Clearing the mind and preparing the heart

The Shepherd's Church officially closed on August 26, 2007. Since that time Nancy and I have been praying and processing through what has been one of the most emotional times of our life. We have identified with the statement of the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 6:10 - "as sorrowful yet always rejoicing..." I think we both sense that this is a time of reflection on what we have learned in the past 10 years of full time ministry and especially the past 4 years of pastoral ministry. There have been many relationships formed and also many relationships that have gone away. It seems that Charleston continues to be the place where we can get away and clear our minds. For example this morning we took a long walk with our silver lab Ruthie. The neighborhoods down here are beautiful and we enjoy looking at the different style homes and landscaping. We then left the house and went to the new Super Wal-Mart, then Great Clips for a haircut for Pastor B (6 on top and 2 on the sides), after that a trip to Starbucks for a triple shot grande mocha and finally we ended up at Target for dog bones, seasoning for our salmon tonight and box of "Nilla" wafers. Greg Smith who is the pastor of Pier-Pont Baptist called this afternoon and we got to catch up and are planning to meet with the wives later on this week for supper. I also had a good talk this morning with my good friend Larry Burgess on the state of the church in general in America. While down here there are two objectives in study: one is to finish my pre-evangelism course and paper for Dr. Mullin and two I am continuing to prepare for our mens Bible study on Monday morning.