This week I’m deleting Jayde as an admin on our Facebook groups, taking her contact info off the newsletter, and removing her access to the websites. It has made me sad to do this work, but it’s also a holy act of setting her free from the responsibilities of this work as she gets ready to take on new work at Lake Oswego.
In the United Methodist Tradition in which the Southeast Portland Parish is rooted, pastors move by direction of the Bishop and Cabinet. The idea is that each spiritual leader can build on the gifts and visions of the prior leader and, when the time is right, take their gifts to another faith community. This means that when a leader leaves we let them go, so that they can do God’s work at the next place. We honor them by taking at least a year off from contacting them, and when we do engage remembering that the leader is not our pastor anymore, but a sibling in Christ, so we can’t turn to them for pastoral care or worship advice!
While this changing of relationship can be really difficult, to me there is something about this pattern that is deeply connected to the rhythm of life, the changing of seasons, the turning of the wheel. We as people of faith know we are connected beyond our own community, we know we are focused on something beyond ourselves. Things begin and things end and yet God endures.
So while I do this work of separating from Jayde as a pastor of our community I find some joy in the sadness. There is joy at the gift of her time with us, there is joy at the gift she will be to her new community, and there is joy knowing that in the letting go we are readying ourselves to grasp what God is bringing to us next.
-Eilidh
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