stuff on the blog. When "All The Freed" was done, Chris gave her a CD. Then in March, Chris calls me and it happens something like this:
CHRIS: "Can Bethel call you?"
ME: "Huh?
CHRIS: "They love the CD. They want to call you."
ME: "They know there are professional players on the record, right. They realize I'm not going to sound like that, right?"
CHRIS: "Yeah....can they call you?"
So, I say yes. I'm tell Chris to give my number to the senior pastor, a guy named Ross Strader.
So, Ross calls me. But never gets me. At least I don't remember talking to him. I hate to use the phrase "phone tag," but there's no denying it - we played phone tag and never really got in touch with one another.
I decided to leave it alone. I gave up on calling him. And he kinda' did the same.
This is the part where you fast forward a couple of months...to May 30th.
It's Friday, May 30th. My anniversary. At about 10 that morning, Kristen comes rushing into the bedroom, where I am gasping, sweating and pushing my body to the ultimate limit on my treadmill. Seriously, gang...like 6.6 on the speed. That...is...cruisin'.
She's got the phone covered with her hand and she's mouthing...
"Ross Strader. It's Ross Strader!"
Since I couldn't speak and pant at the same time, I communicated to Kristen through the skillfull use of hand signals something like this:
"Can't. Talk. Need. Air. Tell. Call. Back."
I also might have thrown in something like "call 911-I can't breathe," but I'm not sure.
I get off the treadmill eventually and call Ross back. We talk for about 10 minutes about Bethel, my ministry, whether or not I'm "looking" for a new place, that whole deal. I tell Ross that I'm not out there pursuing a new job, but that I would send him a resume.
He says great, and we hang up.
Alright...I made my official announcement to the church yesterday. The Methodist church handles these things a bit differently than most, in that they typically will mail a letter to the congregation. This does a couple of things - allows the church leadership to be the primary source for info, communicates encouragement and joy for the staff member leaving, and gives a tentative schedule for a staff member's departure.
It works pretty well, and it really helped me with the whole "shocking" aspect of dropping it on folks during a Sunday morning service. (I had actually planned to leak it to the church, but as those things go, tons of people already knew it was a possibility. How does that church grapevine thing work, by the way?)
Back in March, Chris called me. Chris works for a guy named Dave. Dave is married to gal named Elizabeth. For the past year, Elizabeth has been managing the worship team at Bethel, where she and Dave are faithful members.
Through Chris, Elizabeth was following the worship-related stuff on the blog. When "All The Freed" was done, Chris gave her a CD. Then in March, Chris calls me and it happens something like this:
CHRIS: "Can Bethel call you?"
ME: "Huh?
CHRIS: "They love the CD. They want to call you."
ME: "They know there are professional players on the record, right. They realize I'm not going to sound like that, right?"
CHRIS: "Yeah....can they call you?"
So, I say yes. I'm tell Chris to give my number to the senior pastor, a guy named Ross Strader.
So, Ross calls me. But never gets me. At least I don't remember talking to him. I hate to use the phrase "phone tag," but there's no denying it - we played phone tag and never really got in touch with one another.
I decided to leave it alone. I gave up on calling him. And he kinda' did the same.
This is the part where you fast forward a couple of months...to May 30th.
It's Friday, May 30th. My anniversary. At about 10 that morning, Kristen comes rushing into the bedroom, where I am gasping, sweating and pushing my body to the ultimate limit on my treadmill. Seriously, gang...like 6.6 on the speed. That...is...cruisin'.
She's got the phone covered with her hand and she's mouthing...
"Ross Strader. It's Ross Strader!"
Since I couldn't speak and pant at the same time, I communicated to Kristen through the skillfull use of hand signals something like this:
"Can't. Talk. Need. Air. Tell. Call. Back."
I also might have thrown in something like "call 911-I can't breathe," but I'm not sure.
I get off the treadmill eventually and call Ross back. We talk for about 10 minutes about Bethel, my ministry, whether or not I'm "looking" for a new place, that whole deal. I tell Ross that I'm not out there pursuing a new job, but that I would send him a resume.
He says great, and we hang up.
2 comments:
Apparently you need to keep this Chris guy away from you. He's nothing but trouble.
I was gonnna say that Todd really layed you out there didn't he Chris??
I had some other really funny things I was going to say but then I'm afraid some would take it the wrong way. Not Todd or Chris but others that don't know me and my strange sense of humor.
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