On to 2019!

I love fresh starts -- planning new projects, dreaming of possibilities, setting goals. New Year's Day has long been my favorite day of the year. New year, new calendar, blank slates everywhere to fill with new plans!

2019 is all this and more. I am making perhaps the biggest move for me personally since Dave and I graduated from college and moved 250 miles to new jobs and a new community almost forty years ago. When we needed a place to rent, it was the pastor of the local Church of the Nazarene who found us a home. Members of the church sat on the front lawn waiting to help us move in when we drove into town. We joined the congregation and soon found ministry roles. We have been active church members since, through thick and thin.

In November, I was made aware that I would not be in a leadership position in the church music program going forward. That's all right. Although I am listed in the church directory as the music director, someone else had taken it on as their ministry. I wasn't looking forward to picking up the responsibility again when that person moved away. While I have enjoyed making music with my friends for the past decade and more and like having input into what type of music we do, I have gladly relinquished the leadership role whenever someone else was available and willing to do it. The manner in which I was pushed aside was disturbing, but the release itself was not unwelcome.

As I reeled under the way this was handled, however, being excluded from all discussions about the matter, and as it turned into neither Dave nor me being involved in worship music at any level, I realized several things.

1. I am being told I am no longer needed here.
2. I don't really fit here anymore.
3. I have options!

In December, I submitted my resignation as church treasurer and adult Sunday School teacher. Knowing it will take time to find and train a new treasurer, I set the end of January as my end-of-service date.

The unexpected release from music ministry was definitely a factor in this. It opened a door I wouldn't have considered pushing open. But that in itself wouldn't have prompted a move this momentous for me. As noted above, we have stayed through thick and thin for almost forty years, and there have been plenty of thin times before. What is different this time is the realization that for several years I have been moving in a different direction than the Church of the Nazarene at both the local and global level. I have been a Nazarene for most of my life and, until now, felt like I could work within the organization for what I see as needed change. However, being unexpectedly steered toward the sidelines concerning the music -- along with other recent decisions by local leadership -- has both disillusioned me and opened up new possibilities.

I'm hoping to write here more regularly in 2019. My plan is to focus on what lies ahead rather than on the past. The past is past, what is done is done. It's time for a fresh start.

On to 2019!