Dear St. Lukers,

Thank you for you many kind emails, Facebook posts, and personal contacts in response to my retirement announcement last Sunday. If you missed it, here are the links to the video announcement and my letter. Very few clergy are blessed to stay in the same place for the majority of their career, so Kim and I deeply appreciate having had the gift of growing in faithfulness and service as St. Luke’s has been growing in the same ways.

In the months to come I will have the opportunity to share with you the truly exciting call and vision that God has given to me and others about The St. Luke’s Center for Church Leadership. This new initiative for equipping clergy and laity for ministry in the 21st century came directly out of our 4D visioning. I will transition to a new position as the director of the center beginning this coming summer. But right now, I still have plenty to do as your Co-Lead Pastor!

Many of the theological questions we received earlier this month for the “You Asked” series will be addressed in the upcoming three-week sermon series on “The Apostles’ Creed.” The creed lends itself to this quite easily since it is divided into three sections lifting up first “God the Father, Almighty,” then “Jesus Christ, his only Son” and finally, “The Holy Spirit and the holy catholic Church.” (As you will learn if you do not already know it, catholic means universal, and does not mean the same thing as the Roman Catholic Church. However, our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers are every bit as much a part of our understanding of the universal church as the United Methodists we eat donuts and drink coffee with every week.)

We return again this Sunday to the Table of the Lord for Holy Communion, a very tangible—and “taste-full”—experience of the presence of God, even as we consider the unfathomable majesty of his presence as Creator of all that is, was, and ever will be.

I am well aware that it is Super Bowl Sunday, but there is ample opportunity to be filled by worship before you are filled by football and food in the afternoon. I know you have been waiting for some comment about “deflategate,” but like Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch at Media day this week, I have no comment. I am just showing up on Sunday morning. You should, too. Not because you will be fined if you don’t, but because you will be more than fine if you do.

(For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about…check Google!)

LATE BREAKING NEWS: I received a call last night from St. Luke’s member and former summer intern, Will Wold, that he has been approved for Commissioning as Provisional Elder at the upcoming Florida Annual Conference in June. Will is a graduate of Florida Southern College and the Duke Divinity School. He will be receiving an appointment to a local church in Florida this summer. Please lift  him up in your prayers of thanks and celebration.​

Remember, it’s not STLUKE’S without U,

Bill

Click here to view complete weekly update.

To subscribe to newsletters and devotion emails, please complete the form and click the green button below.