by Bishop Bill Gohl
I am the parent on which Staples based its Most Wonderful Time of the Year back-to-school commercial. Come the end of August, I am that parent...the one who dances through the aisles, shopping for pocket folders, glue sticks, No. 2 pencils, 1”, 1.5” and 3” binders, dividers, crayons, colored pencils, almost gleeful for the privilege of spending considerable sums of money on stuff that my kids will mutilate, lose, and destroy in their first weeks of school. I love my children. I love them more when they're back in school!
Every year, my wife Arwyn chases our children out the front door on the first day of school and takes their picture. From left to right, Joyanne is in the third grade, Andrew is in the eighth grade, David is in the ninth grade, and Saliese is in the eleventh grade.
Every year, my wife Arwyn chases our children out the front door on the first day of school and takes their picture. From left to right, Joyanne is in the third grade, Andrew is in the eighth grade, David is in the ninth grade, and Saliese is in the eleventh grade.
And on that happy day, my wife and I go have breakfast together to celebrate. We lift our coffee mugs and toast one another for making it through another summer of day camp, Vacation Bible School, Mar-Lu-Ridge, family vacation, not to mention bouts of our children’s boredom, their need to eat us out of house and home, and our inability to inspire any of them to dust well or fold their laundry properly!
This week, for the first time in our life as parents, I went out the door to “a new school,” too. On Thursday, I had my first day in office as bishop of our Delaware-Maryland Synod. On that same day, I entered the world of the inter webs as more than a lurker (find me on Facebook!) and I, after considerable tutelage from our Communication Director, Julie Stecker, made (wrote?, created?) my first Tweet via the @elcademdsynod Twitter account. It wasn’t particularly insightful, but it’s a start! Jennifer Baxter taught me how to use my email (which, over the weekend, I’ve forgotten how to remotely access), but after Tuesday I should be good at [email protected]! Cindy VanVliet (who is really the one who heads the synod office) led me through my new schedule and when certain “bells” would ring for me to change tasks - and prayed me through every hiccup and mistake. Pastor Judy Cobb, my full-time pastoral colleague, waited patiently for me to make up my mind numerous times!
It’s been a big week. Bishop Wolfgang, Pastor Kati Kluckman-Ault, Pastor Ron Schlak, Linda Chinnia, and Pastor Gordon Simmons patiently and carefully handed off the tremendous loads each of them have carried to me, Pastor Judy Cobb, Bob Federwitz, and Pastor Charles Zang. Eucharist in the midst of that conversation with lunch, brainstorming, and paper shuffling was a tangible witness that this is not a corporate transition so much as it is a continuation of ministry. We will faithfully steward their work, which they did right up until these last days, and we will honor the commitments they’ve made to our congregations and rostered leaders. We have much to be grateful for in their ministries among us!
It’s exciting, it’s exhausting and exhilarating, it’s daunting and surprising; these times of change and transition. For my kids, surely as they make their way in their new grades (and for two of them, new schools); but for me, too as I take up this ministry you and the Holy Spirit saw fit to call me to share with you.
A visit from the pastors of Christ Church (our neighbors), flowers, a visit from the interim pastor of St. Mark's Lutheran Church in Baltimore, more flowers - and cookies, phone calls, texts, emails, Facebook messages, and more are signs of God’s gracious love alive in this community we share as the Delaware- Maryland Synod and welcome signs that, “Hey, this new school is going to be a good place to be.”
Thanks for the prayers, friends and colleagues, sisters and brothers, all. They are sustaining me, my family - and your colleagues and friends in the synod office, both returning and new.
By the way, Arwyn took my “back to school” picture, too:
This week, for the first time in our life as parents, I went out the door to “a new school,” too. On Thursday, I had my first day in office as bishop of our Delaware-Maryland Synod. On that same day, I entered the world of the inter webs as more than a lurker (find me on Facebook!) and I, after considerable tutelage from our Communication Director, Julie Stecker, made (wrote?, created?) my first Tweet via the @elcademdsynod Twitter account. It wasn’t particularly insightful, but it’s a start! Jennifer Baxter taught me how to use my email (which, over the weekend, I’ve forgotten how to remotely access), but after Tuesday I should be good at [email protected]! Cindy VanVliet (who is really the one who heads the synod office) led me through my new schedule and when certain “bells” would ring for me to change tasks - and prayed me through every hiccup and mistake. Pastor Judy Cobb, my full-time pastoral colleague, waited patiently for me to make up my mind numerous times!
It’s been a big week. Bishop Wolfgang, Pastor Kati Kluckman-Ault, Pastor Ron Schlak, Linda Chinnia, and Pastor Gordon Simmons patiently and carefully handed off the tremendous loads each of them have carried to me, Pastor Judy Cobb, Bob Federwitz, and Pastor Charles Zang. Eucharist in the midst of that conversation with lunch, brainstorming, and paper shuffling was a tangible witness that this is not a corporate transition so much as it is a continuation of ministry. We will faithfully steward their work, which they did right up until these last days, and we will honor the commitments they’ve made to our congregations and rostered leaders. We have much to be grateful for in their ministries among us!
It’s exciting, it’s exhausting and exhilarating, it’s daunting and surprising; these times of change and transition. For my kids, surely as they make their way in their new grades (and for two of them, new schools); but for me, too as I take up this ministry you and the Holy Spirit saw fit to call me to share with you.
A visit from the pastors of Christ Church (our neighbors), flowers, a visit from the interim pastor of St. Mark's Lutheran Church in Baltimore, more flowers - and cookies, phone calls, texts, emails, Facebook messages, and more are signs of God’s gracious love alive in this community we share as the Delaware- Maryland Synod and welcome signs that, “Hey, this new school is going to be a good place to be.”
Thanks for the prayers, friends and colleagues, sisters and brothers, all. They are sustaining me, my family - and your colleagues and friends in the synod office, both returning and new.
By the way, Arwyn took my “back to school” picture, too:
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