I met with my deacons the other night, as well as the Administrative Board of my church. I have to say that they were very supportive. They are advocating me taking the morning off on Monday's and then every afternoon off for awhile. They are also in favor of me having my Associate Pastor preach for me once a month if I need him to. It is still hard to adjust. I started my new schedule this week, and I do admit that I feel better, but the emotional is still hard to come to grips with, even though the physical is better. Tomorrow I will go to my first Iowa Baptist Conference meeting since my stroke. I am going on Friday night because the conference recorded a video of my testimony and they will show it Friday night. I am excited about that. I will be excited to get back to "normal". I am really trying hard to be "normal", maybe "normal" will just come naturally if I just relax a little. It is just hard to relax, knowing what I have been through and what lies ahead. I will just try to take every day, and if I struggle, then I struggle. I will try not to allow each struggle to effect the next day so much.
It has been nearly 6 years since I have updated this blog; my apologies. For those that had been following for some time, since I last posted: I stepped down as Senior Pastor at New Covenant church in Knoxville, I moved to Ankeny, Iowa, started a new ministry with St. Croix hospice as Chaplain. I was chaplain with St. Croix for about 4 1/2 years, then in 2020 I moved back to Stratford to pastor First Baptist church. It was a big change going from chaplain work back to the pastorate. I must confess, when I first came (back) to Stratford I was ready to pastor again! I love preaching; I love the ministry of being a pastor, and I love interacting with people long-term. (Being a chaplain is great, but you only interact with a family for a week or so, for some a little longer, but there was a constant upheaval of people and it was exhausting at times...) But, one thing that I have noticed since my stroke is that I get my feeling hurt easily. For instance, people leave the church all the tim
hey Jim!
ReplyDeleteIs there a chance that they could post your video testimony on youtube so we could see it as well?
Glad to hear that your rest is helping the "rest" of your body feel better.
Be Blessed!
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I will have to see if I am able to get the video of the testimony. Maybe I will send a request to the IBC to post it on Youtube.
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