Moving

We will be needing one of these soon:

I made the announcement at church this past Sunday.  We are moving to Asheville to begin ministry at Covenant Community Church: http://www.cccasheville.org/.

The transition began this year at Annual Conference in June when I heard that Covenant had become available.  The pastor appointed there had decided to leave the denomination.  I expressed interest in being the pastor of the church and on the evening of Monday August 18th I received the phone call that I had been chosen to be the pastor.  My District Superintendent's first words were "are you sure you want to live in the mountains?"

I believe with everything in me that God orchestrated this move.  There are several reasons I say this.

-Chrys (my wife) is a vegetarian, buys organic most of the time and is into supporting fairly traded products. She has always wanted to live in Asheville and will have easy access to all of those items.

-About two months ago we discovered that she was losing her part-time job in Rock Hill, SC which meant that would no longer be a factor in an appointment for me.  Even with her connections and credentials she has not been able to find something similar.

-She has always wanted to be a stay at home mom and she will be able to do that in Asheville (she may still take some sort of very part time work but we will see).

-I met the District Superintendent of the Blue Ridge District where Covenant is located at a Duke Rural Convocation Conference at Myrtle Beach in early August.  We had never met and had the opportunity to hang out several times together.  He was the only DS from our conference present at this event.

-My parents have been keeping my daughters since they were born once a week for us.  My mom said before I even told her about the possibility of  a move that she had a feeling they wouldn't be keeping the girls much longer.

-Whether it was just psychological or God revealing somehting to me, I had two dreams before I was told about the appointment that we lived in Asheville and I was the pastor at Covenant.

While I am excited about the opportunity, I will miss the people of Catawba UMC.  This church has been a wonderful appointment and there is so much I will miss about being here.  I will save the details of what I will miss for the last article I write for the newsletter.

Good things are ahead for Catawba and for Covenant!