A one-job man

As of yesterday, I am a full-time pastor, the assistant pastor of Bible Baptist Church in Burgaw until July, when, Lord-willing, I'll take the reigns. It's been a long time coming. I spent 5 years as an intern at Tanton Memorial Baptist in Pensacola, while also going to school and working for the school. After graduating with my Master of Divinity, it was off to South Baptist Church of Staten Island, where I worked as assistant pastor for the next three and a half years, while working part-time, first in appliance repair and then in a bookstore. Here in Burgaw, I have been the assistant pastor for almost a year, working for the Pender Post on the side.

But at last, I can now focus on just one job and my family. It has been so nice the last couple of days not to have to divide my attention between the newspaper and the church, making sure that there aren't scheduling conflicts, not having to rush from covering an event to get to visitation, and so on.

It has also been great being able to spend some time with Pastor Carl Gibbs, a tremendous man of God. He's been in the ministry for over 50 years, 18 of them here. In my previous churches, because of having so many family and work responsibilities outside the church, I haven't really been able to just spend time with the pastor, watching how he does things from day to day, listening to him explaining on a case-by-case basis, learning the things that are so hard to teach in Bible college. The next two months should be most instructive.

Although everyone at the paper actually looked kind of sad to see me go (they threw a very nice farewell party Monday), and I really will miss some of it, I love the ability to focus on my calling in life, the thing for which I have spent more than a decade preparing to do.

I think my family will be happier with this too, since I should finally be able to get into some kind of reasonable schedule that includes time for things like regular exercise, lawn-mowing, and time spent doing things with them.