The 1960’s rock hit, “Turn, Turn, Turn” based on Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 begins with the stanza:
To every thing – turn, turn, turn
There is a season – turn, turn, turn
There has been a lot of “turning” within the Spencerville Seventh-day Adventist Church over the past year-and-a-half. There has been a turn in pastoral leadership, which brings turns in leadership style, lay leaders, and leadership structure. We’ve had tragic turns like the loss of our friend Don Mauller, and joyful turns with the baptism of so many of our young people. There have been turns in titles, as we shift from deacon and deaconess to a strange word, “diaconate”—what is the pastor thinking? The platform furniture has turned, and even the bathrooms are turning!
Truly the song is right: “To every thing, turn, turn, turn.”
To those that have been very frustrated by one or more of these turns, I want to thank you for the Christian manner in which you talk with your fellow church members about them, in spite of your frustration. To those who have welcomed the turns with open arms I thank you for your acceptance. To both groups I thank you, not just for your patience and the prayers that have been prayed but also for the prayers that will continue to be prayed as we focus on “turning” as a church.
Our mission is to in every way make Jesus better known and better loved from within and without, both locally and globally. Truly there is a season for everything to turn, including the body of Christ, His church.
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://spencervillechurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/chad-stuart-headshot.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Chad Stuart is the Senior Pastor of the Spencerville Church in Silver Spring, Maryland. To read more from Pastor Chad, visit his personal blog, Outside the Pulpit.[/author_info] [/author]