Hebrews tells us that Abraham longed for a home he had not seen. In the final days of scrambling to get our house ready to sell and looking for one in Ft. Wayne, I am feeling an odd kind of homesickness for a place I have never lived. I already think of my place as being with you. I long to get started meeting you and getting to know you better, to start working together on worship, on learning, on growing, and on planning for our future. I find myself feeling restless at not getting started.
Perhaps you are feeling the same way. The beginning of my ministry there is not just a new beginning for me and my family, but a new chapter for the church. Some of you may have some anxiety about the change or feel uncertain about the future. Others of you may have ideas and plans of your own that you are eager to see emerge. Some of you, no doubt, are unsure what to think.
That is perfectly normal and perfectly OK, wherever you fall on that spectrum. We will take the next few months to get to know one another, to search for what we do well and what we want to do better. Yes, change is coming–change always does–but not change for the sake of change. Together, we will look to our future to find the path God wants us to follow. It may mean thinking about directions we have never considered. That is part of what happens when you follow God. Abraham never imagined Canaan. Paul never imagined where the road to Damascus would lead. I never imagined I would be homesick for a place I have never lived.