Loss of Community

I have undergone some big changes in my life over the past couple of months that have me in a place that I'm unfamiliar with.  My wife and I moved closer to home after she graduated from med school in part to be closer to family for us and our daughter and also so that she can start making connections for where she will ultimately practice medicine in the future.  The biggest change for me is in regards to my vocation.  For the past four years I have been a co-youth pastor to an amazing youth group and now I am a stay at home dad.  Now I want to make absolutely clear that I love staying at home with my daughter.  I love seeing how she changes almost from day to day.  I love making her laugh and my heart melts almost every time she flashes a big grin when she recognizes me.  I hold the "job" that I'm doing now as an even higher calling than working for the church.  I had a former pastor always use the phrase "family is your first parish" and I believe that with all of my heart.

But in light of the many changes that I have personally undergone, I find myself struggling a bit in different areas of my life.  Let me explain a bit about myself.  I am totally a creature of habit.  I like having patterns and routines and predictability in my life.  I am OK with a little bit of unpredictability but not too much.  Working in the church and having a set office time each day gave me the opportunity to set up patterns and routines, and I did.  These patterns and routines helped me to stay in the word and pray on a regular basis.  They helped me to accomplish the various ministry tasks that I was responsible for each week.  But now that I am not in the office each day and my life is largely defined by an unpredictable baby, I am having to adjust on the fly.  Karis is starting to get into a daily pattern of sleeping, eating and playing which is allowing me to look at how I pattern my own day.  Thankfully I am finally starting to prioritize a few things in my life that have fallen by the wayside in the midst of my new responsibilities.  Please pray that I can stay faithful to them.

The biggest change though has come in the loss of community.  I know and understand the importance of community and have even spoke on the topic a time or two, but you never fully grasp the impact of community until you are no longer immersed in said community.  Over the past 4 years I have been serving next to some of the finest ministers that I have encountered.  People who brought so many different gifts to the table and who shaped and challenged my conception of what a church staff could become.  Around two years ago a major change occurred when our leader left to pastor another community.  Those of us on staff seemed to rise to the occasion during the void in leadership and forge ahead to the vision that we believed God had given our community.  Then a new leader came in with a different vision and slowly I saw many of those that I was close to gone.  I don't want to debate here the reasoning behind the leaving or termination of my friends, we can do that later.  I only want to highlight the fact that my community was drastically changed in a matter of months.  Thankfully the person that I was closest to and worked with was still around.  Our brotherhood continued to grown stronger as we shared our hurts, fears, joys and dreams with each other.  This is what I miss the most.  I currently find myself in a place where I am flying solo most of the time.  My wife works a ton, which we knew would be the case, and my daughter is not speaking just yet.  I am not involved in a church just yet and haven't even decided where we will attend.

But community cannot be forced and it develops in an organic way.  So as I find myself mourning the loss of something very great and meaningful in my life, I look forward to what God has in store for us here in this time and in this place.  I just pray that we will walk with eyes open to what God places in front of us.  To all of those that I have been in community with, I miss you greatly and the time that we shared together and I treasure each and every minute.