This past Monday morning, I had my final meeting with my pastor.  We sat in his office and reminisced about some of the best moments of our church’s recent history, and shared concerns about the coming days.  He talked about the opportunities that both our church, as well as, his new church had in the coming season of ministry, and how difficult it will be to accomplish all that the Lord has for us.  But there was never a moment of doubt that the Lord can do what we need him to do. 

He concluded our meeting by praying over me, as was his custom, and I watched him walk out the door to the parsonage for the last time. 

The walk back to my office seemed a bit longer, the hall seemed a bit colder, and the deafening quiet of the building was burdensome.  As I sat in my office and prayed about how difficult this would be and how I needed the Lord to strengthen me to do for my church what they have asked me to do, I was acutely aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit. 

The poignancy of the moment was all too familiar to me.

This is the fourth pastor to vacate the office while I was the only other member of the pastoral staff.  Memories of previous churches, previous ministries, previous pastors, and too many days spent alone in a church begging God to deliver His perfect direction to our church…but the hardest thing about this episode is that he seems to have already done that. 

“So what do I do, God?”

It was the only question that I could ask that seemed to have any purpose at the moment. 

My answer for today is to review what the Lord has already shared with me about this time.  During the last interim time I experienced, I began to blog about how a person could be used to encourage, lead, and empower his church to accomplish the Lord’s will without being called “Senior Pastor.”  I blogged about the subject for almost two years, and compiled my posts in a single document.  I haven’t really looked at the posts in several years because they seemed to be a distant memory of events and ideas that would hopefully no longer be needed.  But, here we are. 

So what do you do when you don’t know what to do?

Remember the previous success, miracles, and spiritual victory that the Lord has manifested in your past.  Then, expect Him to work all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called by His name.