It seems like yesterday that we came in that moving truck from Tennessee to West Union, Ohio. 9 years! I can’t fathom it really. We beat the statistics at least in that the average pastorate is around 18 months at the last count I heard.

I laugh when I think of the naivety I brought with me. Leaving the banking world really brought little help in the new life the Lord called me into. When our church surprised me with a celebration today, it really got me thinking.

Pastoring is tougher than I imagined for sure. I’ve got the bumps and bruises to prove it. I’ve seen the days when everyone thought I was the greatest pastor around and the days where I was the most incompetent pastor that ever walked behind the pulpit. I’ve lived through the harder days when the choices I felt required of God to make cost me much to the days now where I am just Jimmy and my people love me while knowing I have feet of clay.

As I type, I’m weighing it all out. Yes, it’s difficult, but if I could go back 9 years, would I do anything differently? Not on your life! I don’t care that some plans flopped, or some planned big days were small potatoes at best. I still consider the call of God on my life the greatest life of all.

To get to shepherd, with God’s help, other believers, to get to stand and preach, and to get spend my days in God’s Word, still washes away the worst debris of the ministry as if it never happened.

So thank you dear folks of First Baptist Church for the privilege of being your pastor. And thank you Lord for condescending to call one as unworthy as me to the greatest work I could ever imagine. All I want for the rest of my life is to continue this honor of serving my Lord.