Updates

I had my annual review with Rev. Craig Cockrell, who is our district superintendent, on Monday. We had a good conversation about what’s happening at the church and what the SPRC had reported in their review of me. He said that he does not expect that I would be asked to be moved this year, which is not surprising since both the SPRC and myself requested for me to stay in place, and we certainly hope to be here long beyond next year.

In other conference news that he passed on, they have set dates for Annual Conference, which is the annual gathering of United Methodist Churches in New Mexico and west Texas, for June. But, they have also set dates for October in case we still aren’t able to gather in person in June. The General Conference, which is the world-wide gathering of the United Methodist Church, which was postponed last year, is also scheduled for August and September, although they are talking about not being able to make those dates. No one really knows what that means. But, we are being told that we will get a new bishop this year regardless of what happens at the general church level.

On a local note, I hope that you have been enjoying the messages on our core values. It’s been interesting and exciting to try and flush out a portion of what those values mean to us and how we live them out. We will be building on them in some ways for our Lenten series as we look at some of the spiritual disciplines, which help connect us deeper in our relationship with God and become more Christ-centered. Of course Lent begins with Ash Wednesday, which is February 17, and we will have a service which will at least involve a call to Lenten discipleship, although I have no idea how we do the imposition of ashes.

I have some ideas for what we might do in worship after Easter, but I would also like your input. If there is a theme/topic, a book of the Bible or a particular passage you would like to have covered, or if there is something you think we as a church need to hear, I would like to know. You can simply send me an email, or in this Friday’s worship email there will be a survey that you can fill out and submit. I am going to a clergy retreat the second week of February, and one of my goals is to potentially map out worship for the rest of the year, with the caveat that it all might change depending on what is happening around us and in worship.

The One Board did give some further clarification as to when we might reopen in-person worship in their meeting last night. The standard now is to have 2 or fewer cases every day for 14 consecutive days, and then they will reconvene and make a final decision. Someone asked if we had 3 positive tests on the 14th day if that would mean we would have to start all over again? The answer was that the One Board will address the standard and what happens immediately after and make the decision we think is best for keeping everyone safe.

Finally, we have been working on ways to improve on worship streaming, which won’t end even when we are back in the sanctuary, and we have a proposal from an A/V company to do some upgrades, which the One Board also approved. We need to do some more due diligence on our end, but we hope to have those pieces in place in four weeks or so. The new set-up will allow us to have better sound, to have words projected into the stream, to see multiple angles and cuts during worship and to show videos during the stream as well. We know this will improve the experience for everyone, including me.

It’s been a strange year already, but we know that we are in God’s hands and God is not through with us yet.