Here is Pastor Tim’s article which appeared in the Evening Leader on Tuesday, Jan 14, 2025
I would like to preface this article by saying it is my desire to be the pastor at Wayne Street for the foreseeable future. I fully understand a lot of factors play into whether or not that happens, but that is my intention, and I don’t know of any reason why that wouldn’t happen. The reason I want to make that clear is because I would like to talk about my experience of leaving my previous churches.
In the process of leaving a church in my church tradition is you are contacted by the District Superintendent because a move has been initiated. Usually, the pastor is taken and introduced to his or her new congregation by the Superintendent. If both parties agree to the move, then it is official. From there, the church the pastor is currently serving is told by the pastor that he or she is going to be moving at the next Sunday service. There could be a few weeks to a few months between the time the announcement is made, and the move actually happens. Typically, again in my tradition, the first Sunday in the new church is either the last Sunday in June or the first Sunday in July. The announcement of the move usually happens between March and May, unless there are extenuating circumstances.
All of that is to say that in the time between the announcement of the move and the move taking place is a weird time for a pastor. In some ways, it is a relief because people who are mad at you typically just put it on ice until the new pastor comes and they can be mad at them. Everyone is nice to you and expresses appreciation to you because they thought the pastor would be there forever. All of the energy of the church is now pointed toward preparing for the new pastor to arrive and it is a weird time for the current pastor. Technically, I was still the pastor of the church and took care of all of the pastoral stuff, but the church and the pastor are detaching themselves from each other. It is awkward and I have hated going through that process at every church I have served because churches tend to get over the pastor leaving much faster than the pastor gets over it.
I say this because I have been in that lame duck season multiple times in my professional life, and it is really hard. However, during that season, it was always my intention that in the time between my announcing I was being moved and the move happening to pave the way for the next pastor. Every endorsement, every decision, every interaction, everything I did was to help the next pastor. In fact, when I left my last church, the new pastor was coming to town 2 weeks early. So I moved out of the parsonage and allowed the new pastor to move in and I was still commuted in to be the pastor for 2 more weeks.
You know what I didn’t do? I didn’t do anything to make the transition harder on the incoming pastor. Do I have a point to this? Yes I do. In early November, we received word that we are getting a new president. Have you seen anything that the current administration is doing that is helping pave the way for the next president? I know, this is politics and for me to expect maturity is just a bridge too far. Not to mention the last time we had a presidential transition, it went less than stellar.
Just a few things that have happened over the past month. Biden gave a presidential medal to the person most responsible for gutting law enforcement across our country, George Soros. He has funded prosecutors across our nation who have a history of selective prosecution. He is an activist, which is nothing unique, all sides of every issue have activists. What makes Soros unique is he very specific inf funding the campaigns of prosecutors who don’t seem interested in prosecuting certain offenders. Again, lots of people are funding lots of candidates for lots of positions. Soros has not been recognized with a Presidential medal. Does that seem like the kind of award given to an activist?
The Biden administration is also selling materials in Texas to build the border wall for pennies on the dollar. The Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, had to file an injunction to stop the sale. Again, you can agree or disagree with Trump’s position on illegal immigration, but the fact remains that he was clear about closing the border and he won the election. Attempting to make fulfilling that promise that the American people voted for harder and more expensive by sabotaging materials already there is an underhanded thing to do. This does not set the new administration up to be successful in one of their clearly stated goals.
Biden also commuted every death row inmate on federal death row except for 3. I only bring this up to say that when Trump pardons the January 6 prisoners, I don’t want to hear any blowback from that. If Biden is commuting the sentence of people who rape and murder children, then pardoning people who participated in the only insurrection in history where everyone inside the capitol stayed inside the velvet ropes is perfectly fine.
At the end of the day, I don’t care about Biden’s legacy, and I don’t care about Trump’s ego. I care about the people of this nation who deserve better from their leadership than this. What I see going on is not about creating prosperity for the people who elected these leaders. I know that politics is a dirty business, but it would be so nice if there were some rays of sunshine amid all the flying mud.