Weekly Greeting - August 15, 2025
Earlier this week I made my way to Grundy County for a Residency in Ministry retreat at Beersheba Springs Assembly as part of my work as the Chair of the Board of Ordained Ministry for the TWK Conference. It was a working retreat, but still a peaceful time to breathe and reset. But today I felt the Spirit’s prompting to turn back to the work of the Onboarding session from last Saturday.
The conversation centered around five questions. Those in attendance worked with our facilitator, Mary Beth Hagan, to reflect on those five questions. In the second half of our time together I was invited back to respond to those five questions. They were:
1. What do we want to know about our new pastor?
2. What is the DNA/culture of our church?
3. What are our hopes and dreams for our church?
4. What do we most want from our new pastor’s leadership?
5. What can we offer our new pastor? How can we help?
I tried to answer the first question as best I could, and found that the group’s answers to the other four questions were incredibly insightful and helpful for me as I continue to get a sense of who Bethlehem UMC is and how God might be calling us to move forward into this new season together. It was a wonderful time of fellowship and getting to know each other.
Onboarding is intended to jump start a congregation’s relationship with a new pastor, but there are still so many conversations in our future — this is not the last time will we be talking about our hopes and dreams and our life together. It was a great start, though, and I look forward to many more!
In Christ,
Mary Beth