A New Appointment

Some of you are familiar with the United Methodist system of church government, while others can’t make “heads nor tails” of it. (And even some of us United Methodists can’t always make sense of it!) So please bear with me as I share the following, keeping in mind that I am attempting to address a diverse audience.

Unlike many churches where pastors are “hired and fired” by the individual congregations, in the United Methodist Church (UMC) pastors are appointed to their churches (a.k.a. “appointments”) by their regional Bishop. Each spring, pastors wait to hear if they will remain in their current appointment, or if they will be invited to move to a different appointment. When a pastor is invited to move, the new appointment takes effect July 1 of that year. “Moving Week”—when pastors move from their old appointment to their new one—is usually the 3rd or 4th week in June.

My wife Rebecca has been pastor of Palmyra UMC for the past four years. In April Rebecca was asked if she would consider serving Park UMC in Hannibal. I, on the other hand, was asked to continue serving at Monroe City & Mt. Vernon UM churches. Currently we live in the Palmyra UMC parsonage, approximately 20 miles away from Monroe City. If we accepted this appointment, we would be moving to the Park UMC parsonage in Hannibal, approximately 17 miles from Monroe City.

After much prayer and discernment, Rebecca and I said “yes” to this new appointment. So now the fun begins! Even though we will only be moving about 15 miles away from where we live now, we will be busy from now to the end of June. In a few weeks, our house will be full of boxes. The movers will come sometime during the last week of June, and then we’ll have the challenge of getting settled into a new house.

I’ll keep all of you posted as things progress. In a future post I will give our new address and phone number. Fortunately our email addresses and cell phone numbers will remain the same. So please keep us in your prayers as we prepare for this move.