By the grace of God, I survived my second Sunday and my second week as "Pastor Patti". Actually, most people call me "Patti", which is fine. A few people call me "Pastor Patti", which is about as formal as I want to get.
I continue to feel that this congregation and I are a very good match. Actually, any pastor should feel blessed to serve St. John's. The people have a real, genuine faith that is lived out and evident in their daily lives. They have a strong desire to reach out to the community. For example, we're holding VBS (Vacation Bible School) this week, even though we don't have any young children in the congregation. The youth group (which is tiny) and various other members have been knocking on doors and inviting kids to VBS! We had five kids tonight, and more may come tomorrow.
They're still saying nice stuff about me, and providing concrete examples of how the service or a part of a sermon touched them. That tells me that they're not just saying stuff to be nice. And my most honest critic (James) is giving me positive feedback, also. If you know James, you KNOW that he doesn't sugarcoat stuff. He doesn't have that ability, and I love him for it.
We are slowly...very slowly...getting settled into the parsonage. We're both working full-time now, and James is only here on the weekends. So I try and get done what I can in the evenings. I finally found the bag of little things to hold the shelves up, so now I can start loading the bookcases with my books. That should take care of 20 boxes or so!
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