Uneasy

Some time back in September, I asked the head pastor of the English congregation at SGAC for some help with homework. He said that he'd be glad to help, but preferred to get together sooner rather than later. I was excited because I have a lot of respect for him as a person and I always want to hear what he has to say about something. Since this assignment wasn't due until later October, I said that it wasn't a rush for him to commit some time out of his busy week to meet with me; but regardless, he suggested that we got together sooner.

And so we did, got together with the other English pastor, for a lunch and they answered all my questions.

Today, the church found out that the elder board and the head English pastor has agreed to part ways. I wasn't quite sure what to think of it when the announcement came. Early in the service, it was announced that we should stay behind afterward for an important announcement that was going to be made by the elder board.

Originally, I was going to write my empowerment post tonight; but, this topic has really bothered me the entire day since finding out. So, in order to get some of my thoughts out, I will recollect the morning a little bit.

I have to admit that I wasn't exactly sure how to react, partly because I didn't really sense many reactions from the rest of the people. I almost want to think that people were so shocked that they couldn't respond at all. Quite honestly, although it caught me off guard, I can't say that I was really surprised to see the parting of ways. Given the situation that the elder board described the situation of the church moving forward, I can understand the decision. That doesn't mean, however, that it really softened the blow.

It wasn't until after we were dismissed when I started to see some reactions from people. I kind of took it really badly and just left without notice. Even though I can understand the move, I was, and still am, very upset. First of all, you just never want to see people go like this - especially with pastors, whose jobs are to connect with people. So, when pastors leave, it's not taken well because of the relationships that they create with their church. Secondly, I really looked up to this pastor. I have so much respect for who he is as a person and as a pastor that it really stung for me to only have gotten a little over a year to get to know him.

I had spent three consecutive weekends away from SGAC, with last week being my first week back. I had found it strange that even though the head pastor wasn't in charge of anything specific, but he still wasn't around. When I started to piece things together, everything began to make sense. He wanted to get to helping me with my homework earlier because he had to have been in the final processes of making this decision to step down when I approached him. So, in order to still be polite, he was willing to help. And with the accounts of not being at church for the two weeks since I came back, I can't even imagine the amount of distractions there'd be if I knew I was leaving, but still had to minister.

So I'm incredibly upset, and probably will be for quite a while. I'm not going to talk about the reason(s) for this change in the church because that will include a lot of speculation based on my observations, which might lead to some false assumptions - and those would be bad. But basically, based on what I have seen and observed, I understand the move. So, while I'm upset, it's not as devastating as it could have been; and who knows, I might have even matured a little bit to a point where I don't want to let these emotions affect me too much - especially given the very real possibility of me being in a similar position in the future.

You never want to see good people leave; but, the reality is that they do. So, I want to thank Ps. Ken for all that he's done for SGAC, everything from before I arrived to the year that I got to spend hearing his heart for God.

I think it's just going to have to be one of the times where I just sit here for a long enough time, let everything soak in, and then get up and move on. There's nothing that can be done, so there's no use sulking.