This Sunday will be my last Sunday on staff after 30+ years of ministry alongside you, and as I prepare my message entitled “All I Really Need to Know I Learned at LFPPC” (apologies to Robert Fulghum J), my mind and heart are filled with countless thoughts and memories and prayers.  I count it a privilege and joy to have ministered with you in the name of Jesus. We will share a brief service of Farewell and Blessing at the conclusion of worship on Sunday, and then Gail and I will be looking for another church to call our church home for the foreseeable future.  There will be copies available following the service which give a thorough explanation of why we will be worshipping elsewhere for at least the next two years, and why I will be refraining from any and all pastoral functions related to LFPPC during that time. 

 I wanted to invite anyone who might be interested to come early on Sunday to be able to view the wonderful 30 minute video that Ron Sterling produced that captures glimpses of some of the highlights of ministry at LFPPC over the past 30 years.  The video was showing as people gathered at our Retirement Party on November 14^th, but we were not able to hear it due to the lively and boisterous fellowship that went on that evening.  So we are going to show Ron’s video this Sunday at 9:20 AM down in Fellowship Hall for anyone who might like to reminisce about the olden days for a few minutes before we head upstairs to worship.  

 As I bid you farewell, I want to share a poem by Lois A. Cheney entitled “Bits and Pieces” that a colleague at the first church where I served shared with me before she left the staff.  We had served together for a number of years, and this poem captures some of the thoughts and feelings that have been swirling around in my mind in recent days. 

 Bits and pieces.  Bits and pieces.  People.  People important to you, people unimportant to you cross your life, touch it with love and carelessness and move on.  There are people who leave you and you breathe a sigh of relief and wonder why you ever came into contact with them.  There are people who leave you and you breathe a sigh of remorse and wonder why they had to go away and leave such a gaping hole.  Children leave parents; friends leave friends.  Acquaintances move on.  People change homes.  People grow apart.  Enemies hate and move on.  Friends love and move on.  You think on the many who have moved into your hazy memory.  You look on those present and wonder. I believe in God’s master plan in lives.  He moves people in and out of each other’s lives, and each leaves his or her mark on the other.  You find you are made up of bits and pieces of all who ever touched your life, and you are more because of it, and you would be less if they had not touched you. Pray God that you accept the bits and pieces in humility and wonder, and never question, and never regret. Bits and pieces.  Bits and pieces. 

 In Jesus’ Love,

 Mike and Gail