Closing a Church

Yesterday (10/28/12) I led the closing worship service for Oakhurst Presbyterian Church, Fort Worth, TX ending 84 years of ministry.  I am still a bit raw, so my thoughts will also be so.  I am in no position to write a polished piece that ends with a nice bow tie, but perhaps this will make a more interesting read anyway.

Just for background information, I've served on staff at OPC for 7 years: 2 as the youth director and 5 as the called and installed solo pastor.  The church closed because we realized our assets, time, talent, and treasure could all be used to better use for God's kingdom if we moved on than if we continued to slowly but inevitably dwindle while our expenses and required time commitment increased.

Some assorted observations:

• My key ring is a lot lighter.  I've been carrying around the keys to the church in my pocket everyday for the past 7 years.  I turned them in today and there is an actual physical sense of lightness, now that they are gone.
• I don't have to think about my next sermon.  For 7 years (I was preaching regularly, even as the youth director) I've always been looking for the next sermon idea.  Even when I was on vacation, I was always percolating the next sermon idea or two because coming up with something worth saying every week is just hard to do.  I get the feeling that I when I hear someone say something wise, I will instinctively think "That would make a good sermon.  I should preach that." before I realize that I no longer have a pulpit.
• The things I miss are not the things I thought I would.  I spent a lot of the last 7 years dreading visiting old ladies in nursing homes.  The visits were very nice, and I did them because I knew it was important, but it's just not a part of ministry that really blows my hair back.  Strangely, I think this will be one of the things I miss most. There's just something sacred about sitting down with a 90 year old lady, listening to her stories and praying with and for her.
• The church is not the building, but the building still has meaning.  I found it just as hard to drop my keys off to an empty building as I did to say goodbye to all the people yesterday.  There's something much more final about saying goodbye to the building, because I know for a fact that I will never have the same relationship to that building.  I can kind of convince myself that my relationship with the people won't change, but I can't do the same for the building.
• 84 years is a long time.  Not only was I not alive 84 years ago; my parents weren't alive 84 years ago.  As a bright eyed idealistic first call pastor fresh out of seminary, it was easy to discount "tradition" and inertia and to constantly wonder why change was so hard, but to see all the people who had been impacted by OPC over the years gathered in one place yesterday was a reminder that all the things I discounted had served OPC and its members very well in the past.
• 7 years is a long time.  I have never stayed anywhere in my life for 7 years.  Elementary school was 6, middle school was 3, high school was 4 (broken up into 2 schools for 2 years each), college was 5, seminary was 3.  I have been a Christian for 12 years and I spent 7 of them at OPC.  It is the closest thing to a home church I've had.  Though I haven't spend 50 or 60 or 70 years there, it is a significant part of my journey of faith.
• The pastor is always the pastor.  For better or worse, I will never be just friends with the people of OPC.  Even if I happen to bump into them 10 or 20 years down the line, I will still be their former pastor and not just their friend.
• Grief sneaks up on you.  In all the busyness and anxiety of closing and in dealing with all the relief after years of confusion and sometimes frustration, I did not notice that I was grieving until about 3 weeks before the closing.  I just assumed that I was feeling fine (in large part because of denial) until I started feeling really depressed and couldn't understand why.  Then my wife was like, "Um...you're closing your church" and it dawned on me that I was grieving.
• Grief is a funny thing.  I realized yesterday morning that I was looking to pick a fight with my wife.  I was moping around the house, resenting the dirty laundry on the floor and the kids toys everywhere and thinking all about how my wife was such a slacker.  Thankfully, before I did anything stupid, I recognized that this was also part of the grief process and I was looking for a scapegoat and a conflict to take my mind off the pain.  Acknowledging and naming it took its power away.
  
  Also, the weirdest memories came back to me.  Memories from years ago of just random stuff like playing Dance Dance Revolution with the kids of the church and funerals of people I hadn't thought about in quite a few years.  I guess endings tend to do that.
• I cannot not proclaim the gospel.  Whether the church I serve is doing fine or closing, or whether I'm serving a church at all, I cannot help but proclaim the goodness of God.  In Luke, when Jesus makes his triumphal entry into Jerusalem "some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, 'Teacher, order your disciples to stop.'  He answered, 'I tell you, if these were silent, even the stones would shout out.'"  I am one of the stones.

To all those who have supported and prayed for me and Oakhurst Presbyterian Church over the years, "thank you."  To all the members and friends of Oakhurst Presbyterian Church, "Well done good and faithful servants.  You have been trustworthy in a few things.  I will put you in charge of many things.  Enter into the joy of your master."  God is up to something new and I can't wait to see what it is.