Changes

This morning was our last Sunday at our church.

Larry wasn't fired. He didn't have an affair or steal money from the church. He didn't get into a fist fight with the senior pastor. We weren't asked to leave. (figured I better get all of that out of the way before someone asked!) We made the choice to leave. Well....God made that choice, rather. We're just being obediant and doing what we've been asked to do.

Somehow no matter how much a decision is bathed in prayer & no matter how much peace HE has given, it's still hard to go through a change in life, isn't it? Especially when it's a big one like this! Not only will we be changing jobs, we're changing churches. Usually when we've been through a "big thing" in life, it's our church body that holds us up & prays us through. With this "big thing", we do have our church praying for us but it will be from afar.

This morning, our pastor waited until the very last thing before he announced to the church that we were going to be leaving. He spoke very sweet, heart-felt words and left most of the crowd with tear-filled eyes (myself included). He prayed for us & then asked the ushers to come forward & collect a love offering. While the offering was passed, we returned to our seats & looked up to see a crowd moving toward us. It was so sweet because these people were getting up from their pews, disregarding the fact that church was still going on & coming to hug us and tell us how much they love us...and how much we'll be missed. As we hugged necks, the line grew. Before we knew it, there were at least 50-60 people in line waiting to show us that they love us. Church ended somewhere during that time & the line remained....and grew. Church lets out at about 12:00. It was 12:45 before we left the sanctuary. Wow. It was so very humbling to see how many people cared, but it was hard to see so many tears from people who are heartbroken that we're leaving. It was a complete shock & surprise to the majority of the congregation (only the elders & other guys on staff knew before today), so most of them were coming to us with wide eyes & shocked expressions on their faces. All I can say is "wow". It does my heart good to know how much we're loved.

We wrote the following letter to our church members so that they can read all the details for themself. I'm including it here because it seems like the easiest way to convey all that has happened & where we're going now. Thanks in advance for your prayers. We appreciate & covet every one of them!


Dear Rose Heights friends,

This is a letter we're sharing with all our friends from Rose Heights Church of God as the emails & phone calls & texts come pouring in. Please forgive us for sharing it like this, in such a mass email sort of way...but it's so much easier than typing & re-typing it a hundred times.

January 1, 2005-- Larry officially came on staff at RH as Singles Pastor. For all of 2005 & 2006, we adored spending time with the singles & single parents. Not only did Larry serve in the pastor role, but Liz grew attached to so many of the group. Lots of sweet relationships were formed. DivorceCare was first launched, our first 2 Thanksgiving dinners for the Salvation Army residents were served, and the Hurricane Rita shelter came & went. During these 2 years, Larry taught the SALT (older singles) Sunday school class and One Life (younger singles) Wednesday night Bible study class. We also did lots of other projects and fellowships together.

January 1, 2007-- Larry was renamed the Outreach Pastor. For all of 2007 & 2008, he served in this capacity & we loved it. We missed the relationships and time spent with singles, but we were content with this new season God had moved us into. Every month there was a new way to serve others, reach out & touch the community and share Jesus with the lost. GriefShare, DivorceCare for Kids, Bean Fest at the King's Storehouse, PATH collections, and so many other great things began during this time. During these 2 years, Larry taught several Sunday school classes including The Blend, New Believers and Young Married. Larry spent lots of time at hospitals, funeral homes and hospice facilities. He also took care of all visitor & altar follow-up. Serving as Outreach Pastor was right up Larry's alley.

January 1, 2009-- Larry's job changed again, this time to Church Ministries & Outreach Pastor. Many new things fell into Larry's job description. Because this position is still so new to him, it's hard to say a lot about it at this time, but suffice it to say, Larry continued to enjoy serving the RH family.

For about the last year, Larry & I realized that our season at RH was coming to an end. We have struggled with feeling like our time here was coming to a close for quite some time now but when God shut the door & said "you're done", it was undeniable and we knew it was time to move on and allow someone else to step in. We did not immediately seek out another job in ministry because it would mean relocating our family. We highly desire to keep our kids in the same school for all of their K-12 years if possible. Larry and I both spent our school years in the same school. Providing this for our kids is very important to us.

We made the choice not to look at local churches (for a job) because we did not want to run the risk of having people from RH leave to follow us elsewhere. This has happened several times in the past decade at Rose Heights and it was not our intention to break away & start a new church as other pastors have done. The last thing Larry or I would ever do is to hurt RH. And so, Larry sought employment in his other "mission field" -- law enforcement. The pay is less and the hours are not as flexible, but it is the most suitable option for a local job change.

Larry has been hired to work by the state of Texas. He will work in Jacksonville and we hope that, at some point, a Tyler office position will come open and he can transfer here. In the meantime, Jacksonville is less than a 1/2 hour drive from our house in Whitehouse, so it's do-able.

We are still in touch with friends from our previous church home so we may go back there for now. We are unsure of what the future holds for us church-wise. We may visit our old church & discover that it's no longer "home", in which case we will seek out a home at one of the other million churches in Tyler.

As far as future ministry goes, we are going to wait on God's call for that. We are absolutely NOT ruling out the possibility of full time ministry for life, but for now God has asked us to pull back & take a break and just be fed. We will wait & watch as He directs our paths.

The kids will miss their friends & teachers at Rose Heights. We will miss all the of the wonderful people who have prayed for us, taken care of us (both figuratively & literally), loved on us and treated us like family these last 4+ years. We will always remember our time at RH fondly. Thank you for loving us and making us feel right at home from the get-go. Please keep in touch. You can find Larry or I on Facebook, our blogs, by email or phone.

Much love & loads of memories,
Liz Reeves