By Ed Thompson
Ten years from now – or even one year from now – I may well have a different perspective on my ministry here in this presbytery. At this point, as I wrap up my second tour of duty in West Virginia, there are probably four things I am proud of and that I think have gone well during my time here.
The first is the sale of the presbytery office building. To me, one of the silver linings to the pandemic is the realization that we didn’t need our office building to do effective ministry. Before the pandemic, I would have said that at some point in the future we would probably be forced to sell our office, but we should probably kick that can as far down the road as we could. After about a month of shutting things down and having the staff start working from home, it hit me that we really didn’t need the building. We could connect with our pastors and our churches by email and over the phone as long as we had an internet connection and cell service. That’s actually how we were connecting with people before the pandemic. Very few people ever stopped by the office except for committee meetings, and once we started doing our committee meetings by Zoom, the convenience and the cost savings made it unlikely that we were ever going to do most of our committee work in person again. My fear was that the building might sit empty for up to two years while we were waiting to find a buyer, but it took less than two weeks once the building was listed before we had offers that were higher than our asking price. The whole process of moving out of the building may well have been the hardest thing I have ever done in my ministry; I am certainly glad that it’s over, and I certainly don’t want to do that again. But we did it, it’s over, and I think we’re in good shape and ready to face the future.
I also take some pride in how I helped to shepherd the presbytery through the pandemic. That was not something that I learned in seminary or that we talked about in the orientation to mid-council ministry seminar. The reality is that I am making up most of what I’m doing as I go along, but that was far more evident in the first few months of the pandemic. Yet we survived and I would hope in some way that we thrived during this time. Credit for that goes to the pastors and churches of the presbytery. You were the ones on the front lines, figuring out how to do worship online, making the decision on when to return to in-person worship, when to wear masks, and how to safely space people in the sanctuary. In a few cases, those decisions became politicized, and pastors took unwarranted criticism and dealt with some nasty complaints. For the most part, though, even while dealing with conflicting information and, more often than not, a lack of consistent information, people made good and fair decisions. I’m glad that I could be a small part of all that. I hope – and I feel like – I was helpful.
I also take pride in the fact that I will have worshipped with at least 119 of our churches before I retire. The numbers get tricky in that we now officially have 117 churches on our roles. (Or at least I think that’s the number.) However, the Whittico Memorial and Dupont City churches are not worshipping now and have not worshipped in several years. I did worship with the McKinnon, Ruffner Memorial, Presbyterian Church of the Covenant, and McLean churches before they closed or left the denomination. I never made it to the Buffalo, Richwood, Pickens, Lakeview, or McElhenney churches before they closed or left the denomination. (There may actually be a couple more than I can’t name off the top of my head in that category.) So, to say that I have worshipped with every church in the presbytery is not necessarily as clear cut as one might hope. Nevertheless, I think I have come closer to reaching that mark than anybody else. Through the second Sunday of this month, I only have the Mill Creek and Big Spring churches left to go, and I plan to be at Mill Creek on July 16 and Big Spring on July 23. Since I will have one “free” Sunday left before I get off the bus, I am almost tempted to go back and see if there’s somebody I have overlooked. So far, I have resisted that temptation.
Finally, I feel good about the number of pastors that have entered the presbytery in the past seven and half years. The numbers get tricky here too, but as I write this article, we have 37 active minister members serving churches. Eighteen of them have come here in the past seven and a half years. That’s almost 50 percent. I have spent a lot of time and energy working with Pastor Nominating Committees during my time here. I like to think that work has paid off and been helpful to our churches. Whether that’s been a good and appropriate use of my time is a different question. I certainly would not expect the next General Presbyter to make that such a high priority. That will be up to them. It’s been a priority for me, though, and I feel good about that.
I still find it hard to believe that I will be retiring at the end of the month. I’m not sure whether my To Do list is getting shorter or not, but I am able to cross things off my list of things I want – or need – to do each day. It’s a satisfying feeling but also somewhat bittersweet as the finish line approaches.