Message from the Pastor - Farewell

Dear NUMC family,

The farewell worship service and reception on May 19 was overwhelming in all the good ways - so much love and laughter even in our leaving! We won't pretend to be able to name everyone involved in the planning of all the proceedings, but we will lift up the NUMC Board and our staff who helped coordinate and support all the shenanigans...and it is clear there were plenty of shenanigans afoot. We will be taking our time reading through the notes and sorting the friendship bracelets. As we say to young children, we all have some "big feelings" at the moment.

Bruce Paulson noted in his remarks some of the concrete challenges we have faced together - in every ministry area, we had moments of truth and reckoning over the last nine years. We have had to be flexible and frank with each other so many times and about so many things. The lessons learned from our season of ministry and life together will serve you well as you welcome a new pastor. These same lessons will serve our family well in our new home and community as we connect with life there.

We are marked by our time together in ways big and small, and that is something to bless. We have become more humble, more hopeful, and more honest as a consequence of the life we have shared.

Thank you. For the gifts, for the music, for the words, for the hugs and handshakes, for the food.

For everything.

These next few weeks will be hectic at the parsonage as we pack. We will be on hand as necessary for Sunday mornings through June 9, and wrapping up other loose ends as able and necessary. We will cherish our "Do Good/Done Good" shirts as a physical benediction from the NUMC family - a wearable blessing, if you will. We will do our best to stay up on correspondence, but we do ask for your grace as the time of transition barrels toward us: for whatever balls get dropped, we ask your forgiveness!

May this new chapter be one of good things as you and Pastor Donna begin the work of life and ministry together. I know you will offer her warm welcome and helping hands and buckets grace in the early going especially.

And the next time you wear your own "Do Good" shirt, know that we think you have "Done Good", too.

Blessings and love, Jerad and Rachel