Eden Prairie United Methodist Church
Connect with Us!
  • Home
  • Being Church
    • Crops For PROP
    • Serving Our Neighbors
    • Fellowship >
      • Women's Retreat
  • Children | Youth
    • Nursery
    • Sunday School (Preschool through 7th grade)
    • Especially for Families
    • Rooted (3rd - 4th grade)
    • Vacation Bible School
    • Middle School Youth (Grades 7-8)
    • Confirmation (8th-9th grade)
    • Higher Ground (10th-12th grade)
  • Music
    • Adult Music Opportunities
  • About EPUMC
    • Worship
    • Staff
    • Notes from Pastor Becky Jo
    • Lay Leadership
    • A Reconciling Congregation
    • Tumbleweed Newsletters
    • Videos
    • Annual Report
    • Calendar
  • Prayer
  • Online Giving
  • Contact Us

Weekly Memo: Why We Closed our office

8/7/2018

Comments

 
We closed the church office this week, so that we as a staff could attend the funeral for Johnny Jones, the husband of our administrative assistant, Becky Coleman.
 
Becky has a great church family and wonderful pastor at Living Spirit UMC, and I am grateful for their presence with my friend. Having said that, it is a bit odd to be thinking about sitting in the pew instead of leading the service. I’ve not really attended that many funerals…I’ve presided at well over 200, close to 300, in my career but to just go and be there…not that many.
 
I remember several years ago one of my best friends in college, a guy who stood up at our wedding, died suddenly.  The funeral was back home in Southern Illinois. It is a very long drive home, and of course it was on a weekend, and that meant I would need to take a vacation Sunday. I could have very easily found even more excuses for not going…but I went… I needed to be there.
 
Most of you have more experience with this than I do, so let me know if I’m wrong here -- but this needing to be there was a bit of compulsion mixed with a whole lot of compassion. Put them together and although I had a choice, I felt like the choice had been made years before when my friend and I were spending all those times together in his ‘67 Mustang singing along to his 8-tracks of Bob Seger and Billy Joel.
 
What I mean to say is that in all of our lives, we face what is both inconvenient and irresistible, and although we make a certain intellectual choice…the real choice has occurred often much earlier in a much deeper part of ourselves.
 
All this is just another way of saying why the staff at EPUMC chose to attend a funeral at Living Spirit UMC.
 
Keep the Faith,
 
Pastor Dan
Comments

    Archives

    April 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    October 2012

    RSS Feed

Connect with us!
office@prairiechurch.org
(952) 937-8781

15050 Scenic Heights Road
Eden Prairie, MN 55344
Picture
Picture