Coastal Callings

We have news!!!!!!  Guess what?  Guess again.  No, we aren’t pregnant.  (That’s always the first guess coming from a friend, colleague, or family member with the biggest grin on their face…or we can hear the smile on the other end of the phone.)

Yep, you are right!  I feel like I could start this entry the same as I did almost 3 years ago.  “To be perfectly honest, I could begin and end this with a short and sweet sentence by saying, "God is constantly at work and continues to shower us with blessings!"  Done.  The end.”  

Boca Raton, here we come!!!!!!!  We have accepted a new church call!  Carter will be the pastor of Glades Presbyterian down in Florida.  We can’t praise God enough for His hand and guidance in this whole process.  Carter starts April 1!!!!!!  Yes, you read that correctly. ; )

Back in April of 2014, we received a random unexpected phone call asking Carter about his interest in becoming the pastor of a church plant.  Talk about being caught off guard.  We weren’t thinking whatsoever of a new church call at that time.  Next thing we knew over the next couple of months following, we had a couple other calls.  At this time, we knew God was opening a door that we kept ignoring and fighting against.  We began some hard core praying as a couple and individually.  Within the same week, Carter and I had both heard God whispering, “The doors are open; I’m sending you…!”  We agreed that when God says, “Go,” that we, as His children, need to go!   Scared. Sad. In awe and wonder.  Excited.  Eager to see where we were going next. Then, out of the blue, we were asked a few times, “Are pastor nominating committees coming to see you?”  In all honesty, we could confidently say, “Not that we know of.” (We, of course, now know that they were!!!!  This just reinforced another life lesson to us again…folks are always watching you…more of that in a future post.)  As we like to say, that was just another God wink towards this new adventure.  We eventually started truly pursuing what options were out there.

Over 6 months, we started hearing from churches galore along the southeast…ECO, PCUSA.  We met some amazing people along the way and travelled through some beautiful areas.  (You should see the +/- lists we made.  Miles long.)  We prayed to hear God’s direction throughout the whole journey.  And we definitely did.   What great experiences we had!  It was difficult to tell a few of these places that God was calling us elsewhere, but we knew that’s what we were supposed to do. We were loved from day one from so many.  We were seen as a team in ministry right away.

Bottom line: We kept coming back saying, “We’re supposed to be going to FL.”  Boca’s PNC kept calling us back, too.  Talk about an immediate, with no hesitation, loving family bond!!!!  We have already made more memories than we know what to do with with our new Boca family!!  What an overwhelming feeling it was to walk back into Glades arm in arm that Sunday, hand in hand, after being accepted by their congregation with everybody singing the Doxology!  Tears welled and streamed.  God’s presence was felt by all!  I couldn’t be more proud of my husband!  He was glowing in a way I haven’t seen in a while.  What a day!

A few of the most popular questions that have followed hearing our news are:

1-Kristin, what about your job?  I am having a difficult time saying goodbye to my awesome colleagues.  I’m finishing up my current contract, and as of now, I am going to shift from full-time back to part time and still teach a couple online courses.  : ) 

2-So are ya’ll thinking about starting a family?  OF COURSE!  Being parents is a desire of our hearts for sure!  We know that God has control of that (just like everything else).  We pray that when our day comes, we will be the parents God wants us to be!  (We can’t believe we will be celebrating our 4th anniversary in a couple weeks! Yea!)  Glades is very supportive of Carter being a daddy.  (Talk about melting my heart!)

3-Can we pray for ya’ll?  ALWAYS!!!!  People know pastors and their families spend many hours in prayer for others but forget that pastoral families need prayer as well.  

4-What about the house?  Our moving truck comes THIS WEEK!  Then, we’ll finish getting the house ready and put it on the market.  We pray that with this still being a booming, growing, newer area that it will sell quickly and for the right price. 

5-Have ya’ll found a place to live there?  With much exploring, we have found a house to rent.  Yippee!

Like always, I could continue to lengthen this storybook, but I’ll wrap it up.  Thanks to all of you who have been lifting prayers alongside of us yet weren’t 100% sure why we were asking for prayer.  (God heard all of them…even those that were about trying to keep us here in SC.)  Thanks for the sincere excitement for us and this new adventure.

LOVE YOU!

Kristin and Carter

P.S.  Duke can’t wait to run in his new fenced yard, make new friends at the big beautiful dog park, meet his neighborhood buddies, and more.  

Thanks for the prayers while I was away on my Doctoral Residency!

What was it like? It was intense! These were crazy yet awesome and powerful days. They were emotionally draining, but a COMPLETE BLESSING! God is definitely using this process for me to grow as a person and a pastor! Thanks so much for your support and prayers!

Like always, my third and final residency was AMAZING and completely relevant. This one was called “the Pastor as a Person/Leader.” Two years ago, it was “The Pastor as Counselor/Caregiver,” and last year was “The Pastor as a Preacher.” (All 3 years were totally different…I was trying to think about which year was my favorite, but I can’t begin to compare them.)

This residency focused on sustainable ministry and the pastor as a leader. We went through a variety of case studies of pastors and various situations in life. Multiple case studies related to stress and how to handle the stress. We learned from one of our leaders, who has been a pastor for 55+ years, about his break down about 50 years ago. He was trying to be everything to everyone within his church. He had a complete physical breakdown, was paralyzed and the works. Once he was able to come back to work, major changes were made in his occupational life.

We also had the privilege of learning about leadership from a Chaplain who was an Admiral and also on staff at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church. What a neat guy to meet!

Other teachings and conversations were wrapped around how different Biblical Leadership is than secular, business, and all other types of leadership. We discussed what Shepherd Leadership was and meant. We had the opportunity to hear from a professor, who spent a year in the Middle East living with the bedouin shepherds. He learned what the Bible was talking about when it talked about shepherds. It’s NOT like we think of shepherds today and is nothing like the shepherds in Scotland!

Another important topic covered was how to keep our spiritual life on track. If we aren’t the spiritual leaders that God wants us to be, then we can’t be church leaders. Spiritual formation and spiritual retreats were mentioned to help keep ourselves spiritually healthy.

This residency was full of support, prayers, advice, and encouragement as we each shared our call stories and what we are called to do. On top of that, we presented significant issue projects to the entire class, discussed them, and prayed for each other. These subjects ranged from conflict

TO denominational issues TO taking over as head pastor of a church where the pastor was there for 60 years and is still there TO a head pastor disappointed when the youth pastor rejected a sexual advance from a congregant TO church unethical financial practice TO a congregation treating

the pastors wife very mean and abusively…and this is just naming a few.

We talked about the REQUIREMENT to take a Sabbath (day of rest). Sundays aren’t going to work since that is one of the biggest work days for pastors. Taking another (on top of a Sabbath) day during the week to help care for household needs, etc. was advice given over and over again.

What is left for me? My Thesis… This will probably take me a good year or so to complete. My advisor and I kind of revamped the beginning of this major scholarly work over the residency. My thesis project will be an exploratory study of the leadership formation of first time elders on session in Presbyterian Churches.

I have so many more stories to share. Come see or call me to hear more…