As Deb was calling attention to all the people and the different areas of service, she suddenly realized this would be the last time she would be standing with everyone and talking about the year in Children’s Ministries. It was one of those things you don’t think about ahead of time, and when it happens, the deeper significance of what is going on right in front of you is revealed.
After that Andrea Mardock came forward from the SPRC to introduce Rachel Casper as our new director of Children’s Ministries following Deb’s retirement, which happens after VBS. A lot of us know Rachel; she has been a part of our congregation for a long time. Rachel will bring a vibrant faith, a love of children and she has been around and involved enough to know most, if not all, of those already involved in our children’s ministry. Rachel will begin “shadowing” Deb in early June.
As I was talking over the children being dismissed to Sunday School, I used the time to mention that the process of hiring Deb’s successor had taken longer than any of us thought it would. This was the very first opportunity we had to introduce Rachel, and it happened at the celebration of Children’s Ministry Sunday where we all had just shared an unexpected tear about Deb retiring. I sort of blurted out the old question,
“What is that?”
In the category of “you can’t make this stuff up,” about 10 or 12 people from the congregation, without any lead or prompting or hesitation for that matter, said,
“It’s God’s Kind of Time.”
As far as I was concerned we could have skipped the sermon…we didn’t.
We are getting it. And what I hope we are getting is that it is important to claim and name moments when our usual experience of time ticking by is transformed and becomes a moment of time that holds a deeper significance. I suspect there will be a few more of these in the next few weeks during worship. And when they happen, whatever feeling they evoke, it’s time to remember that we are living in God’s Kind of Time.
Keep the Faith,
Pastor Dan