night and day

i have a new senior pastor. as you recall, the former senior pastor and I had differing opinions on, oh, just about everything that dealt with people and ministry. He left and we got another.

and thank GOD for that. this guy is total opposite of the last guy. humble, mild, personable, not pious, people person. Like i said, total opposite of the last guy was was passive/aggressive, control freak, arrogant and condescending... and some other descriptors i won't put here.

and you can tell it is more than just me. the whole church has a different feel about it now. the staff are actually smiling. people i haven't seen in ages are coming back. their is laughter.

so last saturday night myself and one of the associate pastors take the the 6th grade confirmation class to the Catholic Cathedral to attend a mass service. The new senior pastor goes as well. he went with us as we visited the jewish temple several weeks back. after the "fun" of doing that, we take all the kids to CiCi's pizza to eat...

and the senior pastor looks right at me and says....

"I'm sorry that I couldn't make it to your sunday school class' christmas party". Kinda caught me off guard and I replied, "I didn't know anyone had invited you". Not mean like, just off comment. He responded "well, no one did". So i was honest with him. Told him "well last time we invited a senior pastor to the christmas party - they showed up!" He laughed. He got the joke! wow! i was impressed.

I told him we like to actually enjoy ourselves at our socials and we have some adult drinks and a little wine and lots of great food and he said that was fine with him. Didn't bother him if people drink or not in social settings. So we got into the moderation topic and a whole lot of other stuff, like divorce and forgiveness (we had just come from the Catholic church so guilt came up as well). and i actually enjoyed the visit. Sat there for an hour with them while the kids ate pizza and played video games.

finally. maybe, just maybe, we have a pastor again.