First day in for a first time full time pastor

The Voigts are moving in to the Weston parsonage as I write-- Jim, Kim and daughter Alexis. It worked for them to move in their "stuff" before they took some time to see friends and vacation a bit. Jim will be preaching on June 21 as his first Sunday.

I didn't get to Weston until nearly 9:30 pm tonight, having been to another place in my district earlier this evening. I was having a bit of a problem finding the parsonage even though I have been there several times and stopped and asked a policeman in his car in a parking lot if he could tell me where the "funeral home with the house owned by Weston United Methodist Church" was. I knew the funeral home was next door. He said, "You mean the house where all the people are moving in?" and I said that that would be the one. Actually there were only 3 people moving in, but several folks from the church, plus some family were there to help move stuff off the Penske truck.

The song, "We've Only Just Begun" kept running through my head as I left...I just found the words online and of course it is a sort of corny song about getting married sung by the Carpenters and was sung at countless weddings where brides wore broad brimmed hats and grooms wore groovy powder blue tuxes in the 70s and 80s. But I was hearing it run through my head tonight because of the first line "we've only just begun to live." And also for the second verse:

Before the rising sun we fly,
So many roads to choose
We start out walking and learn to run.
And yes, We've just begun.

To me, that is the way it feels at the beginning of a new appointment every time, but for Jim, its the first time. Jim, I hope you choose the roads you take with Weston imaginatively, with courage, creativity and compassion and that you always know that God can do far more than any dream or imagining we can have.

And welcome, big time, to the Heartland North District, where by grace you will walk and run and fly!