Archive Entry #1: July 10, 1985
May-July 1985 were among the most consequential months of my 32 years in ministry. Consider:
- May 19: I graduated from Lexington (Kentucky) Theological Seminary
- May 31: I sent a letter of resignation to the people of Drennon Christian Church, whom I had served and fell in love with during my three years at LTS
- June 15: After an FCCEM congregational dinner, meeting, and vote, I received a call to serve as church pastor (to this day I wonder who the lone “No” vote was!)
- June 16: I was ordained into ministry in an afternoon worship held in Iowa City. During the reception that followed I surprised my mom (on her birthday) and my dad (on Father’s Day) with the news of my new pastorate
- June 29: I moved from Lexington to the Quad Cities
- July 7: During Sunday worship I officially transferred my membership into FCCEM
- July 8: I went to the church building for the first time as pastor
The only credentials I owned on July 8, 1985, were my years at Drennon and the academic certificates I had earned from the seminary and the University of Iowa. I had no prior experience in full-time ministry, and had only a vague notion of what I was supposed to do with my time during the week other than get a sermon together for the following Sunday.
Fortunately, I had help. An angelic office partner named Marcia Martin - who died suddenly and way, way, way too soon in 1992, while I happened to be on a journey to India - and a devoted church member named Bob Miller were in the office that first and following days to welcome and encourage me, answer my questions, and make themselves available for future reference.
My first week on the job happened also to be a newsletter week since at that time the church mailed newsletters on the second and fourth Wednesdays of months. I remember Marcia’s patient tone as she asked whether I wanted to put something in the issue she was working on. Knowing nothing about church newsletters or the pastor columns they often contained, I said sure.
In the midst of a season of almost convulsive change in my personal and professional lives, essentially clueless as to what to expect going forward, and on my third day on the job, here is what I wrote (and what it looked like) for Volume 10 Issue 13 of The Knoll News, published July 10, 1985:
