This past Sunday I was installed at Pinnacle Presbyterian Church as their Associate for Membership and Mission. It was a wonderful night of celebrating the church and our ministry together. The feeling that night was a sense of all pieces falling into place and the presence of God bringing peace, joy and promise.
The first few descriptors make sense as we celebrated our life together in the in-between interim time for the past two and a half years. This installation came at an unusual time for most Presbyterian pastors. Usually, a pastor shows up and the installation is in the first few months of their time with the congregation. Most often, the feeling of the installation is a hope that this is the right pastor, wondering about what they might change or do differently than their last pastor did and anticipation of how they may grow together in life and faith.
One of the benefits of waiting two and a half years before your installation is that most of the curiosities are over and the focus is now about continuing to live out our life of faith together. For those of you who are well endowed with good Presbyterian polity, you might ask the question, "why"?
The long and short of the answer is that I was called here as an interim, and after two and a half years the church and I (along with much needed help, support and leadership of the presbytery) decided to make my interim position an installed position. This came with many meetings, votes and discussions. But what is most important in this moment are the promises I made to God and to the congregation and the promises the congregation made the God and to me.
The service was wonderful! It was led by wonderful people that I know and love and the presence of congregation members who are near and dear to me and my life here at Pinnacle. The lingering questions about my time and ministry here fell into place, and it feels good.
But more importantly, the evening was blessed with a sense of peace that this is right where we are all supposed to be—here at Pinnacle doing God’s work, living out our ordinary days to the glory of God. This was marked by the many rainbows that graced the walls, people, and pews of the church during the service of installation. I only saw a few from my seat up front, but those in the pews took pictures of the beautiful promise of color placed in the sky to symbolize God’s promise to be with us.
This day will continue to be marked as one that is blessed by God, promises of the exciting ministry we continue to embark on through mission in our community and around the world, care for the sick, lost and lonely, love and support of each other on life’s journey and the care and growing together in God’s life with us.
I will continue to watch for the rainbows—hope for the future, the promise of God’s presence in that space, and that knowledge that God goes with us each and every day.
