Today marked another first in our time here in Pittsburg. Worship and Student Pastor Chris Baker informed me on Friday of his decision to step down from serving here at Family Life. Chris and Kristy are returning to Garden City and take a break before looking for another future ministry position.
They have served wonderfully, lived worthy, and loved unhesitatingly. While Chris and I were talking about how to communicate this to the congregation spread out over three services, we started to realize that the message that was already prepared for this Sunday fit perfectly.
We decided to handle the announcement a bit differently than a traditional congregation. Chris made a simple and basic announcement, then we had a public conversation, answering all of the "Why?" questions. We talked about things like,
Is it because of money? Is someone offering you more money to do ministry
elsewhere?
Do you not like the church anymore?
Has their been a major moral failure?
We desired to take away any opportunities the enemy had to plant seeds of doubt and assumption in people's minds.
It seemed to go really well. You can hear the message and "public conversation" at the
podcast site. The interview starts about 2/3 of the way in.